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PCS Board of Education Meeting: March 26, 2024

Have once, toddlers and preschoolers. James, a child with an American mother and a Mexican father. Only spoke English.

Petaluma City Schools

2 days ago

It's what we're saying. No, it's fine. I'll wait. I'm like, let's go. I'm very excited for all the people that are here and that's why we're gonna have the Pledge of Allegiance and Trustee Cloud. Could you lead us on the Pledge of Allegiance? Yes. I like. It's true. Yes. And now we're gonna move on to special recognitions, reports, and presentations starting with a school report from our shamrocks. Do I have any shamrocks here in the audience? Was in cabinet. I have my sixth grade GLT members he
re for our site report. We are. We are Maya Brown. Niko Kermitis. And Bailey Regan. We are here to share a few highlights from our sixth grade experience at Grant. Here are some examples of sixth grade privileges and tasks that we get to participate in. For example, we have flag duty every morning. Every afternoon. In addition to flag data, we also help serve lunch. Every Thursday we do morning announcements with the weather, food for the day activities coming up as well as jokes today. The 6 gr
ade area is a special privilege rewarded for good behavior for only 6 graders. At the end of fifth grade on the last day school, we will align the perimeter of the 6 grid area and count down as the bell rings and jump in announcing that we're official sixth graders. Another sixth grade privilege is getting to plan spirit days. This year we have had tropical day just as your favorite book character day. Fancy formal day wacky word day and deckage day. So far, some of the after-school activities t
hat SISKRIT has run is Heritage Night and Read across America. How the sixth graders help run the activities if we run the games and talk to the people who are there. Some games that we had at Read Across America were magnet fishing and bird on your head balancing game. Another after school activity was heritage night. Which is where people would bring food from their cultures and other people would try them out. You also got to play games from different cultures and learn from families who are
from different backgrounds. This year was the first year with the sixth grade grant leadership team, also known as GLT. Every Wednesday we meet in Miss Mullen's room to talk about different campus happenings. For example, we have worked on ideas for campus beautification, such as murals and fixing up our gardens. We have also done some equity work. For example, you can see us working on creating inspirational and inclusive affirmations. Being inclusive is a school priority. And it means making s
ure everyone feels like they belong. Another task we worked on this year was the social identity wheel. This was my first time ever hearing about something like this. We learned that there are many different kinds of identities. We will pass them out so you can fill them out yourselves. Thank you so much for listening to our site review. Now we have a short video of our students experiences from TK through sixth grade. Hi, Jameson. What is your favorite thing about being a shamrock? The people a
re always nice. What's something you've learned in kindergarten? And how to count by ones and how to count by tens and who do you think your trusted adults like Grant are and why? I trust Mr. Arnia because She reminds us what the rule rules are. I trust Miss Britt because When we're playing, she makes sure we don't get her or anything. What is something in school that you don't know how to do yet but your teacher is helping you practice? Something I have learned in second grade is geometry. Geom
etry is the study of shapes and it is really fun. Planted my teacher is helping me with is spelling and something my teacher is helping me with is diagrams. What's that? It's SH or TH, put together. To make us up. What subject in school challenges you guys the most and makes you think and why? And it's because there's a lot of knowledge and there's a lot of knowledge and really stuff I've never heard of before. Laughs because I try it and I'm not very great at it but I keep trying and I get bett
er. When you were upset or sad, is there a trusted adult you can talk to? Easy. Miss Amy, Mr. Stamley, saw you. And Ms. Dominic and Ms. David. My trusted adult is my mom, Megan Kermitis, and she's a lunch lady. Who's your trusted adult on campus that you can talk to them and what do you appreciate about them? I trusted on campus, and what do you appreciate about them? I trusted on campus are my teachers on campus are my teachers and my past teachers and what I appreciate about them is that the t
eachers and my past teachers and what I appreciate about them is that they're good listeners and they help me get through tough challenges. Just having a growth mindset. So normally in this coda every week or every like other week she'll put on this thing called SCL and it basically helps us with our girls mindset and teaches us how to handle problems like in a good way and appropriately. So normally I will like count backwards from 10 or tell yourself you can do it and it really motivates us to
keep going. What is a project activity you've done this year that have challenged you or helped you dig deeper on a subject? The walks of the ancient civilisations really helped me understand more about ancient Egypt. When we got our characters, I really felt like I knew my character. How about you? Probably doing presentations has really helped me, Get better at public speaking. I am a promise I am a possibility school I can be who I want to be With that shamrock spirit I know from head to toe
I'm a and show. Wow! Awesome. Thank you, Grant. Next up, we have the Petaluma Adult School and I don't think they have a mascot. Do we need to get pedal in my adult school or mascot? Just make this comfortable for yourself. Thanks. Good evening board members, superintendent and cabinet. My name is from Pinto and this is my wife, Salomi Romero. We have taken preparation for notizations, which I'm volunteering right now. High set test, test preparation and ESR classes with adult school. I know ch
ildren graduated for, from, here are some highlights for, from the year. A parent room, parents in advance they are learning about social emotional development. Intelligence in John's children. Guest speakers field trips include Matrix, Petaluma City School Special Ed. So I'm a library, Children's Museum, Sonoma County. Cafe Pointe, Veriti, Norway Children's Center, F, 4 CS, F. Avonzi parent educator, Carla Lunibus shares this success story. A mother and a 2 yearyear-old son enrolled in advance
in September. The child was anxious, afraid to separate from mother. Do you know, engage with staff and was delayed in speech? Stuff established trust with a mother and her son Now the boy runs into the classroom, engages with peers and participates in activities and his receiving speech therapy. Have once, toddlers and preschoolers. James, a child with an American mother and a Mexican father. Only spoke English. The paternal grandmother encouraged the family to participate in advance the progra
m. Now the boys, sing songs in Spanish, participates bilingually, bilinguals or in the circle time. I communicate with the teachers and in Spanish. He's able to talk with his Spanish-speaking grandmother, will be well prepared for dual immersion program in the future. Advance the infant room. Now infant room, little teacher, We are teaching about emotions and feelings. Last week topic topic was anger. We read the book the chorus monster that explores different emotions This class for infants and
crawlers has a defined curriculum with teams. Specific colors, shapes, accompanying sensory activities and snug around a table with guided stories and conversations to lay the foundation for bilingual skills in English and Spanish. ESL. Here's a student success from ESL teacher and coordinate, Rimaj you've immigrated to the United States 5 years ago and enroll their 2 young daughters at McDowell School. Joseph went to work and RAM. And role in ESA class at Paralymados School. RAM completed her
high school equivalency. With FRC support became connected to adult school partner job link and is now pursuant business degree at San Rosa Junior College. The couple took leadership and citizenship preparation classes. I receive the US citizenship in February. There that is attend school at McKinley. Kerluma Family Resource Center. Together with the ESL department started an introduction to an American culture and conversation. That's for producing Haitian immigrants to help them adjust to life
in the US. Topics include American school system, classroom norms, managing. Stress, making appointments, dealing with emergency and accessing resources. Collaborated with the first, with first fire in Parluma police to distribute and install 30 35 new car seats to Paraloma families in need. Work with home first cuts the safe team PPC, S. Alphabet Soup and others to support on house community and PCS school community families. With the Peloroma, healthcare center as offer a pilot program that b
rings the mobile health clinic to the McDowell campus monthly for adults and youth. Coordinated with the Redwood Empire food bank for weekly food distribution distribution and on the McDowell campus. I'm partners with the Sonoma family meals distribute weekly meals for 50 families living in motels and or cars. The immigration is to the Bay Area. And Vidas recently held a naturalization fair at the McDowell Monty. I still deploy my frequency. That's is are in Windsor, Sonomas and Rosa and on high
shed GD in Paralluma. For the school year today, we have 27 school diploma grads and 6 I said GD passers. We anticipate another 20 grants by the end of the year. Program manager Amy Jessa shares Elizabeth at age 26 for former PCS student and mother of 3. You're here high school diploma in January. Adult Ed. Sponsors, medicals assisting and flabotomy courses through Carl Regional in San Rosa and Perluma. And Elisa has received a full scholarship, $3,000 to earn a flip bar me certificate. They, t
he testing program, supervise the assistant principal, Lori then. Dean enables our test. Preparing in Spanish and English to taste as soon as they prepare. We have had 11 testing sessions so far and 6, 6 more scheduled for the year. Lastly, adult in us has coordinated checker to support over 15 events. This year PCS events like LCAP, special board meetings, food services, community meetings, and multiple McDonald's school events. Offer 2 free Saturday Google Apps for educational training session
s for school district stuff. One is pass. Serve 21 PCAs high PCA high school students would credit recovery. Graduate on time from their comprehensive sites. Thank you for the support. For your time and God bless. Thank you. Thank you all for presenting. It's always so great to see what Petaluma Adult School does and all the things, all the things that they do. So next step, speaking of amazing things, we have the PCS Rock Stars employee recognition program for the first time ever. That's right.
So, we are excited to honor and appreciate some special employees who make a big difference in our district tonight. We recently launched an employee recognition program called PCS Rock Stars and we asked our employees to nominate stellar colleagues, departments, and teams who make PCS such a special place. With over 60 nominations, our committee reviewed many deserving individuals and groups working in PCS. However, 2 groups of people stood out as especially deserving of the special recognitio
n. The first group of employees we want to sell are our senior secretaries working at our school sites. We all know that these staff members are the faces of our schools. When entering a school office here, the first person you see, most likely she was on the phone, putting on a band-aid on a knee while filling an ice pack, handing a late homework folder to a teacher, smiling at a parent who just walked in and getting on the radio to let the custodian know there's a big spill on the Oh, did I me
ntion that a subject canceled? This is all happening at the same time. And our senior, our site, this is all happening at the same time. And our senior, our site senior secretaries are the best multi task, senior secretaries are the best multitaskers we know. One teacher wrote, as a teacher, I can't begin to count the number of times our senior secretary, secretary has come to my rescue, whether helping me navigate paperwork, fielding parent Queries are simply offering a listening ear during a b
usy day. Her dedication and support make my job so much easier and I'm incredibly grateful for her presence in our school community. A principal wrote, beyond her professional contributions, our senior secretary's bright and welcoming presence is a source of joy and comfort for our staff. She is highly regarded by all who have the pleasure of being greeted by her each morning. Her warmth and kindness set a positive tone for the day, fostering a friendly and supportive school environment. Her exe
mplary performance and positive attitude are a shining example for us all. Please join me in honoring our senior school secretaries who serve at our school sites as the first ever group of PCS rock stars. When, when your, when your name is red, please come forward to receive our certificates and take anything that you like from our appreciation table. Chantina Willis from Thank you. Trisha Shu from Mary Collins at Cherry Valley. Mary, Kabira, Garcia from McDowell Elementary. Diana Cannon from Mc
Kinley Elementary. Eileen Minto from Mcneer Elementary. Mary Pratt from Valley Vista Elementary. Loretta Crismoggy, one of our elementary super subs. Mary Stuart, one of our other elementary super subs. Jessica Marcy from Pengrove Elementary. Annie Nagel from Kenilworth Junior High School. Barbara Butchoco from Petaluma Junior High School. Check. Julie Corda from San Antonio High School. Thereabel, Baron Gomez from Casa Grande High School. And Kirsten Smith from Petaluma High School. Yeah. All r
ight. So our next group of PCS rock stars is none other than the amazing teachers from our South County Consortium. The South County Consortium serves approximately 200 students across 15 school sites, ages pre-K through adult. This exceptional group of educators exemplifies what it means to provide accessible education to our students. Within the broader framework of a multi district consortium, this dedicated team embodies creativity, inclusion, and an unwavering dedication to students success
. They create nurturing and supportive environments all over town, tailored to the diverse needs of their learners. Their commitment goes beyond the classroom. It extends to every aspect of our school community. They have fostered robust ecosystems where every child can thrive through individualized learning plans, responsive teaching methods, methods, and their deep understanding of individual student needs. South County Consortium director Melinda Susan says these remarkable teachers work with
students with the most significant disabilities including physical, cognitive, emotional, behavioral, social, and medical. These students and their family often hear they can't because SOCC teachers say they can and here's how. They face daily challenges with empathy and resilience at their core is a true desire to create equity and opportunity for their students. Honestly, no group is stronger or more passionate about their about their students. We are lucky to have them. What really sets the
SOCC teachers apart is their ability to bridge the gap between mainstream education and specialized support. Their dedication, innovation, and unwavering commitment to inclusive education transforms lives. I'm honored to express the district's deepest gratitude for the difference they make in the lives of our students and their families every day. Please join me in celebrating and supporting their ongoing work within PCS and beyond. We want to we want to invite director Melinda Susan to come for
ward and read the names of our teachers and when your name is read please come forward to receive your certificate and take anything that you like from the appreciation table. Can you hear me if I do this? Rachel Rich? Kate Hall. Hey, anson. Thanks, Casilo. He's in. Garrett Petrillo And I see this beautiful lady, Elena Christianson. Andres Velico. Is on maternity leave so she's not here. Meredith Yeager? Okay. I see my friend here, Beau Rudder. Just partner in crime, Megan Widner. Chilo Selma. A
pril Rayburg. Christina Rayburg. Mary Beth Leland. Jared from us. And Wetner? The lovely and in attendance, Betty Kisling. Chris Langerman Toves Jessie Derek. Clayton McDonald. And Mary McGrath. Yes. Awesome. I love that. Thank you to everyone who came out. Thank you for all your hard work as a school secretary or a South County consortium teacher. It's really great to recognize this and really inspiring for us to. Hear all the names and all the great work and know that they were nominated by th
eir peers. I love it. And speaking of awesome employees, next up we have a presentation about our libraries. Alright, we'll give a second to get our presentation slide show ready. Perfect. Alright, thank you so much for having us here. We represent the Potomac City Schools secondary school libraries and I just wanted to mention that thanks to a citizen supported parcel tax. We have credentialed school librarians at every secondary site in our district. This is something that's very unique to our
district in this county. We are the only one. So something very cool. If you wanna go ahead to our next slide, please. Oh, I have the clicker. Oh, that's how everyone's been doing it. Oh, look at that. Alright, so we just wanna share some statistics. These are from our secondary library from this past school year. We've had 133,500 students through our doors in the library. We checked out a little over 27,000 books. And we've serviced 508 class periods which accounts about 15,000 students that
have seen our work. And with all of that, we're each going to introduce ourselves and then tell you a little bit about some of the many hats that teacher librarians wear. So I'm Shannon Britten. I'm at Paluma High School. This is my fourth year there. I also worked in the public library for about 3 years and then was teaching before that. I hold my master's in library in information science and 3 teaching credentials including my teacher librarian credential and I serve on PAC site council and d
o link crew at our site. And one of the things I want to talk about is direct instruction to all students. So one of our jobs is to directly instruct students as teachers. We work with all of the departments at our sites. We push into classes and have students come into the library to learn things. We are specially credentialed to teach media and information literacy and we wanted to bring that up because the state has recently passed AB Bill 8 73 which is about including that within all discipl
ines and so one of our future forward things is that we'd like to work on creating a scope and sequence about that. And so some examples of things that we teach when students come to us or when we push into their classes at PHS. I've gotten into intro to business and we've talked about misinformation and AI ethics. We've got into our human interaction classes and taught about digital citizenship and cyber bowling. We've gone into community health and biology and talked about health misinformatio
n and in our ERWC, which is our twelfth grade English class, we've talked about misinformation in the news. I'll turn it over to my colleague. George. Oh, and here are some displays. Okay. I'm Aaron Stole. This is my first full year as a teacher librarian. I began February of last year. So it came in in the middle of the year. I have worked in a education for 7 years total. I have a multiple subject teaching credential and MA and teaching and I'm in the process of earning my teacher library and
credential and. MLS degree from San Jose State University. And I also am lucky enough to have gone to PGHS. I was of the library kid that spent every lunch in the library and so now I get to be the librarian so it all comes full circle. So I'm going to talk about one of my favorite aspects of being a librarian, which is being a reader advisory advocate, as well as helping students to bolster their independent reading. So one thing that we do is collection development, which is literally What do
we get to put into our libraries and also what are we taking out of our libraries? Because if we only ever get new books, then we will run out of a room. So a huge part is figuring out what are we going to get rid of, you know, what has served its purpose, but maybe it's time to get something that's a little bit more stated. And one way we do this is we do what's called patron based collection policy. Which is Getting to know what is what are your students like? What are they interested in readi
ng? What are their backgrounds? What will what are with the books that are going to be the best for them? And sometimes that involves students coming up to me and say, Miss, can you get Demon Slayer? And I'm like, sure. Sounds really popular and people want to read it. We do DEI, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, which is ensuring that our collections are diverse and they are representative of not only our community are diverse and they are representative of not only our collections are diverse a
nd they are representative of not only our community but the community of the United States and they are representative of not only our community but the community of the United States and the world at large. And I mentioned also constantly diversifying, updating our collections, making sure that they are fresh and interesting to students. Additionally, 10, tangentially related to reading. We do things like fundraising, applying for grants, doing book fairs, and also reaching out to the communit
y to co-host after school activities that are related to literacy such as an after-school program that we did called for the Love of Comics, which kids learned how to make their own comics. And I also am starting to begin an after-school Dungeons and Dragons program where students learn how to play D and D and those are just a couple of things that we do. These are. That's the, yes, we did. Look fair on the left. Do they work those? In the middle and then a band booksweek display that I did. Hi,
I'm Lauren Parnes. I'm the teacher librarian at Kenilworth Junior High School and it's actually great listening to all the things that we do from other people. I'm just going to cover one area of it. I've served as a middle school librarian for a little more than 15 years and about 6 at Kenilworth. I hope with an English credential. A master's in education with the focus on reading and literacy as well as my teacher librarian credentials. So teacher librarian credential is one of the only crede
ntials where you have to get a whole another full credential on top of and you can't enter that program unless you already have a full credential. So I serve on KGHS PAC and site council and cares committee and I've served on the district Lcap and budget committees as well. One of the big things that we do when we talk about having lessons, we're almost always in collaboration with our teachers to build those lessons. So we do a lot of building ahead of time and working with the teachers. What i
s their end goal and how can we support that? And so we are either building curriculum beforehand and the lessons which actually we were doing a lesson today with seventh graders that we're building an argumentative essay and we're using a database from Serve Discover that's provided by the California State Library to look at 2 sides of controversial issues and we're really trying to teach them that you're looking at both sides when you're building an argument. We've also created collections of
online and print resources like when I worked with the science department that they were studying symbiosis and we needed to find some really good sources for all different kinds of symbiosis and also endangered species work for science department. And then I do a lot of teaching, database use and incorporation of databases into the research like I was doing today. And also we had a day where we were doing environmental resources. That was also a seventh grade science and we talked about how you
determine it's getting really hard to determine what's a good website. You can't just go like.gov.org anymore and so I was working last week with another seventh grade teachers classes that was doing argumentative essays and we sort of just did the simple thing of saying put a plus or minus like if you're researching eagles and you mean the animal you should put a minus football minus band. So just those little things of teaching them how to make better searches. Really helps them get the resul
ts that they want. So those are some of the other things that we do. We work classes. That's what the teacher said too. And these are some pictures of our students doing a biography project and they come to the library and explore about 50 different biographies. And decide which one, which person they want to focus on, inspirational people. And this was Poetry Month with Lego Poetry and also looking up poems. People, they were looking up. I think that was the drama class actually finding poems t
hat they were going to recite and we are going to have an open mic poetry again on May first if you want to come back. So Okay. Hello everyone, I'm Nathan Livecap my wrong way. That's me. And there's stuff about me. I am the slacker in this group. I am 6 credits and one thesis away from my masters, but I still have 2 credentials. And a happy participant and many activities at Casa Grande. These are just some of the library. Administration things that we do at each site. Creating and maintaining
a welcoming and safe space on campus as you saw Casa Grande has about 400 student visitors a day combined over whatever it was. 150. Over 100,000 students every day from 7 30 to 4 30. And patron based library collection. I'm not going to read from the slides. That'd be bad practice. But we do help maintain, you know, updated and relevant library collection. What I am going to talk about is my role as the elementary library coordinator of record. And so the following are statistics from the outco
mes of our collection. Development PD that we've been working on with our elementary library. Tax, coordinators. Thank you. So each one of these percentages is an increase of percentage in those areas. In the last 2, 2 plus since the quarantine. So, Grant, elementary, which was here earlier, Alice Crisdale's library has seen increases in both of these areas. I'm just gonna flip through I'm not gonna read each one but just so you get a quick idea of the benefits of having professional development
in house, and dedicated, teacher librarian staff. So, very high results. This is all accomplished without with school or elementary school library tech or coordinators, working about 20 HA week and little to no dedicated budget. They do a lot of their own fundraising through scholastic books, PF grants, and a dedicated annual needs-based grant from the Petaluma Community Guild. So, and this is the first year in a while that we've had all, sites, librarian coordinators return. So we're building
up a really good, dedicated group of people. Just a few more. Alright, so looking forward, one thing that we've done is we've updated the PCS selection review policy for school library materials that we'd like to present at some point and we can definitely share with you ready for approval and discussion and then as Shannon's discussed creating a media and information literacy scope and sequence to address CIA ASB 8 7 3 as the only people in the district that have a special class credential for
information literacy. We are well prepared to do that. I do have one more thing to say. Don't worry, it's not. So. Okay. California is ranked fiftieth in the country in school library to student ratio. Because we are only required to have one teacher librarian per district. One of the benefits that you get from having 4 of us or all of these things that you see that can be done by any of us at any time, we are the hubs at our schools and we often provide professional development far beyond the s
chool day. And so going forward, we appreciate your support and your dedication and the dedication of the people of Petaluma for supporting such a strong and robust library program. Thank you. Thank you. I've been asking for this, so I'm I really and you came through beautifully. And I really, I wanted the emphasis about the fact that it's a teacher librarian that it's a teacher librarian that we have here that's so special about the fact that it's a teacher librarian that we have here that's so
special and that you guys you guys are like amazing at exemplifying that and also the media literacy that I know that everybody's in AI and that to hear how you're really bringing that into classrooms with students. And I also just anecdotally just want to say that I've been. Well, I worked at Casa for a while. I've been to everybody's. Campus and the way that students feel comfortable with you. The way that you have provided a safe space. Oh, and. And that if you know these kids. And I just, I
want to applaud you for always doing that and just putting out that extra feeling part of the community at the school. And I want to make sure that you know that that you know I really feel that and I really appreciate everything that you do. Awesome. Well, everything is just flowing really well tonight. Next up is talking about diversifying our narrative. The librarians are already on it. What else are we doing? Alright. First. Awesome. So Geo and I are gonna talk about an update from last yea
r's presentation that Kristen I gave about diversifying our narrative at Okay. So there's not. Last year's was a lot more. Robust because this is just one year that we're talking about here. Oh, can I go? Okay. So last year we talked about how we were going to be implementing Just Mercy, as one of our cortex and this year we were able to buy those and so we have taught them. I'm actually grading those essays right now. And the there's been an overall, I know it's hilarious. And the, there's been
an overall, I know it's hilarious. There's been an overwhelmingly positive response to that book. Obviously like, I don't know how many of you have read it, but it's like. It's pretty heavy. And so that's 1 downside that the kids are seeing, but we're like trying to focus on the hopeful notes. In the book and that sort of thing. But a lot of kids like I made them write about what a review and they were writing like I think everyone should read this book. Okay, that's good. I know. Must be the t
eacher. Other, some teachers in our department are using, outside sources like hoopla to offer graphic novel selected primarily for diversity with the help of our teacher librarian and also our teacher librarian let us know that in the past greeting period teachers have had students check out class sets of things fall apart color purple born a crime. Persepolis narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, Song of Achilles and Poet X. So some of those most some of those are ones that we've had fo
r a while and some of those are newer ones that the district has helped us to. Beef up the diversity of our text. Our science. Department. I just realized that It put cancer in, Spanish. Yeah. Sorry. Can tell that I have to translate things. So they talk about Henrietta Lacks and their lessons about cells, cancer and bioethics. So they include that in various different ways. Indigenous wildfire management techniques in their ecology unit and then they are working with the librarian to include ar
ticles in short videos about diverse scientists and they're really wanting to make sure that they have videos that are in the native language of the scientist with English captions and being able to find articles that are in that are about Hispanic scientists and having those in Spanish and in English since we have a number of heritage speakers of Spanish. Our world language department talked with us about the Spanish classes. Some of the things that they are doing to. Diversify the narrative. S
o in Spanish for Heritage speakers one they're reading El Alchemista by Paolo Coelo. IRA and Cantado by Margarita Engel. And, in the second level, they're, they're reading Lacasa and Mongo Street. Benadiseme Ultima and so and then they're also reading in, They're reading fiction, but also they're reading nonfiction in those classes. This is this is all Shrine said I could say tonight. And when she tells me what to do, I just do it. It works. One thing that we wanted to really emphasize is the fa
ct that, you know, the work that we Shareen and and the team at Pine and Casa demonstrated last year things that have happened over the years and the direction that we're moving specifically with our English department. Was something that we wanted to just Also mentioned that on top of what our English department is doing, you can see our science and our world language department is in incorporating. Dom and then, you know, and then also, what we're in the process of doing is reviewing with all
of our departments not only what they're currently doing or but also helping to identify areas where we can provide more resources and our teacher librarian is Britten was very quick to say, hey, I can help you find those resources. So we have a good team to help with that. So that's just some of the things that we're gonna continue to do as moving forward. Thank you. Okay. Alright, good evening everyone. So I'm Katie Peshoda. I'm the AP over English and I was the department chair last year. So
last year where we left off, like we shared earlier, we gave a lot of information about our journey to get to this point, but I just wanted to remind you where we left off last year. We're waiting for our books to arrive. They have arrived. We were reading and exploring a variety of voices and text to integrate into our teaching, whether that was a novel, article, poem, or supplemental text. We wanted to continue the conversation, continue to develop our curriculum and make sure that we are shar
ing our best practices. So what's going on now? We are reading and exploring a variety of voices in text to integrate into teaching and trying out these lessons and activities. We are continuing the conversation to integrate a variety of voices and to curriculum and sharing best practices for incorporating text with a variety of voices and perspectives. And to share what that looks like. We wanted Mr. New, our English 10 teacher to just walk through what this looks like in his class and what nex
t steps will be to share out his best practices with our department. Alright, I'm a dusty new. I teach English 10 honors and English 11 in the American Voices cluster there at Casa Grande, English 11 in the American Voices cluster there at Casa Grande High School. So, yeah, what have I been up to? I like to open up any of these conversations around diversity and equity and inclusion. With this quote by David Graper, the late anthropologist, political theorist, the ultimate hidden truth of the wo
rld is that it is something that we make and could just as easily make differently. So, in my view, diversity in the curriculum, those should go beyond just representation. We should be striving to foster learning environments that. Welcome difficult conversations that feel safe and feel necessary. So beyond just representation, it's about diversity in perspective and diversity and approaches to critical engagement. So, how does that look in my class? So. 4 sort of central pieces there. Like I s
aid, diverse representation, focus on specifically critical lenses, direct engagement, direct engagement on issues of identity, and then leveraging student body diversity. So the way that we've gone about this in the English department at Casa Grande is that we are fairly autonomous as teachers. So we've kind of taken this year to try things out individually as teachers, sharing resources, sharing best practices as we go along. So to start off, here are a few texts that I've been trying out, tha
t I plan on continuing to work with that I think have been valuable. So first and foremost, dust and conscious by Trong Tran, younger, younger poet. So it's a collection of poems, collection of prose poems that address marginalization, tokenism, and the struggle of self actualization when the wilder, wider world wants. Simple explanations, Strong Tran, gay, Vietnamese poet who I mean, at least certainly in my conversations with them. Is constantly struggling with this perception that He always h
as to speak for the gay community and the Vietnamese community where as he just wants to be a poet. It's a beautiful book, deeply funny. Moving on a classic go tell it on the mountain James Baldwin so Baldwin's debut novel tells the story of John Grimes fourteen-year-old son of a Pentecostal preacher or alert, maybe not his son, as he attempts to navigate, negotiate with his complex feelings around race, religion, and sexuality in the context of 1930 5 Harlem. What's interesting about this novel
is the portrayal of the Harlem Renaissance which really complicates I think a lot of our preconceived notions about the time in place. Something I just tried out this year, which I'm super excited about. The burnout society by Byong Chu Han. This is a South Korean born German philosopher. In this text, he presents a kind of philosophical critique. In which he examines kind of growing malaise in our culture, which seems to be characterized by an excessive positivity. Very, very, very technical w
riting. I love that kind of thing. And then lastly, a novel that I tried out and was wildly successful in my English 11 class students loved it. Signs preceding the end of the world. That's by Uriah. So the novel follows Mikina. She's a cartel messenger. She journeys across the border to deliver a message to her strange brother, heavily symbolic and at times extremely surreal. This text brings into questions identity. Ecology and our understanding of reality itself in the face of the border avai
lable on Hoopla. Anyway, so beyond that, so diversity and representation can only take us so far. Diversity and perspective is also necessary. In preempting the kind of danger of tokenism and reductive understanding of identity. So this is where critical lenses come in, which is where I've really focused a lot of my energy this year. So in my tenth and eleventh grade classes, we focus on 5 specific critical lenses. They are the historical critical lens. So looking at texts and thinking about how
they sit in historical text, all the time in place affects them and how the life of the author might affect the text. The Marxist critical lens, so thinking about structures of economic power, thinking about class struggle, and how that is reflected in the text. The feminist critical lens talking about gender and the patriarchy and how that comes out and is reflected in a text post-colonial. The post colonial critical lens talking about colonialism or the legacy of plonialism and how that's ref
lected in a text. And then lastly, the psychoanalytic critical lens, which students have a lot of fun with. All about how the unconscious and the conscious or rather how the unconscious manifests itself in the conscious and how that might be reflected in the text and what that says about readers, writers, and the characters that they write about. So another key element my teaching is engaging directly with issues of identity. This is, I think, admittedly kind of a Difficult thing to do for a lot
of teachers, I feel kind of comfortable with it. I'm sort of lucky in that regard, but one way that I do this is that every single class every single day we open up with 5 min of writing. 5, 4 min of writing, after which we do a turn and talk, open class discussion. Kind of typical stuff for an English class, but I try to be as deliberate about our So these come from current events, texture reading, sometimes data analysis, recent topics have included the gender pay gap, inequities and health o
utcomes and environmental racism. I want to get students talking about these subjects openly and I want them to feel comfortable about talking about these subjects openly and that final piece is about cultivating student agency in the classroom asking them to assist in building a more diverse learning environment. This is where I'm leveraging the diversity of our student body to diversify the narrative. How do I do this? I rely heavily on the Socratic method and Socratic seminars as a tool of as
sessment. Additionally, I have designed a lot of performance assessments that foster this kind of student engagement. For example, in my eleventh grade class, they're asked to write a reflective essay dealing with an issue faced by their particular identity and subject position. I got a really great essay from a student talking about the representation of Ill-americans in popular cinema. Which was fascinating, fascinating for me at least. I mean, you know, that's your business if you don't like.
So, how do I keep students feeling safe? These conversations can be really difficult for some students. They can certainly be difficult for some teachers. So how do I keep them feeling possible and safe and necessary? So first off, Well, I try to keep the following precepts of mine. First off, identity is always intersectional, right? We're a sum of lots of different things that sort of conspire to make us as a person. And on top of that, every student is more than simply their identity. And th
en lastly, no one is responsible for the actions of their ancestors. That doesn't mean that we can ignore history, but. I know speaking subjectively as a white dude. You know, I feel like, especially my youth, I internalized a lot of guilt, around, you know, certainly when I learned about things like white supremacy and the sort of legacy of institutional racism. So it's important to for students to know that. Recognizing and acknowledging this historical truth doesn't mean that you are personal
ly responsible. You are not responsible for the actions of anybody in your subject position that can before you. But nevertheless, we still have to talk about it. So to recap, these are the pieces that are central to my curriculum. Diverse representation, focus on critical lenses, direct engagement, and leveraging student body diversity. That's where I'm at. Next steps for us starting next year. Trying to implement some of this stuff more across the board in the, to implement some of this stuff
more across the board in the, English department and continue to share best practices and continue to share best practices and continue to share best practices and continue to experiment. And that's all I got. Okay. Just as Maddie really wanted to hear from the librarian, so I really wanted to hear about diversify our narrative and thank you. It was everything I hoped it would be. I can't wait for the parents that see the mention of Marxist lens and write us. I welcome it because I think it's ve
ry important. Can I ask you? Yeah. So, thank you for those presentations. Really appreciate that update and You know what I got, the impression I got was a lot of strong individual. Action. And so, you know, what, I'm wondering is how do we systematize this and how do we get this across the board. You know, it was students from Pedaluhai and Costa Grande that brought this to our attention probably 3 or 4 years ago and said how do we make sure that no one can get through our schools without readi
ng the experiences of people who are outside of our identity groups and build that empathy. And it was a student who told us that empathy is the key to social justice. And I, he's right. And so anyway, my, I, I was blown away by what you all have shown tonight, but I wanna hear, you know, I heard from Mr. New that the teachers are largely autonomous and I get that. I'm a teacher myself. But how do we, there's gonna be different levels of implementation, different levels of adoption, how do we ge
t this across the board and then how do we think about the students progression from first grade to twelfth that exposes them to the wide range of diversity in our community. Guaranteed and so that we can yeah go ahead. There are some texts that are cortex that everyone teachers. So like for example, Just Mercy is one of our cortex for ninth grade. So all like if a kid is in honors 9 or. College prep 9 or RSP 9 they are reading that text so there are certain texts that are core and we've include
d diverse text in all of the grade levels for as part of our core. I think Sheldon brought up maybe a point or a question I had as well because I mean, my kids in tenth grade and I haven't. It's like heard or seen about any of the diverse curriculum that was presented. So I understand that teachers are autonomous, but. I'm still hearing about Shakespeare and Lord of the Flies and things like that. I'm not hearing about all of the things that were presented. Yeah, no, absolutely. I appreciate the
time and attention to see how that there is a lot of teachers like Dusty who are moving in a direction. Kind of sharing this to birth perspective and curriculum. And I think at CASSET, our admin team has already started to carve out the meeting time for the next calendar year where we plan to incorporate a lot more time for calibration amongst different departments not just with English, but we want that to go through kind of what Petalima was talking about where it's in science, it's in social
studies, and they're having time to really deliberately think how we can diversify the narrative beyond the English. Department as well. And so that came up we just completed a WASC cycle that came up in our WASC cycle as well and it's definitely a goal of ours moving forward is we're going to be deliberately using our staff time to kind of calibrate and get on the same page with each other when it comes to that. It's extremely important to our team. I'm glad you mentioned social studies, cause
that was my question is science, world languages, what's happening in social studies classes. Yeah, I think there's just like really great opportunities where we're doing a lot of these things kind of in silos right now because the time we haven't allowed teachers to have the time to collaborate the way that they need to to really make that work happen and to have those common agreements, rubrics, even lesson plan alignment. And so now that we're past Wask and we're going to have our staff meet
ing time back. That is definitely a goal of ours is to make sure that we're giving them time to do that. And meet together. To make it happen. So next step for us. Okay. I just have a question. Those texts were fascinating. And I was just wondering how you access them. Are you buying them? And then, you know, how can we as a district sustain that and then grow it. Because these texts are unique and they're Are they sound? You sound amazing. And so I just was wondering, I mean, I guess just Mercy
's came from. The district? Yeah, yeah. And so have, anyway, that's my question is, you know, how do you decide what's going to be core and then, and then how do you provide sustainable. Access to those kinds of texts. So the text I've been pulling from I've been relying sorry I'm A little over tall. I've been relying on, library services in order to get, e-books, PDFs, that kind of thing. I would love to have hard copies for these, but A lot of these texts I'm trying for just the first or secon
d year. So, you know, I certainly don't want to commit to class sets of something. I haven't tried out in the classroom first. So that is sort of next steps also. Is thinking about which ones of these are the most successful and which ones I really want to stick with. So that's I guess can I follow up on that? Because it's been a while since I was teaching and so I was just wondering these are accessible for all of your students then through, you know, ebooks or through the library. Do you have
to pay for subscriptions for all of your students, and these are accessible for all of your students stand through, you know, these are accessible for all of your students sent through, you know, e-book through through the library. Do you have to pay for subscriptions or anything like that or through the library. Do you have to pay for subscriptions or anything like that? Or do we have to pay for subscriptions or anything like that or do every single school and every student. Perfect. Thank you.
And besides the material support, you know, I'd love it if you all can think about. What kind of professional development support you know we need to I know how difficult it is to, you know, get, you know, all the group of teachers together aligned on a common idea. But I think it can happen and I and since it's followed immediately after the librarians. Librarian presentation. I'm thinking that the librarians we have are gonna play a key role in this in professional development of teachers, ho
w to use these texts, how to, facilitate these discussions. So, that's, You know, I don't see this as, diversify or narrative is, as a as a focus intervention. This is really getting to the heart of what off of our board goals are. It has to do with changing culture that makes our places inclusive where students feel like they belong, that they see representation and the excel in academics because of this exposure to people that they can relate to and that they can empathize with because they kn
ow that other folks have different experiences. So anyway, this is huge and I really appreciate the effort you all are putting into it and I I beg you for your. Your cooperation and getting this scaled up across the whole district. Any last questions or comments? Alright, thank you. Moving on, I don't have a good segue into our transportation presentation, except that segue's are a form of transportation. I'm so sorry. We tried to make this flow. Hey, Jess, I mean, transportation is a justice is
sue. We'll, all the talk we have, all the, chatter we have these days about, chronic andism post pandemic you know there's this underlying narrative that it's you know folks that don't care and it's just not true. It's barriers to getting to school. So this is this is a justice issue. Alright, thank you. Unfortunately, we are talking about transportation specifically for field trips. And athletic events, but. Yeah, okay. All right. So last month I brought to you our current board policy for disc
ussion on transportation for field trips and athletic events as we work on making changes to that policy and adding an exhibit. Here are some recommendations that we have come up with. So our current board policy allows for district approved parent and volunteer drivers over the age of 21 district bus drivers district approved charter buses and public transportation for our options. What we would like to bring forward is a proposed district board policy. The first thing I wanted to point out tha
t aligns with the current law is that students only be allowed to drive themselves within Petaluma with a signed waiver from their parents. We would like to allow for approved parent drivers for athletic and field trips within a 20 mile radius and this just breaks down the areas where most of our occur in some of the common places for our failed trips. That would be Ronner Park, Navado, Sonoma, Sebastopol, Santa Rosa, and San Rafael would all allow for parent drivers and our recommendation is th
at buses need to be used outside of the twenty-mile radius, which would be a American canyon, Occidental, Windsor, Napa, San Francisco, Okay. And, Coloma, which is Gold, Sorry, 4, sorry, fourth graders. And then, a lot of if our any of our athletic teams make it to playoffs, those would all likely be outside of the twenty-mile radius. So I wanted to just put this out there for. And I think just to add a thank you, Amanda, just to add on the twenty-mile radius is sort of an arbitrary number. I me
an, it's really just sort of a recommendation. We're trying to think of How do we scale down and say what can we truly commit to as a district? I mean, The other option is just say any field trip is going to be on a bus. We're just trying to balance the, you know, thinking about, I mean, students coming home late at night driving them, or families having to go pick up current our current situation. Over 20 miles I think about american canyon oxidon something is off the beaten path it's just Not
ideal. I mean, I would hate for something to happen to a student. But You can also have something happen between Casa and Petalmai. So, but anyway, I think we've just kind of tried to. Come up with a happy medium based on our conversation at the last board meeting, but this is certainly up for any sort of changes. We just wanted to put out a A proposal. So there was the track meet at 3 30 in Napa last week. So the kids had to get out at 1 30. So that could happen at Anneally at San Rosa High at
San Rafael High. So I think it's not even so much as like a radius issue for me, maybe Roder Park is OK, but. Because of the earlier release time and if we're just talking about access and opportunity for students, not all parents can get off work at one o'clock to be at high to pick up their kids at 1 30 to drive them to American Canyon or even Sonoma by 2 30. So I think that's my main issue with this for the athletic events. They could still request. Buses right it's not only parent drivers so
do we need to keep hammering over the head to coaches that so they can one piece of this in order to be approved for parent drivers that however if there were 50 students on the team there would have to be enough seats in the cars for all 50 students. So if there's a cleared volunteer if they could fit 5 kids in their car and that would definitely need to be because it really needs to be the all or nothing. They could also still do the closer trips. It's easier for our in-house. We do have some
in-house bus drivers that are willing to drive for the closer trips at a greatly reduced cost over the charter. So that's definitely could be built into the policy. I mean, I can fit 7 kids in my car, but I can't get on work at one o'clock all the time. So. Yeah, I and I agree like we could work with athletics. I think field trips probably fine. Cause there's enough leeway but with the athletics just because of the hoops we've had to jump through and the resistance that we face from coaches thi
s year to get buses even to Sonoma. I feel like unless we have it like set in stone. There's not could be an effort to get the car pool for all of the kids. So I don't know what more we can do as a district to make that happen, but I just feel like we have to force the issue for the safety. And the access. I have a quick question. So if there's 50 kids. And there's not enough drivers, parent drivers for all 50, then that would lead them to take the butt to get a bus. Yes, they would have to know
within a week I, when we lived in Saskia County coach track and cross country. And cross country was an unfunded sport, meaning that there was no transportation. And one of the things that I did as a coach for every single meet was line up. Parent drivers. And to ensure and we only went as a team to a meet if all if there was room for all. Of athletes. I think that's a good policy because like what Joanna was bringing up you know, if 5 parents can get off early and get their kids there, what ab
out the rest of them that can't? It so is it drivers that's our limiting factor right now in terms of you know meeting the demand for all these trips for athletics? Place that has not been the practice, is something that we've been dealing with. So there are, it's more of a the it's my understanding that the students are like find a ride or have your parent pick you up that we have not. Since I've been here, track, you know, yes, yeah. So, you know, maybe we should have, you know, school bus fir
st. Kind of policy where. I mean, I'm just thinking off down my head here. Until the demand is until either drivers are vehicles are exhausted. We also have vans though, right? So for smaller teams, they could maybe take 2 vans and then that would Negate the needs for kids. So parents can't drive. We have taken delivery of another man, which is super exciting. We actually think we're gonna have all 6 and this fiscal year, which we weren't sure about, but those are currently being used for our ho
me to school transportation because we do not have enough. BUS drivers so it really depends. The timing of the event, but it's something. That our new transportation coordinators have been working with our bus drivers, whereas 6 months ago, we didn't have any bus drivers that were willing to drive for field trips. They said no, they did. We had 2 buses for track at CASA last week and just that relationship within the department. Actually saved costs about $3,000. Yeah, I'm fine with a bus. First
policy as long as people actually. Use the resources that we have. Yeah, like you could phrase it so that parent drivers are allowed, but start with the best first and that only under these circumstances. And make sure coaches understand that. Can you speak more about the driver refusing the assignment? I wouldn't say it was refusing the assignment. We just really didn't have any good policies in place, so they have their routes and those are their scheduled times. And really there was no benef
it. We've done a lot to in. Crease retention we have a bus driver retention. Now and I think that also just about building. Relationship. And I think that also just about building relationships within the team and appreciation. So they just simply said no. I presume, I mean, that's the home to school, school home, transportation that, yeah, I'm sure eats up the. Vast majority of our. Hours at the wheel for the drivers as well as our vehicles. Yes, so we currently only we have now 6 certified bus
drivers and about and 4 who drive vans. We still contract with first student for 12 routes. So we are still down 12 bus drivers that we need to run. Our own program. Just, just for home school. Yeah, you know, if we do, if you do bus for if we say every athletic event has to be driven by bus, we're gonna be looking at contracting out. What the vast majority of. Which it's a decision you can make as a district. And the cost is roughly 1,000 to 1,500 per charter. I mean, I'm just looking for the
safest, most accessible option for students, not just for athletics, but for field trips. I know we got a bus last year for prom and it's really great for the kids. They had a ton of fun on that bus. Just anything that we can do to increase engagement I think this is a huge one. I mean, I guess I'd be okay if we didn't have for every, away athletic event in a perfect world, we would. But I think we need to have some type of guarantee of safety. Because Yeah, I've been driving for a few years, so
I've never turned my paperwork in. Thank you. No, I'm just saying like I don't want us to be in a position where If this is the policy, we're not enforcing it, then do we need to do something a little extra for the safety of our students as well as providing. The access. So the transportation department needs about 5 days notice in a perfect coral to actually get transportation. So we could build a policy that is you will, you know, have proof of your parent drivers and break up like who's in e
ach car. This is the numbers students. This is the seats. They have been cleared if it's not in by this day you will need to get a bus knowing that there's a really good chance that it would have to be chartered. And who is going to enforce this? Well, we'll have to be up to the site administration. Okay, there should be no problem with, I mean, they have their schedules. 2 years. Yeah. So saying they need to get it together 5 days in advance should not be a problem, I would think. Change in sch
edule but maybe having backup drivers. I always as a coach knew. In a pinch who I could talk into. So if we were to if we were to think contemplate something like that. Where if you don't you know bus first unless you can prove and show that you can take the whole team and drive with you know the insurance waivers and things that we need. Do we still want to include this sort of idea about a radius or do we not do we wanna? You definitely need a bus like those roads to some of those places. Yeah
. Can there? I mean, I mean, this policy is one issue. I'm thinking bigger on the whole transportation issue. So. After home to school demands and we meet those with the combination of our own drivers and students first or for students. How much extra capacity do we have in vehicles to meet some of these demands? Yeah, we, I mean, we just, we just received. 17 electric buses. Okay. 70 electric buses that we have. Some of them are amending speak that, you know, some of them are longer buses, summ
er buses. By the end, the fiscal year, 6 electric bands. So we have more supply of vehicles and and fans, vans and buses than we have drivers right now. So our issue is recruiting drivers. Retaining bus drivers which is I will say we've made great progress What would we start with 3? We've doubled. We've got 4 drivers of vans. They're working on getting certified. So assuming that they all become they all get certified that pushes us at 10. Our goal is to keep moving that number up until we hit.
Cause us paying first student is not in our, is not, our best interest is, is to fill all. So that's what we're working towards. And in the meantime, we're paying upwards of $150,000 per route to first. Wanted to. Per route on the home to school, but, you know, Amanda was saying. For one of these trips to an athletic event, a thousand something per trip. Get an estimate of. You know, what if our buses were at capacity in their usage to meet as much of this demand as we can take? What would it l
ook like with for students, what it would look like with completely in house. And even if all our buses were maxed out, do we still need parents driving? Yeah. I, I, I wanna know that. I mean, the, you know, I'm, what I'm hearing from last time, you know, that we're on on the legal liability side of things were covered as long as all these, forms are signed, but. You know, driving down Lakeville Highway to American Canyon and Vallejo, we're asking for it, you know, if it's a matter of time that.
Highway is so dangerous. Which is why I think that's why I said, A Marin Canyon Napa, I think those we just have to take off the table. Over 20 miles you have needing a bus. The 1 0 1 corridor seems, you know. Yeah. So, Yeah, I mean, I guess what I'm, what I'm, you know, hoping for at some future is our buses are maxed out in their use with our own drivers. Emergency. That is that is our goal. I mean that is what we're working towards. Absolutely. Yeah, we have recently hired, our, he's in the
process. He hasn't started yet, but we will have our own driver trainer soon. And I think that is going to make a huge difference because that has really been the barrier to getting, but, our driver strained. It's been a huge, huge choke point for us. Where and I mean we've had one driver train one person who is able to train drivers. I think we really need to have at least 2 or 3 in our district because If someone retires or resigns, we We were just in a that's the position we found ourselves i
n. What, you know, about a year ago and now we're slowly coming out of that. We need to build our capacity to train internally. And, I mean, we still have at least 12 more routes that are at first student. And probably we could do, you know, we have a lot, we have a lot of growing to do in that department. And there was a time when that department had 20 drivers. 20 plus drivers. So we have 6 right now who are who have their license. Most of the routes are for our special services. We have very
few actual home to school routes and that is another conversation that as we grow our fleet, probably a bigger conversation that we want to have about with having our charters and our comprehensive junior highs and high school so far apart from each other. Luckily, it was just, are there any questions? Yeah. So I think what we're just looking for is it sounds like there's. Since it's just around. The bus first unless you unless a coach can show that yeah I have adequate to take the whole team fr
om volunteer drivers and we have all the insurance paperwork that we need and then this idea around for now, right? I kind of view it as here's a stage and then when and also getting some information about what would maxed out, what would it, if our fleet were maxed out, what would that look like? What do we need to do achieve that? And then look at some of the costs associated with if we were to take on everything to say, look, there's no more parent drivers. What, what would that cost be? So w
e can bring back some more, some more of that data and then kind of we'll finesse this policy a little bit and think about it as maybe this is a 2 year or 3 and then we needed to revise it again. So. Can you go back to the other side? Can we just move Sandra fell down? Just sent it out of the county. But yeah. And I think, sure. Do 19. Policy moving forward. This is this is just a presentation right now. I will bring it back to the April meeting. Great. Thank you all. Thank you. Next up we have
a presentation about our bond. Me. Okay. Okay. And a little. Treat at the end. Alright. Tonight we bring forward a bond update to our current bond. These are, okay, sorry about that. These are some of the completed projects that have taken place since 2,014. We did a prop 39 solar project at 9 of our school sites. The track and field was refinished at Petaluma High School at Mary Collins at Cherry Valley. There was some parking lot work completed at McKinley, a pool renovation, quite a few ruffi
an and repairs in H. Another thing to point out is the installation and replacement of gas lines across the campus at Casa Grande and some ADA upgrades. So these are just to point out the big ticket projects that have taken place. I just had a question about the. The underground got gas lines. Those are paid for by our bond, not through insurance. Will need to double check and I will get back to you. Oh, you mean, oh, okay. I just was. Because it was in, anyway, I wasn't here. No, I just, Look i
nto that. Yeah. Right, so a lot of them are planned out. That was, I mean, interesting, interesting that you bring that one up because that was more of an emergency. Sort of we had to shut down. I mean, it was right before school started. We were. Yeah, I, walking massive tunnels. Yeah, I think. I'm not sure. We need to look into exactly what was paid for. So the data on these slides for taken from the CBOC report, which is the bond report, but I will double check and give. Free part back to you
. All right, so in, 2,014, the both districts went out for bonds elementary, 21 million dollars and secondary 68 million dollars of those funds are beginning balance this year was 30 just over 32 million. We have current projects at just over 8 million and we anticipate that we will be ending the year with 24 million dollars just under 4 million for elementary and just over 20 million for secondary. Current projects that we have going on is the library and 6 classroom editions at Pengrove. If yo
u've been to Casa lately, you have seen that there is a lot of painting going on of redesign and replacement of black top at Mary Collins at Cherry Valley electrical upgrades and new electric charging stations at the transportation yard for our new buses. We will be receiving some grant funding from that that will be able to offset some of those costs. We don't have that. We have a 2.2 million dollar battery backup project at Casa and, we have a 2.2 million dollar battery backup project at Casa
and Pataluma Junior and we roughly 700,000 is the balance of that. We've done HVAC upgrades at Kenilworth and Casa this year for just over 2 million dollars. We had a McDowell fire alarm project and we painted the exterior of McDowell Elementary. So here are some pictures of McDowell. And I'm sorry, Amanda. Can you could you go back? I think it's just important to note too that these costs are from this fiscal year. Yes. I'm sorry. Did I maybe you said that this may not be the true cost of the w
hole project. Yeah. So here are some pictures of McDowell Elementary. Here's some construction. We do not have a finished building yet at Pen Grove, but one day. Yeah. Here are our 2 million dollars worth of batteries. Yeah. So we can have school when there's no power. Here's our couple of pictures of HCAC. All right, so of, going, so we're really what I'm going to be talking about is what we would really like to start the remainder of this year and through beginning of next fiscal year with the
3.7 million dollars. Of elementary bond left we would like to move forward with the McKinley Elementary new building, which is 3 classrooms that will include bathrooms or restrooms. For Kinder and SOCC. We anticipate that cost to be roughly 3.5 million dollars. And this is a project that's been in the works for a couple years. I think it's just been kind of stalled. Architecture plans. There's been a lot of work to just put into it to get it. Ready and it's just been stalled out trying to figur
e out you know prioritization of bond funds and what we're, you know, elementary bond funds because the elementary is really where we're reaching our last. Small amount. We've, would like to do renovations at both McDowell and Mcneer at roughly 300,000 each for their multi-purpose rooms. And the goal. Is The goal is to add some site of portable or modular to all of our elementary school sites for performing arts I know right now where some of music is taking place is right next to classrooms. I
have to be determined on that because there are a lot of avenues we can choose to take. We could look at building standalone modulars. We can rent portables. That's been past practice in this district. We also have developer fee funds roughly 6 million dollars that can be used. Portables as a good use of developer fee funds. So that's something that we would like to take some more time. Come up with the plan. And I think if I can just add under that. Thinking about particularly with measure E. S
o if we, you know, Crossing my fingers that the numbers are all right and this gets certified I mean that April, the fourth is the dead the drop dead deadline to get the final yes that it passed. The idea really is, anda pointed out band in some of our school sites the noise level that it creates within next door you know partner next door if we if we were to bring in world language if we were to talk about coding robotics, and specialists, maybe in just an area on each of our elementary campuse
s where this could be a performing art slash world language slash music band. Marima, all sorts of things where we could we could put maybe it's a couple portables just a space on campus. Particular we would start obviously with our campuses that are most impacted, but that would sort of be the idea and it would be, you know, if measure E does go through. Our teachers kind of, you know, particularly when you think about attracting and retaining. Itinerant teachers and saying hey take this cart a
nd go to this class and this class is it's it would be so nice if we could say here is a space and maybe it is shared between a couple of people but at least it's a space and a home for what we're looking to do. So that's the idea. Maybe more expensive than we can possibly manage right now. And maybe it's and goes into a future bond, but we're trying to just, that we can possibly manage right now. And maybe it goes into a future bond, but we're trying to just sort of list some priorities. But we
're trying to just sort of list some priorities. And these are just drafts right now. This is what we're gonna really encourage your participation in. And, direction. So we're kind of putting forward what we think right now, but, we have a long list of things. We've gone through all the, all the sites met with administrators, teachers. Some sites we had teachers or classified staff members just to kind of see what are the what are the needs and we. Put the bond together. With a lot of ideas movi
ng forward. So anyway, Alright, for our secondary with just over 20 million dollars left, we would like to move forward with renovations of the multi-purpose rooms at Mary Collins, Petaluma High, and Costa Grande High School. The goal is 300,000 for the elementary and then 500,000 for each secondary. Need of bleachers interior bleachers if you've been there lately. There are some portables, 3 portables at PHS over by the baseball tennis area that are in disrepair and that is some of our special
services are in those classrooms. So we would really like to look, move forward with building new building there. We would like to renovate the main quad area at Petaluma High. Giovanni has been working with a couple of different grants and. Relief about projects and they're just, it's such a big project. It's not something that any one grantee organization is willing to take on though we also have some local contractors that are willing to donate work but it still will be quite a big project. O
ne of the things that's also a project we would like to do at Petaluma Junior where all of the concrete is. Is to pull up some of that concrete and plant some large trees. One of the things that we really need to look for do as we plant trees in our district is, add irrigation. If you've been around some of our campuses, we've had to remove quite a bit of trees this year because irrigation is't always been set up at the time. And unfortunately with our partners like Relief, that's not part of th
eir plan. So a lot of those trees are hand watered daily by our staff. So that's 1 of the reasons for the higher costs. a 1-time cost which will save us money in the long run. We also need a new wing of roughly 6 classrooms at Casa Grande High School. And, and this, this again was one of my understanding. Has been in the works for a while and I don't know I think there's there's some work that needs to go in to figure out exactly what the need is and where it would be but I know that there's bee
n work done in the past around the new build, the concept of new buildings over. So this is a replacement. This is new. And then, we have. Been working with one of our architecture firms on some like what planning could look like and one of the projects that we have been looking at Mary Collins is a new junior high building in the park. Which is our property. We would like to build a junior high wing. They are just so quickly and they're kind of. At a space there. So that's 1 thing. And then. Ea
rly recently. That there are I believe 5 portables. And where we have our 6, 7, 8, couple of my permanent buildings. Where Mr. Mr. You and is located but there are I think about 5 portables in the back there. I believe all of them are rented and the cost of rental if you expand that over 1015 years where we've spent over the last say, 10 to 15 years we've spent. Well, over a million dollars. On renting portables. And so the idea is why would we be as as a district with bond funds we should be lo
oking at. Building it's I know, and the team there would love to see this. Some of these I've not heard of about, but I don't see the. Like fields, like not, the, oh, that the next slide? Okay, right. Told you there was a snack at the end a treat. So. So one of the other things we would do, we had the opportunity to walk the facilities at Windsor. Which, they operate a state preschool and TA wonderful program and I've been meeting with Dr. Dan about, expanding the child development and education
career pathways at both sites. Because I would love nothing more personal passion is bringing on staff child care. So, and this is one way to do that, a reason why it's to be determined also is there are so many funding opportunities for this CTE funds, bond funds, local grants, so that it's something that we would really like to look at pursuing. And integrating it with the currently CASSA has, this is the first year we're running to child development course at CASA. And so thinking about expa
nding that. Pathway with a Child Development Center essentially and working to offer some staff. Yeah, staff childcare. And where would this be like? Are you thinking of building new buildings or is this this part of the snack then? So maybe looking at portables or something we have some foundations where portables have previously been at CASSA and it's not even, we haven't discussed any sites at Petal Omaha. Yeah, it's a fairly recent. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Right. It's already like fenced off, so o
kay. Yeah, exactly. 2 kids. So those are those are projects that we have prioritized as not only high need but also fit within the current funding that we have, with our bond funds and our developer fees. Other future bond projects that, are probably larger conversations. It's broken up the box on the left. It would be for the high school district a dual immersion building at McDowell for on the other side of campus for the new dual. Which immersion middle school pool at Casa, a performing arts
center, grandstands and press box replacement at the football fields of both high schools, new multi-purpose like gym black box at both high schools for additional space to be used. New solar at Kenilworth Junior High. They may be without solar. Here in the near future. Upgrade locker rooms at both second or excuse me both. Junior highs and a comprehensive high schools for the elementary Pengrove restroom modernization to bring them up to ADA accessibility. We really need to start planning for a
dditional and new playgrounds that are elementary schools being mindful as our TK age grows, we will need different types of equipment for our little list learners. We really need to look at the long term our how we house our transitional kindergarten and with bathrooms within the classrooms and then really start being mindful as if if the governor in the state brings on universal pre-K start really preparing our sites for the anticipation that we likely in the next. 5 years could have mandated
preschool on our school sites. And then district wide, one of the big topics that we've been talking about a lot within my department is bringing on our new food service for next year and how we're going to make that work. And with our current kitchens and one of the things that we've discussed a lot is if we could look at potential of a district. Central kitchen, maybe at the transportation yard or maintenance or we have Lots of places it could be put really to improve our food service for all
of our students. Our district eventually we will need. District wide furniture refresh which is very expensive. Safety is a top, obviously district priority, but it has been on the minds of everyone's in a lot of our school sites need brand new windows and tinting where the windows do not need to be replaced. Roofs and HVACs will always we will always need those and then battery backups at our other sites. Our goal is to have our 2 projects completed at the end of this fiscal year and truly bein
g able to be utilized. They are online now and being able to do that at all of our sites. There's always question about district administration. We're kind of bursting at the seams here that's been topic of conversation at though. Last board meeting and another thing that we've had the opportunity to have some discussions with with 2 of the board members myself and Matthew is workforce housing in the feasibility around that is that is that a need is that a want and that would yes it's definitely
a need is it a want and one of the avenues for bringing that on is having a bond using district bond funds along with other financing sources for that. So these are some big projects that either we don't we don't have the funds currently for. We're also being trying to be mindful about how we distribute the funds we have available. We don't want to just go to one side. I am sure that there are far more. Needs some of our. Schools are a little light here. We were talking earlier today that it ap
pears that our junior highs are probably underrepresented on this list currently. They do have needs, so it's something that I, we would like to, have further conversations about. And one of the further conversations we would like to have is for the board to consider going out for a new bond, particularly this November. Election. One of the reasons why is that we anticipate there will be a state facilities bond on the everything is pointing to that. And anytime there is a state facilities bond,
local bonds are more likely to pass. I think that we need to look at a prop. Bond which in a primary election does allow for a 55% approval threshold which Makes it a little easier. You mean in November election? Sorry. Yeah, November. A November or primary? I cannot. And, and, through the state facilities bond. Typically, I mean, we don't know how it's going to be written, but typically it's matching funds. So if you're a district and you don't have. Bond fund the bond funds you have to have so
me matching funds to go along with the state bond. So. It's critical that we. Yes. In order to move forward for a November election the board would have to pass a resolution by August, the eighth. And then one thing that we would need to discuss is our bonding capacity. There's a limited tax rate. There's a limited tax rate. It's $30. There's a limited tax rate. It's $30 per $100,000 per 100,000 assessed. It's $30 per 100,000 assessed evaluation and in spring of (202) 023-2030. So last spring, I
have some information that I some presented to you, but at the time the bonding capacity for the elementary district was 87 million dollars and we had just under 19 million of bonds outstanding giving us. About, sorry, it's not 18 million because my mouth is wrong. It's about 68 million is what we can go for for the elementary and for our high school district we have a 201 million dollar capacity. We have roughly 40 million dollars in debt, so we would have about a hundred 70 million dollars is
the highest amount of bond that we could go out for. And then our bond proceeds can only be spent on capital. A specific list of projects will have to be developed for each bond measure and shared with voters. Will have to be developed for each bond measure and shared with voters. So it's really important for the district. Measure and shared with voters. So it's really important for the district if we are going to consider going out for another bond is to work with a firm for a facilities maste
r plan listing not only everything that we're showing, but other things that have come up. And that is the basis that we would use in order to write a new bond. And what's the threshold in a special election? Do you remember? I don't remember. So. Sorry, I just got some of this in for like some of it, some of it is very new. So specifically this is a prop. 39 bond in a special election the district could go out for a traditional bond, but that is only for land and purchasing of building building
s so you cannot do a refresh and that is a 2 thirds vote. So, no, yeah, more restrictive and less and harder to get. So I think I just want to add here that, you know, the list that ideas from multiple different sources. And so the idea is really just. And it always feels, it's always felt a little bit some secret. This is really an effort to be transparent, but is the things that, when we go to Kenilworth or Petalmai or Nick Near and we hear about issues that we put in on spreadsheet. So now it
's just sort of here are some of the ideas or things that are out there. I think a facilities master plan would be very helpful for us to kind of figure out what are the needs right now and as we look 10 years from now. One of the things that should be more urgent around safety, what should be the, Anyway, it's not perfect. It's never going to be perfect, but these are just things that I don't I'm having so many different conversation with so many people. Let's put them on here. Be transparent a
bout it and have a conversation. So can we do that? Spend some of our that those, to do a master plan. So can we do that? Spend some of our that those PCs to do a master plan physical master. Let's do that. I mean, that makes sense. I mean, this is such a huge thing. I mean, I got a dozen questions about your list, but I mean, let's go through a process that there are pros that are trained to do this. To help us out here. But I want to ask you a real quick one on the Costa Randy wing. Is that I
never heard of that and it kind of. Tell me about this because it especially compared to on the for feature list I saw a lot of stuff that I thought is pretty high priority. Are we expecting growth at our high school? I thought we're in enrollment declines. That's later. Yeah, I think it had been something that was it was in the. Yeah, I think it had been something that was it was in the works for a while. Again, this is This is why we have a discussion with you guys. It's been there were plans,
there were discussions. I don't, I wasn't part of a lot of the discussion. That will be a part of a master planning process. What does our demographic demand? Do we need a new wing at Casa? I don't know. It could be now. We don't need that. This is more important. Okay, so I guess. Could you? Well, ness centers. I really really want to see wellness centers up there somewhere sooner the better on our secondary to start out on all 4 of them. I mean, the more I think about wellness centers and saf
ety, mental health, everything. It just seems like it's central, you know, trusted adult. What happens with the personal tax? If we wanted to put it forward again. Right. Putting 2 parcel taxes up against each other would be very difficult. And then, I can remember that, we got a list of both of the original list for the bond and we were all kind of like well this is interesting because they have like 3 million dollars or 6 million dollars for the performing arts center and and they were going t
o have them at both high schools. So that was the original list. Very unrealistic. And we really got stuck because they were, so the community was sold on some things that were on there that never happened because there wasn't enough money. So I just want to put a word in that these have to be very specific costs and and realistic costs. So that's 1 of the benefits of the facilities master plan that will help us cost out but it also it'll be completed by school site. With the ranking system, a p
riority list which will then at my previous districts we used a budget summary allocation spreadsheet which once we had this conversation I plan on bringing forward and then that prioritizes with each tranche or cell of the bond what projects you can do and then any changes of that. So if the Jim Bleachers was on the list and then all of the sudden. The renovation of the quad became more, I should have said that the other way, became more a higher priority this budget allocation would come back
to the board with the draft. Of the changes where we would like to make the changes what the costs are and then the board approves that. So each step of the way, it comes back to the board for discussion and approval. I think that's the missing piece. There's used to be transparency around this. You know, if you're going, if you go out for another for a bond, you have to say, here are the projects that we're going to do in order. Here's the cost. And if you're making the change, it should come b
ack to the board. Anyway, I just think that we've inherited, this is what we have right now. We've got lists and multiple different lists. We're just trying to put them out there and say they're not perfect. We know they're not perfect. We just started the conversation and current this current list. Is this what we're planning to do right now or is this up for discussion? Up for discussion. Because at the meeting last year, the equity. Meeting that we had with the bond update and then the meetin
g in May of 2022. It was said that we spent 7 million dollars at Pedal Mahay on the field and the bleachers. And then only 3 million at CASA. And so you know after we did the walkthroughs and they saw how unsafe not just the indoor bleachers were at the gym. They're scary. The outdoor bleachers are as well. The football field, if it gets wet. It's anyone could fall. I mean, like the back is completely open. I believe that they were set up as temporary. They're not even supposed to even still be
there. And we have so many events there, not just the football games, we have soccer, we have now girls, flag football. We have our graduations, which we know are it's just a terrible experience for parent. I mean, for people in the art, like you know, or it's just a terrible experience for parent. I mean, for people in the art, like, you go to Petalo High, there's so many places to sit and it costs it's like. Little, you know, and so that's come up over the past 2 years. I'm surprised to not se
e it there, especially with the safety aspect as well. Of those temporary bleachers. So what I'm hearing is that should be moved up in priority. This is why we, this is why we have this conversation. So many events that happen out there. I feel like you're always my inspiration train. Yeah, there's just so many events and it's those they're just really unsafe. It sounds like that's a higher priority than a new wing at cost so that we don't know why we want. Okay, great. We'll make those changes.
Where's the current? I was wondering when we could expect the facilities. I already forget what now and master plan like, cause we would definitely want that before August eighth, well before and I know that the end of the fiscal year is not. Yeah, it will definitely be a high priority. I, will reach out tomorrow. Can we get it by mid July? Is that realistic? So we have at least a meeting or 2 to maybe a special meeting. Yes. We can do it on my birthday. I don't care. Like party. I'll party wit
h you all. Perfect. Oh yeah. Yes. You guys making birthday plans. What is the, what's the current enrollment at Cherry Valley, the junior high school? Because you were saying it's about it's been about a million dollars we spent. Since we have, so I just wanted the current enrollment and how much it's going up by every year. So it's, So they've got. 4 95 for next year. That's just 7 and 8. They and they do yeah, they have 3 classrooms at 7 8. And then the whole school is about 500. So, 96 is jus
t. 96 is just. 66. It's just. Thank you. So if you were to build this new building, it wouldn't just be for 96, right? Would we wanna expand like maybe have 2 classes per grade. Seems like a lot. I mean, I, of course, I want everyone to have new building, but unless we're looking at growth in like the junior high school. One of the limited factors. Cherry Valley is space. I mean, we. They're, they're at maximum capacity and more. Yeah, I know that there are people that still wanna, you know, att
end, but there's not the space. So the intention, as long as that's the intention to grow it, okay. I can also bring to the next board meeting the amount we pay. For the modular or. The portable buildings like it's sitting on my desk right now but it's It's a, I kinda wanna. Any last questions or? Yeah, a couple just tidbits. So you mentioned in passing Amanda that our batteries for battery backups for the secondaries they're ready to roll so if we have a blackout we could hold secondary school.
If we had a black out, whatever, they don't hold power at a hundred percent capacity right now. So whatever charge they had at the time they could hold and I was told that it's right now it's roughly between 40 and 60% on any given day. Awesome. But they're ready to. Okay, great. So, you know, in our discussions about workforce housing, we had really good discussion with the CSBA, the UCLA, folks. About some initial. Community outreach surveying of our staff those kinds of things could we fold
that into the master planning process just to see where that would fit in our overall plan for fiscal. Infrastructure. That would be super helpful. Yeah. So that likely it would need to be a different if an architecture firm probably wouldn't do that. Yeah. So that likely it would need to be a different if an architecture firm probably wouldn't do that but I can get some quotes for feasibility studies. I mean, I'm just talking about the. Well, yeah. You're in that meeting. I mean, or I can move
forward with the recommendation working on that. Fall, you know, if we want to be a part of their fall cohort, you know, to move this along. I think that and I, you know, why not? I mean, it's free services. Yeah, I just thought this might fit into this, but if you're saying it doesn't, that's fine. Yeah, so. Yeah. Yeah, bond for the fall. Sorry. I just still there's there's so much in here. I don't. But yeah. Do a study session, and we should really be thinking about, you know, our teachers, ou
r staff, our, our teachers, our staff, our teachers, our staff, our families, our partner is met, you know, our teachers, our staff, our families, our partner, our families, our partner is met, you know, community members and especially thinking about a future members and especially thinking about a future, community members and especially thinking about a future bond sort of what is the need where right now this is just a list of things that we've We're piecing this together, but really hearing
from each site. And that's what I think the facilities masterplan does it's like they go out to Cherry Valley and they hear from the families, the teachers, the staff really assess the need going out to Mcneer. This is, you know, going out to Casa going out to become high really looking and then There has to be sort of a prioritization way that we prioritize. Where we go and then publish this, stick to this. This is these are the things that need to happen and when. So. Sounds good. Alright, no
w. We will take comments from the public on non-agendized items and special recognitions, reports and presentations. And I will read the, thing and then we will take a 2 min break. After public comments. Under government code section 5 4 9 5 4 members of the public have the right to address the governing board on any items of interest provided it relates to the subject matter jurisdiction of the school district while government code allows speakers to criticize the district's policies, procedure
s, programs, services, and or employees. The district does have a policy specific to complaints against employees. Should comments from the public pertain to a specific district employee, the board requests that a complaint first be submitted in writing to the employees. Immediate supervisor for investigation. If the comment is about something not on the agenda, it will be heard only during the public comment on non-agendized item period. That's right now. Once that part of the meeting is over,
comments will only be taken on agenda items during discussion of those items. We value public comments and although we cannot take action or discuss items not on the agenda, we listen carefully and appreciate input from the public. Public comments are subject to a 3 min per person limit or 20 min per limit per subject matter. Commenters may not see their time to others. And with that, I will call up Sarah. Yeah. Yeah. Hello, can you hear me? Hi everyone. Long time no see. First I wasn't going to
talk about this, but since you brought up Cherry Valley portables. We have 6, 7, 8, so at Cherry Valley we do elementary and then we have 6, 7, 8. So the junior high isn't just 7 8. And one of our 7 8 is in one of the portables and they don't like. They're open to the elements. I would say they're really old. And if they're really expensive, then we're not getting our money's worth because they're cold in the winter, they're wet in the winter, they're really hot in the summer. Anyways, and they
serve all these purposes. So. Thank you for that. I also wanted to thank you all always for your dedication to all of the students at PCS. And I understand that we're in a serious budget crunch. And situation, like that's real, I get it. Given that youth truth data and the LCAP and the emphasis on mental health, on trusted adults, on making sure that all of our students have someone on campus that is caring for them and is seeing to their needs. I'm really curious and would love to know more ab
out the proposal to eliminate the IEP counselor positions on the campuses. I understand that the COVID funding is sunsetting and I urge you to do anything you can to not eliminate any of the special ed. IEP guidance counselors. Our child bear has an IEP because of his 2 E status and his emotional dysregulation. His number one accommodation is getting 30 min a week with This year we have seen incredible gains in his capacity to move forward and to grow in that space. And it is because of that. Ho
ur week that he gets with that. I'm curious as to how the interns, I know that some of those spaces will be covered by interns and other and shuffling around of different positions. But I also know the depth and the nuance that is held that that, in particular, and I'm not sure about the others, but I imagine that the others who are doing this. The nuance and the particulars in regards to the IEPs in the very specific nature of the ITs and how they deal with the the counseling sessions. I'm curi
ous as to what the PD is for those interns and for those people who are going to be taking over those positions and how they're going to be able to do those by July, which is at Cherry Valley and at Pengrove. Are you around school starts? Particularly if we Val and the other person. And I forget what her name is, will be moving on and that's between June and July so we get a 5 and a half week summer. It's vital that these positions be maintained and supported are special ed and IEP students real
ly need their counselors in order to survive. Thrive. That's right. Thank you. Thank you. Alright, before I move on, I'm gonna recess us for a 5 min break. Alright, it's been 7 min, which is more than 5, so. I'm reconvening the meeting at 8 16. I have Quorum. I can do what I want. So we're on adoption and approval of the agenda. Do I hear a motion? I move to adopt an approve the agenda. All in favor? All right. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Wait, we started the meeting! I don't know where Maddie
went. The motion carries. We've adopted and approved the agenda and now I'll report on activities and correspondence of school board members. Board trustees attended the Bell Schedule listening sessions at Petalima High and CASA, the Bell Schedule Study Session here at the board office, boardroom at the district office, the PCS staff, professional development day, a meeting with CSpa's workforce housing initiative, the continuous improvement committee, the safe routes to school task force, the
WASH district and parent panel at CASS, the costs of government class, the safety and climate committee, the McKinley Pax production of Susical, the musical, and the Casa Grande production of Legally Blonde, the musical. And student board members are very busy playing baseball and doing other things tonight but they attended baseball games, the Bell Schedule listening sessions, BYPOC Club, LCN Youth Design, Team Meeting, and the PCS Rock Stars painting Activity. And the youth perspective event t
hat Jayden will be one of the speakers at is this Thursday at Windsor High School, and will be one of the speakers at is this Thursday at Windsor High School put on by low CN. So, yep. 5 to 8. So see you all there. Does anyone have any comments on their activities? I know they're not here, but I just wanna come in the Casa admin for putting together a nice welcome for the. The WASC committee. So good discussions had in that room. Awesome. Now we'll move on to comments from the public on consent
items and I have one comment about field trips transportation and I'll we can hear from sharing right now. Okay, so, in the discussion about buses versus parent drivers and the length of. Driving. Was the discussion was focused on sports but I noticed that on the slide there was stuff about field trips. And I wonder if. Field trips that are over 20 miles away are only going to be able to be done by bus how that might impact some schools. I know that like at Valley Vista, we have often have to us
e parent drivers which can be a difficulty in finding enough parent drivers, but I wonder if it might be more of a barrier. To be able to have find the funds to be able to have a bus. So that's just something to consider. Absolutely, thank you. I'm gonna stop the timer so it doesn't go off. Later. Alright, so Moving on to approval of the consent agenda by consolidated motion. Do I hear a motion? I move to approve the consent agenda. I second. Does anyone have any questions or comments on anythin
g on the consent agenda? Okay. Just a quick comment about the girls on the run. Contract. With our expanded learning opportunities. It sounds. Really cool. I was just wondering, I mean, I just think it just covers really a lot of really. You know, great aspects. But I was wondering if this, if this was a program that we're renewing or this is a new contract. Okay, I believe it's a new, contract. We do, we have girls on the run at several schools. Wide contract though, so. So I know that we're go
nna vote later on the transportation policy, but. I'm looking at the transportation plan and like the expenses and what the last public comments are brought up about. Field trip so is I know that we allocate so much money towards field trips. Is any of the expenses taken out of this or is that? From another funding source. So this transportation plan, which I meant to mention earlier because I knew there might be some confusion. Last year was the first year and it's now an annual plan. These are
for expenditures from last year. It's so we can receive the LCFS portion of the home to school transportation. So it's strictly to receive the state allocation of funds. Okay. So we need to talk about maybe that separate meeting potentially about just making sure that the field trips and other things are covered. Yes, so this is specifically for home to school. Okay, alright, thank you. Okay. Yeah. Alright, hearing no other questions or comments, I'll call to a vote all in favor. Aye. Any oppos
ed? Any abstentions, hearing none? The consent agenda carries. So now we can hear. Public comments from the public on action items. So please bring up one of the beautiful pink cards like Elwood Stress and Legally Blondes the musical. If you would like to make a comment on action items or it'll be discussion items after that. And seeing no one rushing the stage, we will go on to action items. 13.2 point 1 business services approval of resolution 2324 dash 32 reinstatement of deferred maintenance
funds. Can I hear a motion? I'm you too. I move to approve resolution, 2324 dash 32. Second. Alright, now Amanda, tell us about reinstating our deferred maintenance funds. Please, thank you. Tonight we bring forward this resolution a few years ago the district. Did away with the fund 14 deferred maintenance so we currently have a carryover of interest of $4,000. With this resolution we can take funds out of fund 40, which, are some setasides also for more capital facilities and transfer the all
owable funds into fund 14 to paid for deferred maintenance such as flooring and ruffing and minor repairs that do not qualify. Developer fee funds. So currently right now when any of this work takes place it does come out of our general fund and our routine restricted maintenance fund within our general fund. One with me. I do. Not. I'm sorry. And I don't have anybody to ask to get back to you. So there's no amount here. I'm not I'm not following. Is it? It's just like an open, open checkout or
what? Yes. No, sorry. No, it's really just a this is to reinstatement and I believe currently of we can only transfer in the non-tax portion of our redevelopment agency funds and I believe with the carryover up into now is between one and 1.6 million dollars. So our goal is to transfer that once and then at different times throughout the year interim it will be planned contributions to fund 14 now which will be part of either the budget second interim for syndrome or unedited actuals. So no tran
sfer takes place without board approval. Sounds good. Any other questions or comments on this item? I'll call for a vote all in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none resolution. 2324 dash 32 passes. And now we'll move on to. Comments from the public on discussion and information items. I have one public comment. So feel free to come up. Anyone else who wants to, but otherwise Sarah, come on up and give us your public comment on this item. Again, I'm just gonna read to you all. A
letter that I sent. You back in February. Just so that it's in the whatever in the in the world and the cosmos. Dear Board of Trustees, as you know this past December, our longtime librarian, April Derby, retired from her post of 24 years as the MCCV librarian. The library was built in. Was but a design when April stepped into her role and under her dedicated leadership and passion for books and education, the MCCV library has flourished into the heartbeat of our school. All of our students fro
m from reluctant readers to avid bookworms find a safe space in our library. Parents, faculty, and staff also gravitate to the calm and inclusive space deemed the no-drama zone. That has been cultivated in this time. It's due to April's calm and consistent manner that the library program includes everything from author visits, summer reading programs, celebrate reading day, book swap, book fair, and other beloved events and programs. For our school and community at large. To honor and uplift Apr
il's legacy. The Friends of Cherry Valley Library, together with the Mary Collins School at Cherry Valley, entire community would like to under board policy, 73 10, dedicate the name of the reading room. To the April Derby reading room. April has read every, April has read to every student every week a cherry valley and her impact will reverberate for generations of readers to come. Her contributions to the school and to the district have been outstanding and she has not only supported MCCV but
also mentored scores of other district librarians shared resources and books and ideas with the whole district. She also went to Mary Collins School, where she also went to Cherry Valley School as a student. Her children have gone there and her grandchildren have gone there. We hope that this happy request will be granted and approved by the Board of Trustees so that we make continue to be inspired by April Derby every day. Sincerely myself and in a gruner co-chairs of the Friends of Cherry Vall
ey Library. Sarah Rainy who is our current librarian who's also has a master's in library science and Liza I, our principal. Thank you. Thank you. I kinda wanna echo what you just said. My daughter went to Cherry Valley. She's a reader. She loved April. Not to mention all the authors she brought. We still have books that have been signed. When I do office hours at Cherry Valley, I'm in the library and There's just a constant stream of kids coming in. She knows everybody's name. She knows what th
ey like. You know, she recommends, oh, if you try, she's, she's amazing. And I heartily, heartily agree that it should be named after her. We need to not respond to public comment like that, but I agree with the sentiment and appreciate it and we can talk about it right now and. We're moving on to. No, it's okay. Okay. Now we will move on to discussion and information items, 15.1 point 1, renaming the reading room at Mary Collins at Terry Valley. Matthew, can you tell us a little bit about why w
e had to make this a discussion item and bring it to the board? Yes. Some have Amanda just I think thank you, Sarah. I was gonna, I was actually gonna share sort of the So everyone understood sort of where this was coming from. It was a group at Cherry Valley, where this was coming from. It was a group at Cherry Valley, who is exactly what Sarah said. Sort of this is a wanting to name the reading room portion of the library. After April, Derby, who is. Wonderful on all accounts. And then I also
attached sort of the board, our board policy around naming. Naming parts of naming buildings, parts of building the stadium, etc, etc, and what really what the policy and how we're supposed to, what are the steps that we need to take to do that. So I have a man to kind of explain that. So if the board would like to move forward with, changing the name of any of our buildings, we would need a citizen advisory committee would need to be appointed to review the names suggestions and submit for reco
mmendation for the board's consideration. Any before a adopting any proposed name the board shall hold a public hearing at which members of the public will be given the opportunity to provide input. When the when and if the building is renamed, the board may specify a duration or that naming if they so choose. Thank you. I think everyone here agrees with the person in question being named is just unfortunate policy and procedure, but also At the. Fortunate policy and procedure because God for bi
d one day we wanna name it after someone who's not as wonderful as April Derby and the school just goes and does that and that they commit 4 crimes later or something like I don't it's 2025 is gonna be weird like it's I don't know So can we at the next board meeting, have a proposed list of people that put on the committee and have them meet. Briefly and at the next meeting after that can we approve. This, I think that is probably the fastest timeline we're gonna get after your public hearing. O
kay. And we have the public hearing at the same time as we have the resolution. Yes. And I do believe it does say a citizen advisory committee shall be appointed. It doesn't say that that appointment needs to come from the So I think that The superintendent. Could appoint that committee and it technically could come back at the next board. Under that. Let's do it. Yeah. Let's say 3. Just an odd number. Yeah, I think, and I think this is, you know, this is just the reason I didn't move forward ju
st out of hand automatically is I also think just Stepping back for a second thinking about, you know, do we. Are we are we gonna get into, you know, I know that there are some places are we gonna get into naming. Buildings, facilities. I just, just an example, I know, we had, former former teachers, staff members who didn't, you know, amazing things at the school. And, sometimes we do a bench or we do. Reading benches or plaques or these sort of things. So I'm just I only put it in here because
it's been it's been a while since we've done something like this so I'm just bringing it for a conversation with you all. Nothing to do with April Derby. She's amazing to walks on Waterfield. It's not about April Derby at all. I'm just kind of wanting to ask you guys and raise the question before I move forward with moving toward the process. Is this something that we want to start doing for our other schools? And I think, Liza, I've talked to Liza about, so they kind of just jumped the gun doi
ng this, which is fine. I mean, it is what it is, but we and we're doing this, which is fine. I mean, it is what it is, but we can kind of go back. You know retroactively and we can work through the steps. But. I guess the reason I brought this up is I just wanna check in with you all and see, do we. Want to start doing this? Do we want to? What do you all want to start to? I think you were gonna say something, I just think we should look at a case by case basis. Yeah, I was kind of thinking the
same. I mean, I sure the same. I think she's great. But not everyone's gonna be in April that we wanna name something after. I know someone asked us to name something after someone who was very beloved in the community recently who passed away and I think it's like a year that we have to wait. But doesn't sound like there's a time period on someone who's still living. Is that correct? I don't think there's a period for us in our board policy. It didn't, there was no time line. It could be livin
g or deceased. It does outline it in the policy. So there are different, this policy. Is very confusing and the interesting part I mean this is directly from CSBA the last update so even the CSBA one is confusing but it talks about memorials as a separate sort of a thing. So a memorial quote unquote says upon request the board shall consider naming buildings parts of buildings or athletic fields in honor of the contributions of students, staff members, and community members who have been decease
d for at least one year. So that's if you want to do a memorial. This is now we're talking about a A recognition. My response is no, I don't wanna get into the naming business. And I, I was a civil engineer in a prior career. I don't find. Naming buildings as an honor at all quite frankly or rooms. I mean, if we wanna, you know, license out naming rights like a lot of, public, universities or even some schools do. I don't mind that. I don't know April and I don't doubt the you know the value tha
t she's brought to the community but I for personal I think there's better ways to honor somebody that we love than the naming a room and I just don't find that to be honorific. And the politics that's involved with naming public spaces can get pretty dicey. I'd rather see, you know, Cherry Valley. Put some kind of, you know, biography of her in the library that where future children can learn about her. You know, I wonder how many of us can here can name, you know, who Mary Collins was who McNa
ir was who was who was who McDowell was, I mean, what difference does it make after the folks who, you know, move them at on. So anyway, I would prefer not to do this and honor her in a different way that's more meaningful, quite honestly, for the for future generations of kids at Terry Valley. So I don't, yeah, I don't know what our. Direction is. Does anyone else have strong? I don't disagree with any of your points either. That's But I also, I think if you take April out of the equation, you
know. Because again, she seems very beloved. Yeah, we don't wanna run into an issue with someone else like actually 6 months or a year later, we're like, hmm, maybe we should have taken that year longer cause like we do for the memorials. I don't know, we should have taken that year long pause like we do for the memorials. I don't know, but I do, agree with the sentiment of wanting to honor her in some in some way. And if it's not naming the room after her, then, you know, then it can be decided
, I guess, by the committee. And then, yeah, to the point here, you know, when naming or renaming a district school building or facility the board may specify the duration for which the name shall be in effect. So you could put it make it a time bound thing. I don't, I mean, I think the point really is. So in 6 months, we're gonna have, you know, a teacher retire from. One of our schools are we you know picking and choosing and figuring out it's just a question I have. So what kind of precedent
are, are, are we setting and maybe you guys say Matthew just bring in, it's fine and we do it on the case by case basis as Ellen said and that's fine if that's what I do I'm not I'm just raising the question. Yeah, I'm reading the policy now, you know, the qualifications for naming in particular isn't really the qualifications for naming in particular isn't the qualifications for naming in particular isn't really it the way that I read it it's not to honor somebody it's to acknowledge. I mean, h
ere at the qualifications, outstanding contributions, financial contributions in particular. So we know what that's about naming rights who have made contribution statewide national worldwide significant so we can imagine all of the schools that we see around that are named after you know historic figures. Or geographic area in which schools are located. This isn't really meant for honoring our people that we love and know in our schools and quite honestly like I said before I don't think it's a
n honor. I think it's I don't know. I think there's could be there are more meaningful ways to show our appreciation. I mean, I read it as very much about schools and buildings. So I don't even know if room really like how room and fits into that so it might be worth bringing back. Facility naming as a whole. Topic to flesh out what we think it should be. Like, do we allow for rooms to be named but not schools? Cause yeah, school naming, that's a whole other can of worms. Yeah, cause this is jus
t a reading room within the library, right? So it's just, it's just a special place. And even this part of the board policy, I mean, I also read it. The board encourages community participation in the process of selecting names. We have someone in mind for the it's more of. You know, the board policy is. Confusing at best. So I think we need to make it less confusing and all the 5 of us need to think about what threshold we want and if or if we don't want. A threshold for naming after staff for
community members or former students. At below the school or building. So maybe that's a place for us to start would be let's. Let's re look at this board policy, bring it back for a first read at the next meeting. I mean, is that what you want to do? And I'm thinking about if we have any precedent. The gym, you know, time we walk by, there's the memorial to, you know. But I'm thinking about like, well, I guess that's a memorial too. But things that are not memorials. Yeah, that's like a reminde
r every time someone walks by it. So I don't know if the proposed committee would. How they would feel about, you know, like someone to the bench or just something. If we decide not to move forward with Maybe a facility or a room. I do have to add one thing. Is that my dear neighbor, Ernie Fideli, who was a bus driver, has a bench. Right in front of, that is dedicated. I mean, it's dedicated to him. And. So there's that, there is an object, it's, it's a bench, but it was named for him. So I go b
y it and I just cut it go. We have many, many, many benches and seats and oh, yes. So, it doesn't matter. Okay. But maybe we should clarify that also. I'm wondering, I know this says, so this is comes from CSBA and it was last revised our version 2,012. I wonder if there's been changes since then. We have the current. We have the current. This is word for word, but CSBA and I will, you know, I'll say from my experience at my university, you know, there usually are clauses for removing names. Ref
oco. But this is so down the line of, you know, things that we need to be worrying about. So it does say here. The board reserves the authority to turn into naming right if it determines that the grantee subsequent to having perceived the naming right has engaged in any of the Act stated in item 4 above or other criminal or unlawful acts that might bring the district into. What if they did it before we gave it to them? We just didn't know. Yeah, so I think it needs to be. Reviewed and I'm happy
to help review it with you or so. So let's take, let's take maybe a couple of board members and I can take a stab at. Does anyone die? I was, I was going around. Okay, I'll say Ellen and Sheldon if you're good with that Sheldon cool great awesome. Alright moving on to secondary bell schedule. We're gonna discuss. That, no, I guess there's nothing attached so I don't know what we're discussing. So I think that we had a board study session the last last week last Tuesday and I think the the idea h
ere is discussion item just sort of we kind of I heard from at least a couple of board members just on. What direction, what direction we want this to take, what parameters thinking about. Where we're at right now and with the partial with measure B most you know looks like it's very unlikely. Most you know looks like it's very unlikely, probably not gonna pass. And kind of just giving some direction around do we next steps? I mean, one thing could be, and I'll let, you know, Joanna, you talked
a little bit about setting some parameters for the committee. Do we want some parameters for the committee? Do we want some of the things that came on the board, setting some parameters for the committee. Do we want, what, some of the things that came out of the board, right? Do we want to add board member 2 to the committee? Do we want, and we can do that at any time. We don't need to have this conversation right now, but do we want to set some parameters around time frame? Do we wanna, what is
it that? What are, you know, give us some direction. Yeah, I mean, this came up again at the Wasp, the parent panel at Costa. And it just happened that there were. I think 3 or 4 parents who students. Had IPs and they were talking about how the current Bell schedule has just been really hard because of the amount of time that they sit in the one class. In addition to not being able to take an elective till they were juniors. So, and we didn't hear from a lot of parents at that study session. An
d so I just wonder what the discussion would have looked like. Had we heard from more, I felt like a lot of the emphasis was on like the nuts and bolts, like the logistics, like we change the schedule and how's that gonna affect the teacher contracts, which are things that we should look at as well. But I didn't feel like we spent a lot of time. Beyond the presentation. Thank you, Tony, that he presented with the different ways that a schedule looks for student disabilities, multilingual learner
or both. So. I think just moving forward, I would love for us to do both. Look at how the bell schedule will affect the teacher contract as well as student outcomes. I would love to hear more updates. Ideally every other month When we had that meeting, this is March, so May. And then really having like. A deadline like we need to have this. Figured out hopefully by like October, November so that we can think about master scheduling and working out all of the details of the teacher contract. Bec
ause again, like this was meant to be. Oh, a 1 year, a temporary fix, just like the bleachers at Casa and you know, here we are. And so I just wanna. Just elevate the student voice in the folks that weren't in the room who weren't at the table. For these discussions. What time? When did this school year does the master schedule start? And students start picking their classes. I don't know. I think this master schedule started talking maybe late in the fall. Best practice usually starts around No
vember December. Build it, begin building it with what they know and then course requests usually happens soon after that around December January October. Yes. And then I know we looked at if it's, I mean, I am not married to a 7 period day. I like the idea of it, but. Is there a world where 6 period day with the longer? And I know that's part of the polling. Longer advisory can exist that we can have, you know, some directed educational minutes put towards for those students who would need stud
y skills or the ELD class. But just, I just feel like, I mean, I'm thinking about the kid right now who's in eighth grade, a Petaluma junior and next year they're going to pedal them a high. And potentially not be on an a 3 g track. Or have an elective and it's like, what do we? How do we answer to that student and to their family? So I think we're talking about 2. Separate 2 very important things but 2 separate things. So one thing is more longer term thinking that I'm hearing from you, Joanna
about some direction for the committee, right? Because we've had this committee that's been meeting. I mean, it's not like countless meetings and is making great progress and you know, it feels like there's There's traction and it's it's. So one of the one of the things I'm hearing is we want to have some sort of time period to say, hey, we get it. This is not gonna, you know, not gonna be ready for and we've. Particularly around the 7 period, right? We've got that's where we have a lot of energ
y around that. We still need CASSA and Pedal Mahi to look at, you know, 75%. We need to, we may be going back and forth, etc. But that kind of putting a timeframe around that to say, October, November, this needs to get done. In order for us to then and the committee is very well is well aware I mean but putting that kind of a time bound restraint or direction for the committee that, hey, we really need this to wrap up so that we can move forward because this is a temporary schedule. And thinkin
g about 2526 light rate long term. That's what we want. More frequent updates. So every couple months, the belt having the bell schedule committee coming to the board, even if it's a short update sort of here we're at. And then I think what you're talking about with the sixth period is for next year's day. Far further from opportunity, our multi-language learners, students with disabilities, is there's anything we can do for next year to support. That group are those groups of students That's wh
at I'm hearing. Is that? Oh, I didn't think that was a possibility for next year. I was just saying moving forward if we can't come to a 7 period agreement. We can do that for next year. That'd be great, but I just thought that we were just gonna leave it as is school year. Unless there's a way. It doesn't sound like it, but. Anybody else? Any? So this is, I just wanted. Okay. I found it very helpful. It, extremely disappointed. But, I'm dealing with it. But I really learned a lot actually. And,
particularly around the fact that I think, there needs to be something. You know, around what constitutes an urgent action. Because we thought it was an urgent action. We thought this was a temporary fix because we had to do it and it was going to change within the next year. I understand, I mean the committee did a great job. They, you know, really looked at a lot of different aspects. It's just there was no sense of urgency. And so, I mean, there might have been, but It didn't, I, well, it di
d result in anything urgent. So, I don't know how to do that, whether it needs timeframe. But I do think that October would be the last. I think that that's what needs to happen in order to get everybody to be able to do go forward with enough time. If they know that this is a schedule, the earlier they get it, the better it's going to be. And the better that the more prepared that everybody will be. And so, and I think that gives you plenty of time to discuss all these different options. With s
taff. So that's my only. Yeah, I think. October first, honestly, like let's. Get it decided because there still will be plenty to hammer out like the bell committee is not going to evaporate as soon as we pick a there's still so much to work out but counselors need to know we need to know that the master schedule is going to have 7 or whatever classes and Start planning. Knowing what times if it's going to be a different end time every day. We need to start talking to peddling with transit so we
can make sure the buses are synced up like. There's the budgeting process. Yeah. Okay. Okay, I'll bring back something for the next meeting. Okay, thank you. Alright, moving on to business services. We have our demographics and enrollment projections. Yeah. I thought why not another presentation. Alright, tonight we bring forward drafts of 2. Demographic and enrollment projections for you to review. And this is not an item that needs to be approved. This is not an item that needs to be approved
by the board though I can recommend any changes to school works and then they will finalize it. One of the pieces on here is that it is really broken out by, grade level and doesn't, really align with, what our school districts are. They are going to make that change. And they may, they're going to work on maybe rolling it into one report. So it's easier to read, but I just wanted to point out. Of the 50 pages of each report. I just wanted to point out that Petaluma City Schools has held a most
ly stable enrollment over the past 10 years. And Petaluma City Elementary School District is projected to grow by 1.2 for next 1%. For next school year. And continued growth over the next school, 6 school years that really has to do with the increasing. Transitional kindergarten. Yeah, Petaluma joint union high school district is projected to decline by 2.2 4% in next school year, which is projected to decline by 2.2 4% in next school year, 2.2 4% in next school year, about 102 employees at the
high school level. On the years out we are projected to have stable enrollment over the next 6 years. I know right now we would really like to see our inrollment numbers going up, but this is a pretty good place. Districts in our county are in declining enrollment. So we were really happy with the report. By school works. Another thing to think about is the ongoing development that is going on throughout. The city and as those plan developments come into play. This is something that we will cont
inue to work on and update to really have a true idea of what our numbers are going to look like. And just so everybody could see, I grab 2 pictures. This is the ten-year enrollment history with 6 years projections for TK through sixth grade. So as you can see a slight increase. In next year and then we have a little large bump and we study out with overall. Sorry, I can't read that. 2617 in the 2930 school year. And then for our high school, seventh and eighth grade is green and the concrete ar
e excuse me ninth through twelfth grade is the blue and you can see a Slight decline in next year and then we slowly level back out in 2930 with enrollment of 46 19. It's good news. Yeah. Do you know how they handle? Are they extrapolating the, eighth grade, you know, from eighth grade to ninth grade. That's where we, you know, see a decent amount of. Students who are in our boundaries leaving outside the district. Is it a flat line extrapolation of current trends or something else? So they use
a ten-year trend analysis and then they also look at Okay. Or any initiatives we might do for small high school or anything. And, one thing to point out is we hadn't started the enrollment process for the dual immersion. So that is not included in this at McDowell. I am. I know the same thing as Sheldon and what are we doing to kind of. Find out why we tend to we're losing students between eighth and ninth grade. Matthew has been working on that for like, so the small, high school committee, som
ething that we've been talking about, right? Tony, and correct me if I'm wrong, so it's approximately a hundred 25 students. Per year that we lose between 8 to ninth grade. So to you know to Sheldon's point if we if we had an option I mean there are so many different variables and you know what could happen. We see the majority of our students right of the students who leave are going to a smaller high school, tech high, Cool. Same Vincent's, Cardinal Newman, Sonoma Academy, are sort of the Thos
e are the schools that we're really talking about. We do see that we, you know, we lose some, some do come back. And others will, you know, others leave, right? So we have this kind of, so over 4 years, you're looking close to 500. Which is about the size of a small high school. So right now in Tony, do you want to kind of talk about where that's at in the process? Small high school. Yeah, so, had a committee, beginning to work out and explore this small high school. The process now is really, l
ooking at some data, that we, recently got in regards to how many students are leaving. Within the last, I think, 2018 until now and how many have come back every year. Particularly from the and so, The goal is really to, reconvene the, the committee, in April to go over the data and to work out some processes along the shared decision making process. And, and bring forward, some recommendations that, the boarding superintendent can. Can discuss. And so I think, you know, a presentation maybe le
t you know. Maybe it's May, June kinda timeframe we get a presentation about small. High school committee and where. Where we stand and some direction from you guys about we can we can talk about you know, numbers bring, real hard numbers and statistics and as well as some Qualitative data from families. I mean that's part of the you know we have Again, it's like we have spreadsheet. We have. We have data from. Pax that, make, you know, where we see the numbers, Paxs at McKinley, Cherry Valley.
Live Oak. And again, I don't have all this all this data, but cinema, Cinnabar. Where you have K 8 in our community and that's where we tend to see students. Leaving the eighth that eighth grade environment and wanting something different that we don't offer and moving to a different. School district. You do Kenilworth and Petalman Junior, we do have some students as well who leave, Pen Grove. After fifth grade we see a we see a slide there as well between fifth and sixth grade. Why? Because man
y of our students of Pangrove are coming from Catalonia, Park. And Katharine Park has Lawrence Jones Middle School with has the Expeditionary Learning Program. Many some students will leave that starts in sixth grade. So there are multiple different factors and reasons that I guess they could. So I'm gonna go off to do a presentation right now for you guys. But I think that's something that we could kind of bring in in the next couple few months, share with you and get some direction on. Next st
eps. So you're saying that the committee is gonna reconvene? Are they gonna anybody wanna join the committee? I mean, I will. I can share the date and then, and then you guys can let me know. Okay. Great. Any other questions? On demographics or enrollment projections? Thank you for that. I think having it put together in one would definitely be helpful. Yes, I will do that. Thank you. Well, no, make them do it. Yeah, I will make them. Yeah, don't you dare. Moving on to Ed services, amended board
policy first reading for board policy. 6 1 5 2.1 place first reading for board policy 6 1 5 2.1 placement in mathematics courses. Tony, tell us about this one. So we have a board policy around math placement course, however it hasn't really been updated. So we've updated with some of the CSBA language. However, it hasn't really been updated. So we've updated with some of the CSBA language, but we've updated with some of the CSBA language, but we didn't have. So we've updated with some of the CS
BA language, but we didn't have an AR, that really delineates the the math placement process. So the math task force. Made. To discuss about the math placement and had input and recommendations around the math placement language and so we just presenting the first the first reading of the AR and the updated board policy. I know Josh was here who was leading the protesters. Yeah, just behind us. So if there's he has some more specific. Information about this if you have any particular questions.
Well, first of all, thank you, Josh, for sticking it out. Just 3 h. One item. So when will this go into effect? And have we ensure that students are having open access. To these courses. Yeah, so it officially goes into effect for. The 2526 school year. We made a decision as a task force to put. Our last meeting to do that. However, in the conversations this year, every site has made a adjustments. From Pedal Maha as you know, added a new course for acceleration starting in ninth grade. As part
of the process. Both. Junior hot both Kenilworth and Petalima junior high have I have changed their process for allowing and to hopefully get more students in to the accelerated program and in more open access spirit. It's not, each sites doing a little bit differently. But what is that new process? Why they. When they sent out there, they met with all, you know, all the feeder schools. They put on their elective form. Are you interested in accelerated math? Course. And so he took that data and
then they gave the MDTP, but instead of using it as a cut score, which was never meant to be. It use it as a data point, very much like how Pax has been doing it for a long time. Is that we have this data that allows the school to have a conversation with the family. And so, and in those discussions, Kenilworth has also expanded its invitations to all students for cause they take its second test to decide who's going to get into the accelerated class and instead of being just an invitation only,
it is now open to all students that would like to take the second test. Okay, this is interesting. I have an incoming child that kind of worth and I have not this is new to me. So has this you're saying that this is the what's supposed to be happening right now? This is, yes, this is what's happening right now. Yeah, but we didn't want to codify a new process while they're in the middle of the process. So like I said, we're writing this for next. The next cycle, however, changes have been made.
Yeah, I'm a little confused because you said. That any it's totally wide open and then you talked about a test. So there is, right, so, at Petaluma Junior, the test is just a data point and, meaning. There is a test. That kids take and this is this is how Pax has been doing for a long time. Can you say, yes, I would like to take accelerated. Let me know. So this is not this is not a. In order to enter, you you must take this test. Every sixth grader in all of Petaluma in sixth grade in their si
xth grade classroom, everyone takes the MDTP, whether you're going to accelerate math, it is really, Yeah, this is so old Adobe, WAH, Sandabar, everyone, all sixth graders this time of year. Well, yeah, yeah, all sixth graders this time of year take the MDTP, which is it. I test out of UC, UC Berkeley. It's a it's a it's really meant as it's a summative sixth grade you know K 6 So in other words, it's not like if you wanna come here, you have to take everyone's already got the results are alread
y in. The second test. Is only down at Kenilworth, I believe. This year it has been done in Kilworth. I mean, sorry, Pedalma Jr. Those were done and they were cut scores up to this point. Their work cut scores to get into this accelerated class and tell the school year. So if a student wants to take accelerated math as a seventh grader. So if a student wants to take accelerated math as a seventh grader, they can they can take it without any. Gatekeepers or anything like that. They can just sign
up for it. That's the intent of the new policy. Okay. How and and right now, since it's mid process, I can't speak to how each school is handling it this school year. I know what their intentions are. And yeah, so I don't want to guarantee. Because we've spent a lot of time talking about having open access. And so I was just wondering what that test was about having open access. And so I was just wondering what that test was about if it's blocking that test was about if it's blocking that open a
ccess. And so I was just wondering what that test was about if it's blocking that open access. Just to clarify, the MDP is a diagnostics exam. And it's really meant to. To. To not only inform parents but also to ensure that students who who could be in advanced course be an advanced course to recognize that you are an advanced student maybe you should consider that as opposed to keeping them from being Yes. Yeah. And the people who design it does are very clear. There should not be any cut score
. It is meant it is MDTP stands for Mathematics Diagnostic Testing Project. So it's It's just a name where kids are strong and and have some gaps but not a cut score. It's not a placement test. I like the idea of finding those students that maybe Yeah. Can't do it or that class is too hard. While also recognizing it is a difficult course. So then like if you get like, I don't know. Fairly low score at least been like the parents and the students have all the information in advance. And they have
the opportunity to accelerate if they decide not to accelerate. And that's the other piece of this is that there has to be a large communication plan that goes along with this. And that's the other piece of this is that there has to be a large communication plan that goes along with this because I think there's a sentiment out there that unless you're accelerated, and that goes along with this because I think there's a sentiment out there that unless you're accelerated, you're off the college p
ath, unless you're accelerated, you're off the college path, which is not true. You could never accelerated, you're off the college path, which is not true. You could never accelerate and land an AP. Stats as a senior, you take 4 years of math, your, your, you're good to go if you never accelerate. And so that's the other point. It's like, this is not. In my mind, it's not about getting more kids accelerated. It's actually letting kids know that there's many options because that seventh grade ac
celerated class is a rough class. It is 2 years of math. Crammed into one. And now there are a certain number of students that that's absolutely appropriate for, but there are many other pathways to college and then that one and and that's not necessarily why to know so this we need to talk to parents to our own schools to our feeder districts and so is a. Piece. And if you don't get in in seventh grade, it's okay. Both high schools have an option later on. It seems like that's the importance of
getting that accelerated class option. Ninth grade. For the kids that didn't make that choice and seventh, right? Right. So now, then that's at both high schools. It's, it's a different acceleration point at each high schools, but they each have one. But I think that's the key. You just send that a choice. Right? It's not how it's how it's been running is. Josh alluded to sort of cut point so let's say 3 years ago You could have scored. It's around 75% to 80%. Let's say I think well. I think it
's a lot higher than that, but so anyway. You could have whatever, you know, you score is then fast forward 3 years that the cut score may change depending on the year to year. So does it it doesn't it didn't It was a floating sort of a cut point depending on number of students in the school. Space. It's based on space. So now what we're saying is if It's you know an accelerated seventh and you know compacting curriculum, seventh and eighth grade in one year. It's not for everybody. And I'm livi
ng that dream right now and it is with my daughter and it is real. So it's, to Josh's point of sound about, you know, how many Students can we, you know, push and push and push to get in there. It's more if you if this is something that you want right now great if not if you're gonna be fine you can also accelerate in ninth grade creating some more onramps into that into creating some more onramps in acceleration and if a student doesn't want to take an accelerated math, you they're going to be
totally fine. They can get up to all the way through Josh. I'm talking about this. A child as well. I think next year and right we were going back and forth about. Anyway, it's about choices about making sure that our students, We're not saying you have to be in this high high percentile if you if you're a student and you're you want to take that on then. We're gonna, well, we wanna make sure that we offer it for you. And we hopefully made that clear in the, administrative regulations. And so we
will we will build out the sections to meet the demand. Okay. And. Yes, and. We're not going to run a section with 8 students. So you have to, yeah. You know, if you're in that margin, you're just gonna have to yeah you know if you're in that margin you're just gonna have a big class as opposed to saying you can't come in here. Pardon me? Yeah, well, this is this is what we need to figure out. I mean, I had a kid right at that margin was excluding from the accelerated right at that margin was e
xcluding from an accelerated right and guess what was excluding from the accelerated right and guess what was bored stiff right in the accelerated right and guess what was bored stiff right in in eighth grade. And guess what? Was bored stiff right in in in eighth grade had to do math one on her own without the class. Right. So that she would be, you know, ready for high school. That's not right either. So, I mean, we have to have that. You know, I get that we need to, be affordable on the sectio
ns, but You know, we have to weigh having, you know, paying extra for small classes or having a large class. Well, and the recommendation from the task force was to build in an extra section. So that there is so that you could have space for movement and both ways. It would be actually more regular seventh grade because they kept talking about this magic number 40. What if we have 40 kids that's some really hard to master schedule for. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Alright. Moving on to the. AR for
the exact same board policy I would imagine our conversation is all the same, Ernie. Comments or questions? The AR has to go with the BP. We know that by now. Cool. Moving on on the very much in the same vein, first reading of forward resolution, 2324 dash 31 equitable access to regress courses for all students. Yeah, so really to. To continue to strengthen our equity resolution that we passed a while ago. The AG sequence resolution and to support the some of these board policies that that you
see here and ones that will be bringing down later down the year. We wanted to bring forward a open access resolution that really, reflects the board goals and in our mission. And, put it in with, with, parameters that will help guide the work that we're doing around. Open access in the schools when they begin planning. That process. I was really glad to see this in writing. I mean, I think most of us have a story of a kid who Wasn't there the day that they offered the test to get into an AP cla
ss or whatever. And so then they didn't get in. And so this seems like it. Put some teeth into that open access. And I appreciate that. So this is just for the high school, but then what about the? Seventh and eighth grades. So. In regards to the. I know that we did, we just talked about math, but I'm wondering about English clip out we were. Not doing assessments anymore that I saw that there was junior high that has added an assessment in the recent years. And so that didn't seem to be in line
with our policy and I don't see anything on here. About that. we can, so I can put more clear language around the parameters part. And and maybe strengthen the resolve. That city schools adopt open access policy that ensures all students have equitable and open access to high quality rigors support KK 12. Okay. And then in the parameters I can add, I can strengthen it by adding, junior high as well. Yeah. Hmm. No, I'm looking at the second page where it has like. The the ninth grade and twelfth
grade and all of that. So as long as all of this captures the junior high schools as well. And then what is what are we doing or what's the I guess accountability for the tests that are still happening in the assessments that are still taking place. What are those still taking place? And. What can we do about them? Well, I think, I mean, having a policy and a resolution to support that, I think that Yes, the site administration. Charge into making, you know, those conversations and changes at t
heir sites. You know as we begin to review and discover things that has just been historical practice. I think it's now allowing the site administration to to make those changes at their sites with backing from our policies and our resolution. And that allows us to go and to monitor and. Provide guidance based on what the board has. Established as the practice. Any other questions or comments? I think once this resolution passes, we need to make sure to send the parameters. To site admin. So tha
t they know and know in certain terms. Cause apparently we've been unclear for the last 5 years. Okay. Okay, this is good. Yeah. Thank you. All right, and as, we didn't have to hear from you at all. So that like, I bet you have something for us in the future. She's been quiet tonight, but it's yeah, April is all about you, girl. Future business. Does anyone have any future business? Requests. I'm gonna bring up the transportation again. Just my new favorite topic. Just uplifting the public comme
nt from Shareen, just making sure that our schools that don't. Raise whatever threshold the money still have access to field trips. Even if we move to the buses, just it's want to make that crystal clear, like the funds should not keep any school from. Having this same type of opportunities as other schools at rate. So like let's say I don't know one school raises 501 raises 5,000, they should still be able to have comparable. Field trips. I don't know if we need to build that into the budget or
just. The I guess when we're when we're looking at making a policy change like that the budget has to follow. It's it's not a I guess in my mind I'm thinking yeah absolutely it's not a If you're gonna force and say no more no more driving outside these parameters and you have then the budget has to. Shift to cover that cost so Yeah, yes, and absolutely. I mean. Which is why. Which is why I talked about a step down right now the way that it is versus a step down is there's costs, big costs attac
hed to a transportation policy if we were to say no more parent drivers then there's a massive cost to the district and So yeah. I was just gonna add add a previous school district I worked at. There was a specific amount for field trip transportation built into the budget by number of classrooms. So it was determined by the board they were trimesters that there was one field trip. Per trimester per grade level and then there was a lump built into for each. District or sorry, school site so we c
an look at doing something like that with the July one budget. We could we could also look at separating out. After school sports and field trips. And we don't have to we don't they don't have to be combined. Yeah. In the day field trips anyway. That's probably much less cost. No, over time, no worrying about the 8 h between shifts. All those good safety roles. Maybe we have a driver CT pathway. Grow our own. Can the parcel tax for elementary helps some of the field trip? Okay. Oh, they're teach
er. Driven. We have to look through what how the way that it's laid out the personal tax. I mean, it's primarily for to support additional FTE teachers at the, at the school site. Yeah, we have to look at that. Future business appointing our citizen oversight committee for measure E because knock on what it it passed it did. Statistically speaking, at least one of them did. Well, in that same vein, we're gonna look at parcel tax for that. Can we also look at potentially? If the parcel tax can be
used, at least for elementary for bringing back some of our mental health supports. Gonna be you can be used for that right Hi, and staff or was it just teachers? It was teachers and staff. It was all staff. Teachers is just the word that pulled really well with the community. Just looking at that and what the cost would be. Of breaking some of those back. I mean, especially me Maddie brought up the wellness centers and I know that. Super cute presentation from Grant about trusted adult. I mean
, it's just so important that social emotional factor. So. Yeah, I think we, I mean, we talked all throughout the campaign, particularly the elementary about. The trusted adult more more staff on our campus more trusted adults on our campus and elementary really focusing in on the additional FTE with. Thinking about specialists, you know, one thing that kept coming up over and over as world language, science and coding robotics. You know, our art and music that we've got going on and then lookin
g at from the classified perspective around student advisors, that being the really critical position for us. At those 7 elementary campuses. So we'll have more to come when we get to find the results. I just have a real quick one. Bike to school day is Wednesday, May, the eighth. And, you know, I'd really like to see all of our sites participate. A lot of times they do, but they have to sign up by April. And so they sign up through, the safe routes to school. Website. And I think most of them h
ave done it, but there's a whole bunch of them that have not ever signed up for it or have not signed up. On for it yet. So I was just wondering if we could send out a reminder. Huh? They sign up to this. Oh no. They sign up through the Safe Rouse to school this you know the county and then they get all kinds of you know like pins and buttons and all kinds of and they help them with signage and they, you know, there's a lot of stuff that goes on and it and it helps with the organization so that
we really have a full amount of kids and parents and teachers and everybody coming to school, either walking or biking. So it helps with all the promotion and they pay for all of that. Yeah, and so it's a really cool program. And So, but they just mentioned they're all, you know, I think it's real down. You know, the list of priorities. So I just thought I'd put it out there as let's remind them. To sign up because I think they all do it. And

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