Regular Meeting

Introduction

• Regular Board Meeting held in 2025, focused on budget-driven program evaluations, staffing negotiations, equity initiatives, and infrastructure upgrades.
• Key Themes: Potential discontinuation of student support programs (Project Connect, Puente, MCA), concerns over APEX credit recovery rigor, staff compensation disputes, technology upgrades, and sustainability projects.

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Agenda Items

1. WASC Accreditation Preparation

• Description: Newark Memorial High School preparing for WASC visit, emphasizing program efficacy and alignment with mission/vision.
• Key Points:
  • Staff warned of accreditation risks if programs like Puente, Project Connect, or MCA are cut.
  • Board questioned program outcomes and alignment with student needs.
• Decisions: No formal action taken.

2. Student Support Programs

• Puente Program (College readiness for first-generation students):

  • Serves 95 students/year (70% Latino, 60% first-gen).
  • Clarified costs ($30k total, not $50k as cited earlier); highlighted higher college enrollment rates than district average.
  • Decision: No cuts. Board requested A–G completion rate data for underrepresented students.

• Project Connect (Freshman intervention for at-risk students):

  • Data showed 35.4% decrease in F grades (Semester 1); praised by students/parents.
  • Staff recommended discontinuation to save $50k.
  • Decision: Board opposed cuts; directed staff to explore alternative funding (stipends, SPSA).

• PAWS Intervention Period (Daily academic support block):

  • Criticized as underutilized with safety/logistical issues.
  • Decision: No action. Board urged reevaluation (e.g., homeroom model).

• Media Communications Academy (MCA) (CTE/arts pathway):

  • Enrollment dropped from 50 (2022–23) to 19 (2024–25).
  • Decision: Discontinuation postponed pending alignment with bond-funded CTE redesign.

3. APEX Credit Recovery & Summer School Planning

• Description: Online credit recovery program criticized for low rigor (60% pass rate) and misuse.
• Key Points:
  • Staff proposed stricter standards (85% mastery, 2-course/year limit).
  • Summer school model proposed: 10-day intensive format with a 10-unit/year cap (exceptions for seniors).
  • Concerns about retroactive application for current juniors and elective shortages for SPED students.
• Decisions:
  • Revised APEX guidelines approved (monitoring via quarterly reports).
  • Summer school plan requires phased implementation research.

4. Personnel Report & Salary Negotiations

• Description: Layoffs discussed, including a software support specialist position.
• Key Points:
  • NTA criticized 0% salary increase proposals despite prior agreements to reopen negotiations.
  • Layoffs questioned under CA Education Code 45308 (lack of work/funds justification).
• Decision: Salary schedule revisions paused; urgent bargaining sessions scheduled with NTA/CSEA.

5. Miyawaki Forest Project at Schilling Elementary

• Description: Native micro-forest proposal for STEM education and sustainability.
• Key Points: Grant-funded; community planting day planned with indigenous leaders.
• Decision: Approved pending site selection balancing green space and recreation needs.

6. Technology Infrastructure Upgrades

• Description: Network switch and UPS replacements using E-Rate funds.
• Key Points:
  • $453,000 in expiring E-Rate funds; $2.4M total project cost.
  • Decisions:
    • $350k UPS battery backups approved.
    • $1.5M switch upgrades deferred for bond funding consideration.

7. 2023-24 Audit Report

• Description: Unmodified financial opinion but qualified compliance rating.
• Key Points: Cybersecurity policies, student body accounting, and $15k pupil count error flagged.
• Decision: Audit accepted; corrective actions planned.

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Public Comments

• Program Cuts: Strong opposition to discontinuing Project Connect, Puente, and MCA, citing student success.
• APEX: Concerns about “credit inflation” and undermining teacher authority.
• Staff Compensation: Frustration over stagnant wages and executive pay increases.
• Advanced Math: Parents opposed canceling Calculus BC due to college readiness impacts.
• Equity: Calls to address middle school math preparation and protect at-risk student programs.
• Layoffs: Classified staff challenged position eliminations reclassified as management roles.

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Follow-Up & Commitments

1. Program Revisions:
   • Develop cost-neutral models for Project Connect; report Puente’s A–G completion rates.
   • Further analysis of credit recovery, advanced courses, and STEM expansion.
2. APEX Monitoring: Quarterly performance/usage reports to the board.
3. Labor Negotiations: Urgent sessions with NTA/CSEA; salary schedule revisions.
4. Bond Planning: Community workshops to prioritize Measure O projects (technology, facilities).
5. Audit Compliance: Corrective actions for cybersecurity and accounting gaps.

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Conclusion

• Priorities: Board prioritized preserving student programs amid budget cuts, signaling skepticism toward austerity measures.
• Next Steps:
  • Finalize WASC preparation (visit March 27–30).
  • Address staff compensation and layoffs in renewed NTA/CSEA negotiations (April 2025).
  • Plan bond expenditures via community workshops.
  • Transition meetings to City Hall starting April 1, 2025.
• Adjournment: Meeting concluded at 11:32 PM.

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Key Outcomes: APEX reforms, technology partial upgrades, Miyawaki approval, and sustained advocacy for equity-focused programs. Audit compliance and labor talks dominate upcoming agendas.

[0] K-12 school board meeting

Pause: 11m 59s

[749] Kat Jones: 37.

1.1 Roll Call

[749] Kat Jones: Okay. All right. Ms. Lemus, could you please take roll?

[760] Toya Lemus: Yes. Student board member Lee? Here. Member Hill? Here. Member Anguiano? Here. Member Block? Here. Member Thomas? Here. President Jones? Here.

[773] Toya Lemus: All present.

1.2 Meeting Practices and Information

[778] All right. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. meeting practices.

[782] Kat Jones: Please see the attached meeting information provided in both English and Spanish, which covers protocols for meeting practices and public comment guidelines and norms. Members of the public may observe the meeting via a NUSD YouTube channel or in person at the NUSD boardroom. Spanish translation is available in person. As of January 2025, public comment will only be conducted in person. The public will have the opportunity to address the Board of of education by submitting a written comment card with the executive assistant prior to the beginning of open session. Please make sure your cards are turned in at this time. Thank you.

1.3 Public Comment on Study Session Agenda Items

[821] Kat Jones: Before we go into the study session, I have some public comment. Let's see, this is Brian Foster.

[841] Brian Foster: Hello, and thank you very much, members of the board and executive staff. It feels like a reunion here. It's like six years ago was the first time that I talked to administration about the problems that I saw with APEX. About five years ago was when the principal at the time said that she was going to fix the problem. About four years ago was the first time I came before this body, although there are different members, of course, on the body now. Trying to inform you all about the problems that exist within APEX, both the structure, the design, and the implement. Well, not both. All of the above. and implementation of APEX, how it's essentially a system of cheating to quote-unquote earn credits in order to graduate. And the way I see it overall, and by the way, I've emailed to you all today a report that was authored by a number of people, including one of you sitting behind the dais at this particular point in time. Especially for the three new of you, I encourage you to read that email before you make any decision on APEX. But the most important thing that you should know is that this really puts holes into a lifeboat if you will. It enables anyone who is not doing well during credits and to graduate. The effect of that is that students do not have to do much, if anything at all, in order to graduate Newark Memorial. All they have to do is take Apex courses to graduate. I experienced this firsthand, and I assume it's still going on. In fact, we're now at the season where typically, I hope that they've stopped this practice, but typically what happens is administration asks all teachers to identify those students in danger of failing, seniors, senior students. in danger of failing classes so that they can take remedial action. And that's good. And the remedial action is really good. Working with students after school during pause, that's good. The problem is that at the same time, what typically happens is that the students are talking to the counselors and the counselors assign them to APEX. And I've had multiple cases where students have within a couple of days or a week completed an entire semester's worth of work in April. And then they say, I don't have to do anything else the rest of the year, the rest of your class, essentially goodbye. That happens not just with me, but with other teachers. So in response to this, about four years ago, I made a simple request to your predecessor board, simply defund APEX, go back to the way that things were. If students are failing, have them take the course next semester. Make it up in a regular class. What's so magical about APEX? And then your predecessors, well, they shaded the truth and blatantly lied about a number of the components of APEX. But among the other among the things that they said was for example the average this is at the time Probably three four years ago at the time on average a student spent 19 hours earning a semester's credit 19 on average Not the long ones not the ones involved not the ones enrolled for a semester But on average 19 hours and my point then which I said somewhat sarcastically because that's who I am was well Then why not just enroll everybody in apex for all classes and then leave in November? if Apex is so special. What is magical about Apex? It enables you to boost your graduation rates. What are the problems with that? It undermines teacher authority and it lowers the actual level of performance at the high school.

[1037] Brian Foster: Thank you.

Pause: 13.6s

[1051] Thank you.

[1052] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Good evening, board members, Superintendent Vackar, and executive staff. My name is Phoung Nguyen, a parent and advocate for underserved students in Newark schools. Almost one year ago to date, Principal Murphy presented to the board on Project Connect during School Spotlight. I highly recommend board members, especially our new ones, to watch the March 19, 2024 board meeting at one hour, 40 minutes, and 25 seconds on YouTube. on YouTube. That presentation had the project description, objective, and data related to the case load being presented. Program administrators identified 151 students, eighth graders at the time, who were academically at risk from the middle school, and 76 of them had more than one failing grade. By the end of semester one of freshman year, there was 153 student case load. rate analysis showed that during progress report quarter one, 69.3% of those students had Fs in multiple classes. In quarter one report card, that number decreased to 46.4%, a decrease in 22.9%. And then in progress quarter two, it went slightly up to 47.1%, but still a 22.2% decrease from progress quarter report, progress report quarter one. the most increase or progress that was made was at semester one grades, and that went down to 33.9%, a 35.4% decrease in Fs from progress report quarter one. So after reviewing the presentation slides on tonight's study session in regards to Project Connect, I have to ask why is the program being eliminated when it had so much potential to our at-risk students? is the connection that our at-risk students need to help build confidence and belief within themselves to be able to succeed. The district's motto is believe, correct? So why aren't you, the board, believing in Project Connect? The name of the program speaks volumes and it deserves your respect. I hope that the board does not take staff's recommendation to eliminate it, but instead help foster it and to put additional resources towards it so that the district can can truly close the achievement gap. I hope that those presenting tonight are the program leads and subject matter experts. If they are not, you should seek them out to ask questions. That goes for all programs that are being presented tonight and that are in consideration for elimination.

[1220] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you.

Pause: 11.5s

[1232] Thank you.

[1232] Jackson Hoover.

[1238] SPEAKER_30: Good evening students, staff, members of the board, parents, community members, and administration. My name is Jackson Hoover. I'm a social studies teacher here at Newark Memorial High School. For the past few years, we've been preparing for our WASC accreditation visit, which is fast approaching in a few weeks. It's no secret that WASC had a few critiques of our district in the past, but I don't want to talk about the negatives from that report. I want to highlight the things that WASC found us doing right. A lot of the things that the WASC team had praised were our programs that may be on the chopping block tonight. PAWS, Project Connect, MCA, and Puente. These programs did a lot of heavy lifting in our last WASC report. I'd even go so far as to say that the sections of our WASC report highlighting these programs were filled with glowing praise. With cuts to staff on the horizon, threats of class sizes increasing, and potential projects being eliminated, the WASC committee visiting us next month will have quite a few questions about the efficacy of our academic and and support programs. They'll surely be asking teachers about these issues and I'm wondering what I'm supposed to tell them if we're going to be cutting the very things that they found us doing correctly on our last report. Should I be warning my students that their diplomas may be at risk of not being accredited? If that's the case, would it not be more prudent for them to find other opportunities? If we eliminate the things that help us earn our accreditation accreditation. I'm really worried about what the future holds for our current and future students. They already have the odds stacked against them. It's a tough economy that they're going to be entering into. They may not have federal grants and loans available to them in the next four years for college. I'm worried that if they don't even have an accredited diploma, they're going to have a much harder time than that. Last year, we used a senior exit survey to gather some data from our graduating seniors, and I'd like to read a couple of comments from the question that asked our graduating seniors, why are you proud to be a Cougar? I enjoyed the MCA program because it opened up a lot of opportunities for me. MCA makes me proud to be a Cougar because I've finally been able to succeed and figure out where I want to go in life. MCA has been my saving grace at my time here at NMHS. Puente has been one of the the biggest opportunities for me here at Newark. Puente, because the teachers were the best. Puente really helped me figure out what I want to do after high school. There's dozens of comments like these, and members of the board, I really have to beg you, don't cut these programs. I know you're having trouble with the budget, but I think we're missing the forest for the trees here. If we keep cutting all the trees down, there's no more forest left to cut. Please don't risk our for accreditation, don't cut these programs. Thank you.

[1431] Kat Jones: Tricia Kelly.

[1441] SPEAKER_14: Good evening, Newark board members, executive cabinet, community members, and staff. My name is Tricia Kelly, and I have worked in Newark Unified for 16 years. 12 of which I've been a math teacher at both the junior high and the high school I'm currently the math department chair as well as the project connect teacher advisor for our ninth grade students in Newark Memorial tonight I wanted to give each of you a copy of the project connect slide deck that includes updated information on the program itself data points from last school year and the current school year as well as teacher and student testimonials I've also sent a copy of the slide deck to each of you through email for you to review at your own convenience included in the slide on the slide deck but not available on the handout is a student testimonial video. I hope you find some time to watch the video on slide seven as it's a powerful message from our Project Connect students from last school year. Although it's disappointing to hear Project Connect is not being recommended to come back next year, I think it's even more disappointing knowing, recognizing, and being aware of the intensive intervention and support that will no longer be provided to the ninth grade students from the moment that they step on our high school campus. without Project Connect and PAWS next year, we will have limited to no academic intervention systems in place for freshmen at the high school. With that being said, I would encourage you to rethink cutting programs at Newark Memorial such as Project Connect that support a specific population of students that may otherwise slip through the cracks and find themselves academically behind and not on a graduation path early on in their high school journey. Thank you.

[1538] Kat Jones: Thank you.

[1547] Thank you so much. Miguel Barajas? Thank you. I'm sorry.

[1552] SPEAKER_01: I don't want to mispronounce it. Good evening. My name is Miguel Barajas, and I'm here to tackle our Project Connect. At the beginning of my freshman year, I wanted to improve my grades from middle school to high school, but didn't know where to start. When Project Connect started, it held me accountable inside and outside the classroom. My grades from the beginning of my freshman year really improved throughout the year. I also improved on turning in my work on time as well as going on class on time. Being held accountable and having people continuously check in on me really made me successful last year. I think Project Connect is important for because it guides them to a better path and to have more discipline and motivation in the classroom. Thank you.

[1606] Kat Jones: Thank you. Izzy Andino?

[1624] SPEAKER_00: Hi, my name is Izzy Andino and I'm here to talk about my experience with Project Connect. I've always I had always gotten good grades in school until the end of my eighth grade year when I started to fall off track. That carried over to my freshman year, which led to me not making the best choices on campus. Although that was happening, I still had help and support even when I didn't want it. Being held accountable by this program was probably what made the biggest change for me in the classroom. My GPA first semester was a 1.6, the two Fs making me ineligible for sports. This took a big toll on me mentally and emotionally coming from a family I felt like this is when I decided to use Project Connect to the best of my advantage and accept the help being offered.

[1666] SPEAKER_00: This helped me to end my year off with a more serious mindset about my future altogether and realize how Project Connect is setting me up for an easier remainder of my years in high school. This year I took the productive habits developed from last year to be successful inside and outside of the classroom. I'm now at a 3.3 GPA and active in many sports and clubs. Project Connect truly changed my life and I hope more freshmen in the future are able to experience the support that I was.

[1699] SPEAKER_16: Thank you.

[1701] Kat Jones: Thank you.

[1704] Kat Jones: Brianna Rodriguez-Gonzalez.

[1714] SPEAKER_09: Good evening. My name is Brianna Rodriguez-Gonzalez. I'm a 10th grader at Newark Memorial High School. Last year, I was part of Project Connect because in eighth grade, I struggled a lot with my classes. At the end of eighth grade year, I had one F and three Ds. As a freshman, Project Connect made a huge difference and helped me a lot. At first, I didn't want to do it because I wasn't sure it would help. But after Coach Kelly continued to check up on me, my grades kept improving. Last year, I didn't fail any of my classes and I had a 2.33 GPA. Being a part of Project Connect Project NEC taught me how to communicate more with my teachers and how to stay on task in classroom. This year, I am doing even better and was able to be a part of the basketball and softball team. The first semester, I finished with a 2.67, and my current GPA is a 2.83, but I'm still working to get it up higher.

[1771] SPEAKER_09: I think Project NEC helps a lot of the freshmen, and it could continue at our school.

[1778] Thank you.

[1779] Kat Jones: Thank you.

[1785] Kat Jones: Marcus Landon?

[1791] SPEAKER_03: Alright, good evening school board and district staff. My name is Marcus Landon and I'm one of three Fuente educators at Newark Memorial High School. This is my first time speaking up at a board meeting and I wouldn't do so if I didn't think it was important to speak up. Thank you for your time and thank you for listening. Over the past two months the school board has suggested that the Puente program might possibly be cut due to budget constraints. I understand the times are tough for school districts and everyone is facing budget cuts, but with all due respect, the information that the school board and superintendent have presented about Puente and its costs are factually incorrect. And had someone from the district office actually met with one of the members of the Puente team, we could have given correct information. First of all, Puente is not an ELD program. It's not exclusive to Hispanic or Latino students. The entire mission of the Puente program to support and encourage first-generation college students to attend four-year universities. But the program is open to all students in Newark. We accept the A-plus students, and we take the F students. We accept highly motivated students, and we accept low-motivation students. Every student goes through an interview and application process. This year, we had over 120 applicants to the Puente program. Second of all, Puente does not cost the district $50,000, nor have I or any other Puente teacher received any stipend for the work we do, even though we attend field trips, facilitate community events, and facilitate parent meetings. We sacrifice our personal time all for the benefit of the students, not extra pay. The Newark Memorial Puente program is a legacy Puente program, meaning it is one of the original five high school Puente programs in the state. Because of this, the MOU for the high school program requires that the district pay $5,000 to cover field trip expenses, materials, and parent workshops. The district also has to cover nine substitute days. That is about $2,000 per person. There are three Puente staff members at the high school, so that is an additional $6,000 for subcoverage. That adds up to $11,000 of cost to the district. The middle school has its own MOU and its own cost. For this MOU, the district is required to pay $10,000 for trainings and professional development, an additional $5,000 for field trips, materials, and parent workshops, plus the nine subdays. There are two Puente staff members staff members, so the sub coverage costs about $4,000. That adds up to $19,000. If you do the math, that adds up to just short of $30,000, far short of the amount the district has presented. This seems like a worthwhile investment if you ask me. All this training has made me a better educator, and I have utilized the knowledge and skills gained through these trainings to have a more positive impact for all Newark Memorial students, not just Puente students. Please keep Puente and allow me and my colleagues to continue supporting students with their college-going aspirations.

[1968] Kat Jones: Thank you. Thank you.

[1987] SPEAKER_10: Good evening. Good evening. board members and everyone my name is Vivian Young and this is my 21st year working at the district and I have worked with MCA Media Communications Academy for the last 15 years with the last six as the coordinator I recognize that MCA may or may not be continued next year next school year but I do want to emphasize how important for programs like MCA to stay at the high school and open up opportunities for different students to be able to express themselves in various ways. MCA is a California Partnership Academy as well as a CTE program. California Partnership has been in California for 30, for the last 30 years. I am a product of one of these, the program from Berkeley High. CTE is a career technical education program that allow us these These two places allow us to receive two grants, which is a matching fund with the district, allowing students to have field trips or industry-related opportunities where otherwise students may not have outside of the school environment. Although we take in a lot of work with at-risk students, but those are not the students that we focus. We focus on everyone who wants to learn something different than traditional learning. We offer project-based learning. We offer a cohort of students. We help them understand what a family is and have them learn in a small community. So students will learn to work together as peers and they learn how to be a professional at the same time. And this is the reason why that some of the reasons why we should definitely have MCA remain at the high school. And the fact that it has been working well for 24 years and the pandemic has hit it a little bit with enrollment. We wanted to have the opportunities to be able to carry out our original mission, which is to help students becoming professional at their industry. for MCA, which is arts, media, and entertainment in the arts, media, and entertainment sector. And as well as help them understand that besides college, which we encourage them to join, to go to, they can be certified as a professional as well right after high school. Thank you. Thank you.

[2168] Cheri Villa: all right good evening board president and board members and executive cabinet this is our NTA contract our current one it was approved by you on April 20th of 2023 now while the majority of the body of our contract doesn't change certain things go through changes. There are many things in here that have been in our contract for years. I'd like to point out two of them specifically in Article 3.3, Right to Consult. Consultation is used in this agreement shall be defined as follows. Discussions which provide each party with meaningful opportunity to material impact, influence, and shape decisions before they are made. this consultation does not limit any of the rights contained in article four. Moving down to 3.3.1, the district shall give timely written notice to the association, including a reasonable timeline within which a response is required on matters subject to consultation. 3.3.2.1, a change in curriculum and or course content. So... the teachers at the high school consultation with the teachers if we're making any changes if this comes down a top-down decision there's another article within our contract in regard to grievances okay something like this where our teachers were not consulted in changes to our educational program our course content it is autumn it doesn't start at an informal doesn't start out as a level one it's going to meet at level two, it's in our contract 5.4.4. If a grievance arises from an action or inaction of the district based on a decision at a level above the principal or immediate supervisor, the grievance shall submit a grievance in writing directly to the superintendent and the association with the processing of such grievance commenced at a level two. So the top-down decision is a level two of grievance. This is something that we are... these are our rights in our contract so again changing programs at the high school without consultation with the teachers is a level two grievance okay purchasing an i-Ready contract for hundreds of thousands of dollars for elementary and the junior high without consultation with the teachers that's a level two grievance so again consultation with our teachers is going to benefit our executive cabinet who has no history on programs or how things happened in our district. So NTA is prepared to file level two grievances on any changes in our educational programs or course content starting today.

[2370] Kat Jones: Thank you.

[2379] Thank you.

[2379] Kat Jones: Okay. We will be moving into our study session portion of the evening now.

[2387] Kat Jones: So we'll go down to the table.

[2398] Toya Lemus: So I received this at 6.01 after study session started. So I just received it just now.

[2407] And I remember it.

[2409] Kat Jones: We do ask that we get these prior to starting.

[2417] Abba? Okay.

[2422] SPEAKER_16: Yeah, in the future, please make sure that you bring it forward before the meeting.

[2427] SPEAKER_18: Somehow, was that my impression it was happening at the City Hall? The City Hall?

[2431] SPEAKER_16: Oh, sorry.

[2432] SPEAKER_18: We'll be there next slide. We'll be there next slide. Making the speed limits on the road. So, yeah. Okay, so I'm Mrs. Gawd, and I teach math at the high school. I've been doing this for the past 18 years, and without doubt, I can say that Project Connect has by far been the most successful ventures that we've undertaken at the high school. So Project Connect has not only included freshmen from the gender population, but also at-risk pools, including the SPED and the ELD kids. So it also is, it's not restricted to any subject, and I've never seen such a large group of freshmen advocating for themselves. So these freshmen are coming us with writing us emails, which I've never even dreamt of. What is my grade? What can I do to improve my grade? This has never happened in the past. So starting such a program was a very brave venture, I would say, that was taken as a part of Dr. Brown and Ms. Kelly. It needs a constant devotion, time above and beyond their regular school hours, and preparation to make sure that the program runs smoothly. The students in this program look up to the coach and look up, sorry, currently it's run by Ms. Kelly, so they look up to Ms. Kelly with great admiration and hope. Hope that somebody cares for them and won't let them fall through the cracks. That's the major thing. Students feel safe, supported, and not judged for their road grades. Students are now flexible, close-knit cohort of a freshman. We cannot take hope and support away from these young adults. Consistent monitoring of grades by Ms. Kelly has been so effective that the failing freshmen has improved exceptionally since the beginning of the last year. Students now feel accountable for their grades and success in their six classes. They know that the path where they can independently and confidently reach out to their teachers with a great success. It's not only the students who feel supported but also the teachers of ninth graders we feel supported as well. So discipline issues because the students want to learn and not fail. So credit goes to the people who are running this I wish we had a team behind one person. One person has achieved so much through this program. If we had a team behind her, without doubt, this would have been one of the greatest ventures in districts across this county. I would say that.

[2589] Thank you. Thank you. I do.

[2616] Toya Lemus: I think I'm going to be presenting during this. for your study session?

[2634] Toya Lemus: Yeah?

[2638] Do you want the... Okay.

[2646] Toya Lemus: Do you want to go in there? Oh.

[2653] Beware that you're just pushing. There's a plate right here.

[2662] Michael Murphy: I got so sick.

[2677] SPEAKER_16: I can't do that.

[2692] Tracey Vackar: Well, if I could just take a moment while we're getting set up and started. First of all, I want to thank everybody that's been involved with, you know, looking at some data, starting the conversation. over the past year about these programs out in our board meetings. And I thought it was important to bring them forward for part of a discussion as to where they stood and what we were doing to support them, to be able to move them forward, to look at other ideas that might launch from some of the ideas that are actually embedded in some of the topics that we're talking about, in particular about intervention. I want to thank those that came out this evening and spoke to us. Your voices are important to us as we where we look at what we want to be able to do for our high school students. It does have an impact, of course, on the overall well-being of all of our students. And in some cases, there's been discussions about wanting to expand and not just keep a small project, but maybe use those ideas to be able to launch off on some bigger ideas. So really the purpose here is for us to be able to have a discussion with our board, something we haven't been able to do, and something I'm looking forward to having a discussion with, giving their feedback as Dr. Murphy and as on your presentation here this evening. And again, the board may ask us for more information. You may ask us to come back for more presentations. We're happy to help and work with you on that as we move forward. This is an initial conversation, and kind of our best guess is to, like, where is my guess? Our best recommendation is to where some things should go as we move forward. So with that. All right.

2.1 Newark Memorial High School Programs

[2811] SPEAKER_32: All right. I'm Hon Fung I'm the director of teaching and learning and with me tonight is a principal Mike Murphy of the principal of Newark Memorial High School we're gonna be presenting some information today about several programs at the high school as well as provide you with the WASC overview one of the So the format of this evening today is that we'll introduce each program, provide staff recommendations, connect it to each program, and then we're gonna follow up with questions and discussions. As you heard today from members of the community that programs are deeply, right, tied to people. You see the program name there, but it's deeply tied to people, and it cannot be lost at, it can be deeply personal. And so, as we present, we commit to sharing current information, and we're open to hearing additional perspectives, and really deeply dive into a full-on discussion. Next slide.

[2892] Michael Murphy: I will be discussing a myriad of programs and offerings at North Memorial, which includes the following above, some of those you've heard about this evening. and I'll begin with WASC. For your information, here's some pertinent information that will help you as you prepare for a WASC visit. The visit will begin on Sunday. They'll meet with the parent group, get a visit, apartment tour, and then from there, the meeting that you're at are welcome to attend will be at 2 o'clock on Monday through the 28th. The general results of what their findings are will be released on Wednesday, time to be announced. And the recommendations usually around the gym. This is the outline of chapters that are contained in the link that I provided to you in the previous slide. See here in the self-study document, if you click on that, you'll be able to see the self-study. Here's the previous chapters, chapters one, two, three, four, five. Chapter three was the piece where we break into the five sections that all various focus groups work together to identify our strengths and weaknesses. If you have a long time of sleep, that's a great one to read. This slide highlights the high school's revised mission and vision statements. This is what we're moving towards in the next six years. The mission statement, supported by an active and unified community, the high school educates and empowers its students with real-life pragmatic skills necessary to succeed in the 21st century. The school seeks to support this approach through preparing students for college, leadership, and life through innovative instruction, a rigorous curriculum, and the use of cutting-edge technology NMHS is equally committed to the education, development, and socioeconomic success of all students. This mission is achieved in a student-centered environment that fosters lifelong learning, cross-cultural competency, social responsibility, and academic excellence. Using critical pedagogy, these family community and school elements are aligned to foster these values. That's the overarching goal. Here's the vision that's very much more specific. Newark Memorial seeks to create a progressive, challenging education who teaches college and career readiness. Through the cultivation of these skills, the high school pupils will be successful in college and return to revitalize their home communities using their college degrees as professional entrepreneurs. Graduates will be self-confident, self-disciplined, successful, proactive leaders who excel in high school, college, and beyond. Any questions regarding the WASP coming up?

[3047] Aiden Hill: Yes. Just quickly. So you've already gone through your whole process evaluating the prior WASC report and what potentially you believe are things that you want to emphasize to the WASC review committee and what your plans are. And so they essentially have this whole study, and now they're coming in to review your report. Yes, that's correct. Okay.

[3073] Michael Murphy: Yeah, it's taken a minute for three years. That first year, we looked at the goals that was brought to us by the last visitation. It would have been the mid-cycle. and actually in addition to that would have been the progress report when they came back out of probationary piece. After that, looking at the goals, what are we doing well? What do we need to continue on? How would we address those goals? And from there we started, I don't know, the last past year we were working on our folders and looking at assessments. D is a very critical area. Are we looking at data? What does the data look like? How are we using that classroom? What is the pacing guide? What does that collaboration look like? What does that piece look like? Most recently, last week, a couple weeks ago, I think it was last week, we began to look at, we're comparing data from 2020 surveys between 23 and 25. And so we've been chunking pieces. Focus groups work for about, focus groups work together for about three months in tackling their particular sections. governance, I'll have 20 under my belt after this year, but you've got governance, you've got curriculum and teaching, you've got instruction, you've got assessment, you've got community, you've got all the various elements. They had a chance to look at theirs, then they had a chance to trade off and see what other people had and we'd begin adding, subtracting pieces from there. And then from there, what we've most recently did, everybody got So we got together, we looked at chapter one, then we looked at chapter two, then we got together for the last, for March. I hope that's gonna come back up. But come March, for the teacher work day, they looked at chapters three through five. And so that's, now it's time to get the posters up, purchase some pieces, get things going, they'll be ready to roll.

[3195] Nancy Thomas: When is the site visit?

[3197] Michael Murphy: April 27th to the 30th.

[3200] Nancy Thomas: April 27th. April 28th. It starts on Sunday the 27th.

[3204] Michael Murphy: Yeah, so your all's visit would be the 28th as a focus group conversation, but they'll be here Sunday the 27th through Wednesday the 30th.

[3213] Tracey Vackar: And if board members can attend on Sunday evening, it's okay for them to come out. Oh, absolutely.

[3217] Michael Murphy: Yeah, I mean, I'll get you the times on that one. They will have an opportunity to meet with the parents. I can get you set up on that. You don't get the parents, that's fine.

[3226] Tracey Vackar: Might be a combination of both.

[3228] Michael Murphy: Okay. So that's that. I'm assuming it's gone or?

[3237] Toya Lemus: You guys know how many slides are working. Okay. This screen is on so the community can see it right now. Can you see it?

[3257] Michael Murphy: Okay. Good luck. People shift over here. I can see it from here. Let me ask you. Do you have a computer where you can see the same slides live? Yeah, we do. I should just sit there and go to the podium.

[3265] Kat Jones: Or I can bring my computer. It's off.

[3270] Michael Murphy: Yeah. We'll go to the podium so that way you can see off your screens outside.

[3275] Kat Jones: And then you guys can see their thing.

[3278] Michael Murphy: Well, you can sit there.

[3286] That would be nice for us to be able to see. Okay. Yeah, of course.

[3292] K-12 school board meeting

[3327] Michael Murphy: So you're going to be able to see this in live? Yes. Cool. All right.

[3333] Michael Murphy: So the next section we'll talk about is Quinte. Quinte is a statewide program for secondary schools, including community colleges. Currently, 10 middle schools, 40 high schools, and 75 community colleges participate in the program. the high schools joined the Puente project in 2008 during the 2008-2009 school year with a cohort of approximately 60 students the aim of the Puente program is to work with underrepresented students who enroll in four-year colleges and universities to participate in the Puente program students and parents and guardians submit an online application and participate in an interview process the overarching goal is to create a heterogeneous classroom environment and multiple factors coming to play regarding such as motivation, commitment, and grades. There is no one single factor that determines eligibility into the program.

[3394] Michael Murphy: Ultimately, this program puts students in place to ensure that underrepresented students get the support that is necessary for successfully assimilating into universities and colleges. Once the application and interview process has been completed, the Pointe team meets, consisting of the counselor and Pointe teachers, and collectively, they discuss application responses, self-motivation, and the students'

[3417] Michael Murphy: commitment and desire to participate with the end goal of applying to four-year colleges and universities. Every year, recruiting begins in January. Middle school and high school Puente teachers begin to look at first-generation status and socioeconomically disadvantaged status. Presentations are shared to students and families about the program, both at the middle school as well as St. Edwards. Students and families are provided with a link that offers a more detailed description of the Puente program, as well as the required application. All information is translated into their native language.

[3451] Michael Murphy: Families who lack access to the internet are provided hard copies for information. It is a collective effort with the Puente staff at the middle school to recruit for the Puente program at the high school. Multiple communications are shared via social media and email. Counselors participate in eighth grade informational nights to highlight the Puente program and are available to answer questions. Students apply for the high school Puente program to indicate their interest

[3477] Michael Murphy: at the high school level. This slide up here shares the current freshman class.

[3484] Michael Murphy: There are 101 students that applied. Okay, 125. 95 is selected, right? Okay, three sections full. Yeah. So you can guarantee every year we've got five sections of freshmen coming in. Of those five sections, three are going to be point take kids. Three out of every every five kids, I guess you would say, are point A kids. Of those original students, the high school had a limit due to the allotted FTE. Students who turned in their applications after the deadline were placed on a wait list. 60% of students are first-generation college-bound students. Of this, eight students are general education students with IEPs and 504 plans. Seven students are classified as English learners, and 70% are Latinos. This cohort also represents 50 females and 45 males.

[3537] Michael Murphy: and you'll note that when I last met with Puente last year, they said of the high schools, we probably have the most solid rate of balance between the genders. This here is your enrollment overview of the students for this current class and such. What I will tell you to know is that when you're looking at the cohorts, the numbers are gonna shift between the years because some students are coming, where some students are going. Some students may enter in that are on the wait list. They may enter in after the fact. They're currently on the wait list. So if you notice here. So we go from 88 to 97. These guys are represented that were on the wait list at the time. So they were able to have some slots because some people had left. This is the most current data available from Puente. Puente only provides data always two years behind. So this is the most current data that we have. The high school will not receive data for the class of 2023 until October.

[3608] Michael Murphy: And 2019 and 2020 reflect issues due to COVID.

[3616] Michael Murphy: The following slide illustrates the demographics, the current demographic, not the current, they've graduated, the demographics of the Puente class of 2022. All right, continued recommendations. Continue to message that the program aims to support underserved and underrepresented students at Newark Memorial High School. Continue to transcript reviews, continue transcript reviews of Puente students to ensure that students are meeting A through G graduation requirements. Identifying a new counselor for Puente and highlight student success to elementary school communities to enhance the understanding and goals of the Puente program. Any questions?

[3665] Nancy Thomas: I have a question. Overall, what is your percentage of underrepresented students in your high school point A program?

[3679] Michael Murphy: Currently, I would need the California dashboard. I'd have to take a look at you. Can I go on there?

[3686] Nancy Thomas: But that won't tell you point A, right? I would like to know the percentage of underrepresented of represented students in the Puente program.

[3695] Michael Murphy: Okay. Well, currently it's 70%, pardon me, 70% Latino. The thing to keep in mind is of all the, what Puente represents is of those students who applied and were accepted. It does not represent the entire, neither the entire district nor the overall numbers of students at the high school. So of the 1371 students that we currently have, you gotta figure that you have three sections per grade, so let's, somebody do the math for me, so if we're saying 34 times two, 35, okay, say 34 times three, 34 times three is? 102. 102 and 102 times four? 408? 408. Okay, so you've got 408 students that are, that percentage is representing the 408 students that are in the program.

[3751] Nancy Thomas: Okay, what I know is that approximately 30% of our students at the high school are underrepresented. And I would expect no less and probably even more to be part of Puente. So I think it's important that we know that Puente is attracting and supporting underrepresented students.

[3773] Michael Murphy: Agreed.

[3777] Aiden Hill: Yes. Thank you, Dr. Murphy. so just to confirm because we heard some comments from the community at the beginning of the session so regarding Puente we're not talking about cutting this program no that's not my recommendation okay and so but what you are saying is is that we want to make sure as member Thomas has indicated our vice president Thomas that it is targeted towards underserved and underrepresented right so we want to encourage that participation and and also that we're and we're expecting that in order to be a part of that program that you are focused on achieving certain academic outcomes so you're working to make sure that kids are taking A through G classes and we're looking at making sure that again that we prepare these people for graduation and so we're really just trying to it sounds like just further hone this program to make sure that it is delivering academic outcomes for these target populations. Is that a fair statement?

[3846] Michael Murphy: Absolutely.

[3847] Aiden Hill: Great, thank you.

[3849] Nancy Thomas: I think it's very important that we have measures of our success with the program. Maybe you can say something about that, but one in particular is, sorry, my throat is raspy this evening. One in particular is the percentage of our Puente students, especially our underrepresented and point A students who are graduating A through G eligible. Several years ago, 75% of point A students were A through G eligible, but we were not able to learn how many of those were our underrepresented population. Do you have that number?

[3891] Michael Murphy: That I do not, but I can get that for if you'd like. Do you have a number? I don't have a number. We'll get back to you.

[3901] Okay.

[3902] Austin Block: Thank you for the presentation. I'm really glad to see the positive work that Puente is doing and just want to express my strong support for the program and appreciation for everyone involved in it. It's really great to see, like on that previous slide, the fact that Puente students are going to college at a higher rate than the memorial average, which really shows to me that the program is working well. So I'm glad to see its continued effectiveness and the amount of community support for it.

[3929] Michael Murphy: I want to add to the financial impact. Y'all are allocating $5,000 for the program. Do understand that when this program was put in place originally, we had a school bus, we had a school bus driver, and they would go on trips. And the trips would typically be about $600. Today, because we have some buses, but we don't have a bus driver, those trips are now costing about $2,400. That's where a lot of that impact is coming. When it comes to a Puente teacher, we just had a new Puente teacher. You've been doing it for a while. We have a new Puente teacher we paid for his training out of our SPSA that didn't come from the district it came from us additionally as far as field trips and such those have been allocated generously by the site council so they've been allocating those pieces and lastly the one thing I think it's important to note is that irregardless we still need those teachers because whether they're teaching plenty or they're not teaching plenty they're still teaching students so there's no fiscal impact as far as the as far as staffing on that piece. And I would also like to say, and put it into perspective, I've worked in smaller, I've worked in other districts where I didn't have a plenty program. I didn't have AVID. I had to figure it out. I didn't even have a counselor. It was me and a bunch of kids and trying to figure it out. So you're trying to discipline them while you're trying to counsel them at the same time. And what really, what reality is coming with this is these folks are taking kids who are coming from, they're coming from homes where college comes, is an abstract concept. These are kids who or showing promise or showing, they're demonstrating that they have the willingness and the desire and the ambition. One thing you can't quantify ever is ambition. So what they're doing is identifying students who are showing that they want to take the next step and they want to focus on their four-year studies. Out of that comes this process where they're supporting these students with, ideally, they're working with students who, whereas if you have middle class students, you've got upper class students, students who are not underrepresented, they have resources available to them, they have families, supports that they already know what it takes to get into college these are kids that should be traditionally don't have access to that and they're figuring out as they go they're building a plane as they fly it and ultimately what happens is these students that do go to the four-year level they're going to be in your EOP programs and such so I mean take Abbott most people know what Abbott is this is Abbott from a different way and what happens is you're taking these kids and you're placing them we're supporting them here they're supporting them and then they go to the college the collegiate level and they're going to have additional supports at the EOP level to get them through college and university so that's as well as community college so that's it's it's an important program unfortunately doesn't affect all the kids but this is what we've got and my understanding is that prior to me we selected this route because it was it was less financially impacting as they have it which is a quite price pricey program but it's great kids are benefiting from it and you've got some good things going on there yes

[4113] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: Dr. Murphy, I really appreciate the transparency and just clarifying that piece there. It's really important to understand that when the MOU was provided a couple years ago, has it been updated with the most recent information? Allocating the $5,000 per teacher, I mean, has it been updated at any point in time?

[4136] Michael Murphy: I think next year is the year it goes to. It's either this year or next year, and I know they're coming back with the update.

[4142] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: Is it a three-year? I think so, something like that, yeah Okay, thank you And just a follow up question with the students from middle school 6th, 7th 7th and 8th grade, is that correct? 6th, 7th and 8th I have no understanding So these same students when they follow through to high school are these following through with the process as well?

[4168] Michael Murphy: Not necessarily The difference though is they will have some experiences with what goes on at the point A level for middle school. And I couldn't speak to that.

[4181] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: Okay. So they go through the interview once again. Okay. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you.

[4187] Kat Jones: Sure. Is there coordination between the middle school and the high school in terms of those students moving, I mean, even though they're reapplying in ninth grade but they are there is a connection between the high school and the middle school in terms of that so you know yes they've been in it and that are there teacher recommendations that come with or counselor recommendations that come from the middle school to the high school I would suspect it would be in the interview process and the application process I okay and that's that's

[4233] SPEAKER_03: Okay, thank you for the clarification.

[4251] Joy Lee: First of all, thank you for the presentation. With the budget cuts, is there a possibility that field trips will be cut in the coming future?

[4261] Michael Murphy: So what happens is we get so much or SPSA each year and from that those folks who are nominated or the people who draw the short straws and get on site council they get to determine how that money is allocated so not knowing what the percentage is going to be for a dip for next year I anticipate not everybody is going to get everything they want but I think we're going to be pretty good at being smart about what we need to do particularly if you look at chapter 5 with our action plan WASP goals how they're aligned to our

[4293] Joy Lee: SPSA I think and the LCAP I think will still hit our goals and what we're looking to do great thank you and then also you mentioned earlier please correct me if I'm wrong about like not being able to find a bus driver which was why there was $24,000 cost added that's coming from SPSA and not the but the district yeah we pay for this we pay for the field trips but there may be some money there they have enough money out the gate to be able to pay for

[4323] Michael Murphy: for a field trip if they want to, yeah. And then my question was... I can say no field trip has ever been denied.

[4331] Joy Lee: Okay, but the bus driver, do we need to look for a bus driver?

[4336] Michael Murphy: My school showcase in 2024, these indicators, and you're actually gonna see these indicators on your paperwork that was provided to you earlier from Coach Kelly. These indicators represent the dispositions that Project Connect seeks to accomplish. Project Connect will be reviewed as the potential intervention and support system strategy for students to see if it's scalable for all students. This is a model that we can look at and we can reconsider alternatives for intervention. It is an intervention program that was, we were very fortunate to have more math sections. Of the math sections that we've had in the last two years, we had an abundance of teachers and that gave us the ability to try some interventions during the school day. it's not a class it's not a curriculum it's an intervention program that could also be offered before or after school or during lunch but it was something that we tried to be creative about and that we saw a need with students a couple years ago but with as I say with the recommendation this program will I'm recommending that not be continued due to budget constraints and the lack of sections within the master schedule due to where we're at

[4415] Austin Block: I have some questions on this one so I was really disappointed to see this recommendation in the report and I was pretty surprised because I remember when we had been talking about layoffs previously I had specifically asked whether or not laying off the high school math teacher would impact Project Connect and I remember Assistant Superintendent Williams saying no and that that would not have an impact on Project Connect so I'm a little bit confused as to what happened because I feel like I asked the question whether or not approving that layoff would lead to an impact on Project Connect and I was told no so I feel a little bit misled and now seeing that the master schedule can no longer accommodate this program we've heard from a lot of community members about its effectiveness and we don't really have a clear alternative being presented to replace it and to take something away without offering a clear and improved replacement seems to me like the opposite of an equitable decision I mean if it means we need to hire another math teacher to make the sections available then I would advocate for for it, but to take a successful program and to terminate it for budgetary reasons without having a thorough conversation about it really seems irresponsible in my opinion.

[4486] Michael Murphy: Thank you for that.

[4487] Michael Murphy: I will say I've thought about it after listening to the audience and on my way over here. We have some really great ideas for things and I noticed that when it comes to, there's a couple things I've noticed. This provides a really great opportunity for a tier two intervention. There's a lot of tier one interventions that we can do as a site together and tier two interventions, a lot of which we haven't explored yet. And I noticed that as far as when we had like challenge day or we've had, I didn't get a lot of staff participation with that. And I think that a lot of the pieces that could be picked up through challenge day, that can be picked up through Project Connect, that can be picked up in our strategies classes for special ed, that could also be picked up through our freshman classes. y'all have heard me for the last few years say I think this stuff's the bane of our existence I think we've lost our sense of humanity and the way we interact with each other and we weigh each other more about gosh you know social media and how many likes do I have or whatever it is I think we've what I've noticed I've been here for three years what I've battled with and what I've been really trying to work with the staff on is building collegiality WASC has been great because you'll see some folders where people have been filling things into the folders you can see that there's collegiality and there's relationship building into the folders and they're going to see some folders that are empty they didn't provide me anything and in many ways I got a lot of people working in silos which is sad because for a large campus like that and I think about sometimes when I see the particularly I call me old timers but anybody like oh I graduated 20 years ago I graduated 30 years ago I we had the people that graduated 50 years ago they're so excited about seeing the place and it's like and they talk so fondly about their administration their teachers and such and I think that there's a lot of these strategies and I hear you I think there's a lot of these strategies that we probably need to talk together as a staff and identify how can we instead of having that program how can we infuse this into our own curriculum in the everyday process that we do I mean we don't even have a binder reminder anymore. You know, parents are asking, do you have the binder reminder? I'm like, no, we don't. I think we need to bring that back. Personally, I'm arguing that we should start with freshmen and special ed and start building that grade to grade. I'm not going to give it to a senior next year. I'm not going to toss it. But there's all these little things that we take for granted for the last 20 years. I mean, you were teaching, you know, not million years, but you know how it is and you're teaching it. There's things that, you've been there, all of you, but there's things that we could really bring back that I think is pretty because instead of saying this is going to do that and I'm going to go over here we need to all be doing things together I mean I don't remember what it was what's her name Hillary Clinton said but it's like it takes the village to help a kid or whatever I think that's probably where we need to be we need to be mindful of that that's where I'm going with it all I know is that you only have so much money you only have so many squares to fill things in and we don't have the set for Hollywood squares so we've got to sort of work with what we've got so this is where

[4684] Kat Jones: I'm I'm going with all the discussions that have been had and trying to make things work we're gonna do what we got it and you had one in the yeah I I would like to add to that because as a sixth grade teacher you know I kind of got started to get into the secondary thing and oh I I collected myself the phone the cell phones of the kids they walked in the door and they they talked a minute it was right on my desk they knew where they were but they were on my desk and not in their hands and and then I could that was a much easier time to be able to build that relationship with them if they were struggling then you know it is important teachers need to take and there needs to be that time which what I heard from the students and people talking about Project Connect is it's that personal connection it's showing the kids that you care that you care that the adults care and you know as much as my kids would give me a hard time when I started collecting their cell phones by the and they were like, you know, I'm really glad you did. I was more engaged. They felt that I was there for them. And that made a big difference. So it's the personal connection that I'm really hearing people talk about. And whether it's through Project Connect or it's some other way, that's the critical part of what that program has brought. And that's what I heard from everyone.

[4769] Michael Murphy: Absolutely. Somebody's listening to them. Somebody knows about them. Somebody cares. Somebody's checking in on them. Somebody gives a rip. Exactly.

[4774] Aiden Hill: so how much are we saving by cutting this and do we have concrete programs right now that we're going to funnel these students that are not going to be able to participate into I have to build a master schedule first and all I what I do know is this if I have spaces here and there we're gonna make things go but I also know that

[4805] Michael Murphy: we need to make sure we may make sure the kids are taken care of first to be able to say what other programs I don't know just yet I just know what's worked for me in the past I think it's a collective conversation with the staff and how much money are we going to save by cutting this two sections so take that person's salary divided by five and that gives you one and then times it times two so so typically that's a, there's a HR, I should just ask you, Dr. Walker, what is that, about 25 grand per class per section? Probably about 60 or 70. $25,000 per section plus 30% for the, so 30% of that on top of it for benefits.

[4854] Michael Murphy: So you're saving about 50, yeah, you're saving a chunk of change. Yes.

[4861] Nancy Thomas: No, I think the idea of the program is great. I think what you mentioned earlier about other configurations before class and after class. If we have someone working two sections, are they pulling students out? Last year is the first year I ever heard of this program and it was a brief discussion in your presentation. And we've never seen the program to approve it. We've never had a budget. We've never had a process. We've never had a description of it other than what you gave us last year so I think this speaks to to what to the our responsibility to make sure that we we have the data we have the process we have measurable objectives and and outcomes and that we we follow them absolutely so that's my I mean you gotta I give everybody I'm all about we have to take care of the kids educationally first if we've got some spaces to try some things I'm all about letting people take some

[4925] Michael Murphy: safe risks, positive risks. This has been a great one. I don't know if I'm going to have the sections for it within the school day. That's why I'm saying we're going to have to be creative. You know, the district needs to remain financially solvent. The kids need to be taken care of. And if I take that away, that's two sections that are being taken away for math. She's a very solid math teacher. We're very fortunate to have her. She teaches our, I would argue, our most neat

[4955] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: class is algebra one Dr. Murphy we were talking about you know making a connection as freshmen when you come in that's what you're looking for you're looking for that that support that understanding and I think the the students that went in presented earlier they emphasize that they showed with the you know being down with the grades with GPA and not being able to participate in sports or at and other activities or projects. So I think that just speaking of and having the students really advocate for that program and also some teachers, we need to find some kind of support, tier one and also tier two, to support Ms. Kelly. And I think it's really important to continue. And we have to scratch to scratch to look for something that's working, but to really support something that's really academically boosting our children.

[5013] Tracey Vackar: Absolutely. If I can just chime in, and I think this is one of the things when I was talking in the beginning that I think some of the programs that we're looking at here are just being kind of like scratch the surface, right? And a little bit later on, you're going to see some information on APEX, which is concerning, especially when you look at the number of students that weren't able to complete their courses that they need, right? And so what is it that we need really for our kids to make sure there's enough intervention that's built in for models and that we're intersecting and how are the students identified? I think that's the other key question. what happens after ninth grade like what are we doing for 10th and 11th and 12th like we need to have a bigger and broader conversation around that intervention because I don't think this is enough I think we need to do something more and I think we need to put some more resources in to make sure that all of our students are academically achieving and have the support systems to be successful because there's a lot of other data out there when you start looking at it that really concerns me looking at it from a higher level lens with the number of courses that didn't get completed over the last for the last few years that kids are missing. And, you know, one of the speakers earlier, he's brought this up with us for a number of years. And he's not wrong in what he's saying. We need to make sure that we're figuring out ways to really help and connect. And again, I think we can learn from best practices and then how do we grow it and how do we make it more systemic within the school. So I think there's more work to be done here, quite frankly. I do want to thank Patricia Kelly for the work that she's done on this. I think it needs to have a bigger conversation though on how we identify the kids and then what do we do after ninth grade like how else do we keep kids connected and what does that look like and how do we build in those intervention elements and those are some conversations I've been having with staff and I don't seem to have answers yet for those but we need to come back and we need to have a conversation this is a starting conversation so I want to thank you I hear that definitely and certainly I think there's more that can be done to extend the intervention across the high school and in my previous comment I didn't mean to be

[5134] Austin Block: critical of you in particular but what I'm hearing is a lot of like we're going to have conversation about this or we're going to think about that or we're going to think about expanding it to the broader school environment which is good but we're taking something specific away right now and I'm not hearing anything concrete that we have in its place to replace it and ensure that our most vulnerable ninth grade students are getting the academic support that they need and so from my perspective to take something away before a clear replacement is in place and solidified and we can get specifics on that I think it's still a disservice to students I think that one math teacher is not that much in the in the grand scheme of the budget and unless there's a clear and concrete plan for what will replace Project Connect I don't feel comfortable supporting its closure I have I have concerns that that the model in the model and that it does require two release periods for a specific individual I think we can

[5194] Nancy Thomas: we can tweak the model without doing that we can tweak it with having having before and after school stipends for teachers that are willing to work individually with these students which could come out of SPSA well stipends many stipends don't come out of SPSA oh no no I'm saying but it's not a burden we're funded for that

[5224] Michael Murphy: You're preaching to the choir.

[5226] Nancy Thomas: Oh, okay, right. Yeah, so something like that. So I think we can readjust the program, keep it going, but not have a two-release period teacher, which is the reason that it would be discontinued. I think it can be quickly. We have four or five months before the next school year, and I think we can come up with, you can come up with a plan that you could bring back to the board that we could support.

[5254] Michael Murphy: I do want to say this I feel like we're doing the brush stroke tonight so you're going to get the brush stroke I'm going to tell you this I'm going off script so we're going to get scared of what's he going to say next but the reality is this you've got a group of folks that have been here for a number of years we've gotten very complacent with what we do and what we want to do and I get people are comfortable with what they're doing and I get that it's uncomfortable I say change Vince says shift whatever you want to call it at at the end of the day, we're making roads. We've gone from all reds and yellows on the dashboard to now we're all greens with the exception of it's yellow, it's EL and MAF. We're doing some good things. But I also know that when it comes to wasps, I'm going to be honest, I'm the first one to tell you, I hate professional development. I hate going to these things and it's just the same thing. Bloomsack's only been changed over three times. And you know what I like? I like going to wasps. I went to Carmel and I stole a whole bunch of ideas off of them. in a gosh in another I think it's a month that's scary in another month I'm going to go up to Oakland I'm going to go check out a charter school and see what they're up to and then we have ours two weeks later and then I've got to go see work with some guys out and it's out there where they have a big concert and stuff north of concert people it's out there north of Sacramento out in the middle of nowhere where they have a hard rock cafe so I'm going to do a school out there there's a lot of really cool ideas that we can get out there and goal number I think 7 is in chapter 4 is staff, we all need to go conduct WASP visits because of all the staff, I only got one person besides me that has done a visit. I did three last year, I did three this year, and it should be, I want the department chairs to go annually, I want staff to go at least every three years to see what's going on outside. Get outside of your nest. I feel like I'm Socrates talking to the allegory of the cave, and I'm trying to get them to come out of their cave. Hey, there's all these great things. There's so many things that we could possibly do, and it's very easy to get complacent yeah and I make people uncomfortable but this is my staff here they know how I do business I'm as transparent as it gets but I also know that we got to stay within the budget too so I'm with what I have this is where I'm yeah go for it rock and roll I understand that we need to stay within budget so would it be possible to lower like the sections or like does it have to be two sections like are we able to keep project connect and just lower the amount of classes

[5404] Joy Lee: classes or students that it's taking in?

[5407] Michael Murphy: I wouldn't know that until after I balanced the master schedule. When you're moving that, so for every class that you move, it's a domino effect. Yeah. It gets real scary. I include one more A period. I'm hurting something on the sixth period end. I'd love to give every coach six period prep. I'd love to give them all six period prep. How many coaches are there if there are teachers? There's four. with these family coaches. There's a lot. And when you do that, I put them all on the sixth period because they're always going to be gone and that way it doesn't affect the kids who have sixth period prep or that sixth period class where they've got the algebra 2 or the calc or the English or whatever it is. You do that, it's going to throw the numbers way off.

[5451] Tracey Vackar: So there's... I do want to make sure that we stay on task. We've got several other ones that we need to go through yet tonight. I want to make sure we get there with it.

[5458] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: He's been very patient. One quick last question. I apologize. Dr. Murphy, within the last three years, the over interview WESC, the WESC program itself, have we gotten information from the students, teachers, parents, surveys? Have we gotten data sharing this information with our ninth grade families?

[5479] Michael Murphy: I don't think I've done a good enough job with the families, the parents per se. I do meet with people in person and such. That's something I could have done better at. I think we do a good job as far as communication in terms of WESC. No, I think we could have done better. As far as kids. I think we've been okay with it and staff, I mean, they're tired of hearing loss. Their ears are turning into cauliflower. So that I would say has been a win on that part of it. But yeah, families, I don't think I've done as good as I could have.

[5506] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: So that's a component we could go ahead and probably work on.

[5508] Michael Murphy: Absolutely. I would agree with that.

[5510] Tracey Vackar: I think the other thing I think I heard board member Thomas say that this had never come back to the board originally to be a program. And so I think we need to make sure we go back as staff. This is something that we're going to move forward with. We need to make sure that we actually I think we need to make sure that we go back and we actually vet that the way it needs to be so I think there's some of their homework that we also need to go do so I think we've got some homework to do on this one last one really quick will you guys be coming back to talk about Project Connect before you guys decide to cut it or will you guys just I was just asked to present tonight I'm just getting

[5554] Kat Jones: So I am going to ask that we let Mr. Murphy finish his presentation because he has actually three more areas that we need to hear on and time is running short.

[5571] Austin Block: I feel like we haven't really gotten to a resolution on this though. I mean like is there a possibility of keeping it if the board determines that it's a priority to fund an extra math teacher in order I mean math test scores are our lowest ones right?

[5583] Nancy Thomas: No it doesn't have to be a as a math teacher, and I think some of the other ways that it can be implemented with, because you don't pull kids out of class to go to the release period that the coordinator of this program has. He or she would be working before school, after school, during pause, or at other times, and I think that could be covered nicely by a stipend. So I, for one, would like to see a plan come back forward that doesn't require a specific person or a specific background for that person, but that would be a stipended position that would support the program.

[5627] Tracey Vackar: So I think there's a couple of things I think I'm hearing. I think one staff would like to be able to come back from the conversation and have a discussion, quite frankly. I think we need to have a broader discussion with those that are involved. This also has very much so a math focus, but you could also maybe take the same ideas and do something with a language arts focus. and maybe we do something different. I don't know if it will be actually embedded in the day, if it's something that we might do after, but I think we need to come back with some further recommendations. But I think I've heard that you think that there's an importance in the intervention, and we just need to come back with what that model looks like. Would that be fair?

[5658] Nancy Thomas: Yeah. Okay. We could have multiple intervention stipended positions for it.

[5667] Tracey Vackar: Yeah.

[5667] Tracey Vackar: Let me work with staff, please.

[5671] Michael Murphy: Okay. All right. Pause. PAWS is offered 45 minutes twice weekly.

[5677] Michael Murphy: During this time, the goal is for students to catch up on either missing assignments, complete exams, or to receive intervention as well as enrichment depending on their need. The following illustrates our highlights and challenges. When done well, students are engaged with teacher support and interactions. At this time, the challenges outweigh the original intentions. Specifically, as we focus on improving

[5704] Michael Murphy: student achievement coupled with safety, since we need to be more accountable for where students are. So PAWS is a great program, but it is a, it's turned into a study hall, whereas not all students are gonna use their time wisely. There are students, there are students that do use it time wisely, I've had NTA walk around with me. I've had the district office walk around with me. We've done some observations and collectively that's an hour and a half. Hour and a half.

[5748] Michael Murphy: It's an hour and a half of instructional time that's lost. Would I like to bring it back? Sure. But right now I'm going to go back to this. We're in a reboot. I see this year we're going through WASC. We're setting up our next six what we're going to be working at for the next six years I plan to be there as long as you guys will have me but what I do know is this I think we need a reboot I think we need a reset a restart and while we've had MOUs with the people I've signed with are back here for the MOUs on it it's great but there's been issues where it's not being followed through and what I'm going to say is if people really really want this and I've said this time and time again we're going to have to come up with a way to make this thing work because I see that as an hour and a half of time where students are not being instructed that where they're able to, let's be honest, would any of us want to be here tonight? Would any of us want to go to work? Hell no. We'd all be at home. We'd be all doing something somewhere else with a little umbrella somewhere. That's the reality of things. And kids are going to take the easy way out. We want to treat them like adults and we want them to do those things. But at the end of the day, a friend told me to knock it off, but stop talking. But the reality is that's an hour and a half time that I think if WOSCA came in, it'd be concerning. So I'm saying, let it go, let it go, and we can always revisit it. Same with block schedule, which is gonna be the next slide, as a matter of fact. Next year will be a reboot so that the high school faculty and staff may identify how better we can tighten our program offerings, strengthen pedagogy, ensure student safety. And during next year, I propose placing everything on the table while getting back to basics. Here's my recommendations. Discontinue for now and revamp and identify intervention strategies. Re-evaluate the use of the bell schedule. The goal of POSIT is to intervene and provide support for students to graduate. We need to assess our block days and think about how we use our block days like these days and how that compares to our regular days. How much more instruction is going on outside of what we traditionally do in a regular 60 minute cycle. As part of a cycle of improvement here are the key questions for further consideration. To what extent do staff members require ongoing training on the effective use of block days? And how is the current use of pause impacting student improvement? There you have it. So that's, any questions about pause?

[5906] Austin Block: Yes. So I hear that sometimes pause is not being used well by some students and certainly I see that myself as a teacher in Fremont where we have husky period or flex which seems seems very similar to PAWS. I do wonder though about how many opportunities for intervention there will be if something like this ceases to exist. Because otherwise it seems like the only opportunities for one-on-one intervention would be brunch and lunch. Otherwise a teacher is managing a class of 30 plus kids and trying to do individual interventions amidst that. Kids have responsibilities before and after school or extracurriculars, things like that. I understand students aren't always making the wisest choices, but for those that

[5946] Michael Murphy: who need that extra intervention support what is the alternative then for next year it's about 30% they're actually using time wisely and the alternative is we do what we did before there was ever such a pause I will I will say the safety issue comes in and I don't really get into it but you need to hear it of the 1,400 kids that I'd have Terry right now she can tell you how many were they're supposed to enroll into a class every time we have pause and typically we'll have 800 kids missing, not signed up. Other times it's 300, other times it's 400. And I'll give you two things that we run into. It's like, first of all, it's not like three years ago where they wandered around like a roving whatever, and they're not running off campus like there was something free somewhere someplace else. But I don't know where they're at. But I know they're somewhere in some rooms because they're not wandering around. But the other thing is, is that when the parents come in and say, hey, I want Johnny, and I don't know where to call. Johnny didn't check in. Johnny's with Tommy Kumquat someplace. I don't know. And then the parents start getting mad and it's like, how do you not know where my kid's at? So it does embarrass the front office and stuff. And for safety reasons, that could be a huge liability. But how to fix that, I don't know. But yeah, to me, this is that everything's on the table. Let's rebuild it. Let's go from square one. Let's talk about what direct instruction looks like. Let's talk about what instructional pedagogy should look like? What does constructivism look like? And how are we going to make sure that our instruction is aligned to the assessment? And what does vertical articulation look like? That's, to me, there's a lot of, you know, something I was going to mention earlier. They don't teach, the very basic things that we all had when we went into teaching, they don't teach Harry Wong anymore. Harry Wong is gone. As far as, like, all the classroom management procedures and such, that's the number one struggle for new teachers. And we see it. We see it with them. we see it with the subs to me this is like we gotta get to the basics before I can it reminds me of Judy Cotting's book I read when I was at SC it was Judy Cotting's book it was like something about standards and such she brought it back to the bare basics at Pasadena High and got them to move forward so I think it's sort of a regroup to me this is a regroup year let's get it together let's see what we gotta do with WASC and where do we wanna be in six years I'm not saying everything's gotta go away but we gotta figure out like we gotta get our

[6095] Austin Block: with the logistical and safety problems be addressed by making it like more of a homeroom where students could then like get a pass to go meet with the teacher for intervention like there's a designated place that they're supposed to go every day for pause rather than like a free-flowing I make an appointment for whichever teacher I want to meet with like if every kid was assigned a teacher for pause and then had to get special permission to go elsewhere would that alleviate some of the concerns while maintaining the benefits unfortunately synergy we've asked for that like it's automatic you're assigned to this homeroom teacher and they're

[6125] Michael Murphy: from there you can be, at least we know they're somewhere. Synergy doesn't set it up that way.

[6130] Michael Murphy: They're like, the whole point is it's supposed to be free, free, and yeah, and free gets you birds with a feather all over the place.

[6140] Tracey Vackar: This is a problem. It's problematic, I think, for the school side and for the administration to be able to really manage what's happening here with them. I do think it needs to be revamped. I mean, I've been over there during the pause sections, and it's not good. Kids are not where they need to be, and they're not really checking in. And maybe the program had really great intentions to begin with, but over the years, it's not working as well as it could work. And I think this is an opportunity for us to come back, take another look at it, also listen to some of the recommendations that might come out of the WASC notations for our recommendations that come from the visiting committee, and seeing what else we can do to come back and revamp this.

[6183] Joy Lee: For pause, though there are a lot of clubs who host meetings during PAUSE, which by getting rid of it, what would happen to those clubs?

[6195] Michael Murphy: I'm willing to look at that with the teachers who come up with a good resolution. Because there's some really good things that go on during PAUSE, and it kills me to do that. But I think working with staff, we can come up with some ways to make that happen. Because what you guys don't know is there's times that clubs are meeting when it's supposed to be academic time.

[6215] Joy Lee: they're not all the time but there's some really awesome things going on but it's it is that it is rather sporadic but yeah that's something I would say we figure out as a staff and then also like pause also provides I mean you guys heard it before but pause really does provide a time where students can catch up and work they make up tests so they're not behind teachers they don't have to stay after school to wait for students to finish up their tests or like make up tests

[6245] SPEAKER_32: so I think that's a really big positive that pause does hold and it's really important to keep that in mind do you want to continue hearing Mike's voice what we did was we kind of changed so that you can just hear a female voice too but he'll be here if there's any questions all right we're going to tag team all right MCA other otherwise known as Media Communications Academy. What is MCA? The Media Communications Academy is a state-sponsored program that encourages students to demonstrate mastery through non-traditional methods, particularly through using arts, media, and entertainment, otherwise known as AME and CTE standards. When students take the introduction, concentrator, and capstone courses, they automatically are qualified they get a proficient certification. This also increases our rating in the college and career dashboard.

[6314] SPEAKER_32: Next slide. Here are the course title for MCA. You see that it's MCA Media 10 which is the introduction class. MCA Advanced Media 11 is the concentrator class and the MCA Advanced Media 12 is the capstone. So in our CTE programs the typical sequence of courses beginning and it begins with an introductory course and culminates in a capstone experience. What we can also do is combine both the intro class and the concentrator class so that it's because right now the introduction doesn't really count for the two years of CTE. And so in the introduction class, it builds upon the foundational knowledge, right, where it lays the groundwork for teaching basic concepts, skills pertinent to the specific career pathway and it also helps kids our students understand and make decisions about whether this course or the career is something that they're interested in the capstone is really about how you apply what you learn the skills right like everything you want kids to be able to do in a career and this is this is a transition to the workforce next slide what you have here is as a cohort of our kids so if you take a look in the in the 2022-23 year, when kids enrolled into MCA, there were 50 students. That's in the blue.

[6400] SPEAKER_32: Do you see that? Thanks. And then in, thanks Vanna, in 23 to 24, 46 students were enrolled and 33 students were from the 22-23 cohort. So 33 students completed the concentrator. And then for this, for the MCA and the senior class of 24-25, 19 completed the capstone and are identified as career ready. Next slide.

[6436] SPEAKER_32: What you see here, these numbers reflect the students who have demonstrated interest in either enrolling or continuing in this academy for the 25-26 school year. Our staff recommendation are, based on the declining enrollment of the MCA program, here are our recommendations. And it's both. about programs are connected to people and this is about a discussion. So if MCA program is continued, it is important that we ensure students follow a clear pathway from introductory MCA courses to capstone classes. I just had a meeting with our counselors, our secondary counselors today. Collect data to track increased completion of A through G requirements and CTE program completions. The California dashboard, in order for us to be prepared, means that we take A through G classes we complete two years of CTE we qualify for the biliteracy seal right all those three things have to be true we're also the if the program is continued we will review the high DNF rates and assess strategies for improvement and really look at when kids are here are they passing if MCA is discontinued we will continue the CTE pathway through our MV ROP Ohlone elective CTEs at the high school evaluate the impact of this shift

[6515] Tracey Vackar: on student outcomes maintain current cohorts while using the upcoming year to redesign and align all pathways including new ones and of course having conversations with our staff additionally today I had a chance to meet with the high school and with the program lead and one of the ideas that we talked about is you know maybe bringing in project-based learning through the Buck Institute and being able to actually help and look at like how do those cohorts work together to still be able to you know tie their projects together so that you have either a math or a language arts component that goes in to go along with the MCA CTE type of the program so again another thing that we could possibly do we could actually leverage some of the funding that we actually get from Perkins or from the CPA program maybe not from Perkins but from the CPA program to be able to do some of that work this coming year and we do have a we just received this past week from the Department of Education a letter asking us what is our intent to do for next year with the EMCA program we need to turn that in by the 15th of April to let them know what our intent is whether or not we're continuing so as a fellow CTE teacher understand this area and just some thoughts on this so in my particular

[6605] Aiden Hill: of our high school, I'm the only business teacher. We're a high school district, so at some of the other high schools, they have sufficient enrollment that they have more than one business teacher. In my situation, though, I'm kind of right on the cusp, and literally we had a discussion with our district office around the pathway, and they were initially wanting to create a capstone course that was going into the community college but I recommended a different approach because if you look at what the California Department of Education says about CTE and about pathways they recognize that in some programs in some schools and some programs you don't really have sufficient enrollment to have a three-step pathway but one of the alternatives and we just implemented this yeah in my situation we actually well you could go to two I'm in my situation where in my school I teach introduction to business and and I teach international business and there wasn't a third step but the district really wanted to have a capstone so we made a compromise and we said we're going to alternate years concentrator and capstone and so as I look at your graph here what I'm wondering is where you really take a dive in enrollment is in the capstone and what I'm wondering is that if you were to alternate that would that solve the enrollment problem?

[6692] Tracey Vackar: So yes and maybe at the at the CTE level, it would solve it. It wouldn't necessarily solve it, though, for the other whole classes that you have. Like, you have to have your core academic classes that go with the CPA program, which is something that you don't have in your current CTE thing. Like, your cohort's not required to have its own separate language arts or to have its own separate social science class to go along with it. The CPA program that's designed is supposed to also have a core academic section that go along with it, and the students that are in that CPA all go through those classes. So when you're small also in your CTE classes, you're also small in your core academics.

[6733] Aiden Hill: So you're saying that this MCA pathway has other specific course requirements that are outside of the pathway?

[6742] Tracey Vackar: Yes, which has made it very, very difficult for us to maintain, especially one with having declining enrollment and then adding to that, I think, some of the competition with a lot of the other programs that are offered that our students are required to meet mastery on in order to be able to graduate.

[6759] Aiden Hill: But could you just, I mean, I don't know whether the California Department of Education has actually clearly defined, okay, it's sort of this multivariate pathway. Can you just simply say, here's the two or three classes in it, and then the other things are just going to be your standard A to G requirements?

[6779] Tracey Vackar: Then it becomes a CTE pathway is one of the recommendations that was on there.

[6783] Aiden Hill: Okay.

[6784] Tracey Vackar: And basically we walk away from that funding because that funding says that the district's committing to have core academic classes that are pure by the number of students that are actually entered into the MCA academy.

[6795] Aiden Hill: Okay, I understand. Thank you.

[6797] Nancy Thomas: I looked at the master schedule from last year and there were some non-MCA students that were put in some of our core courses for MCA.

[6807] Tracey Vackar: Things that could put us into trouble with the program that you're not supposed to do. I realize sometimes it happens if you get a program review

[6814] Kat Jones: you know CDE can do everything I'm asking you to pay back the money or discontinue yeah you know how that goes so if my understanding is correct the class sizes are do tend to be smaller based on the numbers here and then I'm looking at the review of the high D and F great are those great that students are getting there's quite a few D's and F's so so my question is if those classes are so small why are Why are we having D's and F's when those classes are smaller and there should be more individualized attention for those students? Just a question.

[6856] Michael Murphy: Agreed. Good point. What typically happens is when we get cohorts that come in, 10th grade, four or five want to peel off. They're like, this is not what I signed up for. I didn't realize it. And they'll get out. By the time they get to 11th grade, the way our system's set up, 11th and 12th are the years that count for the with the CTE certifications, and they'll start peeling off at 11th grade. The slide that you saw with the mark graphs and such, you started out with a cohort of 50, and it ended with 19. And the thing of it is, is this, and I've talked to Dr. Cliff, I just call him Cliff, the guy from MVROP, great guy we've been talking about, like, this is something that we're not the only school dealing with this. Irvington had a program, I don't know what it was, but they had something similar, and sometimes there's a lot of restrictions placed on you that restrict you from being able to be a little more free with getting your numbers up. I will tell you this. The fiscal impact for last year when we kept MCA, we had to bring three teachers back. It's a three FTE fiscal cost if it's anything like last year. So there's that piece. The other piece is I've been very clear with Cliff. I've been clear with Vivian, with everybody else. This rebuilding year, we need to get our pathways in order. We need to be taking advantage of ROP. Not really, but I mean, we need to work with those guys and develop. I would argue a pathway like, here's our pathways. This is what we do well. The way we're identifying kids for this program, the kids are going to, they come in and it's like, okay, well, you're implanted. Well, where else can I go? Well, where's this? And it's like, that's not the point of it. This is supposed to be a really cool, awesome program where kids can learn in a different way using arts, media, and entertainment, that CTE piece, so that they can show, demonstrate of mastery and knowledge and all that through this other alternative spectrum and it's not to the fault of the teachers it's just how things over time have evolved and it's unfair but I'm going to say what I'm arguing is we got to get that CTE pathway cleaned up in a way that it's clear and do that with other pathways because ultimately I think the kids if it were me we need to take a real serious look at what kind of pathways could we really entertain at our site with our numbers working with NVROP and making things work. So the kids are going to walk out there either with their AP classes, diploma, or they can come away with this piece as well, whatever pathway that is. And that's something I've talked with Cliff like that's something we're going to entertain next year for the reboot. I mean, there's a lot of really cool opportunities out there. I get excited about it.

[7018] Kat Jones: All right. Are we ready to go to our last topic?

[7025] Michael Murphy: Okay, APEX.

[7030] SPEAKER_32: That's me. All right. What is APEX? APEX Learning offers a range of online courses that have been reviewed and approved to meet A through G requirements. As you know, this approval ensures that students using APEX Learning's curriculum can satisfy necessary prerequisites for UC admissions. Here in Newark, we use it for credit recovery. So...

[7055] SPEAKER_32: mainly so for example Newark Memorial Bridgepoint and previously the adult school we use it for to look at electives to take world languages math social studies English language arts and the sciences excellent our current data shows that we have a total of 160 students accessing apex 167 courses are active and access what does that mean it means that students have logged in and started their course of study It's really small, I know. So if you take a look, basically the teal blue is the time that kids spend on instruction. The dark blue is the time that they spend on taking the assessment. And I need to figure out what the other is. But what you see also... Yeah.

[7111] SPEAKER_32: All right. And so as you can see... The dark blue is much larger than the teal in terms of instruction. And there may be multiple reasons for this. It could be that because this is credit recovery, kids have already seen the material. So they're moving through it quickly. And they're getting to the assessments. It also could be because they're currently not doing the embedded assignment as well. So they're skipping. So between instruction and assessment, it should be at 50-50.

[7148] SPEAKER_32: Next slide. And so the staff recommendation is here. Staff will receive annual training to define clear goals and expectations for the use of APEX courses within NUSD in alignment with, this is a draft NUSD APEX policy that we created. Principal or admin designee is responsible for the implementation of the program. Mastery based learning is set to 85% for Newark Memorial High School for Alt-Ed. Incorporate study guides and, of course, exam for students to use and turn it to ensure mastery of content. That's the embedded assignments that I was talking about. And then students will be limited to a maximum of two APEX courses per year.

[7194] SPEAKER_32: However, there are potential impacts to this decision that we would like board input on.

[7208] Yes.

[7209] Aiden Hill: So my formal training in terms of business is I actually studied about manufacturing and supply chain processes and one of the things that you're taught when you learn about that is you learn about processes and you learn about creating efficiencies and they talk about they use the analogy of a river and they talk about how when a river is at a very high level all the boats can just float down and there's no issues but if you really want to get to efficiency what you do is you start to lower the river level and then you start to see the rocks and so those are the inefficiencies and by lowering the river level you can identify those inefficiencies you can tackle them and you keep going down and down until pretty soon you've got a super efficient process so my view about on Apex is basically we're keeping the river super high we're just trying to float as many students through graduation as possible and quite frankly I think we're doing a disservice because I think that you know again anybody that's been in the classroom knows that having you know primarily online instruction is not effective and quite frankly even despite the recommendations that you have there I don't think that it is going to improve actually academic true academic outcomes and knowledge retention and also I think the potential you're going to continue to have rampant cheating and so the question I have is why don't we just rip the band-aid off and let's say okay let's go back to making sure that kids are in courses taught by a teacher and and that we and that we require them to graduate from those courses we don't have essentially a safety release valve that lets them go into an easier path because if we force the students through conventional instruction and we see failures, what that means is we've now identified the rocks. We've now identified the problems and then we can start working on them. But if we don't do that, if we have a safety release valve, we're never going to get to the root problem of any instructional issues. And quite frankly, the quality of our education is going to be subpar. And so I really think that we ought to look at just getting rid of it. So that's my opinion.

[7359] Austin Block: I really appreciate these recommendations I feel like they're responding to a lot of the issues that have come up regarding apex I had a question one thing that I know that's become more popular as chat GPT and other easy forms of cheating are becoming common is the use of lockdown browsers to ensure that students can only be on the one tab where the assignment is to prevent those types of things from occurring I I I understand the need for something like APEX I mean shifting everything back to a teacher and a classroom without any sort of in between I think is a pretty dramatic reform that would have major consequences and I think that if these things are properly normed and if students are actually kind of monitored in the process it can actually have some value certainly it's not of the same value as core classroom instruction but having administered these types of programs before in previous jobs, you know, it can serve a function if needed. I'm wondering just about, so in addition to these recommendations, is there some way of locking students' computers and only permitting them to work on it in a lockdown browser under teacher supervision to ensure that no further plagiarism or cheating occurs?

[7440] Michael Murphy: Under this program, unfortunately not. I will say Apex was bought out originally by Play-Doh. I don't know if you ever heard of Play-Doh, but Clayton was the look like you're playing Oregon Trail back in the day. Had those kind of graphics. Great curriculum. That was one of your early late 90s, early 2000s models. Apex bought it out. Used the curriculum. Did a great job. But they've not modernized to the demand of what our concerns are.

[7468] Tracey Vackar: Actually, they may have. They've just merged with Edgenuity. So there may be some new tools coming out. But to answer your question, I was going to ask our IT staff, see what we can do, even on our platform.

[7480] Nancy Thomas: I tend to agree with member Hill that insofar is the high schools concerned I don't do not believe that we should be having students that are struggling otherwise to have an after-school program to take apex on top of everything else they're doing I think if if we do use APEX it should be with a teacher in the classroom that is a subject matter expert in a summer school or at our continuation high school.

[7523] Nancy Thomas: I just cannot agree with continuing this program after school.

[7534] Joy Lee: My understanding of APEX was that it was like an educational equality things, equity things. So it's like you're able to get credit recovery because originally if you wanted to get credit recovery, you would have to go pay money. But then this apex allowed you to get credit recovery without having to pay, like it kind of allows it to be equal. It allows you to get credit recovery despite what kind of economic class you are. That's the argument. that would be made to keep APEX.

[7575] Tracey Vackar: The other thing is staff is also continuing to look at some other platforms.

[7578] Tracey Vackar: One of the ones that we're looking at is one called Subject as well to see how it compares for its fidelity as well.

[7589] Kat Jones: Okay. Yeah, I found the slide 41 on the data with the instruction versus the assessment. That was actually kind of scary to look at because what that tells me is somebody's just repeating the test over and over and over and over again until they get a good enough score on it and that's not the point of doing something like this so if you know if we're looking at minimizing you can you know you get two attempts that's it or you know but coming up with some way that the instruction and the assessment is definitely no more than 50 percent each and I would even prefer to see 60% instruction and you've got 40% chance of, you know, like reversing what the statistics are there. Because the point is not to keep taking it until you've, you know, either snapped a picture or written down the answers or whatever, but that we have to really, because then what's the point? There is no point. It's basically, it's an APEX cheating program.

[7656] Tracey Vackar: So a couple things we learned, we actually met with APEX and spent some time going back and looking at data over the past few years and how things were set. So let me just share with you some information. APEX was set by our administration many years ago at a 60% level for passing. That means kids only had to have a 60% pass rate. What that meant is that really students could sit there and goof off really in class, which I think has been shared with us by frustrated teachers here in our district. And basically what they are looking forward to is being able to go take this quick course and and basically just jump ahead and just take assessments until they finally pass an assessment that's a piece that was kind of sitting out there so looking at passing rate of being 60% really made us go back and say like we don't want this to be the primary way that kids learn and yet for many kids it's become the primary way that they were getting through and no different than what you just alluded to board member Hill and board member Thomas that's not what our purpose is our purpose is to make sure that we have actually prepared students in a 60% Preparation is not preparing. That is a D minus. We feel that it needs to be set at a much higher standard. Initially, we're looking at 85% for Newark Memorial High School and 80% for Alt-Ed. However, it's actually aligned to the actual course code is what staff was, we were talking about this morning. And so it actually has to have the same number for what we're going to actually go off and vet that at if we were going to offer it, whether it's offered either as an alternative school or offered over at the high school. It needs to have the same passing rate for what what we would be doing based on that course and the course that goes with it. But basically, students would have to complete the course. We can set the standard so that they must complete all sections of the course. Again, we don't want students to think that the alternative class is an easier route. It's like the Cliff Notes. And really, that's what we have set up here. And so we want kids to know that it's important to get your first instruction, to have those really in-depth conversations, to have the quality lessons that are taught by our teachers, to have those enriched discussions that occur and to be able to show your work. It's really a part of the whole rites of passage is you work through high school and you demonstrate your abilities. So with that, you know, we recognize that there's things that we can reset. And by the way, it's set to a much higher standard across the majority of high schools throughout California than where we had ours set. So we can definitely set those things and we can make a change. It does meet the A through G requirements so that students can use this. But we also want to make sure 60% doesn't matter if you have A through G. It's not going to help you get yourself in the door to a college if you're only getting a 60% passage. A D minus isn't going to get you there when they start looking at your grades when you're applying for colleges. So we want to make sure that the rigor and the standard is really there if we're going to use and call it A through G and make sure that it meets that and that the students have met and demonstrated. So I just want to be able to throw those pieces out out there. I was really concerned when I met with the APEC staff. I did appreciate the fact that they went back into history over time and talked to us about the number of courses that were taken, and it's not okay. I don't want this being done on my watch anymore. I can tell you it needs to have more rigor tied to it. It needs to have a higher standard set.

[7861] Kat Jones: I cheated, and I looked at the next page about the summer, and I see use Go Guardian, and that was great.

[7869] Michael Murphy: We actually use that currently. when the kids are working on quizzes and such. When they do the tests, I'll go through all that so it'll explain what they're proposing.

[7876] Michael Murphy: No, no, that's the gate kid.

[7881] Aiden Hill: And I think the other thing that ought to be considered, I mean, obviously I'm old school and really think that this is a substandard educational tool, but if we are going to keep it, I think that not only do we need to do things like setting a higher standard for passing to eight-year or 85%, but in addition to that, we really need to have rigorous oversight at the district office. We need to have people in educational services monitoring this, and I think that also that we should not be using this as a tool to improve our graduation rates. If we are becoming a diploma mill, what's the point? So we should not be thinking about this as a way to increase graduation rates. It is a way to increase mastery. And I think that we need to have an independent essentially entity monitoring and auditing this on a regular basis.

[7950] Tracey Vackar: Actually, it's not on here, but something I would actually recommend is that we actually bring back frequent board reports to you. We could tell you by semester what's happening with this. There's no reason for you not to have a report and for us talking about how many attempts were made what were the courses how did students do what was the passage rate we should be looking at this and it's something if we're going to use an alternative route it's something that we should be having conversations about and we should be studying and no different than the ILT teams at the high schools both at the comprehensive and continuation should be looking at this as well this should be a really great discussion because this should be the exception not the rule and unfortunately kids that aren't passing the classes this has become more their rule and part of what they do in order to be able to get past and be able to graduate.

[7995] Aiden Hill: And another thing that we haven't been following and that I think is critical is that when we have an APEX course offered, it needs to be monitored by a teacher of record that has the credential in that particular area. And we've been skating around those requirements and so we will have multiple kids taking multiple classes from one teacher and the whole concept is that if a kid doesn't understand something, that they can come and talk to a subject matter expert and get guidance and clarity. But right now, the way that our system is set up, that's not possible. So if we're talking about implementing this, we need to do it with fidelity. Or I shouldn't say implement, but continue.

[8039] Tracey Vackar: Agreed.

[8041] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: All right. One last comment, just really quick. Also, just a recommendation for either Saturday school or something, if if Apex continues for that to be an option, because we do not like to go to Saturday school. And as high schools, that's for a fact. And that could be something that could go ahead and put the students on the spot to really think about what is it that we're doing, right? And they're gonna go ahead and give more effort to the 85%. So either that or summer school, so.

[8080] Michael Murphy: So let me add to what you all have been adding thus far and talk about summer school and the reality on our end of it, so full transparency and such. I hear that you guys are looking at, if you want to keep Apex, I hear that there's a conversation possibly at two. That's fine. Do you know that with summer school, we operate two summer schools at the same time. There's Bridgepoint, who has different requirements than does Newark Memorial. I've been doing summer school the last couple years I've got a little bit of flexibility what I can do with them because they're unique also they don't have access to Apex as much as the high school kids do the concern that I have if we lock down and go straight to the 10 you get 10 units that's it per year if that's the route we want to go that's fine I get it the concern I have and I'll just be just up front with it we're going to get our seniors through this year the concern is the increase coming seniors next year who are currently juniors should you go to the 10 and say hey we're not we're not doing this what we've been doing it's going to be two it will directly impact a lot of those kids and my only question the thing I request is I mean it's you guys to think about this but is with those current juniors who are going to go into senior year should we change that midstream or changing the goalpost on them as they come up to that that next year the sophomores the current sophomores and the current freshmen they're young enough they can whatever they can go with the 10 whatever happens to them they can go to Bridgepoint and they can still come back but the juniors they go they're not coming back for many of them depending on their circumstances so that's the one thing I just I do want to caution on because you don't want any pitchforks and torches coming this way but you know it is something to really consider to think about so not asking for an answer now but I'm just tossing it at you the other thing I bring up the two things and I'll say with and I'll be quiet I'm sorry I can't The two things at Bridgepoint we run into the issues, why APEX is helpful, they have variable credits. They're not earning like five units at every shot. They're gonna be half a unit here, a unit and a half there, or a unit and quarter. That's a nightmare, especially when the kids come, you gotta add all that up and figure out where they're at. That's where APEX comes in helpful. The other piece is that electives. We don't offer electives during the summer other than PE. It becomes an issue for kids that need electives, particularly SPED students. We do recognize that Want to raise the bar to 85 across the board? Get it. Want to include the paperwork piece on that? No problem. My biggest concern is the juniors. The other kids are old enough.

[8244] Aiden Hill: The quicker we expose the rocks and the river, the quicker we can get a crane to take them out.

[8252] Michael Murphy: Absolutely. And you know what? It's going to set the bar. This is the expectation. Students will rise to the expectation

[8260] Michael Murphy: that you give them. Any other questions? Yours are probably dying hearing us.

[8269] Joy Lee: So to clarify, we're going to change it, implement it for the sophomores and not the juniors?

[8277] Kat Jones: That would be part of the research. If you look back at the slide that asks for, that talks about the APACs would like to have a discussion with the board and board input. So, yeah, there needs to be further discussion as to how that would work. That would be with staff and with board in terms of maybe we come up with, you know, it's 10 moving forward, but for the sophomores on, 15, or, you know, for the juniors. But coming up with potentially some kind of an option, but looking at how many kids are affected and what

[8320] Joy Lee: I'm for all exposing the rocks in the river but I also think we should be careful not to jump it on the juniors and like they're like oh no where am I going to find all these credits all of a sudden in a year I think there's a country music song in that description you just gave alright so are we ready to pretty much conclude the study session at this point alright thank

[8349] Kat Jones: all right as we move forward and reconvene into open session it is 744 and we're going to be moving forward and with that we are going to start with Pledge of Allegiance so Ms.

3.1 Pledge of Allegiance

[8383] Joy Lee: Joy would you please do the honors I'd be honored to 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 I do apologize

3.2 Meeting Practices and Information

[8409] Kat Jones: our state flag is in the library from our board retreat on Saturday but you know California is important so I appreciate you all participating in that even though our flag was in the other room we actually have a flag out front and there's that's true and there's a flag out front as well all right as we move to the approval of the agenda I'd like to ask for if anyone would like to pull an item and if not then I'd like to have a motion please yes actually staff would like to pull a few items off we would like to pull 10.3 10.4 10.5 and 10.6 from the agenda we'll be bringing back those at a later date it's actually missing some information that's necessary 10.3 10.4 10.5 and 10.6 okay so may I have a motion for 10.2 personnel report oh no I'm sorry personnel report is the only thing left on 10.0 So with the approval of the agenda for all sections except 10.3 through 6.

4.1 Approval of the Agenda

[8508] Nancy Thomas: I move.

[8513] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: I second.

[8518] Kat Jones: Okay. Member Thomas moves and Member Anguiano seconds. Ms. Toya may we take a vote please. Yes.

[8529] Member

[8531] Toya Lemus: MEMBER HILL FOR PERSONNEL FOR PERSONNEL OH NO NO THIS IS JUST AGENDA APPROVAL I'M SORRY WE PULLED ITEMS FROM THE PERSONNEL REPORT WE PULLED ITEMS FROM THAT SECTION MY APOLOGY STUDENT BOARD MEMBER LEE YES MEMBER HILL YES MEMBER ALGIANO YES MEMBER BLOCK YES MEMBER THOMAS YES PRESIDENT JONES YES

5.1 Student Report: Student Board Member, Joy Lee

[8560] Joy Lee: Six ayes all right motion carries with Six ayes all right member joy thank you so much good evening board members executive cabinet and our beloved Newark community so last week was our hats multicultural multicultural week which took place last week there were dress-up days lunch activities and food fair with the week with our hats assembly and our night rally. Thank you to community members who were able to make it and I hope you guys really enjoyed the performance. We had a total of over 100 students performing with many students actually performing in several different clubs. We had clubs like Mecha, Filipino Student Union, Tahitian, Vietnamese Student Union, Black Student Union who performed. Thank you to all the community members who were able to attend once again and shout out to Harnor and Kaylee as well as Ms. Canales who were able to plan this amazing event the Pundit Club at the high school collaborated with the urban forest friends to help beautify our city by planting trees on March 8th at Matthews Landing Park with 55 volunteers we they we were able to plant 20 trees in total and then also today at the interact the there was a rotary speech contest and our students were able to go and present a speech do you know who won I okay yeah and so for our upcoming events our Newark Memorial High School drama presents Blythe Spirit by Noel Coward directed by Grant Ewing there are three shows that will be available to come and watch Friday March 28th Saturday March 29th each at 7pm Sunday Sunday on March 20th at 2pm it will be at the Newark Memorial Theater and tickets are on sale so please go and buy they're available at the door and on and like we've been talking about WASC will be also arriving soon so the students at Newark Memorial High School are also getting ready because Principal Murphy is talking about it a lot and moving on this year's prom theme is the Midnight Gala and it'll be held at the San Francisco Exploratorium on April 5th from 7 to 11 p.m. Students are very excited to go to go next Cougar Olympics a fierce competition between our classes will be held from April 7th to April 11th each day during lunchtime classes will be going against each other in sports like bubble soccer basketball and basketball lastly the Newark Memorial Cougars will take on their rivals the James Logan Colts in a game at the iconic San Francisco Oracle Park this game will occur on Saturday April 12th at noon the Cougars currently have a goal to reach 1000 the minimum price for a ticket will be $25 but it also includes a complimentary ticket to our high school game to one high school game on April 12th and a ticket to watch the San Francisco Giants at any of their home games this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for our Cougars baseball so please I urge you guys to consider buying tickets on GoFan to have an unforgettable time thank you so much for listening

6.1 Employee Organizations

[8771] Kat Jones: Thank you so much. Let's see. We have employee organizations. NTA?

[8778] Cheri Villa: All right. We have two speakers. Another one with me. So I'll go first, and then Mark Steiner will follow up. All right. In terms to the items that were pulled from the agenda, but in the spirit of that same topic around negotiations and compensation, our NTA members and also I'm gonna include our CSE brothers and sisters on the backbone of the school district. I mean, no disrespect when I say it, but you guys are not the backbone of our district. Again, no disrespect

[8830] Cheri Villa: but our executive cabinet is not the backbone of our district. We are the ones that have and continue to keep what's left of this district together. And while you've heard me say this in previous messages, I'm gonna say it every chance that I get that the chaos that continues to come out of this district office, we are the ones that keep it away from our sites and our students. our members we we don't get the option to work from home one or twice a week if our boss approves it we haven't been extended an invitation to start our holiday vacation early on the friday before vacation if we wanted to we write or you write into our district goals year after year attract to retain quality teachers and then do nothing it's worth just words, just words. I know that when I'm evaluated and if I write down my professional growth goals and do nothing, my overall evaluation will be not effective. And then I'll be put into advisory. And if I do it again, make a goal in that and do nothing. Now, not only is it not effective, but no longer employ a teacher in this district. That's what you're doing year after year. you know having competitive salaries it's not just going to allow our members to live here and put food on their table it's going to send a message to our people your employees that we see you we recognize the work that you do and we're willing to support you that's what that's going to do so our executive cabinet salaries when we gratified and you guys who has approved the contract in 2023, early 2023, the salaries for the positions in our executive cabinet since then till now have increased by 6% since then. That's on top of the 16% that they got too, those positions, not you, the positions. So these positions are getting salary increases on top of the 16 but not your employees, our people. We're not getting that. So, you know, when it comes to where our priorities are, where our district goals are, investing in your employees, that should be the goal. Not I-Ready. Not a new curriculum.

[9005] Cheri Villa: Your teachers.

[9010] Thank you.

[9016] SPEAKER_03: Good evening once again, board and district staff. Two days ago, I was made aware of a rather disturbing piece of information. The superintendent is asking the school board to vote for no additional compensation for NTA for this 2024-2025 school year tonight. I know that item was removed, but I'm deeply disturbed. When our current contract was negotiated three years ago, the district and NTA agreed to reopen negotiation for this year's salary. We did this in good faith that the district would follow through on its obligations to negotiate with us. Over the past two years, there's been so much staff turnover at the district office that the district cannot effectively negotiate with the teachers union. The union has repeatedly tried to negotiate with the district to no avail. Once again, the teachers and community are bearing the cost of the district's ineptitude. In my 11 years as a teacher at Newark Memorial High School, I've had five different superintendents and over 12 principals. The district staff comes and goes. Administrators come and go. But Newark teachers remain year after year because we are dedicated to this community. Many Newark teachers are products of Newark schools. Many Newark teachers live in Newark as well. Newark teachers are part of the very fabric of this community. Newark teachers are the district's greatest asset. It's not programs, not technology, and not professional development. I love Newark, and I want to spend the rest of my teaching career in Newark, and I want to continue to continue living in Newark, but I can barely afford to live here. My wife is a teacher in Fremont, and why they get paid more than Newark teachers is not much more. Neither one of us receives health benefits, so we are one medical disaster from being in dire straits. Every extra dollar we get is necessary for us to continue living in the community we love, so much so that I work summer school and teach six-fifths to make ends meet. The superintendent and school board's decision tonight regarding teacher salaries affecting teachers, it's affecting an entire community. And when the district staff inevitably ends up getting new, higher paying jobs in bigger districts, it's the newer teachers who are left behind to pick up the pieces caused by an inept school district. It's a cycle that repeats every few years with this district. This vote sets a dangerous precedent in which the district can feign ineptitude to get out of negotiating with the teachers union. Your decision today will affect future generations generations of teachers and students in Newark. We already have far too many long-term substitutes and emergency credentials in this district because we are dysfunctional and low-paying. In the most recent senior exit survey at Newark Memorial, several students mentioned they want actual teachers, not substitutes. And if you fail to fairly compensate teachers in Newark, you will continue to lose highly qualified teachers to higher-paying districts like Fremont Unified and New Haven. Do you really want this? And if you think NTA is going to lay down without for fair compensation we have not yet begun to fight we will organize we will stand up for what's right and we will make sure this community gets the absolute best thank you yeah I just ask a clarifying question and and that is so I understand that when we talk about labor

[9225] Aiden Hill: negotiations that that's a closed session item but I keep hearing you know issues about like well we're not setting dates and that kind of thing and I just want to kind of understand so do we have specific dates to set to sit down and talk with our various unions just this week we have started to get some dates on the calendar for NTA we're ready when they're ready great thank you

[9256] Cheri Villa: Marcus's, his words, they reminded me of five of our teachers. Craig Ashmore, Yvette Haley, Hilda Aguilar, Tom Collette, Patricia Lemler. Those are our top five teachers on our seniority list. Our salary schedule goes to 25 years. So for the last five years, those teachers haven't been getting a salary increase at all. And pretty soon, the next... The rest of our first page of our seniority list, they'll hit the bottom of the salary schedule. So their salary will not see an increase, but they're still here. So to those five teachers, thank you.

[9303] Cheri Villa: You should thank them too.

Pause: 11.3s

[9315] Kat Jones: Thank you.

[9315] Kat Jones: CSEA, please.

[9321] Kat Jones: NEWMA.

[9329] Jodi Croce: Good evening President Jones, members of the board and executive cabinet. My name is Jody and I'm here on behalf of NEWMA. Tonight NEWMA is excited to extend our congratulations to the Newark Unified School District NEWMA Administrator of the Year Awardees for 2425. We're so proud of each and every one of them. The Elementary Principal of the Year is Amanda Goliard.

[9357] Jodi Croce: The Secondary Co-Administrator of the Year, Rachel Kahoali'i.

[9371] Jodi Croce: Central Office Administrator of the Year, Leonore Rubasora. Confidential Employee of the Year,

[9381] Jodi Croce: Maddie Pym, and our Classified Manager of the Year, Ashley Acosta. We have submitted our nomination packets to those in the ACSA Region 6 for a regional level award, so cross your fingers if we stop and hurry. We will honor our award winners at our next NEWMA chapter meeting on Thursday, March 20th, and we look forward to seeing and seeing our fellow NEWMA members to help us celebrate.

[9414] Jodi Croce: Thank you.

7.1 Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items

[9420] Kat Jones: Thank you. All right, as we move on to public comment, we have... I'm sorry, what?

[9439] Jose Quintana: I've filled the card for 6.1.

[9442] Kat Jones: yeah I just said we were moving on to public comment oh I'm sorry I'm falling I'm falling okay yeah you would be coming you would come under the non agenda no that is an agenda item so I that's why it got put in the pile for agenda items and But if you want to speak now, that's fine. Because, you know, citizens have the right to speak on any... No, I was just holding... No, I got it. I was following my protocol. Thank you.

[9490] Cary Knoop: Yeah, so employee organizations or, you know, they're advocates for employees. Not everybody is able to negotiate a contract with a private lawyer to say, I want $200,000 or $300,000 to $400,000. And the whole idea is that we have organizations that take care of our teachers and also take care of staff. So the first thing you need to do is to respect those organizations. You can negotiate as tough as you want, but you need to respect those organizations.

[9521] Cary Knoop: As is already mentioned, the teachers and staff, they're the backbone of our organization. So when I see that a shallow every schedule is put on the agenda while you're in the middle of negotiations. That's just crazy. And I just wonder who came up with this? In the middle of negotiations you're putting, saying we're not gonna give raises. And you know these are retroactive potential raises. Now the board is responsible for the agenda. You can't say well somebody made me do it. The board is responsible. And in particular, the president and vice president. I don't know what went wrong. Maybe the president and the vice president thought it was a good idea. I don't want to speak for them. But this is outrageous. When you're negotiating with somebody, you need to be truthful and honest. And you can't just play these kind of games. This is really a game in my mind. And, you know, I'm glad it's removed from the from the agenda but it's I think the district ought to apologize to the labor negotiations including the board thank you thank you I do thank you for the opportunity just to be able to give a clarification I think the purpose of the salary schedule is a

[9622] Tracey Vackar: a little different than what's been portrayed here. And so first of all, I do want to apologize that there was a miscommunication on it. But the purpose is that we are supposed to list our salary schedule. It's something that's required to be on our website. And currently, the one that's sitting up there is from last year. This is a salary that we've been paying people off of. With that said, we also recognize that it was missing that it should have had an asterisk that said that we're currently going through negotiations. And I apologize that that bullet was missing but the purpose of the salary schedule is to have it up there. It's actually something that's used by STRS and PERS to ensure that we actually have our salaries there and that they're aligned. We recently went through an audit with both PERS and STRS where they looked at that and that was one of the things that they asked us to make sure that we made sure that that got put up there but it was missing an asterisk that said that pending negotiations for 23-24 the salary schedule was subject to change. That's our error. We pulled it down. It was meant with a good intention. Thank you.

[9688] Kat Jones: Let's see. 7.1, which is non-agenda items.

[9692] Kat Jones: Araceli Loza.

[9703] SPEAKER_20: Good evening, everyone. My name is Araceli Loza. I'm a district employee for 24 years. I'm I'm a Newark resident. My husband and I, we own five single family homes. My kids, I have three children. They went to Newark schools. All of them. My first one went to Stanford University. My second one went to UC Santa Cruz. My third one is in the middle school. Last like two, three years take away math advanced class from middle school. That affects my daughter. Now I see all these changes that you want to make at the high school. My daughter is going to high school next year.

[9763] SPEAKER_20: That will affect my daughter again. Last Monday, I called the middle school to find out out when promotion will be for middle school. They don't have date yet. Schedules get in advance.

[9780] SPEAKER_20: This time of the year, you don't have the date for promotion? Two months and one week, and you don't have the date yet or the place for the middle school promotion? As an employee, see your schedule, in the state, food service can make $16.60 an hour.

[9812] SPEAKER_20: California said $17 plus minimum wage. I watched every Singapore meeting for 24 years.

[9830] SPEAKER_20: Maybe my English is not the best. but this is not fair for employees that we dedicate a slide for you guys. And I still waiting for my email from Mr. Guitana about my health insurance benefits clarification from December. And update for my schedules. And I hear for President John's, Kat John's, that one custodian is not doing her job and I want a clarification in that too. because we have many custodians. This is not fair for us. And you have spent a lot of time talking about custodians more than thinking about how you can cut custodians and implement or how you can accommodate like two setups a day in elementary schools.

[9887] SPEAKER_20: Thank you.

[9894] Applause

[9896] Kat Jones: Thank you.

[9897] Kat Jones: Maria Diaz-Mendola.

Pause: 16.3s

[9915] Maria Diaz-Mendola: Good evening, interim superintendent McCarr, executive cabinet, board members, and student member Lee. My name is Maria Diaz-Mendola, and I am one of the software support specialists that is in charge of our student information system and CalPADS. I'm here again tonight to address the board regarding my position, which was brought before you on February 18th to be laid off. I received my pink slip on Thursday, March 13th. I would like to respectfully remind you of the California Education Code 45308, which states the following. Classified employees may be laid off due to lack of work or lack of funds. These are the only two reasons that classified staff can be reduced. Nowhere in this ed code does it say you can lay off classified employees and take that work to create a management position. The fact that the district wishes to create a new position confirms the need for my position. I strongly encourage the board to reconsider taking this action as it will be in direct violation of ed code. I care deeply about the students, staff and community of Newark Unified School District. I would greatly appreciate it if you would take the time to reconsider the decision to lay off my position as it is very much needed at NUSD. Thank you.

[9988] SPEAKER_09: Thank you.

[9994] Kat Jones: Robin Kalbata.

[10000] SPEAKER_31: Glad to see I have the timer this time. Dear board members, great to see you all here tonight. Thank you for having me speak. My name is Robin Kalbata and I'm a homeowner in Newark, a teacher and a parent of three children. My husband and I both work for Newark it was brought to my attention last week that my son who is a junior at Newark Memorial High School was informed that he may not have a math class to take next year. Our administrative staff feels they should not offer a class and pay someone to teach calculus BC because the class does not have 25 students. Calculus BC is the only math course my son can take as a senior as he is currently taking calculus AB with Ms. Carr and he is currently enrolled in a second math course AP stats with Mr. Hacker. The 20 24-25 Calculus BC class has 17 students in it this year. 17, not 25. I'm sorry. My daughter took the same class last year, 23-24, with 21 students. And this is projected number of students for my son's class next year. My eldest son took this math class in 2022. And there were 23 students in the Calculus BC class. Again, not 25 students. All three of my children worked very hard while while attending Newark schools and we chose to stay in this district because of advanced placement courses offered at the high school along with fabulous teachers. Our district cannot water down the math curriculum and expect families to stay or have new families enroll their children if you cannot offer higher level coursework like our surrounding districts. For students applying to colleges and universities, they expect students who take four years of math and beyond in most cases. and Fremont offer Calculus BC and after that they offer multivariable calculus and linear algebra. We cannot have our students taking three years of math and I believe that they can get into difficult fields such as math and science, engineering, medicine with three years of high school math. We will be unable to send our students to Cal States, UCs and private schools if we do not provide them with four years of math instruction. The bigger question we need to ask ourselves is why do we not have more students for students entering advanced math classes. It is not a question to ask our high school math teachers. It's too late by then. Our middle school math teachers, same thing. We need to start much earlier looking at our math curriculum and our instruction in TK-5. We need to have a strong math foundation and an early learning start in these early grades with good practice and daily homework. Daily homework. Students must have rigorous instruction in all content areas and daily practice is pertinent. Instruction needs to take place all day in the classroom and students need to be fully engaged.

[10173] SPEAKER_31: Thank you for your time and thank you for making the best decision for our students.

[10184] Kat Jones: Thank you.

[10186] Kat Jones: Mr. Knoop.

[10192] Cary Knoop: Thank you for that talk. Thank you so much. yeah unfortunately in California there are people who want to dumb down math intentionally for political reasons it happens folks what I want to talk about is these workshops and in specific time management so I see we have this new clock with this little bell maybe we should do the same thing for the board so when you have a workshop for one and a half hours the little bell should go and then the meeting should start at seven o'clock it's disrespectful to the public that the public the public part of the meeting should start at seven o'clock period. It can be five minutes later, but not 45 minutes or in the last meeting where we started a quarter past nine. So please, time management or get a little bell and get it sorted out. In addition, when you have a workshop, that should be a friendly discussion. And I don't know what's going on. I really felt, and I don't blame anybody, but I really felt that some people presented their programs in defense. And that's not the way a workshop should work. A workshop should be about what are the programs about? What are the pros and the cons of the program? It's not about something being on the chopping block, if you will. If the board in the future decides, and they have that prerogative to chop programs, the workshop is not the time to discuss that. The workshop is to get information, to understand what the programs do, the way things are measured, asking questions. So I felt it was very forced. I think a lot of people felt being very defensive for reasons that, you know, they felt that maybe something was in jeopardy and that's just not a good way to do a workshop. So in the future, do workshops where it's a discussion about understanding what these programs are and if you want to make political decisions later, that's something for later, but not for the workshop.

[10310] Cary Knoop: Thank you.

Pause: 12.7s

[10328] Kat Jones: Sue Eustace?

[10337] SPEAKER_21: Good evening. I'm Sue Eustace and in case you don't know who I am, I've been in the school district for 46 years in one capacity or another. But I'm here tonight to speak to you as the Taiko teacher in the adult ed department. I came to the special ed department when Greg Clark brought Taiko to the adult ed department. I came over and started working with him and within six months he decided to move to Alabama and so I ended up taking it over. Prior to that I ran your warehouse. I retired in 2010 and so I've been here in and I've been as a classified employee for 32 years. I'm now 23 years as a taiko teacher. So we have a wonderful program that teaches Japanese drumming. That's what taiko is. We also not only study the art of playing taiko, but we teach the history of taiko and about Japan and how taiko is an integral part of every community that they are in. So Wydigo Newark is the performing name for the students who perform, who want to perform. So I thought I would come to you tonight and let you know kind of where they're going to be performing. They are going to be performing at the Newark, it's the Newark Education Foundation event at Newark Memorial High School. is going to be on the outdoor stage April 12th at 1 p.m. We also will be performing at Fremont Creates on Sunday, April 27th. I don't have a time. I just know that we have a spot, and it'll be somewhere between 11 and 3.30, and that will be at their event center. I believe it's on state and capital. May 25th, we will be performing at the San Ramon Art and Wind Festival. This is our third year doing that. It's a wonderful event. We'll be on the main stage and we're gonna be performing from 11 to 11.45. Now, we just don't perform, but we also go into the schools, the elementary schools. We started this year Kennedy. We did an assembly there first for them. And then my husband went back in and he did a drumming class with every class there. It took him three days to do it. But he certainly enjoyed himself. We've been in contact with Coyote Hills. Oh, sorry. Okay. I will give up. Sorry. Do you want me to finish? It's almost done. Go ahead. Okay. So we're hoping to get into every single elementary school here in Newark. And so we also, I do an hour program at Lincoln Elementary. And I only have four students, but I'm going to tell you, they are amazing. And there is a little nine-year-old that within, I think we've been doing it three or four months, and he can write music. But if you haven't seen us, come out and see us. We're a lot of fun, and Taiko, is wonderful for your whole community. Thank you.

7.2 Public Comment on Agenda Items

[10572] Kat Jones: Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, as we move to public comment on agenda items, I have, let's see, Cary Knoop, Marcus Landon, Kieran Pematel, And those are the speakers. Do you wish to speak now or at the time of the agenda item? Agenda item? Marcus? No. Okay. And Karen? Yes, I will. Now or at the time of the... Okay.

[10620] Kat Jones: No problem.

[10628] SPEAKER_04: Thank you. Good evening, board and community. I do understand 10.4 was removed, but I would like to say something briefly on this topic. My name is Kieran Permal. I've been a teacher at Newark Memorial for the past seven years. As people have said, it was disconcerting to see the district suggest that we were not going to be getting a raise this year after saying that they would discuss additional compensation back in 2023 when our contract was last signed. For the past year and a half, two years, as as the interim superintendent Tracy Vicar has been here. Board meeting after board meeting she has mentioned how Newark's teachers and staff are not compensated well compared to their peers in the Bay Area. Board meeting in and out interim superintendent Tracy Vicar has said that this district spends around between 70 and 75% of its budget on its staff whereas most districts in the area spend 85 to 90% of their budget on staff. It was It's concerning to see that vote even as an accident suggesting that you would not be including or increasing that budget and that for the past two years this district has not been able to successfully have regular negotiations on for this additional compensation. Since I've heard the district acknowledge that this needs to be addressed I would like to make sure that they take that and sincerely act on it in the ensuing weeks.

[10717] SPEAKER_04: Thank you.

[10724] Kat Jones: Okay, thank you. We are moving on now to the staff reports on the Milwaukee Forest Project at Shilling.

[10737] Tracey Vackar: I'm going to turn this over to Assistant Superintendent Karen Allard to introduce the topic.

8.1 Miyawaki Forest Project at Schilling Elementary

[10742] Karen Allard: Thank you. I'm excited to share a wonderful opportunity at Shilling Elementary to engage students, parents, teachers, and the community in the planting of a special forest. I'd like to invite Neelam Patel Chilene elementary science teacher to share information and provide background information as well as our director of MOT to answer any questions on the facilities side that may come based on the presentation.

[10768] Tracey Vackar: Just real quickly who's not with us this evening is Eduardo Guino he's been out ill and so he will be joining us hopefully soon once he feels better but I do want to thank the presentation here for this evening.

[10784] SPEAKER_27: Thank you so thank you for listening to this board my name is Neelan Patil I'm a science teacher at Schilling Elementary School and I also received an award in Time Magazine for teacher of the year for my work so the award was because I teach children that they can do something to stop climate change and so since receiving that award and because of my work in Berkeley, I started a non-profit and I was also sort of recruited to the position here at Schilling to continue on and very excited to share this report with you and we're very excited to plant our very first STEM micro-learning forest at Schilling Elementary. So you can go to the next slide. So here is a before and after photo. You can see there is a water guzzling lawn on the left side and on the right side is our Miyawaki forest. Miyawaki forests, they originate in, the methodology originates in Japan. However, the plants are very local based. And so one of the benefits that the district can expect is decreased costs in maintenance so they don't have to mow the lawn in this area that we're gonna and they also don't have to water it after just 18 months. And so this is the 18-month-old forest at King Middle School in Berkeley, California. Next slide. So why Milwaukee Forest? You know, I usually read that blurb, but I can't read it. It's too far away for me and I'm getting old. But it basically says that, you know, I'm so excited to include this solution as a science teacher in my curriculum because we mostly just and we're feeling so powerless as we're having so many fires in California and the LA fires are a testament of that. So this is a solution that children and youth and the community can get behind and it's a real active action that we can take. Next. Next slide. Okay, so you can see the before and after photos, planting day and just one year later. So we're going to explain the Milwaukee Waukee method. Next slide. Okay, so this is a video. Can we play the video?

[10941] SPEAKER_27: You can get a sense of what it is like for planting day. Okay, so we may not be able to play the video. We can go to the next slide. So here are the learning opportunities. You can see the students are getting to gather data in the forests. They're tracking the growth also the the social emotional wellness factor exposing students to nature every day so typically when we want to de-stress we say go take a fresh air breath of fresh air in the forest and you have to drive like two or three hours to get into nature well what if nature was right with you when you go to school it's there's a little dose of nature right there and there's also all native plants in in this forest. So we like to teach the students about the significance, the cultural, social, and medicinal significance of these forests, as well as expose them to indigenous land stewardship values.

[11009] SPEAKER_27: Next slide. So the benefits of the school, like I mentioned before, you can replace the lawn or a blacktop with drought-tolerant native plants. You can also address urban heat island effect with a cooling climate and you can boost physical and mental health so we have taken we have gathered data which shows that when you plant these forests it actually cools the climate in that area and heat is another pressing issue upon us next slide so here are some potential layouts at schools and the goal is and I want to acknowledge Leonore she's still here Leonore and I started this conversation a few years ago and the goal is to bring these forests to all all of the elementary schools and preferably all of the schools in Newark who have this. So here are potential layouts. You can have little polka dots if you want to cut out some asphalt or a linear forest to create shade on a playground. You can create a stabilizing embankment for a eroding embankment or a large space with the white area, the upper left corner would be a pathway and then a large seating area inside. So like an outdoor classroom in a forest. Next slide. And here's a sample of some of the curriculum I've developed around the Milwaukee forest. As you can see, it's a growth tracker and we also have biodiversity trackers.

[11102] SPEAKER_27: Next slide.

[11105] SPEAKER_27: I think that's it. Yeah.

[11110] Karen Allard: Do you also just sharing how this is through a donation project?

[11114] SPEAKER_27: so we I have raised already $5,500 towards this project and this funder is also excited to give us another $5,000 next year and we're also going to continue to fundraise for the project at Schilling.

[11135] Kat Jones: Questions?

[11138] SPEAKER_27: Member Hill? Oh right so Leonore is telling me to talk about so we will be having a planting day where we'll invite the community members. We'll have a ceremony and we can invite the press. These planting days do tend to become high profile. People want to hear good news. And we'd also invite community leaders and indigenous tribal leaders to bless the planting as well. And the parents. And I also want to acknowledge there are some parents here. Do you want to stand up?

[11169] SPEAKER_27: The parents who came out to support this.

[11173] Applause

[11176] Aiden Hill: they've been waiting for over an hour to hear the speaker great thank you for the great presentation and I think it's a very innovative idea so thank you can you talk a little bit though about there could potentially be some competing interests and how can we balance these and so I can see that certainly this would be very appropriate in some kind of most strips and areas which are really not usable but want to make sure all so that you know their field space for people to use for various recreational activities you know there's a high demand for that I want to make sure that we kind of balance that as well can you talk a little bit about how you're approaching that so I've been taking guidance from Travis and Karen on that yes so we've been working directly with the sites and we've done a site walk-up chilling and looked at some potential areas that are not being utilized right now currently the

[11236] Travis De Freitas: The most popular area that we're looking at for shilling is on the field itself, but it's up against the fence line. It doesn't get utilized currently. So we are taking that into factor.

[11247] SPEAKER_27: And also, currently, the students have to play, and they're completely exposed to Thornton Boulevard, so this would create a nature barrier for them.

[11258] Aiden Hill: So you would still have field space? It's just, okay, great. Okay, thank you.

[11262] Kat Jones: I was actually hoping that you were going to say it was going to be on Thornton there, because that would

[11266] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: a really nice place to be able to put that and create that that block yes I just wanted to say congratulations being teachers that you're being recognized for something that's so amazing to have I like the idea I really appreciate the different areas that you work with and in and the schools are one of the areas as you know our schools we have so much potential we have a lot of green but a lot of dry and we want to make sure that we address those areas is correct many of them do lie next to a creek so that would be something that we go ahead and look into but just though the forest itself how big does it grow and does it need maintenance to to really you know keep it at a that's a great question that I get all the time so the the answer is that the best maintenance is no maintenance for

[11326] SPEAKER_27: this and these are all native plants so they're drought tolerant and they grow up rather than out because the Miyawaki method creates competition by doing a dense planting and then you don't have to have leaf blowers or things like that because you're creating a self-sustaining ecosystem where the leaves become nutrition for the soil. Did I answer all your questions?

[11354] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: Yes you did but just going up high how high

[11356] SPEAKER_27: well it would be whatever height the the canopy trees are so like maybe 80 feet or something yeah just what the normal height of a tree the idea is wonderful thank you so much it's really refreshing to hear about this really cool idea and I know Schilling students will benefit from it a lot thank you so much especially with all the budget talks I thought you know this is at least one good we're gonna save some money on the maintenance costs and water the water bill well we'll also like we'd also like to track that so we'll work with Travis to track how that is impacted and we can use that as data this is a great idea congratulations the the rotary is accepting proposals the deadline is April 1st if you want to apply yeah

[11416] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, so it's newarkrotary.org, and you can click on the application.

[11424] SPEAKER_27: Yeah, so this is definitely going to be a community effort to fundraise. We've gotten some good seed money, and no pun intended, but we are going to continue fundraising within our community, and this is not just for the shilling community.

[11440] SPEAKER_27: It's for every being on earth.

[11445] Kat Jones: Great. Thank you. Thank you so much.

[11447] SPEAKER_27: Thank you for your time.

[11457] Kat Jones: All right. New business.

[11459] Kat Jones: Kerry Knoop wanted to speak on 9.1.

[11465] Cary Knoop: Hello again. So great initiative. You know, technology infrastructure is something that is absolutely necessary and according to Chatsy it's a good deal so I guess it's a good deal but the only thing and this is the issue we want to use e-rate money for this basically we want to use the general fund for this this is perfect for the bonds its infrastructure you can use it for the bond and this is so much more a reason that we need to prioritize either gonna have a town hall session or you're gonna have a workshop but we need the community We need the teachers. We need the students of the middle and high school. We need staff. We need the community to talk about what they feel we should do with the bond. Ultimately, it's the board's decision, but we want to get that process going. We're waiting too long. So here I have another example where we could dedicate this to the bond, but we're not ready. So I would say hold up on this if we can, you know, and put this on the bond and use the E-Rate money for something else. I'm sure we can find something else with this. Thank you.

[11541] Kat Jones: Thank you. All right. I will pass it off to you.

9.1 E-Rate Network Internet, Switches and Uninterruptible Power Supplies Upgrade

[11548] Tracey Vackar: Great. I'm looking forward to having Ms. Jenna Lee-Pinafore come up and present on this item. This is our E-Rate network internet switches and uninterruptible power supplies upgrade. Can't get all that out. and we do have a brief presentation to share with the board we'll try to bring some clarity and I don't disagree with the prior speaker this is appropriate for some of the bond funding that we can do and something that you can earmark later if that's what you choose to do and maybe a good use of our money it's a good use of our money it's going to go towards technology so so I'll is this on

[11596] Jose Quintana: so I'll be presenting this for Jenny Lee she'll be standing by for asking questions that might come up or clarifications for this topic here so our E-rate if we can put it up there yes ma'am so our E-rate is coming into a five 5-year proposal it's five of five that we're looking at here for some deadlines and so that's why we want to bring this presentation before the board for consideration of this presentation with not only with our ACOE AT&T agreement our MOU with Alameda County Office of Education but as well as with AT&T as well as looking which is category one there's two categories Category 2 is going into our infrastructure, structures, switches In this case it's going into batteries as well So in our 2025 Thank you Appreciate it Category 1 continues basically with our internet services and ethernet Phone services with ACOE and AT&T Category 2 is upgrades for network switches MDFs, IDFs, if possible, end-of-life UPSs. And so, next slide. It goes into our, what are category one? It's for our data transmission services and internet access. Category two is for internal connections and our managed broadband services and our basic maintenance internal connections. NUSD receives 60% discount for eligible goods and services. And the district or vendor can be reimbursed by USAC at the time of billing. Next slide, please. So in our district needs here, in 2023, our IT department upgraded its Wi-Fi access points through ROKUS and HP Aruba. But there are definitely hundreds of access points out there that we do need upgrading our systems, our modules out there, some that would allow higher voltage, higher wattage. and so each UPS and each MDF closet or IDF have been upgraded some have been upgraded but it does not meet the needs of the power that they're actually consuming so this in this presentation we wanted to bring up these needs for our battery backups battery backups once again they do assist for up to 60 minutes sometimes a little bit more sometimes a little less depending on what's connected to it like the fire alarm and intrusion alarm and emergency lights on the campuses. So sometimes it's just the intrusion and the fire alarm to allow the district employees to go out there and reset this. Next slide. Our proposed solution is to upgrade 209 switches to the HP Aruba 6200 or equivalent and to replace up to 90 of these backup battery packs and continue the internet access with a AT&T and ACOE net services.

[11810] Jose Quintana: Category one, yes, did you want to see something?

[11818] Jenilee Peñaflor: Do you want me to jump into the specifics from here if you'd like? Save your voice a little. Thank you. Good evening, board. Thank you for having me. So, jumping in from where Jose left off, we do have the specific proposals that we received since I was last up here a couple weeks ago. There are two and we have two proposals for both products. So we have two proposals for the switches. They are actually both HP Aruba.

[11845] Jenilee Peñaflor: Let me get to that slide real quick. Yeah, let's go here. So the two switches are both for Aruba. They are a big difference in price. They're about a million dollars apart, but they're both for the same product. So it's kind of an easy call which one to go with. One is from CDW. from AMS. And so that's, again, it's kind of an easy call. It's a million dollar difference for the same exact product. The UPS product, let me go here. We also have two bits for this. One is from DGI for a product from N1C. And the other one from CDW is for a battery backup from Vertiv. Our recommendation for this product is the one from CDW. It is coming in at $300 at $250,067. And our rationale for recommending the hire of the two products, DGI's coming in at $258,114, is that we already have a relationship with CDW for one. DGI would be a brand new vendor. We're not familiar with that product at all. We've done our research, of course, but we don't have any experience with the physical hardware. We do have the vertive hardware that CDW is recommending already used in our MDFs here. So that's kind of our rationale, not just the experience, but also to manage the entire system.

[11934] Jenilee Peñaflor: It would all be on one software, so it's a little easier to manage one versus having everything else at all the sites be an N1C product.

[11944] Tracey Vackar: General, can you explain what happens with this power supply, like why it's important?

[11949] Jenilee Peñaflor: Sure. So it's really just a quick battery backup, so it's not meant to... sustain our equipment. It's not meant to be like a generator where it kicks in and lets us run for a while, like in a hospital, you know, services keep running. For this, we are only expecting about 10 minutes of run times to allow us to either keep basic services on. Our anticipated need is that it's going to keep our phone services on and then allow us to perform our graceful shutdown so our equipment doesn't get fried in the instance of a power outage. And then after 10 minutes, they would lose their battery and hopefully we've gotten to everything which would be much simpler if it was all in one system. We'd be able to shut everything down and then save our equipment so that it doesn't get damaged in the event of an outage. Thank you. You're welcome. So my hope today is that we can decide how we want to use the rest of our E-rate funds. So Mr. Knoop was correct in saying that yes we should use if the time is right, that we should use bond money for the excess of this project, but E-rate funding is one time and we have up until March 26th to decide if we're going to use it. So that $453,000 and change has to be used or we're going to just lose it for this funding year. So basically, before you are, I don't have the numbers on the slides, but in board docs are all the contracts. so the switch product that we are, switch project that we're recommending is the CDW at 1.5 million and the CDW for the switches at 350,000.

[12059] Jenilee Peñaflor: So what that looks like, having only 453,000 and change, I'll just go to that very first slide with the dollar amount. So what that looks like is whoever we go into contract with, USAC will pay 60% of the total. Let's just say it's a million dollars. USAC would pay a million, 60% of that million using our E-rate funding. So they can approve us to up to that 453,000 and then they would cover the 60% of that. If we did the UPSs at 350,000, we would be left over with 150 or 100,000 that we could apply to the switches. And then because it's way over over our allotment, obviously, we would be paying installments to the vendor that we select over the next six years, basically, because it would be this year, year five, and then for the next five years of e-rate funding with that anticipated $900,000. So we're spending more money before we have it, or we're doing installments. But again, that's going to be interest-free. It's not a loan. It's just installment payments. So it really depends on how we want to

[12136] Jenilee Peñaflor: if we want to anticipate that, if we want to spend our money like that, and if this is a project that we want to fund now before we have our plans for general or bond. What questions can I answer?

[12152] Aiden Hill: Member Hill. So thank you, Ms. Peñaflor. And I know you put work into this. The concern that I have, right, it's the old saying of haste makes waste. And I think that the challenge, right, is that, and I've been complaining about this for a number of years in our district, where there's money, quote unquote free money available. And so we start to then try to figure out, well, what are projects that we can develop that can take advantage of this free money? And so we've got this E-rate money that's hanging out there, right, that 453,000. But then when we put the project together, it's 2.4 million. And it's unclear exactly where that's going to come from but some of it's potentially going to come from the general fund and or we don't know and that's not a good plan and you know and my sense is in Part of me becoming a teacher. I spent 17 years Essentially working coming into companies that had not developed plans for big projects and then rescuing them and And I really think I would like to suggest to the board that we take a step back and that we put together a much more robust business case around this. Because I think that what we really need to identify first and foremost, so the goal is not how can we spend $453,000 in e-rate money. The goal should be there is some very, very specific problem that we're trying to solve and that we've quantified it, right? And so we really know, okay, this is truly the issue. And then we lay out and we look at what are the potential options to address? There's, you know, potentially more than one. What are the potential costs? What are the resources that are required? What's the timeline? What's the plan? And what are going to be the funding sources? And my sense is that in this situation, although we potentially have some issues, but I don't see that we need to solve this problem right away, particularly without a plan. And so what I would suggest is if we feel that we need to take advantage of of this 453,000 that maybe you scope it differently and you carve out a chunk to say, okay, this is what we're gonna do for this 453,000. But for the larger part, I think that we have to have a much better plan and very clear, not only a problem statement, what's going wrong, but also metrics that say, how do we know whether it's a success or not? And how do we know that we were experiencing X and now after putting this in place, now we got X plus, or 30% or whatever but other than that I mean because my view my viewpoint is is that the general fund is that money is very dear and that's something that can potentially be used for others other areas and particularly as we heard from the prior speakers from NTA but you know we could potentially give a one-time off schedule you know essentially payment to teachers to improve retention etc you know that could that you know that might be a better use of general funds I think we need to make an evaluation and I think as the former speaker it indicated as well you know maybe maybe if we if we slow it down a little bit that maybe some of the if we agree that this is the right project and we agree with the outcomes maybe we use bond money for it but I just think that it's hasty to try to make a decision for 2.4 million dollars today without kind of more detail

[12377] Kat Jones: I have a question what would happen if we went if we bought the power supplies for that you were talking about that would be under that 453 would it work to buy those now and then move forward with the rest later how would that work if we were to divide it up basically

[12407] Jenilee Peñaflor: and that's kind of what I was thinking too. They would be two completely separate standalone projects so it would be perfectly acceptable to do one and not the other. It would definitely be easier to do the UPSs because so many have died already. It would be a simple replacement versus the switches which would be, Member Hill is correct, it would be a much more involved project. So yeah, I'm along with that.

[12437] Jenilee Peñaflor: that thought thinking to.

[12443] Nancy Thomas: My thought is that the UPSs sure they're toward the end of their life but we're talking about a few months before we know what we can fund with measure O and so I would prefer not to jump on the UPSs right away especially since we have two different items one is four times as much I would rather wait on the UPSs and have you carve out something for the $453,000 or thereabouts and then not come up with a plan that will spend any general fund money but rather what we can do with measure O and if we have to to spend general fund money, you know, really be able to justify why we have to do that.

[12504] Tracey Vackar: General Lee, can I ask you a question? Maybe let me just get some clarification. So there's three different sections here, right? You've got the summary for the ACOE, MOU, AT&T, right? That's one piece. The second piece that you've got is the summary of the switches for the mini-bids, and then you've got the uninterrupted power supply battery backup. We have to do the ACOE, MOU, AT&T, right? So that's... That's really our internet. That's our channel for everybody, right? We need that. So that three-year agreement at $490,000, does that cover what we need to do with our current E-rate that's being left to be able to spend? Can we do a three-year agreement off that and spend that $453,000? It's actually $490,000. We would be spending about $40,000 of our general fund to be able to cover the internet services. And it's really in the third year out, correct?

[12556] Jenilee Peñaflor: No. $153,000 is strictly for category two.

[12562] Tracey Vackar: Got it. Okay.

[12563] Jenilee Peñaflor: The category one that you're talking about already comes from, I believe it already comes from general. It's just part of our operating fees or operating costs, I should say.

[12571] Tracey Vackar: Understood. Okay. Okay. So I just want to make sure that everybody understands that the first part of this thing is business that we do normally each and every day. Right. So the internet piece is a piece that we have to have. We can't go without it. We've got to have it. Right.

[12587] Aiden Hill: but that's the question though superintendent is so I mean we already have internet right yes okay and so so what what is driving this additional expenditure here my understanding is the new three-year agreement that's coming forward so we're at the end of our three-year agreement am I correct in understanding that so this is the end of the cycle okay in order to be able to do that

[12617] Tracey Vackar: that we're looking at a we want to be able to upgrade our internet so that we have a little faster speed if I understand correctly we're on a slower speed now and in order to do that we need some additional equipment to help us be able to make that effective my correct understanding that or no I don't want to oversell it by saying we need it but it's definitely like you know the internet will work better and we'll be able to get better throughput if our equipment is and our infrastructure is designed to

[12647] Jenilee Peñaflor: but the piece for the summary of switches it could hold off until we actually have a discussion about our bond we could so you are right member Hill in saying that we want to spend this money because we're going to lose it and we came up with a project that we need eventually our switches are old they're 7-8 years old our UPSs are 10 years old so these are going to have to be changed eventually do we have to do it right this second maybe not but we have the funding to do so okay

[12677] Aiden Hill: So let me ask you this. So for that first category, so regarding the Internet, so this is essentially an ongoing cost, right? It is. Correct. And so this is an ongoing cost that we would ultimately have to pay in any event.

[12692] Tracey Vackar: We budget.

[12693] Aiden Hill: Okay. And so theoretically it's already kind of budgeted, correct?

[12697] Tracey Vackar: It's a little bit of an increase.

[12698] Aiden Hill: Say it again.

[12699] Tracey Vackar: It's an increase from what we're currently doing because we're going to have a faster speed.

[12702] Aiden Hill: Okay. And how much of an increase?

[12703] Jenilee Peñaflor: $1,000 over the year.

[12708] Aiden Hill: thousand dollars total?

[12710] Jenilee Peñaflor: Yes.

[12712] Aiden Hill: That's a no-brainer.

[12713] Jenilee Peñaflor: Because we're already at four gigs and we're increasing to five, so it's not much.

[12718] Aiden Hill: So that's something that we're going to have to spend anyway. You know, just so long as we're not getting the premium all-you-can-eat with Netflix and Disney Plus on it. Or maybe Disney. But if that's something that we're already paying, okay, that's fine. That should be budgeted and is the total amount there $490,000?

[12744] Tracey Vackar: With a three-year agreement, yes. And then that actually tells you that it's being paid for out of general fund and we've budgeted for it.

[12752] Aiden Hill: Okay. So we could almost pay for that with the $453,000.

[12756] Tracey Vackar: No, you can't. Oh, that's not eligible. That was my original question because I wanted to make sure I understood that.

[12764] Aiden Hill: So we have to pay for that anyway. So that's fine. And so then... as the earlier discussions were going on, because my sense is that number one, my understanding around that service, that's not, you cannot spend bond money on that, right? I mean, that's not really infrastructure. I mean, it's not, you know, you can't capitalize a service, right? So that's like totally separate from E-rate. So if we have to spend that, if the contract's coming up and we have to spend that, that's fine. and then if we're trying to take advantage of the $453,000, if we can use that to pay for some of the UPS, because is the total $350,000 plus $258,000?

[12813] Jenilee Peñaflor: No.

[12814] Aiden Hill: Oh, those are just two different bids?

[12816] Jenilee Peñaflor: Those are two different bids, yeah.

[12818] Aiden Hill: And if you're saying that that's the most urgent need and it effectively is free money, I don't see a problem with that, but that we maybe hold off on the switches until we have a much better plan.

[12831] Kat Jones: I think we're all in alignment on that.

[12835] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: I agree on that. With the purchasing of the interruptible power supply would be the best thing to do. But we have to make sure that we're looking into the IDFs and also the MDFs and see which ones are really the inventory and see which ones are really just in the verge of just going out. so yes in other words but we have to really because we don't want to go ahead and put the carriage before the horse right we want to make sure that we have that because the infrastructure we are the minute that we change and we upgrade to the category or you know five gigabits I mean not the gigabits instead of four going to five we want to make sure that we're set and that we could go ahead and handle that as well so

[12888] Jenilee Peñaflor: power supplies would be the most ideal thing to do yes and we we have done an inventory that's how we got that's how we were able to prepare our numbers to get to solicit the bids and like I said many of these UPSs are just completely unplugged so it it's the easy win and structurally our switches can handle the five gigs I think we were ready to go with that last year but our equipment at ACOE wasn't ready we were on a different which is why we're upgrading to have hardware at both locations to handle that.

[12924] Nancy Thomas: We go to slide 13. I don't know the numbers. That talks about the uninstructible power supply. This one? What I was alluding to about the fourth, the big difference in price. Oh, this one. The low cost versus the high cost. Then you're going with the high cost.

[12942] Jenilee Peñaflor: Yeah. Well, so what you're looking at when, so when I presented this to you last week, we hadn't got the formal bids yet. and so these numbers were on the SPUR contract as literally being the least expensive and the most expensive and I knew that we were gonna get somewhere in between. I didn't know we were gonna get at the top, I'll be honest. But based on the specs that we gave them, which was we needed 3000 watts, 10 minutes of runtime, we needed 120 volt power. What we have in front of us in board docs are the two products that met those net standards.

[12977] Nancy Thomas: So you're saying that this low-cost option does not meet our standards?

[12982] Jenilee Peñaflor: Correct. We were also looking for lithium ion. Some of the least expensive ones were lead acid, and they have, they're more maintenance, they run hotter, so we want to, you know, go with a more efficient product.

[12995] Jenilee Peñaflor: Yes, it comes at a price, but in the long run, it's a better investment.

[13001] Tracey Vackar: And this is a 10-year investment, roughly?

[13004] Jenilee Peñaflor: It has been. Okay. 10 years is not ideal as, like, as we know, they died off sooner. They died off around, well, I've only been here a year, but we've been unplugging in the year that I've been here. 10 years is ambitious for a battery.

[13024] Kat Jones: Got it. Member Hill, is that a look of, I'd like to say something? All right.

[13033] Aiden Hill: So I was thinking that you were looking at me to make a motion.

[13037] Kat Jones: Oh, no, I was not. I was not, but we can.

[13042] Kat Jones: Please do.

[13046] Aiden Hill: I would like to make a motion to approve the internet provider portion of this proposal for $490,000 and the uninterruptible power supplies for somewhere around $350,000, but that we would delay a decision ON THE SWITCHES UNTIL WE GET MORE INFORMATION AND UNDERSTAND FUNDING SOURCES.

[13074] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: NEW SPEAKER 1 I SECOND THAT.

[13077] Kat Jones: NEW SPEAKER 1 ALL RIGHT. MAY I HAVE A ROLL CALL? NEW SPEAKER 1 VOTE PLEASE.

[13082] Toya Lemus: NEW SPEAKER 1 STUDENT BOARD MEMBER LEE? NEW SPEAKER 1 YES. NEW SPEAKER 1 MEMBER AUGGIANO? NEW SPEAKER 1 YES. NEW SPEAKER 1 MEMBER VACA STEPPED OUT? NEW SPEAKER 1 MEMBER THOMAS? NEW SPEAKER 1 YES. NEW SPEAKER 1 MEMBER PRESIDENT JONES?

[13096] Tracey Vackar: NEW SPEAKER 1 YES. May I ask a clarification question to Jenna Lee? So since we had $450,000 roughly to spend, is there something else that we can get that would qualify on that list of something that we need? Because I don't want to go off and give up $100,000. I just don't. We work hard to find $100,000. It's a big deal in this district to find $100,000. So I'm just going to throw it out there.

[13128] Aiden Hill: I vote for better audiovisual capabilities in the boardroom.

[13134] Tracey Vackar: Is that a level two cost? I think it's a great idea, but I don't know if that means level two challenge.

[13139] Jenilee Peñaflor: It doesn't. It doesn't mean category two and also we are required to solicit the bids with a question and answer period and all that good stuff and we're running out of time to do that.

[13153] Austin Block: Is there a way to just purchase a small number of the switches with that remaining

[13157] Jenilee Peñaflor: 100,000 like is that a possibility to like spend up to the limit on the switches yeah we would the thing about doing that though is yeah yeah I was gonna say so the switch the switch for one is like four thousand dollars but you're still gonna want the software to support it and the licensing and but I like where your head's at how about investing in into like the wiring the cabling same response that I gave interim superintendent of the car. We would have to do specs and solicit a new bit. We don't have enough time to do a whole other process of that.

[13198] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: Understood.

[13201] Kat Jones: All good questions. Thank you.

[13204] Kat Jones: Yes, you can.

[13210] Toya Lemus: Student board member Lee, how do you vote? Yes. Member Hill?

[13214] Aiden Hill: Yes.

[13215] Toya Lemus: Member Anguiano?

[13216] Aiden Hill: Yes.

[13216] Toya Lemus: Member Bloss? Yes. Yes. Member Thomas?

[13218] Kat Jones: Yes.

[13218] Toya Lemus: President Jones? Yes. Six ayes.

[13221] Kat Jones: Six ayes. Thank you. All right.

[13225] Kat Jones: Thank you so much for the presentation.

[13229] Tracey Vackar: Thank you, General Lee.

[13231] Kat Jones: All right. We are now on to the audit report. And Mr. Newk has a comment card. Do you have to extend the time? Oh, yes. I do need to extend the time. Thank you. I appreciate that from all sides.

[13247] Thank you.

16.1 PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting

[13248] Kat Jones: I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION BASED ON WE GOT SOME HEAVY DUTY STUFF HERE LEFT I BETTER TAKE IT TO THE MAX MAKE A MOTION TO EXTEND THE MEETING TO MIDNIGHT I'LL SECOND ALL RIGHT MEETING EXTENDED TO MIDNIGHT WITH A ROLL CALL VOTE PLEASE STUDENT BOARD

[13278] Toya Lemus: NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS.

[13292] Toya Lemus: NEW SPEAKERS.

[13297] Kat Jones: NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS.

[13306] Cary Knoop: NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. highlights one item in the audit that is of grave concern I think it should be of grave concern of everybody and that's the proposition 39 requirement of minimum funding in the classroom that needs to be 55% for a district of our design and we haven't reached that and you can say well it's only 40 54 point something, so we all almost made it. No, that's the floor. That's the ultimate minimum. So even if you make 55%, there's no cheering. Now, it doesn't mean that you have to get into the 60 or 70%. Nobody does that. But to be under that, that's a serious problem. Our legislators wanted to make sure that a certain amount of money was allocated to the classroom. That goes to the students, effectively. and that's not happening my understanding is that the comments of the reasoning behind it comes from the auditor or is at least the auditors responsible for that but you know don't take my word for it I'm sure the auditor has something to say about it and the reasoning is COVID and you know I highly question that our neighboring districts don't have that problem they're all way over the 55% and you know, I mean, we gotta blame it on COVID, what about 9-1-1 or the Napoleonic Wars, you know what I mean?

[13408] Cary Knoop: We can't keep going blaming things on COVID forever, that's not gonna happen. I think the reason for that is more obvious. If we look at the total salaries and benefits of classified and certificated and we put that against total expenditures, I think it was already mentioned earlier this meeting you're talking about 80% and up this district doesn't even get close to that number I think we're closer to 70% so that means we actually do not spend enough money on teachers and staff right so think about that so you can say oh it's COVID and we're okay and you know and my understanding is it gets worse that the budget actually actually doesn't reach 55%. If I were on the board, I would ask that. I would get that statement. My understanding is that the budget is not reaching 55%. And the budget is something we design, right? That's not something that happens. So that's a problem. And I think the board should take this serious. The legislature put this in effect. We want to make sure that there's enough classroom funding, and ultimately, to invest in our teachers and staff. We can't, you know, build on consultants and temporary employees and experts and what have you. We need to have permanent staff in this organization. Thank you.

[13502] Kat Jones: Thank you, Mr. Knoop. All right. 9.2.

9.2 Audit Report for Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2024

[13509] Tracey Vackar: Thank you. It's my pleasure this evening to introduce our audit report. We have a new auditor this year. Crow was selected who interacted amongst many applicants. There was a very robust process and the firm for independent auditing is Crow LLC. And my pleasure this evening to introduce Jeff who is here to give you an update on our audit report and the findings that they have found. So I'll turn the floor over to you, sir.

[13539] SPEAKER_06: Great, thank you. Good evening, I'm Jeff Jensen. I'm the engagement partner for the audit here for this year and it's my privilege to be here to bring the audit results for the year ended June 30, 2024. We did cover this report in pretty significant detail with the audit committee last week, so I'll keep my comments a little more on the higher level, but happy to answer any questions that you might have. If you have the report with you, my comments are going to be centered mainly on page 74, which is towards the back of the audit report. It's a summary of auditors' results and section. The reason I focus there is that on page 74, it covers each of the different opinions that are a part this audit report as well as some of the other matters that go into the results of the audit. The first relates to the financial statements. The district received an unmodified opinion for your financial statements for the year into June 30, 2024. That's the type of opinion you want to receive on your financial statements. It means your financial statements are free of material misstatement and comply with all the applicable accounting pronouncements that were required to be adopted. Looking at internal controls over financial reporting, we did have a couple of matters to bring that are a part of this report, one that was classified as a significant deficiency related to your cybersecurity policy or the lack thereof during that fiscal year. And then there was also a deficiency related to internal controls over student body financial reporting. The next section of the audit is on federal awards. So because the district receives more than $500,000 in federal expenditures, I'm sorry, $750,000 in federal expenditures, the district's required to have a federal audit done and so for the year to June 30th 2024 the district received an unmodified opinion regarding federal compliance no federal compliance findings this year we were required to look at the national school lunch program and essentially on a tri-annual basis we look at the significant federal programs of the district to complete that section of the audit the district has actually had many years of unqualified or unmodified opinions regarding your financial statements and your federal awards and so you're classified as a low-risk audit in the eyes of the federal government. The last section of the audit is on state compliance, and the district did have a qualified opinion regarding state compliance. There were six state compliance findings this year that are covered in the subsequent pages here of the report. I would say that all six of them, out of all six of them, the only one that had a fiscal impact was the one on duplicated pupil count, and the fiscal impact of that was about $15,000. So the rest of them, while some of them are significant comments, did not actually result in a financial penalty to the district because of your non-compliance. Also, I'd just like to bring to the board's attention that there were no audit adjustments. The numbers that were given to us to audit as part of your unaudited actuals are the same numbers that are coming back tonight without modification by us in order to make them materially correct. So, again, I think that's really good news to bring to your attention. So, this audit started a long time ago, and obviously you had a significant amount of turnover over the the last year here in your business office and other areas of the district. And so that's why this report was extended as far as the due date of when it was required to be submitted to the state. It's been now certified and submitted and done on time within that extended period.

[13744] SPEAKER_06: And I'd just like to thank Jose and Nancy and especially Jody in the fiscal services, but also folks throughout the district that we talked to to be able to complete this audit and be able to share these results with you here tonight. Great.

[13758] Aiden Hill: Any questions member Hill Thank You mr. Jensen and so I was a part of the The early stages of interviewing you and other teams and so glad you're aboard and thank you for all your work So I had just a couple questions. So the the first one was just related to cybersecurity And and so it's my reading here that the the issue is just that we don't have a clear policy and we don't have clear documented processes and procedures, but it's not necessarily, you're not providing recommendations around what those are. You're just saying that we need to have a policy and clear processes and procedures, correct?

[13802] SPEAKER_06: That's correct. There should be a more formalized process and essentially there were no cyber attacks that happened during the fiscal year that we became aware of, but certainly you would want to have a more robust policy and procedures that went into essentially guarding that from happening. And I think your current team that you have on board has been well on their way to getting that more formalized.

[13823] Aiden Hill: Okay, great. And then the second question is, and I think that you've been living through some of this, so we've had some issues with being able to fully understand what's been going on with our finances, and some of it is because of change in personnel and maybe lack of documentation. And so we're obviously making significant progress, but the question that I have is when we ended our last year which you're now providing a report on and we had our unaudited actuals when we looked at revenue and we looked at expenditures at that point we were believing and again I think that we maybe had incomplete information that we had a deficit of about $600,000 but as I look quickly at your report it looks like as you as you look at the totals right now from a thorough complete audit perspective that we actually have a surplus of more than three million. Is that correct?

[13887] SPEAKER_06: I don't have, I guess, those numbers on the ready to be able to affirm that for you.

Pause: 14.3s

[13907] Okay.

[13909] Aiden Hill: Yeah, so page six, total net position, net change, 3.206377. So is that saying that we actually have a surplus of $3 million?

[13926] SPEAKER_06: So $3.8 million would be your net position, or essentially your equity on a full accrual basis. Now, I caution you on when you're comparing and contrasting that with your non-actuals, your non-actuals are looking more from fund level of accounting, which are the financial statements that start on page 13 through 15 there.

[13948] Aiden Hill: So what I'm driving at, and I don't know all the lingo, right? But I mean, I know the lingo from a standard corporate perspective, but I don't know all the lingo from an education perspective. But as I look at it as an income statement, and we say, OK, we've got revenue over the course of a year, and we've got expenditures, and then what's left over is either a profit or a loss. And so what I'm trying to determine is when we looked at our unaudited actuals, and let's forget about how that profit or loss gets distributed to different funds, but when we look at that profit or loss, have we lost money in this past year? So did we have a deficit, or did we actually have a surplus?

[13989] SPEAKER_06: So again, there's two different bases of accounting that are being presented in this audit report. You're referencing numbers that are on a full accrual base of accounting, which are the most comparable to, as you in reference to the corporate world. All the assets of the district, all the liabilities of the district are being accounted for in one set of financial statements. So on that basis, yes, you have $3.8 million in net position, which is your equity position at the end of the day. I would say you should, if you're comparing that against, let's say, what's happening in your unaudited actuals, I would look at page 48, which is the budget to actual comparison of the general fund, which shows your original budget, your final budget, and your actuals of what for the year ended June 30th, 2024. And so you can see there, you initially started the year with a planned budget deficit of $3.1 million. Your final budget had a negative deficit of $7.8 million, and you ended the year with a negative $485,000. So essentially, you came in better than planned, but you still were in a deficit position as far as you spent more than you brought in, than you recognized in revenue for the Okay. And you said page 48?

[14062] Aiden Hill: That's correct. Can you show me? You said 480? I'm not sure I see that. So in the first third line from the bottom. I see it. Okay. All right. So basically you're saying that this is the apples to apples comparison roughly to our unaudited actuals.

[14079] SPEAKER_06: It certainly would be much closer to apples to apples. I think your other comparison would be much closer to apples and oranges.

[14085] Aiden Hill: Okay. All right. So basically there's a slight adjustment because I know that, let me just look at my numbers here. So I know in unaudited actuals, initially we were projecting $591,000 in deficit, right, or a loss. And here we're saying now it's $485,000. So it went down a little bit, but it's still a negative. Okay. Those are my questions. Thank you. Thank you.

[14117] Kat Jones: Anyone else?

[14121] Nancy Thomas: I'd like to thank you for the presentation and for the discussion we had during the audit committee meeting. Even though we had a lot of findings, they're not indicative of any large financial errors. And I think, you know, we can work with the recommendations that you've made and with the actions that staff will take to address

[14151] Nancy Thomas: Thank you.

[14158] Aiden Hill: And I would just like to also thank you Mr. Jensen because I think that one of the reasons why we decided to go out for a search and look at different audit firms is we weren't always getting the level of customer service that we would like and in the past we would have situations where we would have the final audit report presented and neither the partner nor the staff staff that was involved in this was actually presenting any of the numbers and so we would ask questions and they wouldn't be able to answer them. So the fact that you as the chief are here and are, you know, you oversaw everything and you're here to answer our questions is greatly appreciated.

[14199] Nancy Thomas: I also think given what the speaker mentioned to us, I think as we prepare our budget we're going to have to look at the 55% teacher ratio to to our general fund.

[14215] Tracey Vackar: Can I make a comment on that? There are some other considerations to think about that percentage and how you get there. So one of the things I think that makes Newark special, quite frankly, is the fact that we really do have some small school sites that we operate, right, that actually has a nexus with the amount of staff that's certificated that's serving there. If we were running the way how the prediction and based on what the formula is kind of in the state, our elementary schools would be running almost double in capacity and we would have half the number of administrators, which would then change that number, right? So I want you to think about those paradigm shifts and that we have made a choice to keep neighborhood schools operational and program-wise. I'm okay with that. That's a decision that we're making here locally. We think that's in the best interest of our kids and we're making that judgment and that decision. with that we're going to hit a little bit of an awkwardness there with that. We're also declining in enrollment. It's going to be a challenge as we continue to downsize and get those numbers there. I would like to think that they'll be better this coming year. I'm looking forward to the future audit to see if we actually were able to hit a little bit closer to those numbers. I believe in some of the staffing changes that we've made. Hopefully that will appear there. But I did want to just bring that to your attention that when you're looking at that ratio you have to think about the entire program and and some of the choices that we've made. And one of them is to have small schools that are operational and that we are hosting a principal at each of those schools.

[14311] Nancy Thomas: Could I ask another clarifying question? Sure. We were kind of kicked around two ratios. One was 55%, and the other one was the 75 to 80%, which is salaries and benefits. My understanding of the 55% is that it's teacher salaries.

[14328] Tracey Vackar: I had to go back. Was that what you were looking at, was teacher salaries? 55% or were you looking at compared to the budget or were you looking at there was a staffing ratio? Maybe I misunderstood and I apologize if I did.

[14340] SPEAKER_06: So there are two different compliance areas. So one is the ratio of an admin to teacher which the district was in compliance with. The other one is a classroom teacher salary which requires that the current cost of education that 55% of it be spent on essentially on teacher salaries. Understood.

[14355] Tracey Vackar: Thank you. I appreciate the clarification.

[14357] Nancy Thomas: So that's what I was asking.

[14360] Tracey Vackar: I wanted to make sure that number was okay.

[14362] Kat Jones: So I'd like to say thank you also I appreciate the depth of the report and your patience in waiting to present tonight and I did understand the meeting was very informative to the members that were there last week so thank you so much I'm really glad you're on board and I too enjoyed that process of going through that and being able to work with you some last year before or becoming president. So thank you.

[14394] Nancy Thomas: And if you're heading home, drive safely.

[14397] Kat Jones: He's got one more presentation.

[14398] SPEAKER_06: He's got one more agenda item here, so I'll step aside for a second.

[14402] Kat Jones: All right. So we need to take a motion, have a motion and a second to accept the audit report.

[14410] Nancy Thomas: I move that we accept the audit report. I'll second.

[14414] Kat Jones: Okay. Member Thomas moves. Member Block seconds. And could I ask for a roll call vote? Please Student board member Lee Yes Member Hill Yes Member Anguiano Yes Member Block Yes Member Thomas Yes President Jones Yes Six ayes Thank you motion passes All right we are on to the 2324 audit report measure G bond With that I will invite

9.3 2023-24 Audit Report - Measure G Bond

[14452] Tracey Vackar: Jeff, to come forward again and talk about Measure G and the closeout of this account.

[14458] SPEAKER_06: Great. Thank you. I'll keep my comments brief, even though you extended the meeting until midnight. I'm sure it wasn't for me to turn on for a long time. This essentially is, like was just mentioned, to close out the Measure G bond fund. So basically, at June 30, 2024, there was no fund balance remaining and no funds left, essentially, to be spent out of Measure G. There's two reports. There's a performance audit report and the financial audit report. both of those are requirements under proposition 39 and so both of those have been prepared and completed both of them have unmodified opinions so clean opinions regarding the performance audit and clean opinion regarding the measure G bond fund which is audited as a standalone fund and there's no findings to bring to the board's attention so that it's a clean report great thank you anyone have any questions or are we all right looks like we are good to go could you make a motion yep could I get a

[14512] Kat Jones: Motion, please.

[14515] Austin Block: I'll make a motion to approve item 9.3. Second.

[14520] Toya Lemus: I will second.

[14521] Kat Jones: All right. Thank you. May I have a roll call? Vote, please.

[14526] Toya Lemus: Yes. Student board member Lee? Yes. Member Hill has stepped out. Member Anguiano? Yes. Member Block? Yes. Member Thomas? Yes. President Jones?

[14537] Tracey Vackar: Yes.

[14538] Toya Lemus: Five ayes.

[14540] Tracey Vackar: Four ayes. One absent.

[14550] Toya Lemus: Five ayes, one absent.

[14552] Tracey Vackar: Thank you.

9.4 Home-To-School Transportation Plan

[14555] Kat Jones: All right. Thank you. We are on to 9.4. Thank you, Jeff, for being here. Thank you so much, Mr. Jenner, for being here. Really appreciate it. Home to school transportation plan.

[14573] Tracey Vackar: Thank you. Before you this evening is the home to school transportation plan. It was just us. Okay. With that, we will receive an amount of $184,921.40. Before you is a plan. This is a plan that we bring to you annually for us to be able to receive the funds and for us to be able to spend it to provide those two.

[14597] Tracey Vackar: This just covers a small portion of what that actual cost is.

[14603] Thank you.

[14603] Tracey Vackar: With that, I would ask for your approval and your action this evening on this item.

[14609] Kat Jones: Anyone have any questions? All right. May I get a motion to approve the home to school transportation plan?

[14618] Austin Block: I'll make a motion to approve the home to school transportation plan.

[14621] Kat Jones: Great. A second?

[14622] Austin Block: I second.

[14623] Member Anguiano.

[14625] Kat Jones: All right. Member Block, motions. Member Anguiano seconds. Could I get a roll call vote, please?

[14631] Toya Lemus: Yes. Student board member Lee, how do you vote?

9.5 2024 Summer School Dates

[14633] Kat Jones: Yes.

[14633] Toya Lemus: member Hill absent member Anguiano yes member Block yes member Thomas yes president Jones yes five ayes one absent Hill Hill all right on to the 2024 summer school dates thank you I'll turn this over to assistant superintendent Karen Allard to present thank you the 2024-25 summer school dates are being shared with you for your review and later in the

[14663] Karen Allard: agenda to approve with the signed MOU from NTA. We plan to offer a comprehensive summer school program, offering summer school programs at the elementary, middle, and high school levels for our general education and special education students who qualify based on their IEP goals. It should be noted that we are implementing a new high school credit recovery program with an intensive 10-day program where students can complete a first and second semester course within the 10-day period, giving students and staff a seven-week summer vacation of a program ending in July. This model is replicated from a district in Southern California that has been well received by teachers and parents.

[14702] Karen Allard: We will quickly move forward with posting positions and working with sites and district level departments for a wrap around approach to help students have a great summer school or credit recovery experience.

[14717] Kat Jones: I'd like to ask one question. The high school credit recovery this intention

[14723] Austin Block: program was that discussed with staff the idea of that yes it was discussed with Mr. Murphy counselors and Mr. Murphy also ran it by teachers at the site great thank you so much any questions do you anticipate having students doing the morning and evening sessions and if so like are there any concerns about like how effective students will be if they're kind of working from 730 to 630.

[14755] Karen Allard: Yeah I asked for data from that from the counselors so that we can take a look at how many students that might actually fall into that category.

[14764] Tracey Vackar: For school districts that are doing this model it's actually been well received and I think one of the staff survey things that we heard is that staff actually gets a summer and so they're excited about that. Students also get a summer and parents seem to be pretty happy with it too from that standpoint. For those that have to make up recovery they got to get to it and I think we had that robust discussion earlier this evening. This is their time. This is their chance. It's a second level chance, and yes, it's an intense session, but everybody gets the summer back again, which I think also is one of the things that we're looking at. We'll see if this model works. We'll come back with more data and take a look at it for the future, but I think it's something that is different and just a model we're going to give it a try.

[14809] Karen Allard: You will notice, too, for the high school that based on their feedback, we broke, instead of going 10 days straight, two five-day weeks.

[14816] Karen Allard: We broke it up so they'll have two days, they'll have five days, and then they'll have three days.

Pause: 10.9s

[14832] Nancy Thomas: I'll move to approve. Second, please. I'll second.

[14838] Kat Jones: Vote, please.

[14841] Toya Lemus: Student board member Lee, how do you vote? Yes. Member Hill? Yes. Member Anguiano? Yes. Member Block? Yes. Member Thomas?

[14850] Kat Jones: Yes.

[14850] Toya Lemus: President Jones?

[14851] Kat Jones: Yes.

[14852] Toya Lemus: Six ayes.

9.6 Approval of new June and December Board of Education Meeting Dates

[14853] Kat Jones: Thank you. Motion carries. Approval of new June and December board of education meeting dates due to conflicts of timing while we are using the city hall chamber.

[14870] Tracey Vackar: Yes. Staff is recommending after working with city staff staff that we shift our dates to what would be Wednesday, June 11th, 2025, Wednesday, June 25th, 2025, and Wednesday, December 10th, 2025 in order to make sure that we meet our deadlines for our budget and LCAP adoption and hearing dates as well as our organization meeting for December.

[14896] Joy Lee: All right. Joy. Do you know what day my term here ends?

[14902] Kat Jones: June 30th. so the only ones that you're affected by are the June dates those Wednesdays okay and then after that the next student board member will come yes but we would like to talk with you about a transition plan too um will we meet separately about that yeah we won't do that here okay yeah all right so may I have a motion to approve the Wednesday board meeting nights in June and December I'll motion

[14933] Joy Lee: to approve the new June and December board meeting dates.

[14937] Kat Jones: And a second, please.

[14939] Joy Lee: I'll second.

[14940] Kat Jones: All right. Member Lee motions. Member Block seconds. May I have a vote?

[14946] Toya Lemus: Sure. Student board member Lee? Yes. Member Hill? Yes. Member Augiano? Yes. Member Block? Yes. Member Thomas? Yes. President Jones? Yes. Six ayes.

[14957] Kat Jones: All right. Motion carries. Okay. We are now at 10.2 with which is the personnel report. It is the only item left.

[14969] Aiden Hill: Did you pull 10.6 too?

[14971] Kat Jones: Yes. Oh, you did. Okay. Most certainly did. Yeah. So the only one left on personnel items, personnel agenda items is the personnel report. Any questions or would someone like to pull? All right. May I have a motion for the personnel report, please? 10.2. I have a question.

[14992] Joy Lee: Okay. Okay. My question was, with all the certificated substitutes, these are for the next year?

[15002] Angela Walker: We've got them going through the process and they're with us now for substitutes.

[15018] Joy Lee: Are we going to be trying to get new teachers or actual teachers

[15023] Angela Walker: or these are just so the certificated substitutes are for the substitute opening so that we can fill right and then we are constantly right always looking for our staff for the following year but after we get through our layoffs and all of that good stuff then we'll be able to have a better idea of where we are but yes we have subs okay thank you I was just I was just a little confused you may have missed the discussion that

[15053] Tracey Vackar: came up in a prior board meeting, but there were some concerns that perhaps we were not being proactive and going out for additional subs. And so we actually kind of went back to look at that pipeline, figure out what we needed to do, and this is actually a reaction to it. And we actually have a number of subs that actually retired that would like to come back and come sub for us, and their time is ready to come back and do that. So the timing was perfect for us to be able to match with that as well.

[15078] Joy Lee: Thank you.

[15078] Kat Jones: All right. May I ask for

10.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote (Approved on Consent)

10.2 Personnel Report (Approved on Consent)

[15083] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: A motion to approve agenda item 10.2 personal report I'll second Student board member does not vote on personal.

[15103] Toya Lemus: Okay. Okay. Member Hill?

[15106] Aiden Hill: Yes.

[15106] Toya Lemus: Member Anguiano? Yes. Member Block?

[15108] Aiden Hill: Yes.

[15109] Toya Lemus: Member Thomas? Yes. President Jones?

[15111] Toya Lemus: Yes.

[15121] Aiden Hill: I have a suggestion if the board agrees and that is for the so 11.3 11.4 and 11.5 so what the policy state is that this is a first reading given that these are really in my mind critical in terms of academic outcomes I'm wondering if we could pull these or table these and maybe have a separate discussion in a future meeting where we talk about here's what we're wanting to do how does the board feel about that I like that idea put them on new business yeah okay so we so if we can pull those 11.3 11.4 11.5 and then I did have a question about 11.7. I mean, you can just tell me right now or we can pull it and we can have a quick discussion. I just wanted to know, is this, we're not having people take a day off to go to prom, right? This is just paying for the transportation, you know, and the chaperones, right? But we're not like, we're not taking a whole day off.

[15203] SPEAKER_00: That's correct.

[15204] Aiden Hill: If you want to go to prom, you have to go to school. Okay.

[15207] Tracey Vackar: Okay. Yeah, that is a requirement.

[15209] Aiden Hill: All right, no need to

[15210] Tracey Vackar: A little bit different though for another trip coming up in the future that we'll talk to you about. Okay.

[15217] Kat Jones: Okay. All right. We have one speaker on 11.1. So we will have that speaker first. Mr. Noob.

11.1 Amend the Board of Education Study Session Meetings to become Regular Board Meetings

[15235] Tracey Vackar: Can I speak still on this item? You sure. If I could for 11.1. I know Mr. Noob's not here at this is one I think that we looked at the model of bringing back a study session we recognize that this is not going to be a good model for us to only hold a study session in the second meeting and so we're recommending that we go back there may be study sessions that might be added and if so that would be done a little bit earlier when I talked with board president and vice president and several of you also on this subject matter it wasn't working and so you know we said we would go back and evaluate it I'm going to go back and just say that we just need to go back to how we were doing and if we need to have a special study session that we offer that at 530, just as we did this evening, and then that maybe we place the closed session at the end of the meeting instead of at the beginning so that it doesn't create that time block. Say that last part again? That we would put the closed session at the end. Like we are tonight. Oh, I don't like that. Well, it's a little hard when you're doing the study session and then trying to get into an open session because otherwise you're going from, for time constraints, if we're going to do it on a Wednesday, if we're doing it on a Tuesday night meeting it's hard for all of you to get here because of your work schedules and I understand that so with consideration of that if we do have a hot topic that we believe means a more robust discussion which we've all talked about wanting to have my recommendation is that we then put closed session at the end unless there's a student expulsion obviously we have to do something for that so that'll be only in

[15330] Aiden Hill: when we're doing study sessions that require significant time.

[15334] Tracey Vackar: Right. Only because it really breaks it up. The continuity of how our meeting practices would work would be a little strange for the community. We're already making a lot of adjustments with making the move to City Hall.

[15346] Nancy Thomas: Okay. I'd like to add that it was mentioned by one of the speakers that, you know, we should probably make sure that we don't cut into the regular board meeting time by 45 minutes, if we can help.

[15360] Tracey Vackar: So if I could just speak to that, too, for just a moment. The staff did plan its time. Like, we knew how long our presentation was going to be. We did have a number of speakers, which obviously added to that. In most of our study sessions, we tend not to have a lot of speakers. So trying to gauge that might be a little bit difficult. But I will tell you, we were trying to make sure that we were impactful what we were doing. And we knew it was a robust topic.

[15388] Kat Jones: So I want to just add to that a little bit further. on our comment cards. It's getting late. We do have the 1 to 10 speakers is 3 minutes, 11 to 15 is 2 minutes, 16 to 20 is a minute and a half, 21 speakers and more is a minute. We actually had 22 speakers total today. So if we were to follow that, we would be going down to allow people to speak for one minute. So that would definitely help with keeping to our time. But it also means that people get 60 seconds instead of 180 to make their comments. So that's maybe a discussion we need to have. And I did plan on bringing that up as a potential discussion item. Are we going to really follow this? Because we are not going to be able to go past 11 o'clock when we move. So I think it's coming to that point where we may have to.

[15447] Joy Lee: This is just like an idea I had about what What if we set like this certain amount? When we have a certain amount of speaker notes, then we would have to reduce it to like this amount.

[15457] Kat Jones: Well, that's exactly what would happen is that based on the number of speakers, I would then say, or the president would then say, we're going to move to one minute for people during public comment. Or maybe we say a minute and a half. We cut it in half. But that's part of why we went so long from our study session into the meeting session.

[15480] Joy Lee: Yeah, I think as long as we communicate to the community well, there should be no problems. I didn't understand what you said, what? As long as we communicate to the community clearly and well, because we don't, we want to make sure there's good communication.

[15497] Kat Jones: Absolutely, absolutely. All right, so let's take a, we're going to table 11-3, 11-4, and 11-5, so I'm asking for a motion for or 11-1 and 11-2? 11-6 through 11-11, please. Do I get a motion for that?

11.2 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 4033- Lactation Accommodation (Approved on Consent)

11.6 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 6177 - Summer Learning Programs (Approved on Consent)

11.7 FIELD TRIP: Non-Curricular Trip for Newark Memorial High School students to travel to San Francisco and celebrate Prom (Approved on Consent)

11.8 FIELD TRIP: Curricular and Non-Curricular Trip for Newark Middle School Band and Choir to travel to Fairfield, CA and Vallejo, CA. (Approved on Consent)

11.9 FIELD TRIP: Non-Curricular Trip for Coyote Hills Elementary Third and Fourth Class to travel to Newark, CA (Approved on Consent)

11.10 FIELD TRIP: Non-Curricular Trip for Birch Grove Intermediate Fifth Grade Class to travel to Fremont (Approved on Consent)

11.11 Summer School MOU betwen NUSD and NTA (Approved on Consent)

[15524] Austin Block: Okay, so I'll make a motion to approve 11.1, 11.2, and 11.6 through 11.11 while tabling 11.3 through 11.5. Did I get that right? You got it right. Thank you. Can I have a

[15540] Joy Lee: Second?

[15542] Joy Lee: I'll second.

[15547] Okay, great.

[15548] Toya Lemus: And a vote, please. Student board member Lee, how do you vote?

[15550] Joy Lee: Yes.

[15550] Toya Lemus: Member Hill? Yes. Member Anguiano? Yes. Member Block? Yes. Member Thomas? Yes. President Jones? Yes.

[15558] Toya Lemus: Six ayes.

[15566] Kat Jones: All right. We are going to take a recess for a few minutes so everybody can have a chance to get up and stretch their legs. Let's try to break Are you thinking five, ten, five?

[15573] Tracey Vackar: Or actually, just before we go to closed session, are you sure you don't want to just go to closed session?

[15577] Kat Jones: Yeah, we're almost there.

[15580] Tracey Vackar: Let's take a stretch.

[15582] Kat Jones: Five minutes.

[15583] Kat Jones: Five minute stretch. So I'll make it quick so the first or my I have two requests so the first request and we talked a little bit about it with the the closing

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

[16079] Aiden Hill: session so if we do end up having a situation where we have a study session you know could we consider maybe doing an abbreviated closed session of like 30 minutes or something and then that would encourage board members to be succinct and not verbose and and and potentially just like get that out of the way push rather than pushing it all the way to the end so just you know something you know to think about we don't have to I mean obviously the it's just a request so that's request number one but then request number two is related to one of the speakers that came up Ms. Kalabata and she also had emailed me too and I would agree that and I think that this is a theme that came up with some other speakers too that really focusing in on math and STEM I mean all subjects are important but I just think it's really important and even if we

[16139] Tracey Vackar: even if we don't have the enrollment quite yet I don't think that we should should cancel a class like calculus BC because it's so important just so you know I know that there are alternatives that we're looking at I didn't know that that was going to be a question that was going to come up here this evening but I do know that we are reviewing that and coming up with some other recommendations as to how we can do that we don't think it should we believe it should be offered we're looking at what those offerings look like and coming up with a

[16169] Aiden Hill: Yes and ideally I mean we might have to maybe initially outsource some of it but ideally I would say even if we can't quite get the attendance because we're in a catch-22 where we have a number of people in our community that aren't enrolling their kids because they don't feel that our program is strong enough and particularly in like math and science and so we want to make sure that we start developing that reputation and I think even if we have to you know make some budget sacrifices to do that I just think it's important

[16199] Tracey Vackar: Great.

[16200] Aiden Hill: Okay, that's it. Thank you.

[16203] Tracey Vackar: So glad to hear you say that.

[16205] Kat Jones: Yeah, I too believe it is important. And it sounded like her son was taking two math classes this year, and so does he already have four, or so would he be looking for it? It doesn't matter if he's got four or not. He wanted additional math opportunities.

[16223] Tracey Vackar: Yeah, no, which I think is really important. And there are some other ways that we can do that, and I want to share some of the other practices that happen throughout the state as well. There's ways we can do this.

[16234] Aiden Hill: They were asking specifically for Calculus BC, and I know that that, I mean, for the families that really want their kids to excel in that area, that's like a critical course, so.

[16247] Nancy Thomas: In the past, because I analyzed the master schedule, we have combined Calculus BC with Calculus AB. I don't know if that's, it's not ideal, but it's a potential.

[16259] Tracey Vackar: It's It's not ideal. I think there's some other things too that we can look at and there's some other practices that are done with some others like summer institute with the universities to be able to do something even starting as low as the middle school to be able to work on more robust math practices and I'm kind of excited about wanting to be able to share some of those future opportunities for our kids and for our families because I think it's exactly where we need to be and that we need to be working on. It's a lifetime skill.

[16285] Kat Jones: Yeah. Agreed. All right. Member Aguia

[16289] Kat Jones: No, no, do you have anything for tonight?

[16294] Gabriel Anguiano Jr: No, just thanking the individuals that came out tonight. I mean, it's really, really positive outcome, especially the students. It helped a lot with the programs. Really, really important just to make decisions and also just to sit back a bit and really analyze this. So I really appreciate it.

[16318] Kat Jones: Okay.

[16319] Austin Block: number block yeah I mean I think just to build on that you know I think the discussion about programs today was just really making me reflect on the importance of having specific and additional interventions to support our most marginalized students especially as they begin the high school process and I think it's it's all well and good to advocate for teachers across the board doing a better job of intervening within their own classrooms and of course that's something that we're always shooting for to encourage and help support to support our teachers in being equitable and supportive within their classrooms. But, I mean, equity means then providing additional resources for our most vulnerable students above and beyond that. And so whether that's in the form of Project Connect or other programs that fulfill a similar role, I really do think we need to make sure that we are creating very clear and welcoming programs that have those extra check-ins for students that are starting high school academically behind and maybe feeling less of a sense of belonging in the school environment to ensure that students continue to get the support like they've been getting through Project Connect. I mean, the testimonials we heard really demonstrated the impact that those additional check-ins, those smaller class sizes, that additional support can create. And so I just really would like us to revisit that conversation as soon as possible in a really concrete way so that going into the next school year, we can say to students and to families what exactly the plan is to support students who enter ninth grade academically behind but ready to and get caught up and start high school strong.

[16413] Nancy Thomas: It's a long evening and it's going to be longer so I don't have any requests. The only comment I'd like to make is about Calculus BC and the need for us to provide opportunities like that for our students and other AP classes too that they can't get elsewhere.

[16433] Kat Jones: The thing about listening to the and the need for that it really made me think about what we're doing in 8th grade like how are we helping the middle school kids and making connections there so that when they do get to the high school it's not an unfamiliar concept because in listening to what was being said that was what I wrote down on my notes we need to do more in 7th and 8th so that there aren't so many coming in that need that extra support. I mean, I want to give them whatever support they need, but do we need to start earlier is basically the gist of what I wanted to say. All right. Ms. Vicar.

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

[16487] Tracey Vackar: Thank you. Just a couple of things for this evening. First of all, I just want to thank staff for their work and the presentations. When possible, we are going to give you recommendations as to what we think. I think we need to do that as staff. again it's something for us to digest it's a place to start having a conversation and I'm not afraid for a change or something that comes out of it from our board and from our community there's always oftentimes a better idea that comes forward with that and I think it's good to hear that information so when possible I am going to give you a recommendation when we do something when I think that's appropriate so I am going to continue with that also we're moving to City Hall so our next board meeting will be on April 1st it is not an April Fool's Day joke. We will definitely be moving and we will be working on that and so I'm excited about that. I want to thank the city for their kindness and for their support as we transition over. I want to thank staff and our RIT team for helping us with those transitions. We will be doing a trial run to see how that works and making sure that everything's a good go because the setup's a little bit different and so it's always nice especially when you're working with some new technology and hopefully technology that really helps hopefully it will help support our community to be able to hear what we do here in our boardroom in a more effective way. So I'm looking forward to that opportunity. And with that, oh, I know, last thing is we are taking a team to CABE next week. We're excited about that. We're taking a number of principals, teachers to really sit there and study what we can do to really help for intervention in particular and to be able to help support our students that that have bilingual needs here in our community. So I'm really excited about that opportunity and we're also going to make one little extra stop while we're there since we're all flying in on that day. We're going to be stopping and we're going to be looking at the career technical education programs at Fontana Unified School District and I look forward to kind of sharing that and also looking at some of the counseling things that they do as to how they block that and how they've been able to achieve some things in the dashboard as they transition and doing some things with CTE type programs and how they take some of the core academics and also shifted in being A through G robust and also to add the CTE component to it. So some new things to look at as we start to explore how we can help and support our students. It falls right in the line of what we do with ROP. And so I'm excited about that.

[16637] Nancy Thomas: I just forgot to add that I won't be at the next meeting. I'll be thinking about you as I sail down the venue.

[16648] Kat Jones: Lucky.

[16649] Aiden Hill: You know, when you miss a meeting, you always get assigned extra things.

[16662] Tracey Vackar: We'll come up with something.

[16664] Kat Jones: All right, so we're getting ready to move to closed session. We did not receive any comments for closed session, but I would like to read out on what we are going to be discussing. 14.3 public employee discipline, dismissal, release, complaint, Government Code 54957. 14.4, conference with legal counsel regarding anticipated litigation, significant exposure to litigation pursuant to Government Code 54956.9. There's five cases. And 14.5, conference with labor negotiators, Government Code 54957.6,

15.1 Report of Closed Session Actions

16.2 Adjournment

[16709] Kat Jones: Division a employee organization CSEA and NTA and with that we are recessing to closed session Session we had one item resolution number 2024 dot 25 dot 32 The motion was made by block. It was seconded by Anguiano and there were five eyes Jones Thomas Hill block and Anguiano And it is on a resolution releasing substitute and or temporary employees Thank you and I adjourn the meeting at 11.32

10.3 Revise 2023-24 CSEA Salary Schedule to Remain the Same for 2024-25 (Removed by Board)

10.4 Revise 2023-24 NTA Salary Schedules to Remain the Same for 2024-25 (Removed by Board)

10.5 Revise 2023-24 NEWMA Salary Schedules to Remain the Same for 2024-25 (Removed by Board)

10.6 Revise Salary Schedule of Contracted Executive Cabinet (Removed by Board)

11.3 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 6146.1 - High School Graduation Requirements (Removed by Board)

11.4 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 6146.2 - Certificate Of Proficiency/High School Equivalency (Removed by Board)

11.5 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 6146.11 - Alternative Credits Toward Graduation (Removed by Board)

14.1 Public Comment on Closed Session Items (Closed Session)

14.2 Recess to Closed Session (Closed Session)

14.3 Public Employee Discipline/Dismissal/Release/Complaint: Gov. Code § 54957 (Closed Session)

14.4 Conference with Legal Counsel regarding Anticipated Litigation - Significant exposure to litigation pursuant to Gov. Code, § 54956.9- 5 cases (Closed Session)

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

[749] 1.1 Roll Call

[778] 1.2 Meeting Practices and Information

[821] 1.3 Public Comment on Study Session Agenda Items

[2811] 2.1 Newark Memorial High School Programs

[8383] 3.1 Pledge of Allegiance

[8409] 3.2 Meeting Practices and Information

[8439] 4.1 Approval of the Agenda

[8560] 5.1 Student Report: Student Board Member, Joy Lee

[8771] 6.1 Employee Organizations

[9420] 7.1 Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items

[10572] 7.2 Public Comment on Agenda Items

[10742] 8.1 Miyawaki Forest Project at Schilling Elementary

[11548] 9.1 E-Rate Network Internet, Switches and Uninterruptible Power Supplies Upgrade

[13248] 16.1 PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting

[13509] 9.2 Audit Report for Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2024

[14452] 9.3 2023-24 Audit Report - Measure G Bond

[14555] 9.4 Home-To-School Transportation Plan

[14632] 9.5 2024 Summer School Dates

[14853] 9.6 Approval of new June and December Board of Education Meeting Dates

[15083] 10.1 PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote (Approved on Consent)

[15083] 10.2 Personnel Report (Approved on Consent)

[15235] 11.1 Amend the Board of Education Study Session Meetings to become Regular Board Meetings

[15524] 11.2 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 4033- Lactation Accommodation (Approved on Consent)

[15524] 11.6 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 6177 - Summer Learning Programs (Approved on Consent)

[15524] 11.7 FIELD TRIP: Non-Curricular Trip for Newark Memorial High School students to travel to San Francisco and celebrate Prom (Approved on Consent)

[15524] 11.8 FIELD TRIP: Curricular and Non-Curricular Trip for Newark Middle School Band and Choir to travel to Fairfield, CA and Vallejo, CA. (Approved on Consent)

[15524] 11.9 FIELD TRIP: Non-Curricular Trip for Coyote Hills Elementary Third and Fourth Class to travel to Newark, CA (Approved on Consent)

[15524] 11.10 FIELD TRIP: Non-Curricular Trip for Birch Grove Intermediate Fifth Grade Class to travel to Fremont (Approved on Consent)

[15524] 11.11 Summer School MOU betwen NUSD and NTA (Approved on Consent)

[16079] 12.1 Board of Education Committee Reports, Announcements, Requests, Debrief and Discussion

[16487] 13.1 Superintendent's Concluding Comments, Updates, and Future Agenda Items

[16709] 15.1 Report of Closed Session Actions

[16709] 16.2 Adjournment

[99999] 10.3 Revise 2023-24 CSEA Salary Schedule to Remain the Same for 2024-25 (Removed by Board)

[99999] 10.4 Revise 2023-24 NTA Salary Schedules to Remain the Same for 2024-25 (Removed by Board)

[99999] 10.5 Revise 2023-24 NEWMA Salary Schedules to Remain the Same for 2024-25 (Removed by Board)

[99999] 10.6 Revise Salary Schedule of Contracted Executive Cabinet (Removed by Board)

[99999] 11.3 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 6146.1 - High School Graduation Requirements (Removed by Board)

[99999] 11.4 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 6146.2 - Certificate Of Proficiency/High School Equivalency (Removed by Board)

[99999] 11.5 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 6146.11 - Alternative Credits Toward Graduation (Removed by Board)

[99999] 14.1 Public Comment on Closed Session Items (Closed Session)

[99999] 14.2 Recess to Closed Session (Closed Session)

[99999] 14.3 Public Employee Discipline/Dismissal/Release/Complaint: Gov. Code § 54957 (Closed Session)

[99999] 14.4 Conference with Legal Counsel regarding Anticipated Litigation - Significant exposure to litigation pursuant to Gov. Code, § 54956.9- 5 cases (Closed Session)

[99999] 14.5 CONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS (Gov. Code, § 54957.6, subd. (a): Employee Organizations - CSEA, NTA (Closed Session)

1. CALL TO ORDER

1.1 Roll Call

Type                        Information, Procedural

TRUSTEES:

President Katherine Jones Vice President Nancy Thomas Member Aiden Hill Member Austin Block Member Gabriel Anguiano Jr.

STUDENT BOARD MEMBER:

Member Joy Lee

1.2 Meeting Practices and Information

Type                        Information, Procedural

IN-PERSON MEETING INFORMATION:

Please see the attached meeting information in English and Spanish.

OBSERVE THE BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING:

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

PUBLIC COMMENT:

The public will have the opportunity to address the Board of Education regarding non-agendized matters and agendized items by submitting a written comment speaker card with the Executive Assistant.

File Attachments
Board Meeting Protocols_ENG(1).pdf (69 KB)

Protocolos de la Reunion de la Mesa Directiva_ESP (1).pdf (65 KB) Original Board Meeting Guidelines (3).pdf (263 KB)

1.3 Public Comment on Study Session 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:

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.

2. STUDY SESSION

2.1 Newark Memorial High School Programs

Type                        Discussion, Information

PURPOSE:

Provide background information, data and recommendations for the Board of Trustees regarding high school accreditation (WASC), programs and projects, and for credit recovery curriculum

BACKGROUND:

The high school program overview presentation and discussion will include the Puente Program, Project Connect, PAWS, APEX credit recovery curriculum, and the California Partnership Academy MCA . In addition information will be shared about the upcoming WASC visit and goals of the high school.

File Attachments High School Programs.2025.03.18.pdf (1,082 KB)

3. RECONVENE TO OPEN SESSION

3.1 Pledge of Allegiance

Type                       Procedural

PURPOSE:

The Governance Team will recite the Pledge of Allegiance

3.2 Meeting Practices and Information

Type                       Information, Procedural

IN-PERSON MEETING INFORMATION:

Please see the attached meeting information in English and Spanish.

OBSERVE THE BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING:

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

PUBLIC COMMENT:

The public will have the opportunity to address the Board of Education regarding non-agendized matters and agendized items by submitting a written comment speaker card with the Executive Assistant.

File Attachments Board Meeting Protocols_ENG(1).pdf (69 KB) Protocolos de la Reunion de la Mesa Directiva_ESP (1).pdf (65 KB) Original Board Meeting Guidelines (3).pdf (263 KB)

4. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

4.1 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.

5. STUDENT REPORT

5.1 Student Report: Student Board Member, Joy Lee

Type

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

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

6. EMPLOYEE ORGANIZATIONS

6.1 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

7. PUBLIC COMMENT

7.1 Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items

Type                        Procedural

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

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.

7.2 Public Comment on Agenda Items

Type                        Procedural

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

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.

8. STAFF REPORT

8.1 Miyawaki Forest Project at Schilling Elementary

Type                        Information

PURPOSE:

To Plant a STEM Learning Miyawaki Forest at Schilling Elementary School.

BACKGROUND:

The Miyawaki Method is a cutting edge approach to urban forestry and landscaping, developed by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki. These all native micro forests boost biodiversity, improve air quality, and lower temperatures around school buildings - all while utilizing minimal water. Schilling elementary, staff, students and community would participate in the planting and maintaining of the Miyawaki Forest. There is no cost as the project is being funded by a donor.

File Attachments NUSD Board Presentation Schoolyard Learning Forest Presentation.pdf (5,908 KB)

9. NEW BUSINESS

9.1 E-Rate Network Internet, Switches and Uninterruptible Power Supplies Upgrade

Type                        Action

Fiscal Impact               Yes

Dollar Amount               $2,397,643.13

Budgeted                    Yes
Budget Source              Current and Future E-Rate Funds and General Funds

Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the 3-Year MOU with ACOENet in
Action                     the amount of $157,590.00, the 3-Year contract with AT&T for Ethernet between ACOE and
                           NUSD in the amount of $25,488.00 and the contract with AT&T for Ethernet between NUSD
                           and all sites in the amount of $307,260.00; approve the 5-year contract with CDW-G for
                           network switches in the amount of $1,557,237.80; and approve the one time contract with
                           CDW-G for Uninterruptible Power Supplies (batteries) in the amount of $350,067.33, for a
                           total amount of $2,397,643.13, as presented.

PURPOSE:

To utilize E-Rate funds to secure the District's internet service, upgrade network switches in all main distribution frames and intermediate distribution frames at all sites, and replace end-of-life uninterruptible power supplies (batteries).

Internet Service: Staff recommends a 3-Year MOU with ACOENet in the amount of $157,590.00, the 3-Year contract with AT&T for Ethernet between ACOE and NUSD in the amount of $25,488.00 and the contract with AT&T for Ethernet between NUSD and all sites in the amount of $307,260.00.

Network Switches: Staff recommends the 5-year contract with CDW-G for network switches in the amount of $1,557,237.80.

Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) (batteries): Staff recommends the one time contract with CDW-G for Uninterruptible Power Supplies (batteries) in the amount of $350,067.33.

For a total amount of $2,397,643.13.

BACKGROUND:

At the March 4, 2025 Board meeting, the Board was provided background and rationale to evaluate technology procurement proposals to be brought back to the Board for approval at this meeting.

NUSD utilized SPURR Master Contracts to solicit mini-bids to upgrade network switches in all main distribution frames and intermediate distribution frames at all sites and for end-of-life uninterruptible power supplies (batteries).

Funding Summary 2025 is year 5 of 5 for E-Rate Category 2 funding. NUSD has $453,060.16 left to spend of the original $938,874.00 award. 2026 begins a new 5-year cycle with an anticipated award of about $900,000

E-Rate Recommendation Category 1 (eligible for discounted rates and will be paid for out of the General Fund)

Summary of ACOE MOU and AT&T Staff recommends continuing with ACOENet and AT&T

PROVIDER MONTHLY ANNUAL 3 YRTOTAL ACOENet (3 YR) 52,530 $157,590 AT&T Ethernet - NUSD to ACOE (3 YR) 708 2,124 $25,488 AT&T Ethernet - NUSD to All Sites (3YR) 8,535 102,420 $307,260 Total 9,243 157,074 $490,338

E-Rate Recommendation Category 2 (will be paid for out of the current E-Rate balance of $453,060.16 and future anticipated 5-year E-Rate award of $900.000 with additional funding from General Fund)

Summary of Switches Mini-Bids Staff recommends CDW-G 5-Year Agreement

PROVIDER TOTAL CDW-G (5 YR) $1,557,238 AMS.NET MGT (1 YR) $2,409,144 Summary of Uninterruptible Power Supplies (Batteries) Mini-Bids Staff recommends CDW-G for installation of UPS' (DGI pricing did not include installation)

PROVIDER TOTAL CDW-G (ONE TIME) $350,067 DGI (ONE TIME) $258,115

File Attachments IT-Board Presentation-ERATE 2025_3-4-25.pdf (641 KB) ACOE 2025-2028 Newark USD_Access Plus.pdf (1,142 KB) ATT_Newark USD to ACOE.pdf (602 KB) ATT_Newark USD to All Sites.pdf (613 KB) CDWG- Switches- K12 CA# 141250 SPURR E-rate.pdf (3,700 KB) MGT-Switches-SPURR Mini-Bid.pdf (1,500 KB) CDWG UPS Batteries - K12 CA #141248 SPURR E-rate.pdf (3,505 KB) DGI- UPS Batteries - SPURR Mini Bid.pdf (5,348 KB)

9.2 Audit Report for Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2024

Type                       Action, Discussion

Fiscal Impact              No

Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education accepts the independent audit report for
Action                     the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024, as presented.

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this item is for the Board to receive information about and accept the financial audit report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024, as presented.

BACKGROUND:

In accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and Government Auditing Standards, the independent auditing firm of Crowe, LLC. has completed its audit of the combined financial statements of the Newark Unified School District for the year ending June 30, 2024.

The audit report is the financial document that all outside agencies review, county offices scrutinize, and bond rating agencies rely on. The District prepares all reports in the state-approved format, but the audit report is the document that is readily available to the public and is audited in accordance with Government Auditing Standards and the Guide for Annual Audits of K-12 Local Education Agencies and State Compliance Reporting.

The district's Audit Committee met and reviewed the audit report on March 12, 2025.

File Attachments Audit Report 23-24 Newark USD FINAL.pdf (3,842 KB)

9.3 2023-24 Audit Report - Measure G Bond

Type                        Action, Discussion

Recommended                 The recommendation is that the Board of Education accept the Measure G Financial and
Action                      Performance Audit Report for the year ended June 30, 2024.

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this item is for the Board to receive information and accept the Measure G Financial and Performance Audit Report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024.

BACKGROUND:

On March 11, 2025, the Citizen's Bond Oversight Committee reviewed and accepted the Measure G Financial and Performance Audit Report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024.

In accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and Government Auditing Standards, the independent auditing firm of Crowe, LLC. has completed their Financial and Performance Audit Report of the Proposition 39 (Measure G) Bonds of the Newark Unified School District for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024.

This is the final audit report to close out Measure G.

File Attachments Measure G Bond Audit Report for Year Ended June 30, 2024_Financial Statements - Final.pdf (248 KB) Measure G Bond Audit Report for Year Ended June 30, 2024_Performance Audit - Final.pdf (145 KB)

9.4 Home-To-School Transportation Plan

Type                        Action, Discussion

Fiscal Impact               Yes

Dollar Amount               $184,921.40

Budgeted                    Yes

Budget Source               Decrease to the Special Education contribution from General Fund for Transportation

Recommended                 The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the Transportation Plan for 2024-
Action                      25 as presented and opportunity to receive $184,921.40 in transportation costs.

PURPOSE:

To approve the Home-to-School Transportation Plan by April 1, 2025 to receive $184,921.40 in funding as required by Ed Code 39800.1 and AB 181.

BACKGROUND:

The 2024-25 State Budget included funds that school districts can receive to offset costs associated with providing student home-to-school transportation services (reference Ed Code 41850.1). This funding is not for additional transportation services but rather a reimbursement for costs already incurred. In order to receive the funds, the District is required to approve a Transportation Plan by April 1, 2025.

     If the district does not approve a Transportation Plan, it will result in an audit finding and funds will have to be returned to the
     State.

     The district has an opportunity to be reimbursed for $184,921.40 in transportation costs through this funding source.
     The fiscal impact for this item will result in a decrease to the Special Education contribution from General Fund for transportation.

File Attachments Transportation Plan Presentation for Board 3_18_25.pdf (231 KB) NUSD Transportation Plan 2024-25FY.pdf (100 KB)

9.5 2024 Summer School Dates

Type                       Action

Fiscal Impact              No

Budgeted                   No

Recommended                The recommendation is for the Board of Education to approve the 2025 Summer School
Action                     Dates.

Goals                         1b. Student Achievement
                              MISSION: The Newark Unified School District will inspire and educate all students to
                              achieve their full potential and be responsible, respectful, and productive citizens.

PURPOSE:

Provide information regarding the 2025 summer school dates and programs

BACKGROUND:

The proposed 2024 summer school programs and dates will continue to provide ongoing educational opportunities for K- 12/Post Secondary during the months of June and July. A wide range of academic courses as well as enrichment activities will address learning loss as well as credit recovery options. The dates will allow the district to successfully deliver a comprehensive summer school program to meet the learning needs of students across the district.

File Attachments _Summer School Dates 2025.pdf (123 KB)

9.6 Approval of new June and December Board of Education Meeting Dates

Type                       Action, Discussion

Fiscal Impact              No

Budgeted                   No

Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the proposed Regular Board of
Action                     Education meeting dates of Wednesday, June 11, 2025, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, and
                           Wednesday, December 10, 2025 for Newark Unified School District to hold and conduct the
                           Regular/ Organizational Board meetings at the City Council Chambers located at 37101
                           Newark Blvd. Newark Blvd. Newark, CA 94560.

PURPOSE:

The City Council Chambers are unavailable to hold and conduct Newark Unified School District Regular Board meetings on Tuesday, June 10th, 24th, and Thursday, December 11, 2025 due to previous engagements. The City of Newark and Newark Unified administration coordinated alternative dates to accommodate the school district to conduct school business. The new proposed dates are as follows: Wednesday, June 11, 2025, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, and Wednesday, December 10, 2025 for Newark Unified School District to hold and conduct the Regular/ Organizational Board meetings at the City Council Chambers located at 37101 Newark Blvd. Newark Blvd. Newark, CA 94560.

BACKGROUND:

The new proposed dates are as follows: Wednesday, June 11, 2025, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, and Wednesday, December 10, 2025 for Newark Unified School District to hold and conduct the Regular/ Organizational Board meetings at the City Council Chambers located at 37101 Newark Blvd. Newark Blvd. Newark, CA 94560.

10. CONSENT AGENDA: PERSONNEL ITEMS

10.1 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.

10.2 Personnel Report

Type                       Action

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

PURPOSE:

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

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

File Attachments HR PAL 03.18.2025.pdf (136 KB)

10.3 Revise 2023-24 CSEA Salary Schedule to Remain the Same for 2024-25

Type                           Action

Recommended                    The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the 2024-25 CSEA Salary
Action                         Schedules effective January 1, 2024.

PURPOSE:

For the Board of Education to revise the 2023-24 CSEA (California School Employees Association) Salary Schedules, effective January 1, 2024, for 2024-25. There are no salary schedule changes.

BACKGROUND:

CalPERS contracted agencies are required to provide CalPERS with a publicly available pay schedule in compliance with the Public Employees' Retirement Law (PERL), Public Employees' Pension Reform Act of 2013 (PEPRA), and Title 2 of the California Code of Regulations (CCR).

File Attachments CSEA_2425_eff Jan 2024.pdf (188 KB)

10.4 Revise 2023-24 NTA Salary Schedules to Remain the Same for 2024-25

Type                           Action (Consent)

Recommended                    The recommendation is that the Board of Education update the 2024-25 NTA Salary
Action                         Schedules effective January 1, 2024.

PURPOSE:

For the Board of Education to revise the 2023-24 NTA (National Teachers Association) Salary Schedules, effective January 1, 2024, for 2024-25. There are no salary schedule changes.

BACKGROUND:

CalSTRS requires a publicly available pay schedule each school year.

File Attachments NTA_2425_Teacher_eff Jan 2024.pdf (98 KB) NTA_2425_Lead Teacher_eff Jan 2024.pdf (170 KB) NTA_2425_Dept Chair_eff Jan 2024.pdf (154 KB) NTA_2425_Counselor_eff Jan 2024.pdf (171 KB) NTA_2425_Other_eff Jan 2024.pdf (189 KB)

10.5 Revise 2023-24 NEWMA Salary Schedules to Remain the Same for 2024-25

Type                       Action

Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the 2024-25 NEWMA Salary
Action                     Schedules effective January 1, 2024.

PURPOSE:

For the Board of Education to revise the 2023-24 NEWMA (Newark Management Association) Salary Schedules, effective January 1, 2024, for 2024-25. There are no salary schedule changes.

BACKGROUND:

NEWMA consists of both CalPERS and CalSTRS positions.

CalPERS contracted agencies are required to provide CalPERS with a publicly available pay schedule in compliance with the Public Employees' Retirement Law (PERL), Public Employees' Pension Reform Act of 2013 (PEPRA), and Title 2 of the California Code of Regulations (CCR).

CalSTRS requires a publicly available pay schedule each school year.

File Attachments NEWMA_2425_Certificated Mgmt_eff Jan 2024.pdf (184 KB) NEWMA_2425_Classified Mgmt_eff Jun 2025.pdf (284 KB) NEWMA_2425_Behavior Occup_eff Jan 2024.pdf (164 KB)

10.6 Revise Salary Schedule of Contracted Executive Cabinet

Type                       Action

Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the revised 2024-25 Contracted
Action                     Executive Cabinet Salary Schedule.

PURPOSE:

For the Board of Education to approve the revised 2024-25 Contracted Executive Cabinet Salary Schedule to be consistent with the compensation in the Executive Cabinet contracts.

BACKGROUND:

The District's Executive Cabinet includes the Interim Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent of Business Services (formerly Deputy Superintendent of Business Services/CBO), Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services and Interim Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources. Individuals serving in these positions are offered a contract.

History: On April 16, 2024 the Board of Education approved an employment agreement with the Interim Superintendent. On May 7, 2024, the Board of Education approved an employment agreement with the Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services. On August 6, 2024, the Board of Education, after reinstating the job description, approved the employment agreement for the Assistant Superintendent of Business Services. On April 23, 2024 the Board of Education ratified an employment agreement, currently not a contracted position, with the Interim Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources.

File Attachments Cabinet Salary Schedules 2024-25_approved 9-17-2024-final.pdf (10 KB)

11. CONSENT AGENDA: NON-PERSONNEL ITEMS

11.1 Amend the Board of Education Study Session Meetings to become Regular Board Meetings

Type                       Action (Consent)

Fiscal Impact              No

Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve and amend the following Study
Action                     Sessions to Regular Board of Education meetings for the remainder 2025.

PURPOSE:

Study Sessions: April 15, 2025, May 20, 2025, August 19, 2025, September 16, 2025, and October 21, 2025

BACKGROUND:

The Board of Education will resume and conduct the listed study session dates to conduct Regular Board of Education Meetings as usual.

11.2 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 4033- Lactation Accommodation

Type                       Action (Consent), Procedural

Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the updated Board Policy 4033-
Action                     Lactation Accommodation

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

This is the FIRST reading of the attached policy. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association. California School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will be removed from the final, Board approved policies.

The Ad Hoc Policy subcommittee and the administration have reviewed the recommended updates for accuracy and made revisions to reflect district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the Board, the policy will be brought back for an additional reading.

Board Policy 4033 - Lactation Accommodation Policy updated to reflect NEW FEDERAL REGULATIONS (89 Fed. Reg. 33474) which (1) require districts to provide reasonable break time for employees to express breast milk or breastfeed, and to ensure that employees have access to a lactation space, as specified, (2) provide that "sex" for purposes of sex discrimination under Title IX includes lactation and related medical conditions or recovery, and (3) require a district with knowledge of alleged conduct, which occurs in a district program or activity on or after August 1, 2024, that reasonably may constitute sex discrimination under Title IX, including sex-based harassment, to follow Title IX grievance procedures when investigating and resolving a complaint based on the alleged conduct. Additionally, policy updated to reflect the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections (PUMP) for Nursing Mother Act which (1) requires employers to provide reasonable break time for nursing employees to express breast milk for one year after the child's birth, and to ensure that employees have access to a lactation space, as specified, and (2) authorizes an employee to file a complaint with the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor for violation of such act. In addition, policy updated to reflect the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act which (1) requires employers to provide reasonable accommodation to employees due to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, including lactation, as specified, and (2) authorizes an employee to file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for failure to provide reasonable accommodations pursuant to the act.

File Attachments Policy 4033 - Lactation Accommodation.docx.pdf (255 KB)

11.3 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 6146.1 - High School Graduation Requirements

Type                       Action, Procedural

Fiscal Impact              No

Budgeted                   No

Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the updated Board Policy 6146.1
Action                     - High School Graduation Requirements

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

This is the FIRST reading of the attached policy. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association. California School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will be removed from the final, Board approved policies.

The Ad Hoc Policy subcommittee and the administration have reviewed the recommended updates for accuracy and made revisions to reflect district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the Board, the policy will be brought back for an additional reading.

File Attachments 6146.1 - BP - High School Graduation Requirements.docx.pdf (314 KB)

11.4 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 6146.2 - Certificate Of Proficiency/High School Equivalency

Type                       Action, Procedural

Fiscal Impact              No

Budgeted                   No

Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the updated Board Policy and
Action                     Administrative Regulation 6146.2 - Certificate Of Proficiency/High School Equivalency

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

This is the FIRST reading of the attached policy. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association. California School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will be removed from the final, Board approved policies. The Ad Hoc Policy subcommittee and the administration have reviewed the recommended updates for accuracy and made revisions to reflect district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the Board, the policy will be brought back for an additional reading.

File Attachments 6146.2 - AR - Certificate Of Proficiency. High School Equivalency.docx.pdf (183 KB) 6146.2 - BP - Certificate Of Proficiency.High School Equivalency.docx.pdf (123 KB)

11.5 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 6146.11 - Alternative Credits Toward Graduation

Type                       Action (Consent), Procedural

Preferred Date             Mar 18, 2025

Absolute Date              Dec 30, 1899

Budget Source              ,

Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the updated Board Policy and
Action                     Administrative Regulation 6146.11 - Alternative Credits Toward Graduation.

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

This is the FIRST reading of the attached policy. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association. California School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will be removed from the final, Board approved policies. The Ad Hoc Policy subcommittee and the administration have reviewed the recommended updates for accuracy and made revisions to reflect district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the Board, the policy will be brought back for an additional reading.

File Attachments BP 6146.11 - Alternative Credits Toward Graduation.docx.pdf (236 KB) AR 6146.11 - Alternative Credits Toward Graduation.docx.pdf (327 KB)

11.6 POLICY UPDATE: Board Policy 6177 - Summer Learning Programs

Type                       Action, Procedural

Fiscal Impact              No

Budgeted                   No

Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the updated Board Policy 6177 -
Action                     Summer Learning Programs.

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

This is the FIRST reading of the attached policy. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association. California School Board Association notations can be seen in the documents for the benefit of the Board. These notations will be removed from the final, Board approved policies.

The Ad Hoc Policy subcommittee and the administration have reviewed the recommended updates for accuracy and made revisions to reflect district practice. If any revisions are recommended by the Board, the policy will be brought back for an additional reading

Board Policy 6177 - Summer Learning Programs Policy updated to incorporate concepts related to learning recovery, including that the district will provide students with supplemental instruction and support in a tiered framework that bases universal, targeted, and intensive supports on students' needs for academic, social-emotional, and other integrated student supports through a program of engaging learning experiences in a positive school climate. Policy also updated to reflect NEW LAW (AB 723, 2023) and NEW LAW (AB 373, 2023) which require a district to grant priority access for intersession programs to a foster youth and/or to a student experiencing homelessness, and that if during an intersession period the student will be moving, the student's educational rights holder will determine which school the student will attend for the intersession period. Additionally, policy updated to add that a district is required to provide any student who attends a school that is not operating an expanded learning opportunity (ELO) program transportation to attend at a location that is providing an ELO program and to return to the original location or another location that is established by the district

File Attachments BP 6177 Summer Learning Programs.docx.pdf (266 KB)

11.7 FIELD TRIP: Non-Curricular Trip for Newark Memorial High School students to travel to San Francisco and celebrate Prom

Type                          Action

Absolute Date                 Apr 01, 2025

Fiscal Impact                 Yes

Dollar Amount                 $62,020.00

Budgeted                      Yes

Budget Source                 Student ASB

Recommended                   The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the Newark Memorial High
Action                        School students to travel San Francisco to celebrate Prom.

PURPOSE:

The NMHS Principal and Classes of 2025 and 2026 request permission to take students on a non-curricular trip to travel San Francisco to celebrate Prom.

Prom is for the Class of 2025 and 2026 will celebrate their Prom.

     School: Newark Memorial
     Exploratorium at Pier 15
     Date: April 5, 2025
     Location: San Francisco, CA

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 sixth-grade teachers request permission to take students on an overnight curricular trip to attend an outdoor education/science camp program that is articulated with grade level curriculum. The programs are taught by credentialed staff members and camp staff and are viewed by the sites as a valuable part of the students' educational experience.

File Attachments NMHS 4.5.25 Prom Celebration.pdf (480 KB)

11.8 FIELD TRIP: Curricular and Non-Curricular Trip for Newark Middle School Band and Choir to travel to Fairfield, CA and Vallejo, CA.

Type                          Action

Absolute Date                 Apr 01, 2025

Fiscal Impact                 Yes

Dollar Amount                 $5,000.00

Budgeted                      Yes

Budget Source                 ASB Funds
Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the curricular and non-curricular
Action                     trip for Newark Middle School Band and Choir to travel to Fairfield, CA and Vallejo, CA on May
                           3, 2025.

PURPOSE:

The Newark Middle School Principal requests permission to take Newark Middle School Band on a Curricular and Non-Curricular Trip trip to to Fairfield, CA and Vallejo, CA. Transportation will be by chartered bus. This trip's purpose is to accept an invitation for the Band and Choir to travel to a local music festival to perform in competition and receive feedback from professionals and peers.

     School: Newark Middle School
     Dates: May 3, 2025
     Location: Fairfield, CA and Vallejo, CA.

Chaperone requirements met

     Grade K-3, one adult for every 5-8 students; Grades 4-12, one adult for every 10 students; Board Policy requires at least two
     adults on every trip regardless of the number of students (BP 6153 and AR 6153)
     No student will be denied due to a lack of funds

BACKGROUND:

According to Board Policy 6153, all trips in excess of 100 miles, non-curricular trips, and overnight trips require Board approval. Newark Middle School Principal requests permission to take the Band and Choir to travel to Fairfield, CA and Vallejo, CA.

File Attachments NMS 5.3.25 Fairfield CA.pdf (169 KB)

11.9 FIELD TRIP: Non-Curricular Trip for Coyote Hills Elementary Third and Fourth Class to travel to Newark, CA

Type                       Action

Preferred Date             Apr 01, 2025

Absolute Date              May 06, 2025

Fiscal Impact              No

Budgeted                   No

Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the non-curricular trip for Coyote
Action                     Hills Elementary third and fourth grade classes to Newark, CA .

PURPOSE:

The Coyote Hills Elementary Principal requests permission to take Coyote Hills Elementary third and fourth graders on a non-curricular trip to Newark, CA. This will be a walking field for an End of Year picnic to Newark, CA.

     School: Coyote Hills Elementary
     Dates: May 27, 2025
     Location: Newark, CA (Mayhews Landing)

Additional requirements include the following:

     Grade K-3, one adult for every 5-8 students; Grades 4-12, one adult for every 10 students; Board Policy requires at least two
     adults on every trip regardless of the number of students (BP 6153 and AR 6153)
     No student will be denied due to a lack of funds

BACKGROUND:

According to Board Policy 6153, all trips in excess of 100 miles, non-curricular trips, and overnight trips require Board approval. Coyote Hills Elementary Principal requests permission to take Coyote Hills Elementary Third and Fourth Class on a non-curricular trip to Newark, CA.

File Attachments CHE 5.27.25 Mayhews Landing Park.pdf (128 KB)

11.10 FIELD TRIP: Non-Curricular Trip for Birch Grove Intermediate Fifth Grade Class to travel to Fremont

Type                       Action

Preferred Date             Apr 01, 2025

Absolute Date              May 06, 2025

Fiscal Impact              Yes

Dollar Amount              $5,200.00

Budgeted                   Yes

Budget Source              ASB FUnds and Family Donations

Recommended                The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the non-curricular trip for Birch
Action                     Grove Intermediate fifth grade class to Fremont, CA.

PURPOSE:

The Birch Grove Intermediate Principal requests permission to take Birch Grove Intermediate fifth graders on a non-curricular trip to Fremont, CA. This will be a charted field trip for a Fifth Grade end-of-year trip given as a reward for those students who have met academic and behavioral goals in fifth grade.

     School: Birch Grove Intermediate
     Dates: May 28, 2025
     Location: Fremont, CA (Sky Zone)

Additional requirements include the following:

     Grade K-3, one adult for every 5-8 students; Grades 4-12, one adult for every 10 students; Board Policy requires at least two
     adults on every trip regardless of the number of students (BP 6153 and AR 6153)
     No student will be denied due to a lack of funds

BACKGROUND:

According to Board Policy 6153, all trips in excess of 100 miles, non-curricular trips, and overnight trips require Board approval. Birch Grove Intermediate Principal requests permission to take Birch Grove Intermediate fifth graders on a non-curricular trip to Fremont, CA.

File Attachments BGI 5.28.25 Fremont CA.pdf (154 KB)

11.11 Summer School MOU betwen NUSD and NTA

Type                        Action

Fiscal Impact               Yes

Budgeted                    Yes

Recommended                 The recommendation is that the Board of Education review and approve the Summer School
Action                      MOU betwen NUSD and NTA

PURPOSE:

Approve the Memorandum of Understanding Between the Newark Unified School District and the Newark Teachers Association Summer School Work

BACKGROUND:

The Memorandum of Understanding is agreed upon between Newark Unified School District ("District") and the Newark Teachers Association ("NTA") referred to hereinafter as "the parties", concerning only the opportunity and compensation for summer work regarding Extended Learning Opportunities Program(ELOP) in Grades TK-5 & 6-8, High School Credit Recovery, and Preschool - Post Secondary Special Education Extended School Year (ESY). This is optional work that is outside of the regular contracted work year and offered only for Summer-2025. Both parties have agreed and signed to the terms and conditions outlined in the collective bargaining agreement. The MOU will expire on July 30, 2025.

File Attachments Summer School MOU.pdf (50 KB)

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

12.1 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 2025-26

Board Adopted on 12/17/2024 Representative/Liaison* Alternate

Mission Valley Regional Occupational Center/Program (MVROP) 1. Nancy Thomas 1. Katherine Jones Executive Board

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

Newark Teacher Induction Advisory Council 1. Austin Block 1. Aiden Hill

Audit Committee 1. Nancy Thomas2. Gabriel Anguiano Jr.1. Austin Block

Citizens Bond Oversite/Parcel Tax Committee (CBOC) 1. Austin Block2. Nancy Thomas1. Joy Lee (Attendee)

City of Newark � NUSD Liaison Committee 1. Katherine Jones2. Aiden Hill1. Austin Block LCAP Advisory Committee 1. Katherine Jones*2. Gabriel Anguiano Jr. *1. AidenHill 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.

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

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

                              AGENDA REQUESTS

Type                          Information

PURPOSE:

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

14. CLOSED SESSION

14.1 Public Comment on Closed Session Items

Type                       Procedural

PURPOSE:

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

BACKGROUND:

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.

14.2 Recess to Closed Session

Type                       Procedural

PURPOSE:

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

14.3 Public Employee Discipline/Dismissal/Release/Complaint: Gov. Code � 54957

Type                       Action, Discussion, Information

PURPOSE:

BACKGROUND:

14.4 Conference with Legal Counsel regarding Anticipated Litigation - Significant exposure to litigation pursuant to Gov. Code, � 54956.9- 5 cases

Type

PURPOSE:

To discuss 5 cases with the Board of Education.

BACKGROUND:

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

Type                       Discussion, Information, Procedural

PURPOSE:

Information and update will be provided by the Interim Superintendent regarding CSEA negotiations and NTA negotiations.

BACKGROUND:

15. REPORT OF CLOSED SESSION ACTIONS

15.1 Report of Closed Session Actions

Type                       Action, Procedural

PURPOSE:

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

16. ADJOURNMENT

16.1 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.

16.2 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.

No minutes available.