Special Meeting

Introduction

• Special Board Meeting held on January 11, 2024, in Newark Unified School District (NUSD).
• Key themes included fiscal sustainability, equity initiatives, facilities needs, and community transparency.

Agenda Items

Closed Session Actions

• Description:
  • Addressed litigation settlement ($300,000 for Byrd v. NUSD) and expulsion hearing postponement.
• Decisions made:
  • Approved settlement 5-0.
  • Authorized 30-day continuance for expulsion matter E2324-06.

First Interim Budget Report (2023-24)

• Description:
  • Structural deficit of $6.1 million; declining enrollment impacts Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) revenues.
  • Multi-year projections show deficit spending (11.7% in 2024-25, 17.7% in 2025-26).
• Key points:
  • Revenue adjustments: $449K reduction due to audit corrections.
  • Expenditure cuts: Proposed 16 certificated staff FTE reductions, IT/custodial restructuring.
  • Reserves: $11M committed fund balance reallocated for deferred maintenance, strategic planning, and cybersecurity.
• Decisions made:
  • Approved qualified certification; directed staff to explore budget reductions (e.g., March 15 layoff notices).

Empathic Instruction Program (TNTP Contract)

• Description:
  • $200K state anti-bias grant for teacher training to reduce suspension disparities.
• Key points:
  • 30-minute asynchronous modules focus on student-adult relationships.
  • Aligns with district equity goals and PBIS frameworks.
• Decisions made:
  • Approved 4-1 (President Hill opposed, citing need for root-cause analysis).

Public Comments

• Key themes:
  • Scheduling transparency: Criticized last-minute meeting changes and calendar accessibility.
  • Website updates: Requested clearer board meeting notices and restored Google Calendars.

Follow-Up and Commitments

• Budget adjustments: Plan for third interim report if needed; explore staffing studies (FCMAT/School Services).
• Facilities: Prioritize deferred maintenance; consider bond measure for aging infrastructure.
• Dashboard development: Safety/wellness dashboard (Hanover) to track suspensions, absenteeism, and climate data.
• Governance: Schedule board self-evaluation and superintendent mid-year review.

Conclusion

• Next steps:
  • Address fiscal challenges through staffing/operational reviews.
  • Finalize safety dashboard and wellness center plans.
• Upcoming topics:
  • Stadium project update, governance handbook review, and bond/parcel tax feasibility discussion.

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Target Audience Notes:

• Parents/Guardians: Budget cuts may impact staffing; empathy program aims to improve school climate.
• Staff: March 15 layoff notices possible; PD on cooperative learning continues.
• Community: Transparency efforts (website/calendar) underway; facilities needs highlighted.

1.1 Meeting Practices and Information

[134] Aiden Hill: the order. 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 conditions listed on the agenda item. 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 publiccomments at newarkunified.org. or a written comment by submitting a speaker card via email at publiccomment at Newarkunified.org, or with live in-person comments by submitting a speaker card with the executive assistant. So Jackie, I don't know your last name.

[202] Penny DeLeon: I'm sorry? Katie.

[205] Aiden Hill: I'm sorry, Katie. Katie, I don't know your last name. Eugster. Eugster. So Miss Eugster. Are you related to Belinda Eugster?

[212] Katie Eugster: Yeah, that's my sister-in-law.

[215] Aiden Hill: OK, we've got to talk. She was my mentor teacher at Fremont High School. OK. Yeah, wow, small world. OK. So Miss Eugster, can we do roll call, please?

1.2 Roll Call

[236] Joy Lee: Joy Lee. Present. Nancy Thomas

[239] Katie Eugster: Here.

[248] Carina Plancarte: Corina, here. That's OK.

[253] Kat Jones: Katherine Jones is here. Here.

[261] Tracey Vackar: I am here.

1.3 Public Comment on Closed Session Items

[264] Aiden Hill: OK, great. So Superintendent DeLeon, do we have agenda item 1.3, public comment on closed session items? Do we have any public comments?

[275] Penny DeLeon: We have not received any through our public comment website or email inbox.

1.4 Recess to Closed Session Agenda item 2.1 Agenda item 2.2

[280] Aiden Hill: OK, great. Nor is anyone there, nor do we have any that we've received. OK, great. So can I get, do I need a motion to move to go to recess? All right, so we're going to recess to closed session 1.4, and we will return at 7 PM. Thank you. So during closed session, we're going to be covering agenda item 2.1, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, case number 23CV034303, Byrd versus NUSD, and agenda item 2.2, request for expulsion hearing postponement. And without further ado, we're going to recess to closed session.

3.1 Report of Closed Session Actions

4.1 Pledge of Allegiance (Estimating)

[3806] Aiden Hill: So Agenda Item 3, Report of Closed Session Actions. There are two things to report. So first, in closed session, the Board of Education voted 5-0 to approve a $300,000 settlement with the plaintiff in Case 23-CV-03-4303, Byrd v. NUSD. Member Nguyen made the motion. Member Plancarte seconded. Newark Unified will pay $75,000 of the $300,000 settlement. The second item to report is regarding a student request and pursuant to Education Code Section 48918, the board hereby authorizes a second continuance of the hearing date and expulsion matter E2324-06 for no more than 30 calendar days. Member Jones moved, Member Plancarte seconded, and the vote was 5-0. So, can we all stand to do the Pledge of Allegiance? Okay, repeat after me. 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. OK. So agenda item five, approval of the agenda. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda?

5.1 Approval of the Agenda

[3908] Nancy Thomas: I move that we approve the agenda. I'll second. I don't see that item on the agenda.

[3922] Aiden Hill: Is that item on the agenda, the student expulsion? I'm sorry, so can we retract that?

[3930] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, I'll restate the motion. I move that we approve the agenda with the removal of 8.1 because it is no longer necessary. It was reported on your report out of closed session. Correct.

[3947] Aiden Hill: Can we get a second? I'll second. Member Thomas moves, Member Plancarte seconds. Can we, Ms. Eugster, can we get a roll call vote? I'm sorry, do a vote. Can we start the voting process? Oh, I'm sorry. I apologize. So Miss Lee, how do you vote?

[3994] Joy Lee: Yes. Great. Also on the agenda for 5.1, it says seconded by Joy Lee, but I didn't second.

[4002] Katie Eugster: I changed it.

[4004] Joy Lee: OK, thank you.

[4005] Kat Jones: Perfect. And does that not need to reflect that we took out 8.1, that we removed 8.1 in the vote box? Because it just said approval of the agenda.

[4018] Aiden Hill: You have to add in that we removed 8.1. It's all right.

[4020] Kat Jones: We're all here to just help each other.

6.2 Employee Organizations

[4039] Aiden Hill: OK. And Ms. Eugster, what was the final count? Thank you. OK, moving on to item number six, employee organizations. Do we have anybody coming to speak from employee organizations? They're not here this evening. OK, great. Moving on. So item seven, public comment. We first got public comment on non-agenda items. And Ms. Carrillo, would you like to come forward and speak?

7.1 Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items

[4089] Ms. Carrillo: Are we all good to start here?

[4097] Aiden Hill: Please.

[4098] Ms. Carrillo: Good evening, everyone.

[4101] Oh. And I can't find the timer.

[4107] Kat Jones: OK. That's fine. OK. Are we good? Go ahead.

[4113] Ms. Carrillo: I'm here to address the ongoing scheduling issues because yet again, the board meeting was moved from this Tuesday, January 9th to this evening, Thursday, January 11th. NUSD families were not notified via ParentSquare or email as previously requested. And it is coincidentally the same day as the LCAP meeting. These meetings have been scheduled since the beginning of the school year and are on the district calendar. Board members, you have a responsibility to check the calendar for overlapping meetings and propose another time or day if there is a conflicting events. Now, I do understand that it's not a direct time conflict such the meeting is since over. However, I think it's really unfair and unrealistic to expect parents to attend multiple meetings in one evening considering they have familial obligations. This lack of basic scheduling awareness is hindering the NUSD community from attending and participating in these board meetings. Another concern is this board meeting is not on the district calendar or listed in the website's upcoming events sections. Additionally, all Google calendars have been removed from the website, so NUSD community members cannot access them. If you are attempting to rebuild community trust, This lack of transparency is not helping your cause. In the last few board meetings I've attended, I've heard a lot of talk, but what we need is action and transparency. The NUSD community is watching you closely, and you will be held accountable. Thank you.

7.2 Public Comment on Agenda Items

[4215] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Ms. Correa. And Ms. Schuchster, are there any additional online comments?

[4226] Aiden Hill: OK. OK. Moving on to agenda item 7.2, public comments on agenda items. Do we have any public comments on agenda items? No, we don't. OK, great, thank you. OK, moving on, we have taken eight out of the agenda. Moving on to agenda item 9, new business. 9.1, 23-24, first interim budget report, superintendent.

9.1 2023-24 First Interim Budget Report

[4262] Penny DeLeon: Thank you.

[4266] Nicole Pierce-Davis: And before I call on that report, I just do want to say that if you could leave me some clarification, Ms. Carrillo, that would be great because I'm looking at the website and the dates are on there, so I'm just wondering if you could show me where it's not showing when we leave. Before you leave, if you could write it down. That would be great. Thank you.

[4286] Penny DeLeon: At this time, I am calling on our Deputy Superintendent of Business Services, Tracey Vackar, to give her first interim report.

[4297] Tracey Vackar: Great, thank you so much. Well, I'm really excited about being able to introduce the first interim to you this evening. Online with us this evening, we have two of our consultants who have been working with the district. One is an accountant. Her name is Rosanna Lozano, and she has been assisting me with the first interim. And the other one is Mr. Michael Berg. Michael has been a consultant here for the district prior to my coming and has been working with looking at budget strategies and fiscal health strategies overall to be able to help support the goals of the board, the community, and the district for looking at best fiscal practices. Can we let both of them in on Zoom? Are they both in on Zoom already?

[4341] Katie Eugster: I only have Roseanne on the Zoom.

[4343] Tracey Vackar: So he mentioned that he's in a portal, and maybe if Mr. Rose is listening, he said he's in what's called a practice session. He wants to know if he's in the right meeting.

[4353] Katie Eugster: He wasn't. He was earlier, but then he went out of the meeting. His name was up there, and then he went away. Let me let him know. But Roseann's in.

[4367] Penny DeLeon: And Mike, if you're on Zoom and listening, go into the other meeting you were in.

[4373] Tracey Vackar: All right, I sent him a little text message so he knows I apologize, but thank goodness for some technology. Anyways, let me start by sharing a little bit about the first interim as to the purpose of it. So the first interim is really looking at our year-to-date financial statements. It reflects the actual financial results from the district's accounting system. This is maintained through the Alameda County Office of Education. was called the Escape Accounting System. And it looks at our current year budgets and multiple year projections, which are based on information provided by ACOE, by the California Department of Education, School Services of California, CASBO, and many other professional organizations. that look at schools. Board members, I know you probably have been connected with the California School Board Association and listening to what they're saying and what their partners are saying with regards to assumptions that we should be looking at, kind of what that crystal ball forecast looks like for the economic stability of not only the nation, but also here in California. In our current year budget, at first interim, the district, through our consultant, updated to the original 23-24 budget, which was adopted on June 15, 2023, and it reflects the current financial projections. Routine first interim budget adjustments, the district reviews all of its accounts and has adjusted its first interim to the budget projections. And can we put up the PowerPoint? Thank you very much. And I think you can go to page two there. It probably needs to go to the regular view, so it's a little bit.

[4466] Penny DeLeon: Presentation view.

[4467] Tracey Vackar: Yeah. If you go to view there at the very top on the menu of items up there, I think there's a presentation view there. It's not say presentation. No. All right, we'll go with that. Reading view.

[4482] Nancy Thomas: No, it's readings on the board.

[4486] Phuong Nguyen: Down at the slide level, the note, the comment, Right next to comments, there's a little icon.

[4492] Penny DeLeon: In the red? Yeah. There you go. Wow, that's hard to see. You've got good eyes.

[4498] Aiden Hill: Nope, that's not the right one. Yeah, keep going over. So it's two more over. There you go.

[4506] Penny DeLeon: Here we go. Now we can see.

[4508] Tracey Vackar: Oh, one more. Back, back, back. One more. Wait, is this like being sensitive?

[4519] Katie Eugster: The mouse is sensitive, yeah. All right.

[4523] Aiden Hill: We're on the wrong slide. You can use that. You can use your cursor, too.

[4527] Tracey Vackar: Yeah, use your arrows, maybe. There we go. So the district compared its ADA at budgeted option to first interim and adjusted its revenue accounts that are based on the average daily attendance, which is our ADA, to a projected number of 4,691. This was based on CALPADS data that we had for October 31st. This number may not account, though, for 135 TK students that were enrolled. It was noted that when we looked at the CALPADS data, that there was nothing in there for kindergarten. In past years, it was combined with kindergarten. So we are going to be doing some more background searching to make sure that we have captured all of our students, because we believe that enrollment number is actually higher at 135. That will actually have a bigger impact on our budget at second interim. It would actually bring in a little over a million dollars to our district. So that's a good thing at second interim that we want to be able to see, because we're going to have to make some other adjustments. When you look at the categorical revenue accounts, these are updated to the most recent grant entitlement letters that the district has received and other information that comes from the state and federal government. Corresponding expenditure accounts are also adjusted accordingly. Other income accounts that are analyzed and adjusted to reflect year-to-date receipts and estimated year-end amounts. So that's an important element as we look at those accounts. Next slide, please. Back one. Revenues are in expenditures of the programs that encroach on the general fund are updated in current projections and contribution accounts are adjusted accordingly. And so what that really means is that, you know, sometimes we have to make contributions to some of our programs because they're not fully funded. Right. And that happens. It happens with transportation. It happens with our special education. And those contributions are ones that we need to make sure that we really look at what the history has been and that we make sure that we've identified enough funding. So the year after year that we have put that into a regular operational expense. Salary and benefit accounts are adjusted to reflect the updated staffing levels and the changes to benefit costs. This includes any health insurance costs that might have changed. All budgets reflect the most current negotiated agreements with the employee bargaining groups. We also update at this time CalPERS and STRS accounts based on the percentages that we can anticipate. And you'll see that in a further slide later on. All expenditure accounts are analyzed and adjusted to reflect year-to-date expenditures and estimated expenditures to finish out the year. And then carryovers from prior year budgets are adjusted accordingly. So when you did your unaudited actuals back in September, late August or early September, you actually had some adjustments there, but we still go back and we verify to make sure that all that is done correctly and that we actually have the correct dollar amount moving forward. That does not appear to be working. Katie, could I get you to just hit the arrow one more time over for the presentation?

[4730] Katie Eugster: I'm sorry. I'm sorry, what was that? The arrow. There we go.

[4741] Tracey Vackar: Our first interim, the district projected a decrease in unrestricted general fund revenues of $449,737. The adjustment is due to the audit adjustments that have come in since the budget was adopted. We also looked at some of our unrestricted expenditures and we have decreased these by $814,154,000. The reduction is due to budgets being moved into restricted programs.

[4783] Tracey Vackar: Thank you.

[4783] Tracey Vackar: Thank you, Kate.

[4794] Tracey Vackar: Sorry for the technology difficulties. Is it clicking over?

[4801] Penny DeLeon: Is it down?

[4804] Tracey Vackar: There we go. In looking at our multi-year projections, which is our MYP, and by the way, you'll find the MYP, there is a table of contents inside your book, if you have a chance to take a look at that, or else online. The MYP can be found on page 76. In that MYP, we did a couple of things that we felt were important, so they're going to talk about 1% conservative COLA for all three years. Changes to STRS and PERS, and I've shown you here some of the changes that were originally looked at. with some of the assumptions that were out there and were recommended by both CalSTRS and PERS at the beginning of the year. And so we've adjusted those to these new dollar amounts to make sure that they met all that and that we have those expenditures in there. Changes to enrollment using CALPADS data. Revenues and penalties for the UPP and for teacher credentials. This year we had a substantial dollar figure that we were challenged on with how we did our UPP counting, which is the unduplicated pupil count. And then also for teacher credentials for those that were subbing and maybe were outside their credential area. But there was a decision that was made by the district for student continuity to keep the substitutes in their classrooms to ensure that the kids would be okay. Yes, board member Thomas.

[4887] Nancy Thomas: Have we also adjusted in the counters for second column?

[4892] Tracey Vackar: Yes, that's actually in there too.

[4894] Penny DeLeon: Could we just briefly pause right here?

[4898] Nicole Pierce-Davis: They're trying to get Mr. Technology difficulty.

[4901] Katie Eugster: So the only way they could see it is if I move this camera to the screen.

[4907] Tracey Vackar: The only way that they can see your presentation.

[4909] Because the systems aren't integrated.

[4911] Katie Eugster: The systems don't.

[4914] What's the problem? It's not a Google slide deck, I think. No, this is a PowerPoint. It's a PowerPoint. No, I'm saying is that why?

[4922] No.

[4922] Is that why? No. Then why?

[4925] People on Zoom have never been able to see.

[4930] Katie Eugster: Oh. Oh, yes, when you share it. Oh, I see. I didn't realize that. Yeah. Do you want me to point the webcam at the screen, the TV?

[4942] Tracey Vackar: Yes, that would be fine. I think that that would help. That would be. I think it's just the people on the Zoom. It's just those that are watching Zoom can't see the presentation.

[4951] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Yeah, people on our YouTube can see it. It's the people that are Zooming in to present that can't.

[4959] Tracey Vackar: OK, I understand. So in looking at our MYP, yes, we definitely take a look at step and column. We make sure those adjustments are there. And then also for any raises that were given, you know, either in the year or else in the prior year if it was a carryover, we made sure that those adjustments are in there as well. We can move to the next slide.

[4985] He gave me a thumbs up. That's one more.

[4989] Tracey Vackar: So part of what we look at is we look at a criterion. And the criterion actually asks a number of questions that we have to be able to vet and be able to show exactly how we came about with the calculations that we did. And some of it's based on assumptions, but some of it's based on true facts. And so the first criterion that we're looking at is in the ones I'm going to share with you this evening are the ones that are not vet. The ones that are met, I'm not as concerned with because we were able to really verify it. It really works well within our budgets or for multiple budgets out. It shows that. But if you don't meet your budget either in year two or year three of your multiple year projections, this is your chance to kind of go back and make adjustments so that you can bring that back into alignment and you have a good solid budget moving forward and know exactly what your revenues are and what your expenditures are that go with those revenues. It can be challenging, especially when you're in declining enrollment. And if you have not addressed it for some years, that can also create the challenge that goes along with it. And then you've also got just those things that are happening. This past week, we heard what the governor's first idea of the budget looks like. He'll come back in May and he'll do a revise. And in the meantime, everybody's gonna be up in Sacramento and they're gonna be asking for whatever it is that they need to have that maybe wasn't inside that budget, right? And you're gonna see those budget adjustments happening. And I'm sure many of you will be up there probably speaking on behalf of the children. on our communities to make sure that they have all the educational services that they need. And I look forward to helping you with that and also advocating for those dollars that are so important for our children's education. So in looking at Criterion 1A, this is our ADA variance. And you can find this on page 94 in your book. It actually has a chart and some additional information. But what I really wanted to share with you is this year, we meet the LCF calculator. And what we look at is we look at the three prior year averages and then the ADA change that goes with that. And so this year for 23-24, we're fine. We meet it. But next year, you can see we actually have a 4.1% adjustment. And that's a not met. And then the following year, the third year out for 25-26, we have a negative 2.6%. So we've got some work to do to be able to try to correct our LCF calculator and bring it in line. Next page. Here you're looking at Criterion 2A. This is your enrollment and adoption in CBEDS. This is a very important element. And I'm going to pull out my notes here so I can follow along here with you because that's a little far away for me to see. So here at budget, the most important thing here is this is really we're looking at our enrollment here. And so our enrollment adoption was 4,946 students. And I share with you that we're able to account inside CBEDS underneath our fiscal report that we pulled that goes along with the CBEDS. We were able to verify 4,691. However, internally, we know there's another 135 TK kids that we want to make sure that we count in our second interim. And we'll be working to make sure that the communications between the various reports that are within CALPADS all match up.

[5191] Nancy Thomas: So, excuse me, does that mean the 469 one might be short how many students?

[5198] Tracey Vackar: Might be short 135 students.

[5200] Aiden Hill: For TK.

[5202] Tracey Vackar: We believe that that part's not showing. And so.

[5206] Aiden Hill: Just clarification. Sure. So what you're saying is that the original forecast was 4946. What we're counting right now is 4691. That may not include 135 TK. We have to evaluate that. If that full number comes in, it would be at 4826. And then since member Jones is much faster at math than I am, that's roughly 100, still 100 head count. Differential.

[5237] Tracey Vackar: Correct.

[5238] Nancy Thomas: 250, approximately less than what we budgeted.

[5245] Aiden Hill: If you don't have the TK coming in. If you add the TK back in, it's a little bit over 100.

[5251] Tracey Vackar: Anyways, the team will be working very closely here, both between Ed Services, our data Folks that put things into CalPADS. We're just going back to go verify. We'll have to check on some reports. They were made aware of it yesterday that these were some concerns that we had and together we're going to collectively work on that. They've been working really hard to try to clean up and make sure that the data is really accurate, especially when we have a problem with the unduplicated count that came in that resulted in a fine. So making sure that we have the right number is really important as we move forward, right? Because if you report the wrong one, You ask for the revenues and then you don't have it, and then later on they come back a few years later and say, hey, you owe us this money. It really hurts the budget.

[5294] Nicole Pierce-Davis: It's, it's, it is, just to clarify, it is much better if the number is not coming in correct or has not been, if it's not, if you're not certain and it's not certified, it's much better to under-report and then correct it in second than to Over report you never want to over report which is how you get audit findings and have to pay money back So we just want to be sure and clarify that number before we report it And in fact, there are districts still waiting for TK besides us just happens All right, we can move to the next slide, please

[5337] Tracey Vackar: On page 97, you'll note Criterion 4A. This is the LCF revenue. Underneath this category, we are not met. We meet it in this year for what we're doing. There's a small percentage change to the budget for this year that's been adjusted. But then in the next two subsequent years, we have some pretty drastic changes that are happening therewith. And we're going to have to go back and make sure that we are within our means. Take a look at our operating budget and be able to make sure that we take out our vacancies. Anything that would have an impact, we want to make sure that we are readjusting and telling the right story so that we can really turn those not met into a met. But with that, it may mean that our actual LCF revenues that we receive might actually go down in order to be able to shore up and be the right thing. Those will be things that we work on. Not 100% sure we'll be able to get there in second interim. As a matter of fact, today on a call with some of the CBOs, many of them were talking about needing to do a third interim report because of the conditions that districts are facing and the fact that all the ESSER monies are no longer really out there. People have used those up, and they've used that to help kind of balance some things. But so many districts are already in declining enrollment. 85% of our school districts in the state of California are in declining enrollment. And we're one of them. And with that, we want to make sure that when we're in declining enrollment, that we are adjusting and that we're giving an accurate portrayal of exactly what our revenues should be and how they get calculated inside the LCF calculator. Member Thomas.

[5430] Nancy Thomas: Is this possible because you're going to be looking at cuts that we have to make. The second interim is coming in late. And I understand that the 1% that we put in for COLA is not accurate if the governor's budget goes through. So by the time we make that adjustment, by the time we add the 140-some students to TK, if those are indeed not showing up in that, it changes our three-year projection substantially, doesn't it?

[5465] Tracey Vackar: It could. It'll be two things that happen. If we are able to demonstrate that we've got the additional 135 kids, that's more revenues that we can actually book and note. And we've already done that. It's actually, we've already told the state that's what we have. But this is literally the verification. We want to make sure that we are on target with that, and we adjust, and that we provide the true facts. But you're absolutely right. If there's other adjustments that are happening, things such as a lower quota than what we originally planned for, And really, the lower COLA is for next year. It's a 0.76 for next year, for the 23, I'm sorry, 24, 25. And then they're projecting a little bit higher COLA for the 25, 26. I think it was 2.51. I can't remember what it was. I think I've got it in one of the slides. Then higher. Then higher. So there will be some adjustments. Will I use that entire number? Probably not for that higher number. I'll probably do something kind of in the middle and just be conservative with it, I think, because we are declining in enrollment. And because we use, we encroach and use so much of our reserves for our operating funds, I'm going to use a more conservative number as we move forward. We can always adjust it as we move into the budget. But I think it lets us know that we're going to start paring down, and we're kind of rubber meets the road, right? And so I think it's going to be important for us to do.

[5547] Nancy Thomas: we were projecting conservatively as like 4% and 5% in the out years. And yet, if that TTA number comes through, then that 4% and 5%, it sounds like it's a little too conservative. Per COLA? No, 4% and 5% reduction in enrollment.

[5571] Tracey Vackar: No, because we're really already projecting that right now with the students that they were there. Based on our enrollment, we've already kind of factored that in. We just don't actually have the number to really be able to show it here on paper. But we actually factored in the fact that we're still looking at probably just for enrollment, for declining enrollment historically. And by the way, the board had a report that was done a few years back before the pandemic. And in that report, it shared with us the fiscal health based on declining enrollment that was happening and what the projections were moving out. So the district actually had another demographic study that was done to let them know what they could expect from historic declining enrollment. We probably needed to pay a little bit more attention to that report because that report was pretty accurate based on what we're looking at now inside CalPADS and what we've actually been doing, even during the pandemic, it pretty much so mirrored it pretty closely. And I think that study was done by the Davis Group, and they're on my list to make sure that we get an updated report from them. I think it's one of the things that we should use tools when we can to really help us with the data. That data is really going to help us look at really good assumptions and make sure that the assumptions that we're using can be backed up with real facts. And as you know, and I will tell you, not just me, but for any CBO that's out there or any fiscal person that's out there working on these fiscal reports, those assumptions are only as good as really what the guessing game is that's out there. And there's different approaches. You could be conservative. You could be a little bit more free-spirited with it. You could be really hopeful. But if you miss the benchmark on what you really need, Then on the back end, you and your district have to do a lot more work. And so I'm just trying to be conservative as we move forward, just knowing that we've already got some conditions that are concerning.

[5689] Aiden Hill: He says that the Forecaster's Hall of Fame is an empty room. Meaning that everybody's bad at forecasting. There's no great forecaster But at the same point and I think per member Thomas's, you know what what I think member Thomas's Line of reasoning is is that we just we want to make sure that we're clear on the assumptions, right? And so we understand that that forecasting is imperfect But but we need to at least understand where those what the assumptions underlying those

[5724] Tracey Vackar: And so when I say cuts, I think, you know, I think you start with the things that don't impact people. You look at, you know, your vacant positions that are sitting out there that maybe haven't been filled. You look at reorganizationally what you can do. You know, why you've got attrition going on. Those are important elements that you can go off and adjust pretty easily without really impacting people. But it may get into the point where, you know, depending on how difficult it gets, we may have to work with our partners on looking at other ways that we can go off and reduce our budget and live within our means. If we can move on to the next slide, that would be Criterion 6B. And you'll find it on page 100. There we go. Perfect. So this is your operating revenues. And there's a few things I want to chat with you about operating revenues from page 100. This was another not met category. There were significant changes that were made to this section, including reduced federal funding, state revenues from carryover, and increased allocations. You might hear Roseanne talk to you a little bit about this later on. She's online, and I think she's going to weigh in on some things that she saw as she was working on the accounting of this. And I think what she has to say is really important. She's an expert in her field. We were really lucky to have somebody with the qualifications that she has and the experiences, and helping us look at this with just a really clean, fresh lens. And actually, we had three people that were looking at this with a very clean, fresh lens as we were moving forward. And sometimes you need that, right? And that's one of the reasons sometimes why you bring in other outside consultants to help you look at that. And then we're also looking at increases in expenditures from carryover funds for books, supplies, and other services. The other piece was in the operating revenues that had a real big impact on us also had to do with, and by the way, we did not meet this in all three years. So our current year and the outstanding two years. This is an area that's of real concern that our operating revenues aren't really matching up with what we need to have based on, you know, what we said we were going to spend for our operating revenues, right? So we need to do some work there. That's a real concern with NotPet.

[5855] Nancy Thomas: Are we going to have to have a third income based on this

[5861] Tracey Vackar: Let me get past second interim and I'll give you an idea. So if we hit, so let me tell you, if we hit, I think, qualified in our second interim, and we're close enough that we can maybe make the adjustment, then I'm going to recommend a third interim. If I don't think we're close enough and we need to do something more significant to bring our budget in line, then I think I need to listen to what the experts are saying as to what the best strategy is there. whether or not it's concentrating on third interim to make the slight adjustment or whether or not it's really working on taking a deeper dive into our budget. But that will be a conversation that we'll share together. And I'll definitely let you know my opinion and the opinion of those that are out there. We're not the only ones in the county. It surprised me today to hear so many people talk about maybe the need for a third interim. I haven't heard that in a while. And so what that means is that we did a second interim in March. We would be coming back and probably doing a third interim with you probably for late April, early May, I would guess, maybe right along with the May revises, maybe just a little bit before that time period. I don't have the actual dates. It's not something that we often see a third interim sitting out there, but it is available and it's there to be able to help public entities really navigate what they need to in order to be able to bring their budget in line if they can before they actually adopt a budget. So definitely something that we'll pay attention to. And so I think this is an important page for you to be aware of and to take note of. On the next slide, which is Criterion 7, Facilities Maintenance. So this is one that we actually do need it, but I felt it was really important to go off and call this out. So one of the things that really concerns me is that within our Facilities and Maintenance, we put a lot of money into, you'll remember this, you took a resolution on it, and there's a resolution before you this evening, where we actually put our, our deferred maintenance and some other maintenance and facility needs into your committed reserve fund that you had, right, as to where you were going to go off and do expenditures. What's really important is that this money really does belong and really needs to be up in our operating budget. We have aging facilities. And until we can pass a bond, or a parcel tax, we need to make sure that we know exactly what our costs are. And so one of the strategies that I've actually put in here, and this is for my department, and there'll be various departments that'll be looking at budgetary strategies to be able to bring the budget in line. But for this one in particular, I think it's important for us to have a plan based on the highest need and also based on our last couple years of practice as to what we're spending either working with outside experts, whether it be someone working on plumbing or other types of maintenance, electrical. The fact that we're aging so much, we really need to pay attention as to what we need to do to continue to maintain our buildings. Because now when something breaks, it's already lived its life. It's no longer just a bandaid that you're putting on there. You're having to do a replacement, which is even more expensive. So we really need to pay very close attention to that particular budget. So I really wanted to call out Criterion 7 for facilities and maintenance because it does kind of come in with some other decisions that the board may need to make one day with the community about whether or not we need to go back out for a bond. When you do a bond, you typically do it on an even year. It might be something we might consider for November 24, or maybe something that we look at for 26. But that's a decision that we probably need to make sooner than later. And so I'll be bringing back some more information with you on that, because I know that the age of our, the condition of our buildings, when something goes wrong, it's no longer just the Band-Aid. Although they try to still continue doing the patch, many times it's a full replacement, and that's so much more expensive. And I see board member Joy Lee over there shaking her head. I think she knows exactly what I'm talking about with these facilities. On criterion 8B, deficit spending on page 107. So this is it. This is the time to right size the budget, right? And so deficit spending is probably the piece that hurts us the most. That means that we are living outside of our actual operating expenditures that we're using. We're using up our reserves. And although we're OK for this year, you can see that in the subsequent year for 2024-25, if we continue doing our spending patterns, we are going to be deficit spending by 11.7%. And in the second year for 25, 26, almost 18%. Those are some significant increases to deficit spending that means that we will be using up all of our reserves. So this is a place where we really do need to work together. The entire district needs to be able to look at strategies to ensure that we tighten down, that we're not deficit spending. And this is where we start looking at better practices. At the last board meeting, President Hill, I think you mentioned something about procurements. So looking at making sure that we use as many resources that help us be able to help navigate that, that we talk with our sites about the importance of making sure that we purchase things that we really need and not just add on. And one of the things is, with the extra money that we've had that came out of ESSER, we were able to really help. With all the learning loss that was going on, we were buying things to help out our classrooms. We may not be able to afford some of the replacements of some of those things coming down the future. And those will be hard decisions. So we want to make sure that we use the things that we need to use. But if the things that we really didn't use or didn't use effectively, don't buy a dozen of them. They're not really being used, right? Having them sit in some closet. We want to make sure that we're really being wise with our money and that we're really trying to right size that budget so that we are living within our operating budget.

[6215] Penny DeLeon: It's on page 102. Member Thomas, could you turn your mic on? People are having a hard time hearing you.

[6222] Nancy Thomas: I'm sorry. Yeah, I didn't see that on page 102. I mean 107. It's 102. OK.

[6230] Tracey Vackar: Thank you. I appreciate that correction. Changes to committed contributions for 23-24. In the first interim, When I mentioned the committee contributions, it's almost $11 million. There's two areas that we really have been deficit spending. One is the $16 million. Some of you have used the term encroachment. It's really a contribution to some of our special programs that we have sitting out there, many of them are federal programs. I think I mentioned to you that special education is probably the one that we spend the most money on with doing extra contributions. And that comes out at $16 million reserve. But then out of the changes for the committee contributions, the board had close to $11 million. And before you this evening is that resolution I mentioned that you took at the adopted budget. And in there, I'm asking you to make a change. There was a million dollars earmarked for furniture. We don't need a million dollars for furniture. But I will tell you, if we are really going to get the district's fiscal plan in place and have a better fiscal health and outlook for the next three years. We're going to need some help doing that. And so with that, I'm asking you to consider putting $500,000 in investing in a strong strategic planning session, looking at some advisory services to help us reduce this deficit spending. I think it's money wisely spent so that we can get through and that we can honor those that are working here and that we know exactly how much money we have. And even when things are tight, we want to make sure that if there is a cold, that we're able to help fund salaries and stuff. But we've got to be able to fix our budget first before we can do any of those things. So it's work that we need to do together. This includes looking at school services for a staffing study. FCMAT looking at our MYP a little bit closer. Some other support consultants such as Mike and Roseanne and Mary who helped us with working on our budget as we bring on some new players into our district. We have a few openings in my business department. We're going to want to make sure that we've got people that are helping them transition in and make sure that we're looking at the district fiscal health and that we're taking a really long hard look at what we can do with strategies and coming back and implementing those strategies. That's gonna be really important. And then we need to invest $450,000 now into a new route for child nutrition. It can't wait. I want to make sure that we've got a good route because we do good things out there for providing food for our kids. Plus we're doing so many more meals. And then I did stick in their investment for $50,000 in furniture just because there may be some purchases already currently in progress. And I want to make sure that we can honor those since they thought that was coming. You are being given a qualified certification tonight. It's not always the happiest news I like to deliver that when we have a qualified certification. But what this tells me that we need to do is we need to roll up our sleeves. We need to work together. And we need to fix this budget and make it right size up. And that's just not me doing it. It's everybody doing it. It's everybody looking at those strategies collectively And really looking at what we can do to not impact what happens in the classroom as much as possible. And to try to make whatever we have to for adjustments so that we are one living within our operational budget and we're no longer deficit spending. One of the hardest things for us that we'll have to do is that $11 million where you have those committed funds. Many of those are major operating costs that need to be in our regular budget. That means if I put them back in the budget, our regular operational budget is going to be so far off. That means we have to do more work inside our operational budget to be able to fix that. And you have my commitment to be able to help do that, and I know Superintendent Daley and I, we've talked about it. Cabinet's talked about it. This is a really hard thing to do. And it's not the easiest thing. But I think if we start working on it now, we can get there. We can make it happen. Online with you this evening are two of our consultants. We've got Rosanna Lascano, who's on with us, and Mike Berg. Rosanna, would you like to weigh in for just a moment? Can you mic up?

[6476] Katie Eugster: She's on.

[6478] Tracey Vackar: Can we hear her?

[6487] Katie Eugster: She's talking, but she's on. Was she on mute? No, she's not on mute. But it's not coming through?

[6494] Tracey Vackar: It's not coming through. It's weird. Mr. Rose, if you're listening, can you come in and help us? I'm not sure why.

[6504] Katie Eugster: Thank you, Cindy. Yeah, her mic's on. Everything's on. We should tell her to speak.

[6513] Tracey Vackar: Mike, are you available? Roseanne, we can't hear you. If you'll just give us just a moment. Mike, can you cue up? Are you able to talk to us? Oh, I heard him.

[6524] Penny DeLeon: You can hear Mike.

[6525] Tracey Vackar: Kind of.

[6527] Katie Eugster: Can't hear him loud enough. Put your mic up to him.

[6534] Katie Eugster: I think that was Paul.

[6535] Katie Eugster: Oh, that was Paul. She said she could hear. I think you try now.

[6560] Tracey Vackar: Thank you. Rosie, I want to thank you so much for helping us with our budget over the past, what, maybe five weeks. You have been instrumental in helping us dig and dive in. Can you share a little bit with the board about some of the ahas that you had as you were going through the budget and some of the things that raised a warning flag or a concern for you?

[6586] Rosie Lascano ?: Well, thank you for the opportunity to work with you. And yes, I did a deep dive, but we need to do more work. So I was able to look at the budgets and budget based on expenditures. And fortunately, the financial system encumbers salaries. So we have a good handle on salaries and how much they're going to cost. as long as the person is being paid out of the correct account. So that's another audit we need to do. We did an audit of the LCFF and the calculator. And as Tracy mentioned earlier, we're not sure about where the TK fits in. And so that could increase the revenue substantially. Well, it can increase. There's what, 135? try to be careful with my adjectives. I apologize. And places to watch, I was concerned that many of the restricted programs, for instance, Title I, Title II, teacher quality, many of these restricted programs currently are budgeted to overspend. And so rather than cut those and reduce the expenditures to come within their revenues, we made a contribution from the general fund to that restricted program because we don't know what or who is being charged there. So rather than cut blindly, we contributed and left the programs whole as they were being spent. So that's another deep dive, so to speak, that Tracy will have to do before second interim. So we get them, they should not encroach unless it's planned. And so we need to study those to make sure that they are being utilized in the way that you wish them to be used. Anything else, Tracy?

[6718] Tracey Vackar: No, thank you, Rosie, and I appreciate that. Hang on, you might have a couple questions there from some of our board members.

[6724] Aiden Hill: And so thank you, Ms. Lascano. And I understand that You were one of the resources that was recommended to us by the county to help us pull together first interim. And could you just share a little bit about your background?

[6740] Rosie Lascano ?: Sure. I retired about a year ago. And my last district was San Benito High School in Hollister. But I've been in the business for almost 30 years. Most of my career was spent in the Central Valley with Sanger Unified. And they're a K-12, and they have around 11,000, 12,000 ADA. And Hollister is a high school district only, and much smaller than that. But I have lots of experience in budgeting, obviously, but also bonds, bond sales, construction. I mean, ADA, ADA, increasing ADA. The myriad of tasks that we do in the business office, I'm very experienced in those areas.

[6794] Aiden Hill: Great. Thank you. And I just want to acknowledge, again, all the work that the finance team did. And I know, Ms. Vacar, that you came in at the tail end of November, early part of December, and had a pretty big task. And we got help from Ms. Lascano, Ms. Stark, and Mr. Berg. And from what I understand, you guys were working pretty long hours. So I know that there's been maybe, I think the public only has a limited view of kind of what's going on. But there were a lot of loose ends that needed to be tied up. And I understand that you were working Christmas Eve, and I understand that you were working throughout much of the holiday. And so, again, I appreciate you and your team's effort in that.

[6843] Tracey Vackar: Well, it was definitely a team effort, and I don't, I mean, I gotta say, my hat's off to both Ms. Toscano and Mrs. Stark. They were instrumental in helping me work with this. We were a team. We often were tag teaming and taking a look at something and making sure we both were seeing the same things. When you're looking at, you know, new details that you have been working inside the budget with, None of us were users of escape before. And so, you know, having to work within a new system there, we wanted to make sure that we were doing the right thing. And we really appreciate also the assistance from the county that they gave us, you know, in giving us some shortcuts and some things to do. They weighed in a couple times with us throughout that time period. As we were looking at things, we were sharing reports with them. It was definitely something I was hoping that we'd be able to bring in sooner. But more importantly, I thought it was more important to give a really accurate picture of where we're at and what we need to do here as we close out the year and we start planning for next year. I thought it was like a really this like our one chance to really do that. And so my apologies that this was delayed. You won't have a second interim delay. I will do everything possible to bring that baby home. And with that, I know we also have Mike Berg on the line.

[6912] Aiden Hill: And actually, sorry, just one last question. Because again, I think that there's maybe some misperceptions. And so obviously, there were some loose ends that we were trying to tie up and deal with prior to. at the end of the year, but then the intent was that this coming Tuesday that we were going to try to come in and present. But we hit a wrinkle on Friday, and it had to do with that we needed to, my understanding is we needed to enter in a lot of our final data into, is it called the SAC system? Right, SAC system. And we started to get error messages, and we were trying to troubleshoot what those were. And ultimately, that caused or forced us to delay and to move it to Thursday.

[6959] Tracey Vackar: You have this really horrendous name for those errors. It's called fatal errors, right? There's just nothing. It sounds like a bad movie, right? And these fatal errors show up on these variety of reports. And then you have to go back in the back end and you have to look at exactly what caused it. So sometimes you have to go back into your regular budget. You had to make sure that the budgets were all the way marked out for the entire year. With all the detail that needs to be in it, right? And if it's missing detail, then you have to make sure that you get the right report to be able to do it. Sometimes it's a small little click of the box that just has a date. It's a variety of different things. And there's all kinds of, we're not the only ones that experience fatal errors. This is a real common thing within the SAC system. But it takes a long time to sit there and go through them. And so we wanted to make sure that that was done with fidelity. And although we did pull up a TRC that had an interim report, we also had all these fatals that we really needed to fix inside that SAC system. And I really wanted to make sure that, and with that were some minor adjustments that happened from what we knew on Friday. But the most important thing is that we got rid of those fatal errors that we could actually now upload our documents for the county, which will be most important.

[7025] Aiden Hill: And it's my understanding, and again, I know that this has been sort of something that's in flux, but it's my understanding that the source of at least some of those errors were that prior data that had been entered into the system for the prior nine or ten months had been entered in at more of a summary level and that as you guys went in and entered in information at a detailed level that the new detail didn't have anything to reconcile against and so therefore that was causing some of the errors. Now I know that that was the thinking at the time. I don't know whether there's there's new understanding there.

[7063] Tracey Vackar: Yeah. Roseanne, are you still online? Yes. Did you catch what we were talking about when we were trying to go through the tax system and just some of the back end things that we had to look at and some of the challenges we had? Yes.

[7074] Rosie Lascano ?: Can you share a little bit? Those were some of the problems. Some of the problems were the revenues were entered backwards. And so things were coming up short. So you have to. It's just a technical, for instance, in Fund 12, the Child Development Fund, we had lots of fatal errors and different resources that didn't have enough money. And they did have enough money. It's just a matter of switching the sign on the revenue to make it a positive that we are receiving revenue rather than a negative, taking away. So fixing up all those sorts of things throughout.

[7121] Aiden Hill: I guess the, and again just to help for people who are lay people and they're not into the details, but it sounds like, because again all of you guys are experienced in this area, that there were entries that were maybe put in in a nonstandard way and that was what was causing some of the confusion and that you needed to troubleshoot that and correct that before you could get the final report to go through. Is that a fair summary?

[7149] Rosie Lascano ?: Yes.

[7151] Tracey Vackar: Yes. And I want to share, I was really lucky to have two amazing accountants to be able to work on this. I am not an accountant by trade. I definitely understood what they were talking about as we were trying to navigate the budget and making the shifts and changes and where programmatic decisions had to be made. That was, I'm comfortable with that, but doing that detailed piece, that was really the two consultants and their expertise. And that's really what we would want to have in our our new job description for an interim director of fiscal. We want them to be able to bring in those kinds of same practices that the expertise brings. A permanent. A permanent.

[7187] Penny DeLeon: A permanent. We want a permanent person.

[7191] Tracey Vackar: I mean, I love working with them. We do love our interns. Yes. They've been awesome, and we really appreciate them. We would like them to apply. Right? Come out of retirement. Frozen. Mr. Berg, are you still on the line? Would you like to weigh in a little bit about, I know you've been kind of reviewing the budget with us as we've been going through this. Would you like to maybe share your thoughts?

[7215] Mr. Berg: Yes. Thanks for the opportunity. And it's been a pleasure to work with the district for the last several months. As I listened to your presentation and to Roseanne's perspective, really what I've been doing over the last several months and feeding back to your team along the way are some areas of caution, I guess. And I say that because some of the things you've talked about, for instance, the assumptions. When I looked at the assumptions in the adopted budget before audits were even done, I expressed a number of concerns over, you know, not necessarily intentional, but maybe some optimistic outlooks on assumptions. And Tracy, earlier you cited ADA as one of the average daily attendances as one of the key maybe misreads, misprojections, or misinterpretation of the projections that fundamentally undermine your ultimate revenue. So it's refreshing to hear that the assumptions are being reset and more realistically projected. You had ADA assumption issues. There was concern about the contributions to special education. That doesn't make Newark a bad place. Every district contributes to special education. It is unfortunately an unfunded or underfunded mandate from the state. So everybody struggles with it. The concern was that you've had escalating costs in special education for several years and large escalation, a million or two a year. And the projection for special ed in the adopted budget was for that to somehow just flatline over the next couple of years. And that's just not logical relative to what the historical trend has told us. And so it was pretty easy to predict that that would have needed to be adjusted. And it sounds like it has been at this point. So assumptions are a huge issue. Tracy did a terrific job laying those out for you, so I don't need to repeat that. The second issue is part of what Roseanne talked to. Contributions are a really, in many cases, they're well-intended. They're good programs. They're good for kids. They're all those things. But they are also an unintentional way to mask deficit spending and runaway spending and what I call leaks in the boat. where you're losing money or, unfortunately, undermining your general fund, your unrestricted general fund, by transferring from unrestricted to restricted. And it's tractable. You can see it in the budget. But if you're not a trained eye, you don't realize that those trends, if not corrected, ultimately will undermine and run your unrestricted general fund out of resources. because you're funding the others. So contributions are a place to be concerned about and to constantly track. Committed reserves were talked about. That's a phrase that arose in the last few years since the statute came about about limiting the number of reserves districts can have, the percentage of reserves districts can have. It's not a place to hide money, it's a place for school boards and school administration to meaningfully dedicate dollars that would otherwise be seen as discretionary reserves so that they can still be in the reserve or in the components of any fund balance. The challenge there is if you commit reserves, but then you spend them, what happens is they're not already in your expenditure, in the expenditure side of your budget, and they're just parked down in the committed reserves. Once you spend them, And in your case, the prime example, if you're already deficit spending, which you are, and then you spend those reserves, even if it's one time money, it exacerbates your deficit spending trend. But you don't know it until after you've spent them. That's a real danger zone. And so it's important, if you're able, and if it's a meaningful gesture to commit those reserves, to go ahead and budget those in the expenditure side of the budget. So it's apparent to everyone, and it's more trackable and evident in your spending analysis. You're over under, I call it, the line C in your multi-year projection deficit spending. It tells you where you really are, what your real fiscal health is. Finally, many districts, and your district, when I first entered, really focused on unrestricted general funds. and paid a little less attention to the restricted side. And you simply can't do that for the reasons I just cited, especially relative to contributions. If you really want to know the fiscal health of your district, you look at that multi-year projection and you make sure you're looking at the one that is the summary of the combined restricted and unrestricted, which you are looking at at this point. I think finally, just You know, there's been a little conversation, but I would encourage you to really dive deep right now in talking about how to make reductions, not at the last minute. Because what you're looking at in your multi-year projection are deficit spending numbers that are escalating year to year to year. And the later you wait, the larger those numbers will be and the greater your reductions will be. And so the strategy when I enter fiscally distressed districts is to identify those numbers, which you have, but now start chipping away at those. You don't have to make the entire reduction in one year, but I would highly recommend that you make a third to a half of those reductions in this next fiscal year and the remainder in the following fiscal year. Because what you're seeing in your multi-year projection right now is that in year three, you are negative. And you don't have to declare that yet because that's year three. But if you don't make adjustments now, you'll be negative next year. Well, let me rephrase it. If you don't make plans to make reductions in your adopted budget for next year, which means that magical March 15 date, if it affects personnel, needs to be adhered to so that you're in a position to make the necessary adjustments to prevent falling into that negative category in year three, which will be year two very soon.

[7636] Aiden Hill: So Mr. Berg, just to clarify, so you're stating that your recommendation is to start looking at reductions now anywhere from a third to a half that would go into effect for the next fiscal year?

[7652] Mr. Berg: That's correct. That would be one of my recommendations. And I know that noticing people is disheartening and maybe even demoralizing to some degree. But if well communicated, the reason for noticing it March 15, besides the fact that it's a statutory deadline, is just to allow yourself some time and maximum flexibility to study this a little further. Because the notices, while uncomfortable, are meaningless until May 15 when you activate So it does enable you to notice broadly in all categories of your personnel. And then if you can find the savings in operational practices, great, or through attrition or something else. But if you don't make the notices, you have zero flexibility to make the adjustments for your 24-5 fiscal year.

[7713] Nancy Thomas: I have a question. We have $11 million in this committed fund balance. And I'm assuming that in our multiyear projections that show we would be negative, you know, next year we'd be negative, that we are digging into that $11 million to show that we are, you know, our deficit spending. If we're digging into that $11 million and yet we're talking about moving some of that $11 million into the budget as necessary spending, well, I guess I'm confused about how that $11 million is being handled in the multiyear projection.

[7762] Tracey Vackar: That's a great question. Let me see if I can try to answer it for you. $11 million was already earmarked for all three years out. It had the same funds for everything for all three years. Part of the problem is, the $11 million wasn't for just one-time things. They were for ongoing costs. And to me, when it's an ongoing cost, such as deferred maintenance, it should be up in your operational budget. We didn't plan for it inside of our operational budget. Instead, we used reserve monies, one-time monies, to pay for ongoing expenses that we constantly have. So if I shifted all up into operating expenses, the amount of revenues that I receive aren't going to match how much I say I want to spend. So just like your own home budget, right? You're dipping into your savings account is what you're doing now to be able to cover that. Instead, what we really want to do is we want to live within our revenue base for not only people that we employ here that take care of our kids, but also for the supplies and things that they need, but also for the overall operation of the district. You've got a plan for all those things. And then you're going to scale down your operation budget to be able to match to your revenue. That means that to me, and I think what I'm going to try to do here as we move into next year's budget in the third year outlier, is I'm going to ship those funds that we know that we have to have an operation. And then we're going to have to take a look at our operation, figure out how we slim it down. Because we can't not take care of the basic maintenance needs that need to happen. We have a major plumbing need that happens and a plumbing thing breaks. We've got to be there. We had to replace an HVAC unit so that children can learn in their classrooms. We need to do that. And we kind of have some historic data as to what that's costing us. And it's like I said, it's getting more and more expensive. Because really, it's time for us to probably really consider going out for a bond. Because the last time you did it, those things now have aged out. And it's just time to start doing the replacements, just like you would in your home. After an 18-year period, you're probably replacing your HVAC system, right? That's what you're doing. If your home is in the 30-year range, you're probably working on changing out your plumbing pipes. No different than what happens here in the school district. Having more efficient windows, having more efficient, and then we got technology, right? We also have technology that's going on, something that wasn't even in our budget 20 years ago. Even 10 years ago, we really weren't sticking budget things in there. One of the things that you'll see on the resolution that is a concern of mine is I've actually stuck in there some funds for cybersecurity and student information systems for next year. Not for this year, but we need to start looking at what we need to be able to get A, good data, and two, to make sure that our technology is being protected. And then we need to start looking at making investments and increasing that. And now's the time to start doing that. There was no money in there for that particular piece. And that's a really important element when you're talking about a big entity. We're talking about student and personnel data. We want to make sure that our systems are solid and protected.

[7959] Nancy Thomas: So are you saying, for example, out of the $11 million, the deferred maintenance should really be in our operating budget and some of the technology. Let's say that of that $11 million, $5 million really should be up. Doesn't that mean that if you already had that up in our budget, if our multi-year projections would probably be, we would be, we would not be qualified, we'd be, we'd be negative. So to me, it's worse than it looks, much worse than it looks because we, this is just general fund money that we should have been spending and should be spending and we're not. And we're using it to tell the public that we're going to be OK for the next couple of years because we're going to use that money. But you're saying, no, we have to use that money because it's needed for the things that are there. Is that correct?

[8020] Tracey Vackar: That's correct. That's a really good, that's absolutely very accurate portrayal of what we need to make sure that we, in our operating budget, we've accounted for all operational things that are regular expenditures that we have that should be in our operational budget. And where I'm seeing that was in the special classification. that was using one-time monies. So then if those one-time monies, if I use it for this year, and I don't have any more one-time monies for next year, then I've got to make a change, right? And so it's hard. It's going to be a hard thing to do. And it's going to be some real hard, tough decisions that we all have to kind of hunker down. We have to figure this out.

[8057] Nancy Thomas: So it kind of tells me that it's not a qualified budget. It's a negative budget based on where that $11 million should be up in the operating budget. And that's sad. That's dangerous.

[8072] Aiden Hill: Agreed. And to your point, President Thomas, and I think you're also saying this, Ms. Vacar, is that although we're obviously going to take advantage of using that money, using money from the savings account, but we somehow need to be able to strip out and going forward forecast and say that the savings account is going to run out. and that we need to have a budget that balances at a certain point and what cuts are going to be needed when in order to have a balanced budget. Yes. OK, thank you. Member Wendt.

[8109] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. So I just wanted to reference back to the questions that were posed at the prior board meetings in regards to the roughly $10 million deficit in the budget. And so when I looked at the adopted budget and then I looked at the first interim, I automatically assumed that there was going to be a correction in the unrestricted revenues for the findings of the error. But looking at the budget and seeing that it actually wasn't really affected, the adopted budget numbers were actually carried over to the first interim. And that based on the information that I had asked And what you had stated was that there is effect to the reserve funding in the third year out of $8,345,689.13. And that there was a journal entry error that was fixed. And that's why there isn't actually a $10 million deficit. And the budget.

[8187] Tracey Vackar: So yeah. So I think I think there's a couple of things. So when I came in I was aware that there was a concern over what was described as being I think it was a 10 or 11 million dollar concern to a change in funding that was sitting there. I think at the time, one of the accounts was trying to figure out exactly where that was coming from. And when they asked at first, I think they thought it was from the calculator. Turns out it wasn't from the calculator. Turns out it was from a journal entry that was done. I'm not sure why the journal entry was made and what caused that exactly. We never really figured that part out. And Rosanne, you're welcome to kind of weigh in if you know anything at all about this part of it, if it can help enlighten the board. Yes. I've only been here for, what, maybe a short week. And in that week, I wanted to make sure that if there was something that we needed to correct and we could correct and can drill down as to where it was, that we knew exactly what that was. So, Roseanne, I'll let you step in for a moment.

[8249] Rosie Lascano ?: Right. We couldn't really figure out what that $11 million was referring to. We audited the LCFF and found some issues. And as I said, we audited all of the salaries and benefits, but as for a specific one-time $11 million issue, we could not find that. And so we decided to kind of start from scratch, using the information we had, and make sure that the pieces in place were correct as much as possible. which is what we did. Rather than trying to find that 11 million, we worked to make sure, to ensure that everything we were reporting to you was correct. So LCFF is correct. The only issue is, are the TK in there or not? The categorical revenues are correct. They're encroaching. Do we want them to? So each item, is as correct as could be with the given information at the time that we were working on it. And as Tracy has more time to delve into each program, they will be tightened up even more. Does that help at all?

[8339] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah, I think my main concern is that we can't just make statements like that to the general public about possibly or there is a potential you know, affecting our budget because that really makes the community nervous and also myself because, you know, in a county, everything is reconcilable. So, you know, the error will show itself in the numbers. So, and that was my main concern. But to see that, yes, I understand all of the rest of them. My big concern is that the revenues are correct, that what is coming into the district and what we're spending or the expenditures, they're all accounted for. So those are the things that I'm really concerned about. And so that we don't, you know, create a narrative out in the community saying that we're mishandling funds. And regardless of if it was a prior administration or whatever, I just don't, you know, I just want to make sure that when we have these kind of issue that we talk them through and that we make sure that we have full account of what is going on and how we can fix it or what needs to be fixed before we make generalized statements with not really understanding the repercussions of it.

[8426] Nancy Thomas: I think one of my biggest concerns in the document is on page 100. where book supplies services and other operating expenditures Was about 17 million in the adopted budget and it jumped up to almost 24 million. That's almost seven million dollars variance in that one that one area and I'd like to know more about what what is What what is that seven million dollars more that's now in the budget That that wasn't in the original budget What did we miss?

[8467] Katie Eugster: Yeah, I'm looking at it.

[8471] Tracey Vackar: So I think, Rosie, maybe you might.

[8475] Rosie Lascano ?: Yes. Part of a lot of the budget entries were covering expenditures that have already been made and POs that were encumbered that are already in the system. So without another deep dive going into this program or that program, I can't tell you exactly what those items are. The $5,000s we know are consultants. We know it's utilities, rentals, the services and other, that top, that heading. And that had the biggest increase. I know that we were wondering about some NPS students in special ed. And so without going through each program individually, I can't tell you what it was exactly. But I do know that we were covering expenditures in several budgets that had already been made and left the budgets in the red. So we had to cover them. I mean, it could be that they're in the wrong, It's either in the wrong line item or in the wrong resource, but they already have been spent. We would have to go in and look at them.

[8562] Nancy Thomas: I think the board needs to know when there is that big of a variance from the budget to the first interim, we need to know some of the detail. We can't be saying it might be some of this and some of the NPS and some of that. I don't know. the details of what comprises that $7 million that we thought we didn't have to spend that we now have to spend?

[8594] Rosie Lascano ?: I believe we can come up with a report.

[8598] Mr. Berg: That's a reasonable request, Member Thomas, but understand that the condition of your budget and the lack of adequate staff is what necessitated bringing in the consultants. And so at this point, in order to get these statutory reports before you, and even a reasonably effective time frame, the summary reports and the summary accounting is done first. And then the forensic accounting, which is what you're really looking for, can be done. But it has to be done subsequent to meeting these first demands, which have now just been met.

[8635] Nancy Thomas: I appreciate that, and I know it takes time, but eventually we will know, right? Just because we will get that detail straightened out. Thank you.

[8645] Tracey Vackar: I didn't mean to be critical, but... You know, I think it's a fair question, because when I look at your total books and supplies, even inside your committed resources that you're diving into within your reserves, you stuck your textbook money there. That's money that should be up in your operating expenditures. So it might even just be a matter of moving money from that account up to the operating budget to be able to cover that difference. It could be something as simple as that. But the issue is we didn't put textbooks into our operating budget. We put textbooks as being something that was coming out of our reserves. And so that was really clearly there. So we might be spending it in the right account. We may not have moved the budget. perhaps from one area up to the other.

[8694] Rosie Lascano ?: Thank you. One last point, if I may. Mary brought up a good point. We had a huge restricted ending balance of over $14 million. So some of that increase is putting expenditures up into the budget to spend out that restricted money.

[8724] Tracey Vackar: All right. That really concludes the interim budget. I'm happy to be able to present this to you this evening.

[8732] Aiden Hill: And sorry, can I just ask a question that might help the public, or at least me? So when we talk about this particular issue of books and supplies, when we talk about the $7 million delta, it sounds like what we're seeing, and I just want to make sure I understand this, is that You and your team were doing a bottoms up and basically trying to make sure at least at a summary account level that basically spending was being put in the right bucket at a high level. But the challenge is that we don't really know the underlying details yet. We were simply trying to get it in the right bucket first. Now we need to take a second pass and really get down to understanding what are the details of that and why. Is that a fair statement?

[8791] Tracey Vackar: Yeah, I think it's a very fair statement to sit there and say that. I mean, did we fix everything within this piece for the first interim? No, we didn't fix everything. There's still more to dive into. There's still more to look at, and there's gonna be two things that happen between now and the next report. We're gonna start looking at what we can do to help improve the budget system for next year as we start to develop our budget. And by the way, we start developing that here very soon, cuz we now know what the governor's ideas are. But then we wanna make sure that as we close out that we've shifted monies like where they need to be, but then we need to make that other adjustment. I appreciate what Mr. Berg said with regards to, it's a hard decision to go off and give out any kind of layoff notices. But what it does allow you to do is allows you to keep working to be able to make the fiscal health stronger and better by trying to implement those strategies, right? Versus having to do any kind of draconian cuts. Again, we'd wanna do the lowest impact things first, always. But we wanna make sure that we have the flexibility. And as we move forward, we've got two things to do. We've got to really try to be able to live within our means for what we really receive. And we need to think about what that looks like for the next couple of years out so that we can stay strong and we can continue to provide the great services that our teachers and educators provide every single day. That's really what's most important.

[8879] Aiden Hill: Great. Any other questions from the board? Okay, thank you, Ms. Vackar, and thank you, Ms. Roscano. Am I saying your last name correctly? Roscano. And Mr. Burt, thank you. And Mrs. Stark. And Mrs. Stark, is she on too? She's not, but she's singing. Okay, yes. And thank you, yes. So thank you for all the hard work, and especially through the holidays. It's much appreciated. OK, moving on to agenda item 9.2, resolution 2023-24, designating certain general funds as committed fund balance for 23-24. I don't think we need to read this resolution, right? We just need to vote on it.

[8922] Tracey Vackar: I think you need to adopt your budget first. Or your first interim.

[8926] Penny DeLeon: Approve the first interim.

[8927] Aiden Hill: Oh, I'm sorry. OK, so can I get a motion to approve first interim budget?

9.2 RESOLUTION 2023.24.20 Designating Certain General Funds as Committed Fund Balance for 2023-24

[8934] Nancy Thomas: I move that we approve the first interim budget I'll second.

[8938] Aiden Hill: And does student member vote on this? OK, student member, how do you vote? Yes. OK.

[8952] Katie Eugster: It's not going. There we go.

[8978] Aiden Hill: Ms. Eugster?

[8980] Katie Eugster: One more vote. I'm waiting for one more.

[8986] Aiden Hill: Joy? No, no, she's a student member, yes. So she voted yes. OK, great. Six ayes. Is that right? Yes. OK, great. Thank you. So moving on to agenda item 9.2, resolution. So we don't need to, well number one, are there questions from the board on this agenda item?

[9007] Nancy Thomas: I think we covered it during the other discussion.

[9010] Aiden Hill: Okay, we don't need to read it out, right? No. Okay, so can I get a motion to approve the resolution?

[9018] Kat Jones: I'll make a motion to approve resolution 2023.24.20 designating certain general funds as committed fund balance for 23-24.

[9031] Aiden Hill: I'll second. Member Jones motions. Member Plancarte seconds. Student member, how do you vote?

9.3 Contract with TNTP, Inc. - Updated Empathic Instruction Proposal

[9070] Aiden Hill: Okay, so so Six ayes motion passes moving on to agenda item 9.3 contract with TNTP Updated empathetic instruction proposal superintendent At this time I'd like to call on our assistant superintendent Dr. Pierce-Davis to present us with the contract for TNTP

[9096] Nicole Pierce-Davis: TNTP. Thank you. So the contract you can see is attached. Go ahead to the next slide, please. After talking about how much we need to save dollars, I don't want the community nor the board to think that we're spending additional money here. This does come from our anti-bias grant, so a little history about this. I'm not going to read directly what's on the slide, but I wanted to make sure you had all the information you needed. It does come from Assembly Bill 130, Chapter 44, Section 157. as well as AB 181 from the 22-23 California State Budget. They were, it designated 100 grants between less than 75,000 and no more than 200,000. We did apply for this grant in 2022 and we did not receive the grant. We applied again over the summer of 2023 and was awarded the grant and the only difference between the two is that we added in empathic instruction into the proposal. This grant is very narrow in its scope. It's not like some of the other grants that we saw during COVID where it was very loose, you know, here's some dollars, here's all of the allowable expenses for these dollars. This required us to submit a proposal and we have to stay within the proposal by 10% or we have to ask for a change of proposal. So just to sort of clarify some of the sort of bucket that we're working within here. We did receive the full 200,000. for this work. And again, it included the empathic instruction, which I'm going to talk a little bit about. The application did take into consideration district engagement data, ongoing equity initiatives. That means the equity collaborative board goals, et cetera, around closing the gap that we've been seeing. And then sort of the stretch goals that we talked about from the board, as well as prior professional development feedback, going back to when I started in 2021. So what is empathic instruction? It's an evidence-based approach. It's about a 30 to 40 minute online intervention that incorporates teacher voice. So it's very short. In the long run, I know there are some questions about this, but really in the long run, we're talking about we consult with NTA over 30 plus hours of professional development over the course of the year. This is 30 minutes of that. So it's a very small chunk of professional development that we're actually discussing here. It's individualized, so it's completed asynchronously. In fact, principals have already agreed to allow teachers to take this in lieu of a staff meeting. So a staff meeting is normally 60 minutes. Instead, this would sort of take place of that. And it complements our existing district sort of PBIS goals by balancing sort of negative consequence training. You know, this is how you suspend a student. These are what the rules are with sort of positive levers for change. What it produces and what it's been found to produce is up to, so it's not guaranteeing, but it's up to 50% decline in suspension rates. Specifically with students of color and students with disabilities saw the largest decline in suspension. So that's what we talk about when we talk about narrowing the gap. Next slide, please. Oh, actually, can you go back? And the research for empathic instruction really comes from Dr. Okonofuwa, who has been working at University of California, Berkeley for some time. I believe he's going through a transition right now. But I just wanted to give him credit for his work. And the research is there, linked in. So as you know, one of the reasons why I imagine, I actually was not there, but I imagine one of the reasons that the board decided to create those stretch goals and to close the gap is because we are seeing disparities. So last year we did qualify for differentiated assistance for students with special, students in special ed for their pupil achievement in ELA and math, as well as chronic absenteeism, as well as African American students with chronic absenteeism and suspensions. Unfortunately, we have not narrowed the gap. So if you move to the next slide, we've actually, some of those disparities, click one more time for me. There you go. Some of those sort of gaps have actually widened. And so we've increased the amount of student groups, specifically student groups that tend to be marginalized, that we qualify for differentiated assistance for. Now, I do want to just pause for a second and highlight special education. This is actually a good thing. We no longer qualify for special education under differentiated assistance due to the 1 percentage point decline in chronic absenteeism, the 4 point increase in ELA scores for students in special education, as well as the 11.3 point increase with math aspects. So just for a second, I don't want to be, we really need to highlight that. And I want to give credit to Olivia Rangel and her team and really all of the teachers in our district who have worked really hard on this.

[9384] Penny DeLeon: Congratulations. You almost never get out of differentiated assistance.

[9388] Nicole Pierce-Davis: So that is amazing. Thank you everybody. So now I'm going to draw our attention to where we need to put in some work. And so we knew we were sort of on the cusp with English learners last year. That's been something we've talked a lot about, really designing some targeted ELD supports and interventions. But now we also qualify for three additional groups. And African-American students still are on sort of the need for support and differentiated assistance. I think what's a little bit alarming here, though, is priority six suspension is what they're qualifying for. And so last year, while we really had an eye on chronic absenteeism, all of a sudden we've sort of seen a spike, specifically with our groups of color and, again, our marginalized, so homeless, socioeconomic disadvantaged, African-American, and Pacific Islander around suspensions. In our next board meeting, I'm going to talk about our dashboard data. So we'll get a little bit more deep on that. But I just want to couch the why here, right? There's a reason why we're going empathic instruction. So it's a short survey that teachers read and reflect in. Again, only 30 to 40 minutes once a semester. Our plan that we submitted to the state was for January 2024. So right now, August 2024, so the beginning of next year, and then again, January 2025. So it would be three 30-minute sessions. It's a survey that sort of helps provoke empathy, but it also helps people just reflect on their own values. It's research-based. What it isn't, it's not a multi-step intervention. It's not drawn out. It's not skill building. We're not teaching people how not to use bot. That's not what this is. This is really just a chance to reflect on the things that matter in hopes that that actually impacts behavior later on. So it's kind of an indirect intervention instead of a direct intervention. But it is scientific. There is research founded here. And I link in a lot of that. I'm not going to go over it tonight, but I link in that in case anybody in the community is interested. So what it does is instead of hitting, and this is what I mean, it's not a skill building. It doesn't hit at where the bias occurs. Oftentimes, bias is subconscious. It's not something we're really aware of when we're doing it. But it does try to interrupt at the structures and mindsets. So sometimes we get this idea, media, everything in our world might give us something. Let's just use this particular example as there's been a lot of research done around anti-blackness. So those sort of messages come to us. We sort of get this implicit bias around black is bad. There are structures and mindsets that get reinforced. This kid now becomes bad, and we see an increase in suspension. Next slide. But what we're trying to do is try to interrupt the structures and mindsets. So again, not the bias. The bias is going to happen, unfortunately, in our society. But if we start to think about the structures and mindsets, and we start thinking, wait a second, if I pause here at a time when I'm not tired, this kid is really trying. Now I'm going to try to work with this student, and how and where we can reinforce trust. And so I believe the cycle is on the next slide. We get to this interrupting these unintended cycles, especially when we're tired, right? Especially when we're tired. And I'm looking at the folks who have teaching experience because that's when our biases are at their worst, when we're not actually thinking clearly, when we're tired and we're trying to get through. And so in this case, Ms. Johnson might work, hey, Jordan keeps disrupting class. She might be thinking, how can I reach my goals for student learning? In the meantime, Jordan's saying, I keep getting in trouble. Ms. Johnson doesn't even like me. And I know these seem like they're simple, but this is kind of the cycle that ends up happening. So we're trying to interrupt that again with some reflection. I'm going to interrupt us one more time. This complements our PD that we just did with teachers. So we just did elementary professional development with Kagan Cooperative Learning Strategies. We specifically chose this professional development because it met our board goals. Cooperative learning strategies increase academic student-to-student talk. So increasing oral output really supports our goal one. Supports early academic literacy. In our early grades, students aren't reading and writing when they come in transitional kindergarten or kindergarten. But the more they talk, the more verbal literacy will support their academic and their written and their reading and their comprehension literacy later on. It supports English language development. If you've ever done a shadow of English language students, which if you haven't, I would love to walk any board member interested in that process. Oftentimes you do see English language learners sitting back, not participating as much because it's hard. They need that low risk space where I can, I don't know if you've ever gone to another country. It's a lot easier to speak another language when it's low risk and you're not feeling pressured. And when, you know, 29 other students in the class are looking at you, that's a lot of pressure. And so increasing student-to-student talk opportunities allows low-risk opportunities for English language learners to get more oral output during class time. It also complements our SEAL and math language routines that we're already engaged in. It also focuses on goal three, the more cooperative learning that happens in class in an academic setting with a teacher. It actually helps reduce things like bullying. It helps with culture and climate. Because again, you're getting students to talk to each other. If I've had a conversation with you, I'm more likely to understand where you're coming from. And I'm more likely to know how to talk to you when maybe on the playground you do something I don't like. I've had to practice that in the classroom. And so I can translate that to somewhat other space on campus. Again, observation and research supported. So I bring this up to say, and here's some other of the opportunities we had that day, that teachers really responded to this. So if you go to the next slide. We had 101 responses, and this was our feedback. So we were really pleased to see this level of feedback around cooperative learning, really focusing on student-to-student relationships, student-to-student cooperation, student-to-student oral output. We found this to be really successful. So we are still unpacking the data right now. Principals are unpacking their site-level data, and ed services sort of looked at trends overall. But that day really focused, again, on student-to-student. This sort of survey, again, very short, focuses back on student-adult relationships with adults really taking the lead because they're adults, right? So how do we model that? And so this is just a little bit of a balancing act to say, OK, we focus on students-to-students. Now let's focus on student-adult relationships. So the data, what data comes out of this? There is some input that went into the decision making to use empathic instruction. One, it really prioritizes student feedback. Students really talked about relationships with adults. That happened during SEL focus groups when we were really talking about character strong and whether or not we wanted to keep character strong at the high school. Ultimately, we decided not to. But it didn't change the fact that a lot of the students in those focus groups said, you know, there's those teachers that they feel really close to and they have great relationships. And there are those that they don't and wanting to sort of improve those relationships. just informal feedback from students. The Board of Education resolutions that we've seen in the past, like the Black Lives Matter resolution, talked about wanting more anti-bias instruction in class and other opportunities. This is also sort of a callback to teacher feedback from earlier professional development when we did culturally responsive pedagogy and we did some implicit bias training. And again, it's data-driven when we look at our NUSD differentiated assistance. So just to remind us of what that looks like, We have to do something, right? We have to do something to sort of interrupt the suspensions that we're seeing, specifically for our English learners, our homeless students, our socioeconomic disadvantaged, African-American, and Pacific Islanders. So our data is showing we do need some level of intervention here. Next slide. This is some of the data that does come out from the study. So student suspension rates. the control group versus those that employed empathic instruction. And again, what you can see highlighted here is that the black or Hispanic students saw a change from those who did the empathic instruction compared to those who did not. The same thing for specifically you saw that more in the students with one previous suspension. So not necessarily the students that have had multiple suspensions over time, but just those students who just had one previous suspension. They're not getting in trouble all the time, but there's something that sparked that. And so it's really an intervention there for those students. That's where they saw the biggest change. They also saw a pretty big change for students with disabilities. So again, just to go back, I just want to remind us, so student feedback, teacher feedback, data-driven, this is an area of need for us. And I just want to be clear, too, no action is action, right? It sort of commits us to what we're seeing now, and those gaps are going to continue to increase. So unfortunately, we can't always wait for staff. That's ourselves included. This is me. I'm talking about me, too, right? We can't always be ready for anti-racist work. Sometimes we just have to jump in it, especially when our data demeans it, right? If our data showed, you know, specific areas, and we do that all the time. Early literacy is an area we want to focus on. We're trying to look at which groups do we need to support the most. We're going to look at data. And in this case, I do believe that data sort of demands it. The metrics collected here will be demographic data on discipline trends afterwards. So do we see a decrease in suspensions? I can't guarantee that we will, but I think with the current research, it's worth a try, especially when we're using grant money to test this theory, right? When we're not using our own money, but we're using grant money to do so. We also get the survey data back. And the survey data includes two pieces, teacher-student relationships, as well as teacher satisfaction, which I know is also part of our goals around student recruitment and retention. So it'll be interesting to see, because a lot of the research from this actually shows that teacher satisfaction and job performance, it's funny, the way Dr. Okonofuwa talks about it, he says, you know, some of the most empathetic people in the world are teachers. They are prone to empathy. So let's build off of that beauty of these Particular group of people that are that are that are attracted to education and I just really love that statement because I think it's I think it's true Special special group of folks that that decide to become teachers So again, those are some of the data that we'll be able to collect from this Which can be trained triangulated with other forms of survey data like the California healthy kids survey that we give every year One of the questions on that survey is do you have an adult that you feel you can trust? How connected do you feel to your school things like that? So we'll also look at that as well I kind of talk about this like the it's hard to explain because it's professional development. It's not professional development This is not a standard somebody comes and gives a trade. It's not what this is So I'm using the gym metaphor as the best way that I know how to explain this you can open the gym It's a supporting structure, right and you can have really good intentions to go to the gym but if you don't put the work in you're not going to see any change and We are opening the gym for folks to think about their values and think about how they're instructing. We don't know whether there's going to be a change. But again, the best way to see is if we use grant money. I'm not going to read this, but can a short, simple programs like this, 30 minutes, can that really be effective? There has been some research. And again, please click the links if you're interested. Dr. Okonofuwa has positive results just from these very short, simple programs. There's other studies also that sort of show that sometimes just these one-time quick interventions can actually have some pretty significant results. So in sum, empathic instruction is short, simple, and customized. It's easy to implement. It elevates teacher voice. In fact, sometimes, even though it is very confidential and very private, some of the quotes that teachers actually put in the first round of the survey may show up in the second round of the survey. So it's actually adaptive and sort of takes into account their voice. And it is evidence-based. So tonight I'm asking approval for the TNTP contract allowing schools to carry out the California state approved empathic instruction modules as outlined in the anti-bias education grant.

[10134] Carina Plancarte: Thank you.

[10134] Aiden Hill: Thank you.

[10135] Carina Plancarte: Thank you Dr. Pierce-Davis.

[10137] Aiden Hill: Questions from the board.

[10140] Nancy Thomas: Well thank you very much for that presentation and it makes a lot of sense. I didn't realize it was a half hour on you know during a staff development day or during a staff meeting. So it's not taking a lot of time for other professional development. The thing I wish is that we had been told about this when the grant came in, in the fall. And because it almost seems that you've already started the work. And the board hasn't seen it, and the board hasn't approved it. And if it needs to be approved by the board, I think it needs to be approved timely. So that's my thought. It's good work, but don't leave the board out.

[10193] Nicole Pierce-Davis: So I would love for you and Dr. DeLeon to kind of talk through what that looks like for grants. In all honesty, I have not been able to apply for as many grants this year, just out of capacity. But this is a particular grant where we don't, the proposal, When we get it, the proposal is set. So either we are asking for permission to even apply for grants, right? Because then you would need to see the application before we even submit it. And then you're going to see a lot of applications that may or may not be approved. So I would love for you guys to sit down and just see what that looks like. Or if we get it, then maybe we're just saying, hey, this is what's in the grant. I don't know. But some sort of process for communication would be great. Because this isn't like, like I said, this is like the more traditional grants that we've had prior to a lot of the COVID dollars. So just understanding what that looks like.

[10244] Nancy Thomas: Yeah. I know there's been other grants that we've had also that they have implications for staff time that has to be coordinating and everything. And it just seems that a grant, even though it's a grant, doesn't mean that the board shouldn't know the full picture of what it costs in terms of effort and Know about it before you start implementing it or you know, I don't think we should approve of you applying for grants, but Maybe the superintendent can speak.

[10283] Penny DeLeon: I'll just say I will take full responsibility I should have put it on a board agenda item to have her go over the grant after we applied because really in my view there's to apply to present before you get it.

[10298] Nicole Pierce-Davis: It's more to do it after you receive it. And we should have done it after we received it. And I should have asked it to be like a staff report. And I did not. So I apologize for that.

[10309] Nancy Thomas: And so then we can ask questions. Or is it going to take up a lot of staff time? How well does it fit in with our goals? This way, it's already done. We're already invoiced for it. No. But we're not paying for this. No, no, no. We haven't got it yet. We're not paying for it. Where does the invoice go?

[10330] Kat Jones: I mean, it's a grant.

[10332] Penny DeLeon: It's a grant, and it's just a contract. We haven't signed it. We haven't done anything.

[10337] Nancy Thomas: So TNTP invoices the client. So who's that?

[10343] Nicole Pierce-Davis: So we have the $200,000. We've been given it for the grant. We have to give that money back. So we have the money, and then we? We have not started implementing yet. So the hope is to do it in January 2024. We have not implemented until it gets signed. We're not going to sign it until we get it.

[10360] Nancy Thomas: Well, it is January 2024.

[10361] Nicole Pierce-Davis: It is, but we have not done it until we get a limbo. They're here asking for approval. Yeah, right. One of the reasons why I wanted to present in this meeting instead of waiting till the 23rd is because there is benefit. We're starting a new year. PBIS is when we, January is when we reset culture and climate. Remember how much we, you know, we remember our expectations. We remember how we want to be in a relationship with each other. you know, intentions or resolutions, whatever. But that is one of the reasons why we wanted to bring it to this meeting so that we could start implementing right away. If you deny it today, we simply won't implement and we will give that $200,000 back to the state.

[10397] Nancy Thomas: Well, I don't think that's that's not my thought to deny it. My thought is is just to know about it early on.

[10407] Aiden Hill: Other questions from the board.

[10409] Carina Plancarte: I have another I have a question. And so just to clarify, also, Sorry, we got new seats and the mic is different, obviously. But my question is around, so just to clarify, the NTA has, you've worked with them and they all agree and the teachers are on board and everything and we're all set to get this going.

[10439] Nicole Pierce-Davis: So no, I did not consult NTA on this particular part. We have consulted on the 35 other hours of professional development. This, we did not. This one, we prioritized student voice. Students really said this was something that they wanted to see more of, improve student to adult relationships. Because, again, we're talking about 30 minutes in the year, and we're pushing this into a staff meeting. We often don't ask teachers, what would you like to do in a staff meeting today? Although we often do. And I shouldn't have said it that way, because we use ILTs, Instructional Leadership Team. Sorry for the community acronym alphabet. But our instructional lead, we actually often do. But this is something that responds to our data, prioritizes student voice, and is really built into a structure that doesn't require any additional time for teachers. I would say it did come back from some student voice in the sense of when we did our implicit bias and we did our culturally responsive pedagogy PD, there were quite a few teachers who said, we've got to keep this going. We've got to push the needle forward. We have to keep moving forward. Yes and no.

[10508] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. I just have a quick comment. I just really want to appreciate staff being proactive in taking the lead in applying for grants. I know that it is separate from your day-to-day and to be able to look out for the specific grants and the needs of the student that meets the district goals every year. I'm just grateful that because we don't specifically have a grant writer position in the district. And that's hopefully something I would love for us to have in the future. I know that it takes a lot of time from our current staff to be able to resource those grants and to apply for them. And when we get awarded for those grants, it's amazing to be able to do additional work without the added expense of the operating budget. So I just really want to appreciate staff and thank you for doing that. Honestly, I don't really need it to come to the board. I just need to know that it's being done. And I trust that it is being done. So thank you.

[10573] Aiden Hill: Student member?

[10575] Joy Lee: Yeah, I also want to thank everybody. I think you've showed that it'll definitely benefit students with research that backs it up. And it's not coming from the direct budget. It's coming from a grant. So I am in support of this. That's what I wanted to say.

[10599] Aiden Hill: Member Jones.

[10601] Kat Jones: I just also wanted to say thank you for doing this. And I know that, you know, 30 minutes, you know, as a teacher, that's nothing. And it seems like there's a lot of benefit for this. And I do know that grant writing is takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. And so thank you for putting in that time and effort and It's great to hear about what this is going to do. I kind of agree. I don't need a big huge today on On this coming to us before anything happens because it is a very small period of time that we're actually Or that the grant opportunity that this Will give is such a minimal a half an hour out of a staff meeting is nothing so to me I don't need to hear that from that standpoint either. But that's probably also because of being a teacher and understanding what you're doing and how it impacts the teachers and the potential for students. I'm wholeheartedly thank you for doing this.

[10669] Aiden Hill: So not surprisingly, I have maybe a slightly different perspective on this. So number one, appreciate Dr. Pierce, all the work that you and your team put into this. And so I want to acknowledge that. The challenge that I have is that what I've seen as I've been on the board, and I think that this even predates my being on the board, is that we as a district are really good at bringing in a variety of initiatives, launching a variety of initiatives. And oftentimes, they're really not tied clearly to kind of an overarching plan or goal. And then there aren't really measurable outcomes. And then the other thing, too, is I think that we fool ourselves into thinking that the only cost is what, like in business, you'd call the first cost, which is getting the grant money and not really looking at all of the back-end costs of administrators actually having to coordinate this, both not only the grant writing and the grant coordination and paying, but also the delivery of this, which I know can involve substantial time. And the challenge that I have in this, this relates back to what Member Thomas had been bringing, talking about earlier, is, so we as a board said this past summer that we're gonna do things different. and that we're going to have very, very clear, smart goals, and that we're defining our priorities by those goals. And the assumption is that anything that doesn't tie to those goals, clearly tied to those goals, is something that we should really be evaluating whether we're doing or not. And I know that there's been statements that that these tie, but I think that the tying is very tenuous and I'd just like to remind people of what our goals are. So number one, our first goal is student achievement. We will increase student achievement in ELA and mathematics by a minimum of 2% overall and 5% for every student subgroup below the overall during the 2023-2024 school year. The challenge that I think that we have here is that I don't, at least the board has not been informed of any type of analysis that we've done as a district since we put this school together that says, okay, here's our performance in terms of ELA and math, and now what are the root causes of our performance, and what specific initiatives are we going to pursue that are going to actually move the needle on that. And I think that we're making a presumption here that bias issues and suspension rates are a primary driver of our student achievement gap. And I don't think that we've done the work to actually validate that. And so, and I also think it's going to be hard to actually really make a correlation between delivering this session and being able to say, okay, if we see any type of increase or decrease, was it the result of this session? And so, that's, so I don't think that really there's, a clear tie to our student achievement goal. And then if we look at our second goal, because I want to remind everybody what it is, so safe and secure healthy learning environments, we say by March 2024, each site will update and revitalize the comprehensive site safety plan to include student and staff wellness and to address the metrics below. The district will create an associated public safe and healthy learning environments dashboard to track key metrics. So what we talked about as a board is we didn't make any assumptions about the data around safety. We said we don't know what the issues are. We do not have a dashboard. What we said here are examples are, for example, suspension expulsion data, fights, drugs, cyber bullying, vandalism, attendance rate, chronic absenteeism, student discipline referral numbers. But we don't know really, we don't have a clear picture of this. And so, and I just don't think it's good practice for us to start bringing in solutions until we clearly understand what the problem is. And we've done a root cause analysis and we've done a Pareto analysis to say what are the number one drivers. If we're going to try to impact in a particular area, what are the number one drivers. And now we know that this particular program is going to affect it. And so I would just tell you that, I mean, in all the businesses that I've been involved in, that most of the executives that I would work for, they would not accept this proposal without being able to clearly say, here's the problem, here's what we know is truly, this is going to be the biggest impact, this is the root cause, this is the biggest impact on that root cause, and then also here's the projected improvement that we're going to see. If you can't, if we can't answer those questions, I don't think we should be spending time on it. Student member, go ahead.

[11017] Joy Lee: I feel these questions are being answered. The root cause is that it aligns, first of all, it aligns with our safety and security goal that we have done as a board as it's as this program will help student and teacher relationships improve, and students feel more safe and feel that they will have a trusted adult to go to. And this small, yet small, like 30-minute program has shown its benefits and will contribute to our students' learning and student achievement.

[11066] Kat Jones: I'm just going to piggyback off of it. I totally agree because when we were looking at this we were looking at those little dashboard needles and we have the five down the front as a priority six was that the suspension. Right. Was it. OK. This to me this directly correlates that information with our overreaching goals and answering number two. And it's in a sense it's student driven. I mean I think it is because That's who you spoke to about what it was that we needed. And this grant, I believe, is coming around and helping us with both. So I think it's directly tied in my opinion.

[11107] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Can we show that graphic? And if I can just add, I will say while I really do appreciate the fact of getting streamlined around five specific board goals, I appreciate that having clear metrics, all of that. I will say Ed Services doesn't have the luxury of focusing on just those five goals. Right. The state is telling us we must address these issues and we must address them this year. Right. For African-American students, this is now two years in a row that these students are having a very different experience in our schools than anyone else. And so my only concern here is non-action is action. Non-action is having those gaps get wider and wider and wider. And so my hope is that even while we work on those goals, because those are goals, those are needed, but putting up a dashboard does nothing for kids. And so while it's important, because it helps get us at a reduced cost, please trust that I'm not in any way undermining the goal itself, because it is important. We have to understand why students are getting suspended so we can hit that. That being said, there are certain, there has been tons of research, and I would hate to see us turn our backs on the dollars and the time and the research that is out there. Now, granted, I just got my doctorate, so I happen to like research right now. That being said, I would hate to see us turn our back on all of that good work done at University of California, Berkeley, done at Stanford, done at, because they have some really great research on this as well. done at some of the best and brightest universities to turn our back on things. You know, we often talk, let's be in competition with other districts. Let's see what they're doing. Let's see this. This is an opportunity to say, let's, we've seen this good work help happen elsewhere. Let's now apply that to our goals. Because we have to address this. The state is expecting us to address this.

[11210] Aiden Hill: So, but I think we need to get some clarification here, right? Because, because, let's hold on a second. There's, there's a variety of things that the state asks us to do. But I think it's a stretch to say that the state is mandating that we apply for this grant and we implement this program.

[11232] Okay.

[11233] Aiden Hill: So, right, okay. So, hold on a second. Please hear me out. But what I would like to know of is, again, how can we start to solve a problem if we haven't even measured the problem? So, our goal two right here, Our gold tool says we don't even know what our safety statistics are. We need to put a dashboard together. So my question to superintendent and to staff is where are we on this effort to actually and by the way, what's our suspension rate and how does it compare to other districts? Right. I mean, do we know the answer to that?

[11271] Nicole Pierce-Davis: I think one of the questions you asked, though, was if we don't know what the how how is it that we respond? But if we do nothing, we already know what the outcome will be. So putting up barriers to possible solutions is not going to solve this problem. And I think my only concern here is, this is about as low level intervention as I could possibly come up with. Because trust me, if it was up to me, we'd be spending a lot more time on this. Correct. Right? So this is the low level, safest, very low risk teachers do it individually so there's there's no sort of cross talk like this is as low level it gets and if we're putting up barriers for a low-level equity initiative that is 30 minutes over the course of a year an hour next year I am really concerned about the direction we are going if we're gonna close that gap whether it be student achievement because the students are suspended they're not learning Or whether it be culture and climate, again, outward facing dashboard is a great start. But I'm not willing to wait a whole year to start making moves to try to change that data around. And I don't think the rest of our community is either.

[11337] Aiden Hill: Would you drive a car? Excuse me. Just one second. Would you drive a car if you didn't have a speedometer?

[11344] Phuong Nguyen: Oh my goodness. OK, that is not a fair comparison. And honestly, like, I just feel like you're not here for the students, President Hill, and I'm very disappointed. And then secondly, have you heard of this term? Data is necessary, but it is insufficient, meaning that there's a bigger picture and a bigger story behind what is necessary for achievement. It's one component. It is not the whole component. Thank you.

[11378] Penny DeLeon: I've been trying to get in here real quick because I think I could come to a happy medium here. That's my job. OK. Let me say this. In terms of goal number two and the dashboard, we are well on our way with that. And in fact, that is one of the things that Hanover is doing for us. And they've already given us pretty much our prototype data board, excuse me, data dashboard. And all we have to do is upload our most current data that we just got right before the break and our safety plans. So those are the two pieces that we're in the process of uploading. So that's going to be done.

[11416] Penny DeLeon: So that is clearly on its way to being done. And it's actually a really great, wonderful dashboard.

[11423] Penny DeLeon: And it actually has similar school data that you can pull up by many different criteria and demographics. And it's fabulous.

[11430] Penny DeLeon: So I want to say that so that our worries about that, that's going to happen.

[11436] Penny DeLeon: That'll give us a lot of information. We are going to have an updated dashboard staff report now that we have our newest data. That'll be happening. But here's what I want to say. No, the state is not telling us that we have to use this particular program or any program. What they're telling us is that we have to do something. And we can't wait. And I honestly, I don't know if this is the program, or anybody knows for sure if this is the program that will

[11466] Penny DeLeon: fix our, cure our ills, right, or we'll fix this whole problem. It's not. It's one of many pieces.

[11473] Penny DeLeon: And Dr. Pierce, so here's what I want to say. Dr. Pierce-Davis and I talk a lot about metrics and data and how can we isolate criteria. This is a hard one to do. But let me say this.

[11487] Penny DeLeon: I will commit to working with Dr. Pierce-Davis on finding a way that we can do student and staff survey data to try to determine

[11497] Penny DeLeon: whether empathic instruction is something that is working for this particular.

[11502] Penny DeLeon: That's right. So that's the data we're going to get.

[11505] Penny DeLeon: And I'll make sure that we are looking at that data and seeing what impact it's having on this particular group of kids. Because, I mean, differentiated instruction is just that, excuse me, assistance is just that they've mandated that we do something.

[11528] Penny DeLeon: And we have a grant to do it.

[11530] Penny DeLeon: So let me work with Dr. Davis to get you the data while at the same time be assured, rest assured, that goal two is happening.

[11539] Penny DeLeon: And from goal two, when we have the full dashboard, then we can go even deeper into our data and determine more steps while we're going.

[11549] Penny DeLeon: If you'll give us an opportunity to do that piece. I'm just trying to mediate between the two. Nothing in education is black and white most of the time, right? We have to find a way to do both and all, right?

[11563] Penny DeLeon: So if there is a way that you could look at it that way, I'll try to get us some data on that.

[11570] Joy Lee: Yes. President Hill.

[11574] Aiden Hill: So again, I think that, and this is to Member Thomas's viewpoint or what she articulated earlier, And I just came out of board president's training today. So the board establishes the direction. We establish the strategic vision. And that it's the responsibility of superintendent and staff to deliver. And that those things need to be in alignment. And we really need to make sure going forward that any initiatives that are being considered are taking the strategic goals that the board has established first and foremost, and there really needs to be direct connection, and there really needs to be measurable outcome. Because that's what we've talked about from a smart goal perspective. And so again, because we've had a situation going on for years, and I know that President Thomas has complained to me about it before, that we've had so many initiatives that we've started with so many glorious promises and then they basically three years later die a quiet death because nothing ever came from them. And the definition of insanity is doing, you know, the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So we need to really have things focused, tied to the goals, measurable outcomes. And although as board president, so I'm one of five equals. My only responsibility here is to run the meeting. But one thing that I am tasked with that I was worried about today is that, you know, we need to make sure that we have a certain level of decorum. And I, you know, and I don't mind free exchanges. I mean, I think that we need to encourage that. But, number one, I just want to say that I did not appreciate the last comment that you made because you just said that I was not here for the kids. I am a teacher, okay, and I care enormously and I think that that is a very unfair characterization And I would appreciate you not doing that going forward. Let's try to not make it personal. Let's talk about the issues. That's my request.

[11710] Phuong Nguyen: I understand. And it wasn't personal. Thank you.

[11714] Joy Lee: Could I say something? So just clarifying, we have the grant. And this program is specifically for the students. And you know that we have a large, Hispanic population, and we also have an African-American population at our school. And so I understand where member Nguyen is coming from when you say about that comment, because when this is like such a small, it's not even like a big, it's not a big initiative where it's only 30 minutes out of a teacher's day. and it shows positive results and it does it and at least I feel that it does align with our initiative of school safety so which is which is why I think this is really for the students and I think this program is good and you should you should say yes.

[11784] Phuong Nguyen: I'd like to make a motion to approve.

[11785] Aiden Hill: Do we have a second?

[11789] Nancy Thomas: I'll second.

[11794] Aiden Hill: Student member, how do you vote?

[11795] Joy Lee: Yes.

[11826] Aiden Hill: Ms. Huckster?

[11828] Katie Eugster: Oh, I'm sorry. Four yeas and one nay. OK.

[11831] Aiden Hill: Actually, five including student member.

[11834] Aiden Hill: She hasn't put it in yet. No, no. She can't.

[11836] Katie Eugster: She can't. Yeah, I'm sorry.

[11838] Aiden Hill: OK. Motion carries.

[11840] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Did you specify who voted no?

[11844] Katie Eugster: I did. Aiden Hill? I'm sorry. I thought it was.

[11848] Nancy Thomas: We should call that out when we announce.

[11850] Katie Eugster: I'm sorry. OK. I thought it was obvious.

[11853] Carina Plancarte: You're doing great.

[11854] Aiden Hill: Thank you. So moving on to consent agenda. So consent agenda personnel items. Does anybody want to pull this item regarding the director of fiscal services? You want to pull it? OK.

[11872] Phuong Nguyen: Well, only because it's in draft form. And are we approving a final draft?

[11879] Penny DeLeon: Yes, we're approving a final draft. I'm sorry, I forgot to take the watermark off. It's my fault.

[11885] Phuong Nguyen: OK, well, that was it. Thank you. With that, I would like to, I don't, is there any discussion?

[11893] Aiden Hill: Any additional discussion?

10.1 JOB DESCRIPTION: Director of Fiscal Services

[11895] Phuong Nguyen: Okay, I would like to make a motion to approve the job description.

[11900] Kat Jones: I'll second.

[11903] Aiden Hill: Okay, so student members stepped in, so I think we go ahead and, so Ms. Eugster, if you could tee up the bugs. I'm getting there. Oh, she can't, that's right.

[11918] Katie Eugster: It's not going again. Hold on.

[11944] Aiden Hill: OK, Ms. Eugster

[11945] Katie Eugster: Five yeas.

[11947] Aiden Hill: Thank you. Motion carries. Moving on to agenda item 11, 11.1, Board of Education Committee Reports, Announcements, Requests, Debrief, and Discussion. Student member, would you like to get us started?

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

[11962] Joy Lee: Yes. I had a question. I was wondering if we have any wellness centers at our high school and middle school and elementary schools. specifically, or if we have any money from the past to support a wellness center at our schools. Because the vaping problem at both our high school and our middle school is definitely a problem that needs to be addressed. The vaping problem needs to be addressed. And I feel like if we do have any money for like a wellness center, it would be great to use it.

[12012] Penny DeLeon: I will definitely put that request down, being that I think every high school I've ever worked with has a wellness center because it's important. OK, so and I just heard our deputy superintendent tell us that we had money for that, a specific funding stream for that.

[12032] Aiden Hill: So and can we just be clear that Right. That's that that's a plan needs to be put together for that. And that's probably something that would be approved and implemented in the next fiscal year.

[12047] Penny DeLeon: Correct. Correct. We have to get a plan together. We want to have a plan for wellness centers to make sure we actually I think the elementary schools have a form of wellness centers and some of them they have Zen rooms. In there, but we would want to do that as well at all of our secondaries But we definitely need a plan and the students are part of that plan Yeah, the students tell us what they would want their Wellness Center to be but the great thing is is that we have some really good samples at some schools I could probably connect you with so So you could kind of see we maybe even take a tour, but let's work on a plan.

[12084] Joy Lee: Okay Any other updates A lot of people from our high school made it to MVALS, so you should be proud of that.

[12101] Aiden Hill: Did what?

[12103] Joy Lee: Made it to MVALS, are a lot of athletes. Oh, good. Oh, OK.

[12106] Nancy Thomas: That's good.

[12108] Joy Lee: Yeah, for winter season, a lot of them. I think I can pull it up, but yeah. I'll share it at the end after everybody gives their comments. NBALs, sorry. And then also Spring Sports is coming up, so look out for that. Sign up. I'll share the NBAL recognitions after everybody else goes.

[12133] Aiden Hill: OK, great. Member Thomas.

[12135] Nancy Thomas: I got a notice from the ROP president, our superintendent, that our CTIG grant, which is like over a million dollars, is kind of in the bag. hit a second round where some of the grants were reduced, but ours was actually slightly improved. So Mission Valley ROP is well-funded, and I think they're going to be working with us on helping us get a portion of that funding to benefit our students. Also, I'd like to request that we agendize two things. One would be the process and tools we will want to use for our board self-evaluation and make sure that we have that scheduled in the next couple of months. And also, the superintendent will be having a mid-year evaluation, and we should also have a discussion item before that happens about what kind of instrument we're going to use for her formal evaluation and also how we will conduct that mid-year evaluation. The things that need to be talked about in open session as opposed to closed session.

[12214] Aiden Hill: OK, thank you.

[12219] Phuong Nguyen: I just got an email while we were in closed session about the liaison meeting. There's feedback on the mic. About the liaison meeting and whether or not we can move it to the following Monday, January 29. Several of the city liaison members are not able to attend.

[12241] Aiden Hill: OK. Schilling actually had invited at least me. I'm not sure who they sent out. I don't know the entire invite list. They're doing a review of their DOI. But if that's the only time the city can meet.

[12265] Phuong Nguyen: I think just for the quarter. But if you want to go to the Schilling DLI, Member Jones could.

[12273] Aiden Hill: Yeah, we can figure somebody to pinch it. So that's fine.

[12276] Kat Jones: I'd like to go to the Schilling. If that is a meeting that is happening, I'm definitely going to go to that one.

[12283] Phuong Nguyen: OK. OK, well, then we'll have to talk to Kathy about that.

[12287] Aiden Hill: But is Member Jones on that? She's not on that.

[12291] Phuong Nguyen: She's the alternate. You and I are primary.

[12293] Aiden Hill: Right. So if we go to the city liaison, then you can go to the showing. DLI.

[12301] Phuong Nguyen: Yes. Yeah. Oh, I'm going to go one way or the other. She's going either way.

[12305] Phuong Nguyen: That's fine. So are you OK with the 20? OK. Thank you. 29. OK. I'll send out an email to Kathy tonight. And then we haven't had a bond parcel committee meeting. And I would really like us to set one up, especially after our first interim report with you know, talking about deferred maintenance and everything like that. So that's one request. And then I just wanted to welcome everybody back for the new year. And I hope that everybody had a restful time during winter break with their families. And it was definitely well earned. And I just wanted to also highlight two individuals over break my, I had dinner with my daughters and we were talking about school and what's been going on and what have they seen around campus, who has done, you know, things that they really liked and they were just sharing stories with me and the one thing that really stood out was they had talked about Miss Kelly, our math department chair, and coach, assistant principal Coach Brown, how they have been reaching out to teachers, and especially supporting the ninth grade class coming in and really asking other teachers who in their class do they have struggling students that they could help. And they have been really doing that, making sure that they have making connections, building relationships with these students. and working with them and holding them accountable and making sure that they are doing their work and following up on them. And they have a set of students that they have identified and have been working with them. So they are tracking some metrics and doing that. So in a way, it aligns with the empathic instruction. But they're doing this on their own. And I just really wanted to appreciate them and also hope that what they're doing at the high school is really inspiring other teachers because they are helping their cohort of teachers over there with students who are struggling in their classes. And if we can get more teachers to be able to reach out and just build relationships with our students and to really help them feel safe, build a safe environment for them to be able to communicate and see where they can help them with school or how they can you know, encourage them to be able to do better in school. I think those are all great things. And I just really want to say thank you, Miss Kelly and Coach Brown, for taking your own personal time and doing that. And also to Miss Kelly, I'm super proud of her because, you know, she's also getting her administrative credentials in the process. And she's somebody that I have been watching since my kids have been back at the high school. And she does. All of her students love her. They love her teaching style. And they really do gravitate towards her. And so I just wanted to say thank you for doing an amazing job, Ms. Kelly. And we really do appreciate you. And I hope that the work that you and Coach Brown are doing are inspiring other teachers. And then I know that they're getting also support from Coach K and Interim Principal Murphy. So thank you to them also. And that's it. So I just wanted to end with that and appreciate everybody here too for all their hard work. Thank you.

[12532] Aiden Hill: Member Plancarte.

[12534] Carina Plancarte: I don't have any committee updates. I just simply wanted to thank you so much to you, Tracy, and for all the work that you did to finally get together our first interim report and along with everybody else that you worked with that's great and it's wonderful and it's appreciated and also to all of the staff as well you know to to miss Pierce-Davis you know and such for looking for opportunities for grants and all of that I think that's really important to always be looking ahead and looking for ways to find money that we can use to fund our students and also just a big welcome back to everybody at the school at the sites and all the students and I hope everybody had a great holiday break and you know I wish everyone a happy new year.

[12589] Aiden Hill: Member Jones.

[12593] Kat Jones: Again I just would like to thank staff for all the incredibly hard work that they have done on the interim and to take care of you know the students educational services And everything that that entails so thank you the three of you a tremendous amount for all the work that you do and everything that you have have done and It's very appreciated from my heart

[12629] Aiden Hill: So echoing my fellow board members, thank you. I know that it's been a lot of work for superintendent and staff, cabinet and staff. So again, thank you. Just a quick update. So I actually attended today on a virtual basis the CSBA new board president training. And it was a good session. It was all day. Although there were a lot of people in there. We probably had about 40 participants across the state. Amazingly, there's been a big turnover on boards. They said something like, I didn't get the exact number, but it's somewhere 35 to 50 percent. And so a pretty big turnover. But I thought it was a good mix because there were some brand new board members, or relatively new, and there were some that were more seasoned. And we had good facilitators. And there were a lot of interesting lessons learned. And I think that the good news is that a lot of the work that our district has done as a board is already considered a best practice from CSBA. I mean, they're not calling us out. specifically but things that they're asking us to do and so want to acknowledge you know the work that member Thomas has done in the past and Member Nguyen and so when when they were asking polling us to see what we did we oftentimes were following some of the recommended practices so that's good but there are also some some areas where I think that we we can beef it up even more. One of the areas that they discussed was how increasingly there can be confusion in the public regarding public comment and how not understanding from the public's perspective why the board shouldn't be responding back because, again, it basically violates the Brown Act. But to be able to explain that in layman's language why that is, And to do that in our upfront Discussion, you know could be a good thing to do So I'll be bringing back some of the recommendations for the board to consider later on so that's an update But overall it was a good training session. And so I would recommend that future board members that become president Consider consider going to that I have two requests which I would like the board to consider in terms of future agenda items. So one is we talked briefly about this late last year. We talked about the fact, well we talked about board norms and we talked about the governance handbook and I think that we agreed that it's, well and even CSBA says that you should refresh your handbook on a certain basis and really the last time that we did this was about three years ago, or maybe longer. Or is it two? OK. And so I would like to request. No, no. Well, bigger. I think Member Nguyen had asked for a board handbook study session, right? Right. So what I would like to request is that when we went to CSBA, they actually had a whole session on the governance handbook. And I think some of us were there. I know that Member Thomas, I'm pretty sure you were there. member Jones you might have been there and I thought it was really good and they and it was led by a very experienced CSBA consultant who has helped guide boards in this area and so I'd like to recommend because we've been sort of detached from CSBA from a consulting perspective for a couple of years and I thought that their program that they had laid out was a good one. And so if the board is OK with this, I'd like to reach out to that consultant. And I think that some of you have gone through master's in governance training with her name's Luann Rivera.

[12865] Nancy Thomas: Oh, Luann is very good.

[12866] Aiden Hill: Yeah, and to talk about a future session where she could come in for a day and have us, or half a day, and have us go through the session. But wanted to pull the board to get their viewpoints on that.

[12889] Nancy Thomas: Half day, yeah.

[12890] Aiden Hill: OK. OK. So I'll coordinate with the superintendent on that. So that was request. Are there any other thoughts on that or any? OK. OK. And then the second request is, it's been about a year since we had talked about the stadium project at the high school. And I think it would be good to get an update. And so if we could have the project manager who's in charge of that. come in and give us an update. I think that that would be great. But we'd like to get the board's perspective on whether we want to have an update on that.

[12929] Nancy Thomas: OK. All right.

[12937] Aiden Hill: OK. So those were my two requests and my update. So thank you, Superintendent. Oh, I'm sorry. Did you get your numbers?

[12945] Joy Lee: No, I couldn't find it. Actually, maybe I was wrong because It wasn't posted or anything. But I had a quick question about our websites. So, like, I find it hard to, the board meetings, it's hard to find on the, on our main website. And I was wondering, like, if there was a way to make it, make, to design it so that our, so that our board meetings would be more clearly shown so the community can know.

[12981] Penny DeLeon: Absolutely. I wish I knew how to do it.

[12984] Penny DeLeon: But I will definitely ask Mr. Rose if he can help us move things around a little bit.

[12989] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. I believe, if I can chime in, I believe that it is a Brown Act requirement that the board agenda be prominently displayed on the main page.

[13010] Penny DeLeon: Can I ask clarification? Are you talking about the whole agenda like, or the link?

[13015] Nancy Thomas: The meeting notice with the link to board docs.

[13020] Penny DeLeon: OK, so because at the top there's a tab that says board agenda and you just click on it.

[13025] Nancy Thomas: Right, but I think it requires that there be a notice that says board meeting and the date and then the link. Because otherwise, people would just have to say, gee, I wonder if there's a board meeting coming up. And they have to click on that link. So to me, it's not prominent.

[13046] Joy Lee: Even just like without the Brown Act, it's just very helpful to the community. Right. Yeah.

[13055] Aiden Hill: And is that?

[13056] Penny DeLeon: Ms. Parks is saying it's there. And I thought I saw it today, too.

[13061] Joy Lee: Yeah. We're talking about like, A calendar, like a date for the meeting, right? Right. Like a date for the meeting. And then like a link to maybe our YouTube.

[13075] Nancy Thomas: There's no link to YouTube. Yeah. But there should be a link to the agenda in BoardDocs.

[13083] Phuong Nguyen: There is. It's right here, right on the top.

[13086] Nancy Thomas: Well, yeah, but it doesn't say the date of the meeting.

[13088] Phuong Nguyen: Well, I understand that.

[13089] Penny DeLeon: I mean, the meeting announcement's at the bottom.

[13091] Phuong Nguyen: There are meeting announcements on the calendar.

[13094] Nancy Thomas: But the link to the... Where is it on the calendar? I didn't see it on the calendar. Right here.

[13100] Joy Lee: Yeah. But it wasn't... Today's meeting wasn't posted.

[13103] Penny DeLeon: Yeah, because it was a special meeting, so it would have... Well, it got posted under the board calendar, and then it got posted under meeting announcements.

[13111] Carina Plancarte: I'd like to chime in to Nancy's comment. I wonder if our website has the capability to publish a site notice for special meetings. I know I've seen it done with other industries where you can publish a prominent site notice that appears right at the very top of the website, of the webpage, and you can create, usually it's a very short message, and you can create a link that'll take you directly to the webpage. And so I'd just be interested to know if our website does have that capability. It's a website notice. It's a site notice.

[13158] Penny DeLeon: Is it like a banner at the top?

[13159] Carina Plancarte: It's a banner. Yeah, it's a banner at the top. And it's generally minimal characters, but it does allow you to sometimes link it to pages. So I would imagine that we should have that capability. And I do agree with you that it should be more prominently displayed. This way, just for transparency's sake, we can publish special meetings or even just the meetings just in general as they're coming up because they're twice a month. And so I think just showing a site notice with that relevant information just for the transparency sake would be great.

[13203] Joy Lee: Thank you.

[13205] Aiden Hill: And can we also look at connecting that to Parent Square too? Should we have a study session on this? OK.

[13227] Penny DeLeon: I just hope that Mr. Rose is listening to this conversation and knows what to do.

[13234] Aiden Hill: Because I can tell you, and I'm sure that member Nguyen can identify. is that this is the hallmark of a classic IT project that has conflicting and unclear requirements and that oftentimes results in multiple iterations.

[13254] Phuong Nguyen: All right, Superintendent, you have the floor. Oh, my gosh.

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

[13258] Penny DeLeon: I just want to, first of all, wish everybody a happy New Year. Welcome back.

[13263] Penny DeLeon: We are really happy to see our students and staff, as always.

[13268] Penny DeLeon: And I have to give a big shout out to our wonderful staff here, Tracy and our wonderful consultants for all of their hard work over the holidays.

[13278] Penny DeLeon: Literally, they worked every holiday.

[13280] Penny DeLeon: And to Nicole, who had a marathon day-to-day and like 18 meetings today that she led.

[13286] Penny DeLeon: And I know it's a lot, but our staff is so generous with their time and their effort.

[13294] Penny DeLeon: And I just want to thank everybody and wish everybody

[13298] Penny DeLeon: a good night.

13.2 Adjournment

[13302] Aiden Hill: Okay, thank you very much. So, unless there are any further comments, can I get a motion to adjourn?

[13310] Carina Plancarte: I'll make a motion.

[13312] Joy Lee: I will second the motion.

[13313] Aiden Hill: Okay, who made the motion? Member Plancarte moves. Member Lee seconds. Member Lee, how do you vote? Yes. Okay, yay?

[13325] Katie Eugster: Yay. OK. You went too fast. Who's won?

[13328] Aiden Hill: OK. And then are we just going to do a roll call vote?

[13331] Nancy Thomas: Who's won?

[13332] Aiden Hill: Who motioned? It was Plancarte.

[13337] Katie Eugster: OK. And second?

[13339] Joy Lee: Member Lee. Joy? Oh. Did you guys raise hands when you got the name?

[13347] Penny DeLeon: Yeah, Joy. I did.

[13368] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms.

[13368] Katie Eugster: Eugster. You're welcome, Nancy.

[13370] Joy Lee: Thank you so much.

[13372] Katie Eugster: Thank you, Ms.

[13372] Aiden Hill: Eugster. Eugster. Yes, thank you. Eugster, Eugster, Eugster. Thank you. Five yeas. OK, thank you. Have a great night, everybody.

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

2.2 Request for Expulsion Hearing Postponement (Closed Session)

6.1 Request for Expulsion Hearing Postponement (Removed by Board)

8. Student Expulsion (Removed by Board)

13.1 PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting (Not Found)

[134] 1.1 Meeting Practices and Information

[236] 1.2 Roll Call

[264] 1.3 Public Comment on Closed Session Items

[280] 1.4 Recess to Closed Session Agenda item 2.1 Agenda item 2.2

[3806] 3.1 Report of Closed Session Actions

[3806] 4.1 Pledge of Allegiance (Estimating)

[3908] 5.1 Approval of the Agenda

[4039] 6.2 Employee Organizations

[4089] 7.1 Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items

[4215] 7.2 Public Comment on Agenda Items

[4262] 9.1 2023-24 First Interim Budget Report

[8934] 9.2 RESOLUTION 2023.24.20 Designating Certain General Funds as Committed Fund Balance for 2023-24

[9070] 9.3 Contract with TNTP, Inc. - Updated Empathic Instruction Proposal

[11895] 10.1 JOB DESCRIPTION: Director of Fiscal Services

[11962] 11.1 Board of Education Committee Reports, Announcements, Requests, Debrief and Discussion

[13258] 12.1 Superintendent's Concluding Comments, Updates, and Future Agenda Items

[13302] 13.2 Adjournment

[100004] 2.1 CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL EXISTING LITIGATION (Gov. Code, 54956.9, subd. (d)(1)): Case #23CV034303 Byrd vs. NUSD (Closed Session)

[100004] 2.2 Request for Expulsion Hearing Postponement (Closed Session)

[100004] 6.1 Request for Expulsion Hearing Postponement (Removed by Board)

[100004] 8. Student Expulsion (Removed by Board)

[100004] 13.1 PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting (Not Found)

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

  Type                         Procedural

TRUSTEES:

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

STUDENT BOARD MEMBER:

Member Joy Lee

1.3 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

1.4 Recess to Closed Session Agenda item 2.1 Agenda item 2.2

  Type                         Procedural

PURPOSE:

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

2. CLOSED SESSION

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

  Type


To discuss and approve settlement agreement pursuant to the terms and conditions outlined in the settlement agreement
for Case #23CV034303 Byrd vs. NUSD.

2.2 Request for Expulsion Hearing Postponement

  Type                         Discussion, Information

PURPOSE:

To discuss the request for expulsion hearing postponement in case e-2324-06.

BACKGROUND:

Per EdCode 48918 (a)(1) The pupil shall be entitled to a hearing to determine whether the pupil should be expelled. An
expulsion hearing shall be held within 30 schooldays after the date the principal or the superintendent of schools determines
that the pupil has committed any of the acts enumerated in Section 48900, unless the pupil requests, in writing, that the
hearing be postponed. The adopted rules and regulations shall specify that the pupil is entitled to at least one postponement
of an expulsion hearing, for a period of not more than 30 calendar days. Any additional postponement may be granted at the
discretion of the governing board of the school district.

3. REPORT OF CLOSED SESSION ACTIONS

3.1 Report of Closed Session Actions

  Type                         Action, Procedural

PURPOSE:

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

4. RECONVENE TO OPEN SESSION

4.1 Pledge of Allegiance

  Type                         Procedural

PURPOSE:

The Governance Team will recite the Pledge of Allegiance

5. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

5.1 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.

Motion & Voting

6. EMPLOYEE ORGANIZATIONS

6.1 Request for Expulsion Hearing Postponement

  Type                         Action

  Recommended                  To approve request for Expulsion Panel Hearing postponement for case e2324-06.
  Action

PURPOSE:

To approve or deny the request for expulsion hearing postponement for case e-2324-06.

BACKGROUND:

Per EdCode 48918 (a)(1) The pupil shall be entitled to a hearing to determine whether the pupil should be expelled. An
expulsion hearing shall be held within 30 schooldays after the date the principal or the superintendent of schools determines
that the pupil has committed any of the acts enumerated in Section 48900, unless the pupil requests, in writing, that the
hearing be postponed. The adopted rules and regulations shall specify that the pupil is entitled to at least one postponement
of an expulsion hearing, for a period of not more than 30 calendar days. Any additional postponement may be granted at the
discretion of the governing board of the school district.

6.2 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

2. CSEA

3. NEWMA

7. PUBLIC COMMENT

7.1 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

7.2 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

9. NEW BUSINESS

9.1 2023-24 First Interim Budget Report

  Type                         Action

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the 2022-23 First Interim
  Action                       Report with Qualified Certification.

  Goals                            4. Fiscal Health


PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

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

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

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

AB 1200 requires all California school districts to submit two interim reports to their County Office of Education. This year,
the First Interim Report is due to the Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE) by December 15, 2023.

  File Attachments
  23-24 1st Interim Full Book_FINAL.pdf (3,077 KB)

Motion & Voting

9.2 RESOLUTION 2023.24.20 Designating Certain General Funds as Committed Fund Balance for 2023-24

  Type                         Action

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education adopt Resolution 2023.24.20 Designating
  Action                       Certain General Funds as Committed Fund Balance for 2023-24.

  Goals                            4. Fiscal Health

PURPOSE:

To approve the Committed designations to the Fund Balance as presented in Resolution 2023.24.20 Designating Certain General Funds
as Committed Fund Balance for 2023-24.

BACKGROUND:

As a result of the balance in the Public School System Stabilization Account, the statutory limitation on school district reserves has been
triggered for the 2023-24 budget period, pursuant to Education Code (EC) section 42127.01(e).

On June 15, 2023, the Board adopted Resolution 2022..23.35 designating $11,077,876 in general funds as Committed to Fund Balance.
The Committed Fund Balance designations have been updated. The Committed Fund Balance designations are necessary to meet the
10% reserve cap requirement.

  File Attachments
  Resolution 2023.24.20 Designating Certain General Funds as Committed Fund Balance for 23-24.pdf (13 KB)

Motion & Voting


  The recommendation is that the Board of Education adopt Resolution 2023.24.20 Designating Certain General Funds as
  Committed Fund Balance for 2023-24.

  Motion by Katherine Jones, second by Carina V Plancarte.
  Final Resolution: Motion Carries
  Yea: Nancy Thomas, Aiden Hill, Phuong Nguyen, Katherine Jones, Carina V Plancarte
  Abstain: Joy Lee

9.3 Contract with TNTP, Inc. - Updated Empathic Instruction Proposal

  Type                         Action

  Fiscal Impact                Yes

  Dollar Amount                $124,000.00

  Budgeted                     Yes

  Budget Source                Antibias Grant

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the updated Empathic Instruction
  Action                       contract.

PURPOSE:

For the Board to approve the TNTP Inc. contract, allowing Educational Services to carry out the state-approved Empathic
Instruction modules as outlined in the Anti-bias Education Grant (2023).

BACKGROUND:

NUSD Educational Services applied for the Antibias Education Program Grant in the summer of 2023 and was selected to
receive the $200,000 grant on August 30, 2023. The Antibias Education Grant Program provides funding for a grant period
from Fiscal Year 2022-2023 through 2025-2026, and funding was granted based on the content and quality of the submitted
applications and proposed activities. One of the state-approved activities within this grant included the coordination and
delivery of three (3) Empathic Instruction 30-40 minute independent modules, which consist of online, scientifically
researched activities that uncover mechanisms by which adults make sense of children's behaviors. These modules, which
would occur in January 2024, August 2024, and January 2025, include survey questions, hypothetical scenarios, and
feedback on teachers' mindsets. The content is developed by Dr. Jason Okonofua (social psychologist at the University of
California, Berkeley) and his colleagues at Mindset Science Solutions. Their research on implementation shows reduced
suspension rates, particularly for students of color, while also improving job satisfaction, a key predictor of teacher retention.

By implementing these modules, Educational Services is following through on the state-approved grant proposal, aligning
district initiatives to three district Board of Education goals (Student Achievement, Teacher and Staff Recruitment &
Retention, & Safe, Secure, and Healthy Learning Environments), and addressing causes for ongoing eligibility under
California's Differentiated Assistance. Currently NUSD qualifies for Differentiated Assistance based on five student groups
who received the lowest status level in two or more state priority areas (English Learners, Homeless, Socio-economic
disadvantaged, African American, and Pacific Islander); all five groups qualify under priority 6: suspensions. Measurement of
programs will be based on 1. end of semester suspension data and 2. survey data focused on student/teacher relationships
and teacher satisfaction.

  File Attachments
  Newark Unified School District_TNTP_MSA (Mindset_Empathic Instruction)_FY24 CLEAN 12.13.24.updated.docx (153 KB)

Motion & Voting
  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the updated Empathic Instruction contract.


  Motion by Phuong Nguyen, second by Nancy Thomas.
  Final Resolution: Motion Carries
  Yea: Nancy Thomas, Phuong Nguyen, Katherine Jones, Carina V Plancarte
  Nay: Aiden Hill
  Not Present at Vote: Joy Lee

10. CONSENT AGENDA: PERSONNEL ITEMS

10.1 JOB DESCRIPTION: Director of Fiscal Services

  Type                         Action

  Absolute Date                Jan 09, 2024

  Recommended                  Staff recommends the Board of Education approve the revised job description for Director of
  Action                       Fiscal Services.

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board to review the revised job description.

BACKGROUND:

The item is for the Board to approve a revised job description for the position of Director of Fiscal Services.    This job
description was last revised in April 1995.   The new job description better reflects the duties and responsibilities of the
position and is better aligned with the District's core mission.    The blue script reflects new language or changes from the
prior job description. The rest of the script in black is reflected in the old version, but now has updated formatting.

  File Attachments
  Director of Fiscal job desc_rev 2 (DRAFT).pdf (412 KB)

Motion & Voting

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

11.1 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 2023-24

  Board Adopted on 12/14/2023                                                          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. Nancy Thomas2. 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. Aiden Hill               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.

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

12.1 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.

13. ADJOURNMENT

13.1 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.

13.2 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.

Motion & Voting


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

  Motion by Carina V Plancarte, second by Joy Lee.
  Final Resolution: Motion Carries
  Yea: Nancy Thomas, Aiden Hill, Phuong Nguyen, Katherine Jones, Carina V Plancarte
  Not Present at Vote: Joy Lee

No minutes available.