Regular Meeting

Introduction

• The Newark Unified School District (NUSD) held a Regular Board Meeting on February 5, 2024, addressing key themes:
  • Equity-driven priorities (LCAP updates, student supports).
  • Facility modernization (Track & Field project concerns, bond planning).
  • Fiscal challenges ($14.9M structural deficit, staffing instability).
  • Community concerns (leadership transparency, resource gaps).
  • Program highlights (Bridgepoint/Crossroads, Newark Education Foundation initiatives).

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Agenda Items

1. Student Program Spotlights

• Bridgepoint High School & Crossroads Virtual Program:

  • Bridgepoint reported increased enrollment, credit recovery success, and expanded CTE opportunities (culinary arts, mural workshops). Improved graduation rates linked to transitions to Newark Memorial High School and adult education.
  • Crossroads (K-12 virtual program) highlighted academic progress, hybrid learning options (in-person culinary/PE classes), and social-emotional learning (SEL) supports.
  • Actions: Board praised programs and suggested collaboration between Bridgepoint and middle/high school student groups.

• Newark Education Foundation (NEF):

  • Funded STEAM initiatives: Science Camp ($12K+ in 2023-24), instrument repairs, and a Spring Showcase (April 13, 2024).
  • Partnerships with Cargill, Rotary, and Prologis supported teacher grants and arts/marching band upgrades.
  • Actions: Board commended NEF’s equity focus and community engagement.

2. LCAP Mid-Year Update

• Progress:
  • 80-90% of LCAP funds spent, prioritizing English Learners (ELs), low-income, foster youth, and African-American/Pacific Islander students.
  • Key expenditures: SEAL programming, mental health supports, bilingual pathways, and professional development.
  • Metrics: Chronic absenteeism rose post-November (disproportionately impacting Pacific Islander/Hispanic students). Special Education IEP audits revealed Hispanic student overrepresentation; interventions underway.
• Challenges:
  • $6.1M deficit requires staff reductions (16 certificated positions, classified restructuring).
  • Alameda County Office critiqued delayed financial reporting and staffing instability.
• Actions:
  • Narrow metrics for 2024-25 LCAP cycle; align actions with closing equity gaps.
  • Board requested deeper analysis of attendance strategies and Long-Term English Learner (LTEL) supports.

3. Track & Field Modernization Project

• Proposal: $6.3M renovation for Newark Memorial High School’s all-weather track, drainage upgrades, and ADA-compliant pathways.
• Concerns:
  • Cost Transparency: Budget excludes potential $200K path-of-travel upgrades (DSA-mandated).
  • Community Engagement: Limited public input; board members unaware of design meetings.
  • Project Delays: DSA approval delays, inconsistent timelines, and unclear roles.
• Actions:
  • Board requested revised timelines, budget breakdowns, and a study session to reassess scope and governance.

4. Fiscal Health & Staffing

• Structural Deficit: $14.9M gap addressed via staff attrition, restructuring, and $200K allocated for IT cybersecurity/FCMAT consulting.
• Staffing Challenges:
  • 8+ administrative vacancies (HR, facilities) linked to leadership concerns.
  • Superintendent DeLeon criticized over high turnover (e.g., Dr. Nicole Pierce-Davis’ resignation).
• Actions: Approved contracts for interim fiscal consultants to stabilize budgeting/reporting.

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Public Comments

• Leadership & Staffing: Calls for improved transparency amid resignations; tributes to Dr. Pierce-Davis’s equity contributions.
• Resource Gaps: Chromebook shortages at Schilling Elementary, underpaid classified staff, and outdated facilities impacting learning.
• Equity: Requests to reinstate heritage month celebrations and address disproportionate special education referrals.
• Facilities: Student member emphasized equity gaps in infrastructure; community urged bond measure for roof/tech upgrades.
• LCAP Spending: Cindy Parks advocated full utilization of site council funds for immediate student needs.

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Follow-Up & Commitments

• LCAP: Finalize 2024-25 metrics with community input; partner with county to address absenteeism.
• Facilities: Assess storm damage repairs; re-establish bond committee for potential November 2024 measure.
• Track & Field: Schedule study session to review scope, budget, and engagement plans.
• Staffing: Accelerate hiring for critical roles; present administrative reorganization plan.
• Community Engagement: Forums planned to discuss budget cuts, bond planning, and audit findings (meeting minutes backlog).

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Conclusion

• The meeting adjourned with outcomes:
  • LCAP priorities reaffirmed with equity/data-driven focus.
  • Track & Field project paused pending governance review.
  • Fiscal stabilization via consultants and attrition-based cuts.
• Next Steps: Address leadership transparency, finalize facility timelines, and advance community-driven equity initiatives.

Target Audience Notes:

• Parents/Guardians: LCAP impacts student programs; bond may modernize facilities.
• Staff: Hiring delays and restructuring expected through 2024-25.
• Community: Commitments to transparency on major projects and fiscal health.

1.1 Roll Call

[55] Aiden Hill: Can you please say your last name again? Keiser. Ms. Keiser, could you do roll call for us?

[63] Kat Jones: Here.

[66] Phuong Nguyen: Here.

[68] Nancy Thomas: Here. Here.

[72] Aiden Hill: Here. Great, thank you.

1.2 Meeting Practices and Information

1.3 Public Comment on Closed Session Items

1.4 Recess to Closed Session

[76] Aiden Hill: OK, moving on to meeting practices. So meeting information. Members of the public may attend the meeting in person or at our district boardroom located at 5715 Music Avenue, Newark, California. Follow the link below for instructions in English and Spanish. Members of the public may also observe the meeting via the NUSD YouTube channel. 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 publiccommentatnewarkunified.org, a written comment by submitting a speaking card via email at publiccommentatnewarkunified.org, or with live in-person comments by submitting a speaker card with the executive assistant. So, Ms. Keeser, are there any public comments on closed session items? No, President Heldrich, no. Great. Thank you. So moving on to, we'll be recessing to closed session. The items that we'll be covering are agenda item 2.1, public employee appointment, employment, discipline, dismissal, release, Government Code 54957, subdivision B1, and 2.2, student expulsion, ed code 48918. Recessing to close.

3.1 Report of Closed Session Actions

4.1 Pledge of Allegiance

5.1 Approval of the Agenda

[4772] Aiden Hill: One, report of closed session actions. There's nothing to report. Moving on to agenda item 4.1, Pledge of Allegiance. 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. Okay, moving on to agenda item 5.1, approval of the agenda. Do we have any items that need to be pulled?

13.7 New Job Description-PURCHASING AND PROCUREMENT MANAGER

14.7 MINUTES: Minutes of the September 5, 2023, Regular Meeting of the Board of Education

[4812] Penny DeLeon: Yes, thank you, President Hill. We would like to pull 12.2 for now and 13.7. Superintendent DeLeon, did you say 13.7?

[4833] Penny DeLeon: Yes.

[4833] Phuong Nguyen: And also 14.7, the board was not able to view the minutes.

[4838] Penny DeLeon: Oh yes, and the minutes, the attachment didn't open.

[4841] Aiden Hill: 12.2, 13.7, 14.7. Can I get a motion to pull items 12.2, 13.7, 14.7?

[4863] Phuong Nguyen: I move to approve with the modification to the agenda. OK. I'll second.

[4869] Aiden Hill: OK. So Ms. Keiser. You can take your vote.

[4878] Kat Jones: I'm sorry.

[4879] Joy Lee: Student member Lee. Yes.

[4903] Aiden Hill: Ms. Keeser.

[4904] Kat Jones: I'm waiting for a number of you. That's OK. All right.

[4908] Thank you. All right.

6.1 School Spotlight: Bridgepoint H.S. and Crossroads

[4911] Aiden Hill: Great. Thank you. OK, so moving on to item six point one school spotlight, Bridgepoint High School and Crossroads Superintendent.

[4922] Penny DeLeon: Yes, it is my great pleasure having been an alternative education principal at one point in my life, which I just love, and I love hanging out at Bridgepoint, it's my favorite. It is my great pleasure to introduce the principal of Bridgepoint and Crossroads, Ms. Julie Calderon, who will give their report tonight.

[4946] Julie Calderon: Thank you so much. Good evening, President Hill, board members, Dr. DeLeon, and cabinet members, and community members. Thank you for being here. I will be doing a double spotlight this evening. We're going to start with Bridgepoint High School, which is our district's continuation high school. It is my seventh year there as your principal. And I'm just going to be sharing some of the highlights of what makes our school wonderful. So as we have been talking over the years, I guess this is year seven, I'm happy to report that we are increasing our enrollment, which is a result of the ongoing collaboration with our sister school, Newark Memorial. You know, it's so important that we get our students over to our site as soon as possible so they can remediate their credits and either go back and graduate with their class at Newark Memorial and or choose our path and graduate with us. And of course, connecting students to other resources such as Newark Adult Education, which isn't going to be spotlighted, but you will hear mentioned because it is obviously part of the resources that we offer students. So of course, as always, we are a predominantly male school. We're at 98, or we were at 98 on the 31st of January. And the majority of our students are male students. We finally got a sophomore student last week. But the majority of our students are seniors. So we do get students in the senior year. We get juniors. I say this year after year, it would be great to get students have a sizable sophomore population so that students could go back to Newark Memorial. But oftentimes, sometimes families are reluctant for a variety of reasons. And so we don't often see them until their late junior year or their senior year. And when we're talking about seniors, that also includes the wonderful 11 young adults in our TAL program. Mr. Sung, their teacher, is here supporting tonight. So thank you, Mr. Sung, for all your hard work. And those young people graduate when they're 22. So they stay with us. for a number of years. Graduation rate, I know this is the metric that we focus on, because as you know, we have rolling admissions. We get students four times a year. And one of the things that I think is really important, and I said this last year, I'm gonna say it again, so those of you who were on the board last year are gonna remember that I said this, that we have to also remember that I help contribute to Newark Memorial's graduation rate, because we do send students back to Newark Memorial, And then we do transition students to Newark Adult Education. So we don't want students to drop out and not graduate. If they are so credit deficient that they can't finish with us, we have a school right on campus that I'm also the principal of, Newark Adult Education, that also offers a diploma. And that can connect them with, whether it's a loanee, or the military, or job training, it's a diploma. we are doing more and more of those transfers. And these numbers don't reflect those additional outcomes, such as transfer back to Memorial or successful graduation from Newark Adult Education. So those are positive outcomes. I consider them are positive outcomes, even though the numbers may not reflect. I'm excited to say that we are continuing to expand career technical education options after a number of years. This is the first year in many that we've been able to offer MVROP culinary arts on site. Our beloved chef retired before the pandemic. And so this year we have a new chef. And so we're offering two sections of culinary arts and they hit the ground running. They brought back our beloved holiday feast, which is an event that Dr. DeLeon was a guest. And thank you. Thank you. This is an event that where students create the menu, they prepare the food, they collaborate with Child Nutrition to feed all students and staff on that special day. We're also partnering with a program out of Hayward Unified, who's partnering with multiple cities, Raising Leaders. And that's a program that provides career mentoring, internship opportunities. It's an evening course that students take remotely. We've had seven participants, including one young man who graduated early and is now working for the city of Hayward as his as part of his work with raising leaders. And for our students who love the arts, we have an ongoing partnership with Precita Eyes Mural Arts for an annual muralismo workshop and connecting students with other professional artists. So we'll talk a little bit more about that later. Climate and culture, this is kind of our strength, right? I say it every year. It's something that I take great pride in. A little bit later, you will hear from a member of our Bridgepoint leadership team. Unlike Newark Memorial, you know, this isn't part of our schedule, but it's an important team on campus because it's student-led and student-run. And so you'll hear from one of their members. We are partnering like all our other schools, sister schools, with SAVE. And they're offering multiple mini-courses in healthy relationships for our students through our advisory. We have a very strong cost team. Bridgepoint students make up 71% of our current 62 referrals. As of today, it's 65. And I'm really happy that because of some of our grant funding, we were able to create a position for a school social worker. So that is in its year of inception. And our social worker is an alumna. So she was a Bridgepoint student many years ago, and now she's serving students as a school social worker, connecting families and students to resources. Of course, we work with our clinicians from EBAC and Wellness Together. And last year, I mentioned that we get a weekly visit from an alumni at Bridgepoint. He serves as a mentor to our students. So he comes at least once a week, sometimes twice, to organize games and leadership activities, donations of snacks. And just having him on campus, especially for our young men, is wonderful. Just some fun pictures from events that we look forward to every year. Special Olympics, one of our tall students was saying the pledge there. Halloween's a very big deal at Bridgepoint. So as you can see, students like to go all out because of the costume contest. Leadership has gone on field trips with Culinary Arts. They had gone to Ardenwood Farms and see how an operating farm works. Just a little bit more from our ofrenda, Dia de los Muertos. And now I have a short video from one of the young ladies that took part in our muralismo workshop. So Ms. Kieser is going to help me if I have technical difficulties.

[5351] Ms. Silvia: I'm Silvia, and I was part of the school art mural. And I would say it was a very fun process that we got to be a part of. It was cool working with the professional art muralist and learning his techniques and then trying that on our own. And then also just working together as a group with all of our ideas and all of our different, you know, art styles. So all in all, I feel like it came together very, very good. It turned out very good. I like it. And then the process was fun. So I think that's also what counts.

[5394] Julie Calderon: So thank you to Miss Silva. And behind me, you will see That mural, it's debuting tonight. It hasn't even been mounted at school. And so this is a project that we worked on with a professional muralist from Percida Eyes in the Mission District in San Francisco. And they come in and they work with the group of students. Our art teacher nominated 20 students to be part of this workshop. They start out with brainstorming and sketching their ideas. You know, to bring 20, 21 people's ideas together is challenging, but they do it within a day. And as you can see, the Prudential product is making its debut tonight, where it will hang here in the boardroom for this week before we mount it permanently in the Bridgepoint multipurpose room. Very nice. This side was over here. you know, I spend a lot of time talking about graduation. And if you notice, I've added an S because it's plural. So I want to publicly shout out my colleague, Dr. Murphy at Newark Memorial, who was the summer school principal. And he put on a beautiful commencement during summer school. Many of you were there with me in the lineup. And so we were able to graduate 10 students last year during summer school. You know, this isn't always been an outcome that students and families look forward to. And last year, our students We're just as excited about that commencement. So I'm excited this year because we've got students who are planning for a summer graduation. So we hope that you join us for our Bridgepoint graduation. Oh, you know what? I almost forgot. I have a leadership student who's here to speak. So if you wouldn't mind giving us just a few more moments of your time to hear from Mr. Prasad. Ashwin?

[5506] Ashton Prasad: Hi, my name is Ashton Prasad. Thank you very much for allowing me to speak here to the wonderful members of the board and our community. I am a senior at Bridgepoint Continuation. I am a new member of leadership, so I figured I would just speak here tonight so I could touch on what leadership has been able to do and the influences that have allowed me to make the decision to join leadership and the plans for the future. Leadership has been doing a great job at creating very involving events, you know, allows everybody to not have any pressure of not wanting to do it or having the pressure of not thinking they can be good enough when it's all just about the participation. It's about everybody having fun. It's mainly what drew me to it, especially with the great leadership overseer, Ms. Janae Shepard. You know, she was the one that encouraged me to do this and really wanted me to be the frontrunner for speaking tonight. She gave me this handout that allows me to inform you guys that we will be focusing a lot on the future about mental health for students. We're going to be trying to get them to be, you know, more social, more socially active so they can bridge that barrier of anxiety of talking in public. We'll also be touching on a lot of drug abuse, you know, trying to dissuade people from stepping into the use of nicotine and marijuana and other, you know, brain altering products. But one of our main goals, especially for this month being African American History Month, is we will be, you know, explaining the heritage and the history behind our wonderful compatriots. And really just be, you know, trying to educate people about, you know, the history beyond what we learn in class. So I'd like to thank you guys for your time. Please have a wonderful evening.

[5630] Julie Calderon: Thank you again, Ashvin. And so Bridgepoint will be sharing its graduation stage with Crossroads and New Work Adult Education for the first time in many years on the morning of Friday the 31st in our multipurpose room at 11 a.m. And I hope all of you are there to join us. Did we want to do questions now or at the end of both presentations. It's your choice. Well, we'll take I'll take Bridgepoint questions and then we'll move on to grassroots.

[5660] Aiden Hill: OK, so members of the board questions. Student member, do you have any questions?

[5667] Joy Lee: No, but I just had a comment. Ashton, I know how nervous it is to speak up on front, especially when you're like looking at everybody in the board that you don't really know. You did a really good job.

[5683] Penny DeLeon: I was going to say, you've mastered public speaking. Yeah, that was really, really good. You should have no fear whatsoever. You're great. Thank you.

[5692] Joy Lee: And then listening to what's going on in leadership at your school, it just sounds really amazing. And I'm looking forward to hearing more about it.

[5702] Phuong Nguyen: Maybe there needs to be a collaboration.

[5704] Joy Lee: No, that's what I was thinking while you guys were talking.

[5709] Nancy Thomas: Well, it strikes me that we used to have a presentation once a month from Newark Middle School and Bridgepoint. And it would be nice to reinstate that. And I think you've got a perfect speaker to come from leadership.

[5723] Phuong Nguyen: Yes, I agree.

[5724] Nancy Thomas: Please do.

[5727] Joy Lee: It would also be more amazing if the middle school and the Bridgepoint and then also the student board representative could get together and we can just talk more.

[5736] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, that would be a good idea.

[5738] Julie Calderon: Sounds good. We're all in.

[5741] Aiden Hill: Number one, did you have an additional?

[5742] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, President Hill. I just want to make a comment. I'm always so grateful to be able to stop by at Bridgepoint and say hi and drop off goodies. But especially, I am always in awe of the hard work and dedication that the students have over there and your connection with the students. So thank you, Ms. Calderon, for always including us, and I just would like for members of the community to also recognize and know that alternative education is not what everybody thinks it is. It's a lot of heart, and it's a lot of soul and dedication. And every year at graduation, you get us. I'm in tears. But it is very moving. And again, thank you so much for all the hard work that you do there, too.

[5798] Julie Calderon: Thank you for your kind words.

[5800] Aiden Hill: Other questions or comments?

[5806] Aiden Hill: So thank you, Ms. Calderon, for that great presentation and all the work you're doing. And please continue.

[5811] Julie Calderon: OK. Mr. Persaud, you are excused if you'd like to be excused. Otherwise, you're welcome to stay to hear about Crossroads. Awesome. And yes, you and I are going to touch base about you being here regularly. All right, so let's talk Crossroads. So Crossroads is a sister school of Bridgepoint. We're all on the same campus, with the difference is that Crossroads is our virtual program. It is a K-12 program and Crossroads independent study. So as of the 29th, we had 49 students ranging from our elementary grades, our eight elementary students and our 41 secondary students. We currently have no pre-K students or K students or sixth graders, but we do have a range of students ranging from first through 12th grade with our 10th graders being, actually our seventh graders being our most sizable population. So they're kind of sprinkled throughout each grade, which of course makes our elementary teacher who's here tonight. And I want to just shout him out, Mr. Angelo, who teaches all of the elementary grades and creates lesson plans across all of those content areas. So that makes things interesting for him. And then with our secondary students, they are on the Edgenuity platform and working on various courses. So these are some results from last year where we saw reading improvement. Now, Crossroads, like Bridgepoint, does have those rolling admissions. So it's a moving target. It's really hard to kind of see growth, although we do see growth as the year goes on. But it is challenging when we've got students phasing back to their home schools or joining us after, you know, abruptly there might be I ready the day you arrive. And so it is challenging to kind of know what the results are. But we know that reading has absolutely been a focus. Mr. Angelo is assisted by a virtual classroom aide, Ms. Pichardo, and she runs small groups for reading and math as well. And I hope I'm saying that, is that, that sounds correct. Yes, Mr. Angelo, he's nodding yes. So there's definitely support there for the students. But we always are looking to move that needle for especially our youngest learners. So what it looks like is that our elementary students, their model's a little different than our secondary students. They actually do work in grade level groups with Mr. Angelo. They also, because it's independent study, do work independently. And like I said, they have that support from their classroom aide, and she runs small groups with our students. They're doing the same things that they were doing at their homeschools, big ideas, math. social studies and science. And like I already mentioned, our secondary students work in ingenuity. We wanted to get a little more creative this year and offer our secondary students some more opportunities. So for the first time in many, many years, we have two Crossroads students who come in person to Bridgepoint to be part of ROP's Culinary Arts. This was a practice we did many years ago when I began, and we've brought it back. And it's been very exciting And the students are enjoying being part of an in-person program. And of course, getting that opportunity to take MVROP. And then we have one student from Crossroads who doesn't like taking PE online. And so she comes and joins the Bridgepoint PE class. And again, has the opportunity to be with peers. This is always the highlight of these presentations. My elementary students love to share.

[6035] Student: and virtual crossroads. And I like to teach this to the students. And teachers can be a lot of work on their side. And the students can learn a lot of things in my life. For physical activities, I do football. Football practice starts at 8 p.m. So, they're not looking for the eye rays and that kind of stuff.

[6055] Julie Calderon: That's what I like about crossroads. That young man's been with us for a number of years. And then you're going to recognize this young lady, because every year she wants to be part of this.

[6071] Kylen Matilda Lux: I am Kylen Matilda Lux. I am in fourth grade. Here's my speech. I chose to attend the online school program at Glasgow, where I'm from. My teachers are very nice. They give me good classes and give me a good amount of homework. Academic skills are improving because of my teachers, Mr. Angel and Mr. Choy. I can learn on my own now, well, because of that. When I am done with my homework, I do additional math and science videos. My personal interest on math and science is I have learned about some atoms and motions and chemistry and stars, black holes, galaxies and exoplanets in astronomy. My teachers also use I-Ready. So when I take I-Ready in USNs, I look at more math and reading, such as algebra and the meanings of more complicated words. I-Ready does its best to match my math ability, so I am creating more extra materials. The teachers also show me how to use creative words to answer problems, such as Also, I'd like to note that the online program does not keep you from having a social life. Because I still meet my friends in person quite often, I play and engage in physical activities with my friends too. I have interest in joining the Crossroads next year again because it's such a great program.

[6174] Julie Calderon: And then one of our middle school students wanted to participate as well. So she wanted to share a slide that she did for one of her classes just to show her understanding of science concepts. So we don't have a video, but this is her work. And this was something about energy transformation. And this is an illustration that she made as well as captions that she provided. And this was something that she did for her edgenuity course. So there's often that understanding that, oh, they're just filling in blanks. doing multiple choice, and no, they actually do have project-based learning as part of some of their edgenuity courses. Just varies by the course that they're in. And this is actually a slide that she wanted to share, so I will read it to you. I have been with Crossroads Edgenuity for about three years now. Edgenuity Crossroads is an excellent online learning platform for students especially like me. When I was in person for school, I would often tend to get distracted easily. Crossroads Edgenuity has really helped me on focusing more on school and being less distracted. Throughout the past three years, I've had amazing teachers that are so kind and always emailing me if I need help. Thanks to Crossroads Edudui, I have also been able to maintain perfect attendance and on top of that, been able to maintain A's in my classes. The online courses on edunuity can also be informative and easy to learn when taking your time. My favorite class would be online learning digital citizenship. This course teaches students about not doing cyberbullying plagiarism while online. This course also teaches students how to prepare for exams, presentations, group discussions, and projects. In my opinion, this course is really great and motivating for any student while learning online. And climate and culture, there's embedded social, emotional learning lessons at the elementary level with our secondary students. They do individual Zoom check-ins with their teacher. There's tiered re-engagement strategies, which have been quite successful in retaining our students, having parent meetings, as well as SSTs to get students back on track. We're not allowing our students to hide and struggle. We are trying to seek them out and connect them to resources. So just like our Bridgepoint students, they also get referred to COST and they make up nearly 30% of our referrals. Our coyotes share the stage and have for a number of years now with Bridgepoint. And so we, again, invite you to join us for our elementary virtual promotion, which will be on Tuesday, May 28th at noon. And then, as I already mentioned, on Friday, May 31st at 11 a.m. Thank you.

[6330] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Ms. Calderon. Questions from the board or comments?

[6339] Aiden Hill: OK, thank you so much for you. I'm sorry.

[6343] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you to our Mr. I'm sorry, Mr. Angelo. Thank you so much for checking in with our online students. And Mr. Sung, thank you so much for all the things that you do at Bridgepoint. Both of you guys, along with all the staff there at Bridgepoint and at Crossroads, thank you so much. Thank you.

[6372] Aiden Hill: Other questions, comments?

[6374] Carina Plancarte: I'd just like to say, Ms. Calderon, Crossroads is always going to be near and dear to us because my son went there for a year. And I really, truly appreciate all of the work. I got to see firsthand what the staff for Crossroads did. And I really appreciate that. And I'm sure you have a big plate full Mr. Angelo, but thank you so much for coming in and pulling through for our kids every day. I really appreciate that. And then to our student as well, you did such a great job. I know how hard it is to get up here and speak in front of a room of strangers, but you did such a wonderful job. And I truly look forward to seeing all of the wonderful things that you're going to do in running that leadership group. And I'm looking forward to seeing more students step up as well. And thank you so much as well. I'm sorry, I don't remember your name. But I really appreciate your work as well.

[6443] Aiden Hill: Any other questions, comments?

[6446] Julie Calderon: Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Have a nice evening. Ms.

6.2 Newark Education Foundation Presentation

[6448] Aiden Hill: Calderon, thank you for you and your staff, all your work. Thank you. OK, moving on to 6.2, Newark Education Foundation presentation. Superintendent.

[6462] Penny DeLeon: It is an absolute pleasure, a dream, that not only are we lucky enough to have an educational foundation, but our wonderful Newark Ed Foundation is here tonight to present to us. And we are so excited to have you. Thank you for coming, everyone.

[6488] Andrew Klein: Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. And I brought most of the gang with me today, so we can have an, you can get a chance to meet them a little bit. And they'll tell you a little bit about what we do. First of all, about us, right? We've been around actually since 2005, believe it or not, in many different incarnations. We kind of reactivated about 2017 or so, 2016 maybe, maybe a little bit before that. And I've been working ever since. Our mission is built around helping the Newark Unified School District with smart, excuse me, get smart, STEAM activities. Thank you. Science, technology, arts, and so on and so forth. And we're basically about raising money from the companies and individuals in the city of Newark and thereabouts and running programs with inside the district. I'm three minutes, no. And so, as I said, STEAM types of programs. We have a couple of different ways we do it. One is what we call sustainable programs, okay? Things that we do on a regular basis. So it's something we do every year, and you'll hear about a couple of those today. The most important elements of that are one is that it's equitable, okay? So it helps, and it helps a lot of people. We're not about a single scholarship or anything like that. We're about programs that help. a group of students. The other one that's really important is it's supported by the district. If the district doesn't want to do it, then we're not going to try and run it down their throats or anything like that. We're trying to support programs that they think are good. Now, every once in a while, we'll bring them an idea, and we'll say, what about? And a lot of times they'll go along with it. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes things don't work out, but we That's our goal, is to make sure we're supporting the district and the kinds of things that it wants to do. We also have activities, and we'll talk about a couple of those one-time contributions which we'll make, which will help a program along or an activity along. So, who are we real quick? That's me. I'm the president at this moment. Terrence, who you'll see a little bit later, is the vice president. Olga will be with us in just a minute. And the secretary, Lynn, back up. She's hiding out over there. All right. And we have a few other folks that you may recognize as board members. We have a little group, but we're mighty, and we do a lot of really cool things. So let's get on with it and tell you what we've been up to. Olga, why don't you tell us about Science Camp?

[6647] Olga Borjon: Science Camp is one of our signature programs that we have for many, many years, and where we help fifth graders, now it used to be sixth graders, to go experience nature with other parents. I think that's the fun part of it. And we've been doing that for many, many years. To date, we have donated, sponsored over $84,000 worth of science camp. And last year, this year, 23-24 school year, we spent over $12,000 on helping all the schools. And there's some pictures of us where we actually took the checks to the students, and they were Very excited that we were contributing and hopefully next year with contributions from Cargill and anybody else we can get to contribute to us, we can continue to help students go to science camp.

[6700] Andrew Klein: Thank you. The program, we've been running with this program for several years now. And every year we show up with some checks and we bring them to the school. We bring them right to the principal. We say, here you go, and this is for science camp. And they kind of wait for them now. So it's been a great program. And again, with our friends from Cargill have helped continue to support that. In the arts, OK, you may know us as the guys who do the elementary school band program. That may be how you ever heard of us, right? And for several years, we actually ran that program, for lack of a better term. We would hire the person and everything like that. And then this little thing called COVID happened. And everything shut down, right. And in the middle of all of that, sixth graders moved to the middle school. They started an after school program for elementary school students and all of that. And it didn't make sense to bring back a program that was competitive against the district, okay. And so we started to look for other ways to help. And the first one we came across was the Musical Instrument Repair Program. And we went out and we raised some money. We got some nice money from the Rotary Club and the City of Newark to go do that. And what that is all about is getting instruments and getting them repaired. So, for example, Mr. Hernandez at the middle school, he has a number of instruments that he brings in on a regular basis. But he has to spend money out of a budget that he kind of wants to use for other things. And so we're going to help him out with that, all right? He's going to be able to get instruments repaired for students that maybe he couldn't before. We're also going to buy him a couple of new things that he's been looking to buy. It's on his list, but once again, doesn't exactly have the money that he needs to do that. And what he's finding is, is the same thing most are, is he's getting students now starting to come back to the band program. During COVID, of course, it all disappeared. Then they were slowly coming back. Now you're talking about, you know, a band program getting to be 60 students all of a sudden. And the number of instruments is suddenly a little marginal. So we're going to try to help them out with that. The real cool one is Mr. Castaneda at the high school, right? We're going to help him out. He's a dynamo. And he's got a lot of big plans. To do that, and we were at his concert in December. Hopefully some of you got a chance to do that. Got to listen to the choir. We got to listen to the band play. But his real vision is to kind of get that marching band back into play, right? Because that's what everybody sees. That's what draws folks in. And at the front of that marching band is what's called a drum line, right? And our drum line is a little sad, okay? Not because of the players, but because of the equipment. It's a little beat up, okay, and everything like that. And we're working to buy him a new drum line, all right? So those kids can go, so when you hear that, you'll turn and you'll look and it'll look sharp. And those kids will be standing tall, right? And they'll be proud, right? And the district sees that and its people and their parents see that. And then they're at a parade and they see that. And that's what we're looking for. Okay? We want the people, we want people to recognize that we're darn good at what we do. Right? And so we're going to, we're working right now. If we have the funds for it, we just have to work the mechanics out and get the equipment and get it into his hands. And hopefully next fall, they'll be out there banging on that. And we'll see them in the Newark parade and everything like that. On the other side of the arts program is another teacher in the high school, Mr. Ewing. Right? Real dynamo as well. Right? And we're going to help him out by getting him some money for a voice instructor. So when you go to see the musical that's coming up in this year, right, they're going to be able to sing. Not that they couldn't before, okay? You always get kids from chorus who know how to sing, but he's got a whole bunch of people, right, who quite frankly some of them never even sang in a play before. And they need to learn how. They need to, you know, they need to be taught a little bit. So, how to do it, and that's what this is all about, is making them sound good and feel good about themselves, making the audience appreciate that a little bit better. So, when you do go, you'll go, that sounded really good, and this will be why. Okay, so, and we're looking for other programs as well. Let's, Jennifer, why don't you talk a little about some of the other things you're doing. Oh, I'm sorry. We changed the direction. We changed the direction, okay.

[6993] Jan Crocker: Hi. We're looking at ways of impacting teachers and giving support to teachers and in conjunction with Rotary because we actually go to people and say, give us some money but this is what we want to do. So we don't generate the money as much as the fact we get other people's money and then present it to you. And so we set up a program with Rotary in which we would have small grants to anybody that works at the school and the middle school. It could be anybody. It could be a parent. It could be a custodian. It could be a teacher. Someone that sees that there's a need in our project area, which is the STEAM area, the science, the math, the arts, the engineering. What am I missing? What? Technology, of course. So we had anywhere between 500, up to $500 would be for it. And so we got $3,000 for Rotary, and we said, you ask for it, you fill out one page, and we will make sure that you get the money within a couple weeks. And so we've had teachers take advantage of that. We still have some money left in the pot. So if there's any middle school teachers out there or staff members or parents that see a need in that area, let us know. We've got the money. We want to make sure we give it to you. We've bought computers. We've bought classroom aides. We don't take care of people, and we don't take in terms of buying salaries for people, but we do buy things that would work in the classroom. So this is a new program. It's an exciting program. And I think middle school sometimes left out. And so we wanted to make sure they knew that we love them. Middle school students are interesting students. They're wonderful. And they are so impressionable that you can really make a difference in their lives. Having been a teacher at the high school, I know what kind of energy that they have. So that is one of the programs that we've had as an education association.

[7119] Andrew Klein: I really like that program because it directs, the teachers get to decide what they want to do. They make the pitch for it. We approve it. And then they go out and they do it. And it's really, a lot of nice little things can get done. It's almost like microloans, if you start to think about it, except they don't have to pay us back. And it really works forward. The other one up there is the Rockets and Robotics Clubs. And we've helped them out over the years in various different ways. Right? You know, and the Rocket Club, for example, as you're well aware, is going to, is trying to go to Huntsville. Right? And also trying to go to great, the TARC thing in Virginia. Right? Those are two big activities. Right? And just a little, I don't know if you've ever gotten the background on that, but the one, this is the 20th year for the thing in Virginia. That, our school has been there about 10 times. Right? Which puts us in the top 2 or 3% of all of the high schools in the nation. Okay? They're just, it's just amazing how many times we've gone there and how well we've done over the years. Right? Only 100 schools get to go each year. Okay? So that is, that's impressive. And then what they did last year to get enough money to get them to get to, well enough to get to go to Huntsville and hang out with NASA engineers, okay? That's awesome. Okay. So what we did is we gave them some money. We said, hey, we're going to give you some money, but we want it to be a, you can raise other money against it. So we'll say, you know, and we ended up giving them what effectively was $3,000. And they raised $6,000 out of that, of course. Right. And then there's more coming towards their goal. So we'll continue to support those programs as they go on. And we want to get formalized in them. and continue to do that. All right. Here. Here's Jennifer.

[7243] Jennifer Ciraolo: So today we're officially announcing our Spring Showcase, which we're very excited about. It's a community project where we want to highlight all of our STEAM programs within NUSD. It's essentially just a celebration of how hard our students are working, in band, drama, rocketry. Envisioned like a science fair, but it's a STEAM fair. So we'll have Boots, the rocketry club, other, hopefully some artwork from the elementary students on display for the whole community to come and enjoy. It's a free event. And we're having an ice cream social as well. So we'll be sending a personalized invitation to all of the board. So hopefully you can join us. and I have some additional flyers here as well. We will also have some performances throughout the afternoon at Newark Memorial High School out in their quad area with both bands from both schools. The drama club will be giving us a sneak peek of their upcoming performance and a couple dance clubs and hopefully some from the elementary schools as well. So we hope that you guys can all join us.

[7319] Andrew Klein: Thank you, Jennifer. This is really exciting for us. It's the first real event we're doing like this. It is free. And while I'm talking, you should all be putting this date in on your phones. Or I'd say trapper keepers. Do we still have those? But yeah, so from 1 to 4 April 13th. It's a Saturday. You're not doing anything. Come on down. OK. Maybe you can dish some ice cream for us. That wouldn't be a bad thing. But really looking forward to it, looking forward to it as a celebration for the kids that we help out. And quite frankly their parents and get them involved and so on and so forth. But we couldn't do all of this without the sponsors. And so I'll let Terrence tell you a little bit about those.

[7367] Terrence Grindall: Thank you. And yes, what the foundation tries to do is to connect with corporate donors big donors who want to help in our schools. So Cargill has been a major investor in our schools going forward, and I really would like to call them out for particular generosity. In addition, we've had integral communities, D.R. Horton, Prologis, and Fremont Bank, and Trumark Homes. And of course, as was referenced, the Rotary Club has really stepped up in partnership with us to help us to help you to serve our students. So really just wanted to take that moment to thank those corporate donors that have continued to support us, and we expect them to continue to. So really just want to thank them, and thank you for working with us.

[7431] Andrew Klein: Yeah, we certainly couldn't do it without them and their generosity is great. Prologis was a more recent one, so it will be good to hopefully see if they want to continue in doing this, but they sound very supportive. How you, how the community can help, of course, right? From your perspective, it's working with us. That's the best thing the district can do, is give us ideas, let's go forward, let's figure out the kinds of things. We're here to support you. I'm not interested in trying to change what you want to do or anything like that. I'm interested in trying to support you. That's what we want to do. This is how you can find out more about us. We have an Instagram page, website, Facebook, and we always are looking for folks in the community who want to come help us, okay, and help us do these things like at the event, for example. Join us as part of the board. We have open meetings. It's the fourth Tuesday of every month at the Newark Public Library. We meet there. You're more than welcome to come in and sit down. A couple of you have, which I really, really appreciate that. Bring good ideas and bring the desire to work. And we look forward to continuing to do this moving forward.

[7517] Joy Lee: you and your team for everything that you're doing questions from the board so like let's say a teacher wants to have something but they don't have the money to do it do they just contact you guys and then

[7538] Andrew Klein: That program, in particular, is the middle school. And we support STEAM type of programs. So if you want to buy a bunch of t-shirts for a particular thing, probably not. But if it's related to that in the middle school, then yes. But if they're in a high school, if they're in elementary school, they can always contact us. We're looking for ongoing programs and activities to support those types of things. And we can at least have that conversation. If we don't know, okay, we might be able to direct them to somebody who does. Sometimes we get, I have a couple of companies who have worked with us who have people who volunteer and mentor, right? Well, that's not something we want to be in the middle of, but I can guarantee you I can connect them to somebody in the high school or whatever and make that happen. And then we just step back and let the magic happen. So they can always contact us and we can talk about how we may be able to help them or direct them in the right way. direction.

[7596] Joy Lee: Thank you so much.

[7600] Nancy Thomas: I'd like to say that I really appreciate the breadth of the programs that you're doing. The fact that at the elementary level you have science camp, middle school level, the grant program, the drama program, the rocketry program, all of these things fit in so nicely with our STEAM objectives. So thank you very much for all the time and effort you've been putting into supporting our district.

[7626] Joy Lee: Thank you for fueling our passions.

[7630] Aiden Hill: Number one.

[7632] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, everyone, for coming tonight and presenting. I have had the privilege to be able to attend several of the meetings towards the end of last year. I know I'm coming on late, but I couldn't be more proud of all the work that you all are doing in partnership with the district and especially for all of our students at the elementary schools with science camp, like member Thomas had mentioned, and also for the teachers, the middle school grants, and then obviously all of the programs that you support, help support at the high school. So thank you so much for doing the work and reaching out to corporations in our community for their support and donating to all of the efforts to our students. So thank you.

[7681] Aiden Hill: Additional questions?

[7685] Aiden Hill: Okay, well, again, thank you, thank you so much. And can we get some of your flyers?

[7691] Penny DeLeon: Okay.

[7696] Penny DeLeon: Thank you for your dedication to our students. Thank you so much.

7.1 Student Report: Student Board Member, Joy Lee

[7700] Aiden Hill: Thank you so much. Okay, moving on to agenda item 7.1, student report, student member.

[7718] Joy Lee: My favorite part of the evening. OK. Good evening, student. Good evening, board, executive cabinet and community. Happy Black History Month. Newark Memorial High School and I'm sure middle school and Bridgepoint and elementary schools, but we'll all be celebrating this month. But for Newark Memorial High School, we will be having our Black History Month kickoff in the quad and events celebrating black history history will be held throughout the month of February. One of which is the Black Pride Expo, which is a night market featuring local black-owned businesses from 5 to 8 on February 23rd. So time for a recap of our February so far. Newark Memorial High School has had a food fair last Friday with around 20 clubs participating. What I love about our food fair is that it's so unique to our school and is such a great tradition where different culture clubs share their foods. So it's a chance for students who are buying to try new foods. And this year, despite the rain and wind spoiling ASB's original plans to have it outside, the teamwork by our leadership classes, we were able to change the location to inside our cafeteria, and it was still very, very successful. Next, our community recently had our annual Newark crab feed hosted by our own Newark Rotary. I actually saw a couple of our board members there, as well as our Newark Memorial principal and teachers. Thank you all for coming and supporting. Our school's rocketry club was a, ooh, I wrote that in the wrong place, oops. The people who went to the annual crab feed also donated to our Newark Interact Club, where all proceeds went to Interact's 51770 district donation project of raising $45,000 to improve Thailand's waste management systems by sponsoring facilities that handle waste in Thailand. And also, And also during the crab feed, our school's rocketry club was able to present and fundraise lots of money for our TARC and NASA SLC. So our rocketry programs can go and compete in Huntsville, Alabama and Texas. So now we have some very important week-long events coming up that I would like to share. So this week is National Counselors Week. Let's recognize our counselors. I know our high school counselors have been going around and giving presentations on our A through G requirements at our school to help students get to college and graduate. And next, next, next week, so in two weeks, February 12th to 16th, our Newark Memorial High School is having our campaign week for our ASB positions and our class office positions. with the date to vote on February 16th. It's a very exciting week. And next, this is something that I'm actually very passionate about. Newark Memorial High School is hosting a shoe drive for unused shoes, sending them to the nonprofit Souls for Souls. If you have any shoes new or used that are being unused, you can bring them to one of our drop-off locations at Newark Memorial High School, either the office or the activities office in the cafeteria. All shoes will be sent to Souls4Souls, who will repurpose these shoes by giving them to those who need them. To find out more, you can check out their website. Just search up Souls4Souls, and you can figure out where these shoes are going. And it's currently happening and ending on the 23rd. So please check your houses. See if you guys have any shoes. And we can take them instead of the landfill, instead of them going to the landfill. So at our Newark Memorial High School, our spring season for sports has begun. Late registration is currently open until tonight. So if you have been pondering about, should I do a sport? I highly recommend trying it, as you'll never know what could happen with it. So next, I'll be announcing some fun events actually happening at the high school. And I recommend you to write it down if you would like to join. So our board can come join us. So the League of Women Voters is partnering with our high school to host a voter registration drive for all the juniors and seniors on Friday, February 9th. Although we are not at the age to vote, this pre-registration is for those who want to participate when they turn 18. And so when they turn 18, they will immediately be allowed to vote. Newark Athletics will also be hosting a Special Olympics on February 16th. For those of you who don't know what Special Olympics is, it's a great event where the special education classes from Fremont and Union City will come together to compete and play basketball and meet each other. I volunteered as a team captain last year, and honestly, it's such a great event that we host and can make so many precious memories from. Once again, we have our Black Pride Expo Night Market featuring our local black-owned businesses after school from 5 to 8.30 on February 23rd. So now I will be sharing our news from our elementary schools. So Lincoln Elementary School will be hosting their very first family coding event at Newark Memorial High School STAR Lab on February 13th from 6 to 7 p.m. Schilling Elementary School school will be having their cupid formal on February 16th from 6 to 8 p.m in the cafeteria. Schilling will also have their family coding night at Newark Memorial High School Star Lab from 6 to 7 p.m on February 28th. Lastly, the Newark Cubs soccer tournament will be from February 23rd through 25th with all the elementary schools coming together to build to have fun, build foundations in soccer and sportsmanship as they compete and work towards to win our Newark Cup. And lastly, I just wanted to give a shout out to our food services who supply all the food for all our schools, especially because Miss Mary Sayers is here. Thank you. Oh, no, no, sorry. Sarah Kaiser is here. Thank you. And that is the end of the board report. Thank you for listening, everybody.

[8094] Aiden Hill: Thank you, student member. Questions from the board. Member Nguyen.

[8098] Phuong Nguyen: Student board member Joy. Focus, focus. Just kidding. Question. Can I please get the date again for the Special Olympics date?

[8109] Joy Lee: Yes. Actually, I really highly recommend you guys come to this one. Thank you. Yeah, February 16th. It'll be from morning, so like from 8 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. Where is it? At our Newark Memorial High School. Oh, our high school, that's great. Yeah, at the event center. Yeah, athletics have been hosting it like consecutively.

[8139] Aiden Hill: Yeah. Other questions?

[8143] Penny DeLeon: I have a quick addition.

[8145] Aiden Hill: Let me ask you a question first. Oh, I'm sorry.

[8147] Aiden Hill: So I have a question. So can you review one more time Souls for Souls? So what? Souls for Souls.

[8152] Aiden Hill: So can you explain that?

[8153] Joy Lee: Sorry. So basically, actually, I'm doing the shoe drive, like I'm the one who brought it to our school. I was at my church helping out with the vacation Bible school, and they introduced this nonprofit called Souls for Souls, who actually, they have this website, and people can go on and just type in, like, tell them like, oh, I want to start a shoe drive in my own community. And so I did that. And then basically, you just spread the word all around your community. And you collect the shoes. And they send you a shipping label. And you can just ship it to them. And from there, they'll go through all these shoes. And it either goes to more underprivileged nations, like I think the Honduras. It'll go to people who don't have shoes and they'll just give these shoes for free. Or it will go to more small business. It would go to third world countries with women who want to do business and they'll sell these shoes and it'll bring in profit for their family and allow them to buy food and just provide for their community. It's just like the simple act of giving shoes and you don't get any volunteer hours from it. But honestly, it's just such a small act, which impacts so much. And I really invite everyone to come and bring their shoes.

[8253] Aiden Hill: Great. Thank you, Superintendent.

[8257] Penny DeLeon: I just wanted to add, since you had brought up food services and how amazing they are. First, I have to thank Miss Keizer for coming tonight, but Every time I go to Newark Memorial High School, they ask me for more burrito bowls. So the burrito bowls go fast, and the kids, I get there, they're like, Dr. Daly-Allen, we need more burrito bowls. So I just wanted to tell you they're a big hit, Newark Memorial.

[8283] Aiden Hill: OK, great.

8.1 Employee Organizations

[8292] Aiden Hill: OK, so moving on to 8.1, employee organizations. Do we have anybody here from NTA?

[8303] Aiden Hill: OK, what about CSEA? OK, NEWMA?

9.1 Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items

[8310] Aiden Hill: OK, moving on. So moving on to public comment, 9.1, public comment on non-agenda items. Ms. Juanita Lopez, can you please come forward?

[8340] Juanita Lopez: Hi, everyone. I'm a little nervous. It's the first time I'm talking, so I'm a little nervous. Hello, good evening board members and Newark Unified School District executives. My name is Juanita Lopez, ELAC president at Lincoln School, promotora, mother of a student in middle school in Lincoln, a community member. I'm here tonight to thank, I'm sorry. I am here tonight to thank you, Nicole Pierce-Davis to support the parent training, such as Project to Inspire and others. We would like to tell the board to please keep approving those trainings that are very helpful for the parents, especially for the Latino parents. Thank you so much and have a good night. Thank you so much.

[8399] Ms. Lopez: We really miss you, Nicole. Thank you very much.

[8401] Aiden Hill: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lopez. Great. So moving on, Ms. Jacqueline Carrillo.

[8428] Jacqueline Carrillo: Good evening. At the last board meeting, our Newark mayor, Mike Hannon, stated that the purpose of a school board is to be good listeners, good public servants, and make sure we deliver the product that our residents expect. I agree 100%, but unfortunately our board, except Member Nguyen and Student Member Lee, are not meeting these expectations. President Hill, you stated and asked that the superintendent, after my comment after the last meeting, I had stated that we are missing Chromebooks. It's a critical issue, which she has still not done. Our students started I-Reading testing this week and teachers can only accommodate five students at a time because we do not have adequate resources. The inaccessibility to basic technology is unacceptable and you wonder why parents are looking elsewhere. Board, I along with multiple community members have expressed detrimental concerns regarding the superintendent's behavior and spending, but you are not listening. Our students and teachers should be your priority, right? Well, your recent decisions and lack of transparency prove otherwise. There was not one, not two, but three contractors hired at $200 an hour to help the CBO do her job. This is on top of the $250,000 we are already paying her because she is such an expert in her field. But then you choose to pay our incredible and hardworking campus monitors and aides minimum wage. How do you expect people to survive in the Bay Area? We are in a deficit. However, you continue to spend money we don't have. And USD recently had to pay $75,000 in a settlement where an employee's allegations were validated. I'm sure more lawsuits will soon follow with Dr. DeLeon's unacceptable treatment of staff members. Policy 5131.2 on our district website states any employee who permits or engages in bullying or retaliation related to bullying shall be subject to disciplinary action up to and including dismissal. Sounds great in theory but where is the accountability? Before the last board meeting, Dr. DeLeon asked me why I was being so acrimonious. This would intimidate most people from getting up and making a public comment, but I will not be silenced and I will not be bullied. Yes, I am angry and frustrated that you are destroying our district and pushing out so many incredible teachers and staff. It also infuriates me that our community has to come and babysit you and the board to ensure you are doing your jobs. The superintendent was hired seven months ago, and the following administrators have been pushed out, and these are just the ones I'm aware of. Ariel Dolkowich, Director of Teaching and Learning. Abbey Keirns, Director of Special Projects. Catherine Egan-Waters, Executive Director of HR. Jennifer Sachs and Rosalina Barrios, Executive Assistants to the superintendent. Mai Vang, Pathway Coordinator, Paul Rose, IT Manager, Maria dela Cruz, Chief Business Officer, Kim Lola, Director of Fiscal Services, and unfortunately, Dr. Nicole Pierce-Davis. Thank you so much for everything you have done to support our students and staff. We really appreciate all that you've done for our community and I'm sad to see you go. Teachers and staff that are watching on the camera, we support you and have your backs. Let's work together as a community to expose the corruption that is plaguing our district.

[8645] Aiden Hill: Moving on to Jeff Anderson.

[8653] Jeff Anderson: Another 3.30 a.m. start, nonstop. Do we have a translator before I start? Do we have a translator?

[8658] Jeff Anderson: Okay, I'm going to need translation. Good evening, board members, NUSD admin, teachers, staff, students, and families at home. Tonight, I have three messages. First, thank you, Dr. Nicole Pierce, for all you have done for our district. With you here, we are stronger. You bring a high level of professionalism, kindness, skill, empathy, equity-minded leadership, and dedication to our district. Your departure from NUSD leaves us diminished. Of course, I support you in doing self-care and in finding a work environment that will nurture your talents and help you in being your best self. But I want to say out loud, as a parent in this district, I am saddened by this loss. I have a really fond memory of us spending about two hours together, going deep and talking and thinking. And I was so excited in that moment. And I'm sad. But I wish you the best of the best in your life. You deserve that. Second, I'm very concerned by the departure of many key people in our district in the last seven months. Abbey Keirns, Jennifer Sachs, Nicole Pierce. These are three people I spent time, good time speaking and learning from who we have lost. I know there are many more, as Jacqueline just highlighted. My sons no longer benefit from these people's talents, and our district is losing key employees at an alarming rate. I am worried by what I see. In my comment for our last board meeting, I made a direct invitation to teachers in this district. to get educated on how to build a strong democratic union. As a teacher myself, I know that one of the best tools I have to make changes I want to see in my school and in my district is to act in solidarity with my union. I will be sending out podcast links to Jane McAleese's work. She's a gifted union organizer. If you receive these links from me, please listen, share them with other teachers, start thinking about how we can work together to build the strongest union we can to fight for our teachers, our students, and our community. United we are strong and I'll be working with our parents to be behind you teachers. We love you. We got so much love for you to parents in this district. I encourage you to ask your child's teacher. How can we go to your crush teacher? What are you struggling with? How can we support you? How can we as a community members? help support you and your union in advocating for real changes. Third, I want to see this board engage in research on studying how we might go out for a bond to support our schools. This includes facilities and special projects. At Shilling, we have leaky roofs in our library. We have computer issues. We have issues with water fountains. We have website issues. And we have many other facilities problems. I'd love the Shilling staff and staff all around the district. Start putting them on a list. Bring them to us. We'll talk about them. As taxpayers, I want to know how we can go for the bond, how does the bond process work? What options do we have to bring more money into this district via the bond process? So that's something that's on my mind. Thank you so much to NUSD family members, and cheers to our district.

[8825] Jeff Anderson: Yo puedo decir en español también, mi español no es perfecto, pero no sé si hay traductor, traductora, ya? OK, yo voy a, pero yo voy a necesitar más de tres minutos, eh, porque ahorita estoy aprendiendo. OK. Pues estoy aquí. Buenas noches miembros de este junto, administradores de NUSD, maestros, personal estudiantes y familias en casa. Esta noche tengo tres mensajes. Primero, gracias a la doctora Nicole Pierce por todo que ha hecho por nuestro distrito. Con usted aquí somos más fuertes. Usted aporta un alto nivel de profesionismo, habilidad, empatía y dedicación a nuestro distrito. Su salida de NUSD nos deja diminudos. Por supuesto, voy a apoyar a usted en el cuidado personal y en la búsqueda Getting text messages. De un ambiente de trabajo que fomente sus talentos y que ayuda a usted a ser su mejor versión de ti mismo. Pero quiero decir en un voz alto, como padre de este distrito, mi entristeza está perdida. Segundo, estoy muy preocupado por la salida de muchas personas claves del distrito en los últimos siete meses. Abby Kiddins, Jennifer Sacks, Nicole Pierce. Estos tres personas y muchos más son muy importante para este distrito y estoy triste a verlos ir.

[8939] Aiden Hill: Mr. Anderson, I'm sorry to interrupt, but we have about three minutes for public comment, and we do have a translator. And this is a repeat of what you discussed.

[8950] Jeff Anderson: Of course. So you're telling me that right now on YouTube, there's a translator translating for our Spanish speakers? Yeah, we have a translator. So one thing that I've been confused about, when I go and watch the YouTube videos, where do I see that translator? Because I look.

[8966] Aiden Hill: So what we'll do is we'll provide information out to you and others if you have issues with accessing that. OK, great.

[8974] Jeff Anderson: Para los padres que pueden hablar en español, viene. Es su problema traducir. Viene a hablar con nosotros, por favor. I look forward to that. Thank you. OK, thank you.

[8992] Aiden Hill: Miss Gutierrez?

[8998] Lucia Gutierrez: This is a reminder to the board that when someone is going to be translating, it is policy and requirement that the same amount of time be given. So if a speaker is going to speak for three minutes and they're going to translate, then three additional minutes need to be given, a total of six. Secondly, superintendent keeps on saying that there is a translation. The only way that the community can actually hear that translation, and this is funny because you guys are totally not aware of it, ignorant to that fact, the only way that the community can hear the translation is if you guys provide the Zoom link. The Zoom link has not been provided ever since this administrator started. Yes, don't look at me like it's not. Yes, the only, where's your translator? Your translator is currently on Zoom, right? So how are people going to hear, I'm talking, do not interrupt me. So how are people going to hear the translation if they don't have the Zoom link to log in? So you guys should get informed of that. All right. Board members, today I sent you an email regarding all the mistakes on the agenda. And frankly, it is embarrassing that you will allow this agenda to be made public and that you are willing to approve it today. The errors are blatant, and I cannot believe that such an experienced superintendent as the one you have is making these kinds of errors. I can assure you that no teacher will allow any student to make the kind of mistakes that this person is making today. A secretary in the corporate world will get fired for embarrassing the executives with an agenda such as this. I will not go into the numerous errors since I have emailed the board about these errors already. Secondly, I have made you aware of this in the email as well, and I will do so again right now. An approval of any sort of the discussion regarding agenda items 13.5, 13.6, and 14.7 will constitute a Brown Act violation. And I've written an email letting you know why. So I hope these items get pulled and re-agendized properly. I would like to remind you that it is your duty to provide fiscal responsibility to the district. You are paying the superintendent a high salary, yet she can't even produce a proper agenda. You are paying a high salary for a CBO, yet she needs three independent contractors to help her do her job, even though her high salary was justified because she has so much expertise. What is her expertise if she can't even produce an interim report? Isn't that one of the main duties of the school district CBO? Additionally, this board thought it was so important to review any possible conflict of interest that other administrators may have, but there's no review. Have you discussed if there are any conflict of interest between the independent contractors here? Do you know if she has previously worked with them? If they are friends? Member Hill, you are so good at looking into Facebook to confirm if there are any links. Have you done that now? This is not about conspiracy theories. This is about being diligent and representing this district properly and doing your job as a board member. The mayor presented you with a resolution at the last meeting and I hope you try to live up to that because right now you are not doing so. I do want to close by acknowledging that February is National Black History Month and remind you that since this new board and administration joined NUSD, various heritages of our community have no longer been recognized. This is a disservice to the major step back and a major step backwards in recognizing the community and our students.

[9193] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Ms. Gutierrez. Ms. Janet, do you say Dong or Dang?

[9203] Janet Ding: Good evening. My name is Janet Ding, and I'm here on behalf of the parents of Schilling Elementary. I want to take the time to thank Dr. Pierce for her support in her tenure here at NUSD. I have personally had the privilege of receiving help from her for my children at Schilling. When the school failed me, Dr. Pierce proactively stepped in to help guide and train the administration to ensure that they were using the right tools and processes to protect my children as well as the students there at Schilling. Dr. Pierce, we are so sad to hear of your untimely departure from this district. However, I hope this is a rude awakening to the board regarding Dr. DeLeon and her inability to retain great people and furthermore review whether or not there is a direct correlation to Dr. DeLeon's leadership and the massive exodus of staff, teachers, and admins alike. Best of luck to you, Dr. Pierce, and thank you for the expertise, support, and care you've provided to this community. I will truly miss your poise, empathy, and most importantly, your professionalism, which is sorely lacking here. You will be sorely missed. To the board, I'd like to ask you to wake up and remember why you are here. We are or should all be here for the students, and your decisions directly impact them. I urge you to review where this district is currently headed before it's too late.

[9277] Aiden Hill: Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ms.

9.2 Public Comment on Agenda Items

[9283] Aiden Hill: Stang. OK. Moving on to, are there any additional, Ms. Keser, are there any additional like online, OK. Okay, so moving on to agenda item 9.2, public comment on agenda items. And again, we allow people to either comment now or you can wait until the agenda item comes up. So Ms. Gutierrez, agenda, the PAL, would you like to comment now or would you like to wait?i

[9313] Lucia Gutierrez: Okay, come on up. All right. Dr. Nicole Pierce-Davis, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your time, dedication, even for your tears that I know you have shed for our students in our community. Working with you was so enlightening and it was very thrilling to me because I was working with someone who genuinely cared to see our students grow and fulfill their destiny. You are one of the few individuals who can see a student, relate to them, connect with them, and provide the student the will and the motivation to be the best student they can be. You are a gem and a true educator. I am glad NUSD was able to experience what it means to have an educator who truly believes in a student and in a child's education. Seeing you go is a huge loss to NUSD and our community. But we stopped deserving you when the board could not see your value and didn't select you as a superintendent. I know you will continue to do great things. I know you will continue to fight for justice for our students and I know your goal of being a superintendent will one day come true. You are a woman with such a beautiful light and I know you will be great in your next adventure. I am sad to see you go. I know your departure is a huge loss to my community but it's a great gain for the next. Thank you for hanging with us as long as you did and hopefully one day you can come back to NUSD as our new superintendent. Dr. Nicole Pierce-Davis, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your time and dedication to our community and our students. I am saddened that you are leaving Newark, but I recognize that this administration does not deserve you. I wish you the best in your future. I hope that one day you will return to Newark as our superintendent. Thank you and best wishes.

[9452] Aiden Hill: OK, thank you, Ms. Gutierrez. Moving on to 11.1. So Ms. Parks, you have three items here, 11.1, 11.2, and 14.7, which has actually been pulled. Would you like to speak now? You want to wait? OK, perfect. OK, thank you. Are there any, Ms. Keiser, are there any comments through YouTube or online or email or anything?

[9482] Aiden Hill: Great.

10.1 Superintendent Report

[9484] Aiden Hill: OK, thank you. OK, so moving on to superintendents report 10.1, Dr. DeLeon.

[9511] Penny DeLeon: Thank you, everyone. I appreciate it. Thank you, board member Hill, our community and friends tonight. Before I begin my report, I do need to do some myth busting as I've had to do in the past. So people say a lot and have said a lot. I'm here to give the facts, and it could quite be very possible that many of the people who have left our district were applying before I got here. I would like to say that. Additionally, people need to know that we have ordered and are about to deliver 31 Chromebooks to Schilling Elementary School, as we promised. In fact, almost double of what they asked for. As well, they also asked for an aid, and we have worked to try to get a bilingual preferred aid for Schilling as well so that they could have somebody in their DLI classroom where there are, their TK classroom where there are many students. So I think it's just important sometimes that we get the facts out about what is sometimes said during our meetings. Okay, so first and foremost, I want to also thank Dr. Nicole Pierce for her service to this district and to our team. You have done a great job and it's true. You do have a light and an absolute passion for children and for equity. And we thank you for that. OK, so let's go to the next slide. I would like to give a big congratulations to Trish Kelly. from Newark Memorial High School. She was nominated and became an NBC Sports All-Star teacher. So congratulations. I have to say that Ms. Kelly runs an absolutely phenomenal freshman seminar program at Newark Memorial that she started there where they give support to students in their transition. So I'm really excited about that. And congratulations, Ms. Kelly. Secondly, I want to celebrate. It is National School Counseling Week. So definitely a shout out to our school counselors who see many, many, many students every week. And I want to give them a shout out by name. Jonathan, Mr. Luna, Ms. Torres, Sonia Torres, Pete Rich, Yesenia Hernandez, Cheri Garcia, Selena Cisena, Jason Okonuga and Marisa Quinones, our wonderful school counselors. Let's give them a big round of applause. And then last but by no means least, I do want to tag on to what was announced about the Special Olympics. Next Friday, the 16th, I was told that basketball really starts at 10 a.m. We're encouraging everybody to come out, but I want to give a big thanks to Coach K and also to Olivia Rangel and her staff who put this together, but also, most importantly, to our student-athletes who really take it upon themselves to do all of the work for Special Olympics, and to Ms. Joy, our student board member, and everybody else. So, thank you to everyone for your work towards Special Olympics and hope there's a great crowd. And thank you, board member. That is my report.

[9727] Aiden Hill: Thank you, superintendent. Any questions from the board?

[9735] Aiden Hill: OK. So 11.1 LCAP mid-year update. And is this you, Miss Pierce-Davis?

[9744] Nancy Thomas: The student board member wanted to say something.

[9746] Aiden Hill: Oh, I'm sorry. Student board member.

[9749] Joy Lee: Is there like, I know our facilities are not doing well because of the rain. Do you have any updates on that or how it's coming along?

[9758] Penny DeLeon: Absolutely. Do you want to talk about that, Ms. Vackar?

[9761] Tracey Vackar: Sure. Actually, surprisingly, they fared better than I thought they were going to fare. But we did definitely have some areas where we had our roof leaks and they are being evaluated. We also over at the high school, we lost a pole that ended up in the pool, one of the light poles. And so that currently is under repairs as well. It's a shame because it's a brand new top to the light. It has a new LED light that's there. But the pole itself couldn't hold up in the strong winds and sheared off. And so we're checking that pole. We'll replace that pole, and then we're checking the other pole that's adjacent to it. So we'll be taking a look at those things. And then we've got a list of we asked our school sites and our custodians to help support us by letting us know where those leaks were so that we can go back and go address those. And I know I took quite a few pictures and was out visiting sites over the weekend to check on storm damage and see if there's anything that we need to address immediately like a fallen tree or something. So does that help?

[9821] Joy Lee: Do you know like around when these will be fixed?

[9825] Tracey Vackar: There's a variety of things some of them will be patches that happen really what needs to really happen We heard it mentioned earlier that we have a real need for a school bond We really do need to bring our facilities up to date. We need to put on new roofs We need to really make sure that the buildings are sealed so that when we have these strong Brains and winds that they're protected same with the glass, you know with having a you know, the water coming from, you know, strong winds that we had this past weekend. That was really concerning as well. And then overall, though, the fields themselves all held up pretty well. And with the sun coming out today, I noticed that they were starting to dry up already. And so I know we're planning on getting our landscape crew out there to start doing some mowing over the next couple of days as things warm up, because we've got spring athletics that are getting ready to happen.

[9875] Aiden Hill: And I would imagine, Ms. Fekhar, that For things that were damaged, that again, like the repair of it is on a case by case basis, right? I mean, because there's different schedules for different things.

[9885] Tracey Vackar: There are some different schedules, but obviously it's a priority leak because it has a significant impact on whether or not the ceiling tiles will itself actually hold up. Those are all being assessed, and we do have a priority list based on what we knew. And then we also have ones that we watch. We watch very closely where they've already had patches, and then sometimes they find new channels. And then we also have to figure out whether or not it's a drainage issue, or whether or not it's something that was missing a seal.

[9914] Joy Lee: So it'd be best if our school gets that bond, and then we can just replace all those roofs.

[9920] Tracey Vackar: The leaky roof. Yeah, you just like at home, your schools only last so long. And so our bond has come to an end in the life cycle of the work that was done for the bond for many of our school facilities. It's time to do that replacement. The community member who shared that, you know, they think it's important because their children are in school, they want good, strong facilities, and they also want to make sure that they've got the updates to be able to support the new technology that wasn't there even when the bond was passed, right? So we need to make sure that those things are all integrated, that Wi-Fi is strong, everybody's got good access. There's a lot more streaming services that happened that weren't happening just a few years ago, but definitely more prevalent today.

[9964] Joy Lee: Great questions. Last question. OK, so the bond, when do we go after the bond? It's a great question.

[9971] Tracey Vackar: So I'm hoping that we'll have a presentation in the very near future. We can talk about some options and some dates, and also some pre-work that might need to be done. So a bond gets passed on an even year in the state of California, which means that the year 2024, either in the March or November election, is the ideal time to go after a bond. So it's a great question that you asked. The next time for us to really go after that would be 28. No, 26. 26. So two years later, right? So one of the things that we would want to do is we want to be able to probably get ourselves prepared, make sure that we do some things. One of the things that we have on our facilities right now, and I know this is probably a bigger topic for another day that probably needs to be agendized, but one of the things that we really want to go back and take a look at is we've got a lot of portables, and I want to make sure those portables have been accounted for and that we've gathered all the modernization money on those first before we let them go and make them go Five ayes so that we can actually have really good, strong brick-and-mortar buildings for our students to be able to learn in. Awesome. Thank you so much. You're welcome. You're going to be on a tour of that school, right?

[10035] Joy Lee: Just give me a date and time, and I'll be there.

[10040] Aiden Hill: OK, great. Actually, before we turn it over, so Ms. Parks, you wanted to speak on 11.1?

[10045] Penny DeLeon: One second. Could I just suggest that potentially before that, though, we have a short bio break, because this is kind of a long report. And we want to make sure everybody's focused and can ask all their questions before we start the report. We said that maybe we'd have a bio break. So is that OK? Go ahead, number one.

[10070] Phuong Nguyen: Before the bio break, I wanted to also celebrate Dr. Nicole Pierce-Davis. Dr. Nicole Pierce-Davis, I can't wait to see what the future has in store for you. And I just want to leave with a quote. And this is a principle that Reese Witherspoon and her grandmother lives by. And I thought it was funny. And I think that you can definitely relate to this. People are either radiators or they're drains. Spend your time with people who radiates positivity, goodness, and light, not the drains. People who drag you down. Be someone who radiates positivity, creativity, opportunity, goodness, optimism, and humor. Be someone's radiator. Dr. Nicole Pierce-Davis, you have been a radiator for so many of us in the district. It is with a heavy heart. that I appreciate you and all that you have done for NUSD. You have been a tremendous asset to our organization. You are extremely competent, a constant learner who willingly takes on all the challenges that comes your way. Your resilience, fire, determination to make a positive impact improves situations for students and staff to see things through is unmatched. You know how to motivate employees to do their best work, effectively communicate to the community, and you have been unwavering in your pursuit to serve students first. Your compassion and kindness is a lasting impact. I have one major regret, and it is not fighting harder for you to be superintendent of NUSD. I wish you all the best in your new position as Chief of Whole Child Programs at ACOE and look forward to celebrate future superintendencies with you. You deserve all the best. My deepest appreciation and gratitude for all that you have done and accomplished for the district. Thank you so much.

[10210] Penny DeLeon: Time to be back? Five minutes.

[10212] Penny DeLeon: Five minutes.

11.1 LCAP Mid Year Update

[10574] Aiden Hill: 11.1, the LCAP mid-year update. We have a public comment. Ms. Parks.

[10583] Cindy Parks: Good evening. One thing about the LCAP, I'm sure as you've sat through the unaudited actuals, there always seems to be this dump that seems to come financially from unspent LCAP money. which is such a disservice to the students from this year when that money isn't spent on them. And I'm very much a proponent of site councils spending every single dime that comes to them. And as a grandparent who now sits on a site council, that has been my mantra the last two years is to make sure that those site councils spend their money. And I would really like to encourage the administration I understand the March 1st budget date is coming around and usually that's about the time that the money is frozen and they halt our spending. And so I would really like to encourage the administration to direct the principals to really encourage all that paperwork to get through. Sorry, CBO, business office. But we really want to get that money spent for so that those kids can be serviced. And I would really, when you're looking through the presentation tonight, you'll see money that's still sitting there on the big picture of the LCAP, but also site council money. So we wanted to get that money spent. So thank you.

[10672] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Ms. Parks.

[10676] Nancy Thomas: Just a comment that to remember to start the clock.

[10683] Aiden Hill: No problem. OK, so moving on to 11.1. So Superintendent, do you want to kick it off?

[10696] Penny DeLeon: At this time, Dr. Pierce-Davis, if you'd like to give our midyear LCAP report, we'd appreciate it. Thank you.

[10702] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Thank you so much. First, before I give it, I was not expecting that tonight. I just want to thank everyone for their incredibly kind comments. I'm trying real hard not to be emotional, but when it comes from the community, it really, no offense to my colleagues, it's really important to hear from my colleagues, but when it comes from the community, it means so much. So thank you. Thank you so much. Completely agree. Thank you for the opening comments. LCAP dollars are really meant this year's money for this year's kids. In the past, we've had sort of an influx of one-time dollars that came post-COVID. And so we saw sort of almost a struggle, not, I don't want to say struggle to spend money. We don't have that problem. but there has been sort of some money left over each year. You won't see that problem in this year's LCAP. I think we've already spent over 80% if not closer to 90% of our LCAP funds in part because some of those one-time dollars are going away and so you're gonna see this become more and more tight especially as we go into next year's planning process. So Again, I just want to say this report is going to look a little different than what you've seen in the past. In the past, there were no expectations around what the mid-year LCAP report really looked like. This year, there is new ed code that says we have to address every single metric in the LCAP. Currently, we have 49 metrics in the LCAP. So this is a long presentation, not by intention, but because we need to address the Ed Code regulations. And at the end of the presentation, I'll make some recommendations for next year's LCAP in terms of really narrowing some of those metrics and getting clear about what sort of data we want to pull for each metric. We'll get to that at the very end. Again, this is the end of a three-year LCAP. So this LCAP plan was initiated three years ago. And this is the final year. Next year, the 24-25 LCAP will be the start of a new cycle. So I'm going to just quickly go over this. California public schools receive state funding through LCFF and the LCAP. LCFF stands for Local Control Funding Formula. Under LCFF, the goal is to ensure that every student succeeds, especially those that the school system has historically left behind. Specifically, the students that are addressed in the LCAP are three main categories. Our students that come from low-income households, our English learners, and our foster youth. Our current LCAP has four main goals. Goal one, student achievement. Goal two, engagement in school climate. Goal three, conditions of learning. We added last year a fourth goal, special education. As you can see there to the right, the LCAP funds are, you know, while they seem like a lot of money when we go through this report, you can see compared to the general fund every year, It is a smaller pocket, but that's why it's so important that the actions we put into our LCAP are driven towards those three populations that we just went through. This is an equity, this is a way to drive equity into our budget and it's really important that the items that we put in there, especially as we go into our 24-25 planning, are really done with the lens of ensuring that we are infusing our system with equity structures to allow for the reduction of the achievement gap that we're seeing among our subgroups. And we've talked about that in the past with differentiated assistance. So this LCAP mid-report needs to include the following expenditures, implementation review of those expenditures, which you'll see to the right-hand side, and then any outcome data. Some of the outcome data is just known already. Some is partially known. And some is unknown, especially if they're end-of-year measures. So I will talk about all 49 tonight. But just know that not all of them will have metrics that are ready to go. All right with that we're going to give you the update on actions implementation and expenditures. So you notice it does start with goal 1.2 for our community again this remember this is a plan that is a three-year plan so if you don't see goal 1.1 for instance it's because that may have been exited after year one or two. It may have been a goal when the when the plan was first initiated but we no longer have that as a goal. So we're starting here with 1.2 ELD standards implementation and support. The purpose of this goal was to fund our director of special projects. This position was closed in October. So we do have savings there. That position has not been rehired for. And I don't believe we will. So that'll be something that is up for discussion as we continue to move forward. Goal 1.4, academic counselors. This funds four academic counselors. across our sites. 1.5 SEAL model support. So this includes the SEAL contract plus 0.5 FTE of a SEAL coach. This particular SEAL coach, again, we have to report on the implementation. So this particular SEAL coach was reassigned to the classroom from August to December and is now supporting her SEAL work again. 1.6, Dual Language Immersion, our DLI program. This funds our DLI teachers. We added this last year when we started noticing we wanted to make sure that we were supporting our Dual Language Immersion program. 1.7 instructional leadership team development. You'll see this start to go down as we get to the end of the year when you see a lot of end of year retreats when teams are coming together and maybe meeting for six hours at a time. So right now we're sort of right where we want to see that, maybe a little bit further. We'll start sort of bothering principals for their time cards, make sure we don't get behind on that. 1.8, college and career support, regional opportunities. So this really goes towards our Mission Valley ROP partnership. This is where our students at the high schools can go to Mission Valley ROP and take CTE classes there. 1.9 is additional site level activities. Now this is in yellow I just want to be clear there are three goal areas that all go towards the CPSA. So some of the LCAP funds go directly to school sites and so when we're looking at 1.9, 2.7 and 3.12 you might see here that we are way overspent in the other 2.7 and 3.12 you're gonna see that we're way underspent. We just divide it by three. It doesn't actually matter what the amounts are there, as long as when you add them all together, they balance out. And so just want to make sure we note that. So even though we're way over, it's not surprising. Our principals tend to spend more money on student achievement than in any other category, which is what we would hope to see. 1.10 college and career support. So this goes towards a college and career center staff that we have at the high school. This is a part, this is a requirement. It's part of our Mission Valley ROP contract. Okay, there we go 1.11 standards implementation PD and support so this goes to our Bayside contract we partner with UC Berkeley Lawrence Lawrence Hall of Science This is part of our stem work. We've taught we've heard a lot about stem tonight And so this really supports really coming from an organization that does this work with districts across the county? and that directly goes towards our partnership our continued partnership that we've had now for quite a few years and 1.13 district professional development for both classified and certificated staff. We're right about at our budget as we go into our secondary PD day on March 4th but we did get some grant funding to support that so we're right where we want to be. This went towards our Kagan training and our professional development which I gave you all the results from. It was really positive I think across the board incredibly positive results from our professional development. It also has gone towards, you know, smaller conferences. When our science awards went out for Ms. Bloom, we were able to send her to the conference using these funds and she also brought back her learning to the other SRTs. We've also done some professional development with TK-aides and counselors. So this is really across the board, but it's really for professional development. 1.14 instructional program subscription. So this is everything from Zoom, Google, Character Strong, i-Ready. I do want to say we are way over here. That's because we are currently holding additional independent study licenses that originally we had budgeted to LRE, Learning Recovery Block Grant. Right now we're holding those dollars nicely though and so we most likely will sort of see where we balance out at the end of this year and if we need to find an alternative source we will. So it's okay that we're over. We know that we're over. It's an intentional move at this time and again we'll reevaluate with the business office towards the end of the year. 1.16, additional contract services for language support. So this is things for LPAC testing, which is happening right now. So again, we're right on track here. You've seen some of that happen already. But as we do more of the LPAC testing, if you have never done the LPAC test, it is quite the exercise. We test students in their reading, writing, oral language, and reading, writing, oral language, For some reason, I'm drawing a blank on the fourth cut. Speaking. Thank you. Speaking. Thank you. And speaking. And so it takes time, because you have to listen to every single individual student give their results separately. And so when you have as many English language learners as we do, we do need additional funding for this. 1.17, mentor stipends. You'll see that at zero. That's because we were able to cover this with Title II funding. So at this point, we're counting this as savings, again, to go towards some of the places where you might see we're over a little bit. It doesn't mean we didn't give mentor-teacher stipends. We just found another budget source. 1.18 EL liaisons to support English learner process monitor, progress monitoring and communication with families. So about every elementary site has about a .2 EL liaison that we use to help coordinate ELPAC across the district. And then our secondary sites also have personnel towards these efforts. So every site has some person who's sort of supporting with our communication around our EL progress monitoring. 2.1 school climate. So this really goes towards 1.5 FTE. So about a person and a half, right, of assistant principals at our high school. And you'll notice a little check. The checks onto the side just mean we're pretty much done with that. We've either encumbered the funds and right now we're moving on to make sure we're spending down the other categories where maybe don't have a check. Parent involvement and support, translating, interpreting services. We're a little under there, surprisingly so, and so we want to just make sure that everyone's accessing our translation services as we have them funded there. 2.4, data management system. We're slightly over, but again, pretty spot on. I think this is just due to our raises that all staff got, and that's a good reason to be over. 2.6, parent workshops. Oh, the other items that go into data management systems, SWIS, which many of our schools are still using to look at discipline data in a different way than what our current school SIS or student information system can allow. It also goes towards DTS, which helps with our LCAP development, our safety plans, our SARCs that we just did. The SARCs are the school accountability report cards. So they help us make sure that we maintain those documents over time. It also goes towards Illuminate, which helps with our progress monitoring at the secondary level, as well as a data analysis position. 2.6, parent workshops. We have two planned for this year. So while you only see 12,000, we've actually already spent that money as we're getting ready to start PK. We're offering two main parent workshops this year. CABE is given in Spanish and PK in English. And we heard our parent talk a little bit about Project to Inspire earlier this evening. Again, 2.7, we're going to balance this with 1.9 and 3.12. So you can see where we were way over in 1.9. We're now under in 2.7. 2.8, tutoring mental health and other supports for families. So this really fully goes towards our Wellness Together contract, which is additional mental health clinicians across all of our sites. You can see there we are, we'll save about $10,000 here as well because we were able to find another grant source to take that. And so then that funding goes back into our system. 2.12, manager of parent engagement and health services. Again, we're right on track there. We are holding one additional staff member there that originally was supposed to be budgeted again to LRE. We're able to hold that at this time, so we're going to hold it for as long as we can. But if we need to reevaluate at the end of the year, then we'll think about pushing that again to another alternative source. 3.12, class size reductions. This one's a little bit confusing for people because they think, OK, our class size is really small. Unfortunately, no. This is really just dollars that our business office generally uses to make sure that we're meeting the requirements of our collective bargaining agreement and keeping class sizes where they should be. There's discussion about this every year. If you have any questions about that, I'd be happy to answer them offline. 3.2, program administrator of science. So this really helps to maintain our STEM programs for the last few years. 3.4, library hours of operation and educational supplies and support. So this goes towards 40% of our library perks at our elementary sites. Destiny, and then additional books and supplies each year so we can keep our libraries up to date. 3.5, biliteracy pathway recognition and reclassification. You'll notice that this is at zero. It's because all of these events are at the end of the year. But this is my quick plug again. This is our chance to our seal of biliteracy. All of our students that are working towards their biliteracy awards in eighth and fifth grades, this is the money that we have to support and keep their work going. 3.6, science education. So this goes from everything from fifth grade science camps that are currently in progress and often happen towards the end of the year. So that's why you see the funding where it is. And environmental literacy field trips. So again, this is sort of the total budgeted amount. It's about what we spent last year. We're seeing that we're a little bit under that this year. In part, that could be because we got some grant funding to support, which is always a good thing. We can always use this towards other places in our budget. And we'll keep looking at that each year. So if we need to reduce that for next year, then that's what we need to do. But we just want to keep, we never want to get to a place where we have field trips planned and we have classes that we have to turn away because we didn't budget enough. 3.7, this is our STEAM initiative. So these are specifically to maintain our STAR lab and our maker spaces. 3.12, again, Let's balance this out with 1.9 and 2.7. And I do believe some of our principals are meeting with our business office. I know Tracy Blanco has met with a couple principals just this week to think about making sure that they've spent their dollars all the way down to zero. And then finally, 4.1, academic supports for students with disabilities. This was for a cost coordinator. She did decide to do a voluntary position reduction at the beginning of the year. She went from a 0.6 to a 0.3 FTE. She's still supporting our district, but that's why you see that savings there. We maintained her in the position, we just didn't, she voluntarily wanted to do less hours. All right, so here's for our 49 metrics. Are you sure you want to interrupt for questions? This could be all night.

[11670] Aiden Hill: Would it be OK if we took a quick break? I mean, not break, but for questions. So any questions so far from the board?

[11678] Nancy Thomas: I would just like to say thank you for this comprehensive update. And it sounds like you have a real good handle on the money and what's left to be spent. And good job. Thank you.

[11691] Aiden Hill: Any other questions?

[11694] Aiden Hill: OK. Please continue.

[11697] Nicole Pierce-Davis: All right, and on to our LCAP metrics. We will start with the first one around student achievement. So as a way to save time, I hope this is OK. And again, if you don't like this, let me know for future reference. But really, student achievement, most of these metrics, we've come to you as they've surfaced in real time. And so what I did here is instead of repeating previous presentations that we've done on either the CASPP, so that's our, and again, I just want to make sure I put this out for our community so they know exactly what the CASPP and SBAC are. So our California assessment of student performance, this is basically our state testing. We've done this before. So the California dashboard we presented on recently, January 23rd of 2024. And then the i-Ready fall scores, which is progress monitoring. i-Ready measures our students' mathematics and literacy. And it's what we use to see if students are on track or making growth. And so we take that in the fall. I presented that after the fall window. on December 4th, 2023. And the next window will close February 23rd, 24. So we'll give another update at that time. So all of the requirements that you see listed there, we have already presented on in other reports. And so if the community is interested, if you missed that report, I made sure that the links are all live. And if you can't access it that way, please email me directly. And again, and I'm so sorry. Can you go back just for a second? So all of these, no, no, no, you did the right thing. All of these metrics then lead to, especially the California dashboard, whether or not the state is seeing that we are, that certain subgroups are not performing the same as others. And so I just want to remind everyone at home and the board that on the next slide, differentiated assistance, do qualify for differentiated assistance based off of the following subgroups. And I wanted to make sure, I think the last time I presented, I just presented Newark. And so I wanted to sort of put it in context with the other districts that also qualify for differentiated assistance. Right now, Newark qualifies for our English language learners in terms of their performance on English language progression and ELA and math. Our homeless students, our students that are economically disadvantaged. So this is our low income students, our African-American students and Pacific Islanders when it comes to chronic absenteeism. Again, our homeless students when it comes to graduation and then all of these categories when it comes to suspensions. And so this is really something that is going to have to be addressed over the course of the next year. And we have already started meeting with Alameda County around how to start cycles of inquiry that and action plans that will try to mitigate some of the data that we're seeing. Keeping on with student achievement, we also have a reclassification rate. The CDE has not updated this, so I do not have an update for you yet. EAP we no longer use. That's our early assessment program. Instead, we're looking at college and career readiness indicators, which you guys have heard at nauseam this year. We also look at implementation of common core state standards. This is done through classroom observations, instructional rounds, and professional development events. These have been shifted a little bit this year as Ed Services has gone through a fair amount of different personnel. But we still are doing them. We're still doing classroom observations, instructional rounds, as well as professional development events. So what that means, what you see there is for each year, 2020, 2021, we've done 111 classroom observations that we're tracking. Obviously more are happening across the district. This is just what we've seen in terms of an ed services team. Zero instructional rounds and then 13 professional development events. And that's what that data looks like for each year so you can compare them. Similarly, we look at implementation of ELD standards. And you can see each year 2020, 21, 21, 22, and 22, 23. You can see there what we've reported out. So again, if we're looking at 22, 23 for last year in terms of ELD standards, there was 32 classroom observations, eight instructional rounds. Instructional rounds are when we go to multiple classrooms in a single day with a group and we process trends across a site or across a group of classrooms or across a grade level. And then we had eight professional development events plus the 19 unit development days. And that really comes from our SEAL programming. Again, for those of you at home who don't know what SEAL is, SEAL is one of the programs that we use to support our English language learners at Coyote Hills Elementary and Schilling Elementary, where we see a greater number of English language learners. Puente is a program that we have at our high school. And so this is tracking the number of students. You might notice a little bit difference here. So you see Newark Memorial High School enrollment 343, and then you see it dip to 166. I think last year we were looking at how many students are actually in classes. But what happens with Puente is that students take an English Puente class in their freshman and sophomore years. And then in junior and senior year, they're still considered a part of the Puente cohort because they're still going on field trips and they're still getting advising from their counselors. But they may not be enrolled in a class. And so that's why for last year's numbers, I actually reported both how many are in the program and how many were actually in classes that year. So basically, who were freshmen or sophomores. What you can see here is the college going rates of all Newark Memorial High School graduates by ethnicity compared to Puente graduates. And it's really exciting data because it does show here that you can start to see a shift in when you see it reported like this, what Puente is able to do is it's really able to minimize the achievement gap within the students that are in the program. And so we're going to continue to look at this data even more closely. But we'd love to be able to sort of draw that direct correlation to see the results. And just a plug for families at home, what you can see here is 81% of our Puente students are off to college in 2022. So that's an incredibly high number. something we want to continue to support. The next slide gives a little bit more information about Puente as well. This is A to G course pattern. I know we've talked a lot about A to G completion over the year. 75% was what's reported to CALPADS. Newark Memorial Puente graduates met their A to G completion rates. And so when we see that the Newark Memorial graduates is around 44%, that 75% is quite high. Now again, you know, if you ask students how, you know, All students that are going to college, what's your A to G course completion? It would be 100%, right? That would be obvious, because in order to go to college, you have to do your A to G. So these are students that want to go to college. But again, when we see the makeup of the course, we're seeing a a really great trend of minimizing the student achievement gap, or what I'd like to call the opportunity gap. And so these are the types of equity programs that we want to maintain so that we can start to put a, we can start to get out of differentiated assistance. Conditions for learning. So these are things like graduation rates, suspension rates. This was presented on a California dashboard. Expulsion rates. You see there in 2021, there was zero. It was COVID. It's hard to get expelled when you're sitting at home. 21 and 22, there were 12. That was the year we came back to in-person learning. So you can see we were not unlike many other districts in California. And it was a transition for both adults and students alike. And then 22, 23, we were able to drop that back down to two. Parental participation in programs with disabilities. This year we've had five events. The topics were dyslexia, nurtured heart, ADR, facilitated IEP. graduation goals, and AAC communication. So that's adaptive communication. And then the metrics that are still in progress are PBIS implementation, our cost implementation rubric, and our community conversations. So moving on to goal two, engagement in school climate, we look at dropout rates. And this is our four-year adjusted cohort outcome. So these are the students who are in a cohort together for four years in 2021. You can see each of that for 2021, 21, 22, and 22, 23. Again, these are the three years we're reporting for this last LCAP. And we'll add this year's data, but we obviously can't do that until the end of the year. We also want to look at chronic absenteeism and attendance rates. I am not going to sugarcoat it. We struggled in November and December, and you can see that from the heat map. We put in so much effort to make sure we started the year strong. We were doing really, really well. And then November hit and our attendance rates are going down really across the board. We are seeing them sort of raise up for two schools specifically, Coyote Hills Elementary and now Newark Middle. But for the rest of our students, we're gonna have to do something big and soon in order to disrupt these patterns of attendance. And so we're working right now again with Alameda County and as well as Pupil Services to try to develop a plan for this work. But we've got to get the post-COVID attendance practices back in the swing of things. And I think it's going to take, at this point, a pretty big informational campaign. A couple more information around attendance. This is by our ethnicity group. And what you see there in green is excellent. Light blue, satisfactory. Dark blue, manageable. And then red is the chronic. So that's the areas where, again, we have some work to do. And you can see the areas that we qualify for differentiated assistance, for instance, looking at our Pacific Islanders there. It's a smaller cohort of kids. It's about 86. But still, you can see percentage-wise, along with some of the other groups, where we need to spend our energy. This is just a view of severe chronic students. So of our students that are severely chronically absent, what kinds of demographics do we see? And so this is broken down by race. And the majority of our districts represent a Hispanic population, but this is still overrepresented. So again, it's something that we really need to pay attention to, especially when we see the progress monitoring and how our English learners are coming up for differentiated assistance based off of their English language progress monitoring. If we're not in school, we're not going to pick up the language. And so this really is step one towards trying to, again, reduce that opportunity or achievement gap. And this is just by grade. It's not uncommon for us in the early grades, PK, TK, to see the numbers go up. But again, almost every grade level at this point has gotten worse over the course of the year, you know, except for grades like fifth grade and so on. But this is going to be a real challenge for new work in the next, towards the end of this year and really into next year. One of the things we're already working with principals on are SART conferences. As you can see there, it is one of the things that seems to work. And so we knew that with last year's data. Even though we're not seeing quite the same dramatic results that we did last year, they do seem to work. This compares students before SART conferences and what SART conferences are. This is a chance for the principal to sit down with the family and try to think about any barriers to attendance and try to remove those barriers. And so really, it is just a conference to kind of talk it out and talk about the importance of really showing up to school every day, but also if there is a way that the school can support the family in getting the student there every day. So this is something that we're going to continue to work on. And you can see the picture there to the left is giving out attendance awards this year. And so we'll continue those efforts, too. California Healthy Kids Survey, we give this survey out every year. We will do it again in the next month or so. This was last year's results, specifically parent results. And so what you see here in blue is last year's numbers. What you see in black are the year before numbers. So last year, 666 of our parents took this survey. And then what you see there to the right is the number of parents who strongly agree. And so, for instance, when you see parent involvement, promotion of parental involvement, 37% of our parents think we're doing a great job of that. And then you see it broken down by elementary schools, middle schools, high schools. And then I don't believe they, I think the final one is just a kind of answer. And so it goes down that all the way down. So parental involvement in school, school encourages me to be an active partner, school actively seeks input of parents, parents feel welcome to participate at the school, and so on. And so some of these numbers we definitely want to see higher. We're seeing things like teachers responsive to child social emotional needs really high at 83. But we want people to also say really high when it says student learning environment. is conducive to learning, or a school is a safe place for my child, or the school motivates students to learn, we want to see those numbers also go up. Site level engagement, so this involvement, so this really is about our parent leadership groups. So at the school sites, you'll hear things like SSCs, school site councils, ELACs, our English Language Advisory Committees, and our Title I meetings. These are just annual meetings that the schools have to do each year. So far, 10 out of 10 schools have established their SSCs. 10 out of 10 schools have either established or combined their ELAC. And this was last year. Oh, I just noticed an error on the slide. I'm so sorry. That was last year's data. So that's 22-23. And then at the bottom there, you see 23-24. So we have one school that is still figuring out their DELAC. And most likely, I think they're going to combine their DELAC. Oh, my apologies. So the second bullet, this is why this is too long of a report. My apologies. The first bullet is at school site council. So these are our school site leadership committees. The second bullet is our district leadership committees. And so these are the committees that I'm currently facilitating, DLAC and LCAP advisory committee. So these are a group of parents. We have 10 out of 10 schools have elected at least one member. So I meet with them once a month as part of our LCAP advisory committee. They look at the metrics that you just looked at, and they also provide feedback on what's working and what's not working. Nine out of ten schools have elected at least one member to our DELAC committee which is basically made up of our of leaders from different school sites ELACs and they come share with the district their information about what they're experiencing at schools from an English language learner lens or parental family lens. Goal three conditions for learning. So again we've reported on most of these measures through either the California dashboard presentation or their college and career readiness part one. which was presented back in September of 2023 and then January of 2024. That includes metrics such as AP enrollment, AP exams, regional occupational program participation rates, so how many of our students are taking a CTE course, work-based experience for students with disabilities. That's going to be an end-of-year metric, so we're not going to, that won't be in the presentation, but it will be something that we pull for the end of the year. Broad course of study, currently all of our students are provided with content courses that are required by the Ed Code and some. After school programs, professional learning on intervention strategies, so what kinds of professional development and who is it guided towards? And then foster and unhoused youth as well. We have certain convenings that we do with Alameda County, and so that's the number of convenings that we hold each year. Basic services. So this is our Williams Act compliance and reporting. We get monitored by ACOE each year. We have three schools that have been selected for random audits. Birch Grove Primary, Newark Junior High, now Newark Middle, and Newark Memorial High School. So they were compliant. We were compliant for all three schools when we're looking at sufficiency of materials, complaint procedures being up, and then it talks a little bit about our facilities and our teacher preparation and placement. In 2022-23 teacher vacancies were about 35 and they're worth 95 teacher miss assignments. Please note the secondary reports by period so one teacher could be up to five different periods so if you divide 95 by 5 well Let me go, actually, so if you see there to the left where you see high school, there's 92 of them. If you take 92 and divide it by five, that's kind of getting closer to the number of teacher actual positions we're talking about. This is our facilities. And so you can see here where certain things were ranked good, fair, and poor. And I know we talked a little bit about that earlier when the bond measure information came up and about different facilities needs. I think our student member also brought that up. Conditions for learning after-school programs. So again, in 21-22, we expanded after-school programming from three sites to all of our TK-8 sites. This is the breakdown for who is attending each of those programs. So that is 22-23 and 23-24. And our goal here is to make sure that the representation in our after-school programs is not disproportional. We want to make sure that the students who need it most are attending or have access to attend if they want to. This is our California Healthy Kids Survey student responses. This is fifth grade only. So again, we had 169 students take it last year, 181, again, only fifth grade across the district. And this was their responses. So again, shows number of students who strongly agree. School connectedness. So these are different questions that they ask fifth graders that gets at school connectedness. So it might not be, how connected do you feel to your school? But the question might be for a fifth grader, does your teacher provide you help when you ask for it? Is there a trusted adult that you can go to? Those are the types of questions they're asking. And then California Healthy Kids Survey takes that information and summarizes it for us there. So there's some areas where we can see that we're doing pretty well when we look at academic motivation, high expectations from adults in the school. And then there's some areas that we need to work on. School boredom, it's a fifth grade class. Take that for what you, there is something to be said about that. But there's also meaningful participation. And so those two things combined start to get at a place of, what are we doing with our curriculum to make sure it's very engaging? One of the last trainings, professional development sessions that we did was on Kagan cooperative learning, where students are doing most of the talking. Unlike maybe some of our more traditional, some of the classrooms we grew up in, where maybe the teacher did all the talking, we want to flip the classroom model and have students do most of the talking. This is for our older grades. We only give it in grades 7, 9, and 11. So these were our responses from last year. We had 326 seventh graders take it, 108 ninth graders, and 188 11th graders. And this was their responses by grade level. Again, of who strongly agree. So school connectedness, they're not going to ask how connected do you feel to school, but the same sort of questions apply, just a little bit more mature for our secondary students. So this is where we want to start to look at where are we seeing trends and what kinds of things do we want to push to be better. Conditions for learning. So these are our staff responses. So again, we had 287 total responses. 156 elementary staff, this is all staff so not just teachers, middle school 47 and high school 74 and alternative site had 10. So again, this is where staff are saying, you know, again answering questions that are guided towards are there caring adult relationships at the site? Do, are there high expectations coming from the adult? So this is staff talking about themselves in some ways. Is this a safe space for staff? Has there been sufficient resources to create a safe campus? Respect for diversity. And so we got to look at those again and see if there's any sort of trends there that we need to look at and start addressing. Special education. This is our goal four. There are two assessments that we look at. So while everyone, while Gen Ed students are taking the CASPP, our special education students who qualify for it. So not all of our special education students, but some of them qualify for the California Alternative Assessment. And we look at that for English and math. And so this is where you can see our level one students, our level two students, and our level three students in both the LA and math. Finally, we have science as well. We could not report out on the CAW for science. And so I did want to just uplift, we do have a science assessment, although it's not one of our LCAP metrics. We do have it. And so this is not for our special education students, but this is for all of our students. We're at 26.09 met or exceeded. We have 20% at level one not met. We have 53% at level 2, so nearly met. Most of our students are nearly there. And then we have standard met 18, and standard exceeded 8, or rounded up to about 8%. These tests are not taken every year. They're taken in particular grade levels. So they measure almost three years of learning. So it's important to keep that in mind as well. This is not something, you know, if a student is expected to retain the information from 6th to 8th when they take the assessment. Students with disabilities, LPAC, so again, one of the things that we want to make sure, and I put a big note here on the side because I want to give a quick shout out to our Director of Special Education, Olivia Rangel, who has worked really hard to make sure that everyone has the information they need to know about how students are qualifying for special education. We have been flagged for three consecutive years here now for an over-representation of Latino-Hispanic students and English learner students qualifying for special education. This is something that we're paying attention to because we want to make sure that we're not qualifying English learners for special education if it's a language issue. And we are seeing that, especially post-COVID. We're seeing that more and more. And so it's important that we do our due diligence, we do our interventions, and we don't overqualify students. So just a little bit of Newark data, 52% of students that qualify for IEPs right now are Hispanic, Latino. 64% of students with, I'm sorry, 64% of students with IEPs are Hispanic Latino, but only 52% of our students are. So we're overrepresented there. 28% of our students are Hispanic Latino, have an IEP under the eligibility of SLD. So that is particularly high. We're looking at specific learning disability. And then I do want to note quickly, Coyote Hills Elementary and Schilling Elementary actually had a reduction in referrals. When we asked what they did, they really attributed it to the SEAL language supports, thinking that students are having a chance to really practice their language and so they're less likely to be identified or staff are more likely to use interventions rather than refer for special education right away. Students with disability distance from standards so these are students who are not taking the special assessment but they are taking the regular sort of state test ELA and mathematics. We also look at this group for chronic absenteeism and graduation rate. I did not report on this when we did the California dashboard and that was looking back I wish I had I wish I had especially since it's an LCAP metric but I did want to raise that for you in this report. And again I just want to quickly shout out special education because they are no longer in differentiated assistance because they did decline chronic absenteeism by a percentage point increased by four points in average on the SBAC ELA and 11.3 points in SBAC math. Special education. So again, individualized education plan audits. This is something that I spoke really closely with Director Rangel about, just making sure that we tighten up our systems for IEPs. And as of January 24, 30 IEP audits were conducted. This is 4% of all IEPs in the district, so it's a small sample. But it gives us an idea of how to push and how to support teachers in terms of professional development and so on. Out of a total of 14 pages of errors, the average number of errors made in each IEP were around four. So again, she then uses that information to provide coaching and professional development. Special education, general education, student inclusion events. So these are things like the Special Olympics that were just talked about today. We have that in February 16th. And then we also have a planned diversity education inclusion assembly in March and April coming up. So get excited for that. And then we also have a slew of SELPA community events. We are part of a SELPA with New Haven and Fremont Unified. And so they've hosted nine events this school year. We've also hosted two coffees with the director. We have two more planned for this year. Newark also has an inclusion task force that's hosted three meetings with three more planned this year. If you are interested, please reach out to Director Rangel. She would love to get you connected. The average attendance at each of these meetings were about 50 to 60 people for SELPA events and about five to six people for our district events. All right, so looking forward to 2425. There are some changes to the LCAP. It looks different. And so this is new for all districts. Some of these don't apply to us, but this will be new. So this is something that the community should expect to see that's different in this upcoming new three-year cycle. It's expected to have an annual update. There is a plan summary that includes dashboard performance reflection and summary of technical assistance work, engagement at schools receiving equity. We don't receive equity multiplier funds. And so that doesn't occur to us. There's also new actions, so our long-term English learners, so these are students who generally we expect students when they are English learners to pick up English and reclassify within a five-year period. We do not expect you to show up on day one and just know the language. It's about five years, it's a three to five year process, but after six years we start to get worried. And that's when we redesignate them as LTELs, long-term English learners, and we try to provide additional support. Technical assistance, again, that's our DA work, our differentiated assistance work, and then low-performing student groups. So any of our sort of red performance indicator on the California dashboard, you're going to have to see a metric designed directly for that metric. Okay again equity multiplier schools do not apply to us and they really I want to highlight this I know this has come from the board on many occasions the metrics to assure effectiveness and of contributing actions are getting much tighter. And what I mean by that is they really want to see close alignment to the metric and the effectiveness. So one of the recommendations really is instead of having 49 metrics, which is quite a bear, maybe minimize those metrics a little bit. But in doing so, we will not be able to take out sort of the equity component because we're looking at California dashboards. So a lot of the way the California dashboard works is, you know, are there specific groups that are having a different experience in school? and making sure we address those. So again, getting tighter with our metrics, but ensuring many of those metrics are going to be more of our equity goals. And that speaks to your goal around making sure our subgroups are making faster progress. I just explained that. But a good example would maybe be, they also want us to look at our implementation. So oftentimes, what I had to report on is our implementation. So if you say you're going to put something maybe towards a coach or something like that, We have to then report next year on whether or not that coach was available. And they're going to understand that sometimes there's extenuating circumstances, but we have to report on that. And so there's no longer a situation where you can sort of put a metric and then not really speak to it and not really see any change or not really see any implementation. We're going to have to report on both the implementation as well as the outcome for each of those actions. Where are we now? We are in February, so we currently have our LCAP survey out. If any family, again, if any family or community members are interested in providing feedback to our LCAP advisory committee, please do so. It's been distributed via ParentSquare to all parents, and we will be doing it again. So we're getting information back. We've spent LCAP advisory really looking at our data from mid-year. We've spent it looking at our all of our expenditures for the year and monitoring Monitoring is spending and now we're really trying to get feedback so we can develop the new 24-25 three-year LCAP plan What that process looks like for input I just want to make sure people at least in the past what we've done is each site has an LCAP engagement and They have two. They have one in their SSC meetings and then they have one that might be a part of a coffee and conversation or a special LCAP feedback session, but every school site has two events. We take all of that along with the survey results and we process that together with our LPAC advisory and DLAC groups and then we work with business services to make sure that the expenditures in our LCAP reflect the total budget and the need so that our community is clear when they make decisions what other things might need to fall off the table or get added to the table based off of what their priorities are. And then that gets submitted to you all in June. That's it for my presentation. I am happy to answer any questions. Hopefully that wasn't too long for you, but it's important that we speak to each of these metrics.

[13580] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Dr. Pierce-Davis.

[13581] Nancy Thomas: Questions from the board? Actually, kind of a comment. I just really appreciate the complexity and the detail that you provided. I don't know if we've done this every year, but this seems to be an exceptionally detailed report, so I really appreciate that. Thank you. Oh, and I love the links to some of the past reports that you've put in there because it's a lot of data that we've been given over time. And going through this and to be able to link back to when you presented like the SBAC data was very helpful.

[13623] Aiden Hill: Are there questions, comments?

[13628] Carina Plancarte: You know, I just want to thank you so much for, you know, really providing an in-depth report. I had a lot of questions and you answered them during the presentation. And also, I want to give kudos to the fact that we are working with ACOE to figure out the strategies for how to really help the students who are chronically absent. Because I do feel that it is at a higher level that we really need to hone in on exactly why these specific groups continue to be absent. And could there be supports in place that we could work with as long along with the county to help these kids get to get to school. And I understand the landscape has changed because of after, you know, during COVID and after COVID, parents are reluctant to send their kids into school. Now, you know, there's there's been some sort of a shift there, but also, you know, just seeing that the chronic absenteeism, you know, amongst our Pacific Islander students and our Hispanic students, Those are definitely some trends there that we really need to explore and figure out. Are there lack of supports there, and how can we better help these families so that we can get these kids to school? So thank you so much for that.

[13708] Aiden Hill: Additional.

[13709] Phuong Nguyen: Number one. Thank you, President Hill. So just to add on to Member Plancarte's diagnosis review, review of chronic absenteeism. The one part I was really looking at was at the beginning of the school year, everything looked, you know, it was good. And then towards November, December, it could be because we did have, you know, another case of COVID going around. But also in December, I know that culturally families do pull their students out of school to go celebrate internationally. So maybe We need to reconsider and look at how we're scheduling time off for our families so that we can manually fix the issue. That's a technical term. But yeah, so something like that. And maybe we can progressively make those changes so that we can increase the cost. chronic absenteeism. And then my second clarification question is, I was wondering, under goal four for special education, the planned diversity, education, and inclusion assembly in March and April, is it for student-wide, or is it just for special education students? So the end goal for special education under special education and general education student inclusion events, the planned diversity, education and inclusion assembly in March and April, that's for all students, correct?

[13819] Nicole Pierce-Davis: I believe. Yes, I believe so. So it's it's like a partnership. That's a good question.

[13824] Phuong Nguyen: Like a PSA. I mean, like for all of our students to be able to have the awareness of you know, special education students or special education in general, what it is, and so that, yes, the whole point of inclusion, right?

[13841] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Thank you.

18.1 PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting

[13843] Aiden Hill: Okay, and I'm sorry to do this, but thank you, Dr. Pierce-Davis, and given that we're right up against the line, I need to make a motion, and I know people are not going to be happy, but I need to make a motion to extend this meeting until midnight with the expectation that we're going to finish sooner. Can I get a second, please?

[13861] Nancy Thomas: I'll second that.

[13864] Aiden Hill: Should we just do a manual roll call?

[13868] Aiden Hill: OK. You want to call out?

[13872] Joy Lee: Yay.

[13872] Nancy Thomas: Yay.

[13879] Phuong Nguyen: Yay.

[13882] Carina Plancarte: Yay.

[13882] Carina Plancarte: I'll keep it going.

[13885] Carina Plancarte: Yay.

[13888] Kat Jones: I'll change it up and say, yippee.

[13892] Aiden Hill: Yes.

[13895] Aiden Hill: OK. So motion carries. Great. And again, thank you, Dr. Pierce-Davis, for the very comprehensive report. OK. Moving on to, hold on a second here, it's agenda item 11.2. And do we have any, I'm losing my public comments here. Do we have a public comment on this one? Yes. So, Ms. Parks, do you want to make public comment on 11.2?

11.2 Newark Memorial High School Track and Field Project Update

[13935] Cindy Parks: As I stated at the December 5, 2022 board meeting when this project was approved, this is a high-cost project using what was at the time one-third of the remaining Fund 25 budget. The preliminary conceptual estimate from RGM Cramer listed the total recommended budget as $6.3 million, with a few items listed in the notes section as to be determined. Two items to be determined were the DSA ADA path of travel. along with bathroom upgrades. The probable construction cost document before you this evening only lists $4,000 for restroom improvements for signage and relocating fixtures. Are we to understand that there is no path of travel upgrades and that the only bathroom improvements is for signage and for relocation of fixtures? Another item that stood out to me on the design and construction schedule is the initial drawings were sent from Verde Design to DSA on 9-26-23. And within a day, Verde Design received the permit review along with feedback from DSA. Ten weeks later on 12-7-23, they resubmitted for final review and revisions, receiving final approval from the DSA on 1-4-24. With a final approval date of 1-4-24, why is the latest probable construction cost as of 12-20-23 before the final approval? I hope during the discussion this evening someone addresses the membership of the District Steering Committee, which held four meetings between March 21st and May 2nd, and the Steering Committee, which held three meetings between June 27th and July 25th. How was the public stakeholder meeting on May 16th advertised and how many attended? Who participated in the district review of the drawings and specifications on August 23rd? The drawings are impressive. I seem to be missing the cost difference between the base bid, alternate one and alternate two cost proposals from October of 2023. I hope you all will ask about the cost differential. returning to the original document from RGM Kramer which contained an estimated annual maintenance cost of $50,000. How much is the annual maintenance and lifespan of the turf product being recommended? With the district's financial challenges and due to this being such a high-cost project, I hope you, the board, have carefully reviewed the attached documents. Listen closely to the presentation this evening and ask the necessary questions To ensure this will be a quality track and field project that comes in on budget.

[14116] Tracey Vackar: Thank you Thank You mr. Parks Okay, so Who do we have presenting here for Okay, thank you, that's for car you're welcome so I'm excited to be able to bring up the team from to be able to present this beautiful design of a high school field. Joy, I think this is where I need to get an N from you. N? N? Yes. Yes. Right? Yes. An M? Yes. An H? An H. An S? S. All right. Anyways, if you can just imagine what it would be like to have the bright lights on, be able to watch that football game, see the cheerleaders out there cheering, the band out there playing. We heard about the drumline this evening. I'm excited this evening to be able to present to you the Newark Memorial High School Track and Field Update. This was designed by RGMK. was the lead on it and it was with community input and with school input and presented to you this evening. I'm going to have the team introduce themselves.

[14195] Maria Denny: Good evening. I'm Maria Denny with RGM Kramer and I am so pleased to be here this evening to go over this exciting project with you. Today we're going to talk about what we've been doing for the past year to develop this project and Mr. Devin Conway from Verde Design is here to go over the plans and scope of work with you and then I'll do a quick review of the schedule, budget and next steps. Okay just over a year ago the board approved a preliminary budget of 6.3 million dollars then we issued a request for qualifications for designers that included written proposals followed by interviews and the board approved an agreement with Verde on March 2nd of last year. We had six stakeholder engagement meetings, which included Coach K, district leadership, PE teachers. And during those meetings, we learned a lot about the program, what kind of athletics, after school athletics, PE programming, and also community sports. We also had a public meeting to share with the community about the design. And then we did a lot of analytics. We had a special inspector do analysis of accessibility, how someone would get from the street across a path of travel that would take them to a restroom in the snack shack, which is near the field, and then attend at the field. We got a civil engineer on board. to do a topographic land survey, and more importantly, an underground utility survey to make sure that when we bring out the big equipment during construction, we don't hit any water lines. We had a geotechnical engineer who is a specialized soil engineer perform soil samples and ensure that our soil had adequate percolation. And Verde did four cost estimates throughout the design process to monitor the cost of the project. And this is a great way to make sure we're staying in budget. And our last big milestone was in September of 23 when we submitted plans to the Division of the State Architect for review. And that typically takes five plus months. So I'm going to turn it over to Devin to go through the scope.

[14365] Devin Conway: Good evening. See before you a few different graphics. The basic overall scope of the project is to reconstruct the track and field venue to be all weather surfaces, namely an all weather track oval with what's called the D zone or the track field events would go and then a sector field inside of that. Outside of the track towards the gymnasium would be some of the track runways, field events, as well as shot put areas. It's going to be towards a quarter of the outside edge of the track, nearest the pool. So we are not touching bleachers. We are doing code requirement upgrades to the adjacent restroom building. As Rhea talked about, we're adding a new pavement to the entry, as well as a new perimeter track fence to prevent vehicles from accessing onto the track. There are vehicle gates and new pedestrian gates around the perimeter track fence, which is a four-foot tall track fence. This bid alternate, this is the Track the field inside the track is the same in all the options really what it is It's about colored options. So bit alternate one would be a gray color, which would be considered a an upgraded color and Option two. It's a red track, which is considered a baseline standard color And an upgraded what are called exchange zones was so that would be a custom color for exchange zones As well as the runways outside the track, they would be a custom color. Basically to match the school colors. And then within the schedule, as Rita talked about, there is, you know, talked about when we're going through and to clarify, we don't have DSA approval. We're going through the approval process now. We're in what they consider a back check. So we've given our final comments to them. We're estimating we'll probably have DSA approval and sign off for certification so we can award bids if you authorize it to go to bidding probably in the next two, three weeks. Within the footprint of what you saw, essentially everything is new in the color. So this is going to be regraded, new drainage, obviously new infrastructure underground that ties into the drainage, perimeter Quick coupler watering system tows down the tractor the field and then a perimeter fence We're not redoing the entire footprint outside defense defense of the property lines, but we're regrading areas Taking care of some of the excessive soil along the I guess would be the north side over on the left side of And just kind of cleaning up areas where we're kind of smoothing out transitional grades just to kind of clean it up. But the bulk of the project is everything you see in color.

[14585] Tracey Vackar: Devin, does it include new lights?

[14587] Devin Conway: The light fixtures for the stadium have been redone. We're not putting in new stadium poles or new lights. They're going to remain.

[14599] Tracey Vackar: And we're not touching the stands either, correct?

[14602] Devin Conway: We're not touching the stands. If you touch the stands, you will be redoing the stands, because they're pretty old, and they don't meet structural code more than likely, which is typical. Normally, as long as you don't touch them, you don't have to upgrade them. It's very challenging to upgrade. Leachers in particular, just because their codes change structurally every three three years there's a new structural code cycle and it doesn't take too many code cycles to get bleachers out of structural compliance. So at one whatever point you want to touch those you're probably gonna have to replace those in full. Then I think you have before you the cost estimate as Maria said. We've done iterations at every submittal. So at the DSA submittal we Submit the drawings to the state in September and what was referred to in public comment as approval they approved us to submit the plans on a particular date and that's what they signed off on because we had our initial submittal was complete so They've had the plans. They give us comments back. We give the comments and now they're reviewing to make sure that we

[14687] Penny DeLeon: Addressed all our comments at all three disciplines fire life safety structural and access compliance I Have a quick question Maria you said you had a public meeting to review the design Was that at a board meeting or was that just at the high school? Was this design ever approved by the board?

[14712] Maria Denny: The meeting was at the high school and the design never was approved by the board

[14730] Devin Conway: So is this the end of the presentation?

[14748] Maria Denny: So I just wanted to share the next steps. So we're looking forward to DSA approval this month. And legal is going to verify the scope of the work is in alignment with the developer fee requirements. And then procurement. So we would publicly bid this project. And for the materials as well as the installation of the track, we would have a request for proposal for California multiple award schedules, CMAS. And then we would bring on consultants, as outlined in the budget, inspectors, and management. And then the board could approve a bid award. And construction would take about six months. And that concludes our presentation.

[14809] Aiden Hill: OK. Thank you, Ms. Stenney and Mr. Conway. Questions from the board?

[14820] Kat Jones: I have a question on the three different fields. Is there a cost difference with those, or is it just a coloration? And if there is, what are the cost differences? Do you want to talk about that?

[14834] Devin Conway: Yeah, so the field's the same in all three. It's a track overall. Sorry, it's the track, yeah. Yeah, and there definitely is a cost difference. So let me go back. It's OK? That's good. Thank you. So the track, the red track, is what most people kind of look at as an all-weather track, is what most tracks around here are. That's kind of like your baseline cost. Once you start adding different colors to the track, it costs more. So, you know, if the, in this, sorry, so like this track is going to cost more than this track. And as we add these like exchange zones of blue and the, let's say the blue runways to the right outside the track oval, that's going to cost more. This will cost, Alternate one will cost more than bid alternate two. And then base bid is going to cost even more than, base bid is going to be your most expensive. This is going to cost a little less than the base bid because we're taking out those colored blue lines. Which costs more because it's the next it's an extra step and then this is going to cost less than bid alternate To because the red is a kind of what's called a standard color. It's not a premium color the difference between if we went with a all wet red track and bid alternate to and even illuminated the blue Versus base bid. It's about $200,000.

[14957] Kat Jones: I'm sorry. Can you say that again?

[14958] Devin Conway: $200,000. OK. That's basically the upgrade from if you got a track that may be one of the high schools that's just a red track. This track for the school colors, the exchange zones, about a $200,000 upgrade. Other questions?

[14975] Joy Lee: Is it within our budget? Like if we were to have a more expensive one?

[14984] Aiden Hill: So I think that student member is asking about the budget. Would you like to?

[14989] Devin Conway: provide so the base bid cost as of right now in our estimate from December 20th is roughly six point three three million dollars and that's for all services right that was the design services submitting to DSA and

[15015] Tracey Vackar: to be able to do the bid. I just want to be clear that everything is included in your estimate.

[15022] Devin Conway: That's soft costs, that's a change order contingency for construction unforeseen, things that happen. So it's not just a hard bid day cost. It's what we consider an overall project budget, hard and soft costs. Because at the end of the day, that's what we need to have the funding for.

[15044] Aiden Hill: Other questions?

[15045] Joy Lee: Sorry, what did we budget for this project again?

[15048] Aiden Hill: I'm sorry?

[15049] Joy Lee: What did we budget for this project?

[15051] Aiden Hill: The original approved budget was 6.3 million.

[15057] Maria Denny: Can I explain something about bidding? So we want to ensure that the project comes within budget and that's why we have these alternates. So what happens is we'll get pricing And then we'll come to the board and we'll say, what do you want to do? And the board can choose which alternate to take.

[15083] Nancy Thomas: I'd like to ask about the path of travel and whether there's any to be determined gotchas that we might be having to look at.

[15094] Devin Conway: That's what we're going through right now at DSA. We've estimated since the submittal we did, or I should say the most recent estimate on the DSA package on December 20th, we're estimating around $30,000 to $50,000 based on the final approval. We're not going to know that yet. But based on their additional comments they had on student drop off. which was one of the comments that they added after we initially submitted DSA. We're estimating roughly $30,000 to $50,000 based on that final approval. Once they give us the final approval, there's going to be an inspector of record that's certified by DSA that the contractor that is awarded the project does all the work in compliance with Title 24 codes and the approved plans and specifications that are stamped and signed by myself and division of state architect. So once those plans are approved, you're going to know your costs, and that's what you're going to get bids on. So you'll know your financial exposure once you authorize the project to get advertised and receive bids. And as Maria said, then you'll know the difference between base bid and those other color concepts, and you can choose what option you want to do as far as the track. Everything else is static. But you will know your exposure on the financially on all that work. Does that answer the question?

[15193] Phuong Nguyen: Member Nguyen. Thank you, President Hill. I just have a question on the cost analysis. Why was the design contingency removed in December?

[15204] Devin Conway: Because of that point in time, basically the design is done. So we go from 10% usually, depending on If it's a really basic concept, we may be more than that, but generally 10%. And as we go through the iteration of technical drawings, once we get to a point where we're submitting to the state agency, we should have all the systems designed and detailed fully so we can accurately cost everything.

[15230] Phuong Nguyen: OK, I see that. I didn't look at the. That's OK. That's a good question. But second question, during the meeting with the stakeholders, when you presented the design, was there, did they gravitate towards a base bit, the base bit or any alternative, which design did they?

[15254] Maria Denny: They liked the most expensive one. Of course.

[15260] Phuong Nguyen: They like this one. They want that one.

[15262] Okay.

[15264] Devin Conway: It was largely driven by the colors, school colors and the exchange zones that are blue They are an aesthetic item, but they also do have functionality. That's where the runners, if you ever see the Olympics, where they hand out the batons. Those are the exchange zones for the batons and the relays. So they do have some merit. These are poured-in-place tracks, so they pour the gray, and then they have to basically mark out those different colors. So it's an extra step. It's the same product as the gray, the blue, the red. They're all the same basic product, but some of the colors are just more expensive colors.

[15310] Tracey Vackar: Devin, can you talk a little bit about the warranty that comes with the field and the pour and play?

[15315] Devin Conway: Correct. Yes, absolutely. So the track surface is warrantied for five years. For the upgraded colors and the finish we have, it's actually warrantied for eight years. So if we didn't go with the red and we went the blue and the blues and the grays, those would be an eight-year warranty. So there is an extended product warranty for the upgraded colors because they have a specific finish that gives a little more durability. The turf, depending on the turf that is submitted, is going to be either eight or ten years. I will tell you historically the turfs were in like generation four basically of artificial grass since 1998 and every iteration seems to be getting a little better, but I say you got eight years I would plan for I think not more than ten or twelve years. You're probably gonna have to replace the carpet. Everything underneath is gonna stay there for probably two, three decades. By and large, but the this it's basically outdoor carpet So you're gonna have to replace this the substrate is gonna stay in place for probably two three decades So 10 to 12 years is a good planning tool the track surface the track surface is If you properly maintain it, you're probably going to be resurfacing it. You don't replace it resurface it generally, I would say every 10 to 15 years and And you can resurface it generally rule of thumb is two times before you have to scrape that surface and redo the surface. The asphalt underneath can stay there as long as it's structurally intact. But the track surface, you're going to do like an overlay of a little less than a quarter inch probably every 10 to 15 years. And you can do that generally rule of thumb is twice. before what's underneath that gives way. It starts breaking down. So rule of thumb is the turf itself is, which is about, I would say, a $700,000 expenditure to resurface. It's probably every 10 to 12 years, 10 to 15 years to attract surface, which is probably rough order of magnitude In today's dollars, about $330,000. And the reality is that the track in particular, you want to plan for that because if you don't do it in that 10, 15 years or whenever it's getting worn, you risk having to replace the entire track surface. Not the asphalt, but the entire wear surface. And we are putting in a shock pad underneath the turf. So as you build this, you take out all of the topsoil, the grass, you put in a permeable stone base so we can store the stormwater. There's pipes underneath there that are dewatering the rock. We put a drainage and shock pad on top of that, which has a 25-year warranty. The good news is as the turf field nowadays, as it gets more worn and worn, the shock pad itself from a safety standpoint in terms of head impact and concussions, that will basically meet all the national safety thresholds for concussion protocol without the turf even being there. So it does give you some time if the turf stays intact, the seams are all good, even if it looks really shoddy, you still have a safe field. And so that's an important thing. You know, these products do have life cycles just like everything else.

[15561] Aiden Hill: Other questions from the board?

[15564] Kat Jones: Member Jones. I have a question regarding the community meetings and the meetings that you had at the high school. Who all attended those meetings?

[15578] Phuong Nguyen: And I have a follow-up question.

[15580] Kat Jones: How was it advertised? Because I never even realized those meetings were going on.

[15586] Maria Denny: You know, I know the high school principal, the district was in charge of advertising. I know all athletic staff were there. And maybe it was, do you guys have a tree? Is that how principals communicate with their?

[15605] Phuong Nguyen: I didn't get any notice that we're having a meeting either. There was notice. I attended a couple of them. And it was some of the meetings were prior to when you guys came on to the board.

[15622] Kat Jones: How could we came on right after we approved it.

[15626] Phuong Nguyen: So that because we had there was already been one pre approval and then you guys approved that.

[15635] Kat Jones: This is January of 23 March of 23. We were here for and stakeholder meetings. When were those when did those start.

[15643] Maria Denny: So stakeholder meetings that was just part of our design process so that happened after March of last year. Okay so we were here.

[15653] Nicole Pierce-Davis: If it's helpful the dates that I have on my calendar I was not facilitating these meetings so I didn't attend myself but what I have my calendar is March 14th, March 21st, April 4th, April 18th, May 2nd, May 16th, May 30th, are all design meetings. There's Zoom links attached. And I believe it was given out through flyers through the school site. But again, I was a part of that process.

[15679] Kat Jones: Would that have only come from the high school then so that other schools or community members wouldn't have known? Because, I mean, as a board member, I never saw any of those dates.

[15690] Nicole Pierce-Davis: You gave me 24 hours. I could get the answer for you, but I just don't have it.

[15694] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah. Some of it was advertised on social media through the high school.

[15702] Nancy Thomas: Member Thomas. I'd like to make a comment because I've been on this board for most of the last 20 years. And we always had construction management firms that came. And they gave to our bond and other special projects. And we got detailed. The board has been treated like a non-entity. We'll do all this planning. We'll not keep you informed. We'll bring the final version for your approval. We expect you to approve it. If you don't, the whole community will come down on you. They have been working on it on this has been handled in terms of the board involvement or lack thereof.

[15757] Carina Plancarte: And I'd just like to make a comment about the public meetings as well, is that I don't have any knowledge of there being any public meetings. And just for transparency's sake, You know, my kids are not in high school yet, but, you know, definitely as a board member, I would have liked to have been more in the loop, but also just as a community member and as my children will one day be attending the high school, you know, I would like to have some skin in the game as well. And then also I would like to understand a little bit more too about how the stakeholder committee was comprised and really do we have a full, depth of members who are on it who can provide their input and who can oversee and also who is directly project managing this project on our end as well.

[15814] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah. So I just want to clarify because when prior to there was a lot of stakeholder engagement to come up with what project the high school had selected. There was groups of parents at the high school coaches Students, they were all there. And in the selection process of whether it was going to be going towards paving the school grounds, possibly a new swimming pool, the track and field. And those items were discussed. And as far as meetings after the fact for engagement, I was aware of several of them, but then also I am privy to the fact that I am a parent at the high school, so I was aware. But, you know, it is unfortunate that the rest of the board members was not able to attend those or had knowledge of it. And that was definitely probably during the transition that we had last year. So. Yes, I I think everyone is asking as we move forward with this project, if we could be more informed.

[15888] Aiden Hill: Thank you. Other questions from the board? Go ahead. You have a question?

[15898] Joy Lee: Yeah. So if you guys could help me understand, I don't quite understand what you guys mean by the pathway to the path of travel.

[15912] Kat Jones: From the parking lot of the school to the school.

[15914] Joy Lee: So, like, are we just, like, redoing with concrete or, like?

[15919] Tracey Vackar: So, the path of travel is actually done for ADA purposes, which is making sure that the American Disabilities Act takes into account people that need to be able to get to the stadium in a way that allows them to have wheelchair, other types of access to be able to ensure that they're able to also enjoy the sports.

[15943] Joy Lee: We're adding like a, what are we adding?

[15946] Tracey Vackar: Like a handicap ramp that you might have to add.

[15948] Aiden Hill: But that's what needs to be evaluated.

[15951] Joy Lee: Oh, that's what needs to be evaluated. Because for now, all I know is that it's just like a, just concrete, just going straight, and you just walk there.

[15958] Tracey Vackar: Yeah, so you might have to have the cutouts that go into it. You might have to have some of the specialized bumps that go into it to make sure that they can properly get in and out. And you also have to make sure, I think, that there's also handicapped parking that gets addressed.

[15975] Maria Denny: Correct. Actually, the big thing is the slope of the sidewalk. They want to make sure the slope of the sidewalk is not more than 2%.

[15981] Joy Lee: OK. Thank you so much.

[15985] Aiden Hill: So I have a couple of questions. But I'd like to kind of provide a little bit of a context so you understand where my questions are coming from. So prior to me making a transfer into the educational field, I spent 27 years in consulting and project management. And 17 of those years were spent running my own firm where I helped companies that had projects that were failing. I helped rescue them. And these were usually mission critical projects. And so whenever I start a project or whenever I go into a project where I've been brought in to evaluate it and to do a diagnosis, I look for certain key things to be in place. And by the way, for anybody that has formal project management training and has a PMP or is familiar with PMBOK, all of this is standard project methodology. And so I'd like to understand a little bit about how you've addressed these elements in this project. So first off, in general, in different industries use different terms, but I'll just lays out is, okay, here's the objectives of the project, and here's specifically the scope, and what's in and out in terms of scope, and then also the method for managing scope control. Because one of the biggest reasons that projects go off track is because they lose control of scope. So that's one thing I'd like you to comment on. The second thing that's important is having a project org chart that clearly lays out who actually is involved in the project. And particularly, I'd like to know, because I'm not clear on this, who is the project manager on this project? And then also, what are the other roles and what are the roles and responsibilities? So that's the second thing I'd like to hear. commentary on. The third thing that I'd like to hear commentary on is the project plan. So project managers live and die by project plans. And one of my old mentors used to say that the way that a project gets off schedule is one day at a time. And I'm concerned as I look at this project plan that's been presented. It's very, very skinny. According to the the thing that's been been submitted to us at the top. It says updated 6 to 23 There's a line on the right hand side at 728 that says completed to date So indicating that it seems like this is where we stopped And then the other concern that I have is when I look at construction begins, which is scheduled here on this project as 4-9-24, it says 87 days, and yet what you've just presented in your presentation is you're saying it's going to take six months for construction. So the minute that a project manager sees that there's misalignment around the project and the project plan, that's a red flag. And then the final thing that I'd like to understand is how are we addressing budgets and budget tracking? Because I think that even a student member has mentioned, I mean, we know the budget that we approved, we know the 6.3, but I don't think that we have a really clear understanding of Well, so where are we now? And what are the components? And so if you could address for me those elements, I'd appreciate it. So project SCART, charter, scope, scope control, project org chart, and particularly who's the project manager who's driving this. Number three, project plan and some of the inconsistencies that we're seeing. And then finally, budget tracking.

[16214] Penny DeLeon: Can I add one piece to the budget piece? Having installed six of these in my prior high school and being the person that had got all of this done with the architects, et cetera, what we discovered also was there were a ton of other costs. And I know you've been referring to soft costs, but I'm talking about relocations. transportation for teams going to other places during construction. All of those pieces and have they been taken into consideration and were they part of the budget because it became enormous and we had to plan for that within our budget.

[16256] Maria Denny: Well we talked about that with Coach K and when would be the best time to have construction. And what she told us was that the best time would be to start in the spring and go through the summer. that that would have the least impact to the athletic programs. And as far as, you know, reporting, we come here as often as you would like us to come. We always come when we're invited to be here. And for stakeholder meetings, that is largely driven by the school district. And we have as many stakeholder meetings as you would like. And we came here tonight. We were asked to come and provide an update because it has been a long time. And we're not here for any decisions tonight. We're here to update you. And whatever direction the board wants to take this project is entirely up to you.

[16318] Aiden Hill: And Miss Denny and Mr. Conway, so respectfully. So I'm looking right now at the contract that Newark Unified made with Verde Design. And this was approved back in March. And as I look at in the back, You've got basically what you're calling your scope of basic services, and you've got some key sort of, you've basically broken it down into your units of work, right, so sort of your phases. And the very first phase, and you've got it in here in your contract, and you've got it here in the thing that's been just recently provided to the board, it says project startup and preliminary site investigation. And so this started somewhere kind of in the March time frame of last year, and then kind of ended, it looks like, somewhere in July. Okay, so this is the first phase. If I look at the contract in the back, what it says is, number one, attend one community meeting. So this is after we've approved this budget. attend one community meeting to present initial concept design and to receive feedback and answer questions. So the community is not, you know, a couple of coaches, right? The community means Newark community and it doesn't seem like this was properly advertised. But more importantly, and this is the thing that I'm very upset about, and I sense that the other board members may have concerns as well, is it is laid out here, item number 10, attend one district board meeting to present final concept design and overall stadium master plan and receive feedback and answer questions. So this is in your basic services contract, and that was supposed to happen before the end of July, and it didn't happen. If we move forward into the next phase, which is design and development, we again attend one district board meeting to present design development package and to receive feedback and answer questions. So that should have happened in the late summer, early fall. And then if we look at the actual contractual language on page eight, it says right here, contracts document phase. Following the district's written approval of the design development documents, including the project cost and construction schedule, the architect shall prepare contract documents for the written approval of district's governing board, written approval of district's governing board, consisting of 100% complete work drawings and specifications set forth for the work. And then it says on 5.5.4, After approval by the district's governing board, which is us, and any constructability review required, Project Architect shall submit the contract documents to DSA. So you guys have already gone for almost a year with no communication with the board, with limited communication with the community. And we're talking about a multimillion dollar project. And I will tell you right now that in my 27 years of project management experience and 17 years of rescuing projects that have gone off the rails, this is flashing bright red right now to me. Remember when?

[16541] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. I would concur with Miss Denny. She is absolutely correct. We have not asked you guys back for any of any feedback or anything throughout the year required by the contract. I understand. Member Hill or President Hill. But again, that is also driven by the board. And have we made requests? No, we haven't. So I'm not going to sit here and fault them. I appreciate them coming here tonight and presenting to us. And we need to follow up on our end, too. It's a two-way street of communication. It is not one way. And just because they are our vendor, we don't get to disrespect them in that way. Thank you.

[16586] Nancy Thomas: Go ahead, Member Thomas. I don't blame. the board because we didn't know. And it's not our job to peruse the contract to make sure that staff does its job. Clearly, staff was not involved as they should have been, district office staff in particular, throughout the planning stages. Couldn't you agree, Ms. Bickar?

[16611] Tracey Vackar: Actually, I don't know that I can really speak to that. I know that since I've been involved, I mean, we've brought it on the board. Obviously, this is my, you know, I've only been here for two months. I saw the drawings in December. We had a meeting in my office. I can tell you there were other meetings that happened with the former CBO, and I don't know who else from staff was involved in all the meetings, but I do know that there's some meeting notes that we have with regards to coordination of the community meetings, and then also the discussions between the district and the architect, and with working with the vendors. That did occur those things did occur. I think the piece that's missing is with synthetic contract Which is where it should have been coming back here for some checks and balances before it moved on to certain stages, right? And so it's definitely missing that element I know there was a concern that was also addressed by the community with regards to the funds that were used We did get a legal opinion on that and we may use it for certain aspects of the field again I'd want to go back and go review them. I appreciate that the discussion that I had with everyone with regards to that because I want to make sure that we use the right funds for the right reasons and for the right kinds of project pieces that go with it. Some other concerns, some things that I'm really trying to think about, if we do pass the school bond and we go in to go do the other kind of work on this field area, the field could be damaged if we decide to go in and redo the stadium seating. And that would be a concern that we would know. I'd want to really kind of think about how that would impact if we were to do some additional work that probably needs to be done so that we can actually have a 30-year timeline to be able to really enjoy that field. The field that's been there now has been there for a long time. It's been taken good care of. And I also want to know a little bit more, too, about the maintenance and the care that would go into staff having to be able to maintain that and the training that goes with that. So those are some questions I know I personally have. There was something that was said, though, in one of the other slides, and I was really glad to see it. And I hope the board caught it. It had to do with CMAS. I know that was a question that came up from the board who asked me if that was something that they were going to use. And I think for part of, the installation, I think you're going to try to use CMAS to be able to keep those costs probably more in check. And so I did want to point that out to the board that was inside, you know, some of the work that's being done for the bids. That would be a requirement.

[16764] Aiden Hill: So go ahead, Member Jones.

[16768] Kat Jones: Well, I was going to just say that, you know, you can't fix the past, but we can move forward. So from that standpoint, you know, just keep making sure that we're really in contact and maybe it's it's a every six weeks we're getting an update we're asking for that kind of thing but that's

[16790] Aiden Hill: So if you wouldn't mind, I'd actually like to make a motion. Because again, I've seen this before. I've been down this road multiple times. And if you go and you consult the project management experts, and there is an enormous body of knowledge, I'm going to read off to you based on, and this is studying tens of thousands of project implementations, the primary reasons that projects fail. Number one, lack of user input. I don't, and that's, that accounts for 13% of project failures. I don't think we've had sufficient user input. Our student member who's at the high school, hold on a second, hasn't even heard, hasn't even, she's at the high school and she hasn't even heard about these meetings. Hold on. Okay, so there's, I just want to list out the issues that we need to be aware of. So that's number one, lack of user input. Number two, and this gets to your point, Ms. Vacar, Incomplete requirements or specifications. Okay, I think that we're seeing that there's a lot of loose ends. That is what ultimately drives cost overruns, schedule overruns, and sometimes causes projects to fail. Number three, changing requirements. Okay, counts for 12%. Number four, lack of executive support. I have never been a part of a project, especially a multi-million dollar project, where the key stakeholders who are responsible for authorizing budgetary expenditures have not been consulted on this. Right? And it is not, as Member Thomas mentions, it is not our responsibility. And by the way, according to your contract, it is your responsibility. And I believe that you're in breach of contract. And you are required, and every single consulting project I've ever been a part of, if there's a situation where I say that something needs to happen and the client needs to do something and they aren't doing it, I as the project manager stop the project. And that's what you should have done and you should have escalated to the board. And so I have real concerns around how this project is being run and your judgment and your capabilities. And I'm just going to be frank with you. And I would like to make a motion to the board that we put this project on hold at this point, that we hold a couple of sessions to talk about how this needs to be reorganized, and then we can figure out the best path forward.

[16948] Nancy Thomas: We can't take action on this because it's only.

[16951] Aiden Hill: OK. All right. So I will make a request during board requests.

[16958] Joy Lee: A student member.

[16960] Penny DeLeon: OK.

[16960] Joy Lee: So first one, you said user input. I think they got plenty of user input. And especially like, yes, the board's input is important, but essentially you guys are not going to be using this field. And they've gotten input from the most, they've gotten the most input from the people who are actually going to use it, like Coach K, the athletes, the PE coaches. They've been having meetings with them regularly, correct? Yeah. And so the people who are going to most use it, they're getting input from them.

[16995] Aiden Hill: So student member, the important thing to understand, right, is that we have $18 million in capital reserves for the entire school district. Yes. This one project, at the original estimate, consumed 37% of our entire capital budget. All right, and so these monies are not the coaches. This money is not the high schools. This money is Newark Unified School District and our entire community's money. And the entire community is entitled to participate in this project, and they have not been allowed to do it. And so I would consider that that is a lack of user input, because we are all stakeholders in this.

[17044] Joy Lee: OK. The high school, there's only one high school in this community. And I think many people, we have been They've gotten input, like they've gotten parent input. They've gotten coach input. And what else did you say? You're talking about how it's like the district's money. All these students from elementary schools and middle school will be going into this high school. And so essentially putting this money and investing this money into the track and field and the football field will be benefiting the generations to come.

[17084] Aiden Hill: But I think that member playing car team might want to speak to that.

[17090] Carina Plancarte: What I have concerns here is the fact that I understand that there's been input from students and from the teachers who are going to be using it, the coaches, and that's important. But overall, as a community, the community does also need to have some skin in the game and they need to be very much involved and a part of it. And the issues that I have here is that we asked for an update on this. And to President Hill's point is that what was lacking here is the full scope of the project, exactly what additional budgets are we missing here as far as overspending. truly just a project plan and that's what I expected to see a more in-depth project plan and I I do feel that there are some questions here that need to be addressed and we need to be brought up to speed in order to feel that you know we definitely have are looped in because a lot I feel like a lot of information is missing at this point.

[17164] Joy Lee: And so maybe that information did not get passed through between like the board and the The rest of the community members at the elementary schools, because their parents, kids there will be affected there too. Would it help if they would have another meeting? Like a community meeting that would be better advertised?

[17190] Aiden Hill: I think we need to discuss it as a board what the next step should be. And I'm going to make a request during a request period regarding that.

[17201] Phuong Nguyen: Yes, I think we need to move on. We still have a lot of other stuff to discuss on the agenda. And I just really want to appreciate our consultants here tonight. Thank you. Bringing the design to show us.

[17213] Aiden Hill: Thank you so much. Miss Denny, Mr. Conway, thank you very much.

[17217] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Thank you very much.

[17220] Tracey Vackar: I do want to assure the board that I am meeting regularly with them and that we are discussing the plans moving forward. And so there will be additional updates

[17231] Joy Lee: When will they be coming again?

[17234] Tracey Vackar: I don't have a date. I think I'll wait for some board direction to see how they want us to proceed. And so I think I'll wait for that motion maybe to come and board comments or the recommendation for comments. This will be a motion to be a recommendation.

[17252] Aiden Hill: OK, sorry. My screen just froze. Thank you. There we go. OK, thank you. All right, so moving on to item 11.3, letter from Alameda County Office of Education, Superintendent.

11.3 Letter from the Alameda County Office of Education Regarding the 2023-24 First Interim Budget Report

[17267] Penny DeLeon: At this time, I'll call on our Deputy Superintendent of Business Services, Ms. Tracy Ficarra, to review the letter with the board.

[17274] Tracey Vackar: Thank you. So we received the board received the first interim letter from the county superintendent outlying other concerns. Concerns also that I think I shared with the board on many different issues with regards to the fact that we're qualified in the fact that our assumptions were off. And those things were noted as things that we need to pay attention to. The county is also concerned with the fact that we didn't meet a timeline. And I will certainly understand that it's unusual not to meet a timeline. There had obviously been a lot of staff changes. And I think good intentions were meant to be able to try to make it happen. So much so that we brought on the second consultant to help us get that work done. And we also did a forensics understanding also of our budget. I share with the board that we also received some technical advice from the county. I most certainly do appreciate that advice. It's not that we didn't know some of the same things, we most definitely noted many of the things that they pulled out. And those things will be corrected in our second interim as we try to bring the budget positive moving into the new adoption.

[17344] Aiden Hill: Okay, thank you. Questions from the board?

[17350] Aiden Hill: Number one.

[17351] Phuong Nguyen: I should have a comment. I'm getting feedback. Thank you. So let this sink in. And I'm going to quote the ACOE Superintendent Castro. The challenges the district has faced in completing its fiscal analysis are a deep concern. Staffing turnover and shortages appear to be the proximate causes. We believe the district can and must address these staffing gaps immediately to prevent a reoccurrence of this problem. So, just to give a little background also, it is a year to the date that Member Thomas, Member Jones, and President Hill voted yes to the termination of Superintendent Triplett. Member Zhang and I voted no. Why is that significant? That action has led us to hiring Superintendent DeLeon thinking that it was the best decision moving forward for the district. After going through the superintendent interviews, I was convinced that she was good for the district with her skill sets, years of experiences, and the fact that she was bilingual. That really swayed me. We are eight months into Superintendent DeLeon's superintendency, and I am conflicted. The person we hired to lead to bring this community of administrators, teachers, and staff together is having difficulties. We are faced with an unprecedented number of resignations and turnovers in administrative positions. And today, I am compelled to ask why. Because later in the meeting on the PAL, we see another resignation that is a termination, that is a tremendous loss for NUSD. Those of us in the workforce are not new to the saying that individuals don't leave jobs they like. They leave because of poor management. Since the new leadership, we have had the following resignation at the district office. Director of Teaching and Learning, position has left unfilled since June 2023. Executive Director of HR, position filled with our second interim since July 2023. Director of Physical Services, position not filled since September 2023. Director of Special Projects, position vacant since October 2023. Chief business officer left in October 2023 and was replaced with our new deputy superintendent position in December. Executive assistant to the superintendent and board position vacated in October 2023 and a new hire in December 2023, only to leave a week or two after the position is once again vacant as the beginning of January 2024. We also have a coordinator, K-12 pathway that has been vacant since January 2024, 19 manager, vacant since January 2024, and are soon to be assistant and are soon to be vacant position assistant superintendent as of March 1st, 2024. Aside from that, the high school principal and the assistant principal at Newark Middle School District and the district accountant and accounts payable positions are also vacant. To those observing from the outside, this could be seen as a reflection of bad management, or that this may be normal due to the change in leadership. Since, like Superintendent DeLeon had mentioned earlier, people were applying for other jobs since she was hired. But again, I feel that in those kinds of situations, if you don't try to build those relationships with people that you're coming into an organization with, That's really hard to have anybody succeed. So since serving on this board, this is my third superintendent and this is the first time that I have witnessed such a high level of administrative resignations. This is absolutely a concern as it will impact our ability to hire and retain exceptional staff in the future while currently diminishing our ability to do work, do the necessary work at hand. I want to share A quote from Simon Sinek, quote, leadership has nothing to do with rank. I know many people who sit at the highest level of an organization who are not leaders. We do what they tell us because they have authority over us, but we do not trust them. We do not follow them. I also know people at the low levels of organizations that have no formal authority, but they have made the choice to look at the person to the left of them and to the right of them, and would trust them and follow them anywhere. Leadership is the awesome responsibility to those around us, to see those around us rise, to see them achieve their ambitions and their dreams. This is what servant leadership means. I serve your dreams rather than you serve my bottom line. Even though there are district reorganization plans per new job descriptions, As you see on this agenda tonight, I am still compelled now to publicly say that I currently do not have confidence in Superintendent DeLeon and the direction she is steering the district in. I am still committed to working with her as that As that is my responsibility and role as a board member, I do believe things can change, but wanted to let the public and the superintendent know that the current state of the district is dire and that our students can't wait and shouldn't have to wait for positive change. They deserve better. Thank you.

[17698] Aiden Hill: Other questions, comments from the board? I'd like to just make one comment, since this Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday, and the 49ers are going to the Super Bowl. And as everybody knows, I'm a big football fan, and I'm interested in football history. And I think it's important to understand that the first 49er dynasty, when Bill Walsh joined in 1978, the 49ers had the losingest record in the league. And it took three years for Bill Walsh to actually turn the organization around and take the 49ers to their first Super Bowl. And in the process of doing that, they experienced about 80% turnover in order to build that championship team. And that's all I have to say.

[17758] Tracey Vackar: That concludes the staff report on this item.

[17761] Aiden Hill: Okay, so moving on to, yeah.

[17765] Joy Lee: It's 11 and I would like, I think I have school tomorrow. Yes, please. Could I just make like my concluding comments before I leave? Sure. Okay, so for the first one is about our, okay, our facilities at school. I just wanted to emphasize that again. So please come over. And also, and also re-mention how our, we, it's difficult to find the Spanish translation for our YouTube. And then, so can I like put in a request to have, I don't know how to change it, but can I put in a request so that it would make it easier for the community to find it?

[17820] Aiden Hill: We have agreement on the board. OK. Yes.

[17823] Joy Lee: OK. And then also I wanted to comment on. OK. I also wanted to thank Dr. Nicole Pierce for everything you've done for our school and that I would really really miss you and wish you so much a bright future. and thank you everybody for tonight. Have a great night. That's everything I would like to say.

[17853] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Member Lee. Okay. Okay. So moving on to new business 12.1. Doctor, so this is resolution 2023-2423, designating committed fund balance to operating budget. Superintendent?

12.1 Resolution 2023.24.23 Designating Committed Fund Balance to Operating Budget

[17874] Penny DeLeon: Yes, I'm going to hand this over to our CBO, Tracy Vicar.

[17881] Tracey Vackar: Well, it's my pleasure to introduce this particular item. When I brought the first interim to you, we talked about the committed funds, and I even made a change to some of the committed fund lines because I recognized within our budget we didn't have enough operating costs to be able to cover for some items that are critical to the operation. board member Lee just kind of pointed out about the conditions of our facilities and that we need to make sure that when we have problems, we're able to contract and be able to support our facilities with the patches that they need. Plumbing issues that happen at our last board meeting, we had a plumbing issue that happened here at the building. And those things were not really planned for. There's not money there to sit there and do and take care of our facilities. And we need to make sure that we are able to respond immediately. Since the last board meeting, we also had an issue with heating at one of our middle schools, and the majority of the heaters went down. And the heaters that were, they're brand new heaters, which is really a shame, and yet they had a consistent part. There's no additional warranty that's honestly on there for to be able to take care of the labor that goes with it. We can get the parts taken care of in some cases and other cases the parts could not have to be paid for by the district. Because we had used different replacement parts during the pandemic that caused some additional issues with keeping the warranty valid. The units that were at the middle school, I learned, had sat out there on a field for over a year while they waited to be able to get some critical components to be able to put into them to actually make them work. And as you know, we've had many, many issues with making sure that we actually have an HVAC tech that knows how to make the systems talk, because things now are high-end technology, right? And so they actually talk through a database system that kind of works. Those are just some of the issues that are kind of sitting out there. Over at snow this weekend, we lost our bell system over there for the fire alarm and we now have a fire watch going on. I need money and funds to be able to pay to make sure those services are there and that we put the back into the condition that the fire department will recognize and authorize for us to be able to walk away from the site. I know that it's in quarterly and maintained. So these are the things that we're asking that we move back up into the operating budget. Some of these things belong to the operating budget from the get go as I shared with you in the last. the first interim report. And so those are the items that I'm calling out and asking that we consider. The other one has to do with a roof for our child nutrition services building. Ms. Sarah has actually been housed in a different location because she has such a major water leak. And it is probably the number one item probably in our district that needs to be addressed because of what's going on there with that. The number two is our server room and making sure that it's also taken care of and be happy to take you on tour if you want to see what that looks like because it's many years of not having been addressed because budget money is being set aside.

[18077] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Ms. Fokara. Questions from the board?

[18080] Phuong Nguyen: Member Nguyen. I just have a clarifying question. Under fiscal health support, how much is that How much of the $200,000 is going to be allocated to the FCMAT consultant to support policy development? And then how much of it is going to go towards IT network cybersecurity plan consultant and services?

[18102] Tracey Vackar: So I'm working on the cyber, the consultant agreement for the cybersecurity piece. And so I'm waiting for that scope to come back. I do have kind of an estimate in my head, but I really don't want to say that out loud here because I'm kind of under contract negotiations for that, and so I'd like to be able to bring that forward, but I know that's something that we need to address. The scope of work for FCMAT, I believe, was at just under $30,000. Let me see.

[18128] Phuong Nguyen: So it is, I mean, we had it posted on it, but the item was pulled. So my understanding, based on looking at that, is that you have budgeted $23,500 for it. So is it safe to assume that The allocation and the resolution, only 23,500 is going to be going towards the FCMAT consultant to support policy development, and the remaining is going to be going towards IT network cybersecurity plan consulting.

[18160] Tracey Vackar: Not necessarily. I think as you tried to right size your budget and as you as you called out, we've got a number of vacant positions in order to be able to cover and make sure that we have people to cover our positions to be able to offer the services. We may have to use some funds that need to go towards that to ensure that the services are covered between now and the end of the year. It's not uncommon as you go through restructuring to have to be able to use additional funds. Some of it will come from the line items based on some vacant positions if they do exist. Others might require some additional support systems. But more importantly, I would say that the other piece is part of our fiscal health has to do with the protection of our equipment and our network systems. And that's also another piece of fiscal health that we need to be completely aware of. And I would say that there will be a larger allocation probably put towards that to ensure that the security systems are designed within our servers and any of our cloud space that we may have, and to ensure that our network system is operating functionally to be able to protect the district fiscal health.

[18232] Phuong Nguyen: Which I totally agree, but I'm not comfortable allocate I mean approving this resolution tonight because I would like to see three quarters of that money going towards the IT network cyber security plan. And I would not, I would rather not as use that towards FCMAT consulting to support policy development. I believe that's what your position is here to do. And I understand that we pay you quite a lot of money to be able to do that. And to get us into our physical health. So the district into our physical health, and I'm okay with allocating $50,000, but for it to be on one line item, I'm not comfortable. Thank you.

[18278] Tracey Vackar: I will certainly understand your concerns. I hope I can try to address those.

[18285] Aiden Hill: Other questions from the board?

[18289] Aiden Hill: Okay, so

[18297] Aiden Hill: Can we get a second?

[18299] Aiden Hill: Can we get somebody to please make a motion? I'll make a motion. I'll second.

[18327] Tracey Vackar: May I ask for a point of order, just to be able to say one more thing? So although I'm asking to move money into the operational budget, any items that we would be weighing off and bringing in contracts, you would still be approving those contracts as they come forward. I want to make sure that that's clear. So moving into the operating budget gives us that ability to be able to do that without bringing it back one item at a time.

[18350] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you for the clarification. I'm still not comfortable with that.

[18357] Kat Jones: And voting is open.

[18374] Aiden Hill: OK, the motion carried with four yeas and one nay.

[18379] Aiden Hill: And the nay were? Number one was the nay.

[18382] Aiden Hill: OK, great. Thank you. OK. So, moving on to 12.2, contract fiscal crisis and management assistance team.

[18394] Tracey Vackar: I'm sorry. We'll be coming back to you at a later time. Yes. Okay. With a better timeline that is for staff so it doesn't impede with the audit system.

[18402] Aiden Hill: Okay. So, moving on to 12.3, contract Beth Figueroa, superintendent.

12.3 Contract: Beth Figueroa, CPA- Accounting Technical Support: Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) and Budget Development for FY 2024-25

[18410] Penny DeLeon: Ms. Vackar, please.

[18412] Tracey Vackar: Yes. I know it's getting late here this evening. I'm asking the board to consider another contract for yet another accounting person. We do not have our fiscal director in place. There are a number of projects that I want to be able to help support the district with. But most importantly, I want to make sure that these accounting services are well coordinated and well thought out to ensure that we are able to bring not only our second interim back into balance, but maybe without having to do a third. We also have a number of reports based on the number of grants and programs that we offer that require state and federal reporting. And so that's being handled by another consultant. The second interim will continue with Ms. Roseanne Liscarno, who presented at the last meeting. And so she is actually going to be doing the second interim. And on the next board agenda, I'm going to extend her contract to make sure that she can do the second interim. She was only contract related to the third interim. And so we'll be bringing that back for that continuity. The third person I'm bringing on is Beth Figueroa. Beth is a CPA. She's an accountant. She's worked in a large school district. I have worked with Beth. I know a question was called out. She was at Fontana Unified School District as the executive director of the school services. She's also been an auditor for school districts throughout California in the past. I personally have not been in contact with Beth until just most recently, where I reached out to her to see if she might be available to be able to help us with services as we develop our LCAP, because I know she knows something about that. and also as we do our district's budget for the 24-25 school year and then to also provide some technical support systems to the staff. There have been a number of questions that have come up with regards to the individual line items and you know the budget account codes and a variety of different things that require some additional support systems day in day out and so she will be providing those services. So this will be a coordinated effort between the three people working all in part-time capacity It will all be underneath the line item being covered for the fiscal director whose position is right now vacant.

[18542] Penny DeLeon: And it is to clarify that the amount of these people are all still within the salary of the director of fiscal services, including their total compensation. So it's still all within. We're basically saying we want different people to do different projects. that the Director of Fiscal Services would do.

[18567] Penny DeLeon: While we're recruiting, and we did get actually a couple good applications in recently, so we're happy.

[18576] Aiden Hill: Great. Questions from the board? Okay, so can I get a motion to approve the contract with Beth Figueroa?

[18594] Nancy Thomas: I move that we approve the contract with Ms. Figueroa.

[18598] Kat Jones: I'll second. We had four guys, and one guy, and member of the union was the one who voted me.

[18629] Aiden Hill: Member Nguyen, do you want to make any comment regarding this?

[18632] Phuong Nguyen: Again, we're paying our deputy chief quite a lot of money, and we're hiring another consultant. So it answers for itself. Thank you.

[18644] Nancy Thomas: OK. Any other comments? I just feel that this is work that fell under our former It did not fall under the CBO who has a broad range of responsibilities, so this is not spending any more money than we are saving by not having that position filled at this time, and that it's not Ms. Vacar's responsibility to get in the nuts and bolts of determining the second interim.

[18680] Phuong Nguyen: I beg to differ. We're a small district. Everybody has a hand and a part in everything that we do. Assistant Superintendent Nicole Pierce-Davis, how many positions have you filled? How many positions, extra positions were not filled for you, Ms. Nicole Davis? So I beg to differ.

[18712] Aiden Hill: OK, so other comments from the board? OK. All right, so let's move on to the consent agenda. So for personnel items 13, so do we, does anybody want to pull any items? Yes, so 13.7 was already pulled. So does anybody want to pull any other items for discussion?

[18742] Penny DeLeon: Yes. And I did speak to Lou Lozano. We did not have a Brown Act violation of any kind. And he read all of the agenda items for the job descriptions, all three of them, although we pulled one of them. He looked at every detail. He said, they are perfectly allowable and not a Brown Act violation, I repeat.

[18761] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. I'd like to pull 13.5. Actually, no, just 13.6. Thank you. OK, great.

13.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote (Approved on Consent)

13.2 Personnel Report (Approved on Consent)

13.3 SENIORITY LIST: Certificated (Approved on Consent)

13.4 SENIORITY LIST: Classified (Approved on Consent)

13.5 Revised Job Description-DIRECTOR OF TEACHING AND LEARNING (Approved on Consent)

[18769] Aiden Hill: So can I get a motion to approve 13.1 through 13.5 and 13.7? I'm sorry, so 13.1 through 13.5. It would be 13.2 through 13.5. Sorry, 13.2. I move that we approve 13.2 through 13.5. Can we get a second?

[18782] Nancy Thomas: I'll second.

[18808] Kat Jones: So my question and it's just so I understand how the seniority list for the classified works when each page sometimes there's a dual name in terms of seniority like you'll see on this page you'll see a name and then you'll see another job description and then the person's names on there Is that because they've held those previous positions? Okay, thank you. That's all I needed to know. I appreciate it.

[18837] Tracey Vackar: That's my understanding.

[18840] Aiden Hill: Okay, Ms. Keiser.

13.6 New Job Description-COORDINATOR OF COLLEGE, CAREER, & COMMUNITY SERVICES

[18862] Aiden Hill: Great, thank you. So, number one, 13.6.

[18867] Phuong Nguyen: Yes, since this is a new job description, I took issue with the fact that there was no type. Generally, we put a type in if it's an action required and also it would be nice to, you know, know what the budgeting Budget source was and if there is a salary range for the position Since it since it is a new position Other than that, I am supportive of this position. I do believe that We do need this position the coordinator of college career and community community The range is listed and I did not see.

[18916] Penny DeLeon: Yes. And when I answered your board question, I told you the range was listed, and I attached all the salary schedules for you in advance of the meeting.

[18925] Phuong Nguyen: I still don't see the range. I don't see it.

[18928] Kat Jones: Is this on the box? Oh, range 132. Range 132.

[18931] Penny DeLeon: And then you go to the salary schedule, and we'll look it up.

[18935] Kat Jones: Open up the very top. In the box, bottom row.

[18943] Phuong Nguyen: Apologies. I apparently didn't miss that because I did not see it correctly. Thank you.

[18951] Phuong Nguyen: I'll make a motion to approve the position. I'll second. Give me one second to do a roll call vote.

[18955] Sarah Keiser: We're all 13.6, correct?

[18962] Aiden Hill: Correct.

[18963] Sarah Keiser: OK, Member Thomas.

[18973] Kat Jones: Are we doing a roll call?

[18975] Aiden Hill: I don't see... No, they're doing a roll call. Roll call. Oh, yeah, aye.

[18977] Nancy Thomas: Okay, thank you. Member Nguyen? Yes. Member Plunkard?

[18981] Phuong Nguyen: Yes.

[18984] Aiden Hill: Member Jones?

[18985] Kat Jones: Yes.

[18986] Aiden Hill: President? Yes.

[18987] Sarah Keiser: Thank you.

[18992] Aiden Hill: Thank you. Okay, so moving on to Agenda Item 14, Consent Agenda and Non-Personnel Items. Does anybody want to pull any? And we have already pulled 14.7. Does anybody want to pull any other items for discussion?

[19013] Phuong Nguyen: I just have a comment. Thank you for making the correction on item 14.6.

14.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote (Approved on Consent)

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

14.3 Resolution 2023.24.21 Declaring Surplus Equipment (Approved on Consent)

14.4 FIELD TRIP- Senior Cruise (Approved on Consent)

14.5 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Newark Memorial MCA Seniors to travel to Los Angeles. (Approved on Consent)

14.6 FIELD TRIP : Non-Curricular Trip for Newark Memorial Competition Cheer Team to travel to Anaheim, CA. (Approved on Consent)

[19019] Aiden Hill: OK, great. So can I get a motion to approve 14.2 through 14.6?

[19027] Kat Jones: I'll make a motion to approve 14.2 through 14.6. I'll second.

15.1 Student Expulsion (Ed Code. § 48918) Case# e2324-06

[19062] Aiden Hill: Great, thank you very much. Moving on to item 15, student expulsion, 15.1 student expulsion, Ed Code 48918, case number E2324-06. Can I get a motion to approve? Yeah, we can't discuss, so can we get a motion to approve?

[19085] Kat Jones: It's a motion to approve.

[19089] Carina Plancarte: I'll second. All voted aye.

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

[19120] Aiden Hill: OK, great. Thank you. So let's move on to item 16.1, so Board of Education Committee Reports, Announcements, Requests, Debrief, and Discussion. Member Thomas?

[19131] Nancy Thomas: Yes. Just to say that we appreciate the new culinary arts program at Mission Valley ROP at our Bridgepoint. I'll be going to the educator breakfast tomorrow at ROP with Member Jones. I would like to see us go back to a once a month student reports from Bridgepoint and Newark Middle School. I also, before it was brought up by a member of the community, I too was thinking that we used to have resolutions like proclamations for African-American History Month. That would be a good one to have now, but maybe review the ones we've had in the past and continue having resolutions for those major month, monthly, or what do you call it? Recognitions. I'm going to spend all day Friday, most of the day Friday, at the high school because the League of Women Voters is there to register our juniors and seniors, and I'm going to hope that they all show up and register to vote. I attended the MCA event at the high school with member Jones last week. Loved it. The silent movies filmed in Niles were fun. Best wishes to you, Dr. Nicole. Really, thank you for everything that you've done for the district, and best wishes in your new position. And minutes of the meeting, we're so far behind in our minutes of the meeting. And that's going to be an audit finding. It's been an audit finding in the past. And we just can't have that. We have to put priority on that. And that's it. Thank you.

[19257] Aiden Hill: Member Nguyen.

[19259] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, President Hill. There has been no updates. We weren't able to meet. with the City of Newark NUSD liaison committee we had to reschedule so it will be at the next quarterly meeting and no other updates on any other board committees I do like would like to make a request I made requests in the past to start up the bond committee and we have not done that and quite frankly we are slow to the game right now It's February 6th and we need to get a lot of stuff in order if we're going to try and pass a bond in November. So I hope that we try. So I'm asking right now to please put that on the calendar for this next week or the week after as soon as possible.

[19322] Penny DeLeon: I have a point of clarification on that, having been through this before. We had to have a vote of the board to restart the bond committee and to begin the process of researching a bond and determining whether we were going for a bond. And I have not received a full consensus of the board to begin that work.

[19342] Aiden Hill: So are you asking that you would like to have an agenda item to discuss this? Is that what you're requesting?

[19347] Phuong Nguyen: Well, that's not my understanding. I mean, we've always had, you know, It's a bond committee. If we need to restart the bond committee, then why do we even have it right now on there?

[19359] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I think bond committee exists. And all we have to do is give a nod. Because I hear our CBO saying how important it is to go for a bond. And I've always been a little reticent because of our our situation in the past when we've gone and done a community survey. But I can see the need for it. So I think all we need to do is give a nod to the superintendent.

[19390] Penny DeLeon: That's what I'm saying, is I need to have consensus. Because what I don't want is to lead a bond committee and then have everybody do all the work. And then it's like something that nobody wants to do.

[19401] Nancy Thomas: It's a lot of work. I think you have consensus.

[19404] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. So if we can get that meeting on the books, that would be great. And lastly, I just wanted to say this is Black History Month. So I'm excited for our students to be able to learn about our African-American leaders in class. And I'm excited. I know that every year, Coyote Hills, and I hope they do it this year again, the wax museums with the figures of our, great black leaders. So I hope that we get invited to that. And then also, I just really wanted to appreciate member Thomas for advocating for our Rocketry Club and through the fund need through Rotary helped. She she's still on a high, she says. And right now, the fund need. And thank you, Miss Jen Cirillo, who's in the audience. We were able to raise, as of right now, the last figure I had was $11,200. So that was a huge fund of need. And Superintendent DeLeon was there that night also, running around, helping out, and working really hard. So just thank you, Member Thomas, for advocating for our students. And I know that Janice Bishop and all the students are very grateful for that. And it was a great success through Rotary. And I just wanted to thank all the Rotary members for also being a huge part in contributing to student success in our community, and working, and raising money, and helping to meet the needs of our students. So thank you so much, Rotary members. And that's it. Thank you.

[19525] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Member Nguyen.

[19526] Carina Plancarte: Member Plancarte. I don't have any committee updates, but I do want to echo Member Nguyen's comments about the celebrations of Black History Month. I know that I've been enjoying hearing from my kids who they're learning about, and I think it's really awesome to celebrate those who've made a difference in our history. And also, I did want to just give a shout out to Newark Middle School. They had an award ceremony for all of our honor roll students. And I went through, and I'm not going to butcher it, but I just counted the students that earned honor roll. The total was 185 students. And that really is a big celebration. And I really appreciate how all of the work that is being done by our educators and then, you know, our principal who also went through the work to make sure that these kids had a celebration and a ceremony. It sort of brought me back to my childhood when we used to have Honorable Assemblies, and it was just great to see that happen. I did also want to state that I will be volunteering with the League of Women Voters as well at the high school. So I'll be seeing some of you there. I'm looking forward to meeting some of our students. And I'll also be present at the Bridgepoint event with the League of Women Voters as well. And Dr. Nicole. Thank you so much for all of your service that you've done here. I really appreciate it. I know you've made a big difference. And I really do look forward to seeing all of the great things that you end up accomplishing in your career. And I wish you the best of luck wherever you go. And you're going to be successful. And you should be very proud of yourself. Thank you.

[19657] Aiden Hill: Thank you, member Blancarti. Member Jones?

[19664] Kat Jones: Yes, I think I'll start with Dr. Davis and just say that you really have, you've given your life's blood here during the time that you have been here and have worked really hard for the students and the staff and getting things in place and I have appreciated getting to know you this past year and we'll miss our conversations for sure. But I do. I wish you the best of luck and look forward to seeing where you go. And I'm sure you will do great things wherever you go and whatever you do. One of the things that I attended in the last month was the DLI community meeting that was held about a week ago, I think. And that was really good. It was informative. I was really pleased. excuse me grateful to be included in on that and I look forward to continuing that work and making that DLI program the best that it can be. So I do really appreciate that. I did notice I was just looking at our board committees chart and you know it's one of the things that is not super high priority but it is because it's still reading 22-23 so we need to It's just another one of the little things that just needs to be fixed in our things that just continue to roll over that we don't really look at, I think, as we're setting up the agenda. So it would be important to get that updated. And then I want to, as part of the ad hoc committee for the board policies and administrative regulations, I do want to acknowledge that HR has some sitting sitting waiting for us to read through and present to the board and to have approved. And so Nancy and I will be working hard to make sure that those are ready to go for next time. And be forewarned, we're probably going to come with 20 to 25 for this since we were not able to get them in this time. But I did want to acknowledge HR for the work that they have done up to this point.

[19803] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Member Jones.

[19806] Aiden Hill: So a committee update. So I'm on the induction committee. And we had a meeting a couple of weeks ago. And Ms. Ripisura and team led it. And as always, she did a very thorough job. And I think that they're in the process of sending feedback to CDE around our plans, et cetera. And overall, I thought it was a good meeting. So just wanted to give an update there. I have three requests. I'll start with what I think is the easiest one. So regarding public comment, I know as an outsider, when I wasn't on the board, that as I started to get exposed to the board, I always thought it was strange. And again, I came in to start observing, like in sort of 2018, I always thought it was strange that you, as a member of the public, had to make a comment before the item was discussed. Because I always felt that, well, I don't know exactly what's going to be discussed, and maybe I could make a better comment or a request if I heard what was covered. And I understand in doing a little research that at one point in our history, we did allow comments to be either before or after. And so I'd like for us to come back as a board and maybe just talk about that on a future agenda to see if we'd like to make an adjustment to that. I don't think we allow a comment after. Oh, not after, but before.

[19901] Nancy Thomas: What we did before was we had staff introduce and give a report first. And then it was after the report that we had public comment. Then it was the board's turn.

[19913] Aiden Hill: Right. And so what I'm thinking is that we would have a discussion about do we want to make an alteration and give further flexibility to the public where, OK, they can make the comment. during the public comment section. They can do it either, they can also do it before the agenda item is discussed, and they can do it after the agenda item is discussed. And I don't see a big problem with it, but obviously we would need to discuss it as a board. So can I get approval to put that on a future?

[19943] Phuong Nguyen: You're the board president. You can bring that back, because it's part of the governance handbook.

[19949] Aiden Hill: I'm hoping that we could talk about it sooner.

[19952] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah. I mean, yes, it's part of that. Sure, OK.

[19957] Aiden Hill: Okay. All right. Okay, so that's, that was number one. Number two, so, you know, had a very thorough discussion of LCAP and appreciate, again, all the work that Dr. Pierce-Davis put into that. And one of the things that she'd mentioned in her presentation was, you know, there are certain programs that are, that have been operating based on grants and are, and those grants are now potentially, Sunsetting of the probe what we've secured and so I think it's always good to do sort of a Review to see sort of where we are and then you know what the next steps would be and so I know that I believe that the seal program is That that grant is going to be ending at the end of this fiscal year, so it'd be great to have the the seal team seal team six come in and And maybe just give us sort of an overview of okay. Here's the things that we've done during the grant You know, these were our objectives. These are things that we were measuring. These are things that we accomplished. I'm sorry, contract. So the contract is up. And so to maybe get sort of a debrief on that and talk about what the next steps would be. So do people, does the board feel that that would be useful?

[20036] Kat Jones: I definitely feel that that would be useful. I know that we're actually just finishing our year five because our first contract was in April or August of 19. So we are at year five and I think it would be good to have a discussion about it.

[20053] Aiden Hill: Okay. Do we have consensus?

[20056] Nancy Thomas: I think so as long as the staff have the bandwidth to prepare and bring that to the board.

[20064] Nicole Pierce-Davis: I'll ask for sure.

[20066] Penny DeLeon: Okay. We want our TOSAs and teachers and whatnot to be part of it. Yeah.

[20073] Nancy Thomas: It's just that, you know, if something takes an inordinate amount of time by staff, we should really make sure that staff feels comfortable with it.

[20084] Aiden Hill: Okay. All right, so you'll get back to us. Okay. And then the third item, and we talked about this earlier, I can't stress enough how concerned I am around the project management of the track and field project. And I will just tell you that I did project management my entire career and that this is ringing alarm bells all over the place. And I can promise you that the things that I laid out that are essential pillars that you need for a project and that we really didn't hear any comment on, I can promise you that if those are not addressed and put in place, that we will have schedule overruns, we will have cost overruns, and we cannot afford it given the price tag. And so what I would like to request is that we have a study session at the board level to discuss the status of this and to explore our thoughts and options about how we think the district should proceed forward with this. So can I get support from the board in having a study session to discuss this? Yes. Great. OK. And then also, I would like to thank Dr. Pierce-Davis for all of your hard work. And I know that you work very hard, right? You are like one of the hardest working people that I know. And it is appreciated, and you have had an impact. And so again, thank you for all of your work, and wish you the best in your next steps. And again, looking forward to hearing about your future successes. And Dr. DeLeon, parting comments?

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

[20195] Penny DeLeon: Yes, I do have comments tonight. Thank you, Member Hill, members of the board. Respectfully, I'd like to remind the board that shortly after I was hired, I was handed a very dire situation. $14.9 million deficit in about a $78 million budget, which is over 22%. It's actually much worse than that after we did unaudited actuals. Much higher than that. That is a situation where we have about a year to make drastic and dire cuts to this district, or we will be taken over. There is no doubt. That money is not there. From the beginning, and though I did not know the extent of it, because there were some things agreed to in contracts, what not signed after I accepted the position, but some of them, it was kind of a transition, so I didn't know the extent when I interviewed of what the deficit was. But regardless, when I found out, I, as always, put my best foot forward in terms of being positive and trying to address the issue the best way we can, understanding that this is not a joke. I've never been in a district that had almost a quarter of its budget in deficit, structural deficit, and not being able to make it. So from the beginning, I have been very positive and I have also been very, very transparent and clear that as people left, particularly management, in this kind of a situation where you know that you can come up to staffing cuts, dire staffing cuts, managers are first because we keep the cuts from the classroom as much as we possibly can. I've been very clear from the beginning that if people left, and many of them, I repeat many, were applying before I got here, and people just need to tell the truth. And as they left, I would not replace them until we brought a reorganization plan in February. I was clear. We would use attrition. We would combine and reduce to the extent that we possibly could And you all have seen a draft of what that work has looked like and significant budget cuts. And that is not fun work, because I'm a people person, and I love people. And whether you can believe what you want to believe, but I am kind and respectful to people, but I also have to make hard decisions. This is not a fun thing. It's not something I like. to do. But it has to be done or we don't make it. And as always, I've been transparent from the beginning that these were going to be tough times. And I intentionally did not replace people. Intentionally. And they knew it. And the leaders of this district knew it. And I've held the line because we needed to be at a place where I could come to you and say, here's a reorganization plan where we contract down to be aligned to the size of the enrollment in our district in the management ranks. And we will continue to contract down using retirements, vacancies in the teaching ranks to meet the enrollment of the district. And the same with classified. From the beginning, I have been dedicated to using attrition I have not laid anybody off. We don't have plans of it. We're using attrition almost exclusively in this district to make the cuts. And then there's a whole bunch of other cuts that have to be made programmatically and with daily expenditures, supplies, things like that, that are really being overspent. with very few controls. So I'm going to say that this process has been clear from the beginning. I inherited a drastic, dire situation. And from the beginning, I've said I would bring a plan. And we were bringing a plan and doing exactly what we said. And so that's where we are now. It is not fun. Nobody likes it. But I think people need to understand the truth. And I'm the person who has dedicated myself to doing this hard work. And I get to, me and you all, get to be the ones to take the hit. But that's what happens when you've had mismanagement of monies. And that's just what it is. So I'm saying to you from the bottom of my heart that I am committed to doing what is needed to be done, but I also do it in, respectful and kind way and anybody who wants to say That I mean to them or any of that. I'm not I'm a very positive and kind person, but I also Hold the line when it comes to the decisions that have to be made That's just what it is So, you know, I'm sorry that people have hard feelings But I stand by what we've had to do and We will turn a corner, and we will hire, and it will be OK, and the positions will be combined, and we will make our budget, but it's going to be hard. And it's terrible to have to do that. And believe me, nobody who comes into an organization wants to be the superintendent your first year that has to do that. Did I get a chance? to get on the ground and just get to be fun and loving and go, oh, let me just love, love, and we're just going to do all fun stuff. No, I got to come and hit the ground and deal with a situation where we were going to go bankrupt if we didn't start planning. And the first thing was, as people leave, we can't replace them. So that is what's happened, and it's been intentional. And that's what you do. when you're in a, when you have fiduciary responsibility. So we can't serve our kids if we don't, if we're not fiscally responsible. So that's all I'm going to say for now. Um, and you know, it, we're going to be going in a positive direction, but it's going to be fiscally responsible. Thank you board.

18.2 Adjournment

[20625] Aiden Hill: So, um, thank you. And thank you, everybody, for hanging in there. And we aren't yet at midnight. So we did meet our promises. So can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting?

[20637] Carina Plancarte: I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting.

[20640] Kat Jones: I'll second it.

[20641] Aiden Hill: OK. All in favor, let's just do a roll call vote. All right, meeting adjourned.

2.1 Public Employee Appointment/Employment/Discipline/Dismissal/Release (Gov. Code, § 54957, subd. (b)(1)) (Closed Session)

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

12.2 Contract: Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) (Removed by Board)

[55] 1.1 Roll Call

[76] 1.2 Meeting Practices and Information

[76] 1.3 Public Comment on Closed Session Items

[76] 1.4 Recess to Closed Session

[4771] 3.1 Report of Closed Session Actions

[4771] 4.1 Pledge of Allegiance

[4771] 5.1 Approval of the Agenda

[4812] 13.7 New Job Description-PURCHASING AND PROCUREMENT MANAGER

[4812] 14.7 MINUTES: Minutes of the September 5, 2023, Regular Meeting of the Board of Education

[4911] 6.1 School Spotlight: Bridgepoint H.S. and Crossroads

[6448] 6.2 Newark Education Foundation Presentation

[7700] 7.1 Student Report: Student Board Member, Joy Lee

[8292] 8.1 Employee Organizations

[8310] 9.1 Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items

[9283] 9.2 Public Comment on Agenda Items

[9484] 10.1 Superintendent Report

[10574] 11.1 LCAP Mid Year Update

[13843] 18.1 PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting

[13935] 11.2 Newark Memorial High School Track and Field Project Update

[17267] 11.3 Letter from the Alameda County Office of Education Regarding the 2023-24 First Interim Budget Report

[17874] 12.1 Resolution 2023.24.23 Designating Committed Fund Balance to Operating Budget

[18410] 12.3 Contract: Beth Figueroa, CPA- Accounting Technical Support: Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) and Budget Development for FY 2024-25

[18769] 13.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote (Approved on Consent)

[18769] 13.2 Personnel Report (Approved on Consent)

[18769] 13.3 SENIORITY LIST: Certificated (Approved on Consent)

[18769] 13.4 SENIORITY LIST: Classified (Approved on Consent)

[18769] 13.5 Revised Job Description-DIRECTOR OF TEACHING AND LEARNING (Approved on Consent)

[18862] 13.6 New Job Description-COORDINATOR OF COLLEGE, CAREER, & COMMUNITY SERVICES

[19019] 14.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote (Approved on Consent)

[19019] 14.2 Report: Monthly Purchase Order Report (Approved on Consent)

[19019] 14.3 Resolution 2023.24.21 Declaring Surplus Equipment (Approved on Consent)

[19019] 14.4 FIELD TRIP- Senior Cruise (Approved on Consent)

[19019] 14.5 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Newark Memorial MCA Seniors to travel to Los Angeles. (Approved on Consent)

[19019] 14.6 FIELD TRIP : Non-Curricular Trip for Newark Memorial Competition Cheer Team to travel to Anaheim, CA. (Approved on Consent)

[19062] 15.1 Student Expulsion (Ed Code. § 48918) Case# e2324-06

[19120] 16.1 Board of Education Committee Reports, Announcements, Requests, Debrief and Discussion

[20195] 17.1 Superintendent's Concluding Comments, Updates, and Future Agenda Items

[20625] 18.2 Adjournment

[100004] 2.1 Public Employee Appointment/Employment/Discipline/Dismissal/Release (Gov. Code, § 54957, subd. (b)(1)) (Closed Session)

[100004] 2.2 STUDENT EXPULSION (Ed. Code, § 48918) (Closed Session)

[100004] 12.2 Contract: Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) (Removed by Board)

1. CALL TO ORDER

1.1 Roll Call

  Type                         Procedural

TRUSTEES:

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

STUDENT BOARD MEMBER:

Member Joy Lee

1.2 Meeting Practices and Information

  Type

PURPOSE:

   MEETING INFORMATION:

   Members of the public may attend the meeting in-person at our District Board Room, located at 5715 Musick Avenue, Newark,
   California. Follow the link below for instructions in English and Spanish.

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

   OBSERVE THE BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING:


   Members of the public may also 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.

1.3 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

  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 Public Employee Appointment/Employment/Discipline/Dismissal/Release (Gov. Code, � 54957, subd. (b)(1))

  Type                         Discussion, Information

PURPOSE:


Information will be provided by the Superintendent.

2.2 STUDENT EXPULSION (Ed. Code, � 48918)

  Type                         Discussion, Information, Procedural

PURPOSE:

For the Board to review the Expulsion Panel Recommendation.

BACKGROUND:

A Expulsion Panel Hearing was held on January 30, 2024. A Panel Hearing was conducted in accordance with Board Policy and
Administrative Regulation 5144.1 and, if applicable, 5144.2 for students with disabilities.

The Board will discuss this in closed session and then take action in open session (agenda item 15.1).    The administration asks for
approval of the recommendation for Case# e2324-06 (Ed Code. � 48918).

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
  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the agenda for this meeting.

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

6. RECOGNITIONS AND CELEBRATIONS

6.1 School Spotlight: Bridgepoint H.S. and Crossroads

  Type                         Information

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

The presentation and information will be provided by Principal, Julie Calderon.

6.2 Newark Education Foundation Presentation

  Type

PURPOSE:
The Newark Education Foundation will make a presentation to the board.

BACKGROUND:

The Newark Education Foundation is a philanthropic organization which raises money to support our Newark Unified School
District Schools.   The district is most grateful for their support.

7. STUDENT REPORT

7.1 Student Report: Student Board Member, Joy Lee

  Type

PURPOSE:

Student Board Member, Joy Lee, reports on the school activities around the district.

BACKGROUND:

This is an opportunity to learn about the latest school events and issues from the perspective of one of our students.

8. EMPLOYEE ORGANIZATIONS

8.1 Employee Organizations

  Type                         Information

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

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

1. NTA

2. CSEA

3. NEWMA

9. PUBLIC COMMENT

9.1 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

9.2 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

10. SUPERINTENDENT REPORT

10.1 Superintendent Report

  Type                         Information

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

The presentation and information will be provided by the Superintendent

11. STAFF REPORT

11.1 LCAP Mid Year Update

  Type                         Action, Discussion, Information

PURPOSE:

To present the Board of Education with the 2023-24 Mid-year LCAP report on the use of LCAP funds as well as engagement, actions, and
outcomes related to these funds.

BACKGROUND:

Senate Bill 114 (2023) added Education Code 52062 (a) (6) requiring the district to present a report on the annual update to
the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) and the local control funding formula Budget Overview for Parents (BOP) on
or before February 28 each at a regularly scheduled meeting of the governing board or body of the LEA.

The report includes both of the following:


- All available midyear outcome data related to metrics identified in the current LCAP; and,
- All available midyear expenditure and implementation data on all actions identified in the current LCAP.

This is an update on the current 2023-2024 LCAP. No board adoption of the 2024-2025 LCAP is required until June.

  File Attachments
  NUSD 2023-24 Mid-Year LCAP Report.pdf (5,413 KB)
  NUSD 2023-24 Mid-Year LCAP Report (fixed typo).pdf (5,413 KB)

11.2 Newark Memorial High School Track and Field Project Update

  Type                         Information

  Goals                            4. Fiscal Health

PURPOSE:

Review the track and field design that has been developed and estimated time for construction.

BACKGROUND:

On December 5, 2022, the Board of Trustees approved a preliminary project budget for the Newark Memorial High School
Field Project in the amount of $6,308,499.

On March 2, 2023, the Board of Education approved an agreement with Verde Design to provide design services for the
Newark Memorial High School Field Project.

The District and community have developed a comprehensive Track and Field Improvement plan. This includes architect
drawings, DSA, ADA improvements to support students and future students of NUSD.

  File Attachments
  NMHS-2223300-ROM Cost -DSA BACKCHECK 12.21.23.pdf (152 KB)
  Newark Memorial_CMAS Site Plans with Bid Alternates.pdf (16,929 KB)
  2023.06.02_ NMHS Design and Construction Schedule.pdf (155 KB)

11.3 Letter from the Alameda County Office of Education Regarding the 2023-24 First Interim Budget Report

  Type                         Information

  Goals                            4. Fiscal Health

PURPOSE:

The Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/CBO will review the letter from the Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE)
regarding the Newark Unified School District (NUSD) 2023-24 First Interim Budget Report.

BACKGROUND:


The Governing Board approved a QUALIFIED Certification of NUSD's First Interim Budget Report on January 11, 2024. The district
subsequently submitted the report to ACOE, as required, for their review and analysis.

In accordance with Education Code (EC) Section 42131, ACOE reviewed the First Interim Budget Report based on standards and criteria
for fiscal stability adopted by the State Board of Education pursuant to EC Section 33127.

Based on ACOE's review, the 2023-24 First Interim Budget Report approved by NUSD's Board of Education on January 11, 2024,
accurately reflects the financial status of the District. ACOE noted that it is unable to provide a detailed analysis but concurs with
NUSD's QUALIFIED certification with comments. Since the date of this letter, ACOE has provided NUSD with technical analysis as we
prepare for the Second Interim.

  File Attachments
  ACOE_Newark USD_1st Interim Board Letter 2023-24_FINAL.pdf (263 KB)

12. NEW BUSINESS

12.1 Resolution 2023.24.23 Designating Committed Fund Balance to Operating Budget

  Type                         Action

  Fiscal Impact                Yes

  Budget Source                Committed Funds to Operational Support

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve Resolution 2023.24.23
  Action                       Designating Committed Fund Balance to Operating Budget.

  Goals                            4. Fiscal Health

PURPOSE:

To notify the Board that Committed Funds are being transferred to the operating budget and approve Resolution 2023.24.23
Designating Committed Fund Balance to Operating Budget.

BACKGROUND:

The District at the time of budget adoption did not designate enough funding for facilities and routine maintenance to support
the many needs of the district including, plumbing, electrical, irrigation, planning for a bond, roofing, wall and fencing
repairs, HVAC support, etc. The district needs fiscal resources identified in Committed Funds to support the school sites and
district office. As discussed in the First Interim, the board identified funds to ensure the fiscal health of the district and
Committed funds will be used to support the FCMAT contract and to provide a consultant to review and identify priority
refresh needs for the IT/cyber security plan.

  File Attachments
  Resolution 2023.24.23 Designating Committed Fund Balance 2_06_24.pdf (20 KB)

Motion & Voting
  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve Resolution 2023.24.23 Designating Committed Fund
  Balance to Operating Budget.

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

12.2 Contract: Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT)

  Type                         Action

  Fiscal Impact                Yes

  Dollar Amount                $23,500.00

  Budgeted                     Yes

  Budget Source                Committed Funds will be transferred to Operational Funds

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the contract for Fiscal Crisis &
  Action                       Management Assistance Team (FCMAT).

  Goals                            4. Fiscal Health

PURPOSE:

Staff recommends to contract for professional services with FCMAT and to have them provide a detailed analysis of the Multi
Year Projections (MYP) and support systems necessary to strengthen the fiscal health of the district.

BACKGROUND:

During the First Interim Report, staff noted many concerns, including assumptions used in the development of the budget,
changes to the COLA and retirement contributions, and lack of funding for ongoing facility expenditures that are needed for
aging facilities, lack of technology resources and refresh plan for 1:1 devices, software and 21st Century Classrooms.

  File Attachments
  Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT)_2023-24.pdf (203 KB)

12.3 Contract: Beth Figueroa, CPA- Accounting Technical Support: Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) and Budget Development for FY 2024-25

  Type                         Action

  Fiscal Impact                Yes

  Dollar Amount                $61,500.00

  Budgeted                     Yes

  Budget Source                Fiscal Director (Vacant) funds will be used

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the contract with Bethany
  Action                       Figueroa, CPA to provide daily accounting and finance expertise/support for the district
                               accounts and to develop and prepare the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) and Budget
                               Development for FY 2024-25.

  Goals                            4. Fiscal Health


PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board to approve professional services agreement with Beth Figueroa, CPA to provide school finance expertise to
Business Services for account technical support and development of the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) and Budget
Development for FY 2024-25.

BACKGROUND:

NUSD is going out for a third time to recruit for qualified Fiscal Director. Beth Figueroa brings 16 years experience in fiscal
services. She holds a CPA license and has served as a School District Auditor and Executive Director of Fiscal Services in a
large school district. Beth Figueroa will work in coordination with the other two accounting consultants who are working on
the Second Interim, and various mandatory reports to the county, state and federal government agencies. Due to all three
consultants working part time, they will be paid from this years budgeted vacant Director of Fiscal Services savings. It is
critical that the district have fiscal continuity between now and the time that we prepare for the new budget, provide audit
documents and support the FCMAT study. The district continues to recruit for a Fiscal Director.

  File Attachments
  BFigueroa _contract _2_06_24.pdf (95 KB)

Motion & Voting
  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the contract with Bethany Figueroa, CPA to provide daily
  accounting and finance expertise/support for the district accounts and to develop and prepare the Local Control
  Accountability Plan (LCAP) and Budget Development for FY 2024-25.

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

13. CONSENT AGENDA: PERSONNEL ITEMS

13.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote

  Type                         Action

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

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

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

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

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


  Not Present at Vote: Joy Lee

13.2 Personnel Report

  Type                         Action (Consent)

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this item is for the board to approve the Personnel Report as presented.

BACKGROUND:

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

  File Attachments
  HR PAL 02-06-2024.pdf (232 KB)

13.3 SENIORITY LIST: Certificated

  Type                         Action

  Absolute Date                Feb 06, 2024

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education receive the 2023-2024 Certificated
  Action                       Seniority List.

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to receive the 2023-2024 Certificated Seniority List.

BACKGROUND:

Each year, the Certificated Seniority List is posted for review by certificated employees to determine whether the District has
the correct hire date for each such employee. This year, the Certificated Seniority List was posted and an opportunity for
employees to review was provided. The Certificated Seniority List does not imply an order of employment for certificated
employees who were hired on the same date.

  File Attachments
  Certificated Seniority List 2023-2024.pdf (1,078 KB)

13.4 SENIORITY LIST: Classified

  Type                         Action

  Absolute Date                Feb 06, 2024

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education receive the 2023-2024 Classified
  Action                       Seniority List.

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to receive the 2023-2024 Classified Seniority List.

BACKGROUND:

Each year, the Classified Seniority List is posted for review by classified employees and identifies the job classification total
hours worked in a specific classification for each regular classified staff member.    A copy of this Classified Seniority List has
been provided to each classified staff person for review and has been posted at each school and campus site.

  File Attachments
  Classified Seniority List 2023-2024.pdf (252 KB)

13.5 Revised Job Description-DIRECTOR OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

  Type

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board to review the revised job description for Director of Teaching and Learning.

BACKGROUND:

The item is for the Board to approve a revised job description for the position of Director of Teaching and Learning.      The new
job description combines elements of two previously staffed positions: Director of Teaching and Learning & Director of Special
Projects.

  File Attachments
  Director of Teaching and Learning DRAFT 02.06.2024.pdf (397 KB)

13.6 New Job Description-COORDINATOR OF COLLEGE, CAREER, & COMMUNITY SERVICES

  Type

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board to review the revised job description for Coordinator of College, Career, & Community Services.

BACKGROUND:


The item is for the Board to approve a revised job description for the position of Coordinator of College, Career, & Community
Services. The new job description aligns with Board Goals for College and Career readiness and Community Schools Grant
Program funding goals for community engagement.

  File Attachments
  Coordinator of College, Career, & Community Services DRAFT 02.06.2024.pdf (394 KB)

13.7 New Job Description-PURCHASING AND PROCUREMENT MANAGER

  Type                         Action

  Preferred Date               Feb 06, 2024

  Goals                            4. Fiscal Health

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board to review the revised job description for Purchasing and Procurement Manager

BACKGROUND:

The item is for the Board to approve a new job description for the position of Purchasing and Procurement Manager.     The new job
description aligns with Board Goals for Fiscal Health and to provide standards and compliance on purchasing practices for supplies,
equipment, contracts, vendors, bids, etc. This position will be part of the Business Services department.

  File Attachments
  Purchasing and Procurement Manager 02.06.2024 DRAFT.pdf (406 KB)

14. CONSENT AGENDA: NON-PERSONNEL ITEMS

14.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote

  Type                         Action

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

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

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

Motion & Voting


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

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

14.2 Report: Monthly Purchase Order Report

  Type                         Action

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

  Goals                            4. Fiscal Health

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

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

This month's report includes 108 PO's dated 1/11/2024 through 1/26/2024 for a total of $247,272.83.

  File Attachments
  Monthly Purchase Order Report 02-06-2024.pdf (80 KB)

14.3 Resolution 2023.24.21 Declaring Surplus Equipment

  Type                         Action

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves Resolution 2023.24.21 -
  Action                       Declaring Surplus Equipment.

  Goals                            4. Fiscal Health

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this item is to obtain Board approval of Resolution 2023.24.21- Declaring Surplus Equipment, which lists items to be
declared as surplus equipment as recommended.

BACKGROUND:

Surplus materials will be disposed of per Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 3270 Sale And Disposal Of Books, Equipment And
Supplies. Education Code, Section 17546 states that if the Governing Board, by a unanimous vote of those members present, finds that


the property, whether one or more items, does not exceed the value of $2,500, it may be sold at private sale without advertising, by a
District employee empowered for that purpose by the Board; the property may be donated to a charitable organization, or it may be
disposed of in a public disposal facility.

The property as described in Resolution 2023.24.21 includes equipment used by Child Nutrition Services at Newark Memorial High
School and Newark Middle School. Staff determined that items are obsolete and/or beyond economical repair.

  File Attachments
  Resolution 2023.24.21 Declaring Surplus Equipment.pdf (62 KB)

14.4 FIELD TRIP- Senior Cruise

  Type                         Action

  Preferred Date               Feb 06, 2024

  Absolute Date                Feb 06, 2024

  Fiscal Impact                Yes

  Dollar Amount                $6,400.00

  Budgeted                     Yes

  Budget Source                Student in Attendance

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the Senior Cruise for the
  Action                       Newark Memorial High School's twelfth grade students.

PURPOSE:

Newark Memorial High School requests permission to take twelfth grade students on a non-curricular, field trip. Although this is non-
curricular afterschool activity, it does contribute to the social emotional growth of students, as they celebrate their last school year
together in a positive and fun environment.

       School: Newark Memorial High School
       Dates: February 16, 2024, 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm
       Location: Luxe Cruise and Events, 2394 Mariner Square Dr. STE B, Alameda, CA 94501

Chaperones for Field Trip:

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

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

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

BACKGROUND:

According to Board Policy 6153.2, all trips that are non-curricular require Board approval. The site principal and Newark Memorial High
School Director of Student Activities request permission for 12th grade students to attend a 3 hour cruise out of Alameda using Luxe
Cruise and Events.

14.5 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Newark Memorial MCA Seniors to travel to Los Angeles.

  Type                         Action

  Preferred Date               Feb 06, 2024

  Absolute Date                Feb 06, 2024

  Fiscal Impact                Yes

  Dollar Amount                $28,650.00

  Budgeted                     Yes

  Budget Source                MCA CPA Grant funds

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the field trip for Newark
  Action                       Memorial MCA Seniors to travel to Los Angeles.

   PURPOSE:

   The Newark Memorial community requests permission to take MCA Seniors on a curricular, overnight field trip. Students will travel
   to Los Angeles.   Student will be exposed to post-secondary opportunities in the greater Los Angeles region in the fields of Arts,
   Media, and Entertainment.

          School: Newark Memorial High School
          Dates: March 17 - March 20, 2024
          Location: Los Angeles, CA

   Chaperones:

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

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

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

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

   BACKGROUND:

   According to Board Policy, all trips in excess of 100 miles, non-curricular trips, and overnight trips require Board approval. The site
   principal and Media Arts teacher request permission to take Newark Memorial MCA Seniors on an overnight curricular trip to Los
   Angeles.

14.6 FIELD TRIP : Non-Curricular Trip for Newark Memorial Competition Cheer Team to travel to Anaheim, CA.

  Type                         Action

  Preferred Date               Feb 06, 2024

  Absolute Date                Feb 06, 2024

  Fiscal Impact                Yes

  Dollar Amount                $6,159.00


  Budgeted                     Yes

  Budget Source                Family Donations & Cheer Boosters

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the field trip for Newark
  Action                       Memorial Cheer Competition Team to travel to Los Angeles for a Cheer Competition.

PURPOSE:

The Newark Memorial community requests permission to take the Cheer Team on a non-curricular, overnight field trip. Students will
travel to Anaheim.   Newark Memorial Competition Team will participate in a cheer competition.

       School: Newark Memorial High School
       Dates: February 15 - February 18, 2024
       Location: Anaheim, CA

Chaperones:

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

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

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

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

BACKGROUND:

According to Board Policy, all trips in excess of 100 miles, non-curricular trips, and overnight trips require Board approval. The site
principal and activities director request permission to take Newark Memorial Cheer Team on an overnight non-curricular trip to
Anaheim.

UPDATED 2/6/2024: Subject line corrected from Non-Curricular Trip for Newark Middle School to travel to Santa Clara, CA to Non-
Curricular Trip for Newark Memorial Competition Cheer Team to travel to Anaheim, CA.

14.7 MINUTES: Minutes of the September 5, 2023, Regular Meeting of the Board of Education

  Type                         Action, Minutes

  Fiscal Impact                No

  Recommended                  he recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the minutes of the September 5,
  Action                       2023 Regular Meeting of the Board of Education.

PURPOSE:

For the board to review and approve minutes of the September 5, 2023, Regular Meeting of the Board of Education.

BACKGROUND:

The attached minutes are reflective of the August 1, 2023, Regular Meeting of the Board of Education. The meeting may be viewed on
the NUSD YouTube Channel HERE.

15. STUDENT EXPULSION

15.1 Student Expulsion (Ed Code. � 48918) Case# e2324-06

  Type                         Action

  Recommended                  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the Panel recommendation
  Action                       regarding the expulsion case number e2324-06.

PURPOSE:

For the Board to take action on expulsion case e2324-06.

BACKGROUND:

A Expulsion Panel Hearing was held on January 30 2024. A Panel Hearing was conducted in accordance with Board Policy and
Administrative Regulation 5144.1 and, if applicable, 5144.2 for students with disabilities. The administration asks for approval of this
agreement for Case# e2324-06. (Ed Code. � 48918).

Motion & Voting
  The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the Panel recommendation regarding the expulsion case
  number e2324-06.

  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
  Not Present at Vote: Joy Lee

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

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

                               AND DISCUSSION

  Type                         Action, Discussion, Information

PURPOSE:

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

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

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

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

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

BACKGROUND:

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


  Board Committees 2022-23

  Board Adopted on 12/15/2022                                                          Representative              Alternate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

17.1 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.

18. ADJOURNMENT

18.1 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.

18.2 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.

1. CALL TO ORDER

Procedural: 1.1 Roll Call

• Nancy Thomas
• Aiden Hill
• Phuong Nguyen
• Katherine Jones
• Carina V Plancarte
• Student member Lee joined @ 7:00 PM for open session

Procedural: 1.3 Public Comment on Closed Session Items

No public comments.

Procedural: 1.4 Recess to Closed Session

2. CLOSED SESSION

Discussion, Information: 2.1 Public Employee Appointment/Employment/Discipline/Dismissal/Release (Gov. Code, § 54957, subd. (b)(1))

Discussion, Information, Procedural: 2.2 STUDENT EXPULSION (Ed. Code, § 48918)

3. REPORT OF CLOSED SESSION ACTIONS

Action, Procedural: 3.1 Report of Closed Session Actions

Nothing to report.

4. RECONVENE TO OPEN SESSION

Procedural: 4.1 Pledge of Allegiance

5. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

Action: 5.1 Approval of the Agenda

The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the agenda for this meeting.

Pull 12.2 13.7, 14.7

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

6. RECOGNITIONS AND CELEBRATIONS

Information: 6.1 School Spotlight: Bridgepoint H.S. and Crossroads

Information: 6.2 Newark Education Foundation Presentation

7. STUDENT REPORT

Joy Lee: Feb. Activity Recap

8. EMPLOYEE ORGANIZATIONS

Information: 8.1 Employee Organizations

No presenters

9. PUBLIC COMMENT

Procedural: 9.1 Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items

• 9.1 - Juanita Lopez
• 9.1 - Jacqueline Carrillo
• 9.1 - Jeff Anderson
• 9.1 - Lucia Gutierrez
• 9.1 - Janet Dang

Procedural: 9.2 Public Comment on Agenda Items

• 9.2 - Lucia Gutierrez
• 11.1 - Cindy Parks
• 11.2 Cindy Parks
• 14.7 - Cindy Parks - Item was pulled from the agenda.

10. SUPERINTENDENT REPORT

Information: 10.1 Superintendent Report

• Thank you to Nicole Pierce-Davis
• Congrats to Trish Kelley at NMHS
• Celebrate School Counseling Week
• Special Olympics Feb 16

Recess For 5 minutes

11. STAFF REPORT

Action, Discussion, Information: 11.1 LCAP Mid Year Update

• Goal 1: Student Achievement
• Goal 2: Conditions for Learning
  • Engagement & School Climate
• Goal 3: AP Enrollment, AP Exams, Work Experience, Afterschool Programs, Professional Learning and interventions, Broad Course of Study
• Goal 4: Special Education

Motion to Extend to Midnight By Member Hill Seconded by Member Jones Motion Carries

Information: 11.2 Newark Memorial High School Track and Field Project Update

Information: 11.3 Letter from the Alameda County Office of Education Regarding the 2023-24 First Interim Budget Report

Student Member Lee invited the Deputy Superintendent to visit NMHS. She also asked for the link to the translated meetings to be easier to find. She also thanked Dr. Pierce-Davis for her support of our district and wished her well in her new endeavors. Member Lee left at 11:00 PM.

12. NEW BUSINESS

Action: 12.1 Resolution 2023.24.23 Designating Committed Fund Balance to Operating Budget

Member Nguyen would rather use funding for IT consulting, rather than FCMAT consulting due to the salary for Assistant Superintendent.

Tracey asked for Point of Order, anything that is being brought forward would be approved by the board.

The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve Resolution 2023.24.23 Designating Committed Fund Balance to Operating Budget.

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

Action: 12.2 Contract: Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) (Pulled From Agenda)

Action: 12.3 Contract: Beth Figueroa, CPA- Accounting Technical Support: Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) and Budget Development for FY 2024-25

Member Nguyen stated again that we are paying Deputy Chief Business Officials a lot of money, and we are having another consultant. She disagreed with Member Thomas and questioned Dr. Pierce-Davis' additional job duties that were not filled by her.

Member Thomas did not think we were spending more money than we were saving without our CBO and it's not Tracey's duty.

The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the contract with Bethany Figueroa, CPA to provide daily accounting and finance expertise/support for the district accounts and to develop and prepare the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) and Budget Development for FY 2024-25.

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

13. CONSENT AGENDA: PERSONNEL ITEMS

Action: 13.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote

13. 7 was pulled earlier

Dr. DeLeon stated that we did not have any Brown Act Violations, per our lawyer.

Member Nugyen wanted to pull 13.6

13.1-13.5

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

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

Action (Consent): 13.2 Personnel Report

Action: 13.3 SENIORITY LIST: Certificated

Action: 13.4 SENIORITY LIST: Classified

Action: 13.7 New Job Description-PURCHASING AND PROCUREMENT MANAGER

14. CONSENT AGENDA: NON-PERSONNEL ITEMS

Action: 14.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote

14.7 Pulled

Member Nguyen thanked correction for 14.6

It is recommended that the Board of Education approve, under one consented vote, the agenda items under Consent Non-Personnel, except for agenda items 14.6:

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 Not Present at Vote: Joy Lee

Action: 14.2 Report: Monthly Purchase Order Report

Action: 14.3 Resolution 2023.24.21 Declaring Surplus Equipment

Action: 14.4 FIELD TRIP- Senior Cruise

Action: 14.5 FIELD TRIP: Curricular, Overnight Trip for Newark Memorial MCA Seniors to travel to Los Angeles.

Action: 14.6 FIELD TRIP : Non-Curricular Trip for Newark Memorial Competition Cheer Team to travel to Anaheim, CA.

Action, Minutes: 14.7 MINUTES: Minutes of the September 5, 2023, Regular Meeting of the Board of Education

15. STUDENT EXPULSION

Action: 15.1 Student Expulsion (Ed Code. § 48918) Case# e2324-06

The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the Panel recommendation regarding the expulsion case number e2324-06.

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 Not Present at Vote: Joy Lee

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

Action, Discussion, Information: 16.1 Board of Education Committee Reports, Announcements, Requests, Debrief and Discussion

• Thomas: Have recognitions for Bridgepoint monthly, best wished to Dr Pierce Davis
• Nguyen: No Updates, request to start up a Bond committee,thank you to member Thomas to advocate for rocketry club, Thank you to Dr Pierce-Davis
• Plancarte: No committee updates, but appreciating everything happening for Black History Month, and congratulations to the Middle School for the honor roll ceremony, Thank you to Dr Pierce-Davis
• Jones: Thank you to Dr Pierce-Davis, went to the DLI community meeting, board chart needs to have school year date changed, adhoc HR has some documents the need to come before the board
• Hill: Induction committee very through job was done, request public comment to move it to when the point of topic comes up for discussion, review of the SEAL Contract with a staff discussion, concerned with the Project Management of the track and field project have a study session on the project, Thank you to Dr Pierce-Davis

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

Information: 17.1 Superintendent's Concluding Comments, Updates, and Future Agenda Items

Was handed a dire situation of the financial outlook of the NUSD, was very clear the the cuts would happen at management level and be kept out of the classrooms as much as possible, and wouldn't rehire until a reorg chart is available, has be transparent about how to meet the the cut that are needed, solely using attrition, Can't serve the kids if we are not fiscally responsible.

18. ADJOURNMENT

Action: 18.1 PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting

Action: 18.2 Adjournment

Motion to adjourn by Member Plancarte seconded by Member Jones All Aye vote.

11:56pm