e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e check on the interpretation gooseneck
microphone in the translations booth now I will jump over to the Spanish headset e e e e matter good morning everyone we are going to
start our committee of the whole meeting thank you um everyone who is here present and also watching us remotely um so today we have um a packed agenda we have a lot of presentations and I want
us to be very um cognizant of the time so so we not last time we had we went a little over which is fine we had a lot of great presentations and here I'm um joined by uh board president Mr scharon and our Miss um hendy new bill is here
and myself and we're just going to go ahead and start while we wait for our other colleagues to arrive I've heard that there is a an accident on the five and I'm sure they're they're probably stuck in there and they're trying to get over here so um so welcome again
everyone we um have some presentations I'm just going to name some of them off uh first we'll hear from our labor partners and I see some are here present and Then followed by that we will have uh the 23 24 audited annual financial report which was not presented um we
have Miss qu has joined us hello um that was not presented at the January board meeting so we wanted to make sure that um that was presented here today and follow by some questions by the board members um followed by that we have the overview of the governor's proposed
budget um and then the next presentation is the fiscal climate and budget considerations we have someone here from the school Services of California and fiscal crisis and management assistance team who will present and last lastly we have an update on our
2528 instructional calendars and Mr Andes Chate will be sharing um some information some survey results regarding the academic calendars um that has not yet been voted on so we still have to vote but he's going to present to us some information there with that
said I will open up the floor to our labor Partners who are here present I see utla if you want to come up forward and and speak to us give us a report and the floor is yours good morning hey good morning everybody
um I'm Alex Orosco utla secondary vice president I have um with me um Vicky Mones and Katherine Epstein they'll they'll be introducing themselves in just a second they'll be here to talk about some very important calendar stuff
um so I just wanted to remind you all that last week week we were here um to talk about the block schedules the funding 2x8s and 4x4s we had six schools speak on how
detrimental the lack of funding will be to their programs and I just those that was just six of about 40 schools that are going to be looking at some major disruption so as you think about that throughout
the the day and the next few few days um it's very important that you remember that these are schools that have shown great progress as you all heard from them last week these are schools that have really thought outside the box
creatively to really Implement some of the programs that you as a district has actually been out there promoting um so we know that upwards of about 40 schools and if you think about every school losing
that funding and losing the staff you're looking at hundreds of displaced Educators if you all don't make the correct decision and fund those schools appropriately and that's not even getting into another bucket of schools that have also been very instrumental
and showing great uh pride and great work you know schools like uh arita High School uh ply High School these are pilot schools that have really shown great progress over the last decade and
they are also seeing their funding coming to an end so very important that you think about that as you have conversations throughout the day today and you hear from your reports of Fisco and so on but I do want to pass on the
mic to our committee chairs or secondary and Elementary committee chairs to speak on some very important calendar stuff so Catherine good morning um again Vicky Montes um I'm here to talk more about the optional prep days that we are asking for in the
calendar and really the importance of um these options for teachers I'm sure you guys have walked into classrooms that are very beautiful very inviting very engaging bulletin board set up materials created teachers have always done that on their own time with their own money
and for the last two calendar Cycles we were able to have an optional prep day that allowed for the first time for teachers to be able to do that and the importance of doing that is cannot be understated right number one it's one of the teaching profession standards it's
standard two so it's required in order to teach effectively we're evaluated on it and we have traditionally never been given the time to do this so at the end of the year we have to take everything down for cleaning so the fact that everything comes off the walls off the shelves off of every part means that we
also do that on our own time or we do that during instructional time because you know let's be real we have to move and so putting it all back together the way you see it is always been done on our own time so adding in those optional prep days is critical many teachers have
required it it's time to put your money where your mouth is and really put the funding in the classrooms you know we spend all this money on these AI options and all these other tutoring.com we need the funding to go to the classroom where it makes the most impact and that would be supporting teachers and preparing those environments so uh Katherine's
going to speak more about the element Elementary perspective but this is something that we feel really strongly about teachers have really benefited from it the pupil free day that we have at the beginning and the end is taken over by meetings most of the time we're in many meetings to set up the information for the day that's not a
sufficient amount of time for us to get back into our classrooms so this is something that I really you know I'm bringing to you from the secondary Educators as something that we really value and something that we're asking for in this contract um fund the classrooms thank you
hi I'm Katherine eisenstein um this is my first time being here and I'm very nervous so please know that I have anxiety um this is a I'm sure you've seen this meme classroom funded classroom teacher funded classroom this St doesn't go up by
itself it doesn't and it's not funded by the district so again good morning my name is Katherine eisenstein and I'm not only a third grade teacher at car Environmental Studies magnet but I am the chairperson at United teachers Los Angeles Elementary committee I have watched many school board meetings televised but this is my first time
speaking here and I'm quite nervous however my why for being here is more motivating than my anxiety forgive me as I read from what I wrote down as a school board members or as a superintendent do you have to pack up your box at the end of every school year do you have to unbox at the start of
every new school year are you locked out of your office until the day before school year starts because the hallway to your office was just waxed do you have a day to hang up graphic organizers organize your furniture and bookcases make sure all your equipment works that nothing was misplaced and get papers
ready for your employees if so do you have to beg and plead to get former students and family members to help you bribing them with free a meal or two maybe you're in luck and your sorority sister's daughter needs community service hours so you offer that up to get them to help have you ever come back
to your office only to find the neatly labeled boxes are no where you left them have you done this work year after year for free that is why I'm here to speak about something that is often overlooked but is critical to ensuring that our students have the best learning
environment possible the importance of having paid time for teachers to set up their Elementary classrooms as teachers we are passionate about creating an environment where students feel welcome safe and excited to learn however setting up a classroom is not simply about placing desks in
rows or piing up posters on walls it's about creating a space that Fosters creativity engagement and a sense of belonging for each and every child one of the most important aspects of setting up a classroom is organization without adequate time to prepare teachers are forced to rush through the process
leading to cluttered disorganized environment that have a direct impact on student behavior and learning when there's no paid time teachers use their own personal time to make sure that everything is perfect but the fact is that that teachers are already working
long hours additional uncompensated setup time can lead to burnout stress and exhaustion pay time for classroom setup ensures that teachers have the opportunity to thoroughly plan and organize space it allows them to consider not just where the desks are
place but Where Learning Centers are and and how to best display student work and how to create areas for choir reflection or collaboration it's about more than just a functional classroom it's about creating an environment that enhances the education experience having this paid time supports the emotional and
mental well-being of Educators it allows us to approach the school year with confidence knowing that we have had the time we need to ensure that every detail is in place when teachers are given this time just like after the fires at Marquez when they moved uh and to
nor um we know that teachers are given this time it helps them to feel supported and valued leading to Greater job satisfaction and higher quality of Education for students in the past I have had former students that are either in high school
or college come back to help me for the price of a lunch or a gift card I've had my nieces nephew and college friends kids get community service for lunch for their time again this was out of my pocket when money is already tight after buying school supplies for my students
they don't work for free and neither do you teachers shouldn't have to either can they have this m thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you um next we have Allah our
president of Allah Maria Nichols welcome the floor is yours yes good morning superintendent and board members so there is great concern regarding the fiscal standard uh going into the 2526 school year I received
many many emails from my principles concerned about what their schools and their supports or lack of are going to look like next year and I just want to read a couple to you good morning I am writing this email to express my heart for concern with the
2526 Staffing allocations particularly for special education according to my fiscal specialist and allocation letters I have received only 0.17 FTE of school psychology time and 0
five of apis time this makes absolutely no sense considering this school year we earned a full-time apis I was only provided four days and two full days of psychologist and bought
the rest we have even more students since ecast in September as well as continuing growing special education population we currently have 90 90 active IEPs and
more students in line for initial assessments two RSP programs Pals programs upper and lower a programs and we are supposed to be a full inclusion School my apis and I have expressed our growing concern throughout the entire
school year regarding the need for more psych psychology time for assessments so that we can meet the needs of our special education students and stay in compliance can someone please explain how both apis and school psychology time
is being reduced for the 2025 26 school year we are doing our best to advocate for an active and effective program and for all our students this is a school that was a title one award-winning School in a
California distinguished School two years two times and they're struggling and it continues um with concerns about psws as well in a time that we have such
crisis uh with the we1 campaign with just trauma and violence in our communities and in order for a principal to be able to do the work you need your wraparound you need your PSAs you need your psws you need your school
psychologist you need your APS somebody that's going to carry the load a caseworker that manages all of those Logistics and planning you need to meet with parents you need to write contracts
for students you need to check and progress Monitor and all of that requires human capital of something that we are desper L missing going into 25 26 school year we are in the people business and we require people to do the
work another area of concern that has come my way is the technology piece where schools now have to decide we tune a human being providing supports such as a pssw time to purchasing
laptops I did have this conversation and wondering uh regarding um laptops when we look at William certification and we don't have sufficient books we can certify that we have online
Williams so my wondering is why aren't we looking at laptops equivalent to textbooks because in the past textbooks were always purchased by our district if we are doing online curriculum everything is
online and we are assessing already and we need a laptop that is a working laptop an individual laptop for each student and we need to think creatively as to how we can support our schools with this very
necessary I a detail so that kids can access curriculum and assessments and we need to think outside the box and make this happen so that our schools can once again focus on the human capital aspect of purchasing positions to support
student wraparound supports thank you thank you Miss Nichols are there any other labor Partners who wish to speak okay I see none um so I want to thank our teachers and our administrators your representatives here
of providing us with uh what our schools and principles are facing uh particularly now as we are in budget um certifications in our schools are you know making um their reports on what is
going to be faced for the upcoming year um so now thank you for your perspectives so now uh we move on to our first agenda item the 2324 audited annual financial report I'd like to welcome Mr uh Joseph Musa the audit
partner from Simpson and Simpson who will be presenting findings and key takeaways from uh the 23 24 years audit welcome Mr M thank you thank you so much uh board members thank you for having me this morning my name is Joe Musa a to
partner with Simpson and Simpson LLP and we conducted the independent financial statement audit of the district as of June 30th 2024 uh thank you so much for having me today so going through very quickly the agenda for today um we're going to be bringing forth to the board
a requirement per Ed code for 1020 which requires that the school district obtain an annual financial statement audit over the financial statements that management has prepared and they're presenting it in front of uh the board here as a result of our audit uh in the current
year so looking at what we are presenting we're presenting the audit annual financial report uh it is a rather large report it includes financial statements in addition to no disclosures that provide Clarity to those financial statements as a part of our requirements we are required to come
forth to the governing board to provide you with the results and to provide you with the input in terms of what in terms of the assessment of our audit opinion in addition to potential findings that we identified as it pertains to our responsibilities there are key responsibilities that we have in
preparing your audit uh audit responsibility number one is our responsibility to perform and prepare audit procedures so that we can obtain reasonable assurance that your financial statements are free from material misstatements in addition to that we look over the district's internal controls we test those controls that are
relevant to the financial statements so that we can prepare an efficient and effective audit approach finally we do uh test compliance with various laws and regulations that are subject to the district and then finally we prepare an opinion as a result of the work that
we've done so moving very quickly out here jumping over to slide six is just a summary of our audit opinion in the current year um ultimately our responsib ility is to make a determination that your financial statements have been presented fairly in all material respects in accordance with gener
accepted accounting principles uh the audit opinion is what's communicating that to the public and to the board here so the audit opinion that we've issued is considered an unmodified audit opinion uh lingo outside of the audit World represents this as a clean opinion
it is the most positive opinion that an entity can obtain as a result of their audit so ultimately we've concluded that your financial statements are prepared in all material respects in confirmation with generally accepted accounting principles there are three major phases
to our audit one of which we've spent a little bit of time here concentrating on which is your financial statement audit we also conduct an audit over your federally funded programs in addition to your state funded programs uh as we discussed earlier we review The District's internal controls
and there may be instances where we have recommendations for improvement of those controls you'll find here uh on and I'm going to refer to various pages of the afer in the event that you'd like to take a look at some of the details uh specifically on page 156 we identified one significant deficiency in internal
control as it pertains to the district's vulnerability Management in terms of turning around potential vulnerabilities to your information information systems and the uh the pace in which those are turned over so we provide a recommendations to your its Department what's going to be a very common theme
here as it pertains to our audit findings is the the requirement for the district to to review those findings accept responsibility for them and to prepare a corrective action plan to uh prohibit that from occurring again in the future right so we provide recommendations they prepare a plan to
address our recommendations and our responsibility is to ensure that those recommendations are implemented in the following audit year as it pertains to Prior year findings and which we followed on in the current year you'll find those on page
234 and what we're really communicating is whether or not the district implemented the plan that they said that they would Implement so we obtained supporting documentation for every element of their corrective action plan to make a determination that those action plans have been implemented by the district let's assume that there was
a year in which a specific action plan was not implemented well we're going to make that notation in our audit report that's included in the afer and we're going to continue following up until there's a resolution and the resolution we're looking for is implemented meaning to say they did do what they stated that they would
do we've identified no instances of non-compliance or other matters to report within our review of The District's internal control there are opportunities for improvements that we'd like to make that may not rise to the level of a significant deficiency we consider those control deficiencies we
communicate that in the form of a management letter if you'd like to take a look at that that's going to be on page 250 of your afer and these are what we consider lower level deficiencies that we believe should be addressed at the early stages before it's no BS into something a bit more
serious just to reiterate even with those controled deficiencies that we've identified we make sure that we have recommendations that are strong for the district to implement the district prepares a plan and as we discussed earlier we're going to follow up on those in the next in the next uh fiscal year as it pertains to our federal
compliance we select the sample and did select the sample of seven major programs this year uh you'll find those listed on page 154 and we identified no instances of non-compliance as a result of our audit over those programs now turning over here to one of
the final phases of our audit which is the state compliance uh on an annual basis the education audit appeals panel it's essentially a panel that's made up of members from CDE and the state controller's office they prepare procedures uh that they'd like the independent Auditors to audit against
the leas and those procedures could be applicable to leas could not be our responsibilities to make a determination as to which procedures apply to the district as as you can imagine an overwhelming majority of those apply to the district so there are a total of 30 State compliance procedures that were
applicable to The District in the current year you'll find those listed on page 151 of the report one of the more notable ones is our testing of attendance where we visit your schools we look at attendance records and absence notes we had about 135 regular schools that we visited this
year in addition to 12 Charters um the remaining 29 procedures also include selections of schools so your tool are very much involved in the audit process on an annual basis as a result of our testing in the current year we identify 13 instances of non-compliance amounting
to about $70.1 million of what we call question costs I'm going to review two of the more material ones that impacted that number in the current year if you turn your page to page 194 you'll find the results of our testing
over your classroom teacher salaries this is a requirement in which tests that leas are spending classroom teacher salaries amounting to 55% of total spending we identified based on our review this year that there was a shortfall of that spending in the amount of
7.92% so total percent spent is 47.0 eight as part of your uh the Ed code requirement there is a deficiency that we're required to calculate that amounted to $264 million now to reiterate it's very important to note again corrective action plans and what's
the remediation to this um we've identified this finding in the past couple couple of fiscal years as uh the board May uh is very well aware of and what they've done in the past is they've reached out and submitted waivers to Leo to avoid having to pay the penalty we've identified based on prior years that
that was what the district did and they were successful in obtaining those waivers and that's the intention this year as well with this finding is for the district to submit a waiver to Leo to avoid having to deal with the question cost identified in our finding so that amounted to about 99.2%
of total question cost identified this year the next major item is our review over transitional kindergarten and the ratio review uh that amounted to to $5.2 Million worth of question cost about 7% of total identified in the current year
so we tested this procedure for the first time last year uh there was a bit of a change this year in which we are to also consider early enrollment pupils in our review so there is a requirement that those uh classrooms have to maintain a ratio of uh 10 to1 with
regards to adult to pupil and 20 to1 with regards to teacher to pupil so we obtained documentation we review those we identified in the current year that for those early enrollment classes that we selected we had a total of 13 schools and one charter that did not meet the 20
to1 teacher to pupil ratio and we identified a total of seven schools in one charter that did not meet the adult to pupil ratio we also had a sample of schools uh and uh classes that did not have any enrollment those requirements are um
going to be 12:1 and 24:1 so we only identified five schools and two charters that did not meet the 12:1 adult to pupil ratio so you'll find on page 224 the breakdown of the calculation for question costs and how this impacted the number this year and again that amounted
to 5.2 million again the district has prepared a corrective action plan in order to address this moving forward and is it is also our understanding that there's quite a bit of uh advocacy that's behind uh this subject which I believe is going to come up in a later presentation
today based on that uh we have a total of 11 remaining findings which amount to about 999k uh coming out to 0.1% of total findings identified in the current year and again each of those findings have a corrective action plan and those are
going to be reviewed in the next year's audit with that being said uh I'd like to open it up for questions uh from the board thank you so much for your time thank you so much Mr Musa um I will open up the floor to our board members for
any questions that you may have for Mr Musa regarding the audit report no no questions can I just ask a technical one um for the slide so for the Auditors required Communications it goes from 5 to 7 um
we've got uh uncorrected Mist mistat was four no disagreements or difficulties with management was five and then it jumps to seven and I just didn't know if there was a six this is slide 16 and 17 let me run there real quick as I was keeping track I just wanted to make sure
I didn't miss no no I that must be a mistake in the presentation I apologize for that everything that's there is complete was it numbering um absolutely numbering numbering okay great Mr Sharon go
ahead yes slide 19 uh the one significant deficiency that was identified had to do with vulnerability management can you explain to me and everybody else what does that mean vulnerability management so so
essentially your its Department have uh systems in place to identify potential threats that may exist to your systems and they have a process by which they identify those and rectify that issue as speedily as possible so that that that policy is already in place what we're
recommending is that those are being uh rectified at a minimum of 30 days or three months there there's different uh types of cyber attacks or types of risk that may exist which we'd like the district to turn over fairly quickly you'll find in our writeup uh that there
are very detailed uh other internal controls that are in place to be able to identify those and that the district is aware of those and working on them and there are certain reasons for why they're not being turned around as quickly as what we're suggesting so those are very clearly outlined in the
district's response to the finding uh and and really uh those are based on our review very appropriate we're going to look next year to make sure that they've implemented any specific improvements that they've made to that turnaround got it thank you thank you any other board member with a
question I have one let me look I think it's on page 13 at the debt Administration that um yeah sorry it's on page 14 or page 40 of the report um that the state statutes
limit the in issuance of General obligation Bond debt by un uh a school district to not be more than 2.5% which is about 23.2 billion and the district currently has 29 billion is did you bring that up to the district to
that um having more debt than what the state allows okay so our responsibility as it pertains to reviewing your debt is number one making sure that the total liabilities reported on your financial statements are correct based on review of what's liable at the end of the year we also perform confirmations to make
sure that your payments are being made timely and we look at your debt covenants to make sure that you're in accordance with those that requirement specifically we did not raise with management as a non-compliance um the district continues to issue bonds based on standards and we did not have any specific notation
regarding that itemad um few questions about the findings that I don't think is for you Mr Mara but maybe for the superintendence team you know one is on the misassignments of teachers consistent with their certifications and at the beginning of every year schools have to certify their Williams
compliance on this and so how is it that we still have teachers out of assignment even if it's a small number relatively like after that uh William certification so generally when we're seeing throughout the year there is movement of personnel whether it's
leaves and so we generally will work on finding the appropriate credential staff to ensure that the assignment is aligned but we do see from year to year um some misassignments but they're corrected throughout the year um as part of the HR process us
once yeah but just kind of a lag in terms of a resignation or resignment or leave and then um and then uh one of the audit findings Rel relates to kids leaving after school programs too early and maybe this is for Miss Alvarez who's in
the uh I just for our you in the audience but you know my understanding is that students are expected to stay until 6 which um you know we want to make sure that there are programs available to 6 but we know parents sometimes will have to pick up earlier depending on their schedule and it just seems like School shouldn't be penalized
if you know maybe there's an opportunity for some flexibility on this when it comes to uh you know more Grant funded programs in the lop and all that so I don't know if that's something we can add but it seems like you know if you're there till 5:47 and you get picked up early we shouldn't have kids just have
to sit in a seat just to get that funding right this is one of those uh almost unavoidable just like the utk penalty right uh where we have a decision to make do we do what's right by the child and the parent and the family or do we inconvenience the family
and the child um just so that the numbers are correct certainly when it comes to utk that's the ratio issue right the new family comes into town there's a close by elementary school that has availability that doesn't have availability um unless you you breach
code right by adding that one student we feel it's prudent to actually air on the side of the child and seek legislative remedies and that's exactly what we're doing I believe the issue just brought up is exactly the same one sometimes beyond our control uh Mom Dad show up at
the school to pick up the child early uh at 5:00 5:30 that elicits obviously um a finding uh with some potential funding implications that Merit just like utk some degree a change uh at the at the
legislative level good yeah I'd love to love to take that up and then my last question is um and I see Mr Matt here too is in the appendix so this is slide 28 and then 29 we see again the general fund balances continue to go up um with 6.4 billion at the end of fiscal year
2024 so an increase you know so governmental combined fund balances as of June 30th 2024 increased from last year by 1.3 billion to 10.2 billion at the same time we talk a lot about the dire Financial picture um and so just for the board but also for the public
can you help us reconcile those two facts like an increasing general fund balance and yet a tough Financial Outlook sure remember last year was the end of our spend out of our Esser funding and our other Federal funding uh these funds boosted our local revenues and we were able to put a large amount
of that away which which is why we have the Reserves that we do which are what's supporting us this year when we have a structural deficit uh that's what's actually paying that deficit so we are using our savings account right now to to pay in Practical terms for our overspending this year uh we've now
announced that we will not do layoffs this year for next year so we'll be using that savings account for two years in a row got it thank you and thank you I had that similar question so thank you for answering asking that um any
other questions is Miss uh new bill Hindi thank you and just for clarification I think for the public more so than for us the 55% so we're clear exactly what does that mean when you say 55% of the funding needs to be paid toward teacher
salaries uh we look at total expenditures incurred and then we look at total expenditures incurred for teachers salaries and do a comparison to make a determination that of the total expenses incurred that the district spent at least 55% or more on classroom teacher salaries got it and then you
gave a mediate or a correction for the waiver can you explain a little more in detail what would be another solution because the waiver is one solution that we've provided are there other solutions for reconciliation for this our recommendation was for the district to
continually track the spending to make a determination in terms of where they are in spending at a given time in the fiscal year uh so to be very precise our recommendation was not for the to obtain a waiver that's the district corrective action plan is to seek a waiver and that they're uh in addition to that there's
language in there about them continually tracking to make sure that they can validate that they're in track but there are other extenda circumstances such as overspending such as spending as it pertains to covid and other related funding that impacted that percentage and which they also included in their corrective action plan in terms of why
that occurred uh but our recommendation is for the district to continually track that and the district plans on uh submitting a waiver this year if I may add to that that's an important question there are two issues to contemplate here number one uh you just addressed which is that one time uh infusion which was
the last year 2024 right of uh aser money certainly increased the denominators significantly but the numerator as well uh not allowing the district to reach that 55% secondly and I think this is critically important to a district like ours is that not
everyone who is a teacher accounts for that 55% criteria that there are a lot of teachers uh who work in schools as interventionists not carry class rosters or are not assigned a classroom coaches um all sorts of
roles at they're teachers but their salary is not computed toward satisfying the 55% because they do not carry a class load right so if we were to mandate centrally we could easily get to the 55% but would significantly disrupt
the aut omy that principles and school councils have at the school level on how best to staff schools certainly with classroom teachers but also support teachers who do not have classroom responsibilities thank you and then
there were 11 other findings is that in a priority order or it's just the findings that have come up just 11 no those are just findings that have come up right okay yeah if there there aren't any other questions I want to thank you Mr Musa
for coming um once again I know you were here at the January meeting and we couldn't hear your presentation but thank you for coming and thank you for your report absolutely thank you so much have a good day beautiful so now we move on to our
next pres oh yes go ahead just a quick question actually to to the auditor and I I know that maybe I'm one who believes that important issues ought to be uh you know addressed head-on and I think that um within this report and by the way I take
pride of this report when you hear the level of funding Visa the findings these are not necessarily atypical for a system of large scale like this one number one secondly uh taken within the context of one-time funds um as was the
case with Esser um which we kept using through September 2024 we know that that created some additional pressure that led to some of these issues others uh I really do believe that we require legislative assistance in Sacramento the utk issue is not going to be resolved
here and we're not going to change our practice of inconveniencing parents so this is one that will require legislative action as is the case uh with with other issues raised here today uh with that said we are responsive and responsible and our action plans shall
be lived up uh with 100% uh you know fidelity one issue that is reflected in this audit and I'm not going to get into a great deal of depth over it but it does permeate out there in in the community specific to prop 28 I want to
be very clear prop 28 is an important fuel source of funding for arts and music programs it is a highly prescribed uh and prescriptive investment that was approved by the people of the State of California uh with that said there
there's a lot of confusion a lot of um perspectives and opinions some of them not necessarily rooted in what was approved by the voters or what has been specifically provided in terms of guidance by the Department of Education
and what's currently embedded um under uh the State Department of Education and the State Board as what must be done whether we're talking about the 80 20% 80% for staff certificate and classify 20% for other expenditure specific to
supplies equipment to to support those programs we've heard a lot of numbers discussed out in the community uh again a lot of opinion but we as a district are Guided by certain specific tests that are important perhaps the most important one is actually reflected in
your in your uh audit report which is the all important test of supplement not supplant that is a test that most of us who we've been in education particularly those of us who dealt to Title One programs or other Federal entitlement programs we know that that is the Holy
Grail of federal entitlement policy meaning you cannot substitute funding um at the detriment of the end user whether it's a teacher or a student that supplement Nota plan is actually applicable to uh to prop 28 uh to a
certain extent and that is a test that I believe your team performed yes that's correct can you speak briefly for the benefit of the board and has been said before it benefited the community whether or not on the basis of State guidelines and our own financials
whether or not the district met that all important Supplement natza Plan test specific to prop 28 meaning we spent the monies in terms of quantity in a way that complies with state requirements yeah so the audit
guide requires us to uh test that related compliance and provides us with the steps to which the school District should prepare that calculation uh CDE also provides leas with templates on an annual basis which helps them uh meet certain requirements or helps them test whether they're meeting certain
requirements of various Ed codes so for this specific test CDE did have a template online that it provided to all leas and that's the template that the district utilized to make a determination if they were compliant with the supplement not supp plan our responsibility is to review the calculation provided by the district and
to review the documentation that supports the numbers which in this specific case is the district's financial statements trial balance reconciliations that we did Back to the numbers back to the financial statements that were're presenting So based on the template provided and the guidance provided to the school districts also in
accordance with the audit guide in terms of the steps in which we were supposed to look at the calculation we made a determination that the district was complying with that requirement thank you very much M grego go ahead um so a couple of things um one I'm looking at the um some
of the um areas the corrective actions and there's something on msus and something on welligent and um can you explain it um like in regular terms because I still don't quite understand what what are the issues that you found
with MES and with welligent and then what are the corrective actions you're referring thank you so much you're referring to the vulnerability management system is okay very good so uh again the the specific issue that we identified is not that the district is not monitoring potential vulnerabilities
that exist there are best practices for the timing in which uh we would recommend the district to rectify those specific vulnerabilities there are valid reasons for why the district may not be able to rectify a vulnerability for instance within 30 days it may very well
be that there's certain patches to certain systems that need to be updated before they attack or update or be able to fix potential vulnerability that exists so what we're saying in our finding being very clear in our finding that we've identified vulnerabilities those exist all the time can you explain
what those are though can you like tell me exactly what those vulnerabilities are is it student data that's you know it's out there in the world or what exactly is it so the way that this works is they uh they have a software which identifies potential threats that may exist to a system one of the most major
ones is if your system's not fully updated then you could be vulnerable for an individual to for certain threats to exist as a result of not updating a specific system so you have a laptop you have your windows it updates on an annual basis every month or so because it's telling you hey something out there
exists we want to update it so that we can get ahead of it so that's occurring at the district meaning to say they have very good sophisticated systems in place to identify potential vulnerabilities so when we come in we come in with best practices and say look you need to be
able to turn those around for instance within 30 days and there are certain reasons for why the district may not be able to turn those around within our required timeline but what we've identified is that the district has always eventually gotten to reversing those vulnerabilities and we look at
that from year to year so for example last year's vulnerabilities we've made a determination that the district in the current year have addressed all those even so when we finish our audit specifically the it audit is completed sometime in June uh by that time they would have actually already addressed a
lot of the items that we identified in our observation so you'll find that in their corrective action plan saying that oh we've already rectified the vulnerabilities as of this specific date those that continue to exist are ones that are already on the district's radar and those are going to be rectified as
soon as they have the ability to do so so you'll find uh what what what the district has done in the corrective action plan is also provided mitigating controls meaning to say there are other controls in place that even though this vulnerability may still be out there there's other controls in place to
prevent such a vulnerability from being able to Infiltrate The System so although they're not turning those around within the speed that we're recommending they have other controls in place to make sure that that vulnerability doesn't actually Infiltrate The System that that we noted like msis or Wellen or whatever the case
may be so our recommendation again just to be clear is not that the district is not monitoring them or that they're not rectifying them but they're just not doing so within what we are recommending as the most ideal amount of days okay and then on Prop 28
correct me if I'm wrong but did I hear you say that everything according to the the the template that was given by the state or by the department of Ed every we've been doing things as as they were supposed to in terms of the finance the
money part is that what you said well what uh specifically what we're saying is that for the specific compliance test of supplement not supplant the Ed code provides a very detailed walkthrough for how the district is supposed to prepare that calculation that walkthrough in our
aut guide is verbatim in the template that CDE provides to school districts which is also published on their website based on the results that the uh the district put together based on spending in the prior year spending in the current year we've identified that nonpr 28 spending in fiscal year 24 exceeded
nonpr 28 spending in fiscal year 23 and that specific comparison is what leads to a yes or no when it comes to whether the school district was compliant with the supplement not supp plant requirement so again that guidance is coming directly from CDE okay and so the
issue is that at the school sites it doesn't look like that right and that's why there's a lot of there are a lot of folks who are parents especially who feel that um that that is not happening that indeed there is some supplanting
happening not supplementing because that's so I don't I I hear what you're saying and I heard the superintendent ask you to state that or to to share that information but I just want to say that at on the ground at the school
sites when you look at school budgets it doesn't look like it would make sense that kids would be getting more art instruction or that the art funding would be higher or that you would see more Arts teachers um allocated at a
school site if we are adding to this right to the Arts but that's not not the case and so I don't know I I mean how do we how do we make sense of what you're saying with comparing it what the reality is or that people are
experiencing if I may I apologize Miss Grio um as the board knows I'm compelled to advise the board that there is spending litigation on this topic um I appreciate the conversation as it relates to the audit in general but if we could refrain from delving deeper into this thank
you all right thank thank you d'vorah I just the door was opened and so I thought I could I could certainly go into it but um thank you for your information thank you thank you Mr M I think this uh finally concludes your presentation thank you so much thank you so appreciate that thank you for answering
the questions so now we will move on to our next presentation I would like to invite Miss Martha Alvarez Chief legislative affairs and government relations and Mr Chris Mount Chief Financial Officer officer to begin their presentation welcome good morning um
Chris and I will be co-presenting this morning on a few slides and uh uh about the state budget um do I have a clicker this one okay great so uh I'll have the first few slides um the state uh uh released the governor released a budget
um in January as required by by the Constitution and there'll be an update by May 10th uh what you see beforehand is uh information that you have have seen over the the past several weeks we have additional information about some estimated impacts for La USD um prop 98
the minimum guarantee for k14 is uh has increased PR to be increased compared to the prior two years um you can see here a trend um between uh the last decade and where we are with school funding um one of the the benefits of uh from 20 uh
2012 when the state passed a a new um a prop 98 Reserve uh it created a set aside for school funding uh during any economic downturn uh last year due to in 2024 due to the state revenues um being lower the state Drew almost the entirety
about close to $9 billion in the State uh prop 98 Reserve um in the upcoming 2526 fiscal year the governor is proposing to appropriate almost $1.5 billion back into the prop 98 Reserve that could be used for any uh future economic uncertainty so so that's a an
improvement but I wanted to acknowledge at least that um have used much of the money in the past um compared to a year ago last June of 2024 when the state adopted the the budget they projected that it would be a 2.93% cost of living adjustment um as a result of various
economic factors um the cola is now projected to be at 2.43% um which again is a 0.5% lower than last June of 2024 um the legislative analyst office came out with its own prop 98 um analysis just a few days ago last week
and they're even projecting an even lower Cola of a 2.2 2.2% Cola um relative to um the governor's 2.43 3% projection for um for 2526 and Chris will talk more about it in a few slides
about what that could mean for LAUSD um the state has been as we have been an early adopter of traditional kindergarten in our communities serving our four-year-old population um the state made a commitment in 2022 when TK
was added on as a new grade level um that they would be providing additional supplemental funds above PR 98 uh to commure the the number of kids who are going into TK um to fulfill that commitment there's been a proposed increase of $2.4 billion in uh ongoing
uh prop 98 funds for TK expansion um currently the requirement is that schools need to have a 12 to1 ratio so 12 children for every one adult um the requirement is to have at least one certificated teachers and other employees in TK could be classified
employees or Aids um in for 25 26 um there had always been uh an intent to lower the class size to a be a 10:1 ratio uh which is currently as the auditor mentioned the prior speaker beforehand mentioned um we are currently required for some early enrollment
classes to have the 10 to1 so that's what you see here the 1.5 billion Statewide um to help um other schools across California including ours to get to that 10:1 ratio come next year um there's uh ongoing commitment from the governor to continue uh supporting the
expanded learning opportunities program uh previously was about $4 billion um there's a two-tier funding structure currently where um schools who have a higher threshold of low income and English learner students you get a higher um reimbursement rate for kids uh
below sixth grade um the state's governor's office is proposing to reduce the threshold the eligibility um so that more schools can be eligible for higher funding rate um and so there's now an increase of $435 million into the ELO
program um at this time uh it's uncertain how that will impact U our budget um given that U it's trying to restore funding for other schools that were getting that the lower funding rate uh and then as mentioned uh prop 28 bter initiative from 2022 uh continues to
make an investment into the next year um there's a one-time investment and that's something that the Lao is praising the governor office and Department of Finance of combining both one-time and ongoing funding um Investments to be able to mitigate any uncertainty in the future um this slide
talks about those one-time Investments uh one that would be uh uh benefit all schools across California including Charter Schools is 1.8 billion discretionary block rent uh it's intended to be uh entirely discretionary for school districts to be able to support uh increased cost uh rising cost
on a variety of issues including liabilities and also um uh giving the schools uh the option to invest those resources into State mandated programs um such a teacher professional development uh teacher Recruitment and Retention strategies dual enrollment or
CTE link learning Pathways um the funding would be available uh per on a per pupil basis roughly $323 is a state estimate there's uh an increase of a onetime $500 million for a TK to 12th grade both literacy and math coaches uh
235 million would be for literacy and specialist and then $250 million would be for math coaches um it's possible that our schools will benefit um however those have received funding in the past may not be receiving uh as much funding in the in the new appropriation next
year um 378 million uh it might seem like new money but it's a restoration of a prior cut in 2223 the state appropriated $7.9 billion of one-time prop 98 funds um to support with the learning loss and social isolation from
students during covid um that's Statewide money um in 203 24 the state reduced and made a $ 1.1 billion do reduction to that one-time Grant in order to navigate um the state's um reductions in the various funding sources and so as a result this 378
million is a restoration of a prior cut um that we and other schools were anticipating receiving um this 378 million is meant to be one payment and then there'll be two other payments of an equal or similar amount in 26 27 and
2728 school year um 12 $50 million um it's a a new program incentive program uh for Lo loan debt repayment for new teachers um it would be about $20,000 um if a new teacher commits to teaching at a public school for a minimum of four
years um and this would be uh again a new incentive program um there's a continuation or expansion of prior fing that the state has provided for the national board vertification incentive program so this is $100 million to continue with um supporting our our
Workforce um $150 million of new one-time funds um it would be broken up into $100 million for competitive grant for kitchen infrastructure grants and then the other $50 million would be for um all schools uh to receive uh training grants for employees for school um
making a healthy School meals uh which has been a big uh priority for government newsum uh and then lastly uh several years ago the state uh passed legislation that um will require starting in the 25 26 school year uh we need to start um doing literacy
screenings uh to test especially for dyslexia uh kindergarten through second grade um the state is making its first uh one-time investment of $40 million to support school districts with um purchasing the materials or any training for employees um this is again a new
mandate that will going to affect this upcoming cycle uh the one caveat this is a one-time dollar amount um and so that there's no at this point consideration what will happen if there's new employees in future years that also need to receive training where the state would be providing uh funding into the
future with that I believe it's now Chris's turn thank you Martha good morning board uh so just a gentle reminder we always asked uh how much money this typically means for the school district we'll be looking at that but just a gentle reminder this is the January proposal we see a lot of movement between January
and the May revise uh we used to see a little less movement under Governor Brown we've seen more under the current governor uh and of course even the May revise will not be the final we will adopt a budget before the state does so just keep in mind these numbers do change uh so this is based uh on the uh
what we are going to include when we see you in March uh for our second interim report uh because each of these proposals we have to make a determination of whether to include them to share with with the board and the public for not only the current fiscal year but what those multi-year
projections look like So currently of the items that Martha just ran down through uh we will be including the 2.43% cola uh in the March 11 second interim report uh at the time of uh pres making this presentation we've decided
not to include additional elop fundings mostly because we aren't sure what the formula will be for that additional funding transitional kindergarten 10:1 Staffing ratio at the time that we wrote this uh we said no we are now receiving guidance from Leo that they think it's okay to include so we're continuing uh
to have that discussion whether we include it in the second interim student support and professional development discretionary block grant new uh we have we will not be including that in the second interim on March 11th T tk12 literacy and math coaches again not
including it and learning recovery eer emergency block grant we will not be including so we will be including them if they survive through the May revise for your budget adoption but at this point it's too early to include many of these resources as we know there's a lot of negotiating going on uh we're pretty
confident in the cola but that's the only one that we're pretty confident in at this time so what's the impact to Los Angeles Unified uh the cola change so in other words uh from the initial proposal of the 2.93% % to 2.43% that means a reduction in revenues
for Los Angeles Unified of $29 million uh we are still trying to determine the elop additional funding if it materializes as Martha referenced the formula is still outstanding so at this point we can't anticipate what additional monies that might mean for
the district the TK 10:1 Staffing R ratio additional funding would mean an on ongoing $44 million to make sure that we can hit that Staffing ratio student support and professional development discretionary block grant would mean 120 million in onetime monies TK through 12
literacy and math coaches additional funding we estimate $95 million in onetime monies and the learning recovery emergency block grant onetime funding again of $34 million these are highlighted by the ones that we are anticipating in putting in your March
11th report notice the ones that are in light blue versus ones that we are still not confident enough that the state is going to deliver which are in Gray they will not be in the March 11th second interim report here's the last slide before any questions and then we also have other
speakers he'll be talking about the state um economic um Trends um so as we continue our advocacy in the coming months uh we'll continue to advocate for maintaining or increasing the cola as I mentioned in my prior comments um the Lao estimating that will go down to 2.2%
which is already a reduction from last year um pretenting lcff there's a lot of new legislators in Sacramento who were not around when lcff was adopted in 2013 I would say the majority of them uh were um uh elected uh after 2014 um so
there's only a handful of them who are still there in their last two years in office and so contining to uh underscore and reiterate our commitment to lcff and the opportunity for our communities to help inform our local budget priorities as as well as keeping local flexibility and not um bringing back categorical
programs uh we are grateful that Governor newsam has been uh committed to seeing uh full-time ongoing Investments on elop on TK on School meals for all um as opposed to Bringing on new categorical programs as as reflected in the 1.8 billion discretionary blocker
and that we are supporting um it allows uh local communities to determine our board member superintendent district leadership to determine what those priorities for those one-time funds are um as already referenced by super carvalo and Bard mvo I will continue our Advocate advocacy in Sacramento to
rectify the um unfair unfair TK penalties um that uh may continue to be an issue for other school districts next year as to all schools going to full implementation of TK um we will be working on this through the budget uh negotiations um as opposed to having a
separate Standalone bill that will sponsor um and then we are grateful that the governor is proposing uh ongoing funding for um supporting the 1 to10 ratio um as we were concerned might become an unfunded mandate um uh with the passage of prop uh uh two and for
school facilities at the state level uh $10 billion is past November um there'll be an opportunity to continue to ensure that the regulations and corresponding guidelines come out in a favorable way for us to maximize and leverage State supports um with our local prop um
measure us um also support by the voters this past November and lastly um given the uncertainty that was created by the fires this past um January um there is intent from the Department of Finance to uh provide um a short-term mitigation on
the reduction in attendance funding um for the schools impacted by the fires um the language is still fluid um but at this point it seems that they want to have very narrowly focus on the schools themselves like Marquez pales Elementary Charter School P siiz Charter High
School um and those other schools in the neighboring school districts um as opposed to a districtwide harmless so we'll continue to um explore the trends that we see in attendance both related to immigration um any immigration fears and concerns our community are facing along with the impact of the wildfires
with that we'll be happy to take any questions thank you Miss Alvarez Mr mount for walking us through the governor's proposed budget and its implications to LUSD um I will open up the um days for any questions Miss gones yes thank you both for this
presentation very timely um a couple of follow-up questions for me on um on the funding for literacy screenings um the $40 million listed in the onetime proposals um is this funding that could be used um to cover uh teachers time to
be able to conduct the assessments or is it just for materials and training do do we have a sense of that at this point based on the trailer budget language that the Department of Finance released in early February uh it's more for the latter it's for the TR professional development and training for employees
and for the materials that we would be acquiring if there's a cost associated with it but not for the time of of conducting once um we're doing the assessment got it and then with regard to the materials and training is that specific to again conducting the screening or would it also be applicable
to if students need additional support based on the result of the screening so so that thank you a great clarifying question that that is the unfortunate part about the one of the challenges of thew um the funding is meant to be only for the SC the training the preparation
getting employees to be prepared for the screening but not to do any remediation or support for students if they are deemed to be dyslexic or have other literacy or or reading needs uh so not for any interventions it's onetime money just to get us prepared our employees um and the infrastructure we need to have
in place to get ready for those screenings got it so um pretty narrow in its construction um I wonder if obviously we have a lot of larger funding items that we're advocating for in Sacramento but it's I would argue that a screening where we don't receive
the supports to be able to then do anything about the results of a screening isn't isn't too helpful or meaningful for students um so I just wonder whether we might um include that in our advocacy agenda so that this change is actually worthwhile and meaningful for for the students who are
impacted um and then a follow-up question on the utk full implementation um so it's listed as 1.5 billion to reduce the ratio and then the LA USD amount 40 anticipated amount 44
million uh that seems lower I guess than I would expect um just given the amount of kids that we educate is that based on um how many students we have who qualify for this younger group or if you could help me connect the dots between the 1.5
billion Statewide to 44 million for L us oh so so the the 1.5 million may be inclusive of other costs it's close to $900 million that is actually for the TK reduction um so so the 44 million would be um a calculation out of the close to $900 million for the TK
expansion and and I believe our finance team and Chris can can allude to it um there's a calculation that they use to be able to determine what might be the pretta amount for LAUSD did you share about that yeah we we take the information that Martha is speaking to and we actually uh formulize it so we
look at which portion of the allocation remember it's a proposed allocation at this point although we're fairly confident in this one uh but as Martha spoke to it's it's only a portion of the allocation that's to reduce uh us from 12:1 to 10:1 uh and so it's it's it's
about 2/3 and so we then formulize that what would that mean for us and that's how we we publish our in uh potential impact got it I know in the past when we've uh gone ahead in terms of timelines then than the state that there are sometimes actually negative financial implications that result from
it so I was just trying to better understand that context um and then on the cola change um so I think Mr Mount you noted that we would be um in incorporating that as part of upcoming Financial reports um does the was it the
lao's um projection of a 2.2% cola does that have any bearing on whether or not we would go ahead and include the 2.4 3% instead uh currently we're going on the proposed so the January language is it possible that by the May revise they
revise it upward or downward yes that's possible and that's why it's always confusing for folks we've discussed uh with the board people say the numbers change yes the numbers do change based on the news that we get and the information that we get from the state so even though we will use the 2.4 which
was lower than the 2.9 there is the chance that it will be changed again in May or even potentially again when the state adopts its budget in June after we've already adopted our budget so so that risk is always there and so the numbers that you're seeing that we will include versus not include they're the ones that
we think are less risky at this time okay um I I would assume though that the fact that the Lao has put out a a lower um Cola projection does maybe not bode well for you just like just like my job as
your fiduciary is to be conservative for you and the health of the district that is the LA lao's responsibility for the state does that mean that they will be successful in getting it down uh no no telling uh no telling I've even seen them sometimes go up so again it's it's
sort of an a magic eightball like what will happen and and we just don't have a good enough idea into what those discussions will be between now in May and then June uh to get any finer than our estimate right now understood and and I always hate to ask the crystal ball type of question because I know you
all don't have that um I guess more broadly in terms of the the risks to State funding I wonder if we have any sense of with the federal conversations that are occurring and how that might impact not just education funding but other the social safety net funding that
the state relies on for our our residents in California um and the cost of wild Wildfire recovery which I mean I think the jary budget proposal was technically after that but I'm certain they didn't have a sense of the scale at that time can you just speak to uh
how those conversations are progressing in Sacramento whether those may be things that would likely impact our our education funding yes so actually the the Lao in the report that came out last week um it indicates about 100 to $200 million estimated reduction in property
tax here in LA county as a result of the wildfires schools receive about 30% of their funds uh that's the rough estimate from the Lao 30% of the schools revenues fromal local property tax so for schools in LA county between a 30 and $60 million uh potential reduction in
property tax um but we wouldn't see that per se on a dollar for dooll reduction because we rely on the state fund to make up for any local loss Revenue property tax um so so it is something that is being factored at least on the L's um report and as we approach the May revision uh we fully anticipate that the
governor's office Department of Finance would also be incorporating um any Wildfire related um taxes regarding the federal funds um it is an acknowledgement that has been made in public hearings in Sacramento uh the state already started to have um budget discussion around the the governor's
budget from January at this point um I haven't seen anything conclusive because everything in DC is very fluid um there's uh of course the concerns about the numerous executive orders and the implications for the various funding sources but Medicaid would be the the
largest um uh fund for California that would be a risk and then the other one that's also been referenced by legislators and Governor New suies regarding and and also our own leadership uh FEMA reimbursements because there's still uh no federal action to provide California disaster
relief um through a bill um so we are monitoring those discussions closely but there's nothing conclusive at this time to share with you okay thank you so much I'm GNA go on this side miss miss you be go ahead uh I know we're talking about one-time funding proposals but uh for
the 150 million for Teacher candidate supports is that going to be per year are they anticipating that 150 or is that going to be spread out through the career of that individual or that candidate U the chart reference is that
we only get the money once uh and then it will come later with guidelines of how we can spend it whether it's over time exactly how it can be resent it'll be restricted in that sense and so once we receive the funding if it survives till May that's when we'll find out more and if I make clarify that's actually a
competitive Grant so it's not a guarantee for the teacher I think you're referring to the teacher recruitment incentive Grant um it is a competitive Grant so it's not on a p employee basis uh we would have to apply and we have been successful in with pass grants like this um and and that funding would be I
mentioned the loan loan debt repayment if a new teacher candidate commits to working for four um years in the public school up to $2 per um employee but it's a one-time uh funding source and could be used over a number of years got it
and then uh explain a little bit more of the kitchen infrastructure uh that Grant as well and that's also a grant so so I mentioned the the slide has $150 million 100 million of that
would be competitive for kitchen infrastructure $50 million would be available for all schools based on the number of schools served as of October 2024 so a portion of it 100 million is for competitive grants uh we have applied in the past for similar competitive grants and have been
successful in getting those one-time um grants and then the $50 million would be um available to our most of our employees based on the for training purposes and then can you just explain more on what would happen what's the
difference when you mentioned the advocacy priorities that we have with protecting lcff and how many of the legislators today are were not there when this was created so in support and maintaining its flexibility what will it look like
without their support um so without um as we all start as part of our our updates to the board um and our leadership um there's a lot of bills that get introduced in Sacramento um and uh for example and
some that we have supported in the past uh there's a times effort to I last year an example would be that an will come back again this year um uh build that would have created um a one-time $75 million uh in um uh um income for
unhoused students um being able to Pride basic income funding so that they have a guaranteed income $1,000 per month for the whole year um those are the kind of categorical programs the state wants to Pilot they that in that example I believe it was for three years 75 million dollar over three years if they
see success with the programs and they want to then add more money to it um we we anticipate many of those bills coming back that they're trying to earmark uh either for onetime purpose and or for other categories um trying to put ear marks again categoricals uh that is
outside of lcff um which takes away the discretion from the local community and board to determine how to spend those funds got it that was it I was just checking if Miss uh Ortiz Franklin was here today I didn't check
to she she's not here um yes miss greo you had a question yes I have a question regarding the 40 million for literacy screenings um is that are they're going to determine who gets that who's going to be doing those screenings is it a
teacher is it a psych a school psychologist who's going to be is that going to be written into the law who does that um my recollection and I we'll have to reconcile both that because the the screenings um happened two years ago the requirement it just gave us a time
to be prepared for implementation so the acess screens won't go into effect until 25 26 but we have to reconcile between the proposed funding and the original Law to assess um I I don't remember right now who it's spelled spelled out teachers to be the ones doing the screening Chris do you any recollection
teachers so maybe teachers the ones that would be required to do the screening uh and we could have an opportunity to provide recommended changes if we believe there needs to be other professional staff doing so and Dr sh wants to also sure so it would be the teachers providing doing the screening
for uh the reading difficulties yes it's it's screening for dyslexia right so that's what you said not just any re well so the way it's been written is that you're looking for reading difficulties that then could be
connected to a possible dyslexia diagnosis so what we try to make sure we do is then once you see that there's a pattern here it's one of the data points they take into consideration they would then refer the student for deeper assessment and then it potentially could
include a special education assessment for a learning difficulty so it's it's happening already this is happening already we already not the screener and we already use dibl so for us it's been a tool that we've been using as a district because we have a dyslexia
resolution so we've been implementing a lot of what's already included in the legislation because we're a school district that already had a resolution associated with it however what we're going through the process right now because the state has identified what those tools are that we could use for
screening what we're doing now is engaging our teacher Partners so on other partners to determine our dyslexia our decoding uh dyslexia folks like there's a variety of individuals there's an Advisory Group that comes together so there's different individuals that were
getting some feedback to determine which one should we land on now that the three curriculum have been identified for that kind of screening but nevertheless once that's been identified the dollars they're providing is for professional development again the good news for us
is we've done a lot of this good work already um and we will continue to do that but now it'll be a state requirement for us to do so and are we tracking students since we've been doing this work are we tracking students who
uh qualify as dyslexic or do they abely because that would be through an IEP process so then they would actually go through a full psych assessment to determine if there is a learning disability Associated and that's where dislexia dis graphia all these other
types of disabilities may come up and we determine what type of disability and actual support the student may need because it's impacting their educational ability to access their education so then it falls under the eligibilities that we have exactly this is just it's a
good RTI process those of us you know who known RTI mtss for many years we've always known that good Universal screening is an important part of the of the process of ensuring if a student um May demonstrate a need for additional support and sometimes that includes
having a disability and so so we need to make sure that we provide that support this is just a state saying everybody we're mandating you to do this okay well that's great and I would Echo what um Kelly was saying that if we're going to ask people to do more then there should
be some funding to support that work that people are doing outside of the the regular because you know once you start doing more testing of students um ability or any impacts that they may have that takes more work in more time
so I would hope that we also advocate for that if if that could be included and in terms of what we're including in the March um report and what we're not including um and you're saying that you you're more confident about some of those and then not others what is a
criteria that is being used to be more confident about some of these outside resources right so we don't uh we aren't just a in our own Echo chamber we actually looked at Professional Resources in other districts throughout the state so you'll see those notes have annotations on them that we're specifically looking to uh the
organization of of one of our speakers that's actually agendized NE next school Services of California uh who always advises schools on which things look more likely to include or less likely and we also look to our own County Office of Education uh and so we look to
those we also discuss internally and that's how we come up with those conclusions so lakeo is one of them they're the ones who recommended that TK funding should be included correct um although they are the only ones recommending that which is why we're discussing it internally versus versus
both sources are recommending the 2.43% cola I'm looking for those sources and I I only see Leo am I missing something it's an acronym at the bottom of slide three I believe and it says SSC oh
okay I see it okay and SSC is what again who are they School Services of California and is it a nonprofit what are they uh it is a semi-private spin-off maybe John is here today he's he's the head of school Services he can give you the history uh so the the
governmental organization uh fmat uh which is part of our state government is here uh By Invitation as is school Services of California to sort of give the board a perspective uh on what the state is going through through our sort of uh reflection of of difficult Financial Times what does it look like
for the rest of the state what is the rest of the state going through other districts uh and so they both uh serve different functions that they'll speak to today but but School Services of California specifically advises schools uh cbos and CFOs like myself as well as other professional uh business staff uh
as well as uh provides training uh throughout the state and John can answer private entity yes okay so we hire do we pay for them to to consult us no not in these cases we might go to some of their workshops uh for example um but as a as
a as a function they assist school districts uh and CFOs as a part of their work if we ask them to extend beyond that interaction then yes it would be a consultant but we we've not engaged them at that time at this time like that and I think it's important to also note that uh the county also works with school
Services of California to do a lot of the regional trainings um that our our staff participate in and other District staff oh one last thing about the priorities um so are these priorities um
that we're the state advocacy priorities are these ones that we're advocating for LUSD or is this of you know legislators in California have determined this these are L USD and it's consistent with the board actions from January 14 when I came before you to ask for the
priorities on 2025 advocacy um this is consistent with those budget priorities outlined um for January 14 and then there's also a line um that we included in that advocacy approval from the board that um we will also update our advocacy priorities according to new issues that
arise so as an example the last bullet point about the wildfires and the um uh immigration concerns on attendance funding that was not something outlined when the board approved January 14 because the wildfires were still happening and we didn't know what the impact would be um so so the board has given me that authority to be able to
update um the priorities along as it's consistent with the leadership's priorities so you said that there is interest in this at Sacramento but it's more uh the impact that the schools that were directly impacted right the ones that burned down they don't there's are
we advocating for other other areas because um you know our employees were also impacted who live in in different areas of the where the fires occurred so that's impacted our schools um and then of course you know attendance is is not
only in the areas where the schools burned down but in other areas as well especially in February we were very much impacted by uh by that in in my district um so is that something that you're
pushing for and okay and are people what is the response that you're getting especially from folks who represent us here in in there's definitely interest in supporting our advocacy and it is just the very beginning of what happens in Sacramento and we still have three more months to go before the May reevis
Come comes out so there's this is at the very as Chris mentioned at the beginning at the very big infancy of the discussion in Sacramento the state legislature has begun discussion on on the governor's proposed budget um and so there's interest in supporting us I will say uh commitment um but nothing is
written from the legislature or from the Department of Finance Beyond an intent on those particular schools and we'll continue to advocate for an expansion of the 88 hold harmonist to every school that we have okay thank you
you um any questions gu Mr schmon um slide three when you say that the $40 million for literacy literacy screenings includes the mandated dyslexia screenings correct yes well so I'm very concerned
about dyslexia and what we do about it and i' would love to know first of all I always thought that we learned that dyslexia was a gened problem and not a special ed problem so I I have to research that a little bit more and that we could be able to help students
with dyslexia through the Gen Ed program through training of teachers so I have to find out if they actually need an IEP when we um find out that they're they have dyslexia and I would like to know I don't know if it's you Martha or us here
at La USD to find out what do they do in other school districts in California about dyslexia and their own schools and that would be I would consider uh San Diego and Fresno perhaps and uh maybe
Santa Ana and some small rural districts how do they handle dyslexia in their own District because I know the we have money problems but those small districts have real money problems I'd like to know how they handle dyslexia and if they consider it a gen Ed problem or a
special ed problem so I'd like to find out that and I'm glad it's in included in the 40 million let me say that I have to be happy about that um on the slide six L USD green schoolyards for all right uh the estimated a $3 billion
would be needed to provide $475 School sites to reach 30% Greening so Martha I'd like to know what is the state setting aside right now through direct funding or through grants that la
USD could apply for help with that $3 billion and what are the district's uh realistic goals for State funding for La usd's Greening projects if you can answer that um I am not aware that at this point there's any earmark from the state
proposed budget for schoolyards or green yards or any of the priorities that the board has outlined uh prop four which is um the um the climate bond that also was approved by voters in November of 2024 uh my recollection is that included a $100 million that would be available for
uh uh um environmental resiliency for schools um but at this point the state still drafting regulations um that would then be enable us to apply for grants in the future uh we have our staff uh working with the facilities Department Sasha hor on my team in Sacramento they're very closely working both um on
stakeholder discussions who are developing the regulations and tracking when the funding becomes available but at this point there's nothing that we can apply for okay uh last question for right now an update on universal TK for
enrollment and Staffing so getting an additional $44 million from the state is a very good start but I will have to make sure that we are hiring proportionally to enrollment so the
$8.1 million penalty ouch from that state is unfair however however it's still not an excuse for us not to hire more teachers so what do you have to say about that Mr
Mount I actually think our rhr and PC departments have done a good job if you'll notice the number of of TK programs and we early adopters that we running throughout the entire district and then you look at the number that we're non-compliant even though as the superintendent earlier uh referenced we are not turning students away either
when it's an inconvenience or it's a maybe a code violation of a single student for a certain number of days we actually need the state to for that uh but that means that the majority of our programs are not just student ratio compliant but are Staffing compliant so
that actually speaks to uh our HR and PC departments in this program's case because we do have Staffing that is attached directly to the funding is doing a good job at making sure that they're there thank you thank you thank you Mr Maran any
questions yes thank you many of my questions were were asked I guess when it comes to thank you for um addressing fire recovery more broadly I guess in addition to the Palisades um the entire District was closed for two days and I'm curious if we have a sense I know that's
happened not the entire District we had hundreds of schools closed earlier in my tenure what we think financially might be the consequences and then also and this is maybe for Dr Estrada like kids miss two days of school is their conversation about remediation instructionally not just
financially uh so to the to the financial end that's the j3a waiver that we typically submit uh for a school closing uh that results in a potential loss of attendance uh we've heard guarantees from the governor uh that that would be FastTrack that's a normal process that we engage in uh and that
those will be fast tracked so we will be held harmless from a reduction in funding I'm not sure about the answer to the other part which was an educational recovery yeah and I'll ask Dr sh I've brought this up kind of every time we've had closures in the seven or eight years which is that it seems easy to get the
financial um waiver but harder to figure out how we get you know like kids the instruction that they missed and so I'm just curious what our what our thinking is there so I think we have already offered summer programming winter Academy as well as spring Academy options but I'm
happy to take it back and talk with Kristen a little bit more to see what potentially would be the desire and interest to look further into that um we would potentially also need some additional uh Revenue ideas to bring back those extra days but I also feel we
have some additional options for our families to access if needed through winter Academy as well as summer programming yeah I would suggest and and Miss Alvarez maybe can help us at the state level and it seemed even a few years ago silly to suggest like fire
days or flooding days the way that schools have snow days but given the climate reality and what we're seeing you know we found contingencies for certain schools so like toena Canyon Elementary which has been closed even before the most recent fires for almost two weeks because of mudslides
enclosures we've moved to another school and we have a great S letter with with utla and our labor Partners to ensure continuity of instruction but it just does seem like as this is happening and kids are losing school and I know we as a board and a district have advocated for over the statutory minimum of 180
days in the past that we're when we go under that we should definitely be thinking not just about the financial repercussions but also the academic ones too and whether that is adding Bank time at the end um or uh you know because the summer enrichment opportunities are great for those who Avail themselves of
it but it just it's not loss of me that we've spent a lot of time as a district advocating for like one or two more instructional days and then this year we lost two and we're just going to call it uh call it loss so appreciate it and you know would love to continue those conversations thank you um I'll ask a
few questions and I we do have Miss ortis Franklin I joined us and she has a question but just um really quickly um given that the elop funding allocation formula may change what contingency plans um are being made in case of
fiscal impact of the funding remains unclear until we hear from the May revise so the the elop funding is an augmentation over our current base funding and so once we receive that augmentation as per the presentation that we did on the elop budget to the
board I think just two months ago uh we would remember we weren't able to fund all the requests that were made so if it we have augmentation we still have all of those requests uh that we are not meeting right so we will be able to meet more of those
requests um and for just really quickly I know Miss Alvarez you mentioned um I was en able to capture everything for the student support in discretionary block grant you mentioned um helping in CTE so what are the areas that um
supports and how have we used it PRI prior so this is a new discretionary block rent and it's entirely discretionary it's discretionary in the title itself um it spells out in the trailer budget language which is that company in details from the governor's budget in January it talks about rising
cost um at this point it does not define rising cost what that means um but in the past uh it could be used um uh so examples uh retire cost there's pension cost obligation that are going up every year Insurance liability um so it's up
to the to determine what is a rising cost with a one-time nature because they're only onetime funds the state also in the trailer budget language specifies four state priorities that could be used um to leverage these one-time funds talks about teacher retention and recruitment strategies
professional development for teachers um uh CTE SL link learning Pathways and dual enrollment uh expansions uh so you could use it for a combination of that but it's entirely discretionary for the district to decide how they want to use those funds and it's only one time okay
I I would add uh on that if this if this survives until May and then the budget adoption uh it is being messaged and and Marth has spoken to it sort of high level a couple of times uh We've Spoken a lot about the liabilities the board knows the outstanding liabilities of the district and how we're struggling to
make sure that we are addressing those liabilities over time and they're large uh this the message that we're getting about this is that districts we've heard you had concerns over meeting your liabilities uh this might be the one time we provide you help right so when they're talking about liabilities
they're the same liabilities that we discuss uh whether it's in making settlements uh or growing OPB uh this is the time that they the one time they may give us assistance and so I would keep in mind if it does survive until May until June the board might want to
consider which of those liabilities uh is the district going to invest in because we know how rapidly those are going up and you mentioned Mr mson um that the the gray areas are the the ones that are uncertain of the funding if it's going to survive they may revise
just remind us when will be we be once we know which has survived when will we see that the the amounts reflected in a budget in the budget adoption in yeah and and even then remember it's not a guarantee there have been years that the
May revise says item X survives and then we find out that there's further negotia negotiation and when the state actually adopts its budget it disappears uh and so we will make those adjustments if we have to after the district adopts its budget difficult I know um I just want
to mention that we did hear from um at last meeting uh board meeting and also today in regards to the block scheduling and we also saw in the audit report that there's you know substantial savings that you know that are rolled over uh
for the next academic year so I would love um for us to continue uh concering how we are going to fund the block scheduling and the reason I say that is because the district um presented this strategy to our schools a few years ago um highlighted the benefits and we have
heard that the benefits have you know resulted in wonderful outcomes and our schools are advocating and I know that a lot of our schools particular some our smaller schools have um they identity is really based on these black um
scheduling and we would hate to I would hate um for our schools to lose out on those outcomes particularly and increase our graduation rates and um time for you know for teachers to really have time to for lesson planning and you know the the
positive outcomes um are many so this is um a priority that I feel that the district should invest and continue investing in so um for those reasons that I've mentioned particularly as you know a lot of our schools will lose
their identity uh particularly our International our pular programs who really rely on these block uh grants I just wanted to make that statement so um May I add on to that yes yeah please uh you know not only the increases in in
graduation but um all these success stories that are coming from schools that have uh these block schedules and you know it does provide access to all of our students our ELD Learners uh our newcomers uh without these block schedules these students
would not have access to the courses that everyone else in Janet has so very important Point thank you for saying that yes m g one last point before we go to miss Ortiz Franklin I just need to clarify the carry forward monies that are specified that are being referenced
are held at school sites but not necessarily at the school sites that want to continue and can afford the invest investment so we we do not have the practice we've developed a practice of school carry forward which which we've discussed it can be problematic but just because there's carry forward doesn't mean it's at the schools that
would need the money for implementation which would then require us to take it away from one school to give it to another just just to be clear this was a program that was centrally funded and now the schools have to fund it so not because the schools don't have enough money that's why I'm I'm mentioning that
the district should continue centrally funding this I just uh we we will take this back as we look at the upcoming budget conversations um you know prior to erer the practice of block scheduling was
fully funded by school sites um it was determined locally the investment was made locally wasn't until we had eser dollars that we made a one-time commitment to kind of sustain and support our block schedule Investments and then we weaned ourselves off of that
last year by going to 50% centrally funded 50% funded by school sites and that communication we said it was a one-time support so that we could kind of build a guide plan um a long runway for schools to kind of level set to the
historical practice that the district had and so um understand it's it's there's advocacy around this but we're also trying to normalize what had been historical budget practice uh in a post Esser environment so thank
you know that this has I know we're running aert time so I will allow Miss uh Grio and miss hendy and then Tanya and then we have to move on so if you can make it brief thank you yeah I think that you know it's very frustrating as for our Educators when um we're given
we're encouraged to practice new things like this block schedule which I remember the district was literally pushing uh principles to adop opo they finally do it and we're seeing results and now we're just separating these
results from our budget discussion and we're not seeing the the connection between the two and it it it hurts me I know that some schools in my district were appealing these uh decisions and
then they did all the work to appeal to to make their case and show that they were making progress in thriving in so many areas just to be told that it was denied and or that they had to make very difficult decisions um regarding
Staffing that would impact the the services that they they give our students and that would eventually impact the trajectory they were on so on the one hand it's I'm hearing people say well we have to go back to the way it was well the way it was we determined
was was not helping our students thrive and now we Implement something that is helping our students Thrive and we're pulling it away because it doesn't match the the numbers so I feel like we need to start talking about how the budget
matches the experience of students how students are making progress in different areas and I'm advocating for this also because I see it I see how the the schools that have implemented these block schedules are doing so much better
and there's so much progress for our students so I'm glad that we're going to continue this conversation that it's not over and that it that we continue advocating for this just to add to that um is it possible as we look at as the state
gives us these onetime funds right we know these programs are not for one time so is it possible for us to look at future how do we sustain what we're putting into practice one time because obviously
to the to the to what Grio just mentioned so here we are we practiced this it works well but we don't have the funding anymore because it was one time so is there ways that we can look at the budget to be able to sustain what we put in one time if it's producing the
results that we need and that are beneficial for our students and communities so uh and you all know I'm an educator as well right so if we do that type of dynamic budgeting the answer is yes but then you also have to decide what we stop doing that's the opportunity cost
so that we can create the money to fund what we find to be successful uh and as a large District that's not what we've been good at we do a lot of one-time things and those onetime things continue forever uh and that's what leads to the deficit situation that we find ourselves
in now uh so if we are willing to defund things in order fund other things that's an opportunity cost that we're very happy to engage in but it means being able to stand up and and actively defund those things that we don't find working any longer and we H we have Miss orti
Franklin waiting very patiently go ahead t no thank you for my tartin and appreciate the discussion um want to you know add my um addition to the advocacy around block scheduling not just for its sake but this is exactly the kind of
trade-off the board has been asking for for years for us to be able to discuss um and so really grateful to my new colleagues with their fresh lens to say just because we have historically had school sites pay for it doesn't mean we should continue doing that if we're seeing the kinds of results that will reach our board goals that we have
tasked the superintendent and team with reaching then we should invest in the the the strategies that get us there and if block scheduling is it then we should be doing that and stop doing something else so Mr Mount thank you for recognizing that we struggle with stopping certain practices um but this is exactly the kind of decision making
that we have asked for at the board level because we have seen it in our schools and we know that staff have seen it as well um and it it behooves us to talk Al together from our various lenses about um what does it take to get to the place where our kids really need us to
be and so if it is about um putting these really big questions out there like what should be funded centrally um versus at school sites and I know we've gone back and forth about this I have advocated in the past for School site flexibility so I realize this is not an easy discussion but it's it's the one we
need to be having right now particularly as what I understood we were going to be seeing some um leveling off or even reductions over the next few years and maybe this is just my my first quick question for Mr Mount is um on the state's prop 98 minimum since it looks really similar to this year how do you
help us understand what we've seen about the district's fiscal position going down over the next couple of years like what's the one or two sentences we can give to our community who says the state looks like they're giving us the same why would we have less at the
district uh the state is giving us the same as they might project so for example notably cola's gone down from 2.93 to 2.43 projected and remember that's based on a national CPI uh I would ask folks look at what the CPI is
in the Los Angeles County Basin uh I track it it runs between 5 and 6% a year here and our all of our costs look at our retirement costs our contributions look at our health care costs they are all going up in the high single digits sometimes the double digits year over
year over year so while we are our our promise is being delivered upon by the state to give us what their guarantee is our costs continue to go up much more than what we receive in new Revenue so even on a year that we get that 2.43%
Cola and then we look at all of our costs going up between 5 and 8% you are looking at a financial loss add on top of that the discussion that we've had about our business is students and we have fewer and fewer
students every year because we have been in a declining enrollment position for over 20 years right the graphs that we've shared the data that we've shared publicly regardless of what points want to be nitpicked and we've gone from 775,000
students next year less than 400,000 so the the conversation I believe is timely and necessary by the board what things do we want to invest in and what things will we stop and the things that we stop need to pay for all of the escalating
costs year-over-year as well as any strategic Investments the board want to make it can't be a one-sided equation that's how we find ourselves in a deficit position of over a billion dollars a year that's helpful and I and I think that's the story that we need to help
our community understand and you know just buying eggs this weekend at $9 a dozen can kind of help most people realize just how much our costs are increasing and and that's true for the school system as well and the state is not keeping up with that so appreciate the continued advocacy my last question and really it's going forward um unless
you happen to have it today uh but it really helps to contextualize these numbers in the per pupil um by chance is there a per pupil number we're using for this year in the total budget and and what it's looking like for the future and if not is that something that we can
expect for the um the March uh second um interim uh the March 2nd inter room is really a status update of where we are in the current fiscal year so that wouldn't be the place to discuss it would be happy to discuss it uh at a later time with the board uh we do
actually engage in some per pupil because of the board's interest uh but it is not the way that we've been historically looking at a budget so it's a bit of a transition uh in in what be presenting uh however uh if the board would like to at a at a future uh cow or Retreat start to to look at that so that
they can get a different perspective uh would' be happy to engage great yeah we've seen some numbers in in very I think it was our maybe last December Retreat um from the budget team a few times we've seen the per pupil um and it does really help contextualize so I appreciate the shift
and I know that's a part of our again board pass resolution around our more transparent budgeting process which appreciation for the team I know you all are working on a newer tool um and I think the per pupil piece of that will be really helpful um as the enrollment is declining uh and the dollar amounts
are similarly declining but um not quite at the same level it helps us to see what is really in front of us in our in our school building so uh thank you all for the presentation um and happy to move on to the next one Dr Ras thank you for allowing me a few moments no thank you Miss FR m t okay Mr Shon something
tiny tiny okay and no discussion required on this one okay okay LAUSD will save itself by increasing enrollment absolutely we know that and I know that um our utk program is going to save us I really know that
and my question I guess would be to think about is where is the most growth of the TK program in the city because I have a staffer who has been riding around and he noticed in in East LA those signs are really old and
graffitied and people really can't even see those sign signs about enrollment we have trucks that go from District to District Local District have banners on them school buses free free advertisement when I ride the um Dash from sth of Figaroa there's not one
advertisement on that dashboard on that dash bus only charter schools are advertised all over the uh P the advertisement in those buses so let's think about increasing enrollment okay short
okay just very briefly since um we do have a committee focused on Early Education in fact we received a presentation on marketing and um the great amount of recruitment we're doing both via a marketing campaign but also canvasing efforts in communities at parks um so I assure you there's a lot
of work going into it and I'm sure Dr tagawa at some point could update you on that if I can add you'll see that we also Target certain zip codes to see where we have under enrollment as well but it there's always a refresh every year as as board members going to set yes and we saw some of those efforts at
the MLK parade I know I saw P um passing out some flyers that was and we had some um canopies that are dedicated to that so I appreciated that okay so now we are going to move on thank you so much Miss Alvarez and Mr Mount appreciate that
we'll move on to our presentation on the fiscal climate for school districts across California we are joined by Mr John Gray president and CEO of school Services of California in and Mr Michael fine Chief Executive Officer of the fiscal crisis and
management assistance team who will provide insight into the financial Trends impacting public education Statewide Mr Gray and Mr fine uh the floor is yours thank you for joining us today thank you Madame President Mr superintendent members of the board I'm
Mike feine I'm the CEO of the state's fiscal crisis and management assistance team I have uh just a few comments to kind of set the stage uh with respect to trends that are going across the state so that you can um kind of take your perspective of La unified and and and
fit it into those Trends and understand that you're not by yourself and then my friend and colleague John Gray of school Services is going to uh dive take a little deeper dive into some of these topics um that I introduced to you and along the way maybe provide some
additional Clarity in addition to the great presentation your staff's just given um on a on a couple of your questions so um none of these topics are going to be news to you you've heard them all from your staff you've picked up a newspaper you go to our web page every
morning and see education headlines from around the state you're going to see each of these topics mentioned um on a pretty regular basis first and foremost impact uh at the local level is declining enrollment as was just said we
are our business is kids our business is students and achieving good things for kids right and we have fewer of them uh La uh County itself um is forecasted to lose almost 20% of its students in the next 10 years you are clearly a
significant portion of uh Los Angeles County as you fully appreciate uh it is the number one County with respect to forecasted losses it's which which makes sense it's also the most populous County when it comes to both population and and
student uh school age population students if you will it is in some respects offset just slightly in the short-term gains in Universal transitional kindergarten um as the the budget as
Martha and Chris have alluded to uh the governor is proposing the fifth and final um phase in of universal TK for next year moving uh from the birth dates from basically June to September uh we expect that will bring another 60,000
students TK students into the public school system across the state it's been roughly uh somewhere between 40 and 60,000 for each of the increments this particular final increment is three months June through September where all the previous increments were two months
so it's a little higher um in count and you will experience that yourself although you have had an early enrollment program uh where many districts have not we also um under need to fully understand this distinction between enrollment and average daily
attendance enrollment drives expenditures we staff to enrollment we build facilities to enrollment we turn the lights and the air and the heat on to enrollment we buy textbooks to enrollment all those good things right but it's Ada average daily attendance
that drives our Revenue so immediately you have a disconnect there right and Ada has been lower than our historical levels uh during the pandemic as you appreciate and coming out of the pandemic but we are starting to grow
again in Ada and getting closer to preem prepandemic levels of ADA um in fact uh we are estimating just under a 1% growth in Ada Statewide while we're also experiencing declining enrollment normally those two things
move together right but in this current Dynamic enrollment is going down Ada is going up and so the cost of living adjustment that that Martha spoke about um also embedded in that number includes um uh funding for growth because Ada is
going up despite the fact that enrollment is going down that's a good thing on on not just for the local control funding formula but remember your ab 602 special ed Master plans funded on on uh Ada any block grants
that you may receive such as the the $1.8 billion proposed one would be fun fed on P2 Ada um Lottery is ultimately funded on Ada it's a different Ada but it's Ada nonetheless and so on so the fact that
ADA is growing and starting to get back to prepandemic levels is is a good thing ongoing expenditures previously supported by onetime pandemic related funds without an Exit Plan um John will
will speak to some staffing Trends across the state uh with few exceptions while it may not seem like it but when we compare it to historical Staffing ratios we are overstaffed almost every place in the state and that's because we've been slow
to reduce staff um Associated to declines in enrollment number one number two is as enrollment ex the decline in enrollment accelerated it was during the pandemic we had all this onetime money it was easy to kind of kick that can
down the road number one but number number two is we were out trying to hire additional staff to provide additional resources to kids social emotional supports um smaller class size uh learning recovery efforts all of those
things it was said earlier the way we deliver service is through people it's a people business right and so um normally we we caution about using onetime funds to buy people right because at some point there becomes a disconnect in this
case really what we were saying is that's what the money is intended for but you need to have an exit plan for when it goes away and the bulk of these funds were federal funds Sesser funds as we all refer to them Elementary secondary school uhoh I'm in trouble now that I
started to go from a a um safety I think uh something in there emergency relief I'll get it right um those funds uh fully expired last September 30th and so many districts haven't fully implemented
those exit plans so they have a staff that was previously charged to those funds that they now need to find new ongoing funds to support or um through attrition or reduce the workforce in other ways um low to more I even spelled it
out on my slide and then I didn't look at it um we also have learning recovery emergency block grant which as Martha mentioned continues uh out to June of 27 it gets an additional 300 uh plus million dollars this year the intent is
it'll get another 3 and some million dollar the following year and then again in the third year and those three numbers together make up the 1.1 billion that Martha alluded to was cut um a couple years ago uh those are ongoing for a couple
more years but I caution you they are one time in nature you'll face the whatever staff is whatever those staff those funds are supporting will ultimately have to have an exit plan as well low to more normal cost of living adjustments moving forward we've in the
last several years experienced some fairly High um uh cost of living adjustments uh in the 6% and then in one year that 6% was doubled with an augmented cost of living adjustment Got Us close to 133% last year was over 8%
um already said but I would I will Echo this the cost of living adjustment that your lcff is based on your local control funding formula is based on is a national number um is not unique to California it's not unique to the Southern California or the LA region of
California um it is also um a reflection of all the goods the the market basket of goods and services that public agencies buy some public agencies don't have a whole lot of Staff they buy a lot of things some stuff public agencies like schools have a lot of staff and
they buy fewer things so it's a mix in our business 85% of what we spend is on people and so having a cola that's probably more unique to California maybe even more unique to this region and that is more focused on labor costs uh would
probably be more reflective but what you have to understand about the cola is the 2.43 is an estimate it's a more current estimate than the 2.9 was last May it's a it's an
estimate of the change in the last 12 months from 12-month period a year ago to 12 month the past 12 months it's simply reflection of the change between those two 12-month periods so no matter what factor we use it's always going to
be representative of a change right it it starts somewhere high or low and it's simply reflective of the change the governor is estimating 2.43 there it is the number number one priority for the governor and the
legislature to fully fund the statutory Cola so I don't believe there's any risk and and this is noted by your staff right by going forward with the Cola in your second inter report there's no risk to the cola being fully funded the question is what's the number and we
won't know that until the third week of April it's a 12-month period ending the end of March takes a little while to collect the data and that's in part why we do a May revised the one number we know we will get in the May Revis that we can count on is the statutory Cola
and it is again the state's number one priority to fully fund that is it 2.43 it'll it could be something less could be something slightly more it's not going to regain though to the level estimated a year ago which was the 2.9 I
don't see that in the cards we have immigration impacts we have tariff impacts uh we have sales numbers for the last quarter that were just retail sales that were just released week ago that were not very positive so I don't see it making a significant
jump I think it's important before we leave the subject to col and your staff alluded to this and and I note this on the slide colas that are below 4 and a half to 5% are problematic and it gets to your question uh the the um board member that
was online's question about how do I reconcile the message from Sacramento that we're fully funding schools according to the Constitutional guarantee um while we're cutting other aspects of the state's budget but at the local level it feels like we're cutting things right in part it's because of the
cola when you go to bed on June 30th and you wake up the next morning on July 1st your fixed costs go up by at least 4 and a half to 5% without you doing a single thing so when Cola doesn't go up by at least an equal amount it feels like a
local cut it's really that simple you layer on declining enrollment to that and your Cola of 2.43 for this District could actually be zero could actually be negative from a year-over-year change in revenues right depending on what your declining
enrollment actually is because when you lose a student you have to remember that you lose 100% of the funding or the cola is just an added two cents per dollar right 2.4 cents per dollar being added on but
you still have the dollar right but when you lose a student you lose the whole dollar I think it's also important that you recognize when you lose that dollar of Revenue or more practically when you lose that $15,000 of Revenue your teachers only make up about $4,000 of
that so A distric this size when we talk about declining enrollment obviously when we think about what what's the direct impact of losing students it is that we need fewer Educators but it only makes up about 40
cents on the dollar that we lose which means that your other ancillary Services your C your central office everything has to be size then according to the district being smaller because that's how you make up this other 60% of the
funding okay inflationary pressures remain on the cost side you've heard that uh Chris just alluded to that he named off several things uh where the costs are going up health benefits retire um costs um
utilities uh almost a 200% increase in the last decade in utilities right is the next bullet on the screen everything we touch is got a higher cost to it and so those remain those have not reset if
you will to prior to the pandemic level um even though funding uh is the increase in funding is resetting to Prior pandemic levels significant increases as I just alluded to in utilities and insurance you understand
this very well um you are have some benefit because you most of your schools are a municipal utility as opposed to a privately owned utility it gives you some relief uh but again the year-over-year cost increase is fairly
dramatic right some forms of liability insurance and you're certainly well aware of this in the last decade are up by over 700% uh we will now see fire insurance as a result of the local fires that will completely change the marketplace for all of us as homeowners
here in Southern California um uh and as public entities you've alluded to this already there are threats out there with regard to uh federal policy and funding changes uh when when we don't have a clear idea what's going to happen we have
uncertainty we in this business of schools don't do well with uncertainty we like folks to tell us this is what's going to happen we plan accordingly and we we set a path forward right when we have uncertainty um it creates havoc and
so during periods of uncertainty um our recommendation certainly is you focus on your fund balance you focus on your reserves because you may find yourself uh in a situation after you've adopted a budget after you're halfway through the school year that you have a funding stream pulled out from under you and you
need obviously have commitments to staff commitments to families and kids that you want to continue at least to the end of the the school year overall and you see this in some of your own data reserves are higher than they were in the Great Recession Statewide currently
running depending on the type of district elementary secondary or Elementary secondary or unified uh 23 to 25% reserves uh during the Great Recession that level was was about 8% cash reserves are also strong but they're
deteriorating um due to deficit spending in many cases when you read headlines of a district that's in Fairly serious trouble it's because of cash reserves being insufficient their their reserves if you will that are on the books are not backed by cash and when you run out
of cash all of your options go away right that's when the state takes a much bigger interest in you otherwise so I give you those as the trends solvency Trends around the state um you put yourself uh in the middle of that picture um some of the things that the
staff has talked to you about about Trends here locally you're not you're not different than the trends you may have a different number uh than the trend obviously may have an added zero um to it just simply given that you are Los Angeles Unified um but the trends
are basically the same uh no matter what the region of the state is I will turn my over to John and then be available for any questions you may have as John finishes well good afternoon my name is John Gray I'm with school Services of
California and to answer one of the questions from earlier uh we are a company uh we're made up of uh lobbyists like Martha we have former School District Finance people governance team uh members uh we have someone who was
the legislative director for the State Board of Education um Lao um and so we've been around for about 50 years and our Niche is taking all the complex information at the state level and put it into digestible bits and so we do
make recommendations they showed you what we recommended you budget at this point and what maybe you wait uh Chris did the appropriate thing and checked with Leo Leo is your oversight agency and you need to follow whatever Leo tells you so that's just a
little bit about us and Mike talked about some of the conditions that we've seen Statewide we get calls all the time from districts that have um budget problems and they basically want us to be a second set of eyes have we missed something uh should we look at things
differently and one of the things that they always say are we the only one and I'm here to tell you uh you're not the only one uh this is a Statewide issue and those economic factors that Mike went over in detail those are all
causing a lot of stress in California school district budgets so I got asked the question what does it look like outside of La unified and so the state of California actually has a pretty good system of collecting revenues
expenditures uh demographic data uh salary data benefits data all that sort of thing and so it's actually pretty easy to take a look at comparative data how do you look against similar districts now let's be honest your La
unified there aren't a lot of similar districts in the state of California we have a couple other ones that are significant size typically when uh outsiders look at how you spend your money that sort of thing it's typically on a national level um but we have our
economic conditions here in California and you're living with them and so I collected some of that data and and I'll walk you through what we're seeing Statewide first of all and then specifically how it's impacted Los Angeles Unified and then drill down a
little further with the other large urban districts uh in the state so if you look at this first chart this is just Statewide this is uh total enrollment State of California all districts La unifies in this number a
significant Chuck of chunk of this number Mike already talked about uh declining enrollment and specifically in LA county and so uh this is a Statewide Trend uh very few districts are flat are growing almost all are in a declining
enrollment situation and so what happens to your budget when you decline enrollment right you lose the money a lot faster than you're able to adjust your expenditures there isn't a match and so again these are Statewide numbers this is all public
data by the way if you went to the CDE website um you could get all that information here the reason we're looking at 223 2223 that's the last year you have certified comparable data you just heard
from your auditor he was talking about 23 24 um that's being submitted to the state 23 24 they always wait until the audits are done and that information should be out in a matter of weeks so uh
the time limitation was based on uh how recent the data was so you if you look just Statewide this is everybody and look at how much they're spending on certificated uh salaries specific teacher salaries and you know we're declining
enrollment um we're losing uh students far faster than we're adding programs typically but as you can see you can that you know we're giving salary increases we had some pretty significant colas those have flattened out so you see that the expenditure side is still
growing on the right is classified full-time equivalence that's just the number of bodies you have those are people that aren't certificated uh a lot of your support staff instructional AIDS bus drivers um uh non certificated individuals so
Statewide um as Mike said a lot of this one-time funding came to you uh to support students during some very difficult times and we Statewide hire a lot of class classified staff uh to support that and a lot of this money as
Mike said earlier was to keep people employed when there was a lot of economic uncertainty nationally and in the state so these are the Statewide numbers and this chart just takes that information and and puts it in graphic form so you can see the the bottom line
that's not a very good color for this graph but you can see enrollment Statewide we're losing kids um yet we're at staff um a as as a state all right so
um so if you take so what I did is again it's hard to argue that there's a lot of districts like La in California you typically go Nationwide but for this I just chose the 20 largest unified districts in the state and so you can
see the top unified number right there um LA County La unified then I picked the the next three biggest ones San Diego Long Beach and Fresno I'm a uh former business officer in Fresno Unified a long time ago so if you look
at um the percentage change in enrollment this is the top 20 unified so you can see as a state uh for this time period we've declined in enrollment um you can see uh LA County this is you significant declining
enrollment uh greater than the Statewide average uh a big reason LA County overall is declining and then you can just see the other districts so um these um pretty much are your enrollment Trends um yes you're lower than the
other if I included all 20 of the the urban unified there would some be actually lower in you uh but maybe one or two um but declining enrollment is a big issue for you so if you take that and think about your local control
funding formula that's that's the Lion Share of the revenues it's not taking into the one time or these little grants and things like this this is your basic funding and all this is is just showing um your total um increase in funding so
even though you've been declining in enrollment you have been getting more funding U Mike mentioned the year where you got like 13.26 8.22 um yes you got more money in many of those years than you had the prior
year but it was kind of kept down by the declining enrollment and I think when I show you um this is LA County so these are the districts in your county when you look at their lcff it's gone up more than yours as a percentage because they're not declining as much as you are
in enrollment um this I think that's the top 20 unified so these are so the top 25 has Fresno San Diego Oakland San Franc Francisco um and uh um Santa Anna is one
of them also um and there's some in Orange County like Garden Grove and then you can see San Diego unified uh Long Beach Unified and then Fresno Unified and so the big differences because some of these
districts have a very close up to yours the big difference is the uh the Ada piece the fact that you're declining more than other uh large urbans so had to dig through the financials to
get this um lot of one-time money came in uh to every District in the state and it was to keep people employed uh serve students for all that they've been through through the pandemic and so these are all good numbers so you
appropriately paid people to serve St students during this uh wild time that we've never ever been before um and you can see this is you these are the top 20 these are the other districts you utilized one-time funds uh
this so this is all your essers uh any state onetime the gear dollars things like that um you utilized it significantly to keep people employed and to serve students right but everybody uh spent something out of
their one-time money on people so as these expired as was said earlier at the end of September this prior September that's the deadline for all those Federal Esser dollar you have to have a plan on where are these people going to go
right so this is classified FTE and I did have 10 years on this data and just really quick uh the the big urbans the top 20 unified districts and if you looked at their Staffing in 13 14
that's how many classified uh FTE um were in those districts in 1314 despite significant declining enrollment um about 40,000 FTE so you can see about a
41% uh increase in classified Staffing these are bodies right it's not cost these are actual bodies converted to a full-time equivalent um there you are um you're going to see sorted by percent
change you're right there like everybody else you have a lot more classified employees now than you did pre pandemic for all the reasons that Mike fine noted and that I've talked about a little bit um LA County pretty much same story
right I'll just bring them all up here and with the exception of Long Beach Unified um and if I showed you all 20 they'd be really close to the percentage you're at we you we use utilized a lot of classified employees to get us through some very tough
times this is certificated non-management um and so if you look at the top 20 unified I could have sliced and diis 20 different ways but I chose this way and by the way I have all the support data that I can share with your staff if down the road the board wants
some more in-depth information but the top 20 um unified districts in the state and if if you look at certificated non-management those are people who work for you that aren't certificated administrators they're represented by
your your the bargaining units and you look at the the number of students per certificated non-management you were at 20.6 but as you decline it's very difficult to reduce staff accordingly
because kids don't get up in little classrooms and and move out of your District this is this is what I would expect to see um that those ratios go down so now in 2223 uh you're at 17.02 uh that's
3.58% difference and I'll that was the top 20 there you are right there right along with everyone else uh LA County San Diego unified uh Long Beach and and Fresno
Unified so this is a state wide um this is a Statewide issue with declining enrollment I will tell you in most of these districts it doesn't necessarily mean we have little teeny teeny class sizes we have a lot of uh
teachers that are doing things for us that may not have a classified assignment like your superintendent accurately said that 55% ratio only counts those that have a classroom assignment and classified for
instructional age with a class siiz um assignment so these are the stressors that pretty much everyone in the state is dealing with I was at a board meeting last week in San Diego unified very similar discussion uh Santa Ana Unified
I've spent time there same discussions the point being if there is a message is you're not the only one this isn't necessarily a self-inflicted wound the fact that you're having to deal uh with budget issues this is this is a
Statewide issue and so these numbers and maybe comparing what others have are going through at the same time maybe helps hopefully with your story um the low colas um I agree 100% with what Mike
says a 2.43% cola ain't going to cut it even if you weren't declining enrollment that wouldn't be enough to you know the cost of doing business and so um it's these fact factors that I see uh declining enrollment small colas uh the
expiration of one-time funds um are impacting everybody across the state um unless they you happen to be one of the very few districts that is either flat but probably growing so that's my summary and I'm happy to take any
questions and I'm sure they're going to have questions for you too Mike thank you for your presentations um if there are some questions uh that would be um great um but I just want to remind everyone we do have one
more presentation after this and public comments so miss gones you can start it off thank you um well I appreciate you diving deeply into the cola I think that that's a significant challenge being in an urban area like Los Angeles and knowing the very significant cost of
living increases that our staff experience that we experience for good various goods and services um and I think noting it's it's based on the Consumer Price IND is that what what the state Co is BAS it's the implicit price deflator of state and local governments it's inflation for uh state or local
government the cost of doing business and it's a national number so it includes you but it also has Topeka Kansas and bismar North North Dakota where the point Mike was making costs don't go up the same way nationally you're in a very high cost very high
volatile cost area right absolutely and I think those National metrics on various indicators um often do a disservice to our students because we know that families who are living below the federal poverty line here in Los Angeles that is a different degree of struggle than living in a metro area
where the costs are lower um so I just I appreciate you noting that um you know having served on the board uh for almost eight years now I've been able to see you know pre-pandemic during the pandemic and now as we respond and recover and I think one of the continued challenges besides the low funding um
the declines in enrollment is also just increased student needs um you know we know that not only were their learning impacts during the pandemic but the mental health impacts um and physical health impacts were significant and those continue to be challenges that we're grappling with and yet the funding
is not sustained at the same level um and I think during the pandemic when we were faced with those issues of course the natural response was we need more people in our classrooms we need more psychiatric social workers to deal with the mental health impacts of our students um and on the classified front
I was wondering it's it's interesting to note that though that our numbers are on Trend mostly with the other school districts you examined um One Challenge I've noted is when we look back 10 years um what happened right before maybe that 2013 14 school year was the Great
Recession where many of our employees were laid off particularly classified employees um just wondering if you have any sense of to what extent a rebound a rehiring of some of those folks might account for some of those um employment increases yeah that's a very fair point
you're right um we just exited the Great Recession and unfortunately that's where a lot of the cuts came was uh out of classified staff I did look back um the 1819 year which I would call that the fully intact preco year um and it's
pretty similar to those numbers it's not exact but it is less so good point and I'll I'll provide that to the staff and you can see for uh see it for yourself yeah I think looking at you know 201314 up through 201920 might might just help
us understand to what extent was this specifically a response to covid where of course cleanliness um and safety was of critical importance and therefore you know we needed to invest in those staff more heavily and um your staff is highly competent I've worked with them uh many
times and they can slice and dice any way the board would like them to so um that information is available okay that's helpful and then just to to clarify um the certificated non-management numbers I think that you said this but it is it does encompass
certificated staff who don't have a classro roster correct okay okay that's helpful um and I think that's the last piece for me for right now back to you Mr Movin and then Carla and then Miss
Franklin great thank you this is very helpful I think it's always important to see where La unified is not an outlier where we are an outlier and um and I you know addressing some of the proposed Solutions I mean districts like
ours have been losing enrollment for 20 years were projected like you said to lose more in 10 years and so it seems like we've been too not we and we're not unique in this regard but flat footed of likeo declining enrollment it's like it's been 30 years like we got to and whether that's through enrollment versus
Ada funding formula or you alluded a little bit to why if we have the prop 98 guarantee and enrollment is going down why we're not seeing more money um but it just seems like we dear and headlights it's like okay great this is the reality for districts like ours how
do we address it I think some of the um things you talked about Statewide and I appreciate the report that that fmat did on h218 but there are certain things that like we we'll make District smaller than ours go solvent in the next few years but also looking at OPB and
Healthcare and use you know the um fire insurance and all that so uh I'm grateful and I know Miss Alvarez is very involved in those Statewide coalitions to figure it out um but it was uh it's one thing when La unified is saying this is just affecting us but these are State trends that require State Solutions and
like ab218 is one example or whether there's a state fund or there's like you know a victim's compensation fund as opposed to individual ual litigation so I I hope we see more of that I guess are there um any major things that you are
seeing districts in our financial position steps they're taking that we're not that the board should be aware of because I hear you on kind of the staff cutting it in different ways and being very competent and navigating us through tumultuous Waters but as we're all engaging the next few years and wanting
to commit to certain things like no riffs even though we're seeing a lot of our peer districts do that like are certain things that when you look at La UniFi that were you know and I'm I don't mean to put you on the spot for lightning rods like School consolidation or closure but like what are the things that like hey these are these other
districts are doing I mean Long Beach you know things that are might be outliers that we should be aware of well first I can't comment on what you're doing because I I don't know um that wasn't part of what I did but um
what I'm seeing a lot of is um uh I mean to be candid most of your expenses are in salaries whether they're certificate classified benefits stirs purs all of that sort of thing so I'm seeing a lot of districts doing hiring freezes where
we're not going to bring anybody from the outside um if we're Technic if we think we have more staff than we normally would we're going to look inside first and there's a hierarchy of what you have to do to go ahead and hire someone from the outside I'm seeing a
lot of districts doing uh early retirement programs incentivizing expensive staff to maybe retire earlier than they would um sometimes you have to replace them so you have to offset that with that but a lot of times if if if you think you have
more people than you need um you don't replace those that can actually save uh money so a lot of school boards are taking first crack at that you know we know we need to get smaller let's try to do it in a way that um um is the the
least um harmful to employees let me just say it that way however I am seeing districts actually doing riffs um and um that's pretty much up and down the state um uh some of them are doing very targeted riffs um others are doing
across the board riffs um I am seeing one of the calls we get all the time is could you come and facilitate uh this committee because we're going to close a bunch of schools right we don't like doing that we advise them to go to somebody else um because that's the most painful thing you will do but it is an
economic necessity in a lot of districts Santa Clara county is and Sonoma County are the two counties where we're seeing a lot of that activity so we're pretty much seeing the gambut but um there isn't a Magic Bullet um because um again
when you're budgets 85% people it's really tough that's why you should be commended for having having a good reserve it allows you time to be thoughtful strategic on how you're going to address everything that the state and the economy is throwing at you and so
the reason you haven't had to do that is uh what your CFO just told you about your ending fund balance and I always tell people um the the people that should be most excited about your in ending fund balance are your employees that allows you to be kind it allows you
to uh make strategic decisions in a way that you can be um the most supportive of your employees but no magic bullet do you want to add anything to that I I think John hit all of them I
think uh you alluded to the one that we're seeing more and more and this is a direct result of the accumulated declining enrollment over the last 20 years you're not the only one as a state we've been declining for um about that long is is school closures
consolidations uh reuse in some reconfiguration um you whatever word you want to assign to it but it's a change in what the neighborhood School looks like right um attrition when you start early enough many many districts can
deal with the staffing issues through attrition but you have to start early enough right because you don't control the pace of attrition is is the issue and and the only way you can really influence
attrition and John just alluded to it is with um some type of early retirement incentives I don't happen to be a fan of those um I don't think they save money in the long term what they do do though is allow you to reduce your staff in a
Humane fashion and so for that I would applaud them but they are not inexpensive to do especially on the scale that you would be doing it they are they are difficult to Target because of of some state laws uh about equity
and equality um you know you have you kind of have to offer it almost everybody unless you've got a really thoughtful way uh with Council about um targeting this is where I I have a specific need um but but
those are the two I would highlight um for you thank you both and John I'll say I really appreciate what you said about the reserve because that is not always the way it is interpreted by our employees or by other constituents uh as we've understood and that's why I always try to make the point when Mr Mount and
others are talking to explain that because it seems like we're just have we're sitting on this but uh framing it in a way that enables us to be compassionate and thoughtful uh about the fiscal challenges coming is helpful because that's definitely been I know my
understanding as a board member and and through our fiscal team and superintendent why it's been important to keep that knowing how much one time funding we were getting and how ongoing costs with onetime funding are difficult so appreciate you just kind of crystallizing that and we might we might be quoting you in the future about so
that that note I made on my slide comparing Reserve levels today to the Great Recession is really important to note in the Great Recession we had uh Midway about 176 districts in qualified status right a chart that just goes
literally the numbers off the chart today we have 37 and one of the reasons for that is is is my bullets about Reserve levels and cash reserves so backing your reserves with cash a critical thing they don't do you any good on paper if you don't have cash to
back them with uh those that's what's different in the Great Recession and why you don't see 100 plus districts with qualified certifications you see 37 instead of 176 that's one of the main reasons well and as this board has heard me say all the time this is you know I
was a rift teacher back in 2009 9 2010 and so I'm grateful that the district has taken a different um uh approach and a different strategy uh so that that comparison was definitely helpful thank you move on to miss grego and miss uh Ortiz Franklin and then we'll move on to
our next presentation yeah um there you had a couple of the certificated non-management and the classified um so I are these School site classified Personnel that you're your naming here
or is it also classified Personnel at the district level good question and so um it's the entire District uh the state you would have the ability to break it down how many are central office how many are School sites that's all
classified so so that that's the one I chose to use but there you can get the other information that if you want to see how many are central office how many are out and about yeah I think that would very helpful because to paint the real picture since generally we think
School site personnel only or at least I would cuz I come from the classroom but I know now that there's classified Personnel in the building as well so um at the district level where would we get that information like where it's so broken down this is all public
information I think this is under kind of Mike's area it's all public information you can get it from the California Department of Ed um and you have a very sophisticated Finance staff that I can help with that they're really good and they know they can get that
information either through me or CDE yeah I would want the staff to to get me that info so that I don't have to go and and look dig for it um the other thing is you you were talking about the Reserve versus the cash Reserve so can you explain that to me I understand the
cash I understand your point that it doesn't matter if you have a reserve if you don't have any cash to back it up so can you just EXP explain the difference and um yeah your your ending fund balance is where you start and I'm sorry
Chris about 10 billion from that earlier chart what from the auditor yeah so it's it's it's the Illustrated chart that we give you it's the green bar in the multi-year projection on the unrestricted general fund that's the cash Reserve oh for you it is okay for us
it's the cash Reserve okay so I I normally start with your fund balance we have a in standards that tell us how to classify the fund balance into various classifications and for those that you have committed for particular purposes the board has or your staff through the
superintendent has assigned for particular purposes or unassigned which is where your state minimum Reserve rest kind of awkward we have a state minimum Reserve but it it's in the unassigned category um we would expect to see those
backed by cash so if you've got 1 billion in reserve we would hope that you have 1 billion of cash reserves because on paper let me assign a different name to it a rainy day fund or a fire
fund it doesn't do you any good if it's only on paper if you don't have cash that you can actually go out and spend the extra money that that Reserve is going to support it doesn't do you a whole lot of good okay and for us we do have it we have both we have the reserve that it sounds like you are classifying them with cash match behind it yeah it's
combination of committed unassigned so if you look at our our favorite multi-year chart where it has color banding in the chart the one to pay attention to is unassigned general fund and you'll see green all the other categories that Mike just spoke to are
called out in a different color so that the board can very quickly identify their cash reserve on the unrestricted side okay so the green is the cash Reserve unrestricted okay thank you and Miss Ortiz Franklin's question
has been answered by Mr Moo's question so she doesn't have a question do you have another comment I just want to address the fire hold harmless piece since the Administration has assigned us this task um the language that you've seen that
that Martha spoke to the hold harmless I want to remind you all that there's an automatic hold harmless you just have to fill out the form uh for the current year for both you and charter schools and we refer to that as the J1 13A even though we're trying to get away from form
numbers and at the state um but it's a J1 13A it's automatic whether you close the school or you have a material decrease in your attendance in your case there's no materiality standard because of the state of emergency any decrease
in attendance qualifies for the hold harmless okay otherwise it's normally a 10% decrease from day to day the language that you've seen in the governor's proposal from January is to Signal the state's intent to also hold
you harmless going forward for next year and then we'll re-evaluate that as to whether it needs to be a third year or what have you but one of the things that we will do and we've done this in other states of emergency is we will work with your staff beyond the hold harmless to
identify if you have extraordinary costs as a result of the fire yours is going to be more limited because most of your impact were to Charter students so we'll work directly with those and we have been working with the charter
schools um but just know there is a a group of us that we meet sometimes daily and talk about some of that but in the governor's budget is just the message that it's our intent to hold you harmless in the past when we've held
harmless so the J1 13A is school specific but when we've issued a hold harmless whether that was for the pandemic or in other cases of natural disaster or or fire it has been the district now given your broad
geographical area I can understand why there's some conversation about schools versus District but in the past the practice has always been to the district so I'll be at the Pasadena board meeting in next week and in that case there's no question that we're talking about the
district okay when we're talking about individual Charter Schools it's for the whole charter school because they are in essence kind of a district in and of an Lea if you will in and of um themselves so we will look at not only is the the hold harmless but we'll work with your
staff to identify extraordinary costs as a result where the hold harmless is simply insufficient to support you and then we will work with the administration and the legislature to justify that come up with some type of funding mechanism for that and then have
that conversation with them and we'll work directly with your your staff in in support of that thank you actually I did have a question on that fire but I was going to foro it but you answer that so thank you so much okay well thank you for that very useful information um Miss
go is so sorry as you're walking away I just wanted to understand the ref I think you said that the impacts were mostly to to charters schools are you speaking of maybe you could just provide a sentence more about what exactly you mean there when we actually look at the number of students impacted the majority
of them are actually in charter schools whether they are I hate to use in public the word dependent but we all throw it around as if it's defined it's actually not defined but Affiliated is a word or independent the majority of students are actually charter students that were
displaced or their facility was in somehow displaced you may own the facility but a charter whether Affiliated or independent was occupying it we understand those distinctions that just Palisades Charter 3,000 students between Palisade uh
Palisades Elementary and Marquez collectively about 700 students so large majority is p Charter High School underst that was my guess but I just wanted to and so what's unique here is the mix of if I can say this Charter students versus District students in
other disasters around the state that we have now getting pretty good practice at they're predominantly districts since we've not had this large mix of Charters thus the hold harmless language where it distinguishes between districts and
Charters um is one of the re one of the things we have to look at right because it's Unique in this circumstance understood thank you thank you for the clarification yes Mr shendi Quick I I know we talked about
and I know this is just California and we're looking at California data but they did mention other states do they provide us any kind of guidance where we can look at other states to see what is best practices so I know you guys have mentioned Kansas when you were talking
so but we didn't I don't know if that's something that you compare your data to nationally I I can speak just briefly I think a generally When comparing to other states we look at the national Center for educ Education statistics as
a comparative set of data um I don't know John if there's any other source data that you would be looking at beyond that um many years ago you had a blue ribbon com uh committee that I was supporting and I think at the time we
utilized the Council of great City Schools who does a really terrific job of collecting data all sorts of data on on big national school districts and I I think that was uh the basis of a lot of those recommendations but I'm not an
expert at that uh deal primarily with California easy to do California it's a lot more laborious to do it nationally and I believe cgcs also uses ncees data as their Baseline and usually we uh reach out and surveys uh school
districts for any additional information usually on the operational side like Transportation or food Serv serves that's a good question maybe we can um obtain that data from um great City Schools I know Miss GES is on there maybe you can help us get some of the national information I'm happy to try to
the extent that NCS continues to exist as an entity but yes that is very true okay wonderful so now we will turn to an important update on development of the 25 thank you so much Mr and and for your presentation uh the planning process
involves crucial decisions that affect not only instructional time but also the overall experience of our students families and teachers and we now we know how vital it is to get this right and balancing the needs of the community academic performance and staff consideration so Mr Chade I'd like to
invite you to share the latest developments in the survey results and what we should be considering as we move forward thank you thank you so much Dr thank you so much Dr Rivas and good afternoon board uh again as Dr revas already teed up uh my purpose here today is to provide a brief overview of where
we are in terms of calendar development uh as I dive into that I want to do a little bit of contextualizing and level setting uh so first of all what we're bringing uh today are draft instructional calendars uh that is different from the worke calendar that
is a negotiated piece in fact Dr Murphy is not here because they are engaged right now in negotiations around the work year now of course the instructional year informs the work year because it forms the basis for most of our employees in terms of when they're on duty and when they're not but I
wanted to call that out uh in terms of process historically the way that the district has developed its instructional calendars and we usually operate in a three-year cycle with a couple of exceptions uh throughout our history uh is we engage in in two pieces of
information gathering one and this is where I'll spend the majority of my time uh this afternoon uh is as part of a survey uh we survey stakeholders of course parents uh employees and this year for the first time ever uh we actually surveyed our high school
students so that's a new data set uh for us uh along with that survey mechanism uh we also do engage directly with our labor colleagues again separate and apart from the negotiations around the work year uh we hold a number of convenings with them uh this year we
hosted four different meetings with them all prior to Winter recess uh two before the survey uh was executed and two obviously afterward so we could review the survey results with them okay so this uh first slide that you have in front of you is really sort
of an executive summary around the results of the stakeholder survey uh so in in some we received uh about 51,4 some OD survey uh responses throughout the process all of our survey responses are validated what I mean by that uh is
for example for our employees they had to use a single sign on for parents they had to go through parent portal for high school students they got the uh survey directly to their my mail LAUSD accounts so every uh response that you see here is authentic to the district so we got about 23,000 employee
responses a shade under 18,000 parents which represents about 28,000 of our students and a little bit over 10,000 high school students uh we launched a pretty aggressive Communications campaign around this going back to October most of this work happened in
October uh we did did a lot of social media around this a lot of uh our bbcs we engaged our SAS team at the school sites to host workshops for parents who may need assistance with Parent Portal uh as you all know our parent portal
rates hover between 85 to 90% On Any Given year in terms of how many of our parents have a parent portal account so we wanted to take that into account so we Tred to be fairly aggressive and vocal about this opportunity to provide feedback so again we we focus on three key pieces and as I get to each one I'll
kind of give a little bit more context we focused on of course when folks wanted the school year to begin the length of the Thanksgiving break and the length of the winter recess okay uh so as far as start date again just to to provide a a little bit
of context we have had an August start date as a district since uh 123 1112 was the last year that we began after Labor Day which I know is you know that that Touchstone for a lot of folks around you know school year should begin after Labor Day uh for again at least through
1213 uh to the present day we've started in August so I wanted to contextualize that so as you see across the board the the dark blue basically represents a a mid August start and you'll see that the the overwhelming majority of our respondents in all three categories
preferred a mid August start and also provide some additional context around why a mid- August start is is critical uh in fact I might as well just say it now uh prior to the shift to 12113 uh those of us who were Educators at the time particularly our secondary
Educators may remember that first semester ended after winter recess and so we had a lot of concerns from teachers because kids would come back from winter break and by the way winter break has been at least three weeks since 07 so if you look at 1112 you had the sort of intersection between a
three-week winter break and then a semester that ended in January so the concern that we got from a lot of our Educators is kids come back there's a lot of learning loss over those three weeks and then you go into these incredibly critical finals uh at the end of first semester so that's what sort of
uh predicated the shift to having the entirety of first semester completed before winter break at that time because I think I was a principal at that time there was some dialogue about well does elementary and even Middle School do they have to follow suit because they don't have that same phenomenon uh the
thought at that time was again from the parent perspective you wouldn't necessarily want your Elementary child to have a certain calendar and then your high school kiddo starts at a different time so that was the the call for the alignment there so again as you can see and I already stated the the majority of
our respondents prefer the mid- August start okay uh this is just a breakdown by Board District which of course I'm sure is super relevant to you all uh but again as you can see just across uh just about uh every Board District hovered around around 80% if not a little bit
higher in some cases uh wanting that mid August start there really wasn't a lot of call for an early August start and then of course there were some folks who expressed no preference okay our next data set uh in terms of the survey has to do with our Thanksgiving break and again to to
provide some context here uh basically we shifted to the one-week Thanksgiving break in 2012 2013 this came up during during the prior presentation this was actually aligned with the Furlow days uh at the tail end of 11:12 uh basically there were 10 Furlow days that were
approved for 1213 and again I was a principal at the time my wife was a teacher at the time I think the thought was to make it a little bit more palatable for folks is to at least essentially create the sort of week-long Thanksgiving break as everyone took that 10-day hit which was
obviously super impactful so again that's been in place for what is that about 12 years now again generally speaking and I'll speak to parents in a sec generally speaking the majority of our resp respondence favor a onewe Thanksgiving break with parents there is still that
that preference but again it's not as marked as with our other categories with our parents is about a 2/3 1/3 split in terms of the one week Thanksgiving okay and again this gives you the breakdown in terms of the Thanksgiving break by all of our our uh
labor units and as you can see again it's relatively uniform across our folks in terms of that preference for the one week break and again broken down by Board District there's some degree of variance here uh again there there's no Board District
where that's not the majority um but again if you look at uh obviously Board District 4 uh Board District three you'll see that it's it's not as dominant a trend and the last one is winter break and in terms of winter break uh based on
our research we've had a 3-we winter break since at least 2007 uh in working with the team to kind of get to the why around that we had a number of schools already pre 2007 particularly I don't want to date myself here but those of us who may remember learn may remember that there were a lot
of learn schools that implemented a three-week winter break so that was already out in our system and so in around 07 is when we went to three-week break districtwide uh I would caution us I think in 07 we still had a handful of year round schools so that was another Factor so again in terms of responses
the question posed here to folks was a twoe winter break or a 3-week winter break uh and again as you can see the the majority of our respondents student staff and parents prefer the three-week winter break but again much like with the Thanksgiving break you'll see that the trend is not quite as strong with
our parents we're sort of a a little less than two-thirds actually of a split in terms of how many parents want uh the extended winter break if you look at the data across our our labor unions you see some variance I
do want to caution us because there were some uh some of our labor unions where we only got a handful of responses five or six responses so of course that informs the data but for our larger unions um obviously I'll focus on utla which is the second uh second bar from the bottom uh the overwhelming majority
of respondents there still favored the three-week winter break okay in looking at it through the lens of our parents particularly broken down by Board District again this is where you do see a key variance in uh Board District 4 where you actually had
a slight majority of parents who preferred the two-week winter break uh in all the other board districts you still see a majority of parents favoring a three-week winter break so now with that data in hand and and after engaging with our our labor colleagues around this and again as I
mentioned in my opening remarks we engaged with folks prior to the survey being deployed and then afterwards in talking to our labor folks that attended our meetings uh there was generally a consensus again that that's reflected in the data around a onewe Thanksgiving a 3-week winter break a mid
August start date for the school year and so the the draft instructional calendars that that we're bringing forth for the next three years all have a mid August start date um I want to caution folks when we say mid August we're using a relatively liberal definition of mid- August you'll see some August 12s in
there it's it's just about getting those 18 weeks in which I'll talk about in a second all of them of course feature the 180 instructional days the two pupil free days and again the onewe Thanksgiving break the 3-we winter break all of the holidays unassigned days all
of those pieces that we embed into our calendars are also in there they're the the jargon that we use is that they're validated so all of those are included in the calendar we've gone through each one with a fine tooth comb and then the last piece again and this is what drives our our start date for each year is that
need that to comply with the state mandate around uh p e instruction that a semester has to have at minimum 18 weeks uh in order to meet that requirement so that gets us to about mid August as you'll see okay so in summary and and this
takes us out through the next three years so in terms of the first day of instruction again for for next year or later this calendar year depending on how you want to look at it we're looking at a Thursday start I know in Prior iterations there's been a lot of uh conversation about a Monday start
because there's something kind of natural or organic if you will about starting on a Monday what we've often heard from our communities uh particularly our parents and actually our teachers is that there is some value in a midweek start because it kind of gives everyone a chance to sort of get re acclimated if you will without
launching into an entire week of instruction uh so again uh you know I'll kind of go down each uh each column so again Thursday August 14th for next year Wednesday the 12th for the following year and for the last year of this cycle it would be Thursday the 12th uh the
onewe Thanksgiving break that I referenced the three-week winter break one key piece that I want to call out is that we we have heard and I've been a board when we've had prior conversations about this we have heard concerns from parents around the length of the winter
recess and you know issues around Child Care Learning loss and so on so one of the commitments that we're making as a district is that for the next three years there will be a week-long winter academy uh the practice I believe we just wrapped up year three of the winter Academy originally called acceleration
days uh prior to now they had been a three-day Endeavor now it's a week-long piece the other thing that I want to call out is uh the winter Academy that we've done has been sort of front-loaded in other words we've asked kiddos to come back right after we switch to uh to
winter break what you'll see here now is that actually the the winter recess Academy happens before kids come back which again as you know as a former teacher as a former principal that makes a lot of sense to me it's an opportunity to kind of frontload get get the engine going again whatever your your idiom of
choice is in terms of getting our kids ready for for second semester you'll see the dates there for the first day of second semester uh a one-week uh spring break and of course our last day of instruction we do our best to stay away from Mondays and Tuesdays for the last
day of school as we all know historically if the last day of school is a Monday or even a Tuesday uh kiddos and sometimes staff uh will we kind of look at that preceding Friday as the the last day of school and so we'll see a significant decline in attendance so
we're you know obviously we stayed till at least midweek and in the second year of the cycle all the way through to a Friday uh these are just other visual representations of the calendars uh we also have I know some folks prefer I I
like the bars I'm again I'm an Oldtimer so if you like the bar view we have that available as well uh so again this is just a visual representation of the calendar for the three years all of the holidays are in there all of the unassigned days are in there and the last piece I want to share
before uh before I open up for any questions uh or feedback that you may have uh is we we're always asked for the comparisons uh kind of like our prior presentation uh so what we have here is some comps for some school districts of course in California and also some larger school districts uh around the US
uh what you'll see is PR much with the exception of New York everybody now starts before Labor Day uh one of their data point that's not captured in a slide but I wanted to point out uh around that Labor Day or post Labor Day start is that if you look at this school year the the biggest heat wave that we
had actually occurred after Labor Day um so again obviously that can vary year to year but it's something to keep in mind uh for Thanksgiving break you'll see that again most school districts have shifted to a onewe Thanksgiving break where we are something of an out fer
with the exception of uh San Bernardino is around that 3-week winter break most school districts still maintain a twoe winner break uh so where do we go from here our Our Hope and expectation is that at the March 11th board meeting uh
with of course the the expectation that the negotiations around the actual work year calendar have concluded successfully by then uh will come to you as a board with these calendars uh for actual action but this was just to sort of frontload the information so with that thank you for the time and
if you have any questions happy to help thank you for running through that really quickly I appreciate that I know you spoke very quickly just one quick question for myself before I open it up uh for the holidays that are recognized
um are there days that these are set days that we need to recognize I the reason I asked because because it was brought to my attention by some stakeholders that they would love to see indigenous people's day which is nationally absor absorbed um I mean
actually in California um to be one of the days that we working nice so just wondering how do we determine the holidays so uh some of it is determined of course by the holidays that are set at the federal level in some cases the state summer holidays that that we as a district have some flexibility to put
into place uh what I will say about indigenous people's day as we researched it all the way back to when it was known by its prior name Columbus Day and as far as we can can tell going all the way back to well into the 90s there's never been a time as a district uh where we've actually celebrated it or commemorated
it with a day off uh all the notes that we've been able to find have advised schools to have activities for again many many moons ago Columbus Day much more recently indigenous people's day but there's never been a specific holiday or unassigned day aligned to
indigenous people's day not to say it can't happen but again that would require action by the board and if you look at unassigned days there are some some labor impacts there as well what about admissions day how why we how how did that come to be a recognized day so
admission day is an interesting one so admission day is the for those folks who may not know and I didn't know when I started as an assistant principal I thought it was literally the day we admitted kids um sharing my own vulnerability here admission day is a day that California uh became a state um
historically as a district we have recognized it uh in many cases prior to when we did have the Labor Day uh post Labor Day started was sort of a non-factor uh because the majority of schools were off at that time obviously now that we have an earlier start uh it
is something that we recognize but we've had admission day on the calendar since at least 0405 if not much longer than that that's it for me now anyone else Miss gones on the indigenous people's day
point um I'll just mention that in the land acknowledgement resolution that we passed in November there was a provision around working with tribes to discuss uh possible recognition or or ways we could better in better and more deeply incorporated into our um our district so there might be some work on that um Mr
Tade thank you for the presentation um just a quick question on the survey results um just there are I would say that the respondents are not necessarily reflective of their uh just on the for example by Board District of their uh
portion in the overall District I was maybe this is beyond our like statistical capabilities but have we thought about waiting um for example so that we get it might not have a substantive impact in this case but um
you know no offense Mr M I think Board District 4 has the lowest student population of all the board districts I could be wrong but uh like have we thought about trying to balance those percentages like like has done in other uh polling uh so that we get a reflection of of the true uh waiting I I
think that's within our capacity okay so maybe prospectively for March 11th or be actually I think it would be more useful to you as a board between now and March 11th to have that data so sure that's something we can work on yeah and I'm not uh not to knock what we've done or or and I appreciate everyone who does
respond to it but it would just be helpful to make sure we're getting a sense of uh you know um the true reflection districtwide and then on the on the bargaining units as well I noticed like very varying response rates
um can you talk at all about uh our efforts to do Outreach with our bargaining units our labor Partners to encourage them to complete the survey sure so the obviously the nice thing about these being our folks our employees is that they all have L USC email accounts that's true right so the
the majority of our Outreach was directly to them and you to the point where we were almost I wouldn't say we were spamming folks but we got pretty close because we were sending notifications you know hey Mr Miss so and so you haven't completed your survey here's another opportunity
uh we gave about I want to say about three weeks for employees to complete we did an extension for parents to make sure that we had enough parents uh so that was our methodology okay thank you Miss Hy you uh really quick you talked about child care obviously for
the 3 weeks and I know that that is something that's always a concern for many of our um families is there any conversation of Partnerships with our city to be able to provide those services for child care um within the first two weeks since we're moving that
um intensive to the third week so generally speaking we do engage with uh the YMCA Boys and Girls Club a number of our childcare providers to align our schedule that they provide uh camps and those kinds of opportunities I think that's a little bit different than what you're getting at I think you're looking
at either low cost or no cost opportunities so certainly I can engage with Mr Saro and Miss Alvarez around that Miss grego yeah um thank you for this uh Mr Chate I I appreciate that students were also included in this survey and um I I don't have any
questions for you I just want to to acknowledge the comments that came earlier today about um prep time and just the importance of prep time for uh Educators and um that it should be a luxury because whatever impacts our our
Educators impacts our students directly and I think the speakers uh surface some of the ways that that they use that time which is to plan how they're going to organize their classroom to better meet the needs of the students by group beings or whatever so just want to
acknowledge that um the the comments that were made earlier today thank you Mr rwood yeah I don't have many productive comments uh no offense the Board District for does have the fewest number of students but I don't think we're waited I mean we're the the
anyways I think I think the calendar is coming too late I think starting the school year on a Thursday and ending on a Wednesday is silly um I think being an outlier when it comes to our breaks is silly I think the survey data you can wait it however you want we should try to get more people to fill out the survey this is fewer than 10% of parents
um I don't think we should be be a basic calendar based just on certain preferences too I think we should do what's best for students and families and I find it's it is odd to miss Go's Point not about waiting Board District 4 I do find it odd that board District 4 which also has a more affluent population are the parents who
want the two-e winter break when we actually hear anecdotally from a lot of our lower income parents about how hard three weeks is they're also just not the ones filling out a survey uh even our lower-income employees if you look at the percentage of um uh if you just look at the numbers uh you know I think on
that employee uh we had you know 16 or so 16,000 um 15,000 plus utility members onlyd three 3500 or so stiu members so you know I just I think we we are using the survey for too much cover I think this calendar
is silly and plan to vote no but I appreciate the opportunity to air it I also know Miss grego's point and as a former teacher I do yeah the prep days I think are important and offering opportunities for teachers to prep their classrooms to come in I think professional development days are important I'm disappointed that we don't
have I do think we should mandate some professional development days I think from a parent perspective knowing that your teacher even though so many of our teachers do and I go above and beyond to know that we don't say you have to come in early to like look at the roster or prep you know so I would love to mandate
that folks come in and get compensated for it um so yeah that's all I have to say wonderful well thank you Mr Chate for your updates appreciate your presentation and all the work behind um
getting this survey conducted um so now um thank you to my colleagues for your questions and contributions to discussions we've had throughout the presentations now we will transition to public comment and I just want to make mention that we value the input from our
community members as it plays a critical role in shaping our decisions and also hearing the concerns and questions that community members have parents students teachers Etc and I will now hand it over to Mr Clean to facilitate this portion of the meeting all right here we go I'm
going to call on the folks who are slated or written themselves down as being in person and then we will then call on folks who listed themselves as being Callin so the first person I have is Johnny Angel or Joanie Angel sorry about that Joanie come on up you have
two minutes to speak once you begin then I see Maria Lisa Palma out there and then after Miss Palma will be Pablo VI vincentio so please come on up Joanie the two minutes is yours good afternoon Pablo is going to come up and speak with
me um hopefully we can go back to back please that's fine I would just uh beg of you to maybe lower the mic and and make sure you speak into it because if if if the mic doesn't pick it up it doesn't get picked up by anyone who's watching so this is Mr Pablo V also
okay hello my name is Pablo Cesar vieno I'm the CEO of Alliance College ready public schools and the board chair of the LA Coalition for excellent Public Schools the LA Coalition for excellent Public Schools represents nine Charter networks and 104 public charter schools
serving over 50,000 students in our city of Los Angeles we unites the members of the LA Coalition for excellent Public Schools LPS is our shared commitment to academic excellence and Equity something that I know that you all share I also know that all of us in this
room believe that every student deserves the opportunity to succeed but too many of our students face challenges that no child should have to bear economic inequality is on the rise and when families are struggling to put food on the table or keep a roof over
their heads students are put at a significant disadvantage it becomes difficult to focus complete assignments or plan for the future when basic needs remain uncertain and yet every day we see students show up resilient determined
and pushing forward despite overwhelming odds across all our Los Angeles Public School students those in the district and in the charters I think specifically of Daniel an unaccompanied unaccompanied minor who arrived in the US and Alliance Tajima High School in the ninth grade fleeing
violence from salador Once in Los Angeles he bounced around from home to home of distant relatives sleeping on couches on Floors sitting in closets ensuring that he can focus yet Daniel came to school every day surrounded by Educators who saw him
as a community school he received supports for academic development and was connected to resources across our community Daniel's Alliance school is both his stability and his launching pad for a bright future and I'm proud to say today that Daniel's a sophomore at
Columbia University in New York City studying economics I grew up in eleno on the east side of Los Angeles and I attended schools that lacked resources that often left my family and other families to navigate challenges on their own and I've been so glad to see
the district put more supports into uring the holistic child is met and Family's needs are met and I know what it's like to grow in an underresourced community and I also know the difference it makes when someone believes in you and ensures that you have the support
you need that's why this work is so important to me and all the other leaders of LPS who are members of our community and people of color we are always stronger together and we especially need each other during these very divisive
times that's why LPS has launched um the program seen and supported and housed in the classroom because if we are serious about Pro um providing every student with high quality education we must also be serious about removing the obstacles in their way this is more about school
more than just about schools it's about making sure every single one of the Los Angeles Scholars that walks through one of our schools feels supported seen and set up for success and as I mentioned in light of the new Administration in Washington that mission takes on new urgency and a
moral obligation that all of us have in this room so I'm here to welcome any sort of collaboration with the district across this critical effort I think we are stronger when we come together by uniting as Educators families and community members we can
ensure that housing and security does not determine and our Scholars future together we can create a future where every child of Los Angeles is a real opportunity to thrive thank you about 15 seconds 15 seconds um we'll be reaching out to all of the board members with more information about seen
and supported this initiative to ensure that all students in La who are experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity have the supports from their local schools and we wish to partner with the district in this initiative as we are all committed to the same thing
here thank you thank you uh not withstanding the importance of the content of the message I just have to announce outward that we keep our speaking time to two minutes uh I appreciate that you were trying to uh dovetail off each other but I don't I can't set a precedent here of of people
combining of combining time um just because the the more folks that get to speak the more Viewpoint we get uh Miss Palma the time is yours you have two minutes thank you wow that audit presentation not one of you asked a question address the deficit
net position or the unrestricted deficit net net position more on that coming up but who is running the show my name is Maria Lisa Palma a couple of weeks ago on behalf of the safe schools task force and the school police subcommittee I
emailed a request for safety incident data I copied all of you I asked I was asked by members of that subcommittee in various discussions they had in that committee for more information that they would like to review they asked me to do the administrative work to request that
information on Friday February 14th I received a response again copy to all of you that now it is a public records act requests saying things such as if disclosable records exist they're going to search for and collect records and examine a voluminous amount
of separate and distinct records They may need to consult with two or more components of the agency they may need to compile data so they're saying they need an extension of time from the office of General Council basically is going to go back and reinvent the wheel because basically you've all admitted to
us in the public that none of you already have this information that we requested haven't you already compiled it how do you do your job when you say that the first priority you have is the safety and well-being of our students if you don't have this data how do you make
decisions on this basis so board when you request data do you get sent to the public records act door remember you created this task force and by extension the subcommittee to make recommendations to you so if that subcommittee can't get the information how are you going to get
their recommendations informed recommendations Mr carvalo do you have this information do Mr Chate and the school police chief not report to you do they not already as part of the agency different areas consult already on safety data with you so this is just
unbelievable that you say you don't have this information so please Board of Education request this information on behalf of your task force and the subcommittee here are the copies of the emails I sent to you thank you thank you for your time all right Maria Daisy Ortiz I see you around there come on up
Miss Ortiz is going to speak in Spanish so if you'd like to hear what she's going to say in English please put your hand up and we will get translation headsets to you come on down Miss uh Daisy Ortiz and then after Miss Daisy Ortiz will be Juan mandhi I saw Mr Mandi here earlier there he is so miss da
Ortiz and then Mr burgandi the 2 minutes is yours thank you yeah good afternoon everyone my name is Maria Ortiz and I'm here revising and first of all the executive uh summary of the the
the audit has three continuous comp components and three things that are non compliance and three and thinks that the district has a prepared corrective plan about certain incidences and where the corrective actions how would we know
about this plan because a lot of times the district makes decisions that there is no consultation and here is one of the things that says that as far as our awareness the Administration has not uh required written or oral Department
proponents into this so this needs to be transparent but now we will see the deficiencies the lack of compliance one of the lack of compliances is the certification of teacher and incorrect actions this is why we're having the
results of our kids not having academic Excellence because this impacts their the student results how are they're going to get better every year if this is existing every year so you're maybe having a physical education teacher give
math so this is something you need to correct immediately because these are the primordial needs of our students another is independent studies so the classes like AP in some of the schools or programs like robotics I'm bothered
by the fact that the district has these programs and it's not available to all students because they need to qualify what do you mean you need to qualify so you have the students and and they're not in in a so say if there there's a
competency level that disqualifies them from having these classes or advancements and then the safety component the safety is something that you're seeing the safety and programs after hours so we need safety and also with the local control so yes we could
see it in the budget of the school if there had been a development of the with the correct codes the categorical codes because the financing I'm seeing is not the categorical fund so we need to have transparency and we need to
have parent advisory when it comes thank you for your time Mr Juan mandhi come on up you'll have two minutes to speak when you begin oh yes oh so Mr melin's leaving oh what a shame well good
afternoon I'm seeing here today that when you're talking about numbers and money the bank data doesn't kind of connect or align with reality so what are the most mediocre results we could
find so the theme of the district is who is creating what's happening where the the Department of Education is going to resolve what's happening in the districts with lack of uh operational
efficiency and the lack of transparency some of the board members have a lot to desire and they know about budgeting like what they do about being an astronaut so asking why aren't we
focused on bringing the district an in integral Focus where the parents are truly respected in this we have a lot of qualified parents specialized in different areas but why is the district
trying to sabotage and divide us when we can be part of the solution Mr Schmelson knows that we've proposed a lot of different solutions and you can't say we haven't a lot of times in the district they like the parents when they're ignorant and dumb
and that's the most important thing oh and fearful because you have the titles so we're the ignorant runes right so we always have to come here and do a monument to you all when you are the ones responsible for what's happening in
today's education and our educational system is in crisis and we keep doing the same thing because we're working for the interest of the corporations of your of the famous unions that are trying to get more money and they don't care about the luck of us Latinos that are the one that
are most behind I think it's time that you fix this because otherwise we're all in danger okay Monica Rola are you here Monica I don't see you in the room I also don't see you online uh Mr David
tolkovsky I believe I saw you there you are come on down you have uh two minutes to speak once you begin and then after Mr to toov is David Gray so Mr turovsky and then Mr Gray thank you very much uh it might be
a good idea for the new vice president president to consider three minutes again uh you can do well if you try timing yourselves on two minutes and see how you do uh I remember as a board member we tend to speak too much so today uh you had a presentation from Ro
Ronald Reagan's old fiscal advisor uh the school Services Inc that was created by his his chief financial people John's a nicer Kinder uh Ronald Reagan and fmat which of course was created by Governor Wilson uh but you had a kind of nicer
representative here today and Simpson and Simpson presenting for I think the 27th year in a row which I'm not an accountant and I'm not a lawyer but at some point you can't just change the principles you have to change the accounting firm so let me just say I
thank uh Mr Mr meloy for actually bringing up prop 98 I mean you had three presentations and nobody was even talking about what prop 98 is when you go to school boards Association meetings learn a little bit about it California is now the fourth largest economy in the world not the fifth that means it's more
money per kit not one of the presentations not one of them mentions that roughly for every thousand kids under the California the children youth Behavior Health Initiative you get approximately $20,000 that would be $80 million that would have started in July
of last year that would have paid for Bap counselors would have paid for priority uh support would have how lcsws but no application no nothing going on things like dyslexia and other items if that's the agenda between now
and the May revision you need to make that your lobbying position and make sure you work with all the associations to do such a thing and finally um to get you know the early retirement well all of you are on pars as a retirement program that's the private company that
does that called them they have nothing going with LA unified and all those other counties mentioned by fmt are laying off teachers counselors day by day week by week thank you thank you for your time Mr Gray come on up you have two minutes to speak once you
begin minutes is really fast uh hello my name is David Gray uh I'm a high-tech innovator in the telecommunication industry for 40 uh past 40 years and brought um technologies that revolutionized the
broadcasting industry I'm here today to address a uh special problem that needs to be address and that is school safety uh the violence in our schools is a tragedy that no Community um should
face but yet it happens Newton uh Newton uh yaldi and even Santa Clarita everyone thought it would never happen here and why not it never has before and then it does uh the harsh truth is that most schools La the tools to prevent stop or
even mitigate such emergencies response times are slow Communications is alwaysa fragmented and situational situational awareness is non-existent by the time help arise people have already been
killed um this doesn't have to be the future um AI classroom networks can detect weapons and cond can uh detect other threats like unauthorized individuals in real time they don't wait for anyone to press a button or dial 911
the moment a threat is identified um and this is a big change First Responders school officials law enforcement and uh can immediately be in a realtime purpose-built video conference everyone involved from
security to Medical Teams can be unified and respond in seconds not minutes imagine the Georgia shooting the suspect could have been identified and stopped before the violence began
Um this can be the future of school safety and the technology exists now we can't accept this as just the way it is um it's time to evolve I'm asking to present it to the
board thank you for your time okay rockel Diaz I see you're calling in remotely rockel Diaz please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Raquel Diaz good hi yes good afternoon good afternoon
members of the board my name is Rael Diaz I'm a mother of two students of LA USD schools and I would like for you to focus more or help the parents that have special needs
students uh my child has an IP my smallest daughter is 11 years old and she has dyslexia therefore I would like for you to help us so that we can give maybe you can give the parents more tools so that we can help our students at home knowing that
unfortunately we don't have the knowledge and US parents some parents that have special needs students we can't read my or even the students my daughter's 11 years old and she can't read herself I'm I'm in the EP program and this is my third
year and thanks to that my daughter has advanced a lot but I would like for you to send more tools to our house so how can we help our children so that we can raise our children's self team so that they don't feel frustrated they're not
embarrassed and so that they don't suffer bullying that is it thank you for your time I see you're on the line di again please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Diana Ganan hello
John okay um good afternoon members of the board my name is Diana Guan I'm president of pack committee and the previous uh meeting that we you had we are we're very disappointed with the
executive board that you have because they present El they will present elcap for midye knowing that our committee is the one that revises this or uh reviews this but you had no question and Miss
Rea because she's leaving uh is not of an interest to her and to have these conversations she will she will be retiring and she didn't allow anyone to make the presentation therefore at least for myself I wanted
to know the information more in regards to the transparency you have a big problem of H giving transparency us parents we want to support you guys we want to support the district but are not allowing us to do so if anything you're limiting us you're don't allow us to
keep going and Mr Antonio placenia keeps blocking our our pack and we are here to support the district but you are doing it in uh in opposite way and because Miss GGO wanted to make a question and one of the presenters I'm not sure who it was they
shut her down and that shouldn't happen who's managing the district you are the employees or the famous lawyers because we have given Mr carbo petitions and he says the attorney says he can't do that those type of things honestly this is what's
happening at a federal level and you are the ones responsible for anything that happens at a federal level if they remove the funds it's you guys it's not the federal funds it's you guys because of your low academic levels and you are not complying with all the expectations that you promise to do so or at least
the middle half of them and parent involvement are at the floor all at the bottom and we are talking about special need students and you don't even give the services that the children should have therefore you are we ask for you to change the ways to make decisions and take in consideration these committees
and don't don't don't and tomorrow we will make a meeting inviting pack members so that they give we can give our our our me our reasons and these meetings shouldn't happen they should be happening with the community but not for pack members to
come thank you Jenna noes I see you're on the line Jenna noes please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Jenna noise thank you uh I am speaking on behalf of my friend who six grade son was randomly assaulted and beaten on
campus by a seventh grader with a suspension record for drug dealing this incident occurred at a middle school in region north where several parents attended my safety meeting discussing the need for better school safety the consensus was clear we want the option
for bringing campus police back to our region could this incident have been handled differently with campus police on site I believe so unfortunately due to this issue my friend has held had to rely on criminal justice system to
improve the safety for their child so it's important to recognize that region north along with other regions such as region West both recently experienced stabbings at their High schools which were widely reported so one region is dealing with a lawsuit possibly another
while the other and had a student facing attempted murder charges these incidences have sparked outrage among parents all of whom want their children protected they want appropriate consequences for students who break the law I'd also like to ask how much money
are we spending on safety related lawsuits could that money be better used elsewhere where the district's new smart uh device policy effective today only further limits students ability to call for help leaving them vulnerable without campus police decreased time with
psychologists next year and with insufficient support during un will feel unsafe and unprotected while students across regions need to feel safe the solution will need variation a one siiz fits all approach is not effective you already have the structure to support
real Regional autonomy so please make decisions that reflect our needs listen to the voices of our PE of your people so lastly I ask again how many students will it take before you stop them stop using them as pawns and begin making
real lasting changes thank you for your time and attention thank you for your time all right Marcela Garcia I see you're on the line Marcela Garcia please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Marcela Garcia
good afternoon members of the board good afternoon my name is Marcela Garcia and I am here because we continue to talk about school safety uh children's safety knowing that walk home after school and I've always
said this issue when they leave school you know how Franklin is around not even inside outside the school when they're when children are walking home after school and when they go to schools well it's very dangerous therefore we
need we need for childr to feel safe and comfortable to feel good to to go to school also when they leave school we need safety we don't want any um other children's to be hurt for a family to be worried in the whole Community it's very
dangerous what's happening I want you to take that in consideration we also need school police around the schools and Franklin has a continuation school we also need school police around that
area we need more security because there are schools around that are for smaller children like elementary schools therefore we need safety around there too we also need more participation more parent particip within the schools what
are you guys doing to motivate parents what are you doing because honestly you speak I've been there I've I've been a deac and when we make a recommendation it goes by it but we
never hear about the recommendation we made but when we make the whole plan you're writing and you say well the attorneys are saying that is not correct but us parents when will you present when when will we meet these uh attorneys you only want to add fear to
us saying that the attorneys and that they say they can't mention certain things but we don't know the attorneys when will they meet the parents we don't even know well I didn't even know that we had attorneys that decide what to add and what not to add we want to meet them
and also give us a lot of information you need to give us more information regards to the I ready exams I asked parents at the El meetings and I tell them do you know what that is and they say no we don't know how can we help our children about in regards to I ready
appreciate your time thank you uh we don't have any more folks uh calling in but I have some folks who listed themselves as calling and I'm going to read the names off just in case they happen to be in the room areli Caba are you here
areli Karina Lopez are you here Karina Lopez Maria Torres are you here Maria Torres uh that concludes a public comment thank you Mr McLean uh well thank you to everyone who participated
today in public comment and to all my colleagues for your thoughtful engagement throughout this meeting today's discussions highlighted the importance of strategic planning from our instructional calendars to fiscal decisions ensuring that every choice we make serves our students families and
they are our entire School communities it's clear that collaboration transparency and Community input will be key as we Mo move forward I'd like to once again express my gratitude to our staff presenters and everyone here today for the commitment to LUSD let's
continue working together to create a strong supportive environment for all of our students please take note that our next uh community of the whole meeting will be Tuesday March 18th and we look forward to continuing these important discussions thank you for your time and dedication
and this meeting is adjourned [Music]