Regular Meeting

Introduction

• Meeting Type: Regular Board Meeting
• Date: November 7, 2023
• Key Themes:
  • Updates on procurement processes and conflict of interest policies.
  • Hiring of a Deputy Superintendent of Business Services amid budget challenges.
  • Spotlight on Schilling Elementary’s dual language immersion (DLI) program and academic progress.
  • Public concerns about staffing shortages, transparency, and resource allocation.

Agenda Items

Procurement & Conflict of Interest Policy Updates

• Description:
  • Study session focused on enhancing transparency in procurement and updating conflict of interest codes.
  • Member Hill proposed a certification form for procurement transactions to disclose conflicts.
• Decisions/Actions:
  • Procurement certification form to be reviewed by the ad hoc board policy committee.
  • Conflict of interest code updated to include positions like Director of Athletics, Activities, and Business Services managers. Interim employees and consultants must now file Form 700.
  • Annual ethics training for designated staff recommended.

Deputy Superintendent of Business Services Hiring

• Description:
  • Urgent hiring due to a $14.9 million structural deficit and upcoming budget reporting deadlines.
  • Tracey Vackar appointed to the role with a salary of $250,000 (Step 4).
• Decisions/Actions:
  • Job description approved (5-1 vote).
  • Employment agreement approved (5-1 vote). Member Nguyen opposed due to procedural concerns.

Schilling Elementary Spotlight

• Description:
  • Presentation highlighted academic growth (iReady data), SEAL program success, and PBIS initiatives.
  • Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program expanded to grades K-3, with plans for grades 4-5.
• Decisions/Actions:
  • No formal action taken. Recognition of staffing challenges in DLI and commitment to recruitment.

Summer Program Report

• Description:
  • Expanded K-6 enrichment programs (443 students served) and credit recovery for high schoolers (375 enrolled).
  • SEAL Bridge Program provided teacher training and ELD support.
• Decisions/Actions:
  • Program retained for 2024. Focus on improving recruitment and incentives for summer staff.

Auditor Selection (Crow LLP)

• Description:
  • RFP process led to selecting Crow LLP to replace Christy White after 7 years.
• Decisions/Actions:
  • Approved unanimously. Emphasis on independence, on-site audits, and K-12 expertise.

Public Comments

• Key Themes:
  • Schilling DLI Program: Parents advocated for more resources, citing teacher vacancies and loss of SEAL support staff.
  • Staffing Shortages: Concerns about reliance on remote teachers and substitutes.
  • Website Transparency: Criticized outdated information (e.g., facility rental pages). Requests for staff training over new vendor contracts.
  • Safety: Teachers urged reinstating school resource officers (SROs) amid behavioral challenges.

Follow-Up and Commitments

• Procurement/Conflict of Interest: Ad hoc committee to finalize policy language. HR to implement Form 700 processes.
• DLI Program: Recruitment for vacant teaching positions prioritized. Collaboration with SEAL coaches continued.
• Budget Deficit: Deputy Superintendent Vackar to lead fiscal stabilization efforts.
• Website Updates: Current vendor retained; staff training planned instead of new platform.
• SROs: District to coordinate with Newark Police Department as staffing allows.

Conclusion

• Outcome: Key decisions on financial leadership, transparency policies, and program support finalized.
• Next Steps:
  • December 5 organizational meeting.
  • First interim budget report and ongoing deficit mitigation.
  • Continued focus on staff recruitment and student wellness initiatives.

1. CALL TO ORDER

1.1 Meeting Practices and Information

1.2 Roll Call Nancy, Aiden, Penny and Carina Present

1.3 Public Comment on Board Study Session Items

[1159] Nancy Thomas: of the Board of Education. Roll call, please. Member Nguyen? I mean, Member Nguyen is not here. Member Plancarti? Here. Member Hill? Here. Member Thomas, I'm here. We will be retiring to not retiring. We will be going down to the table here for a board study session. Is there any public comment on the board study session, which is going to be discussing procedural issues?

[1202] Steve Burrell: Just on the roll call, I just wanted to make sure member Jones was included.

1.4 Recess to Study Session

[1208] Nancy Thomas: Member Jones. Oh, member Jones. Yeah, member Jones and member Nguyen will be late this evening. Thank you. Any public comments on the study session, which is going to be discussing procurement and conflict of interest? Seeing none, we're going to retire down to the table and conduct our study session. Thank you, everybody.

[1250] Carina Plancarte: So if you... No, go ahead, go ahead.

[1281] Penny DeLeon: Just be at the end of your cell phone in case we need you.

[1316] Nancy Thomas: I'm not sure.

[1342] Penny DeLeon: Almost there. There and there. This is for you. There you go.

[1373] Penny DeLeon: Oh, no, you can stay. This is so much fun.

[1377] Penny DeLeon: And I think there was a document on here that was added that should not be in here. Oh, how did I get this one?

2. STUDY SESSION

2.1 Procurement and Conflict of Interest

[1387] Aiden Hill: Mentor observation.

[1388] Penny DeLeon: Yeah, that I think was probably a stack on Mandy's desk, I would think. She did such a nice job copying for us. All right, everybody, you have your copies. I haven't really, I mean, honestly prepared a lot, because I know this is a very big passion project for you guys. And so I thought I would start by calling on, I think the first one on there is procurement. So if we want to call on Member Hill to discuss the procurement, and so everybody can ask questions. Your procurement thing is here. I did attach it.

[1438] Aiden Hill: So President Thomas, would you

[1448] Nancy Thomas: If you do procurement, if we can get that out of the way.

[1453] Carina Plancarte: Is it this one?

[1455] Penny DeLeon: It's this certification document.

[1462] Penny DeLeon: And so if you want to talk about this issue.

[1464] Aiden Hill: So I will make it very quick since we're running late. So the only thing that I want to make sure that we can't do all of it this evening and I know President Thomas you kind of talked about it before but at a high level you know we the board and Superintendent DeLeon and others you know there's already there's already language that sort of governs our ethical conduct and you know where I'm concerned about is that as we go deeper down into the organization there really isn't a lot and I think that you've pointed out the fact that we don't really even have a formal kind of ethics code or at least one that's been updated and so maybe we that but in the short term and we talked about this in late summer and I'm not I can't even remember whether we the board proved it or not I guess we'd have to go back and look at it but I presented this document to say okay one little piece that would help in my opinion is making sure that whenever a purchase happens that anybody that's involved in the transaction that as a part of their routing that they have to do, that they have to sign this form. And then that really ensures that everybody that's involved in the transaction understands that they can't either have, you know, a direct conflict of interest, meaning some type of financial interest in the transaction, or even potentially, you know, the appearance of a you know that that I have it and that and then if there is something that comes up where maybe it's it's a judgment call at least it's documented at least everybody knows and and then if ultimately people decide well it's not at it's not significant enough to preclude that somebody from participating but at least we all know and that what I've seen when when a procurement transaction happens is that oftentimes there's a number of different things that get routed as it goes through each step and all I'm saying is that we just add this as one additional thing that people need to

2.2 Recess to Closed Session (Estimating)

[1626] Penny DeLeon: So, I mean, that sounds reasonable. Which means that what I do believe needs to happen is that this would go to the ad hoc board policy committee to add to our conflict of interest and or our procurement board policy as either a piece of it, an addendum, an AR, It's as simple as the board saying, yes, we want people to sign this. It's that simple. We just, I think it's something that probably since board policies go through the ad hoc, what we could do is draw up some sample language. I could maybe try to work on some sample language and then it would just go under your ad hoc and then be brought up as an updated board policy like we did tonight, but it's with an addendum now. Now it has a form, and the form technically is like the board policy says you're going to do this, and then you have an AR that says every time somebody does blah, blah, blah, here are the rules, here's the form you're going to use. OK, and the form can be an exhibit. An exhibit, I'm sorry, not an addendum, an exhibit. Yeah, good.

[1697] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, an exhibit. Right. OK, can you think either of you or all of us think of issues that would be involved. At what level of procurement are we talking about? Are we talking about contracts, any contract? Are we talking about that procures materials?

[1721] Aiden Hill: Well, to your point, I think you could set a dollar threshold. And I think that we should maybe think about what would be the best dollar threshold say, you know, at a minimum 5,000 and maybe even a little bit lower, you know, we might want to have somebody look and see, you know, what percentage of transactions happen under 5,000 and what kind are they. I'm just not super familiar enough with it. But where this document came from the starting point was the LA Department of Water and Power uses something very, very similar. I just made slight modifications to it. for NUSD. So, but to your point, right, we could talk about, because it probably, you know, probably doesn't make sense for somebody to sign off on this if you're going to go buy lunch for, you know, somebody or whatever.

[1777] Penny DeLeon: So it's basically asking people to, to recuse themselves if

[1790] Aiden Hill: All it's really saying is that a vendor's being chosen to do some work, right? And so it's getting routed through the process and there's various approvals. So the person who's the requester, they would need to sign off and say, I'm not picking my buddy to go out and do this. And then depending on the dollar amount, it's going to get routed to a couple of different people, one or more people, depending on the dollar amount. And so each of those people would also sign being chosen, I approve, and I don't have a conflict of interest related to this.

[1827] Nancy Thomas: So would there be one of these sheets for, I don't know that we need to discuss this here, but as part of this ad hoc committee and working with you, Superintendent DeLeon, would this be like maybe five or six people each having an individual sheet like this, or could it be a routing sheet with each individual signing

[1851] Aiden Hill: And I think either will be fine. And part of it, I guess, depends on, I forget what the name of the system is that you guys use for procurement, I mean that we use for procurement. I forget the name of it. escape, right? So when a request gets created, right, and then it gets routed, that this would be like, you know, an addendum. And it could be just one sheet.

[1875] Penny DeLeon: I don't know how it works and what I'm... You just open the link and you just do a sign.

[1880] Carina Plancarte: And then it routes it to the other person who's also approving it?

[1883] Penny DeLeon: Yeah, usually we have two people who approve purchase requisitions, right, for internal controls and checks and balances, right? So we have two people. typically, and it would basically be, you'd be saying, I'm approving this. I'm either bringing this for approval or approving this and stating that by doing so, I am not related to anybody. I'm not making any financial gain off of it. None of my relatives or close friends or anybody I have a personal relationship with is making a gain off of it. Where this gets sticky, so here's what I'm going to say. Where this gets sticky, and not intentionally, and this is not to try to give leeway that shouldn't be given, is in a small community with a limited number of businesses. Everybody knows everybody, and it gets very hard. For example, once you've been in a community for a long time, let's say you've been here a long time, and you know the people at the city. They work for the city. We have a professional relationship, but probably also friendly, like after 20 years or 50, like what, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's hard to say, no, I'm not, not, they're not my friend. Well, maybe after 20. years they are, or maybe you've been in this community so long, it's hard. It becomes hard. I'm just saying it becomes hard in a smaller community with a limited number of businesses. And so what happens is, is you'll have people looking at it going, Oh my God, I know everybody. Oh, I know the person who sells tacos at the, are they my friend? Are they not? Like it just, it's that. So we have to be kind of careful. Somebody could be going through and going, literally, I know everybody in that company.

[1995] Aiden Hill: And if you look at the document, it's not saying that you can't participate. But what it's saying is that you flag a potential conflict of interest. if you look at the second paragraph, the last sentence, it says, if you're not certain whether any of your relationships with the contracting party, including contractors, may constitute an actual conflict of interest or the appearance, you should consult with the superintendent's office to assist you in that determination or recuse yourself. And then it basically, all it really says is that if you have an actual or a potential, you need to disclose it. And then at the end, it doesn't require you to recuse yourself. It just says, if you wish to recuse yourself, indicate the recusal here. And so it leaves room for judgment to say, OK, yeah, maybe I know so-and-so, but I just need to disclose the fact that, you know, that you know I've done business with this person or whatever before so that there's there's everything's transparent right so that's the intent and then President Thomas to your point I don't as far as like how this is implemented because we did we don't this is just a piece of paper but what I would suggest is that when we have a new CBO come on board that this would be something that they sit down and figure out okay well how are we gonna

[2080] Penny DeLeon: and train their staff.

[2082] Aiden Hill: Yeah, correct. And then they come back to us with a proposal around implementation.

[2087] Nancy Thomas: Okay, so I guess the ad hoc committee, Ms. Jones and I, will work with the superintendent and the CBO when we get one. And we will talk about how we can evaluate this. And then determine

[2107] Carina Plancarte: if we are going to set a certain dollar amount, right? Right.

[2111] Nancy Thomas: OK. And the breadth of it, does it cover contracts or services as well as contracts for?

[2120] Aiden Hill: But it wouldn't get involved in personnel decisions, right?

[2131] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, OK. That's good. So then you wanted me to lead the discussion on conflict of interest? Yes.

[2139] Aiden Hill: I'm President Thomas.

[2145] Aiden Hill: So I'm trying to turn over a new leaf. That was great.

[2148] Penny DeLeon: That was a very positive request.

[2152] Nancy Thomas: OK. OK. You have before you the markup. We don't have the markup, please.

[2164] Penny DeLeon: That's it? I thought it was a cool one. Yes, I did. I did.

[2169] Penny DeLeon: I sent every document over. This one? Oh, is it not colored? Maybe it didn't get printed in color.

[2179] Nancy Thomas: No, the resolution, that's something else. That's what I'd really like to discuss. But the Conflict of Interest Bylaw, CSBA sample, and you have the Newark sample. The one that I had proposed during our agenda setting was a marked up copy.

[2201] Penny DeLeon: I thought that I had done that, so that's not there anywhere. No.

[2204] Aiden Hill: There's something that has like blue lines around it.

[2207] Penny DeLeon: I think the blue one is the markup, but it's just not the colors. It's not out of color, unfortunately.

[2214] Nancy Thomas: OK, well anyway, there is a major update, and this should come to the board for approval, OK? Through the Ad Hoc Committee, right? through the ad hoc committee. We'll discuss it. We'll discuss it with you. OK. And we'll bring it to the end. And that's what was going to be on the agenda. But remember, he'll want it to have this workshop first. OK. So this is what there's a lot of new verbiage, financial interest in a contact that the markup shows there's a lot of new verbiage that has been staff needs to pay attention to. But the one thing that I think is missing, and that is that we have every two years, we're supposed to review the conflict of interest code and approve it. And so I created the resolution based on the template. And so if we look at this, the paper and test resolution, I just put a number in there. to adopt the conflict of interest code. It talks about everyone in the district that is the designated position, in the designated position, that has to file an annual form 700. And they have to file it, any new employee has to file it within 30 days, is it? Any new newly appointed board member has to sign up within 30 days or give that form 700, give it to the district. And so the thing is we have not paid attention to this for a long time. And so my suggestion is tonight we discuss this appendix. to make sure we have everyone that should be filling out form 700. OK.

[2344] Penny DeLeon: And you'll notice there are different categories for different levels of disclosure.

[2351] Nancy Thomas: Yeah. So category one is the governing board members, superintendent, assistant, or deputy superintendent, executive director of human And I added the director of technology. Some of the examples I looked at had the director of technology as a disclosure category one. Some of them had it as two. There's not a whole lot of difference, I think, between one and two. So the category one is when the board and superintendent and the executive staff are considered interested and making those kind of decisions. The Category 2 people, not so much. So the Category 1 and Category 2 are described here. And these are the positions. So my suggestion is that we discuss, should we be adding any positions here? Should we be changing the disclosure category on any of them?

[2426] Aiden Hill: Where did this list originally come from?

[2428] Nancy Thomas: This list originally came from, it's a combination of the suggested ones by CSBA and some of them that I took off the web. In fact, there was a memo that was shared with me that talked about the director of athletics and how they often purchase uniforms make purchases like that and that they should be, you know, five of the 4,700 principals, assistant principals.

[2463] Aiden Hill: Would people involved in ASB fall under one of these categories? Whoever your ASB coordinator is.

[2474] Nancy Thomas: That's, yeah, that's a good question. We can add people.

[2480] Penny DeLeon: I don't see why not. They handle a lot of contracts and money. Yeah. They should. Yeah.

[2486] Nancy Thomas: So maybe we can add that one. It would be the activities director. So the athletic director and the activities director.

[2495] Carina Plancarte: Yes.

[2496] Penny DeLeon: So I would say add the word director, athletics, and then director, activities.

[2501] Nancy Thomas: OK. Are we missing any?

[2507] Aiden Hill: But other than that, President Thomas, I mean, it seems to me like a pretty comprehensive list.

[2520] Nancy Thomas: I think in business services, is there anyone else in the business department?

[2523] Penny DeLeon: Yeah, there are managers.

[2524] Penny DeLeon: So I think we should always list the managers as well, because there's a just put business service manager, which is global so that we don't have to have everybody's exact title in there. But yeah, I'll get it in there. I'm going to write it all down.

[2540] Nancy Thomas: OK, I need to get mine.

[2541] Penny DeLeon: So we do have managers.

[2545] Carina Plancarte: Well, then that begs the question, do we want to include other managers as well?

[2551] Penny DeLeon: Well, I think it depends on their level of responsibility for actually purchasing or contracting. And what they sign off on? Normally, a coordinator will have a director above them, right?

[2563] Carina Plancarte: So we can't sign off on something, but it usually not. Potentially, right? They would have to get approval.

[2572] Penny DeLeon: They'd have to get approval. I don't see that we would. Nicole, do you know any coordinators that are in charge of purchases, or does it usually go to their directors, or service contracts, or anything like that?

[2584] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Any coordinators that are in charge of purchases?

[2586] Penny DeLeon: Or contracts.

[2591] Nancy Thomas: So what about interim? Interim should probably fill out form 700. Sure. Yes.

[2598] Aiden Hill: But would that be connected to your consultant stem at the bottom there?

[2602] Nancy Thomas: Well, I was just going to ask.

[2605] Carina Plancarte: And where are the consultants? I don't see it on here.

[2619] Penny DeLeon: But we do need to add manager, business managers, business services managers. We talked about that as well, adding the director of activities. I got those two.

[2638] Carina Plancarte: And how about our managers of activities? I think he's called a manager.

[2668] Nancy Thomas: If there is a manager under the director, they also have to. I was looking at the consultants. Can we describe any consultant that does this kind of work? or revoke a permit, authorize the district to enter into, modify, or renew?

[2704] Penny DeLeon: Well, I'll tell you what, if you had an interim CBO or an interim director of fiscal services, you certainly would. Like, if an interim director of fiscal services, they sign stuff all the time.

[2715] Nancy Thomas: So are they actual employees at the time they're interim, or are they consultants? Do they fall under this?

[2724] Penny DeLeon: It's a contract. It's a district contract, but they are a contracted I guess they're an employee who's an independent contractor. They're like an independent contractor, like all of our independent contractors. So I don't know if they're a real, true employee. We still give them email, and we do fingerprint them if they're going to be here on a long-term basis. I always think of it this way. If their offices are here versus if they have their own office somewhere else.

[2755] Nancy Thomas: For every principal, every interim principal, And, and.

[2760] Penny DeLeon: I would just say put interims. It's fine to say interims.

[2762] Carina Plancarte: I think we should put interims because they are making decisions and we are. They are making decisions and we are considering them. Even though they're contractors. Other, other, other people.

[2774] Nancy Thomas: So interims would certainly fit in with.

[2777] Penny DeLeon: Yeah, let's put interims. It could be interims of any, any of these, any of these managerial levels fit with an interim. Like Mike Milliken signed off on all kinds of crap.

[2794] Aiden Hill: And as I think about it too, the formal definition of an independent contractor is that you're not taking direction from your client. If your client is saying, okay, you need to be here at 8 o'clock and you need to go work is probably a better word.

[2823] Nancy Thomas: Yeah. And maybe we can just do an asterisk and say interim positions related to these. Listed above. Interim positions listed above. Listed above. Interim positions listed above. OK.

[2840] Carina Plancarte: Yeah, thank you for writing that down. Because my worry here is the way this is worded. Consultants are designated employees who must disclose financial interests as determined on a case-by-case basis by the superintendent or designee. And so my worry there is the case-by-case basis, and could any of these fall through the cracks, and could we miss not having certain individuals who need to fill this form out not do it, right? So I just have to bring that up.

[2876] Nancy Thomas: So who, besides an interim, would be an interim in one of these positions who's not an independent principal? Well, OK. Like, for example. Principals? Interim principals, yeah. Yeah, so I mean, we cover it under interim. But who would we be missing?

[2897] Penny DeLeon: Well, like, for example, the interim of curriculum special projects. She's going to be working. with English Learner Services running DELAC and whatnot. I don't think she's going to be in that because she has Nicole doing all the business pieces. She's not going to be responsible for contracts and all those kinds of things. She's going to be running meetings, filling out reports. I mean, she's being hired to do reports, meetings, make sure that the program gets pushed along, working with our EL teacher stuff She's not going to be directly responsible for contracts, whereas the interim director of fiscal services will have their hands all over contracts, potentially, right? So it's a little bit of a different thing. So what about an interim principal? An interim principal is still looking at all kinds of things. They approve at their school. They approve every purchase that comes across their desk at the school. An interim principal does, for sure.

[2953] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, so what we have down here is Director of Student Learning. So we have the directors that are underneath in Ed Services.

[2963] Penny DeLeon: So a normal Director of Student Learning probably along the way is doing all of that work.

[2969] Nancy Thomas: Well, they're looking at curriculum materials.

[2972] Penny DeLeon: Well, I'm the interim person doing all the curriculum materials.

[2978] Nancy Thomas: But that position would be looking, would have a, should fill out Form 700 because they are

[2986] Penny DeLeon: Helping to make decisions on that that position, but what I'm saying is is like it an intern who comes in to correct you Maybe you happen to it. I don't think an intern in curriculum instruction is necessarily going to be doing a lot of contracts. I think They think the business piece would be taken off of their plate Whereas like an interim business person or principal they can't have it taken off their plate. It's right what they do Yeah So that would be like... I'm just saying, when you talk about why wouldn't we have a case-by-case basis, I think you need to think about it. It depends on what they're being assigned to do.

[3023] Nancy Thomas: So you would be the one when that person is brought on to determine whether they should fill out... Me and their boss, right?

[3030] Penny DeLeon: Or whoever's in... Within 30 days. Their supervisor, yeah. Like, what are we going to be asking them to do? So that's where the case-by-case comes in. It may be that they're not.

[3039] Nancy Thomas: And then I think it's really important Because I wanted to ask the question, how many of these? And most of these were already on the list from before. So we're updating the list. We're adding the director of athletics and the director of activities. The business services manager. Yeah. So I mean, are we being faithful to collecting these form 700s? No, we probably are not.

[3070] Aiden Hill: But as I read this language here, under disclosures for consultants, so they're providing a broader definition than what we just talked about. So if you look at the second paragraph, it says a consultant is an individual who, pursuant to a contract governmental decision, right? So that's one category, but then if you flip past those seven areas, it says a consultant is also an individual who, pursuant to a contract with the district, serves in a staff capacity with the district, and in that capacity participates in making a governmental decision.

[3107] Nancy Thomas: Okay, so that covers the interns?

[3109] Aiden Hill: So I think it covers, yeah.

[3110] Nancy Thomas: Covers the interns? Yeah. Okay, so HR needs to have in their onboarding processes, and they need to make sure that these categories of individuals are filling out form 700 annually and within 30 days of coming on board.

[3143] Penny DeLeon: So you want that to be the HR department? Normally, it is the superintendent's office.

[3147] Aiden Hill: I think it should be the HR.

[3149] Carina Plancarte: I agree, because your plate is so full.

[3152] Penny DeLeon: Well, I just mean in most districts, the executive assistant. That's like the next step is that they have them, or whatever.

[3159] Penny DeLeon: But it can be HR.

[3159] Nancy Thomas: I think the executive assistant collects them, right?

[3164] Penny DeLeon: Because she's the one that sends it all into the county. The county goes to the executive assistants to get all the information. They could be distributed on their onboarding package. Correct. And then submitted to the executive assistant.

[3179] Nancy Thomas: They don't get submitted to the county. They stay in the district.

[3186] Penny DeLeon: I thought we had to have copies of them for the county.

[3190] Nancy Thomas: No, that's why I... But they ask you.

[3194] Penny DeLeon: Oh, no, they ask you, Nancy. They ask you if you're missing somebody. So-and-so hasn't turned in their 700. And you got to go chase it down. Oh, yes. Many times that's happened. Not here, but.

[3206] Nancy Thomas: I think you'll find that in this district anyway, that all of these form 700s are on file. In fact, we had an auditor one year. It was probably part of the audit package. You know how they add things every year? And once in a while, they'll look at something special. They looked at form 700s.

[3230] Penny DeLeon: No, I believe you. I think we do keep our own. But I don't think we're using.

[3237] Nancy Thomas: I can find out.

[3238] Penny DeLeon: Well, in my experience in Ventura County as superintendent is I would get an email from the county asking me to make sure that we were missing a form 700

[3256] Nancy Thomas: See, I think that's the problem, is that we don't do that. And as a result, I think we have not been religious in collecting form 700s.

[3265] Penny DeLeon: Maybe this county doesn't do that. But I can tell you that other counties I've been in, they have a list. They send you a list from the county that says, here are all the people that we need them from.

[3275] Carina Plancarte: I would be surprised if the county is not asking for that information. I don't know. I'll find out.

[3282] Penny DeLeon: I can find out. And that's been my experience, where they send it to the superintendent and the superintendent's executive assistant, and they send a list. Here are all your people that we need.

[3297] Nancy Thomas: We've had turnover in the executive assistant position. I always, for RRP, because I'm on their board, I always get a reminder and a form 700 to fill in by the April 15 deadline. And in the last year, I had to remind the executive assistant that she needed to do the same thing for our people. But I'm not so sure that with turnover and with this kind of being buried somewhere, this resolution that instead we've captured these, the people that were on the list prior and now the ones we've added in the future.

[3340] Penny DeLeon: In fact when I became superintendent in LA County, I got my, I got my form 700 directly from the Los Angeles County Office of Education. Yeah, well. No, I'm sorry, Los Angeles County, from Los Angeles County. Actually, I was not aware.

[3355] Nancy Thomas: See, when the two of you came on, you weren't given a form by HR or the- I went back and did it after. Yeah, I know. But that's what falls through the cracks if we don't have a process. Right.

[3369] Penny DeLeon: No, we need to have a process. I'm just wondering what part the county plays in this county because every other county, they're on it. Okay, we can- That's weird. I'll find out though. Not the County Office of Ed, the county, Alameda County. Not the county office, but Alameda County.

[3388] Nancy Thomas: Nicole, do you know anything about form 700s being asked for by the county?

[3394] Penny DeLeon: Did you get a notice from the county ever?

[3397] Nancy Thomas: I always got a note from Lucia. From who? Lucia. Yeah, she is the executive assistant.

[3404] Penny DeLeon: Right, right. But I think at some level, I'll check. I think at some level, even if we collect them ourselves, which we are supposed to do, I think we might, they're supposed to be submitted somewhere. I just don't know where. I'll find out. pending, you can just update based on the discussion.

[3437] Aiden Hill: And then one last thing that's maybe, well maybe it should be, I'm not sure, or maybe it's separate, but the other area that I was thinking about that is kind of falling through the cracks is, you know, if you look at, well I mean from my understanding is by law we officially some frequency and I know having talked to you know people in other parts of government that they've said that like that's a requirement you know we haven't always done that but what I but what I'm thinking is is that we even extend it and you know like for example when you're when you're a teacher okay so here in our district we have Keenan and at the beginning of every year you have to go in and take your sexual harassment training you have to go in and take your you know, mandated reporter training, you know, can we just add a standard training for, you know, for these categories that says every year, you know, here's this little prepackaged training that you do as a part of your, the startup of the year?

[3505] Penny DeLeon: We probably could. I'd have to go in and see if they have an ethics one. They'd have to have an ethics one in their library for them to give it to us. They must have one, yes.

[3514] Aiden Hill: When I know CSBA has one.

[3517] Nancy Thomas: Actually, we're not required to, unless I think there's a recent legislation that may make it required of us on school board members. School board members, but I don't think everybody is. But it's required of special district members. It's required of city council. It's required of everyone, state. It's required of everyone every two years, except we're left out. I see. And I've taken that training on my own. And it's a very good online training.

[3548] Aiden Hill: But we could mandate it to say we, in our district, we want to do it.

[3553] Nancy Thomas: Yeah. I would agree with that. But I think it's going to come that we have to.

[3559] Penny DeLeon: Well, you need to do a board policy for that. And then we have to pay for the training.

[3567] Aiden Hill: we're almost out of time.

[3568] Penny DeLeon: Because remember, when we do those trainings, and we have everybody in the district do it, we pay a licensing fee to be able to give the payers, just so they don't come with a cost.

[3576] Joy Lee: Right.

[3578] Aiden Hill: Okay, let's... So, President Thomas, did we cover everything you wanted to cover?

[3585] Penny DeLeon: Yes, I think so. I think you got to go up and say where we're

[3608] Nancy Thomas: You didn't.

[3609] Nancy Thomas: It should have been the whole time.

[3654] Nancy Thomas: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We have returned from our study session, and we are about to go into closed session for the November 7, Is there anyone from the public that would like to address us on closed session items? The closed session items we will be discussing are 3.2, Conference with Labor Negotiators, Employee Organizations, NTA and CSEA, Conference with Legal Counsel, Existing Litigation, Byrd versus NUSD, Student Expulsion, and Public Employment, Deputy Superintendent of Business Services. Seeing no one coming forward, we will be recessing to closed session.

[9064] Nancy Thomas: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We have just returned from closed session. And during closed session, the board of trustees discussed a contract for the deputy superintendent of business services, the CBO, effective December 4th, 2023, which included the following terms. The work year is 224 days. Salary, step four, $250,000 annually. The stipend for a master's degree is $1,200. The stipend for a doctorate degree is $1,000. And professional dues pay in full the Association of California Administrators, ACSA, plus one other professional organization, not to exceed $2,500. So with that, would you please join me in the pledge? 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. Next, we have approval of the agenda. I understand, Superintendent, that you have an adjustment

4. REPORT OF CLOSED SESSION ACTIONS

4.1 Report of Closed Session Actions

5. RECONVENE TO OPEN SESSION

5.1 Pledge of Allegiance

6. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

6.1 Approval of the Agenda

[9146] Penny DeLeon: Thank you, President Thomas. Let's see, where are we right now? Move on down here. OK. First, we would like to, in recognition of one of our board members who has been in some pain, I would like to move some of the more important items up.

[9170] Penny DeLeon: So if we could move public comment up

[9175] Penny DeLeon: to right after recognitions at the Schilling Elementary Spotlight, and then followed by items 13.1 and 13.2, up right after public comment. And then also we are pulling 15.4 to bring back at a later date.

[9207] Nancy Thomas: So that's poll 15.2. Four. Four. And move which ones up?

[9215] Penny DeLeon: First move public comment one and two. OK. 10.1, 10.2 to be right after the Schilling Elementary spotlight. OK. Because we want them to be able to go, our kiddos. And then 13.1 and 13.2 up. right after public comment. And then poll 15.4. Okay.

[9245] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. With those changes, can I get a motion and a second to approve the agenda as amended?

[9253] Carina Plancarte: I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as amended.

[9256] Nancy Thomas: Member Plancarte moves. I'll second. Thank you. Okay. Member Jones seconds.

[9265] Steve Burrell: Please vote. Actually, hold on one second. Because we have a guest here running our panel, we're running into a little bit of a difficulty with the online voting and was wondering if we could move back to recording it. And then we will move it digitally once we have the transcribed.

[9284] Nancy Thomas: Sounds good. OK, so please.

[9287] Steve Burrell: And no fault here. It's really her left hand person right here that's struggling with the technology. So thank you.

[9296] Nancy Thomas: OK. So roll call vote. Student board member, how do you vote? Yes. Member Nguyen? Yes. Member Plank-Carty? Yes. Member Jones? Yes. Member Hill? Yes. Member Thomas is a yes. Thank you. Yes.

7. RECOGNITIONS AND CELEBRATIONS

7.1 School Spotlight: Schilling Elementary

[9313] Phuong Nguyen: Member Nguyen? Member Thomas, I would like to recognize former board member Jan Crocker. She's in the audience tonight.

[9320] Penny DeLeon: Please stand up. Hey.

[9325] Nancy Thomas: Great to see you, Member Crocker. Thanks for coming. OK, so next, we move on to I'll have the superintendent introduce the school spotlight.

[9339] Penny DeLeon: Super exciting. So tonight, it is the Schilling Elementary Stallion Spotlight. So, woo!

[9351] Penny DeLeon: Break it down for Schilling.

[9358] Penny DeLeon: Yay. So Principal Herrera, this is your opportunity. Hi. Hi.

[9368] Elba Herrera: How are you? Good. Good. Waiting to see if our slides are ready.

[9397] Steve Burrell: We're going to need a little technical support. One second.

[9400] Carina Plancarte: OK, no worries.

[9407] Penny DeLeon: The great part is that Mr. Burrell is a tech genius.

[9412] Steve Burrell: There's a lot to it. I'm not sure about that this evening, but thank you.

[9444] Nancy Thomas: We're almost there.

[9474] Aiden Hill: Yeah, you said as simple as a tab there.

[9527] Steve Burrell: Hey, there we go. Do I get the clicker?

[9554] Elba Herrera: Good evening. Good evening, President Thomas, Board of Trustees, Executive Cabinet, and community members. I am so happy to be here to spotlight Schilling Elementary School today. We are a SPED preschool through fifth grade school with a dual language immersion program in grades kindergarten through third grade. 73% of our 359 students are Hispanic students. 39% of our students are learning English as a second language. Our mission at Schilling is that all students will learn at high levels to be ready for college or a career. At Schilling, we make sure our students are being challenged in their learning. Our goal is to make sure that our students are continuously learning and growing. We measure their growth using the i-Ready data in both reading and math. i-Ready is an online diagnostic based on Common Core standards that provides instructional lessons for both reading and math. Our goal is to increase student achievement in reading and math by a minimum of 2% overall. As you can see in our data, our students met that goal in reading and in math. In reading, we had 17% of students at above or grade level in the fall and 41% in the spring. In math, we had 13% of students at above or grade level in the fall and 26% in the spring. As you can see from our data, we are a school that is working on improving our reading and math skills. The data shows that our students are in need of targeted academic intervention support. With intense intervention support, we can meet our proficiency growth of 2%. This projection is based on students being their full typical growth measure on i-Ready. We will meet our students' full typical growth by making sure our instruction is carefully aligned through grade level collaboration, action planning, and curriculum mapping. The following academic support will also enhance our learning and growing. SEAL, Sobrato Early Academic Language Model. Our Schilling TK through 5th grade teachers are being trained. SEAL is a research-based model designed to provide high quality education to all English learners. SEAL promotes the development of biliteracy, affirming and supporting home language for English learners, children and families, and developing high levels of proficiency in both Spanish and English. Teachers model rich expressive language and create environments where academic vocabulary and concepts come to life. Students actively collaborate, solve problems, and engage in whole and small group inquiry as they pursue and construct knowledge based upon next generation science, social science, English language arts, English language development, and teaching tolerance standards. An example of SEAL, picture bottom left, is in second grade. DLI students love going to their SEAL Researcher Center, where they are able to not only look at the look the part of a scientist, but also have hands-on experience with tools that scientists use. This trimester, Ms. Cantular's students learned about geologists and landscapes. Students conducted research using their SEAL Researcher Center books and the Get Epic online library to learn more about how landforms are created. Students also explored using various scientist tools to examine and observe rocks. Our SEAL coach, Kim Nickerson, and when available, Mikayla Ashmore, provide support to our teachers by providing training and guidance. They work closely with our teachers and students by going into their classrooms, modeling lessons, and or guiding teachers as they teach a SEAL strategy. Classroom walls are filled with lots of student work, writing, and projects. This year, we have the wonderful opportunity to work alongside Coyote Hills Elementary, where we meet monthly for our cross-site professional development. All these PDs, you will observe teachers, SEAL coaches, and principals collaborating and learning new ways to implement these SEAL strategies in our classrooms. Another big piece to our academic support is the help and support of our intervention teacher, Mrs. Mattering. Mrs. Mattering helps facilitate our response to intervention RTI meetings. and helps guide our teachers to look at the data carefully to help identify the students who need that extra support. She also pushes into the classrooms and provides small group support. Teachers also have time to collaborate with grade levels and look at data. i-Ready also has personalized instruction lessons, which students are encouraged to work on at their own pace of a minimum of 20 minutes a day. Lessons are both in reading and math. This year, we will continue to partner up with CIWA ASPIRE. ASPIRE stands for Achieving Students Progress Instilling Resilience and Excellence, which is an after school program that focuses on math, English, language arts, homework assistance enrichment that provides supplementary language interventions and helps improve academic performance for elementary students. This year, we will have CEWA Aspire volunteers come into the classroom during the day to provide intervention support. They will work alongside with our intervention teacher, Mrs. Mattering, and the classroom teachers. We are very grateful for this support. We are a PBIS school, Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support. a restorative practice framework where students are accountable for their actions and reflect on their behaviors through positive reinforcement and incentives. Schilling is a recipient with the California PBIS Coalition Systems of Recognition, reflecting excellence in the implementation of the core features of PBIS, awarded for successful PBIS implementation at the gold level. Schilling is committed to implementing PBIS with fidelity and creating conditions to maximize academic and social behavioral outcomes for all students. We thank our teachers and staff for their hard work and commitment. Schilling also received support through our behavioral support clinician Jackie Melcher who is here today. She works with students who need additional behavioral support and provides teachers with a toolbox of intervention coping strategies to help support positive behavior in their classrooms. We also use Character Strong in our classrooms. Character Strong focuses on the whole child's mental and well-being through teaching character traits to foster positive connections with others. We focus on a school-wide monthly trait which helps build social and emotional competence. We also have The coordination of services team. We have EBAC mental health and wellness together clinicians for students and families that need extra support and or resources. Incentives at Schilling help promote positive behavior and encourage students to do well in school. Incentives such as Schilling Stars and Scholar Dollars as pictured here. Our Schilling Stars focus on behavior and our Scholar Dollars focus on academic achievement or improvement. Students can spend these at our PBIS store. Our dual language immersion program at Schilling Elementary is going on its third year. We currently have two kindergarten classes, two first grade classes, two second grade classes, and two third grade classes that are participating in this program. Our DLI team includes B-CLAD certified Elisa Munoz, who is currently on maternity leave. Michelle Lozada is taking her place, our long-term substitute, who teaches the 50% Spanish kindergarten class. And Jennifer Nguyen, who teaches the 50% English kindergarten class. In first grade, we have Isabel Farias, who is our long-term substitute, who teaches the 50% Spanish first grade class. And Brittany Herrera, who teaches the 50% English class. In second grade, we have Melissa Moore, our NUSD Matosa, who teaches the 50% Spanish second grade class, and Jessica Kantler, who teaches the 50% English. In third grade, we have BCLAD National Board Certified Anita Sol, who teaches the 50% in Spanish third grade class, and Jessica Pollack, who teaches the 50% English third grade class. Our students are being immersed in both languages and cultures. They are beginning to use each language through poems, chants, songs, They listen to read alouds in both languages. In the classrooms, you can see realia, pictures, role playing, think, pair, share, cooperative learning activities, and walls with student work in both Spanish and English, which includes SEAL strategies. Our three goals of dual language emergence are bilingualism and biliteracy, to be able to speak and write and read, listen and use each of the two languages as support for the other, and social cultural competence. Students in DLI should be able to see the similarities and differences in each other and should be viewed as opportunities to connect. Our goal is to prepare our students to become bilingual and biliterate in order to maximize their potential and achieve in a multicultural environment and diverse society, to inspire the love of learning a new language and appreciate different cultures. We have encountered certain challenges during the course of our DLI program. such as not being fully staffed in first grade or second grade. These positions are currently filled by a long-term substitute and an NUSD Math TOSA. We are actively looking and interviewing for qualified candidates to fill these positions. We also have student spots open in first, second and third grades. One of our goals this year was to make sure that our kindergarten classes were full I am happy to report that our two kindergarten DLI classes are full and we have a wait list. We also have the opportunity to have a school site coordinator to help support DLI teachers and families. Blanca Dalida is a former Schilling teacher who has taken this role. She has held a DLI parent informational meeting And we are continuing the SEAL professional development that helps support our DLI program. Our DLI students take the i-Ready Spanish data for reading. It provides our Spanish speakers and learners multiple exposures to key Spanish vocabulary to support them in Spanish reading comprehension, instruction with new Spanish vocabulary lessons for grades kindergarten through third grade. This assessment is used as a temperature check to gauge overall student performance against grade level reading standards. The goal is to understand whether students can read at grade level in Spanish. So as you can see here, first grade started at 59% on grade level at the beginning and then did drop and it was at 22%. Second grade started at 68% and then dropped to 35%. And kindergarten does not take the assessment at the beginning of the year, but they do take it at the end of the year and they were at 53% on grade level. The data shows that our students are in need of targeted academic Spanish intervention support. We will continue to provide effective professional development for DLI teachers and also work with families to help support students at home. Our Shilling culture and traditions, we are proud to have our student of the month, and these are the students that are recognized for their exemplary monthly character strong trait. We have our Shilling Unity Assembly once a month, where we all come together and celebrate our accomplishments and introduce our student of the month. We also have our Shilling Balefocorico going strong and growing every year with the help of Maria Gutierrez, our volunteer, I think she's still here. with the help of Blanca Silva. Student council elections were held and students are ready to lead our school with fun events this year. And our PBIS shilling store is up and running. Thank you to Miss Jackie Melcher and parent volunteers. This is where our students get to spend their hard-earned shilling stars and scholar dollars. And we are continuing our partnership with the Theater Factory, where students are currently preparing for the production of The Lion King Jr. And we also celebrate the Dia de los Muertos display. Again, Maria Gutierrez, who helps organize it with the help of our of our teachers, students, and families. So here you see beautiful. This project was done in kindergarten, first, second, and third. And the students had the opportunity to create an altar for a special loved one. And they are currently displayed on our cafeteria stage. So you are more than welcome to stop by and take a look at it. They're beautiful. They turned out so, so nice. So thank you, Maria, for helping us organize that. October was a busy month for Schilling Elementary. It was our bullying prevention and kindness month. Teachers implemented lessons from second step bullying prevention units. We held a bullying prevention parent informational meeting. We held a bullying prevention and kindness assembly presented by motivational speaker Dennard Mitchell. We held our very first trunk or treat event sponsored by PASS. And we ended the month with a fun Halloween school parade. And we were also excited to participate in the Newark Days Parade, where we were awarded with the Best Rock in Spirit. Thank you all very much for your time. We invite you to our next Unity Assembly, Friday, November 17th at 8.50 a.m. and join us for our presentation of the Lion King Jr., which will be December 14th at 6.30 p.m.

[10520] Nancy Thomas: Well, is that it? Thank you very much. Do we have any comments from board? Questions? Yeah.

[10529] Carina Plancarte: Go Schilling. Thank you.

[10536] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms. Herrera, for the presentation. I really like that you included the I-Ready assessments. And so my question to you is, do you guys find great value in the SEAL program? that intervention is the reason why, would you say that that intervention is the reason why you had those ticks up in points?

[10558] Elba Herrera: Absolutely. I think, you know, our intervention, Mrs. Matterang pushing into classrooms and the SEAL strategies are really helping with the reading part of our iRating data, yes.

[10570] Phuong Nguyen: And I know that Ms. Mikaela Ashmore has been assigned to a different school. Has that impacted your site?

[10578] Elba Herrera: Yes, it has tremendously. Thank you.

[10581] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. And I'm hoping my request later will help with that. But I'm not sure if the rest of the board will be in agreement. But I'm going to try anyways. So I just really wanted to get your feedback on that. And thank you for answering honestly about the process and the intervention. Thank you. Yes.

[10609] Nancy Thomas: Yeah. Member Hill.

[10612] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Ms. Herrera, for the presentation. And thank you to the showing community for coming out and showing your pride. And yeah, go. Are we stallions? Stallions.

[10624] Nancy Thomas: All right. Well.

[10628] Aiden Hill: By the way, I have one of your hoodies, which I love to wear.

[10632] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Yes. And I have one of your t-shirts. And I'm delighted to hear about your work with DLI and especially the SEAL program. Every time I've been at the school district and seen what's going on with SEAL, it's very impressive. So thank you.

[10652] Joy Lee: Thank you. I just wanted to say I love your guys' spirit. It's so amazing. Thank you. Thank you.

[10668] Carina Plancarte: I'd like to say something. Thank you so much. I really also appreciate the efforts of all of the staff chilling.

[10676] Carina Plancarte: I know that there's a shortage of teachers and with having, you know, taken Michaela in Miss Ashmore and having her be over at BGI. I understand that it's been really tough, but I really do appreciate you and all of the teachers, all of the support staff, the parents who go in and help and really try to help fill in those gaps. So thank you so much.

[10700] Elba Herrera: Thank you.

[10707] Nancy Thomas: So next we had a little shift in the agenda earlier. But so we've moved up, yes? Sorry.

[10721] Phuong Nguyen: Ms. Herrera, can you come back up? I didn't get to ask you. Can you share a little bit about the work that's on display in the back? Thank you.

[10731] Elba Herrera: Absolutely, yes. So I want to thank my instructional leadership team for putting this wonderful bulletin board up. I want to thank Shiloh Mattering, Christine McTarrion, Jackie Melcher, and Jennifer Nguyen. We have And Miss Pollack, yes. We have, we're starting from the left to the right. We have a growth mindset art display inspired by the book Dot, about not giving up by a Russian artist, Kodinsky. We also have kindergarten seal chant about weather and some weather writing as well. We also have first, next, last narrative writing in Spanish from our second graders. We have kindness posters created by our 3rd and 4th grade students. And we have our 1st graders who created kindness trees. Our 1st and 2nd grade graders did our self-portraits and more kindness writing. We have our Dia de los Muertos altars up there as well. And our 5th graders created a math game. And 2nd grade created pumpkin math art. And we have our PBIS store banner that one of our parent volunteers have donated to us. And I think she's right here.

[10808] Carina Plancarte: Our parent right here. Thank you.

[10814] Nancy Thomas: I think this is the most impressive school display we've seen so far, for sure. Thank you.

[10820] Elba Herrera: Yeah, they did a really great job. Thank you.

[10823] Nancy Thomas: Thank you.

[10827] Joy Lee: Could I just add one more thing? The students are so lucky to have such dedicated parents and staff like you guys.

10. PUBLIC COMMENT

10.1 Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items

[10840] Nancy Thomas: And moving on to public comment, I think we're going to be hearing a little bit more about shilling. So I'd like to call up Jeff Anderson.

[10855] Jeff Anderson: That's my clock. Got it.

[10858] Jeff Anderson: Good evening, my name is Jeff Anderson. I joined today to speak about Schilling Elementary. I have two children at Schilling in the DLI program and I'm overjoyed to be part of the Schilling family. We are so proud that our children will grow up bilingual.

[10872] Jeff Anderson: En nuestra casa hablamos español y estoy lleno de orgullo que mis niños son parte de esta escuela.

[10878] Jeff Anderson: I'm also overjoyed by the love and strength I see in every member of our Schilling community. Something that unites our Schilling parents is the love we have for our children and our desire to provide our children with the best educational experiences that we can create as a community. You can plan on seeing me and other team members from our family here in this board supporting your work, and holding you to account. We have high expectations for NUSD, this board, and the state of California when it comes to the support provided to our school. I believe that the responsible use of power demands that we unite together to protect the least privileged members of our community. As outlined in Richard Rothstein's book, The Color of Law, our nation has a historical legacy of state-sponsored racial housing segregation in which local housing prices are tied to the value of educational experiences provided to our children. Neighborhoods with high home values and wealthier families often enjoy stronger schools and more support from government and legal policies. Coming to meetings like this requires time, energy, and is difficult for parents with language barriers and when parents are trying to hold down multiple jobs. Schilling is a Title I school that serves a high number of low-income students and also a majority non-white students, many of whom are English language learners. but we are building a strong, organized group of parents who will be listening to and advocating for the least privileged members of our society, and especially in our Schilling family. With that in mind, there are many decisions that have been made at the district level and in this board that I believe diminished Schilling's ability to serve our students. This includes the loss of our special project manager, Abbey Keirns, the reassignment of our two SEAL team teachers, what they're called TOSAs, teachers on special assignment, who have been unable to support Title I English language teachers at many of our Title I schools because they have been put into classroom at non-Title I schools, which is a direct conflict or a direct issue with the way they're funded. We are tracking the work of this board and NUSD very carefully. We expect you to invest in and support our school with a high level of care and attention for our children. Today, our community is here to celebrate our school and to share with you a small sample of the strength and love that we have for this school and this district. In future board meetings, we plan to ask you to address specific concerns that we have at our school. We thank you so much for your commitment to our community for the work that you do in this space, and we are filled with love. You got some strength here. This is a small sample. Thank you so much. You will be seeing us.

[11036] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Jacqueline Carrillo.

[11056] Jacqueline Carrillo: We received a postcard in the mail several years ago from Newark Unified advertising the dual language immersion program available at Schilling. Excited about the opportunity and benefits of learning a second language, we immediately put the date on our calendar, two years out. Since our son started kinder a few months ago, he has acquired so much Spanish vocabulary and loves teaching his family and younger sister the songs he's learning in class. We have also had the opportunity to meet so many incredible and passionate families, as you've seen, and teachers. We all understand the benefits of dual immersion and want the best for our kids and their future. According to the California Department of Education CDE website, the mission of multilingual programs is to equip students with world language skills to better appreciate and more fully engaged with the diverse mixture of cultures, heritages, and language found in California and around the world, while also preparing them to succeed in a global economy. By 2030, half of all kinder through grade 12 students will participate in programs leading to proficiency in two or more languages. Additional findings from the news and World Report states that native and non-native English speakers benefit from learning academic content in two languages. Research has shown that dual language programs are an effective way to educate English language learners, but they also offer benefits to native English speakers, including bi-literacy is great for your brain, learning a language is easier for younger children, English learners succeed while maintaining their native language, and students build strong social connections and cultural awareness. So much research is available that supports the benefits of DLI. However, we do not have adequate support and critical resources from our district. It's disheartening and, quite frankly, unacceptable that imperative resources the Schilling DLI program needs to thrive are being stripped from our school and redirected elsewhere in the district. Class sizes are impacted. Several classes do not have permanent teachers, and current teachers do not have access and support from their TOSAs. DLI is the way of the future, and Newark Unified has a critical opportunity to help pave the way. Let's do right by our kids and provide the critical resources and funding we desperately need to succeed.

[11203] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Greg Spitzker.

[11218] Greg Spitzker: Hey, guys. Thank you for hearing from me. I'm Greg. I recently moved here. I live in the new development in Newark, if you know it, out by where the marshes used to be. And it's a lot of young families in my neighborhood, a lot of people who have kids that are two, three years old and stuff like that. I've been trying to make our community a thing that comes together. I've been doing morning bike rides with a bunch of students and everything like that, showing up to school, trying to bring us all together. I also volunteer my time to help out in the classroom and those kinds of things. But the reason I do that is because I know our school is so great. I know that the DLI program is amazing. I love that my daughter is able to learn two languages I was never given that opportunity, unfortunately, but I really hope she can achieve more. When I talk to my neighbors who are looking to put their kids in school, they hear about shillings, and they say, oh, I would never send my kid there. It gets terrible scores in standardized testing and those kinds of things. And unfortunately, they don't understand that we do have a high proportion of students that are English learners. And that negatively takes down our scores, partially because these tests are geared towards English as a native language, and they don't They're not geared towards all kinds of people. So when I talk to my neighbors and convince them that, hey, this is the program my daughter's in, it's amazing. The school has so much energy. It has so much going for it. And you live so close. We can be a community. We can build this together. I'm really able to usually convince most of them to change their mind or at least look into it or something like that. But something that I'm not able to do is I can't talk to everyone, right? You know thousands of people in my neighborhood and a lot of people won't be able to talk to me and they'll go and go to private school or try to change districts or whatever they do and unfortunately, that's something that I really feel terrible about so What we can do is we can properly fund our school and our system and especially the DLI program and really look for, you know, helping this out because there's so many under, I mean, so many underprivileged students in our program that really need the help and, you know, where we can help out the most is where we can, is this program. So that's what I ask and thank you very much for hearing from me.

[11368] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. You know, I think the board hears you. We don't specifically respond to public comment, but we're in conversation with the superintendent individually and through knowing what she's trying to do to take care of the staffing issues in our district. I just want you to know that we hear you. Thank you. So we have Oh, member Nguyen.

[11406] Phuong Nguyen: Yes, generally we don't make comments on after public comment, but I just really want to appreciate the parents tonight who are here. advocating for your students and families who are in a Title I school. I put my daughters, when I moved back into Newark, I was nervous about putting them back into a Title I school. And I loved it. And they loved it. And they were thriving. And I'm so appreciative that you guys are now voicing that, changing the narrative of what is perceived to be chilling and how the students and the teachers are there. So, I really just want to appreciate that and I hear you loud and clear. So, thank you so much. Thank you.

10.2 Public Comment on Agenda Items

[11450] Nancy Thomas: I don't think it could have been said any better. Thank you. Next, we have two public comments. They can be taken when the item is coming forward or we can ask them to come now. Now that one of them is on item that has been pulled from the agenda, I think 15.4. Mr. Knoop, if you want to make a general comment under public comment on non-agenda items, go ahead.

[11490] Cary Knoop: Good evening, boards and staff. I think these are very trying times that new work is having right now. We have a serious shortage of teachers, a serious shortage of senior staff, or teachers who don't stay very long, or senior staff that doesn't stay very long. So I understand that it's crisis management. And when you're confronted with such a situation, you want to look for quick solutions. Well, what can we do? We're in panic. Let's think about something that can solve this. But sometimes these quick solutions have very grave impact. The most important asset of NUSD are the teachers. And I don't want to, you know, discount the incredible value of senior staff, obviously. But the teachers are the core of our organization. And the teachers need to be associated with our organization. Once you have a teacher who teaches through Zoom out of Boston, that's not Newark Unified anymore. There's nothing left. So I understand when you have crisis modes that you have to make drastic measures or serious plan Bs. You have to be very careful with that. And you have to present it the right way. Putting it into consent items or getting a contract with a company that says, congratulations, Newark is doing the right thing. They're visionaries in starting to do remote learning. That's not the message I hope the administration wants to bring out to the public. We want our local teachers. So if this item comes back, let's make sure we qualify it correctly and also towards the vendor that we are sure that, you know, this is not some visionary change we're making. This is a situation that we don't like. And, you know, there may even be certain classes that could help with remote, but we have to be explicit about that. The other thing, and I'm almost running out of time, is the slippery slope argument. Once we get two classes doing remote the next year, it's like, OK, that's OK. Yeah, we didn't hire that person. Let's take three more. And before you know it, we're starting 50% virtual, and we don't know. It's like the frog in the pan that you slowly heat up before you realize, like, what are we doing here, right? We need teachers in the classroom. So that's just a few comments from my part. Thank you.

[11673] Nancy Thomas: Mr. Knoop, do you want to stay there for a moment? Because a comment on agenda items can be done now, or you can do it when the agenda item is up.

[11684] Cary Knoop: I might as well. I'm standing here now, so.

[11687] Nancy Thomas: OK, so you wanted to speak about Social Spice.

[11691] Cary Knoop: Yes. So this is the third iteration of a new website we're going to have. I have a technology background, and technology is great. It can help us in many ways. But if the website is not working or not up to date, technology is not going to solve that problem for us. You know, we need to have business rules. Every person, you know, let's say the office managers at the individual site need to have that in their job descriptions. You have to do update of the website at the local level. You can't expect an administrative assistant to take care of all of that. That doesn't make any sense. And so it's not updating. And every time, I think we're making this mistake that when something doesn't work, we'll just buy some software package and then hope that it's resolved. The company we have right now has ADA. in their minds, too. So I was a little confused, to put it like that. It's like, you know, what am I supposed to believe? We're going to be sued for millions of dollars, so we need to take this company. It's a great marketing ploy, let me tell you. So we're spending another $60,000, and that's just the beginning. Because once we change the whole website, we're going to have the same thing all over again, more money. And they charge $295 an hour. That's a pretty decent amount. And once we have a contract with them, we can't really cancel. Yeah, we can, but there's penalties. And if we don't like what they do, we have mandatory disputes. We can't even sue them. I don't know. It doesn't sound good to me. I mean, I don't think this company is any better or worse than the one we have right now for the website. When you look at a website for a school site, it's not really rocket science, in my opinion. Most of the pages are static. You have a couple of pages that change based on hiring and people who are released. And then there's some messaging for agenda items and events and things like that. This is not Amazon.com, or this is not E-Trade or something like that, where we have a lot of difficulty in website design. We can make it really simple. And actually, the simpler your website is, the easier it is to make it ADA compliant.

[11855] Nancy Thomas: The timer didn't count down.

[11857] Cary Knoop: Oh, it says 15, 14 seconds. That's why I was just rambling on.

[11861] Nancy Thomas: Oh, the one we're looking at. I'm sorry, the one we're looking at.

[11865] Cary Knoop: Oh, no, but I certainly don't want to take more time than I'm.

[11867] Nancy Thomas: I'm sorry, I was looking at the wrong timer.

[11870] Cary Knoop: Oh, OK. Well, now I'm out of time. But anyway, that's the message.

[11875] Nancy Thomas: I'll give you your 15 seconds back.

[11877] Cary Knoop: OK, well, thank you for that. So I understand that, you know, OK, the last 15 seconds then. Changing a website all the time is also a problem for if we have employees who really want to learn how to do this, they're not incentivized to when it changes every two years, you know, and every time it's the same thing. So thank you.

[11903] Nancy Thomas: Ms. Parks, would you like to address this issue now? I might as well also.

[11914] Cindy Parks: Good evening. On May 4th of this year I addressed all of you concerning the website issue. The following is a reminder of those comments. If you heard anything from the public concerning what they wanted with a new superintendent was someone who is a good communicator. Not only does leadership need to be a good communicator but the district as a whole. One communication venue is your website. You can have the fanciest, easiest-to-maneuver website, but if it doesn't contain up-to-date, correct information, what is its value? While seeking information from other school districts, I can say some are more user-friendly, while others are less. One thing I can't comment on is whether the information is up-to-date. Since the new website was implemented, some relevant information from the old site wasn't transferred over. Some information transferred pertains to staff, which is consistently in a transition. Most if not all school sites containing staff members who left at least a year ago. That's what I said like on May 4th. Actually I was on the site earlier or yesterday and on the staff directory page for one particular site there were people that had left two and a half years ago. A few things that came to mind when I saw this item on the agenda. Why do we need another website? Is the current site really lacking the ADA compliance, which Mr. Knoop addressed, and how will this address the lack of the current information on the various pages of the website not being up to date? Besides the outdated staff directory, let me give you a few more examples of outdated information. On the facility rent page, which is under your business department, it says that all facility rentals are suspended until further notice. So, and the pricing that's set was done in 2019 and they had price increases through 2022. So, if someone were to go to the page to try and rent one of the facilities, were they just dismissed us because it said that it's suspended? Did they actually maybe phone, call the, you know, phone number and find out that they could rent? So, you did maybe get some rent, but maybe you got it at an old rate because it hasn't been updated. Because like I said, the rates were through 2022. On the LCAP page, it lists the 22-23 members, not the current LCAP members. The board approved the 2024 and 2025 calendar, but it's not posted on the website. And parents are now looking, somebody had posted on one of the social media sites, wondering where that calendar was because they were trying to book a vacation for next summer. So some of the things that you have readily available aren't being uploaded to your website in a fashion other than if they want to search board docs, which that's a nightmare in and of itself right now. I'm having trouble believing that a website that is only two years old is an ADA compliant or it's simple addition to the whole current website. But be that as it may, the new website doesn't do any good if you have outdated information. And so you might be solving one problem, but you still haven't dealt with the larger issue, which is current information.

[12113] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Next, we are moving the agenda item 13.1 and 13.2 after public comment, because those are important items that we want to cover early. Superintendent?

13. NEW BUSINESS

13.1 Approve Job Description for Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/CBO

[12131] Penny DeLeon: Yes, thank you. President Thomas, members of the board. So, I think there's been concern about the how expedited this process has been and I want to address that. We are in a very dire budget situation in this district.

[12149] Nancy Thomas: Would you announce what?

[12150] Penny DeLeon: Oh, I'm sorry. This item is the job description for Deputy Superintendent of Business Services. So, I will address that. We not only are in a very dire, dire situation, having inherited a $14.9 million deficit out of a budget of about $70 million, but we are also, unfortunately, coming up on first interim and some really very important budget reporting. Currently, I'm filling in as interim, and I have been since October. And while I don't mind doing that, if we were to push this another month or whatever, any person that we get, so one issue is any person that we would hire has to give notice for 30 days. So then it's another additional 30 days before they can start. But also, and there are many articles about this, and in fact, this was the topic of an entire Access Superintendents Workshop, and that is the statewide CBO shortage. They're trying to figure out ways to get people to go into CBO programs right now because there just aren't enough to go around. And so much of the topic of conversation, and it has been this way for probably a year or two, is how do we attract CBOs? How can we be competitive to hire CBOs, particularly in a climate in the state of California where many districts are in declining enrollment, as we are, and are hitting a budget cliff. And the budget cliff is coming from basically years of declining enrollment that had been supported and supplemented by COVID dollars that are going away. And so suddenly districts are going from where they thought they could be OK for several years to now the rubber is hitting the road. with the budget. That is the situation we're in. Part of the reason that districts have teacher shortages right now is that the budget cliff is so severe and declining enrollment is so severe, and declining enrollment is our revenue, that they can't afford to be competitive. When you have a $14.9 million deficit, it is really tough. And particularly in some counties where you're adjacent to huge districts who have more money and more resources, they are able to give bigger raises. And the minute we give a raise, the district next door gives a bigger one by like $14,000. And so when you're in budget straights, it's a domino effect. It affects everything that happens in your district. This was critical and with the first interim coming up, which is a huge indicator for how we are going to move forward. First of all, I felt it was very, very dire that we have somebody right away and knowing that they would have to wait 30 days. But also, we need somebody who's experienced. We need somebody who has CBO experience, because this is a big deficit. A big deficit. You have to have somebody with years of experience, successful experience as a CBO. I also want people to know, because probably people don't know a lot about the CBO situation in the state, there are many districts where the CBOs actually make more money than the superintendent. They're hired at a higher rate because it's more important because there's such dire situations going on. And that is throughout the state of California. So in order to be able to hire somebody with experience at a competitive rate so we could get the best, I brought a deputy superintendent job description tonight. Also understanding that if and when this candidate or the person we recommend retires someday, if we're in a better budget situation and we decide to go back to assistant superintendent, you have the leeway to go back to that if you like. But for the time being, we need the skill, we need the experience. And unfortunately, in the realm of CBOs, which I know all too well, you have to pay. to get great CBOs to come to your district. And that is what we have tonight, a great CBO. And so I bring this job description with all of those things in mind, with the timing in mind, the quality, caliber of the person in mind, what you have to do to be competitive for CBOs in this state, the entire state, what the dire situation is with our budget and the budget cliff, and how much we need somebody who can do this job and help us get out of this on board right away. Thank you.

[12484] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. So the first item is the approval of a job description for deputy superintendent of business services. Any clarifying questions? If not, I would entertain a motion and a second.

[12509] Kat Jones: I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion to accept.

[12516] Nancy Thomas: I'll second. OK, the motion has been made and seconded to approve the job description for the deputy superintendent of business services. Would you please call roll? So Miss Lee? She doesn't vote. Oh, she doesn't vote on it. Is this considered a personnel item? Yes, it is, I think. Okay. So, Member Nguyen?

[12544] Penny DeLeon: No.

[12546] Nancy Thomas: Member Plancarte?

[12548] Carina Plancarte: Yes.

[12550] Nancy Thomas: Member Jones? Yes. Member Hill? Yes. And I'm a yes. Thank you. Member Nguyen?

[12560] Phuong Nguyen: I'm not against the job description per se. I'm just I'm disappointed that it's being brought tonight and not earlier for approval since obviously the job description went out with our approval, board approval. But my biggest thing is that considering that we are in a structural deficit, I don't agree with the salary range.

13.2 EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT: Review, Discussion and Approval of the Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/Chief Business Official Employment Agreement

[12586] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Thank you, Member Nguyen, for explaining yourself. Next employment agreement, Superintendent.

[12595] Penny DeLeon: Yes, let me go back over here. OK.

[12603] Penny DeLeon: Tonight, board members, I am very pleased to bring to you the employment agreement for Ms. Tracey Vackar, who is our selection for Deputy Superintendent of Business Services. Mr. Burrell, would you like to discuss the process and discuss Ms. Vackar's background, resume, strengths?

[12634] Steve Burrell: Yes, certainly. So I went through a posting of applications and a screening of candidates and held interviews. And with that, one candidate rose to the top. And that was verified by multiple reference checks and verifications throughout. It brings a strong experience within all aspects of education, from being a teacher instructor to somebody who has worked with a district that has struggles with declining enrollment, as well as other financial disparities that are happening within, has been a sitting board member as well, so understands all elements of work that goes in. Some highlights were the ability to bring college career technical education to a large scale to various districts, including what was highlighted by one of our references, which was also referenced during the interview, to an aviation academy. that was now a model for the FAA in Southern California for bringing, again, CTE level classes to our students. So as a whole, I think we're excited to have the stability of somebody with experience and expertise in working. I kept hearing the word collaborative, trust, and being able to work with people throughout the district and the community. And that's something that I think will benefit the district greatly as we move forward. So with that, I'll pass it back to Dr. DeLeon.

[12740] Penny DeLeon: Thank you, Mr. Brown. I appreciate it. It is a great pleasure that I recommend to the board the employment of Tracey Vackar for deputy superintendent of business services, chief business official.

[12755] Nancy Thomas: Board member comments, please.

[12763] Kat Jones: I'm fine, sorry.

[12765] Nancy Thomas: Any comments? OK, I would entertain a motion to approve the appointment.

[12779] Carina Plancarte: I'll make a motion to approve the appointment.

[12782] Kat Jones: I'll second.

[12785] Nancy Thomas: We will have a roll call vote. Member Nguyen? I'm a no. Member Plancarte? Yes. Member Jones? Yes. Member Hill? Yes. Member Thomas is a yes. Thank you. Superintendent Wood? Yes. Member Nguyen?

[12809] Phuong Nguyen: I'd like to clarify why I voted no. I know that Ms. Bacar has a stellar resume and I welcome her into the district and I look forward to working with her. It is just a procedural process for me. We up here as a board members and especially our new board members have talked about transparency, the process and everything like that. And when we want something pushed through and it's justifiable by the board, it's okay and there's no justification for that. So you guys got the contract today. right before the meeting. There was no 72 hours. I know that our prior board, our member Thomas and member Hill has very advocated loudly about not having transparency regarding those kinds of items. But yet, here we are today voting yes, right? And, you know, our CBO, she resigned and she gave two weeks notice. We had time to be able to properly put together a process to be able to be transparent and to allow input. And this is what happens. So that's my no. But I don't have any personal agenda. I'm excited to be working with you, Ms. Vackar, and welcome to NUSD.

[12890] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Member Hill, we should have had these discussions before the vote, but I'll allow it.

[12899] Aiden Hill: Yes. Understand Dr. DeLeon's message regarding the the urgency of our situation and in the fact that There's a lot of things that need to be done Quickly, and we really don't have staff with the right expertise currently We're sufficient staff to get it done. And so I understand the urgency but I also share remember when's concerns that that this this was a I think that the process could have been better. I think that there could have been greater transparency. And so I think that going forward, it's something that I would appreciate that all of us on the board work towards so that, again, everybody feels that they have insight into what's going on. Thank you.

[12952] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. And in the future, let's have comments like this before we actually make the vote, OK? Thank you.

[12960] Steve Burrell: Could I? I was just going to say. I said a lot of nice things about Tracy. I was wondering if maybe she would like to address the board.

[12970] Nancy Thomas: Please, Tracy, please come forward. We'd like to meet you and hear about you from your own words.

[12977] Tracey Vackar: Well, thank you very much, and thank you to the board, to the community. It was so nice to get to meet the Schilling family tonight. I'm excited about your program, and I'm also wanting to work with you on your concerns that you shared with the board this evening. And thinking about all those things, you know, I've been involved with public education for over 30 years. It's a passion of mine to be able to help and support school districts, and most importantly, the children that we serve. and all the employees that helped make that happen. And tonight we heard some wonderful stories, things that they're doing at the Schilling School that we should be doing at every one of our schools. And making sure that we've got all the right resources and that we've identified those resources. Having the ability to be able to work with the instructional leadership team of our assistant superintendent of instruction. being able to work with personnel to make sure that we identify enough teacher, enough teacher support systems that we need to have out there, working with universities to ensure that we can maybe attract new teachers to want to come into our system. Those are really important elements that we need to work on together. I appreciate the thoughtfulness behind wanting to be more transparent. I can't tell you the importance that transparency has. and I will work hard alongside with all of you to try to sit there and make sure that we are identifying those elements with our community. I am excited about coming to Newark, and I really look forward to getting to know each and every one of you on a more personal level as we work on these initiatives together. So thank you so much, and thank you for the opportunity to serve.

[13076] Nancy Thomas: Thank you, and welcome to Newark Unified. So next we move on to the superintendent report.

[13085] Penny DeLeon: OK.

[13090] Penny DeLeon: Yes, it's student board member, and then employee organizations, and then mine.

8. STUDENT BOARD MEMBER REPORT

8.1 Student Board Member Report - Joy Lee

[13095] Nancy Thomas: Oh, sorry. I didn't back up far enough. Ms. Lee, your report. Hi.

[13106] Joy Lee: Happy November, board members, executive cabinet, and community members. A few Fridays ago, all classes performed their skits for homecoming week, and it was the best one yet. From the props, the music selection, dancing, and acting, all the hard work put in by the students of Newark Memorial High School created a really high energy assembly. The next day, Newark Memorial High School won our homecoming football game. And our prince and princesses were crowned. Congratulations to fourth prince and princess, Jaden Lim, Tiana Colon. Oh, sorry if I end up messing up some of the names. Third princesses, Kaylee Geifel and Tricia Marie Plana. Second prince and princess, Thomas Tilley and Angelina Augustine. First Prince and Princess Shane Tavares and Isabella San Pedro and your homecoming King and Queen Mark Lorraine Mia and Leila Malakara. So after our homecoming football win the next day we had our homecoming dance planned by ASB. There was food, music and even a 360 camera set up this time. And then I Two Saturdays ago, the ASB counter prepared a trunk or treat for the community. We had games, an amazing haunted house, community members who decorated their car and gave out candy to the young kids. Not only that, there was also a DJ, food vendors, and a pumpkin patch. This year, we had a huge increase in the amount of students that showed up, so we apologize to anyone who arrived toward the end who may not have gotten the full experience. ASB hopes that the community had a great time. Thank you to the board members and executive cabinet who did come to all these events. I would also like to challenge the rest of the board members and executive cabinet to come to at least two of our school events as you guys will be able to meet the students and staff you guys are making decisions for. Next, I would really like to shout out our amazing student athletes and our school teams. So first, Congratulations to sophomore Alice McCarty, who ran an 11.30, 3,200 meter on the track, breaking a 40-year-old school record.

[13237] Penny DeLeon: Wow. Yeah.

[13239] Joy Lee: I think it was by 11.47 seconds. So it was a lot. And then next, our senior Kara Kara Takobu, who also broke a 40-year-old school record to become second on the all-time list for 3,200-meter girls at Newark Memorial. Yeah. And also congratulations to our boys and girls varsity cross-country team, who won their MVAL league title, and to the Frosh Soft boys on their co-championship. The Cougars were led by MVAL League champion, senior Sid Patel, and freshman Samuel Ricketts, the Frosh Soft League champ. The Varsity Boys water polo team ended their historic season with a close 12 to 9 loss to Piedmont on Saturday. However, these Cougars finished as undefeated league champions in the top eight teams of NCS. So congratulations. I'll announce the upcoming events at the high school now. So if you'd like to write these down now is the time. So community members, the high school will be hosting a canned food drive. All cans will be donated to Viola Blythe. If you see outside here, just right in front of the district office, there was even like a can set out. And next comes support. Oh, our dates. I don't have that written down. Sorry. But I think it's going to be all throughout next month. So please, as soon as you can, buy the canned foods and then just donate them. Next, please come support our Newark Memorial High School Drama Club, who is hosting a play called Scared Silly. It's their fall production, and the cast and crew have been working really hard for the past four months. It's perfect to have a good laugh with all ages of the family. I have the dates this time. The dates are from November 3 to 4. And November 10th through 11th from 7 p.m. And then on November 5th and November 12th, it starts at 2 p.m. Prices range are around like $10. And it's really good for all ages of the family. So please everybody come out. And you can get it on GoFam. Huh? November 3rd through the 4th. which already passed. And November 10 through 11, so it's coming up this week. You can purchase them online, and you can also purchase them at the door. To end, please make sure to check out our ongoing series of Cougar podcast, which is available on Spotify, for those of you who didn't know. The newest episode covers, how old is too old to be trick or treating? It's an ASB run account by our marketing committee. So if you guys would like to get an insight and just listen to some high schoolers talking, go check it out. It's on Spotify called Cougar Podcast. And thank you everybody for listening.

9. EMPLOYEE ORGANIZATIONS

9.1 Employee Organizations

[13443] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Next item is employee organizations. I see we have someone. Ms. Villa from NTA.

[13454] Cheri Villa: Superintendent and Executive Cabinet, my comments tonight, I do have one in regards to safety at our school sites, more specifically our secondary sites. When asking my fellow NTA members from both Newark Middle School and at Newark Memorial High School, the question, do you feel safe at school? The answers that I received range from mildly safe, somewhat safe, and not safe at all. And I am concerned after hearing the responses. And you should be too. I don't have my glasses on. At our high school, who recently had an SRO at their site, the consensus is that having an SRO present on campus is a benefit to everyone, both students and staff, in regards to any student behaviors and what happens after the student behaviors. At our middle school, our teachers, especially our new and probationary teachers, including our long-term subs, the idea of having an SRO on site is for their own reassurance. You know, NTA recognizes that, you know, just like our own school district, the city is having staffing issues as well. So my hope, my ask is that discussions about this happens again so we can figure out how to get SROs on our campuses. Thank you. Thank you.

[13556] Penny DeLeon: Thank you. May I say a few words about that?

[13561] Penny DeLeon: Just to sort of add to what Ms. Villa said, thank you, Ms. Villa, for that. That's true. We want our SROs back on campus. Right now, what a lot of people don't know is that the city of Newark has a significant shortage, just like we do, of teachers of sworn officers. They have 13 vacancies in their department and have told us that they will make our SRO a priority as soon as they can fill their vacancies and have enough people. And their hope is to do that. They have several people in the academy as we speak and they're hoping that by next fall we potentially would have an SRO back for our district because we do need it. We do need them. But what I do want to say is that in the meantime They have been extremely responsive. When our sites call them, they get there as quickly as they possibly can and stay as long as it takes. And it's just not the same feeling as when you have them there every day, because they're a huge part of the school community, part of the climate. It's not just a safety and security piece for them. They build relationships with the students. They help out with events. They do a lot of really great work at the schools. And we appreciate our partners at the Newark Police Department and look forward to having a full-time SRO again, and wish them the best in filling their vacancies, because that is also hard for the whole city, that there are not enough sworn officers. So they're kind of in the same position that we are with our teaching staff. The most critical people to our organization, our teachers, we're struggling with, and the same for them. The most critical people are their sworn officers, and they're struggling. So I don't know what is going on. In the state and the nation, but we will work on it as soon as they they can get us somebody. Thank you Thank you.

[13676] Nancy Thomas: Do we have anyone from CSEA or NEWMA? So now we can go on Thank you, thank you miss member Jones we appreciate it and that you could sort of

11. SUPERINTENDENT REPORT

11.1 Superintendent Report

[13696] Penny DeLeon: pushed through your surgical recovery to come and come and be here with us tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Well, I have a brief one tonight. I just wanted to talk about some of the great things that we've done, our board members and I have done in the last week, just in terms of all the events and stuff. It's been wonderful. So fall festivities at all of our schools, it's been exciting. On the 18th, I got to attend a great program they have at Newark Memorial High School, which is the Cougar Kid of the Month. And this is a recognition for students who exhibit character, who exhibit integrity, service to others at Newark Memorial. And what happens is they take them down to McDonald's and buy everybody a breakfast and celebrate and take pictures and tell them what great kids they are. Because they are. I mean, these are amazing kids. And so that was fun. And then, of course, we had many, many fall festivities at our sites. I happened to get to go to the Lincoln Spooktacular. But I do know there were events around the district. And so many thanks to our students, staff, parents, and community members who made those memorable. Also, we had a great middle school pancake breakfast. Our trustees were there. I mean, our board members, Nguyen and Thomas, were there. It was great. It was put on by the Alameda County Fire Department and the middle school PTSA. And just a great thing. And this year, they had it at Newark Memorial High School. So great. It was wonderful. They made pancakes that were green and black and orange. And they were delicious. Also that day was the Trunk or Treat at the high school, which I know that hundreds of people come through. That was amazing. Also that day, that was a busy day. Members Nguyen and Thomas and I got to honor our retired teachers and our wonderful representatives from Cal RTA, which is the California Retired Teachers Association, over at Ash Park by really helping out with our urban forest by planting trees. And we planted, we didn't personally plant all the trees, we each planted one, but they planted how many, 11 or? Four. No, how many, you planted four trees? No, they planted like 12 or how many?

[13856] Nancy Thomas: No, they only planted four.

[13858] Penny DeLeon: Oh, I thought it was like 11 or 12. I saw a lot more holes than that. I thought it was 11 or 12, remember Thomas?

[13867] Nancy Thomas: Yeah.

[13868] Penny DeLeon: They had them all along the side they were going to do. However many. It was wonderful because that's going to transform the city and also that particular park because that park didn't have a lot of shade. So that's going to be great for that park. So that was wonderful. And congratulations and thank you to our retired teachers. We're probably going to be calling you in the next day so that you are aware of SB, Senate Bill 765. which allows retired teachers to waive the 180 waiting days before they can go back to the classroom and also provides that they can make 70% of their salary now versus 50 previously. So Mr. Burrell, the HR team, I and I think Member Jones committed to getting on the phone and calling our whole list of retirees. So thank you retirees and we hope to see you soon helping out in our classrooms. Celebrating community. October 30th was our district budget task force led by our budget consultant, Mike Berg. It was a great crowd we had that night, a great stakeholder group. November 3rd was our elementary Special Olympics. It was soccer at Washington High School in Fremont. And I have to tell you, that was an amazing, amazing event. It was hundreds and hundreds of people. All of our elementaries, it was fantastic. Member Plancarte was there, and it was a great time. It was just so much fun to see all of our students. And I want to thank our special education department, Olivia Rangel, for helping organize that. All of our special ed teachers and paraeducators from around the district that really helped organize that. But also just for what they do every day. They dedicate so much time to our students, and it's noticed. November 3rd, I had the pleasure of meeting with Assemblymember Alex Lee, and that was a great meeting. Briefly, and then we're being rescheduled for another time to have a more meeting conversation. And then November 3rd, I met with Dr. Charles Sasaki, the president of Ohlone College. And we have a lot of really great ideas for post-secondary options and how we can partner with the Newark Memorial and Bridgepoint and Crossroads and get as many kids as possible into their programs at Ohlone because it works for both sides. And then there are the pictures of all the good times. So there's the tree planting. And I think that's a picture of our Lincoln team, and then also our Kennedy team at the Special Olympics, and member Thomas and I at the Lincoln Spooktacular with Clifford the Big Red Dog, and our Alameda Count. fire truck is an actual barbecue grill or an actual pancake griddle on the back of it, which is both sides. It's amazing, super cool. And then the bottom picture on the left are the kids who were the... Newark Memorial Cougar Pride Kids at McDonald's. That's in front of McDonald's over on Mallory. So anyway, that is my report for this evening. Oh, and also one good news to celebrate. We did win an appeal of a finding we had for independent study, and the district is getting $1 million back. So many thanks to our team who submitted the documents and everybody who was involved, our attorneys, everybody who really worked on that case. So thank you so much.

12. STAFF REPORT

12.1 Staff Report: 2023 Summer School

[14097] Nancy Thomas: That certainly winning that appeal was a major achievement and thanks for doggedly pursuing that. So next we move on to the Consent Agenda Personnel item. We have a summer school report. Oh, I'm sorry. Where am I?

[14112] Penny DeLeon: By Dr. Pierce.

[14119] Nicole Pierce-Davis: I'm sorry. I can't tell you. No, no, no. I just can't. Sorry. Because I got caught talking, I'll say that you can't tell you what a load off that was for us and Ed Services, because that meant a lot to us. So we feel like we won that case, and we deserve to. It was a good win. So on to summer programs. All right. It's starting to get late, so I'm going to move through these a little bit. I do know that some of our board members have a couple more questions, too. I'd be happy to answer those offline as well. So our 2023 program was a significant shift from the year before. In 2022, we served about 140 students. It included part-time for our K-6 program. It included part-time teacher instruction and then part-time sort of enrichment after school. And that teacher portion was really intervention motivated. We also had our ESY program. And we also continued the credit recovery program, where we served about 323 students. four weeks, five days a week. So that, in comparison to 2023, we actually served. So just to go back, 140 students. We went up to 443 students. We actually had capacity up to 700. And so we're going to continue to recruit into this year to see if we can continue to have that number go up. This one included STEM, VAPA, SEL. So this is social emotional learning, visual and performing arts, science, technology, engineering, and math. physical enrichment, so it was a fully enrichment program. In this program, though, we had a SEAL pullout program where we used this as an opportunity to both train teachers as well as give students additional ELD support in this program. But rather than have a half-day program, we embedded it within the day. This went for a full six weeks instead of four, five days a week. We continue to offer our ESY program. We had 210 qualify this year, and we had 113 attend. And then for our credit recovery, we upped our numbers. Again, we had 410 registered, so we were hoping to up our numbers. We ended up around 375 enrolled. Again, just as a reminder, we have extended learning opportunities. So this is all grant funded dollars. These are not dollars coming out of our general fund. These are dollars specifically for after school programming because research shows that it supports student growth as well as supports communities during the summer as well. So these monies are targeted for after school and extended learning programs. We continue to offer the learning recovery needed for high school. These are really to address F and D grades so that we can do two things. We can increase our graduation. We can support students in making up for courses they may have gotten D and F grades over the course of their tenure at the high school. And again, we use learning recovery grants and ELOP dollars for this. So these are grant-funded dollars specifically for extended learning. So our K-6 enrichment, this year was K-5 for the most part with a few sixth graders, went Monday through Friday. Again, this was a six-week program. All student applicants that wanted to participate were accepted into this program. And then two weeks of this included the ELD instruction. A little information here. We had two sites. So that meant we had two site coordinators. We had one site assistant. We had 16 program leaders, four floating program leaders. And so as you know, with staffing being as challenging as it is during the year, I really want to praise and show my gratitude for Think Together for working incredibly hard to get the staffing we needed to run these summer programs. Both sites were prepared to serve about 308. And again, we served about 616 over the course in and out. Lincoln at 232 and Schilling at 211. And then our average daily attendance was 176 and 152. Again, to be expected for summer programming. There you have some pictures from some of the excursions that our students went on. I'm going to cut it off just because I know we're running a little bit late, but they had some pretty amazing experiences this summer. The enrichment program focused on social-emotional learning, visual and performing arts, STEM again, science, technology, engineering, and math, and also had some physical activity. These are some of the programs in case our families and communities are interested in learning a little bit more about that program and that curriculum. Here's a sample weekly schedule. This would be the afternoon schedule. They also had a morning schedule. And so you'd see where students would do 20 minutes here, 45 minutes here, and then have lessons that build on each other, lesson five, six, seven, and so on, that build on each other around whatever that enrichment was. Some student feedback from our program. We get to make art, have fun, learn cool stuff, and spend time with our friends. So overall, we did the percentage of students who agree or strongly agree. There's an adult who cares about me, 92%, 84%. I feel that I belong. And 82%, I feel encouraged and supported. So we really wanted to highlight some of the students that obviously dance. I love dancing, making new friends. They clearly had a good time. We also made sure that we included some parent feedback around this program, again, because it was different than what we ran in the past, which was really more intervention focused. This was much more enrichment focused. And we can see some pretty high marks here. I would recommend Think Together Summer Program to another parent, 98%. That's incredibly high. 96%, I think, the Think Together Summer Program was a good environment for my child. My child has been able to build positive relationships with staff members, 98%. These are incredibly high marks, and I think we need to, again, give credit where credit's due for really running a strong program over the summer. This program also include our SEAL Bridge. This was 10-day professional development with eight teachers and two NUSD SEAL coaches. SEAL trainers also came for two days for both cohorts, K3 and 4.5. A little bit more about SEAL and about the summer program. Here you can see that K1 did a unit on oceans. On the left-hand side, you can see students wrote their names on sentence strips. This is where we're starting to build not just vocabulary, but sort of the bricks and mortar of language development. On the right-hand side, you'll see where the teacher has asked for student input for a sentence patterning chart. And they're coming up to choose adjectives and verbs and prepositional phrases. for the class to sing. So again, trying to make that learning, that language development fun, but also getting our students involved. A little bit more here around oceans. On the left-hand side, you can see teachers co-teaching day three of a narrative input. Students at this point are really familiar with the story and are adding dialogue and sequencing. To the right, you'll see a SEAL trainer. This is an example of a shared research project where the trainer is actually modeling for teachers who observe. And then the trainer will observe them and provide feedback in real time. Our two grades, 2-3, worked on fossils. Some are still strategies. These also include a lot of art, a lot of opportunities for students to get into thematic learning. But that also allows teachers to really pull small groups and provide direct instruction. So here on the left-hand side, while you don't see the small group in the picture before, what you're seeing is students working independently while the teacher's off to the side, again, providing that targeted, differentiated instruction. On the left-hand side here, you're going to see, again, teachers introducing sentence frames during students' discussions. And then on the right-hand side, you'll see a draw, tell, and label on fossils. This is where teachers are labeling, kind of providing picture file cards so that students can visualize what they're learning as they're learning another English language development strategy. Two, three fossils again. Here we've got a teacher finishing a designated ELD lesson. So this is where you're pulling that small group and you're really seeing how can we pull using our language functions, practicing more academic challenging language with content. So again, it's rooted in content. It's rooted in experience. You're not just sort of throwing words that don't have any context for kids. But they're able to get into it with their hands, use the art, and then work with the teacher to develop that language. Our four or five did a journalism unit. Teachers were co-teaching. Again, this is another example of a designated ELD lesson, an English language development lesson, where they're front-loading key vocabulary words. In this case, they're practicing the language function opinion with familiar content. On the right-hand side, students are doing research rotations while the teacher is providing really deep prompts to try to push their critical thinking. And on the right-hand side, you'll see a mini lecture. where students are taking notes after the conversation and then applying that to their own writing. I couldn't help it. You can tell I've got a lot of pictures in here. Students choose from a collaborative activities menu, again, to extend their learning. They also prepared oral presentations and then presented those to the rest of the class. Yes, that is a picture of Billy Bly in an insane asylum. Finally, we also looked at student reflections. I do want to note there was a sad face because it was the last day of journalism class. I don't know how many students you know do sad faces about having to leave summer school, but I felt like that was a sign we were going in the right direction. We also had family gallery walks at the end of these units. And again, it's an opportunity over the summer, a little less stress to really develop both our teachers and our students. And we really felt like this was a win-win, considering what a challenge staffing was for summer school this past year. We're getting creative. ESY, again, ESY is only available to students who have the service identified in their IEP. It's based to maintain skills so that they don't see a more dramatic regression of skills over the summer. If you're interested, we had about 216, again, qualify. We served about 113. Out of those students, you can see the breakdown of disability served. So we've got emotionally disturbed, other health impairment, everything from autism to specific learning disability. But again, we had nine teachers. All were district teachers or long-term guest teachers. This in and of itself felt like a win. We had 27 paraprofessionals, and only seven were district employees. So again, you can see how much Staffing continues to be a challenge for us for summer school, but we know our kids need it. Finally, we have our credit recovery program. We have about 323 students enrolled in our in-person classes. We had about 170 students enrolled in our Apex courses. Now, that's about 40 students higher than we thought. Unfortunately, the week before summer school started, we had two social studies teachers drop out. So those were 40 kids that would not have been served since it wasn't their fault that the teachers dropped out. We made sure that we had courses for them and made sure that we paid for those licenses to allow them to continue to take summer school. Out of that, we've got, you know, over 3,000 credits earned. Again, each course is about five credits. But keep in mind, we also had Bridgepoint students along with our Newark Memorial High School students. And so the credits aren't always apples to apples as they can do. They can work towards maybe two or three units if that's what they need to make up instead of the full sort of five units every time that you'll see at our more comprehensive high school. Courses offered over the summer were ELA, Algebra, Biology, World History, GovEcon, and then we also had some electives through Apex. We focused our in-person on our core classes as much as possible. We had 18 graduates that we want to recognize as well at the end of this program. We had a ceremony this summer, so I'd like to recognize them for graduation. And again, I know that the board has some more specific questions around how many credits, what do those credits look like? We'll be sure to get those answers to as soon as possible. And I'm happy to answer any questions if you have them.

[14904] Phuong Nguyen: I just have a comment. Thank you so much for the presentation. I'm just excited for our young kids in elementary school who are excited to go to summer school. I mean, if they're getting that much joy out of learning the extra intervention and and having a great time that that really much sums it all up and makes everybody feel good. And so I just want to really appreciate all the teachers who sign up to teach summer school. It's you know, it's a labor of love and and it is it's a struggle through the school year and they still continue to do that because they labor that love. So thank you so much.

[14948] Carina Plancarte: I have a question surrounding the $1,000 bonus stipend for the teachers who applied before spring break. And given what you said about the couple of teachers who dropped out for social studies and there had to be some shifts there, could there be a consideration for you know, allowing to continue to give a bonus stipend even after the spring deadline? Maybe it's less, but I'm just wondering how are we rewarding our teachers, you know, anyway, even if they miss the deadline for whatever reason and, you know, are they eligible to still get a stipend? I understand there's an urgency there and there, you know, why that bonus is tied to that deadline. also just to recognize them. I mean, how does that work exactly?

[15005] Nicole Pierce-Davis: So every year we meet around January, February to start having these discussions. As is, I think we already did raise the pay for summer school work. So the sort of bonus was to try to get a sense for whether or not we could even run program. And so the only way we could do that is if we had people commit earlier. So we'll continue to look at that. That might be something we bring to you again this year and saying, hey, let's really incentivize summer school. Let's see who we can get to support our kiddos over the summer. And then we try to create really flexible schedules too so that it becomes a little bit more attractive as well. So we'll continue to consult with NTA and see what we can do there. Hopefully all of the work that Steve and his team has done in HR to get all of the subs so that people aren't period subbing as frequently. Hopefully that will pay off when it comes to summer school and we're asking people to keep teaching.

[15063] Nancy Thomas: Member Hill.

[15065] Aiden Hill: Dr. Pierce-Davis, thank you for the presentation. Could you go back to the slide towards the beginning where we were looking at the different, specifically you had numbers around the high school credit recovery? It's like almost at the very beginning. The enrollment? Yes. Yeah, so that and then the So is this for this is projected for this year?

[15098] Nicole Pierce-Davis: No, this is a last. This is a report out. What was requested was a report out for last year. And then what was the slide before? That was 2022. So I wanted to show the comparison of, you know, going from 140 students to 443 students. Yes. Why? Generally stays the same because it's based off a student piece and then credit recovery. Oops. We went from 323 to 375. So we did increase by about 50 students.

[15128] Aiden Hill: OK. So my question is, so I think that the enrollment at Newark Memorial is roughly around 1,500. Is that approximately right? Yes. So are we saying here that more than 20% of our kids at Newark Memorial are not passing Classes in their regular curriculum and are needing to go to summer school to make up for it Is that what that and those numbers are saying?

[15157] Nicole Pierce-Davis: I'm not going to commit to the 20% because we do have some Bridgepoint students in here but you are absolutely correct to highlight the high level of D's and F's that we have and I know that we've you know, just to channel back to the presentation we had around college and career readiness and Our A to G numbers are low in part because of the high numbers in Ds and Fs that students are receiving. So one of the ways that we can try to make up for those Ds and Fs are by having students retake courses. With Apex courses, students get an average of the two grades they receive. If students take the class again in person, I believe they get the higher grade that they that they receive. So that's the difference between the two styles of courses. But yes, you are right to highlight the high number that we have and how that impacts both graduation, A to G attainment, as well as college and career readiness numbers.

[15216] Aiden Hill: Because my concern here is, I mean, so one theory could say, well, all of a sudden, teachers are being tougher in their grading. That could be one root cause. Or the other root cause is that there's something deeper going on in terms of learning. And that's why they're earning D's and F's. But I think that the number one goal that we should have, and again, that's why I think that this is so important that we connect this with standardized testing, because there should be a relationship, right? And so if we're seeing that we're having high standardized testing, but high scores there, but we're having lots of D's and F's, that means that maybe the grading is too difficult. Right? But if we're seeing that there's low performance in terms of standardized testing, and then that's correlating with low performance in terms of, you know, the numbers of Ds and Fs, then there's something deeper going on that we need to look at. So I don't want to belabor the point, but that's like a high number, right? 20, you know, because again, if I just do, I mean, like you said, we don't know the mix of Bridgepoint versus Newark Memorial, but it's a high number. So that was question one. And then question two was, when we were looking at the Think Together survey. I don't know where that was, like deeper in your presentation. Keep going. Yeah, there you go. So do we know what percentage of the families actually took the survey?

[15315] Nicole Pierce-Davis: You know, I don't have that information, but I do. It's generally what we've experienced in the past is that it's been higher than when they've been during the year because you've got a targeted smaller group of families. OK.

[15327] Aiden Hill: OK, great. Thank you.

[15331] Nancy Thomas: Getting back to what Member Hill was talking about, what are we doing proactively to analyze the root cause of the Ds and Fs, especially for our freshmen and sophomores. And it seems to me there was some strong variation from teacher to teacher. So what are you finding out, and what are we doing proactively to address that?

[15359] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Yeah, I appreciate that. I know that Ms. Heather Decker, our coordinator of access and equity, talked about a few things, right? How do we help students even see that the test is important? Because that's a huge indicator. Also allowing students to think about D grades not as being satisfied because they can graduate, but how do we bring that grade up so, again, we can increase our attractiveness for colleges and things like that. We also have an intervention teacher right now at the high school. And I'm sure Dr. DeLeon might be able to speak to this even more since she's supporting a little bit more closely this year. But I happen to know that that person met with every student who received an F grade after the first quarter to really kind of go through and explain to them how that impacts their transcripts, how that impacts their long-term career sort of within high school. So there's some really targeted, you know, I'd have to do like almost a full report to kind of go into it, but there's some really targeted strategic moves that the high school counselors are working on this year to try to address specifically sort of this DF phenomenon that we're seeing. And then really looking closely at which courses are they happening more frequently in, and what kinds of then strategic support do we need to provide students.

[15430] Nancy Thomas: I appreciate that. Thank you. I had a question. The SEAL Summer Bridge Program, this is, I love these photos. I love what you're doing here. and what the teachers are doing. So it's kind of a 10-day professional development in addition to a summer opportunity for students. So how many students attended and how was it funded?

[15456] Nicole Pierce-Davis: So this was funded as part of our summer programming. So ELOP, it may have had some Title III dollars that were left over from the year, things like that. But essentially, this was kind of our way to address that we really struggled to get the staffing. So we pushed as much staffing as possible to our credit recovery, because those are classes that students need to graduate. We use this to be an enrichment program. So we pulled them directly out of the enrichment program. So it was for students that were in the six-week, five-day-a-week program. nine hour day program. And they would be pulled out. So they'd be pulled out in approximately like 15 to 20 class size, a little bit smaller, right? But they would be pulled out of sort of the enrichment program to do this work with teachers.

[15498] Nancy Thomas: Oh, so they would think together. Now there's 10. 10, eight teachers, only eight teachers took it. Only eight teachers. And what was their incentive, or how many would you have liked to have had? If all of the teachers that needed it went, how many would you have, you know, how successful was it in terms of the professional development?

[15521] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Yeah, I think that we specifically tailored this towards our SEAL schools, so we really only had two school offerings. In the future, I would love to extend this out district-wide and see if other teachers are interested in learning some of these strategies. Even if they're not maybe getting the full background of the SEAL model, they could at least be sort of coming up with some of these strategies, because that's what we're starting to do. We're starting to sort of infuse that learning across the district. For instance, I'm working with Kennedy and Birch Grove Intermediate right now on some of the kind of shorter version SEAL training, SEAL light, if you will. I'm sure SEAL wouldn't appreciate that as much. But the idea is that we want to share that learning across the district. And so I would love to be able to open this up. Obviously, we need permission from SEAL to do that.

[15571] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Thank you very much. So next, we have staff report.

12.2 Staff Report: 2023 End of Session Bills & New Laws (Estimating)

[15582] Penny DeLeon: So I don't know what the will of the board is, but this is a really great presentation from Alameda County Office of Education. And it's very, very meaty and has about 40 new laws that affect us. And I'm not sure 930 at night would be a good time to start that. I don't know if the board would entertain to bring it back, so that we can have this be the only staff report, because it really has a lot to go through. There's a lot.

[15613] Nancy Thomas: OK. I agree with that. Could you say a little bit about the, I forget the number. 765? Yeah, the one that should help us in attracting teachers. Sure. Let's see what slide.

[15627] Penny DeLeon: There it is. So do you want to do this, or do you want to do this, Nicole, or Steve, or me?

[15635] Nicole Pierce-Davis: This one is probably more geared towards Steve. It's up to you what you want to do. This can also just be an informational for our community to be able to see what new laws are hitting.

[15643] Nancy Thomas: That's part of the reason I think we should cover it.

[15645] Nicole Pierce-Davis: And Neil, I'll be honest and say, I don't plan on going into great details for these. And if anyone's interested, all of the links are there. By all means, click those links and get more information for anyone that you're interested in. For SB 765, I'll let Steve take it. So this one just talks about a raise in the income cap. So basically it's it's a way for us to start to Gain more of our retired teachers back because now they get to work a little bit more instead of that cap at 50% we can go all the way to 70 and Plus it waves the 180 in that same one.

[15679] Penny DeLeon: No, it doesn't wait it. What do they have to do?

[15681] Steve Burrell: There's an exemption an exemption still in place that allows For us it's a it's a easy the easier exemption, but there's still a retirement age that needs to be met met to have the exemption. So again, it does increase the essentially the 50% to 70% is the state takes a median amount of the average retirements of salaries where people left off. And that's the maximum cap that a retiree can make this year. It's $55,000 plus a couple hundred dollars. So next year, Raising it for two years to 70% so it would be closer to you know whatever that equates to $70,000 or whatever it may be so we'll allow retirees to work more years But we will reach out to our retirees who are of age to see if they're again with the exemption and we can entice them so the the hundred 180 day

[15742] Nancy Thomas: Exemption, is that difficult to get? I thought that it was made easier.

[15746] Steve Burrell: There are some requirements that need to be met. You have to prove need, right? You have to prove need. They have to meet within an age eligibility for retirement. So if you were hired prior to 2013, you have to be at least 60 years old. If it's after 2013, you have to be 62. OK, thank you. Sure. Sorry, I was a little asleep there for just a moment.

[15775] Nancy Thomas: OK.

[15777] Aiden Hill: So I'd like to move that we bring the remainder of this topic back for a future session.

[15782] Penny DeLeon: I think by itself it might be good.

[15784] Nancy Thomas: It's quite a bit. I don't think we need to make a motion. We just need to ask you to do that. OK. Sure. Is that OK? Sure. OK. Great. Then we'll move on to consent agenda. We have 13.3, crow LLP auditors. 13.3.

13.3 CONTRACT: Crowe, LLP for Independent Auditing Services

[15796] Penny DeLeon: Oh, jeez. Thanks. I did it to you. No, I did it to you because I moved the whole agenda around today.

[15806] Nancy Thomas: Sorry. I'm messing up these agenda items this evening. I'll do better next time. OK. 13.3. So I'd like to. OK.

[15814] Aiden Hill: So 13.3 is a recommendation to the board. that we hire Crow as our new auditor going forward for the next I think that the term is three years and just wanted to give the board a quick overview of the process that we went through in selecting Crow. So we went through a very robust selection process and we sat down with the Audit Committee and the CBO and first we talked about see in our auditor and we we gathered a number of sample RFPs that came from a variety of different areas for audit services and then we reviewed those and put together our own version and this was an iterative process. We then sent out the RFP To four firms to our existing firm, which was Christie white as well as I'd Bailey Crow and also nigro and nigro and these had all come as highly recommended firms in the k-12 audit space and we we Did an initial cut where we evaluated they they submitted their proposals and we took a look and this was an early early October at all four proposals and then we did a high-level cut and that the basically the criteria that we were looking at so one two three four five so there were basically five criteria that we were using so one was methodology and around how you do the audit and that included things like for example are you going to be doing fully on-site fully off-site or a hybrid include included how you were going to approach the issue of independence, the schedule, the audit schedule that you were going to put together. And so that was one category. Second category was firm experience in K through 12. So we're looking at, as a company, how broadly do you serve the K through 12 space? The third criteria was the specific audit team. So we actually required in the proposal that each firm identifies specifically who they were going to put on the audit team. Boots on the ground here, so both the audit partner as well as the manager and the staff. And at least for the first year, it's hard to get commitments ongoing, but we got commitments at least for the first year from each of the firms. And so we evaluated the strength of the team itself. We then also looked at the cost And the good thing is that the state has some boundaries or guidelines that they require in terms of how auditors bid on work so that you can do an apples to apples comparison. But we got those submissions or those proposals in terms of cost. And then finally, quality. We looked at quality. And that was more of a subjective thing. And it was partly based on, you know, the the reference checks and also based on the we had Mr. Berg who's our financial consultant in and He's had experience as a former, both CBO and superintendent. And then we have other experience coming from different people within our committee. And so we had more of a subjective discussion around quality. So those were the criteria that we used. We then went from four down to three. we decided that we we wanted we had been with Christy white for a while we wanted to actually I think we've been with them about seven years which is a fairly long time we decided that we wanted to actually do a change and there's a lot of opinions in the in the accounting community around how frequently you should rotate your auditors at a minimum you need to rotate your audit team but sometimes the whole of rotation for the full firm, the whole firm. And so we boiled it down to I. Bailey, Crow, and Nigro and Nigro. In late October, we had, this is a couple weeks ago, we had them, each of them come in and do a 30-minute presentation with us over Zoom. And they presented their proposals and then they were available for us to ask questions. We talked with each of them and then in the end we went through and used the same decision making criteria or matrix to make the decision and it was a unanimous decision on the part of the Audit Committee to select Crow after a good discussion and then we had one of our members our public member Mr. Aaron Weisz who also is a former Well, he is a CPA. He's a former auditor. Now he works in corporate finance in Silicon Valley. We had him do the final reference checks, which checked out. So I'm here as the audit chairman recommending to the board that we move forward and engage Crow LLP to be our auditor both for this year and for the next few years for both general audit as well as for doing the audit for the bond.

[16167] Nancy Thomas: Comments or questions?

[16169] Carina Plancarte: I have a comment and then a question. So my comment is that I appreciate you sharing that they've committed to designate individuals to at least be a part of the reporting and the updates for the first year. And so my question now is, what is the plan going forward for the next few years? Is that something that over time we're going to discuss and talk about the plan of what that looks like or how are we going to tackle that on?

[16208] Aiden Hill: So the contract is for a set period of time and so we wouldn't be bringing another contract before the board, before that contract expires. But the audit chairman going forward would definitely provide updates on not only what's going on with the audit, but also with the relationship as well. But that was one of the factors actually that was important to us. And there's some subjective things. But as you look at a firm and look at, OK, how well can they partner with us? And a lot of that starts with the audit partner themselves. And Mr. Jensen, who is going to be our audit partner, he's been at Crow for many, many years. He's worked his way up. He started, I think, as just a staff CPA and then became an audit manager, and now he's a partner. And the impression is that he's pretty customer service focused. And so, you know, I think that we probably can have some influence in making sure that going forward that we have a consistent team. And what we have seen as we talked with some of the references and we looked at their team, it does seem that with some of the bigger, I shouldn't say bigger, it's just some of the clients that they have here in the Valley, that it's pretty much the same manager and the same staff that are working on these engagements on a regular basis. So did that answer your question? Okay, great.

[16300] Nancy Thomas: So without further discussion, thank you for your comprehensive discussion. I would entertain a motion. Can I make a motion? Yes, certainly.

[16310] Aiden Hill: So I'd like to make, I'm sorry, go ahead.

[16317] Joy Lee: I was just wondering why we're changing our auditor.

[16322] Aiden Hill: So one of the big reasons that you want to look at rotating At a minimum, your audit staff, but then also your audit firm, it's an accounting concept, and it's called independence. And so what that means is that when you hire an auditor, they're like a referee. So they're coming in, and they're supposed to be looking at your books independently, and they're expected to be making judgments and filing a report. In the course of them doing that work, they have to work very closely with staff to do that. But there's an inherent risk when you start working with people and you work with them on an ongoing basis, do you start to lose your objectivity? And so in that, in accounting terms, that's called independence. And so how basically all professional organizations deal with that, so whether it's in K through 12 or whether it's in corporate America, is you say, at a minimum, we need to rotate our audit teams. And it's usually like at least every three years. So that's why we have a contract specifically for three years. There's some people that argue that you should not only rotate your audit team, but you should also change your audit firm. There's some people that argue that, but there's other people that argue that you don't want to just totally change firms all the time because, you lose some continuity, right? And so maybe you change the team, but you don't change the firm. But what we felt as we had looked at the situation, so we had been using Christie White for a good seven or eight years. And so we kind of felt like that maybe this is a good time to actually basically change firms. And then another motivating factor was that Christie White is a smaller firm, and they're located down in San Diego. And they've been having challenges in providing significant on-site participation. So they've been doing a lot of the audit remotely. And I think it's partly because of staffing issues. The challenge, though, is that when you do stuff remotely, sometimes you miss things. And so one of the commitments that we had from all the firms is what percentage of the time that you're doing the audit is going to be on-site versus off-site. And we got greater commitments from the other firms, including Crout. So did that answer your question?

[16474] Aiden Hill: Thank you so much. OK, great.

[16476] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. OK, so we had a motion. Do I have a second? I second. Member Nguyen seconds it. Please vote. Ms. Lee? Yes. Yes. Ms. Nguyen? Yes. Ms. McCartney? Yes. And Mr. Hill?

[16494] Aiden Hill: Since a student member won't say it, I'll say it. Yay.

[16500] Phuong Nguyen: Okay. It's only when she hits the leave.

[16506] Nancy Thomas: And I'm a yes.

[16510] Joy Lee: Thank you very much.

[16519] Nancy Thomas: Next, we move on to the consent agenda. We earlier pulled item 15.4. Is there any desire to pull any other? items we have we're actually on 14 consent agenda personnel items we have the personnel oh someone's got to replace me tonight anyway okay consent agenda personnel items anyone want to pull any of those items yes I have I would like to pull 14.4 and 14.2 14.2 yes and 14.4 okay so Can we have a vote on 14.3?

14. CONSENT AGENDA: PERSONNEL ITEMS (Approved on Consent)

14.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote (Approved on Consent)

14.3 Interim Director C&I/Special Projects - School Employers Association of California (SEAC) Joint Powers Agreement and Consultant Contract for Educational Services (Approved on Consent)

[16564] Phuong Nguyen: I would like to motion to approve 14.3.

[16572] Nancy Thomas: I'll second. Please vote on 14.3. Member Nguyen? Yes. Member Pancarti? Yes. Member Hill?

[16582] Aiden Hill: Yes.

[16583] Nancy Thomas: And I'm a yes.

15.20 PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting

[16585] Aiden Hill: And President Thomas, just so that we don't run out of time, Could I make a motion right now that we extend our meeting until 11 o'clock?

[16594] Penny DeLeon: No, 10.30. No, I'm going to pull some other controversial items, so I don't know what.

[16603] Nancy Thomas: 11 o'clock. OK, that's a motion. Do I have a second?

[16608] Phuong Nguyen: I second.

[16611] Nancy Thomas: OK, it's been made and seconded to extend the meeting to 11 o'clock. Member Lee?

[16620] Joy Lee: Yay.

[16621] Kat Jones: Remember when? Another yay.

[16625] Nancy Thomas: Remember playing card game? Yay. Remember Hill?

[16631] Aiden Hill: Yay.

[16631] Nancy Thomas: And I'm a yay. OK, meeting is extended. So then 14.3? No, 14.2. Two and four, I think it's the same conversation.

14.2 Personnel Report

[16643] Phuong Nguyen: 14.2. Yeah. They're both the same question because and I apologize I wasn't able to get any questions into the superintendent earlier today. For Tracy Belkon I see that we have a promotion for interim director and then we also have a contract here for also for Marie McHenley Stark also for Interim Director of Fiscal Services, are they the same position?

[16680] Penny DeLeon: They're going to be doing sort of half-and-half co. Because one has real strength in one area and the other has strength and they're there to support each other and they're kind of going to be doing half-and-half. So really Ms. Stark is a support to Ms. Blanco. So it's a co-situation.

[16698] Phuong Nguyen: Okay, thank you for the clarification. With that, I would like to motion to approve 14.2 and 14.4.

[16704] Steve Burrell: I thought you were going to make a comment on the additional substitutes that we brought to the district this year, or this last board meeting. We have nine new substitute teachers.

[16718] Penny DeLeon: Could I make a quick comment on that? Since we have nine new teachers, if there's any way we can look and see if there are any of them that are qualified to go in and so we can put our TOSAs back? You know, at this point, it's been many weeks and now that we've got a bigger pool, is it possible that maybe, or if they're not qualified, could they replace somebody as a long-term sub who maybe can go over and cover at the places where our TOSAs are now that our pool's bigger?

[16753] Steve Burrell: We'll take a look at the pool and put out requests

[16758] Penny DeLeon: to see if any of them have the background to be able to do it. Thank you.

[16762] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Dr. DeLeon, Dr. Penelope DeLeon, Superintendent DeLeon, for making that comment because that was one of my requests later on this evening.

[16773] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Yes, thank you for that. Do we need to approve them individually? I think we should.

[16781] Phuong Nguyen: OK. I'd like to make a motion to approve 14.2. And a second?

[16789] Aiden Hill: I second.

[16789] Nancy Thomas: It's been made and seconded. Member Lee, it does not vote on personnel items. Member Nguyen? Yes. Member Plancarte? Yes. Member Hill?

[16801] Aiden Hill: Yes.

[16801] Nancy Thomas: Member Thomas is a yes. Thank you.

14.4 Interim Director of Fiscal Services - Professional Services Agreement with Mary McElhinney Stark, LLC

[16804] Phuong Nguyen: And I'd like to make a motion to approve 14.4.

[16807] Nancy Thomas: And is there a second? I'll second. OK. It's been made and seconded. Member Nguyen? Yes. Member Plancarte? Yes. Member Hill?

[16820] Aiden Hill: Yes.

[16821] Nancy Thomas: And I'm a yes. Thank you. Now we get to move on to Consent Agenda.

[16829] Penny DeLeon: So before we do it, can I pull something else? Sure. Yeah, I would like to pull Social Spice Media because really I don't think this is a priority. I just thought that I get a lot of requests from board members to fix the website and to fix like it's not user friendly, it's not this and that. I don't think it's one of our board priorities. So if we can pull that and hold on or see if we can, I'm fine, I don't know.

[16862] Phuong Nguyen: I do have a suggestion for you because Ashley went on to Social Spice webpage and one of the school sites they listed as using their services is actually running the same website as we are, from the same website. Same platform. Yes, platform. So I would suggest that maybe reaching out to our vendor, our current website vendor, and maybe getting additional training for staff and decentralizing updates with the office site staff, office assistants, and training them And it's a new skill set.

[16905] Nancy Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, and I would also like to suggest that one of the big issues has been the difficulty in updating a district-wide directory. I don't believe that's necessary. Most districts don't have a district-wide directory. And that's one less thing to maintain. All of our key staff are identified on the web as it is by department. And so I don't think that that's necessary to have every single employee listed.

[16939] Penny DeLeon: Sounds good. Thank you.

[16940] Penny DeLeon: So we're pulling that item? Yeah, we're pulling it because I just don't think it's a priority at this time. I'd just rather have some training and put that.

[16951] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah, because the recommendation is to build a new website, and we don't need that.

[16956] Nancy Thomas: And it's on WordPress, and I'm not a fan. So if there's no.

[16962] Aiden Hill: Since we're talking about it, too, just to put a bow on it. Because there were some concerns around the whole ADA thing. But I actually went out and did some research on that. And so according to, I don't remember it, some assembly bill. that you have to start having your website be ADA compliant. But that bill was passed in 2017. And part of that, and there's a certain standard that you have to meet. And then there's also, you have to put a certification out on your website. If you go and you look at our website, we have the certification page. And it actually is meeting the standard that's been identified. And if you go out to the same certification page for the state of California, and the standard that they're meeting, it's exactly the same. So we are in compliance.

[17013] Phuong Nguyen: We are in compliance. And it's actually the best one for AD.

[17016] Nancy Thomas: Perfect. Great. Glad to hear it. So then I would entertain a motion to approve item 15.2 and item 15.5 to 15.19.

15. CONSENT AGENDA: NON-PERSONNEL ITEMS (Approved on Consent)

15.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote (Approved on Consent)

15.2 Report: Monthly Purchase Order Report (Approved on Consent)

15.5 POLICY UPDATE: Administrative Regulation 1312.4 - Williams Uniform Complaint Procedures (Approved on Consent)

15.6 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 0410: Nondiscrimination In District Programs And Activities (Approved on Consent)

15.7 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 5145.3 - Nondiscrimination/Harassment (Approved on Consent)

15.8 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5145.12 - Search And Seizure (Approved on Consent)

15.9 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 6143 and Administrative Regulation 6143 - Courses Of Study (Approved on Consent)

15.10 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5136 and Administrative Regulation 5136 - Gangs (Approved on Consent)

15.11 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5131 - Conduct (Approved on Consent)

15.12 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5137 and Rescind Administrative Regulation 5137- Positive School Climate (Approved on Consent)

15.13 POLICY UPDATE: Update Board Policy 5141.33 and Rescind Administrative Regulation 5141.33- Head Lice (Approved on Consent)

15.14 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5141.31 and Administrative Regulation 5141.31 - Immunizations (Approved on Consent)

15.15 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5131.63 - Steroids (Approved on Consent)

15.16 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Coyote Hills Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Pigeon Point Education Program Group A (Approved on Consent)

15.17 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Coyote Hills Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Pigeon Point Education Program Group B (Approved on Consent)

15.18 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Kennedy Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Santa Cruz County Outdoor Science School (Approved on Consent)

15.19 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Schilling Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Semper Virens Science Camp (Approved on Consent)

[17039] Aiden Hill: I move.

[17043] Nancy Thomas: May I have a second? You have a second. Second. Member Lee? Please vote. Yes. Member Nguyen? Yes. Member Plancarte? Yes. Member Hill? Yes. Member Thomas is a yes.

[17066] Phuong Nguyen: But I do have a comment, though. the old policies weren't attached this time with the new ones?

[17079] Nancy Thomas: Say again, which?

[17081] Phuong Nguyen: Like on some of the board policies, some of the, like the ones that were changing, normally we would have like the old version, but I guess it's redlined through, so it's fine.

[17092] Penny DeLeon: It's redlined, yeah.

[17093] Nancy Thomas: No, after, if you look, after the redline, there is a current version of Ours and a current version. So we have the old one there. Okay. For all of them.

[17105] Carina Plancarte: Thank you.

16. STUDENT EXPULSION

16.1 Student Expulsion (Ed Code. § 48918) Case# e2324-01

[17107] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Okay. So next 16.1 student expulsion. We discussed this in closed session and we vote on it in open session. So I would like to have a motion regarding 16.1. I'll make a motion. that we accept. You have to read the whole thing.

[17137] Phuong Nguyen: No, you're going to practice. You can do it. You can do it. So just say, I'd like to make a motion to accept the recommendation.

[17149] Carina Plancarte: OK. I would like to make a motion to approve the stability 16.1, the stipulation agreement regarding the expulsion case number E2324-01. Perfect. I second.

[17172] Nancy Thomas: It's been made and seconded. Member Nguyen? Yes. Member Plank-Carthy? Yes. Member Hill?

[17181] Aiden Hill: Yes.

17. BOARD OF EDUCATION: COMMITTEE REPORTS, ANNOUNCEMENTS, REQUESTS, DEBRIEF AND DISCUSSION

17.1 Board of Education Committee Reports, Announcements, Requests, Debrief and Discussion

[17182] Nancy Thomas: And I'm a yes. So next, we move on to 17.1, Board of Education Committee Reports, Announcements, Requests, Debrief, and Discussion. Member Lee.

[17200] Joy Lee: Wait, did we vote on the non-person? Oh, we did? We just did. Oh, but you pulled 15.5. OK. I got lost a little bit there. I'm just giving announcements. I'm hoping, I haven't talked with my ASB yet, but I'm hoping that next week I'll set up a table in front of like our commons area and just have a table there during lunchtime to, just to like advertise the student board position. Oh, great. Oh, and also, If you haven't registered for AP exam, register before prices go up. Super expensive. Very. But it's going to be more expensive in college. So register for the ones you think you'll pass. So register for the things that you think will pass. And for those who are eligible for free lunch, you're also eligible for, what do you call it? waiver so it'll go down to 20 bucks it'll go down from 125 to 20 dollars for each exam and if you have any questions on that I know it's kind of confusing go to a counselor or look for Vice Principal Mr. Murphy during lunchtime or brunch time or go to the office you can also find me because I did it yeah okay I'd like to say

[17303] Nancy Thomas: say that on another subject, the League of Women Voters is trying to get it. Do they have a date now for the high school?

[17312] Penny DeLeon: I have asked the high school to reach out to them. I had asked earlier when Superintendent Thurman first advertised voter registration week, but I didn't have the contact. So luckily now, we have the contact. So I've asked Principals Bernard and Irby, one of them, to reach out and get a date selected so that they can set up. They are absolutely wonderful.

[17334] Nancy Thomas: A big item for you is to publicize that and get as many juniors and seniors, or is it juniors and seniors, I believe? Yeah, because they can register. They can pre-register.

[17348] Penny DeLeon: They can pre-register and then automatically on their 18th birthday, they become registered. I think also we should consider being a voting place and having student pollsters, poll workers. So that's that I'll bring back. So that's a new program from this. I think it was instituted the last couple of years, but from the C.D.E. to have us have student poll workers.

[17373] Nancy Thomas: Great. Thank you. Yeah. OK.

[17376] Phuong Nguyen: Member Nguyen. No committee reports on from SELPA or the bond parcel tax committee. We haven't had a meeting yet. And then we don't we we had a city of Newark and USD liaison committee. It is going to be moving back here to the district. We'll be having meetings here in January, starting January, I believe. And then and we have to send out the agenda and take the minutes and everything like that. So just that note. And I just wanted to also echo superintendents from her report. We did do a lot of events this last October, and it was a lot of fun. And the other highlight from the pancake breakfast was Alameda County, this is their first time ever with a ladder truck hoisted up 100 feet and dropped six pumpkins. to do a pumpkin drop.

[17445] Penny DeLeon: Did you get pictures and videos?

[17446] Phuong Nguyen: I have a video. I will send it to you. It was so fun. I think a lot of the students next year, they're thinking about trying to figure out what the splat ratio is.

[17461] Penny DeLeon: Physics. Physics.

[17463] Phuong Nguyen: But it was great. Alameda County, just want to really appreciate them and their generosity. and support of our middle school fundraiser with the PTSA there. I know that all of the staff and the parents and students, we had a huge turnout to help. So thank you so much for making that a fun, successful event. And Dr. DeLeon and Member Thomas, We weren't dressed for tree planting.

[17496] Penny DeLeon: We thought it was like that.

[17497] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah, we thought it was like inaugural, like ceremonial. But after they talked to your hands, they did. They talked us into getting our hands dirty and we were out there digging holes and planting trees. They actually stayed longer than I did because I went back to the to the trunk or treat and and the pump and the pancake breakfast event. But and also just wanted to really thank Mayor Hannon for showing up to the pancake breakfast. and Council Member Mike Bucci also for the connection to Alameda County and for their support of our students. So I just wanted to appreciate them. And then lastly, last October, we didn't have time to appreciate and I forgot to appreciate our promotores and our partnership with our promotores because last month was promotores month. So shout out to our promotores and thank you so much for all that you do in our community. And then for requests, I just wanted to reiterate our commitment based on the LCAP, and that was to expand the SEAL program in grades four, fourth, and fifth at Coyote Hills and Schilling, and start the sixth grade implementation at Newark Middle School, and also to complete training for the fourth and fifth grade teachers at Coyote Hills and Schilling in the 23-24 school year, and I'm very happy with Dr. DeLeon, when she mentioned earlier regarding the nine new substitute hires, to make that a priority to look over and see if we can reassign our TOSAs back to what they're intended to do and what we had committed to in the LCAP for our students. And so I appreciate that. Thank you.

[17615] Joy Lee: The one I missed earlier, our Viola Blythe food can drive, it ends in Wednesday, November 15th. So it's not that far. But it's November. It's Thanksgiving spirit, the spirit of giving. I feel like we should, I encourage everyone to donate some cans.

[17643] Carina Plancarte: Remember playing cards? I don't have any board committee updates, but I did want to give a shout out to our Special Olympics. All of the different schools that participated in Special Olympics, I was there and I saw how much effort goes into preparing our students beforehand because all of them did so good. And it really just goes to show the star power of teachers that we have. And not only just the teachers, but also our behavioral specialists, our parent aides, our classroom aides, all of those individuals who really give it their all to make sure that our special ed kids really have the same opportunities as just the rest of our student body. And I did want to give a special shout out to Miss Ellie over at Birch Grove Primary, because I did not know this, but she rallied her class to participate. And this was the first time in many years that Birch Grove Primary participated in the Special Olympics. And so that made me super, super happy and very proud of her. And again, all of the support she has. And just again, to reiterate, she did such a wonderful job managing her students and everybody else who was on hand to support. And of course, this is not to say that our other sites didn't put in the same amount of effort, because they did. And it's wonderful to see that happen.

[17749] Nancy Thomas: Member Hill.

[17753] Aiden Hill: So since we have until 11 o'clock, I have a few things on my mind.

[17759] Penny DeLeon: You are a funny man.

[17764] Aiden Hill: I'm waiting for your reaction. So just quickly regarding the audit committee. I just want to thank the audit committee members and attendees because we really did go through a pretty big process and we were literally meeting almost every other week to get it done. But I think it was a high quality process and really appreciated Mr. Berg's involvement and also at the end, towards the end, our interim CBO's involvement. And so just want to thank the audit committee for all their hard work in getting that done. And other than that, happy, happy November and happy Thanksgiving.

[17818] Nancy Thomas: So happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Yes. Pardon? Oh yeah. December 5th. Yeah, so that's, it's a, yeah, it's a big. That's our organizational meeting too. That's right.

[17842] Joy Lee: But we're going to meet again on the 29th. Oh wait, not the 29th. For you guys, don't you guys have your conference?

[17850] Penny DeLeon: Oh, we're going to be at. We're going to see you at CSBA, my friend.

[17853] Nancy Thomas: We're going to be at CSBA. So we're all signed up for that.

[17859] Phuong Nguyen: Are you signing off on her school absence

[17862] Penny DeLeon: I am. All right. She's going to be learning. That's right.

[17865] Nancy Thomas: She's going to be learning on behalf of the district. You're going to be there on Wednesday, right? Yeah, I'll be there on Wednesday for a training as well. So maybe we can talk about carpooling or something. OK. And I guess I don't have too much other than to echo some of the comments that member Nguyen made about you and I and she. I was going to the events. It's so great to see the spirit in our schools and the parents and staff and students that come out and are so engaged. It was really heartwarming this month to go to several of these events, so I appreciate that. I was thinking about going to an ROP meeting Thursday, but it's been canceled. There will not be an ROP meeting on Thursday. The next one will be in December. And other than that, I don't think I have anything to report. I just would like to put a, I don't know if I mentioned this last time, but I think we really need, in view of one of the comments this evening, we really need to look into the vacillatron issue.

[17939] Penny DeLeon: Yeah, make sure that that's not posted. Just make sure that there's nothing posted saying it's closed when it's not closed. It's open for sure.

[17946] Nancy Thomas: But it's been several years, and I don't think we've ever either even had a report on whether Faciliton is effective. So that would be good.

[17956] Phuong Nguyen: To reserve facilities. To reserve facilities? We can rent out our facilities. I do have one more request I forgot. It's just a staff report on where the status is on the Wi-Fi installment at the high school.

[17979] Nancy Thomas: Is it the speed of the Internet's not that good yet? I don't.

[17989] Penny DeLeon: I think they're going to have a report on it in December.

[17991] Phuong Nguyen: OK, great. Thank you.

[17992] Penny DeLeon: Yes. Oh, no. Where'd she go? I was going to thank her in my comments. OK.

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

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

[18006] Nancy Thomas: Huh? All right. So yeah. So that is in the process of getting fixed, I believe. So to get a status report would be good. OK. Do you have anything to add to your superintendent?

[18024] Penny DeLeon: I just want to thank a few people. So a few people. So I want to thank Jodi Croce, who is up in Oregon with her mom. And she's been ill. And she still managed to make sure that we had all the stuff left on her desk for the audit committee. The budget task force really had everything ready and has been supporting us and reminding us of things and all of those things from afar. And so we just want to thank her and send our thoughts and prayers and love to her and her family during this really hard time. I want to also thank Miss Euster, who dropped, who stepped out for a second just when I was thanking her, who is filling in for us tonight. And also think about Adrian, who was going to be doing the meeting tonight and is ill, very ill. want to put our thoughts and prayers out to her. Katie, I saw you. I saw Katie walk behind, but many thanks to her for filling in at the last minute. And then, of course, to our staff. These have been really difficult times. There's a lot going on when you're... Hey, thank you. So yay. So here's what I'm gonna say about Katie. Is one person that since I got in this district has said anytime you need anything I'm there to help I will help no matter what and So when Adrian fell ill today, I called her and she said I'll get dressed I'll be there in five minutes and took over and did a great job. So thank you so very much for that And then just in general, I just want to give a huge shout out to our staff in general. Because when you go through these tough times of shortages and not having enough people and everybody needing to pitch in, everybody has stepped up to the plate. And so I want to thank our staff for doing that for us during these difficult, this is a difficult time. Everybody's taking extra work when we're missing people. Hopefully we can hire soon. So thank you to everybody for stepping up and pitching in. Thank you. And that's it. Those are my comments for tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

19. ADJOURNMENT

19.1 Adjournment

[18169] Nancy Thomas: OK. Could I have a motion for adjournment?

[18175] Carina Plancarte: I'll make a motion.

[18176] Nancy Thomas: Ms. Lee? I will second the motion. Ms. Nguyen makes a motion, and Ms. Lee seconds it, right?

[18182] Joy Lee: No, no.

[18183] Nancy Thomas: Ms. Lancardi, OK. Did you get that? OK. All in favor? Raise your hand. Aye. Aye. Yay. Meeting adjourned.

3. CLOSED SESSION (Closed Session)

3.1 Public Comment on Closed Session Items (Closed Session)

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

3.3 CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL ­ EXISTING LITIGATION (Gov. Code, § 54956.9, subd. (d)(1)): Case #23CV034303 Byrd vs. NUSD (Closed Session)

3.4 STUDENT EXPULSION (Ed. Code, § 48918) (Closed Session)

3.5 PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT (Gov. Code, § 54957, subd. (b)(1) Title: Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/CBO (Closed Session)

15.3 Contract Service agreement with Social Spice Media (Removed by Board)

15.4 CONTRACT: Elevate K-12 (Removed by Board)

[1159] 1. CALL TO ORDER

[1159] 1.1 Meeting Practices and Information

[1159] 1.2 Roll Call Nancy, Aiden, Penny and Carina Present

[1159] 1.3 Public Comment on Board Study Session Items

[1208] 1.4 Recess to Study Session

[1387] 2. STUDY SESSION

[1387] 2.1 Procurement and Conflict of Interest

[1626] 2.2 Recess to Closed Session (Estimating)

[9067] 4. REPORT OF CLOSED SESSION ACTIONS

[9067] 4.1 Report of Closed Session Actions

[9067] 5. RECONVENE TO OPEN SESSION

[9067] 5.1 Pledge of Allegiance

[9146] 6. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

[9146] 6.1 Approval of the Agenda

[9313] 7. RECOGNITIONS AND CELEBRATIONS

[9313] 7.1 School Spotlight: Schilling Elementary

[10840] 10. PUBLIC COMMENT

[10840] 10.1 Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items

[11450] 10.2 Public Comment on Agenda Items

[12131] 13. NEW BUSINESS

[12131] 13.1 Approve Job Description for Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/CBO

[12586] 13.2 EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT: Review, Discussion and Approval of the Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/Chief Business Official Employment Agreement

[13095] 8. STUDENT BOARD MEMBER REPORT

[13095] 8.1 Student Board Member Report - Joy Lee

[13443] 9. EMPLOYEE ORGANIZATIONS

[13443] 9.1 Employee Organizations

[13696] 11. SUPERINTENDENT REPORT

[13696] 11.1 Superintendent Report

[14097] 12. STAFF REPORT

[14097] 12.1 Staff Report: 2023 Summer School

[15582] 12.2 Staff Report: 2023 End of Session Bills & New Laws (Estimating)

[15796] 13.3 CONTRACT: Crowe, LLP for Independent Auditing Services

[16564] 14. CONSENT AGENDA: PERSONNEL ITEMS (Approved on Consent)

[16564] 14.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote (Approved on Consent)

[16564] 14.3 Interim Director C&I/Special Projects - School Employers Association of California (SEAC) Joint Powers Agreement and Consultant Contract for Educational Services (Approved on Consent)

[16585] 15.20 PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting

[16643] 14.2 Personnel Report

[16804] 14.4 Interim Director of Fiscal Services - Professional Services Agreement with Mary McElhinney Stark, LLC

[17039] 15. CONSENT AGENDA: NON-PERSONNEL ITEMS (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.2 Report: Monthly Purchase Order Report (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.5 POLICY UPDATE: Administrative Regulation 1312.4 - Williams Uniform Complaint Procedures (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.6 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 0410: Nondiscrimination In District Programs And Activities (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.7 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 5145.3 - Nondiscrimination/Harassment (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.8 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5145.12 - Search And Seizure (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.9 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 6143 and Administrative Regulation 6143 - Courses Of Study (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.10 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5136 and Administrative Regulation 5136 - Gangs (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.11 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5131 - Conduct (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.12 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5137 and Rescind Administrative Regulation 5137- Positive School Climate (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.13 POLICY UPDATE: Update Board Policy 5141.33 and Rescind Administrative Regulation 5141.33- Head Lice (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.14 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5141.31 and Administrative Regulation 5141.31 - Immunizations (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.15 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5131.63 - Steroids (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.16 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Coyote Hills Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Pigeon Point Education Program Group A (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.17 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Coyote Hills Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Pigeon Point Education Program Group B (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.18 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Kennedy Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Santa Cruz County Outdoor Science School (Approved on Consent)

[17039] 15.19 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Schilling Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Semper Virens Science Camp (Approved on Consent)

[17107] 16. STUDENT EXPULSION

[17107] 16.1 Student Expulsion (Ed Code. § 48918) Case# e2324-01

[17182] 17. BOARD OF EDUCATION: COMMITTEE REPORTS, ANNOUNCEMENTS, REQUESTS, DEBRIEF AND DISCUSSION

[17182] 17.1 Board of Education Committee Reports, Announcements, Requests, Debrief and Discussion

[18006] 18. SUPERINTENDENT'S CONCLUDING COMMENTS, UPDATES FOR THE BOARD AND FUTURE AGENDA REQUESTS

[18006] 18.1 Superintendent's Concluding Comments, Updates, and Future Agenda Items

[18169] 19. ADJOURNMENT

[18169] 19.1 Adjournment

[100003] 3. CLOSED SESSION (Closed Session)

[100003] 3.1 Public Comment on Closed Session Items (Closed Session)

[100003] 3.2 CONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS (Gov. Code, § 54957.6, subd. (a): Employee Organizations - NTA and CSEA (Closed Session)

[100003] 3.3 CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL ­ EXISTING LITIGATION (Gov. Code, § 54956.9, subd. (d)(1)): Case #23CV034303 Byrd vs. NUSD (Closed Session)

[100003] 3.4 STUDENT EXPULSION (Ed. Code, § 48918) (Closed Session)

[100003] 3.5 PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT (Gov. Code, § 54957, subd. (b)(1) Title: Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/CBO (Closed Session)

[100003] 15.3 Contract Service agreement with Social Spice Media (Removed by Board)

[100003] 15.4 CONTRACT: Elevate K-12 (Removed by Board)

1. CALL TO ORDER

1.1 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.

1.2 Roll Call Nancy, Aiden, Penny and Carina Present

  Type                          Procedural

TRUSTEES:

President Nancy Thomas
Vice President/Clerk Aiden Hill
Member Katherine Jones
Member Phuong Nguyen
Member Carina V. Plancarte

STUDENT BOARD MEMBER:

Member Diego Torres

1.3 Public Comment on Board Study Session Items

  Type                          Procedural

PURPOSE:

To provide a space for the community to make a comment on the Board Study Session.

BACKGROUND:

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

If a constituent wishes to address the Board on any agenda item:
       In-Person Comment: please submit a completed speaker card to the Board's Executive Assistant before the start of the
       meeting, or prior to the calling of the section for public comment.
       Audio-Only Virtual Comment: please fill out a virtual speaker card via email at PUBLICCOMMENT@newarkunified.org by 1:00
       PM the day of the meeting. Please label your email as " AUDIO-ONLY PUBLIC COMMENT" and include your name as it will appear
       on Zoom, your phone number, email address, and the agenda item number related to your comment.

Please see detailed instructions for public comment on the link: http://go.boarddocs.com/ca/nusd/Board.nsf/goto?
open&id=C4Q2D4019F40

1.4 Recess to Study Session

  Type                          Procedural

PURPOSE:

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

2. STUDY SESSION

2.1 Procurement and Conflict of Interest

  Type                         Discussion,Information

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this study session is to provide the Newark Unified School District Board of Education with an in-depth understanding of
the current policies and procedures related to procurement and conflict of interest within the district. Additionally, this session aims to
ensure that all board members are fully aware of their responsibilities and the legal implications of their actions in relation to these
matters.

BACKGROUND:

The Board of Education has recognized the necessity of revisiting and updating its policies to ensure they are in line with
current laws, regulations, and best practices. Board Bylaw 9270 - Conflict of Interest has not been revised since 2018, and
there have been developments in laws governing conflict of interest and procurement since then.

Board Bylaw 9270 - Conflict of Interest:
Bylaw updated to reflect NEW LAW (SB 1439, 2022) which makes applicable to elected district officers the prohibition against accepting,
soliciting, or directing a contribution of more than $250 from any party or participant to a proceeding involving a license, permit, or
other entitlement for use, including a contract, or from that person's agent, while the proceeding is pending before the Board and for 12
months following the date a final decision is rendered in the proceeding, and from participating in making, or in any way attempting to
use the official position to influence the Board's decision when a district officer received a contribution of more than $250 from a party or
participant in the preceding 12 months, as specified. Bylaw also updated to clarify, for a Board member who manages public
investments, that when an item on the consent calendar is one in which the Board member has a financial interest, the Board member is
required to either make a motion to remove the item from the consent calendar or abstain from voting on the consent calendar.

  File Attachments
  CSBA Conflict of Interest Fact Sheet.pdf (107 KB)
  Existing NUSD Bylaw 9270 Conflict Of Interest.pdf (137 KB)
  Existing NUSD Exhibit (PDF) 9270-E PDF(1) Conflict Of Interest.pdf (167 KB)
  Govt Code 87100_87103_Conflict of Interest.pdf (702 KB)
  Recommended CSBA Bylaw 9270 - Conflict of Interest.pdf (391 KB)
  Recommended CSBA Exhibit 9270 - Conflict of Interest.pdf (288 KB)
  NUSD Sample Procurement Conflict of Interest Form 073123.pdf (88 KB)
  Sample Resolution_Conflict of Interest Code_1123.pdf (161 KB)

2.2 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.

3. CLOSED SESSION

3.1 Public Comment on Closed Session Items -

  Type                         Procedural


PURPOSE:

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

If a constituent wishes to address the Board on any agenda item:
       In-Person Comment: please submit a completed speaker card to the Board's Executive Assistant before the start of the
       meeting, or prior to the calling of the section for public comment.
       Audio-Only Virtual Comment: please fill out a virtual speaker card via email at PUBLICCOMMENT@newarkunified.org by 1:00
       PM the day of the meeting. Please label your email as " AUDIO-ONLY PUBLIC COMMENT" and include your name as it will appear
       on Zoom, your phone number, email address, and the agenda item number related to your comment.

Please see detailed instructions for public comment on the link: http://go.boarddocs.com/ca/nusd/Board.nsf/goto?
open&id=C4Q2D4019F40

3.2 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.

3.3 CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL � EXISTING LITIGATION (Gov. Code, � 54956.9, subd. (d)(1)): Case #23CV034303 Byrd vs. NUSD

  Type                         Action,Information,Procedural

PURPOSE:

To discuss the following case(s): Case #23CV034303 Byrd vs. NUSD

3.4 STUDENT EXPULSION (Ed. Code, � 48918)

  Type                         Discussion,Information,Procedural

For the Board to review the Stipulation Expulsion Agreement.

BACKGROUND:

A Stipulation Expulsion Agreement meeting was held on October 23, 2023. A Stipulation Expulsion Meeting was conducted in accordance
with Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 5144.1 and, if applicable, 5144.2 for students with disabilities.


The Board will discuss this in closed session and then take action in open session (agenda item 15.1).    The administration asks for
approval of the recommendation for Case# e2324-01 (Ed Code. � 48918).

3.5 PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT (Gov. Code, � 54957, subd. (b)(1) Title: Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/CBO

  Type                         Action,Discussion,Procedural

  Absolute Date                Nov 07, 2023

  File Attachments
  JD_Deputy Supt. Business Services CBO-2023.docx (86 KB)

4. REPORT OF CLOSED SESSION ACTIONS

4.1 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

5.1 Pledge of Allegiance

  Type                         Procedural

PURPOSE:

The Governance Team will recite the Pledge of Allegiance

6. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

6.1 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.

7. RECOGNITIONS AND CELEBRATIONS

7.1 School Spotlight: Schilling Elementary

  Type                         Information

PURPOSE:

The School Spotlight gives the Board of Education and the public an opportunity to hear highlights, achievements, and
initiatives at each school directly from the principals.

BACKGROUND:

The presentation and information will be provided by Schilling Elementary Principal, Elba Herrera.

8. STUDENT BOARD MEMBER REPORT

8.1 Student Board Member Report - Joy Lee

  Type                         Information

PURPOSE:

The Student Report gives the Board of Education and the public an opportunity to hear the highlights, achievements, and initiatives from
the viewpoint of the student board member.

BACKGROUND:

The information will be provided by the Student Board Member, Joy Lee.

9. EMPLOYEE ORGANIZATIONS

9.1 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

10. PUBLIC COMMENT

10.1 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

10.2 Public Comment on 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

11. SUPERINTENDENT REPORT

11.1 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

12. STAFF REPORT

12.1 Staff Report: 2023 Summer School

  Type                         Information

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this staff report is to report out on 2023 summer school.

BACKGROUND:

At the regularly scheduled board meeting held on October 17, 2023, Member Thomas requested a report out of 2023
summer school programming. This staff report serves as a summary of 2023 programming.

  File Attachments
  2023 Summary of Summer Programs - Board Presentation (2).pdf (5,205 KB)

12.2 Staff Report: 2023 End of Session Bills & New Laws

  Type                         Information

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this staff report is to update the Board of Education and community on new end of session bills and laws
likely to impact local education agencies.

BACKGROUND:

This year is the first year of a two-year session. Governor Newsom's deadline to sign or veto legislation was on October 14,
2023. The Governor signed 891 bills into law, out of the 1,047 that were sent to his desk by the legislature. In addition, 950
bills stalled in legislature; these can be revived in January 2024. This staff report provides an overview of new end of session
bills and laws that passed and are likely to impact local education agencies.

  File Attachments
  Staff Report_ End of Session Bills & New Laws 2023.pdf (3,156 KB)

13. NEW BUSINESS

13.1 Approve Job Description for Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/CBO

  Type                         Action

  Absolute Date                Nov 07, 2023

  Recommended                  The recommendation is for the Board of Education to approve the job description for Deputy
  Action                       Superintendent of Business Services/CBO

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this item is for the Board to review, discuss, and approve the job description for the Deputy Superintendent
of Business Services/CBO.

BACKGROUND:

As our District navigates through an increasingly complex financial outlook, the need to strengthen our fiscal management
and strategic planning has become paramount. The establishment of a Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/Chief
Business Officer (CBO) position is a response to this pressing need, aiming to ensure the highest standards of financial
oversight and operational efficiency. This role will provide leadership in budgeting, finance, facilities, and other business-
related services, crucial for the support of educational programs and district goals. The addition of this key executive position
will not only enhance our capacity for fiscal responsibility but also bolster our commitment to transparency and accountability
to our stakeholders.

  File Attachments
  JD_Deputy Supt. Business Services CBO-2023.pdf (277 KB)

13.2 EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT: Review, Discussion and Approval of the Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/Chief Business Official Employment Agreement

  Type                         Action

  Fiscal Impact                Yes

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the employment agreement for
  Action                       the Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/CBO.

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this item is for the Board to review, discuss, and approve the employment agreement for the Deputy
Superintendent of Business Services/CBO.

BACKGROUND:

The Chief Business Official resigned effective October 12, 2023. The district requires a qualified replacement for this
important position. Should the Board of Education approve the employment of the Superintendent's recommendation for
Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/CBO in Closed Session, along with the a the terms of the agreement, the
employment decision and a summary of the terms of the agreement will be read upon return to Open Session. Copies of the
agreement will be placed in the Board Room for public review. The agreement will then be formally approved under this
placeholder in Open Session.

13.3 CONTRACT: Crowe, LLP for Independent Auditing Services

  Type                         Action

  Fiscal Impact                Yes

  Budgeted                     Yes

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education award the contract for Independent
  Action                       Auditing Services to Crowe, LLP.

PURPOSE:

The purpose is to award an Independent Auditing Services contract to Crowe, LLP.

BACKGROUND:

On August 31, 2023, staff initiated an RFP (Request for Proposal) process for independent auditing services starting with the
2023-2024 fiscal year.

The RFP (RFP #01-2023-24) was posted on the district's website on August 31, 2023. Four (4) RFP documents were mailed
out and the district received four (4) proposals which were due September 29, 2023 at 2:00 PM. Proposals were received
from:
      Eide Bailly, LLP
      Christy White, Inc
      Nigro & Nigro, PC
      Crowe, LLP

Proposals were reviewed and potential firms were interviewed.

  File Attachments
  Crowe LLP Engagement Terms_110323.pdf (280 KB)
  Crowe LLP Engagement Letter)110323.pdf (875 KB)

14. CONSENT AGENDA: PERSONNEL ITEMS

14.1 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.

14.2 Personnel Report

  Type                         Action

  Absolute Date                Nov 07, 2023

  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 11-07-2023.pdf (354 KB)

14.3 Interim Director C&I/Special Projects - School Employers Association of California (SEAC) Joint Powers Agreement and Consultant Contract for Educational Services

  Type                         Action

  Absolute Date                Nov 07, 2023

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the School Employers Association
  Action                       of California (SEAC) Joint Powers Agreement and Consultant Contract for Educational
                               Services.

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to approve the Joint Powers Agreement and Contract for Services with School Employers
Association of California (SEAC) to provide Educational Services and support, including an Interim Director of Special Projects.

BACKGROUND:

The cost includes the Joint Powers Agency (JPA) membership fee and an estimated cost for contract work, that includes hourly pay and
expenses.

The Director of Special Projects resigned effective October 12, 2023.   The district is in need of Education Services support.

Denise Coleman has worked in education for 30+ years. She worked in the Moreland School District for 24 years and held the following
positions: Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources, Director of Auxiliary
Programs in the Business Services Department (starting up fee-based preschool and child care), Principal and Classroom Teacher.

Her final role was that of Superintendent of Schools in Union School District, a position she held for six years. She holds a Master's
Degree in Administration and a Bachelor of Arts from San Jose State University.


School Employers Association of California (SEAC) is a JPA comprised of school and community college districts. SEAC
provides advanced training led by experienced superintendents and consultants, delivers specialized services, and advocates
on behalf of its members with the California Legislature, the Governor, and state agencies. Because it is a joint powers
agency, SEAC can deliver all these services for a low annual membership and very competitive fees for services and
training.

As a member of the SEAC Joint Powers Agency, our district will receive a variety of free services and the ability to attend
trainings or contract with SEAC consultants at a reduced price. SEAC members receive:

      Weekly electronic updates on legal decisions, legislation, and key issues
      Timely information updates on breaking news
      Review of our districts collective bargaining agreement or a professional development activity

  File Attachments
  Newark School District Contract Curriculum Services 2023-24.pdf (154 KB)

14.4 Interim Director of Fiscal Services - Professional Services Agreement with Mary McElhinney Stark, LLC

  Type                         Action

  Absolute Date                Nov 07, 2023

  Fiscal Impact                Yes

  Dollar Amount                $50,000.00

  Budgeted                     Yes

  Budget Source                General Fund

  Recommended                  The recommendation is for the Board to approve the professional services agreement with
  Action                       Mary McElhinney Stark, LLC.

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board to approve the professional services agreement with Mary McElhinney Stark, LLC, to provide
school finance expertise to Business Services.

BACKGROUND:

The Director of Fiscal Services retired September 30, 2023.    The district is in need of professional services to support the FY
2023-24 First Interim Report, the independent audit for the period ending June 30, 2023, and to assist in transition with the
newly selected Director of Fiscal Services, as requested.

Mary T. Stark has over 25 years of experience in the field of California K-12 Public School Finance moving up through the ranks
while she completed her Master's degree through USC. She served in increasingly responsible senior management and Cabinet
level positions at a County Office and several school districts. Since 2010, she has provided specialized business services to a
county office, a charter school and numerous school districts in the Bay Area, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. Most
recently, working with Paso Robles Joint Unified and San Carlos School Districts. Mary ensures currency in the field as a School
Services of California (SSC) client and attends training throughout the year. She is a California Association of School Business
Officials (CASBO) member and maintains Chief Business Official certification.

For further information, Mary invites you to view her profile on LinkedIn at:
www.linkedin.com/in/mary-t-stark-37a6b670


  File Attachments
  Agreement with Mary McElhinney Stark, LLC.pdf (241 KB)

15. CONSENT AGENDA: NON-PERSONNEL ITEMS

15.1 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.

15.2 Report: Monthly Purchase Order Report

  Type                         Action

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education receive the Monthly Purchase Order
  Action                       Report as presented.

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this item is to present a monthly report on Purchase Order transactions per Board Policy 3300, Expenditures and
Purchases.

BACKGROUND:
Based on the discussion at the Board's Study Session on January 6, 2022, staff is providing a monthly report on Purchase Order
transactions per Board Policy 3300, Expenditures and Purchases. The policy states that "The Board shall review all transactions entered
into by the Superintendent or designee on behalf of the Board every 60 days."

This month's report includes 196 PO's dated 9/23/23 through 10/31/23 for a total of $789,970.63.

  File Attachments
  Monthly Purchase Order Report 11-07-2023.pdf (103 KB)

15.3 Contract Service agreement with Social Spice Media

  Type                         Action

  Dollar Amount                $63,440.00

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the contract with Contract
  Action                       Service agreement with Social Spice Media

PURPOSE:

The purpose of the contract with Social Spice Media is to keep our district and school's websites up to date and keep them
running efficiently.

BACKGROUND:

The Board of Education is desirous in increasing parent and community engagement and communication, as stated in Board
Goal 4. To accomplish this the Board has requested that the district website be ADA compliant, updated with current
information, using industry standards and user friendly.

� ADA Compliance Remediation: 12 websites (District office, 9 campuses, Ind. Study, Adult Ed.) Installation of the ADA
compliance widget and back-end work to bring existing sites into compliance (must also select a monthly ADA option on the
following page).
� Privacy Statement: 12 Websites (District office, 9 campuses, Ind. Study, Adult Ed.)
Website Design and Development for District Office ADA Compliant Design and Website Development. Includes ADA
Compliance Package.
Monthly backups of your website with off-site cloud storage
� Platform stability and security notifications
� Plug-in update notifications
� Spam alerts
� 24/7 Monitoring for website downtime

  File Attachments
  Social Spice Media Agreement_110323.pdf (7,586 KB)

15.4 CONTRACT: Elevate K-12

  Type                         Action

  Preferred Date               Nov 07, 2023

  Dollar Amount                $300,000.00

  Budgeted                     Yes

  Budget Source                General Fund

  Recommended                  The recommendation is for the Board of Education to approve the contract with Elevate K-12.
  Action

PURPOSE:

The purpose is to approve the contract with Elevate K12 to provide high-quality virtual teaching for NMHS students.


BACKGROUND:

Like all schools in California, the district has faced a teacher shortage for grades 9-12.    Elevate K-12 provides a LIVE teacher
streamed into the classroom, where all students are in the same classroom and collaborating together.         The district provides
a Classified Classrooom Aide to provide in-person support for the virtual instruction.

  File Attachments
  Elevate K-12_Proposal_Newark USD CA 103123 (1).pdf (549 KB)

15.5 POLICY UPDATE: Administrative Regulation 1312.4 - Williams Uniform Complaint Procedures

  Type                         Action,Procedural

  Preferred Date               Nov 07, 2023

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the updated Administrative
  Action                       Regulation 1312.4 - Williams Uniform Complaint Procedures.

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to review the recommended changes and approve the updated Administrative
Regulation 1312.4 - Williams Uniform Complaint Procedures.

BACKGROUND:

This is the first reading of the attached policy regulation. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board
Association. California School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These
notations will be removed from the final, Board approved regulation. The administration has reviewed the recommended
regulation and updates for accuracy and made revisions to reflect district practice.      If any revisions are recommended by the
Board, the regulation will be brought back to the Board of Education for a second reading.

Regulation updated to reflect NEW LAW (AB 1078, 2023) which (1) requires the California Department of Education (CDE) to
develop, by July 1, 2025, guidance and public educational materials to ensure that all Californians can access information
about educational laws and policies that safeguard the right to an accurate and inclusive curriculum, (2) provides that
complaints related to instructional materials alleging that more than one student does not have sufficient textbooks or
instructional materials as the result of an act by the Governing Board, or the Board's failure to remedy the deficiency, may be
filed with the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) directly, and the SPI may directly intervene without waiting for an
investigation, and, (3) requires CDE, upon a finding that a district has not provided sufficient textbooks or instructional
materials, to take all remedial actions required by law, including purchasing textbooks and instructional materials and
assessing a financial penalty against the district's local control funding formula. Regulation also updated to reflect NEW LAW
(SB 114, 2023) which requires that the Williams uniform complaint procedure be used to address a complaint related to
teacher misassignment that claims that a teacher who lacks credentials or training to teach English learners is assigned to
teach a class with one or more English learners in the class, (formerly with more than 20 percent English learners in the
class), and NEW LAW (SB 760, 2023) which authorizes districts to temporarily close a restroom for a documented student
safety concern, an immediate threat to student safety, or to repair the facility.

  File Attachments
  Regulation 1312.4 Williams Uniform Complaint Procedure.pdf (338 KB)

15.6 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 0410: Nondiscrimination In District Programs And Activities

  Type                         Action

  Fiscal Impact                No

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education discuss and approve the updated Board
  Action                       Policy 0410: Nondiscrimination In District Programs And Activities

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to review the recommended changes and approve the updated board policy.

BACKGROUND:

This is the FIRST reading of the attached policy. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association.
California School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will
be removed from the final, Board approved policies. The updated board policy and administrative regulation has been
reviewed by the Board Liaison Committee for recommended updates for accuracy.            Revisions reflect these engagements and
district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the Board, the policy will be brought back to the Board of Education
for a SECOND reading.

Board Policy 0410: Nondiscrimination In District Programs And Activities
The NUSD board policy has not been revised since 2022. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy provided by
the California School Board Association.

CSBA Language:

Policy updated to reflect NEW LAW (AB 1078, 2023) which (1) requires that the district's policy prohibiting discrimination, harassment,
intimidation, and bullying include a statement that the policy applies to all acts of the Governing Board and Superintendent in enacting
policies and procedures that govern the district, (2) clarifies when it is unlawful discrimination for the Board to refuse to approve the use
or prohibit the use of any textbook, instructional material, supplemental instructional material, or other curriculum for classroom
instruction, or any book or resource in a school library, (3) requires the California Department of Education to develop, by July 1, 2025,
guidance and public educational materials to ensure that all Californians can access information about educational laws and policies that
safeguard the right to an accurate and inclusive curriculum, and (4) provides that complaints alleging discrimination related to the use
or prohibited use of any textbook, instructional material, supplemental instructional material, or other curriculum for classroom
instruction, or any book or resource in a school library may be brought under the district's uniform complaint procedures or may be
directly filed with the Superintendent of Public Instruction, as specified. Policy also updated to reference NEW U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
EDUCATION OFFICE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS GUIDANCE documents which provide that (1) a district may not separate students based on
race, but may include group discussions or activities that focus on race as part of the curriculum, courses, or programs so long as access
or participation is not permitted or limited based on race, (2) a school-sponsored program with emphasis on race, such as a student
club, that is open to all students, typically would not violate Title VI solely because of its race-related theme, and (3) a district's
responsibility not to discriminate against students applies to any of its programs or activities, whether directly or through contractual or
other arrangements. Additionally, policy updated to expand the list of characteristics for which discrimination is prohibited in order to
more closely align with law; and, to reflect NEW LAW (SB 523, 2022) which includes reproductive health decisionmaking as a
characteristic for which employees, job applicants, unpaid interns and volunteers are protected against unlawful discrimination and
harassment.

  File Attachments
  BP 0410.docx (20 KB)

15.7 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 5145.3 - Nondiscrimination/Harassment

  Type                         Action

  Fiscal Impact                No

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education discuss and approve the updated Board
  Action                       Policy 5145.3 and Administrative Regulation 5145.3 - Nondiscrimination/Harassment

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to review the recommended changes and approve the updated Board Policy and
Administration Regulation.

BACKGROUND:

This is the FIRST reading of the attached policy. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association. California School
Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will be removed from the final,
Board approved policies. The updated board policy and administrative regulation has been reviewed by the Board Liaison Committee for
recommended updates for accuracy.      Revisions reflect these engagements and district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the
Board, the policy will be brought back to the Board of Education for a SECOND reading.

Board Policy 5145.3 - Nondiscrimination/Harassment
The NUSD board policy has not been revised since 2018. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy provided by
the California School Board Association.

Administrative Regulation 5145.3 - Nondiscrimination/Harassment
The NUSD board policy has not been revised since 2018. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy provided by
the California School Board Association.

CSBA Language:

Policy updated to reflect NEW LAW (AB 1078, 2023) which (1) requires that the district's policy prohibiting discrimination, harassment,
intimidation, and bullying include a statement that the policy applies to all acts of the Governing Board and the Superintendent in
enacting policies and procedures that govern the district, and (2) clarifies when it is unlawful discrimination for the Board to refuse to
approve the use or prohibit the use of any textbook, instructional material, supplemental instructional material, or other curriculum for
classroom instruction, or any book or resource in a school library. Policy also updated to provide that all allegations of unlawful
discrimination in district programs and activities shall be brought, investigated, and resolved in accordance with the district's uniform
complaint procedures. Additionally, policy updated to reflect NEW U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION OFFICE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS
GUIDANCE documents which (1) state that a district may not separate students based on race, but may include group discussions or
activities that focus on race as part of the curriculum, courses, or programs so long as access or participation is not permitted or limited
based on race, (2) provide that a school-sponsored program with emphasis on race, such as a student club, that is open to all students,
typically would not violate Title VI solely because of its race-related theme, and (3) address discrimination in the use of discipline based
on disability, race, and gender expression.

  File Attachments
  Board Policy 5145.3 Nondiscrimination Harassment.pdf (238 KB)
  Administrative Regulation 5145.3 Nondiscrimination Harassment.pdf (340 KB)

15.8 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5145.12 - Search And Seizure

  Type                         Action

  Fiscal Impact                No

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education discuss and approve the updated Board
  Action                       Policy 5145.12 Search And Seizure

PURPOSE:


The purpose is for the Board of Education to review the recommended changes and approve the updated board policy and administrative
regulation.

BACKGROUND:

Written policy prohibiting discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and bullying based on specified characteristics;
designation of person(s), position(s), or unit(s) responsible for ensuring compliance with nondiscrimination and investigation
of complaints.    Policy and procedures consistent with state's uniform complaint procedures; person(s) responsible to ensure
compliance and receive and investigate complaints; and confidentiality.

Board Policy 5145.12 - Search And Seizure
The NUSD board policy has not been revised since 2012. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy provided by
the California School Board Association.

CSBA Language:

Policy updated to reflect court decision upholding a school policy that called for limited searches without individualized suspicion if
students left campus and returned in the middle of the day.    Policy also updated to reflect law which places restrictions on searches of
electronic devices such as cellular phones, court decision regarding searches of lockers without individualized suspicion, and court
decision upholding policy of random weapons screening with a handheld metal detector.

  File Attachments
  Board Policy 5145.12 Search And Seizure.pdf (126 KB)

15.9 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 6143 and Administrative Regulation 6143 - Courses Of Study

  Type                         Action

  Fiscal Impact                No

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education discuss and approve the updated Board
  Action                       Policy 6143 and Administrative Regulation 6143 - Courses Of Study

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to review the recommended changes and approve the updated board policy and administrative
regulation.

BACKGROUND:

This is the FIRST reading of the attached policy. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association.
California School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will
be removed from the final, Board approved policies. The updated board policy and administrative regulation has been
reviewed by the Board Liaison Committee for recommended updates for accuracy.            Revisions reflect these engagements and
district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the Board, the policy will be brought back to the Board of Education
for a SECOND reading.

Board Policy 6143 - Courses Of Study
The NUSD board policy has not been revised since 2023. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy provided by
the California School Board Association.

Administrative Regulation 6143 - Courses Of Study
The NUSD administrative regulation has not been revised since 2023. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy
provided by the California School Board Association.

CSBA Language:


Board Policy 6143 - Courses of Study Policy updated to expand the list of characteristics for which the district may not, on the basis of
the student's actual or perceived characteristic, provide any course separately or require or refuse participation by any student, to more
closely align with law.

Administrative Regulation 6143 - Courses of Study Regulation updated to reflect NEW LAW (AB 1078, 2023) which (1) includes people of
all genders (formerly "men and women"), Latino Americans (formerly "Mexican Americans"), LGBTQ+ Americans (formerly "lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender Americans"), and members of other ethnic, cultural, religious, and socioeconomic status groups (formerly
"ethnic and cultural") to the groups for which instruction in social studies is required to include a study of the role and contributions of.
Regulation also updated to reflect the requirement for districts that offer a health education course to middle or high school students to
include in such course mental health instruction.

  File Attachments
  Administrative Regulation 6143 - Courses Of Study.pdf (197 KB)
  Board Policy 6143 - Courses Of Study.pdf (106 KB)

15.10 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5136 and Administrative Regulation 5136 - Gangs

  Type                          Action

  Fiscal Impact                 No

  Budgeted                      No

  Recommended                   The recommendation is that the Board of Education discuss and approve the updated Board
  Action                        Policy 5136 and Administrative Regulation 5136 - Gangs

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to review the recommended changes and approve the updated board policy and administrative
regulation.

BACKGROUND:

This is the first reading of the attached policy and regulation. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association.
California School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will be
removed from the final, Board approved policy and regulation. The administration has reviewed the recommended updates for accuracy
and made revisions to reflect district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the Board, the policy and/or regulation will be
brought back to the Board of Education for a second reading.

Board Policy 5136 - Gangs
The NUSD board policy has not been revised since 2015. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy provided by
the California School Board Association.

Administrative Regulation 5136 - Gangs
The NUSD administrative regulation has not been revised since 2015. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy
provided by the California School Board Association.

CSBA Language:

Policy and regulation updated to expand material related to supports and services for students identified as gang members and reflect
best practices for gang prevention, intervention, and suppression described in NEW RESOURCE from the National Gang Center and in
publication from the Los Angeles Police Department.

  File Attachments
  Administrative Regulation 5136 - Gangs.pdf (107 KB)
  Board Policy 5136 - Gangs.pdf (100 KB)

15.11 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5131 - Conduct

  Type                         Action

  Fiscal Impact                No

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education discuss and approve the updated Board
  Action                       Policy 5131 - Conduct

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to review the recommended changes and approve the updated board policy.

BACKGROUND:

This is the first reading of the attached policy and regulation. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association.
California School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will be
removed from the final, Board approved policy and regulation. The administration has reviewed the recommended updates for accuracy
and made revisions to reflect district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the Board, the policy and/or regulation will be
brought back to the Board of Education for a second reading.

Board Policy 5131 - Conduct
The NUSD board policy has not been revised since 2012. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy provided by
the California School Board Association.

CSBA Language:

Policy updated to reflect NEW LAW (AB 272) which authorizes boards to limit or prohibit, except under specified circumstances, student
use of smartphones while at school or while under the supervision and control of a district employee.    Details regarding student use of
mobile communication devices moved to BP 5131.8 - Mobile Communication Devices.

  File Attachments
  Board Policy 5131 Conduct.pdf (124 KB)

15.12 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5137 and Rescind Administrative Regulation 5137- Positive School Climate

  Type                         Action

  Fiscal Impact                No

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education discuss and approve the updated Board
  Action                       Policy 5137 and Rescind Administrative Regulation 5137- Positive School Climate

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to review the recommended changes and approve the updated board policy and rescind the
administrative regulation.


BACKGROUND:

This is the first reading of the attached regulation. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association. California
School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will be removed from the
final, Board approved regulation. The administration has reviewed the recommended updates for accuracy and made revisions to reflect
district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the Board, the regulation will be brought back to the Board of Education for a
second reading.

Board Policy 5137- Positive School Climate
The NUSD board policy has not been revised since 2003. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy provided by
the California School Board Association.

Administrative Regulation 5137 - Positive School Climate
The NUSD administrative regulation has not been revised since 2003. This administrative regulation is specific to NUSD and has not
been revised since 2003. In order to reflect the practices and recommendations of CSBA, the recommendation is to rescind this policy to
reflect the recommended CSBA manual.

  File Attachments
  Administrative Regulation 5137 Positive School Climate.pdf (63 KB)
  Board Policy 5137 Positive School Climate.pdf (104 KB)

15.13 POLICY UPDATE: Update Board Policy 5141.33 and Rescind Administrative Regulation 5141.33- Head Lice

  Type                            Action

  Fiscal Impact                   No

  Recommended                     The recommendation is that the Board of Education discuss and approve the updated Board
  Action                          Policy 5141.33 and rescind Administrative Regulation 5141.33- Head Lice

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to review the recommended changes and approve the updated board policy and rescind the
administrative regulation.

BACKGROUND:

This is the first reading of the attached regulation. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association. California
School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will be removed from
the final, Board approved regulation. The administration has reviewed the recommended updates for accuracy and made revisions to
reflect district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the Board, the regulation will be brought back to the Board of Education
for a second reading.

Board Policy 5141.33- Head Lice
The NUSD board policy has not been revised since 1996. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy provided
by the California School Board Association.

Administrative Regulation 5141.33- Head Lice
CSBA Language advised to rescind regulation "Head Lice" � Moved into Board Policy.       Regulation no longer needed.    Editorial changes
made in policy to streamline district responsibilities related to exclusion of students with head lice.


  File Attachments
  Administrative Regulation 5141.33 Head Lice.pdf (46 KB)
  Board Policy 5141.33 Head Lice.pdf (96 KB)

15.14 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5141.31 and Administrative Regulation 5141.31 - Immunizations

  Type                          Action

  Fiscal Impact                 No

  Recommended                   The recommendation is that the Board of Education discuss and approve the updated Board
  Action                        Policy 5141.31 and Administrative Regulation 5141.31 - Immunizations

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to review the recommended changes and approve the updated board policy and administrative
regulation.

BACKGROUND:

This is the first reading of the attached regulation. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association. California
School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will be removed from the
final, Board approved regulation. The administration has reviewed the recommended updates for accuracy and made revisions to reflect
district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the Board, the regulation will be brought back to the Board of Education for a
second reading.

Board Policy 5141.31 - Immunizations
The NUSD board policy has not been revised since 1999. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy provided by
the California School Board Association.

Administrative Regulation 5141.31 - Immunizations
The NUSD board policy has not been revised since 1999. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy provided by
the California School Board Association.

CSBA Language:
Policy updated to reflect NEW LAWS (SB 276, 2019 and SB 714, 2019) which specify conditions under which a medical exemption is
effective. Policy also deletes outdated date regarding immunization requirements for enrollment or advancement to grade 7.

  File Attachments
  Administrative Regulation 5141.31 Immunizations.pdf (146 KB)
  Board Policy 5141.31 Immunizations.pdf (92 KB)

15.15 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 5131.63 - Steroids

  Type                          Action

  Fiscal Impact                 No


  Recommended                   The recommendation is that the Board of Education discuss and approve the updated Board
  Action                        Policy 5131.63 - Steroids

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to review the recommended changes and approve the updated board policy and administrative
regulation.

BACKGROUND:

This is the first reading of the attached regulation. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association. California
School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will be removed from the
final, Board approved regulation. The administration has reviewed the recommended updates for accuracy and made revisions to reflect
district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the Board, the regulation will be brought back to the Board of Education for a
second reading.

Board Policy 5131.63 - Steroids
The NUSD board policy has not been revised since 1996. The language has been replaced to match the sample board policy provided by
the California School Board Association.

  File Attachments
  Board Policy 5131.63 Steroids.pdf (95 KB)

15.16 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Coyote Hills Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Pigeon Point Education Program Group A

  Type                          Action

  Preferred Date                Nov 07, 2023

  Absolute Date                 Nov 07, 2023

  Dollar Amount                 $11,859.00

  Budgeted                      Yes

  Budget Source                 ASB Funds, Coyote Hills SPSA, LCAP

  Recommended                   The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the overnight trip for the Coyote
  Action                        Hills Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Pigeon Point Education Program.

PURPOSE:

The Coyote Hills Elementary community requests permission to take fifth grade students on a curricular, overnight field trip. Students
will travel to Pigeon Point Education Program, Pescadero, CA for an outdoor science education camp. Students will study science content
standards for ecology, resources, life science, etc. while participating in team building activities with classmates and growing as
individuals.

       School: Coyote Hills Elementary
       Dates: (Group A) December 11, 2023 - December 13, 2023
       Location: Pigeon Point Education Program, Pescadero, CA

Chaperones for Science Camp:

       The ratio of adults to students on school-sponsored trips shall be based on the following formula:


                K-3 1 adult for every 5-8 students
                4-9 1 adult for every 10 students
                10-12 1 adult for every 10 students where strict supervision is required (tours, theaters, etc.)
       Overnight trip supervision must be gender appropriate. However, in the event that the supervisors, who stay overnight in
       proximity to students, are of a gender other than that group of campers, adequate planning, and preparation of campers and the
       physical arrangements of the camp shall be made to ensure optimal safety and privacy of students (AR 6153).

No student will be denied due to a lack of funds.

BACKGROUND:

According to Board Policy, all trips in excess of 100 miles, non-curricular trips, and overnight trips require Board approval. The site
principal and fifth grade teachers request permission to take students on an overnight curricular trip to attend an outdoor
education/science camp program that is articulated with grade level curriculum. The programs are taught by credentialed staff members
and camp staff and are viewed by the sites as a valuable part of the students' educational experience.

15.17 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Coyote Hills Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Pigeon Point Education Program Group B

  Type                         Action

  Preferred Date               Nov 07, 2023

  Absolute Date                Nov 07, 2023

  Dollar Amount                $11,859.00

  Budgeted                     Yes

  Budget Source                ASB Funds, Coyote Hills SPSA, Ed Services

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the overnight trip for the Coyote
  Action                       Hills Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Pigeon Point Education Program.

PURPOSE:

The Coyote Hills Elementary community requests permission to take fifth grade students on a curricular, overnight field trip. Students
will travel to Pigeon Point Education Program, Pescadero, CA for an outdoor science education camp. Students will study science content
standards for ecology, resources, life science, etc. while participating in team building activities with classmates and growing as
individuals.

       School: Coyote Hills Elementary
       Dates: (Group B) December 13, 2023 - December 15, 2023
       Location: Pigeon Point Education Program, Pescadero, CA

Chaperones for Science Camp:

       The ratio of adults to students on school-sponsored trips shall be based on the following formula:

                K-3 1 adult for every 5-8 students
                4-9 1 adult for every 10 students
                10-12 1 adult for every 10 students where strict supervision is required (tours, theaters, etc.)

       Overnight trip supervision must be gender appropriate. However, in the event that the supervisors, who stay overnight in
       proximity to students, are of a gender other than that group of campers, adequate planning, and preparation of campers and the
       physical arrangements of the camp shall be made to ensure optimal safety and privacy of students (AR 6153).

No student will be denied due to a lack of funds.

BACKGROUND:

According to Board Policy, all trips in excess of 100 miles, non-curricular trips, and overnight trips require Board approval. The site
principal and fifth grade teachers request permission to take students on an overnight curricular trip to attend an outdoor
education/science camp program that is articulated with grade level curriculum. The programs are taught by credentialed staff members
and camp staff and are viewed by the sites as a valuable part of the students' educational experience.

15.18 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Kennedy Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Santa Cruz County Outdoor Science School

  Type                         Action

  Preferred Date               Nov 07, 2023

  Absolute Date                Nov 07, 2023

  Fiscal Impact                Yes

  Dollar Amount                $32,130.00

  Budgeted                     Yes

  Budget Source                Family Donations & Ed Services

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the overnight trip for the
  Action                       Kennedy Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Santa Cruz County Outdoor Science School.

PURPOSE:

The Kennedy Elementary community requests permission to take fifth grade students on a curricular, overnight field trip. Students will
travel to Santa Cruz County Outdoor Science School, Santa Cruz, CA for an outdoor science education camp. Students will study science
content standards for ecology, resources, life science, etc. while participating in team building activities with classmates and growing as
individuals.

       School: Kennedy Elementary
       Dates: December 18, 2023 - December 21, 2023
       Location: Santa Cruz County Outdoor Science School, Santa Cruz, CA

Chaperones for Science Camp:

       The ratio of adults to students on school-sponsored trips shall be based on the following formula:

                K-3 1 adult for every 5-8 students
                4-9 1 adult for every 10 students
                10-12 1 adult for every 10 students where strict supervision is required (tours, theaters, etc.)

       Overnight trip supervision must be gender appropriate. However, in the event that the supervisors, who stay overnight in
       proximity to students, are of a gender other than that group of campers, adequate planning, and preparation of campers and the
       physical arrangements of the camp shall be made to ensure optimal safety and privacy of students (AR 6153).

No student will be denied due to a lack of funds.

BACKGROUND:

   According to Board Policy, all trips in excess of 100 miles, non-curricular trips, and overnight trips require Board approval. The site
   principal and fifth grade teachers request permission to take students on an overnight curricular trip to attend an outdoor
   education/science camp program that is articulated with grade level curriculum. The programs are taught by credentialed staff
   members and camp staff and are viewed by the sites as a valuable part of the students' educational experience.

15.19 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Schilling Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Semper Virens Science Camp.

  Type                         Action


  Preferred Date               Nov 07, 2023

  Absolute Date                Nov 07, 2023

  Fiscal Impact                Yes

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the overnight trip for the
  Action                       Schilling Elementary fifth grade class to travel to Semper Virens Science Camp.

PURPOSE:

The Schilling Elementary community requests permission to take fifth grade students on a curricular, overnight field trip. Students will
travel to Semper Virens Science Camp, Scotts Valley, CA for an outdoor science education camp. Students will study science content
standards for ecology, resources, life science, etc. while participating in team building activities with classmates and growing as
individuals.

       School: Schilling Elementary
       Dates: December 5, 2023 - December 8, 2023
       Location: Semper Virens Science Camp, Scotts Valley, CA

Chaperones for Science Camp:

       The ratio of adults to students on school-sponsored trips shall be based on the following formula:

                K-3 1 adult for every 5-8 students
                4-9 1 adult for every 10 students
                10-12 1 adult for every 10 students where strict supervision is required (tours, theaters, etc.)

       Overnight trip supervision must be gender appropriate. However, in the event that the supervisors, who stay overnight in
       proximity to students, are of a gender other than that group of campers, adequate planning, and preparation of campers and the
       physical arrangements of the camp shall be made to ensure optimal safety and privacy of students (AR 6153).

No student will be denied due to a lack of funds.

BACKGROUND:

According to Board Policy, all trips in excess of 100 miles, non-curricular trips, and overnight trips require Board approval. The site
principal and fifth grade teachers request permission to take students on an overnight curricular trip to attend an outdoor
education/science camp program that is articulated with grade level curriculum. The programs are taught by credentialed staff members
and camp staff and are viewed by the sites as a valuable part of the students' educational experience.

15.20 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.

16. STUDENT EXPULSION

16.1 Student Expulsion (Ed Code. � 48918) Case# e2324-01

  Type                         Action

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the stipulation agreement
  Action                       regarding the expulsion case number e2324-01.

PURPOSE:

For the Board to take action on expulsion case e2324-01.

BACKGROUND:

A Stipulation Expulsion Agreement meeting was held on October 23, 2023. A Stipulation Expulsion Meeting was conducted in
accordance with Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 5144.1 and, if applicable, 5144.2 for students with
disabilities. The administration asks for approval of this agreement for Case# e2324-01. (Ed Code. � 48918).

17. BOARD OF EDUCATION: COMMITTEE REPORTS, ANNOUNCEMENTS, REQUESTS, DEBRIEF AND DISCUSSION

17.1 Board of Education Committee Reports, Announcements, Requests, Debrief and Discussion

                               AND DISCUSSION

  Type                         Action, Discussion, Information

PURPOSE:

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

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

REQUESTS: 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.

DEBRIEF AND DISCUSSION: The Trustees may debrief and discuss items.

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 12/15/2022                                                          Representative              Alternate

  Mission Valley Regional Occupational Center/Program (ROC/P)                       1. Nancy Thomas             1. Carina V. Plancarte
  Executive Board

  Regional Policy Board of Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA)                1. Katherine Jones          1. Phuong Nguyen

  Newark Teacher Induction Advisory Council (Formally EBIC)                         1. Aiden Hill               1. Carina V. Plancarte

  Audit Committee                                                                   1. Aiden Hill2. Katherine Jones1. Phuong Nguyen

  Bond/Parcel Tax Committee                                                         1. Phuong Nguyen2. Carina V. Plancarte1. Aiden Hill

                                                                                    1. Phuong Nguyen
  City of Newark � NUSD Liaison Committee                                           2. Nancy Thomas             1. Katherine Jones

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.

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

18.1 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.

19. ADJOURNMENT

19.1 Adjournment

  Type                         Action

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

PURPOSE:

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

This action will conclude the meeting.

No minutes available.