You want to give me 59 seconds. Heat. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey.
Heat. Heat. a Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, Heat. Hallelujah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, Heat. Heat. Heat. Oh, hey. Hallelujah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Call please. >> Bailey >> here. >> Mackenzie >> here. Belina Frederick >> here >> here.
>> All right. Welcome everybody. Uh we'll start off with the resolutions. Item B1, approval of resolution 2866, declaration of the rights of all students to equity in arts learning, arts education month, March 2026. Dr.
Anderson. Good evening, board president Frederick's, Dr. Blanco, Superintendent Blanco, board members, and my esteemed colleagues on the superintendent's leadership team. This
is the eighth year of the declaration of the rights of all students to equity in arts education in collaboration with the arts education collective and with the create California committee. and the 25th year that this board has asserted their
support during the month of March, arts education, arts education month. During this time, we have grown programs with a focus on equity through opportunities for exposure, experience, and expertise in the five art forms: music, dance,
theater, visual art, and media arts. This was on display this month at our No Boundaries exhibition, in the open stage field trips to Pasadena Playhouse and Boston Court Theater, in the preparation for our spring concerts and musicals, and in our students excelling at
regional competitions. For example, our PHS orchestra under the direction of Dr. Anne Rarden received recently received a superior ranking for their performance at the Southern California Band and Orchestra Association festival. This is
a rare achievement to get a superior ranking that demonstrates their high professionalism. Our programs promote critical thinking by providing multiple lenses through which to view the world. Arts learning promotes problem solving skills,
supports overall academic achievement, and nurtures social and emotional skills that help all students in Pasadena Unified School District succeed in school and in life. With this, we assur assert students rights for an equitable
arts experience in our schools, which includes highquality courses in all the arts disciplines, inclusion in arts experiences for all students, culturally and linguistically responsive and relevant learning,
appropriate resources and facilities for learning in all art forms. educators and community members who lead students to promote the development of a more well-rounded and compassionate society and affirming a community where
the arts and artists are seen as essential in a child's development. We have to be creative. We have to be bold and we believe in the arts as a core value for the development of the whole child.
We ask that you affirm this belief with us and approve resolution 2866. >> Is there a motion to approve this resolution? >> I move approval. >> Second. >> Any further comments,
questions? >> Okay, Trusty Holly, >> I'm sorry that I came in late, but could you Re say the part about superior ranking. >> Yes. Our PHS orchestra under the direction of
Dr. Anne Rarden recently received a superior ranking. Superior is the ranking for their performance. You can get superior. There's different levels of ranking uh at the SCSBOA festival which is a rare achievement. very few orchestras receive superior
rankings and they have not received that ranking previously. So >> that is an amazing accomplishment. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any other further comment? Well, congratulations to us PSD uh
eighth eighth year of uh this resolution and um I remember during the COVID pandemic people were quarantined and what did they and then some folks in Italy would come out on their balcony
and play their instrument. So art and music and dance and performance is so critical to the development for of the whole child. So thank you for your championing this effort to all your your team.
>> Incredible people. There's more art. I thought they were all standing up behind me, but I guess they didn't all get the memo to stand up. Anyway, members of our district arts team and community arts team, teachers, community members, just a few of of the many faces who support the arts in PUSD. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> All right, we need the roll call, I guess. No roll call. Oh, >> all right. All those in favor, raise your hand. Oh, >> Trusty Bleecker, what is your preferential vote? Yes.
>> All right. All those in favor raise your hand. All right. >> Motion passes unanim unanimously. Thank you. >> All right. Item B2, approval of resolution 2867, honoring the farmworker movement and the legacy of organizing
for labor. Dr. Velasquez. >> Hi. Tonight, uh, we bring forward the resolution 2867 to honor the farmworker movement and its enduring legacy of organizing for labor, dignity, and justice. This resolution recognizes not
only the historical significance of farm workers in shaping California's agricultural economic landscape, but also the ongoing struggles and contributions of working families whose labor sustain our communities every day.
It calls on us as an educational institution to ensure that history is not forgotten but actively thought, reflected upon and connected to the lives of our students. Um, as a board member, I am proud to support this resolution because it
affirms something fundamental that the history of the farm workers is not just history, but it is living knowledge that continues to shape our present. Honoring the far workers movement not only means recognizing the courage of those who
organize for basic human rights but also the strong coalitions between the Mexican-American community, the Filipino community and all of the different organizers everyday people who believe in the power of CE. It is very important to take our
responsibility as educators seriously as schools are not only places where students learn math and reading. um as seen in our previous resolution but spaces where young people can develop an understanding of fairness, justice and
their role in society. It is also important to distinguish that a movement is not characterized by the accomplishment of one individual but by collective and persistent action. Um on a personal note, I would also like
to speak about the role of ethnic studies in um well this is not a personal note but in the role of ethnic ethnic studies in the instruction uh as a powerful and appropriate vehicle for this work. um ethnic studies not only is
mandated by the state of California but also an initiative that this board has consistently supported and promoted through its time with the development of ethnic studies curriculum in support of initiatives such as this. Now this is
the personal note. In a personal note, I this week we also lost um the important figure of Rul Fua who was an advocate, leader and supporter uh of fighting for
Chuco studies and the creator of um the expansion of ethnic programs across the state and supporter of the Central American students and Central American student movements as Well, so in his
honor, Fakuna present. >> Thank you, Dr. Velasquez. That was really beautiful. Um, are there any Sorry. Is there a motion to approve this res? >> I would like to present a motion to support this resolution.
>> Second. >> Thank you. Are there any comments? Uh, Trusty Harding. Um uh thank you trustee uh Dr. Velasquez for uh presenting this important resolution. Um, I think there's a a a
statement in this about the working poor and I think it's touches my heart because I think that, you know, there's a reality with many of our families um that speaks to, you know, economic injustice and I know that here at
Pasadena Unified, I think we we are responsible for uh services and programs that that that deal with try to deal with this in some in some way. you know, they could be our free and reduced meal programs, uh, family resource centers.
Um, but, you know, as we we know that as we work through, um, some of the difficult budget decisions that we're making, we know that in some cases th those decisions can land the hardest on families within the least margin. And so
I as we work towards reestablishing our our financial security in this district, I think we need to be mindful that there are many among us who are part of the working poor. And I think we need to do things in the actions that we take to really um uh
be there for them and do what we can for them and try to pull them from those margins. So I'm proud to support this resolution. >> Thank you. Any other further comments? All right, Trusty Bleecker, what is your preferential vote? >> Yes.
>> Okay. All those in favor, raise your hand. >> All right. Motion passes. Thank you. Next item is approval of resolution 2868, Genocide Awareness and Prevention, Armenian Genocide. Mr. Durian.
Hi, my name is Lauren Savadians and I'm a eighth grader at the Blair Armenian Academy. Genocide Awareness and Prevention, memorizing the Armenian genocide of 1915 through 1923 and proclaiming 2026 the year of commemoration of the 111th
anniversary of the Armenian genocide. Whereas during the Armenian genocide of 9 1915 through 1923, 1.5 million men, women, and children of the Armenian descendants lost their lives at the hands of the Turkish Ottoman Empire in their attempt to systematically
eliminate the Armenian race. And despite the overwhelming proof of the genocidal intent, the Republic of Turkey has inexplicably and adamantly denied the occurrence of the crimes against humanity committed by the Ottoman and young Turk rulers.
Hi, my name is Derek Paduran and I'm a ninth grader at Blair Armen Academy. Whereas the state of California has been at the forefront of encouraging and promoting a curriculum relating to human rights and genocide in order to empower future generations to prevent the
reoccurrence of a genocide. And whereas by recognizing and constantly remembering the Armenian genocide and other genocides, we help protect Hello. we help protect um we help protect cultural and historic
memory and ensure that similar atrocities do not occur again. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education hereby designates the month of April as Pasadena Unified School District month of commemoration for the
anniversary of the Armenian genocide of 1915. And in doing so, we will ensure that the Armenian genocide is properly taught to its facility, student body, the community at large, and recommmits itself to engaging teachers in robust discussions about the best practices around teaching the subject of the
genocide. Be it further resolved that the Pasadena Unified School District reaffirm its commitment to working with the community groups, nonprofit organizations, and school personnel to ensure that genocide studies remain an important part of the
high school social studies curriculum. And be it further resolved that the Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education in collaboration with the city of Pasadena Human Relations Commission commends its educators who
teach about human rights and genocide. >> Uh good evening distinguished members of the board. I will be speaking about why this is so important to us. My name is Suran Kumaran and I'm a junior at Blair High School's Armenian Academy. For us, the Armenian genocide is not just
history. It's personal. It lives in our families, in the stories we grew up hearing, and in our everyday lives. The loss of 1.5 million Armenians is not something that exists only in textbooks. It's something that shaped who we are. That's why this resolution matters, not
just to me, but to my classmates and the Armenian community as a whole. Recognition is not just about the past. It's about truth. When we acknowledge what happened, we honor those who were lost. And we stand against denial, which continues to harm our community over a
hundred years later. Education is just as important. By teaching students about the Armenian genocide, as well as other genocides, we are not just remembering. We're learning how to recognize injustice and prevent history from repeating itself. For Armenians like me, this resolution means being seen. It
means being heard. Without recognition, we are left to live with the denial of our very identity. I respectfully urge you to pass this resolution. Thank you. >> Thank you. That was wonderful. Uh do I hear a motion to approve? >> Move approval.
>> Second, anymore. >> I'll second. >> Any other comments? Yeah. Trusty Holly, >> I have a question. about the date for the commemoration in Memorial Park in Pasadena. >> Yes. >> Yes. Could you speak to that? Could
someone speak to that? >> Thank you. >> Yes. Um, every year we take our students to uh memorial park uh to commemorate uh this event, the anniversary uh lowering flowers, prayers, songs, poems. Uh it's
a beautiful event and with um sister schools coming and joining us uh this year on the 23rd uh we will be there and commemorating it's a studentled program. Uh actually instead of taking a bus we have a march
like a vigil march and then come back to school and we appreciate uh district's support for this >> and uh I think Webster Elementary. >> Exactly. So Webster students join us. So by sister school I meant Webster and there are sister schools they're younger
elementary school. >> Uh so we coordinate the programs the poems the flowers and uh and then other parts of the program with their teachers and principal we coordinate and bring a bigger and more memorable and uh
meaningful program. >> Thank you. >> Did I answer your question? >> Yes you did. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any further comment? Trusty Harden, >> I I just I'm proud to support this and I
I think it's important that, you know, as we look at look back to uh the atrocities in the past and where in the present time that we live in, I think this recognition is is a preventative one and it's important because I think um it gives students,
you know, really a living example of why accountabilility matters in this context. And so I think it's Thank you for bringing this forward and I will be excited to join in in the remembrance uh events ahead.
>> Any further comment? >> Well, I so appreciate the three of you coming to our board meeting. I know you're very busy, but it's so special that our we hear the students voices on this and I think I feel what the mom's feeling over there. Such pride in in our
students. So, thank you so much. Um, so let's have the preferential vote from Trusty Bleecker. >> Yes. >> All right. All those in favor, raise your hand. All right. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you.
Any public comment from for closed? >> No. Okay. So, let's adjourn to recess to closed. Hallelujah. Hey. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Heat. Heat. Oh,
I'm coming home. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
Hallelujah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Come on. Come on. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
Heat. Heat. N. Oh, wow. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. Oh wow. home. Oh.
Heat. Heat. Oh, hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Fire. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. I feel
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Oh, be Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. I don't.
Heat. Heat. Now she's happy. today. Yeah. I don't know what It's going to matter. on Saturday night. So that's what
actually my favorite person. Okay, we're calling the meeting to order at 6 o'clock. >> Oh, okay. Public announcement of close se session
action taken concerning item D1 case number 2025090472. By a vote of 7 to zero, the board took action to approve of the settlement of special education litigation in accordance with the terms of written agreement. Concerning item D2, case number 202510826.
By a vote of 7 to zero, the board took action to approve of the settlement of special education litigation in accordance with the terms of written agreement. Concerning item D3, case number 2025101206 by a vote of 7 to 0. The board took action to approve of settlement of
special education litigation in accordance with the terms of written agreement concerning item D4 case number 2026010232 by vote of 7 to zero. The board took action to approve the settlement of special education litigation in accordance with terms of written
agreement. So adjourning closed. Let's call the meeting to order at 601. Roll call, please. Jennifer >> here. >> Scott >> here. here.
>> Here >> trusty Bleecker, would you do the honors of the pledge of allegiance? United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice
for all. >> Okay. So, um we're at public comment. How many items do we have? We have 56 cards. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I'd like to recommend that we reduce time to 1 minute 30 seconds in order to
accommodate the people who have taken the time to be here and to give their testimony. >> Okay. So, that puts it at Can we >> We'll just do one minute and extend it till we go through them all.
>> Do we have to say like an hour or >> one minute? >> No, just keep going. Okay. >> Okay. Or >> can we do one minute or like I mean can we measure to 30 seconds? Yeah. >> Yeah. That's what I have. >> Okay. No objection to 1 minute and 30.
All right. Thank you, Trustee McKenzie. >> So, before we get started, um the board of education acknowledges receipt of public comments by way of email. These comments will be made part of the permanent record of this meeting. And with that, I will call the first
speaker, Kirsten Jackson. Thank you, Dr. Blanco and board members. My name is Kirsten Jackson and I have a fifth grader at Hamilton and an eighth grader at Marshall. I want to thank PUSD for providing my children with an exceptional education. Their teachers,
school staff, and administrators are outstanding. I wanted to especially thank Karen Anderson and her crew of amazing music and art teachers for the opportunities that they have provided my kids. When I first enrolled my kids in Pasadena, all my neighbors said that I was nuts. Those families are all part of
the 50% in private schools. As a public school teacher myself, I have faith in the system and sent them here instead of elsewhere. At a town hall meeting this week, Mr. Harden said that Marshall was left on the chopping block because of how convenient it would be to move all 1,000 high schoolers over to the empty wings
at PHS. What seems like a practical solution is far from it. Marshall is a 612 school. Part of the magic of Marshall is that very thing. Students build relationships with each other and with their teachers over the seven years they are enrolled at this school. This is the kind of
community that cannot be replicated by picking up one school and dumping its contents within another. Students stay at Marshall because of the amazing experience they have had in middle school. For the first time, I feel incredibly let down by this district that I have grown to love over the last
10 years. It is devastating to think that my kids will possibly have to relocate midschool career. Worst of all, this will cause me to lose faith in this district. And if I have no faith, I don't know why I would want to continue sending my kids to PUSD
schools. I urge you to find another way to save money than closing down our schools. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. I'm going to call names three at a time. And then what I will ask is that because
we are reducing the time, I will ask that all of us to the best of our ability adhere to the 1 minute 30 second time so we can ensure that all voices are heard. The next week's speakers are Violet Teedo, Roberto Gonzalez, Lando Marches.
Good evening. My name is Violet. I've already lost one school community. I used to go to Franklin Elementary when it closed. I had to start over somewhere new. My mental health struggle to get adjusted because during this time the pandemic came and everything was
virtual. I was a new student, a stranger. That experience was really hard on me. I chose Marshall because it felt stable. Like I please from middle school uh through high school. I had to move because of the fires and I still go to Marshall even though it takes me an hour
each way because it feels like home. If Marshall closes, I don't know where I would go or if I would even stay in USC. I'm not the only one. There are so many students like me who stayed because of
the Marshall community. If you take that away, you're not just closing a school, you're losing students. Please don't make me start over again. Hello, my name is Rebecca Gonzalez. I'm Violet's mom. I'm just going to give you a parents perspective of what that was
like. Violet was a student at Franklin Elementary, which the district decided to close some years ago. During that time, tears every day, anxiety, it was awful, awful toll on her mental health. We were then transferred over to Altadena Arts because the district feels
like they can tell us what our school is and not giving us a school of choice. They told us at al at Franklin that we can go all to Alina Arts because we all fit there. Althina was a great school. But during that time, the pandemic came. So there was no way for Violet to make
any connections with anyone virtually. By the time the pandemic was over, it was her fifth grade year and it was her last year there. she struggled to really get acclimated with anyone and so we decided to go to Marshall. We chose to go to Marshall because of its 6 through
12 program because at that time and my and currently my kid needed stability. It's very hard for these kids to keep moving around because the district makes decisions which then impacts their entire life. It's cruel. It is unfair
and it's unjust. During the fires, we were affected and we moved an hour away. I asked Violet at that time, do you want to go to a different school? It's it's been it's going to be hard. It's going to be an hour commute every morning. It's going to be an hour commute every afternoon. But she's so
committed to Marshall. She's on the color guard team. She's on the winter guard team. She's so happy there. And it's been so hard to see my kid come home every day. Is my time up? >> Yes. >> Thank you so much. Please, please,
please stop hurting our kids. >> Good evening. My name is Linda Marquesy and I chose Marshall in sixth grade with the understanding that I would continue into high school here. Marshall isn't just my school. It's my community. It's where I've grown up. As an eighth grader, I've been able to join the marching band and perform with high schoolers. I under spot in the All-Star
band that will perform in the Rose Parade in 2027. High school students took me under their wing and made me feel like I belonged. That's what a 6 through 12 school does. It connects students across ages and builds something stronger over time. But what makes this even more important is what students in Pasadena have already been through. Co affected all of us. We lost
time in classrooms, time with friends, and a sense of normal life. And just as things were starting to feel steady again, the Eden fires shook us all. Students are still carrying that. We all are. Pasadena talks a lot about supporting student mental health. Stability is a big part of that. Helping a place, having a place where you feel known, supported, and secure every day.
That's what helps students recover and grow. Closing Marshall would take that stability away. It would break apart a community that has helped students rebuild after years of disruption. It would make something that is already fragile even more fragile. This isn't about one school. It's about protecting a community that students rely on, not just for education, but for support,
connection, and stability. Please don't take away this place that has helped shape who I am and who so many of us are still becoming. Thank you, Hezra Luna, Jenny Collins, and Rebecca Maker.
If you can please line up and be ready ready after each turn. >> Some might be coming from other rooms. >> Okay. >> Is Jenny ready? >> Hi, my name is Jennifer Collins, but I didn't submit a card. I did email some of y'all, but I don't know how I got on
your list. >> There's a card here that says Jenny Collins. Is there a Jenny Collins here? Because I never call myself Jenny. >> Okay. No, >> someone else. Okay. Well, here goes. U My name is Jennifer Collins. I am the
parent of a Marshall um ninth grader. I am unprepared to give public comment, but I have emailed several of you. Um I am a parent patroller and I have been since the beginning of school. Um I think we need to look at the fact that
um people in our community are being hunted right now. students of color are at risk um of devastating outcomes. Sorry, I'm really nervous talking about this. Um I really want you to think about what it means to destabilize
students of color who are at risk because of the immigration raids and who are also at risk because of the fires. We cannot make a decision that further destabilizes students of color. Period.
Come on up. >> Thank you. My name is Jenny Collins. I'm here today to protest against this destructive process of consolidation. Um, it comes across as scared and reactive. I would like to see the board's influence on the analysis
instead promote creativity, long-term thinking, and recognition of the community values that are nurtured in all of our schools. The logic of a process where you check schools off of a consolidation list inevitably ends with
a school on the list at the end. I reject this assumption that leads to a fight for survival. I reject this process. There's still time this year for the outcome of this process to generate innovative ideas, plans,
innovative PR plans that preserve what is wonderful in all of our school communities. Maybe ultimately we do need consolidation, but if you close schools in this reactive way, this desperate way this year, there's going to be backlash. Our district is going to continue
shrinking. Instead, please lean into this moment when we're paying professional consultants a lot of money. You have lots of volunteers giving their time on these committees, their time and their brains. You have the attention of every PTA in the district. I know that
this process can be better. Is Pedro Luna or Rebecca Maker in the room? Hello and thank you board members and Dr. Blanco. My name is Rebecca Maker. I'm a Thood Marshall parent. Last week, my eighth grader worked on the tech crew
for Alice by Heart, an incredible artistic and technical experience. I sat in the audience with my fifth grader who was enrolled to start at Marshall next year along with many of his friends who were displaced when the eaten fire burned their homes in school. I watched
my incoming sixth grader watch the performance. I wondered if he was imagining his future self playing in the live orchestra which accompanied the show or acting on stage. This same child cried every night after
the fire for the friends, community, and school that he lost. Facing another closure is unconscionable. Our children deserve stable educational futures. They deserve to sit in auditoriums and stadiums and to dream themselves into
their bright futures. Those of us here tonight to make comments are PUSD. We are the families that this school board is here to serve. We are the ones who vote and elect you all that are sitting here. We are your voice tonight. We
implore you to listen. Thank you. Pedro Marshall Secondary School. No, I'm going read in Spanish first and in English. >> Okay. >> Can we start? >> Yes. >> Okay. Marshall secondary school.
Good evening. My my name is Pedro Luna. I am a student at third grade Marshall Secondary School. Our school is more than a building. It's a safe place where students feel supported, understood, and inspired to succeed. We have a strong AP program that helps students prepare for college. and our sports teams have built
a real sense of community and pride. Closing our school would take away these opportunities from students who rely on them every day. We deserve stability, resources, and a chance to grow right here. Please do not close down our schools. Invest in us instead. Thank you
for your time. Nayen O'Connell, Michelle Taylor, Landon Pard. Hello, I'm Alen O'Connell, an eighth grader at Marshall. I specifically chose to attend Marshall because it was the
only school in my area that would allow me to stay in one school from middle to high school. This was important to me because throughout elementary school, I had already went to three different schools, and I was excited to finally be able to stay in a school long enough to build a strong support system and meet
people that made it an enjoyable place for me. If Marshall were to shut down or consolidate with other schools, I it would not only destroy all the amazing communities that have been built, but it would also create a stressful situation for both parents and students as they try to find a new school. Additionally,
hundreds of students would be separated from their friends, which would greatly impact their social lives, especially since our generation has already dealt with COVID and the fires, which had made going back to school harder already. I urge you to consider the amazing things that these schools are doing and
reconsider the decision to close them. These schools have had a positive impact on the lives of the students and it would be a shame to see them go. Thank you for your time. Good evening. My name is Michelle Taylor and I'm the parent of a sixth and eighth
grader at Marshall. I'm an Altadena resident and a business owner of one of the first new storefronts to open after the eaten fire. I am invested in my community. When my kids were in elementary school, we lost my husband to a terminal illness. Soon after COVID hit and we were in pandemic mode with Zoom
schooling last year, our home, like many other families, burnt to the ground. Despite being displaced, I chose to commute to Marshall instead of moving to another district. We are committed to this community. I chose Marshall as a 6 to12 model because my children needed a place where they could grow and feel
safe and thrive without interruption. The school offers a variety of programs and a diverse population. My daughter is deeply involved in dance and theater, things that she could do in middle school and continue to advance through high school. My son has a friend group that he started in elementary school.
They have built their community. My children and so many students in the district have already been through so much in a short period. Closing the high school now would mean starting over in a new school, losing trusted teachers, friends, and programs, and facing another upheaval in their lives. This
community is already traumatized. It's hard to trust the district when decisions feel short-sighted. In a few years, Altadena will be rebuilt and an influx of families will potentially be entering the district. Families like mine need confidence that PUSD will support our children, not force them to
start over. I ask you to consider students first and not personal agendas, so kids like mine can continue to learn and thrive without more disruption. Our community is relying on you. Good afternoon. My name is Landon Pard and I'm 14 years old and a student at
Third Good Marshall. Please do not close third Thood Marshall. I left PUSD when my elementary school was threatened. When I was in second grade, it was threatened with closure and I left and I moved to a charter school. I didn't have to come
back to PUSD, but I chose Marshall because I wanted to grow and be challenged and I wanted a warm community. And what I found was a school that did exactly that. It pushed me and made me a better person.
And what's part of Marshall and which makes it extremely special is that it's a 6th through 12th program. And in sixth grade, I went on a field trip and I sat with high schools at high schoolers at their lunch and they talked about AP programs and the classes they were
taking and their futures and I could really imagine that future for me and how I would be in high school at Marshall and that's only because Marshall is a 6th through 12th program.
My generation has had COVID and we've just had the fires a year ago about and I'm asking you please do not close Marshall. We need stability not more disruption. Thank you,
Matteline Keaton, Lisa Santiago, and Becket Atinson. Hi, my name is Maline Keaton and I attend Third Good Marshall Secondary School and today I'll be giving you some reasons on why Marshall should stay
open. Thirdood Marshall is more than just a building. It's a place where students like me have been able to grow and discover who we are. At Marshall, I found my creativity through classes, projects, and the constant support of my peers and teachers. Even small moments matter to me, like when my principal,
Miss Tulum, says good morning or have a nice day. Those words may seem simple, but they truly empowered me to do better and feel seen. The third grade martial arts program has also given me a place to belong. It's helped me bond with so many people and build friendships that mean so much to me. That system community is something you can't
replace. Most of our students have already lost their homes, neighborhoods, and belongings in the Ian fire. It would hurt even more if we lost our school, too. What more pain and suffering can we really take? This city can't take another loss. If Marshall were to close, it wouldn't just take away a school, it would take away a home. Many of the
fellow students I talked to said their parents might put them in private school or move them out the district if Marshall closes. And honestly, I don't know how I would find my happiness again without this place. Marshall is where students feel supported, inspired, and connected. Please consider what the school truly needs us before making a decision that can ruin our lives
forever. Thank you. Hello. Hello. Uh Lisa Santiago has given up her time for me. Uh good evening board members. I'm a Thood Marshall parent urging you to reconsider the decision to close PUSD schools and explore other revenue generating solutions that support the district's
long-term stability rather than applying a short-term temporary fix to a complex long long-term issue. Do you fully understand the severity of this action and the far-reaching impact it will have on every single student? This closure will deeply affect students well-being,
including their emotional and mental health, consequences that may last a lifetime. Our students have worked tire tirelessly to achieve academic excellence at Marshall, striving to rank in the top five, 10, 20, and beyond in their class rankings. With these
mergers, those accomplishments risk being diminished or erased, altering class rankings, and in turn impacting college admissions opportunities. Have we truly considered what it means for their futures? My family chose Marshall because of the
opportunity it provides. I'm a proud I'm proud to share that my older daughter graduated in the top 1% of her class and now attends UCLA. My sophomore is currently thriving taking advanced coursework and college classes. Yet now, because of this decision, I'm forced to
consider alternatives like homeschooling while trying to p uh p preserve those same academic opportunities like dual enrollment at PCC. This is not just about one school. It's about the loss of stability, opportunity, and trust. If the decision moves forward, you will lose more families from the district. I
urge you to explore real options for PSD. Our students deserve thoughtful student centered solutions. Thank you. >> Uh good evening. Thank you all for your time. Uh my name is Becca Atinson and I'm a second year at UC Santa Cruz. I wanted to speak briefly in support of
Blair and the IB program, which is where I graduated two years ago. The single most important aspects of IB for me, aside from the research, coursework, and diploma itself, are the ways of thinking that IB tries to instill in us. In our increasingly complex world, IB grants the essential tools of global
perspective and critical analysis. Being able to pick through a problem and analyze the systems and relationships that surround us are necessary skills that we need to be teaching our students as the world changes. with AI in the global crisis that we face. Students need to be able to approach problems critically, rationally, and holistically
and do so collaboratively. IB provides these skills through the research papers, labs, exams, conversations, and unique theory of knowledge curriculum. I strongly believe that the IB program at Blair is uniquely situated to develop these skills and produce competent global citizens. Thank you.
The next three speakers are Marlon Langanger, Marian Langanger, Matthew Shruski, and Steven Cole. Hello. Um, my name is Marlon Langanger. I'm here to speak in support of Blair and specifically the IB program. I
graduated from Blair with an IB diploma in 2024 and currently go to UC Berkeley. I don't think I can emphasize enough how much everything I learned through the IB program has helped me. The critical thinking and reasoning skills I've gained have been essential to me in college. Along with so much more, IB teaches you how to function under
pressure, how to write extensive research papers, how to conduct and write about experiments, how to study for and take multiple tests simultaneously, and most crucially in my opinion, it teaches you how to learn. It guides you through the steps you will have to know to take alone in college. Taking this program away from students
would be an extreme disservice. Thank you. Hello. My daughter Rain is a sixth grader at Blair and like every other kid in PUC her age, Rain started her elementary school experience with COVID and ended it with the fires. So, it was bookended with trauma. So, I don't want
any of these schools to be closing. Rain's original school was destroyed, which was devastating, but she's found a home at Blair. She loves her new school and now that's in danger of being taken from her as well. Reena has always enjoyed going to school and being with her friends, but until she started the
IB program at Blair, I would not have said that she loved learning. I'm not an expert. I'm not an academic expert, and I don't know why the IB program works, but it does. Since starting the IB program, Rain has thrived academically. She's more interested and engaged in learning than I've ever seen her. Last
semester, she was awarded special honoral at her school. And last night she received recognition for her artwork celebrating teamwork in women's history. Many of you were there to see her accept that to to uh present her work. So you can all attest that nobody is more
enthusiastic about she is about her community and about learning. The IB program is the only one is only offered at Blair and without it I'm afraid this fire to learn that has been lit in rain and kids like her would go out. So I'm begging you to please not
close this school. Thank you. Hi everyone. Uh my name is Steve Cole. I'm currently a teacher at Blair, former parent among other things. And tonight I'm speaking fully for myself, not the other roles that I have. Um I've been to all the consolidation meetings so far
and some of the stuff seems to be a little bit general. So I want to make sure that some of the nuance rises to the top for Blair. Um the wall-to-wall ID integration of Blair uh brings all the multiple programs that are at Blair under one umbrella and allows them not
only to coexist but have a very synergistic effect with each other. To show this last year uh with the best practice of two full-time um coordinators, about 14% of the entire graduating class obtained the DP or CP diploma. That doesn't count those who
just took one off classes. Um the worldwide 10% of DP candidates get the diploma. This was the entire graduating class of Blair. Uh the HCA is the original PSD academy. Um and those students all take internships and have
opportunity to own both the academy medal and IB certificates. 100% or proximity of the uh Pasadena's medical corridor allows walking distance. Blair is one of 38 schools in the US, public or private, that has all three secondary
IB programs and the only one in North America with an IB Armenian program. Blair is the right red right on the transportation corridor has great proximity to the A-ine, MTA, and arts buses. Its facilities are among the newest in the district and its 612
configuration supports the MYP and 610 program. Thank you very much. The next three speakers are Francesca Hades Kodio, >> Stephanie Truit, and Felita Keeling. >> Can you please say your last name for me
when you get to the microphone? >> Yes. >> Um, good. Thank you. Um, good evening board members. My name is Francisco Stoer and I am a student at Thood Marshall Secondary School and I was a student at
at Daniel Webster Elementary School. I'm here today to tell you that if you look at the big picture, closing our schools will save you no money and it will hurt the district. Many of the students at these schools lost all their belongings to the Eaton fire. If you close our schools, you will be taking away the
school that gives the best education from both the public and private schools in PUSD. Despite receiving $2,000 less per student than PHS with the highest enrollment are success with the most AP classes, all the AP science classes,
other academics, extracurricular activities, and opportunities given to children with disabilities at both schools. Budget cuts don't mean you you have to close our schools. It means you can you have to use the money you have wisely. Not on things like Promemesium
boards, for example, in every single classroom, even those that have no need for them. Today, we'll leave leave you with this question for you to think about. If you lost your home, your belongings, your opportunities, your school, your school community, how would
you feel? Thank you for your consideration and save Marshall and Webster. Hello. Thank you for hearing my statement. I'm Stephanie Trit speaking in support of keeping Blair Middle School and High School open as well as all the other schools. Uh Mr. Cole just
gave an excellent explanation of all the benefits that Blair has. I wanted to reiterate the international balorate program, the Spanish and Armenian dual language programs, the health careers programs, the junior ROC and emerging marching band and music program that my
boys really enjoy and more. I ask that the district reallocate funds towards those working closest with the children, not the bureaucracy of the district, and keep the schools open. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Felita Keeling. I'm the assistant coordinator of
marketing and student recruitment and community relations at Third Graid Marshall Secondary School. I do not have any prepared speeches, which I usually do, but I thought about like why I'm here today, but I'm here for Lando and Landon and Francesca and Charlie and Meen and Lucia and all these students
that are here today. And most of the kids that came already and spoke to you are middle school students. Those are seventh and eighth grade students. Those kids have been a part of they're part of color and violet. They're part of co color guard and so they're being mentored by high school students. They're part of winter guard. Um Lando,
you're part of marching band, right? He's part of they're part of marching band. These are kids that are being mentored in this 612 model by the high school students. So they so they're already invested. So this is so important. And I work every day with these kids. And I am so excited to be
here every day. I'm tired every single day. I'm driving right now until tomorrow. One hour and 15 minutes to work. I'm back in Pasadena as a Friday, but I still come every day and I'm excited because I get to work with these amazing students and although your h um high school Catherine right there and um
and I'm Girlsville LA, we had a whole thing today. But it's just to be a part of this culture is amazing and I'm excited to be here and there's so much that's happening and I think really consider like what's happening in this district. I am more disappointed. I I'm a PUSD alumni. My students are my my
sons are PUSD alumni. I've been part of the PF board for 14 years, the district 12 years. I'm invested here. Please make good choices. Make wise choices. Think about our students, our family, and our communities. Thank you, >> Bobby Gonzalez,
Angelica Romero, and Leah Caro. Good evening PUSD board members. My name is Anhalikica Romero and I have two 7th grade children currently attending Thood Marshall, a school we chose to attend because we wanted a diverse school community and a grade 6 through 12 experience. My family is in disbelief
that our school is being threatened with closure when we recently celebrated the 100red-year history. And given that Marshall has the most students of any PUSD school, over 1,600, it is truly upsetting, especially as a resident of Altadena, to have to be here tonight to fight to keep our school open when we have been battling on so many other
fronts since the devastating eaten file fire. Many of us, like my family, are fighting to get our homes rebuilt, fighting to keep our neighborhoods together. And more recently, many of us, especially in the Latino community, have been fighting to keep ice out. But now this fight, too. How much more can our children endure? And why is their resilience being tested yet again? It is
wrong. It is disrespectful. and it contradicts the district values of ensuring the social emotional well-being of our children. Where is the empathy PUSD? There wasn't enough time today to convey to you what it means to families like mine to have our school still standing in the aftermath of the eaten fire. I can tell you that the first thing our family did the day after
losing our home was to go buy new school supplies and to await the reopening of Marshall. Then we drove to Marshall to see that it was still standing. And we were grateful that at least one thing remained. Marshall gave us stability at our moment of crisis and it continues to give us consistency which is needed as we heal. Despite living outside of the
area, it is our school that keeps us connected to all that we have lost. Closing Marshall is a part of a district-wide consolidation effort not only traumatizes students by forcing them to relocate and start over, but sets back the progress and potential of our students of color and low-income households. Please make no mistake that
closing Marshall would create barriers for our most vulnerable. Thank you. >> Thank you. Hello, my name is Lea Kario and I'm a sixth grader at third good Marshall. I'm here tonight to oppose the closing of Marshall and speak up. Marshall has been such a huge thing in my life because it helped me improved, helped me meet new
friends and express myself without judgment. When I first came to Marshall, I struggled because I have been challenged in ways that I have never had before. But but as I started getting deeper into it, I changed for the better and finally got the grades I wanted and felt I deserved. I also found my people who get me and understand what it's like
to be different. I wasn't liked as much last year, so when it came to Marshall, I thought it was be a repeat. But instead, I found people who got me and like me for who I was. That's why Marshall should stay open because it helps many kids be themselves and know they are accepted. Closing down Marshall means taking the school away from not only new Eagles, but Eagles who have
been here all their middle school and high school years. This is a problem because Marshall was one of the highest scoring schools in the district. Closing down the school might seem like a good idea cuz you're spreading out the scores evenly, but it really isn't. Marshall score is high due to due to its learning environment. When we are forced to adapt to a new whole new place, we tend to
struggle and not be the top scorers we are. Another reason why you shouldn't close it down is because of the opportunity the schools gives us. The schools helps us express ourselves and show off our talent. There are many electives like art, dance, drama, band, orchestra, and choir that let kids lets kids be creative and express themselves.
When you take us away from your talent, you are destroying the future artists, writers, and dreamers of our generation. Closing the school is not the right choice and certainly will not make it any better. Thank you for listening. Calling again to Bobby Gonzalez. We'll hold Bobby and Cube. Next speakers
are KingDee, Carlin Oropez, and Mary Murphy. >> Well, we'll hold them in queue and go on to the next speakers. >> Oh, come on in. >> Okay. >> All right.
First off, thanks for listening to all of us. Um, I come here today as an alumni of Jefferson Elliot John High School and as a parent of a Blair 8th grader. Um, because of that, I know the
value of Pasadena's public schools. Um, and as a leader personally of a nonprofit, I know the current financial challenges of staying afloat and the climate that's we have right now. Um, but we're going to stay strong in my
nonprofit and I know Pasadena Unified can as well. Um, these storms do pass and um, we urge you I urge you to find ways to preserve the existing schools through this four-year period. um because I think there will be change
after that. Um please resist consolidation in order to preserve the special programs that benefit so many kids like mine. Um my daughter who's at Blair is in the dual language program. She was able to continue it from Jackson. Um she's eighth grade. She
hopes to continue that through high school. Um she does math field day three days a week, extra math after school. She's on the soccer team. Um, the first thing she took from the fire when we evacuated was her backpack with all her
school books. And I even told her, look, this district will replace those if for some reason we don't come back to a house. We didn't come back to a house, but she had her books. Um, and that was super important to her. Um, please, we urge you, you know, to do everything you
can to avoid consolidation. Thank you. Um, hello. My name is King Doros. Um, we're a Highland Park family. So, we commute from uh LA USD. I have two boys at Blair in seventh and
ninth grade and we've been with PUSD since preschool. Um, they've been through a lot. COVID closures. um they had to switch schools because of COVID. They've gone through a lot of anxiety um and lost time with
peers and they're finally settling in and growing and I and I see them so happy. Um the possibility of blur closing and losing the IB program um or limiting it to upper grades is deeply unsettling. Um, in a world where
AI is displacing jobs and commoditizing knowledge, the IB's mission has never been more relevant. Um, most high school high schools teach students what to know, and IB teaches them how to think,
how to reason, evaluate, and adapt. And those are exactly the skills that AI cannot replace. Uh, please protect our program. our kids in the district need it and protect all the schools. Thank you. Hi, thank you. My name is Mary Murphy.
I'm here because I'm a sixth grader at Blair Middle School. Um we aren't zoned for Blair. We don't live in Pasadena like um other parents you've heard from. We live in Los Angeles and uh right from the beginning for elementary school, we battled the interd district permitting
process to get our daughter to Willard first uh for the IB elementary program and now to Blair and um she has been thriving and I can't imagine what things would be like if we had taken a different path for her education. We
have friends who are in LA USD. They have had vastly different experiences. We have access to IB schools in LA USD. We chose Blair uh well Willard first and now Blair not just for the IB program for the community for the 6 through 12
uh continuity for the amazing drama program. Shout out to Miss Vulpi. Um and all of the wonderful offerings. It's not just about academics. That's a huge part. We know how special the IB program is. It's not just the academics. It is the school. It is the environment. It is
the community. Um, our kids are thriving. I hope most of them are thriving. Um, there's way too much chaos and disruption and terrible stuff going on in their world, both immediately around them and in larger communities. They need the consistency uh and support
of their school communities. Please keep Blair open and keep our schools open. Thank you. The next speakers in queue are Nikki Arakawa, Denise Rob,
John Lever, and Vanessa Elliot. >> Good evening, President Frederick's. I am a proud Don Bonito parent. I'm thrilled for the families who now get to breathe a little easier because their schools have been deemed worthy of saving. But let's be clear, this means
that some schools and some children are being valued more than others. All PUSD families deserve peace of mind. Had I known before entering this district that what would make my seven-year-old daughter worthy of your attention, your advocacy, and make her appear more
valuable would be if she had attended a magnet, a dip, a specialized program, a bigger school with more stuff. I would have reconsidered if PUSD was the right place for these Altadena residents. How was I
to know that the elements that I value at our school would be the very points, I'm sorry, the very reasons used against it to spin a narrative of justified closure. I worked in public schools. I worked in underresourced communities and
advocacy. Make no mistake, I believe all PUSD schools are worthy and wonderful for the families that choose them in your open lottery. The that is where PUSD's potential for greatness lies. Keeping schools and choice open. You
boast PUSD school excellence that all of its schools have something to offer for everyone. But what I have come to learn is some of you think some of our schools are expendable. I chose Don Bonito through the lottery and now you're telling me my choice was wrong. Each school offers a vibrant and unique experience for its families. None are
better than others. Recognize that the consolidation committee is not the way to do this. You are perpetuating a forgotten conclusion. Do not do this. >> Thank you so much. >> Hi, thank you for your time. Uh, I'm Denise Rob, parent in the district and
PTA president at Blair, but I'm not here as PTA president just for myself. Um, please stop talking about how resilient our children are. I don't want them to have to be resilient anymore. We've had
COVID and fires and everywhere. We have to think about their their mental health. And I want to talk about my son for a second. Joshua, he's on the spectrum. He has ADHD. Um, school is
stressful for him. And the only thing that's really got him out of his shell was SRLA. Blair is the only school that has students run Los Angeles in Pasadena. It's an LA program. We're the only one.
And they run the LA Marathon. The city council just honored them. They ran 26.2 miles every year. They run all year round. They run in the summer, but it's also an emotional program. It builds um community and friendship. He has friends
now. He loves to come to school to run at 6:00 in the morning, which unfortunately I have to get up too, but um so yeah. So, please honor our kids and our school and um keep all of
our schools open. We're Oh, we're going to have lots of housing soon, by the way. you're gonna have a lot of kids coming in. So, think about that. >> Good evening, board. Uh, my name is John Lever. I'm the parent of an 11th grader at Blair and I I'd like to advocate
really for the principle of diversity um in decision making. Um, you know, I I think the strength of our community, of our city is its diversity.
Um, I think it's its its strength and its value. And I think that's also one of the chief virtues of the school district as well. I can only speak from my experience of the school that my son goes to. And, you know, I know Blair is
extraordinary. My son's had such a transformative experience there. Um, you know, from the IB program through uh his experience in the extraordinary ovations theater uh program that's been developing over the last few years. The
idea that that might be lost I find heartbreaking. And I think, you know, every parent who comes from any of the schools in the district would have a similar story of the the transformative nature of their particular location. The idea that any of that diversity would be
lost, I'd like you to to reconsider. Thanks. Good evening, board members. Uh, my name is Vanessa Elliot and I have a seventh grader at Blair Middle School and I can't see. I need to put my glasses on. We chose this school partly due to the
size and ease of transition from middle to high school. And this continuity was important to us because of the shared culture and the expectations between both middle school and high school that can maintain student confidence and an ease in transition into high school to
avoid what they call the ninth grade shock. And ninth grade can be a vulnerable time for students. Many times, a new campus, larger high school environment, new teachers, and higher expectations can negatively impact performance and increase dropout rates.
Blair's middleear's program was designed for continuity. Having the same academic framework, the aligned expectations, teaching methods, and framework mean that there are no surprises. reducing failure rates and improving
long-term goals like attendance, graduation rates, and college readiness. And additionally, having a longer teacher student relationship from middle school to high school can support everyone, including those most vulnerable at risk students.
So uprooting these students will cause potentially cause a world of turmo turmoil at a vulnerable time in their lives when we need stability the most. And I ask that not only does the board look at the financial implications but the social emotional implications that
this may have for our students in our community. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you Katherine Mayfield, Ashley Lincoln. Connie Carama
and Gerald Hernandez. Okay. All right. Hello. My name is Ashley Lincoln and I am the parent of a third grader and a kindergartener at Don Bonito. I rise before you today to ask you to stop considering school consolidations and to keep the school that my children love
open. Since PUSD operates under a lottery system that encourages family choice, closing school sites runs counter to those values by reducing available options for families. Each family has chosen their school for a reason. And my family chose Dom Bonito. We moved within PSD's boundaries well aware of this district's less than
stellar reputation for special education and were told by multiple families that Domonito was the best public elementary school to send our children to. The Dominonito staff and in particular the special special education teachers, aids, and therapists have lived up to that hype. Additionally, the Dominino campus embodies a quality of a bygon
air. When I say neighborhood school, what comes to mind? Do you think of a campus on a busy street surrounded by traffic and city noise, or do you think about a school nestled in it safely in a tranquil community where children are in a quiet atmosphere conducive to learning and can play outside at recess without being exposed to pollution? From the
moment I tour Domo, it felt peaceful. I love being able to park easily and walk my children into their school without having to worry about them wandering into the street and being mowed down by an attentive drivers. Dominito is our family's fourth school. In our previous district, every time my oldest IEP changed, we would need to move school sites so he could have access to the
class or the services stipulated by his IEP. When we moved within PSD's boundaries just over a year ago, we came searching for stability in our forever elementary school. We have found that Adom Bonito, we have never been welcomed as warmly and as thoroughly by a school community. And I ask speak for you on
behalf of my non-verbal 8-year-old child because he can't for himself. Don't take that away. Good evening everyone. Um I am Connie Caramo. I'm a parent at Don Bonito Elementary. Um Don Bonito is a safe, stable, and essential environment for my daughter. She looks forward to going to
school each day where she's supported by her peers and staff. As a special needs student, a consistency and structure are optional. They are critical to her ability to regulate, learn, and thrive. The abrupt last minute transition that occurred last year in our SDC TK through
2 grade class besides being affected by the eaten fire was extremely extremely difficult and it is something my daughter or any of our children cannot endure again. Another disruption would have a serious negative impact particularly for our students with special needs who rely on a routine and
familiarity to function successfully. It is imperative to the district to fully consider the real and lasting consequences consequences this decision will have on all of our students both those with special needs and general education students. Our children deserve stability, continuity and learning
environment where they where they feel safe and secure. If the district truly stands by the statement that our children come first, then that commitment must be reflected in this decision. Keeping Dominito open is not just preferable. It is it is necessary for the well-being and success for our
children. Thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Katherine Mayfield. Um, our family chose to leave LA USD for PUSD last fall so that our daughter could start sixth grade at Blair. I also need my glasses. After years struggling to find our place in
overcrowded schools with low educational standards we found at LUSD, Blair has felt like the answer to everything we've been hoping for, but we're not able to find in our own district. We were excited to find an incredible learning environment and a small town feeling where teachers know and challenge my
daughter and we are excited to watch her grow. As with Blair, we are here at PUSD for the small size, close proximity to our home, the international bal laora, the irreplaceable community. We can get giant schools with everybody shoved in
together in our own district. Without Blair, there's no reason for us to stay. Thank you. >> Hi, I'm Gerald Hernandez. I'd like to thank the board for its 2025 decision on the $24.5
million budget reduction. I understand you're now looking at potentially downsizing some school facilities and would ask the board and it's something to look at uh a couple issues um and look and using AI to understand the
budget. uh it's given me numbers of 5.5 million to 10.5 million as the outstanding balance defined. So I'm hoping the school could identify if it's a low number or a high number. Uh part
of the reason for this is to understand what the value of a school closing will bring and that would be uh using my AI researcher on the web. It's telling me anywhere from 600,000 to a million
savings per school. It didn't define what type, just that amount. And also said an expected 4% savings, which I find kind of low. And I'm hoping that uh your consultant could fine-tune these
numbers to understand what type of savings could occur on uh closure, merging, or not opening a new school. And second, I would like the board to consider the long-term impact of housing
growth in the city. Uh recent state law, sir, >> maximize the development of by white Sir, when the bell rings, that means your time is expired. >> Thank you very much. And you have a copy of my letter. Byebye. >> Again, I'm going to ask you all to be
very u mindful of the time limit. We have a lot of speakers. We're trying to accommodate every one of you. Carol Hurt Hernandez, Rahan, He Montrunic. Okay. Good evening board members and superintendent Blanco. My name is Bobby
Gonzalez and I am a student activ. I am here to urge you and the SCAC if they are listening to do what is right for the long term, not just what feels right in the moment. I will say what many are thinking but what not enough are saying. This process is being
rushed. We understand that closure needs to happen. However, you are making decisions that will impact students, families, and entire communities for years to come. My concern is that those decisions are being made without complete and fully accurate information.
Observers and members of the SCAC are still identifying gaps and inconsistencies in the data presented while being asked to select the schools they want to save. And that alone should be a reason to slow down. These are permanent decisions. Once schools are closed, the impact cannot be easily
undone. Furthermore, the district is spending thousands on outdoor mediators to ensure the transparency, transparent and unbiased process. Yet, those mediators are working at the pace set by the district resulting in incomplete data and information. The district must
allow the experts to do their job without interference to to avoid serious concerns about bias that could undermine the credibility of this entire process. This leads to my next concern, transparency. If transparency is truly a priority, I respectfully request the
release of the names of all schools represented by each member in this seac so the committee can be assured that the process is a fair and unbiased. >> Good evening. My name is Carol Hunterandez and I'm on the city of
Pasadena's planning commission. I'm my grandson Hans Blair High School, but that's the not why I'm speaking tonight. I am looking at this as a different way of looking at the projects in the school district. In February, the planning staff provided the commission an update on major housing projects that are in
preliminary design review, conceptual design review, our design and of design review under construction. Um, and to provide the staff the document that they provided to us. This document shows that most of the new development
in the city is going to be south of the 210 freeway. That means that there's a lot of development and because of multiple state law which are affecting the production of housing passing building denser, taller and in some cases much more affordable housing which
means we are building family housing. And most for an example, currently there's two projects that are located on East Colorado Boulevard. One is at 214 units. The other is 148 units for a total of 452 units. However, affordable
housing developer does not need to provide parking. So that means all of your students that are going to be coming to the school district are going to have to find alternative means to get here other than having parents drop them off. They'll come by bus. They'll come by transit. They're going to come by scooter. They're going to have to get
around differently for the central district. That means >> your time is expired. Thank you. >> Wow. Hi, I'm Ann Matrunich, a PUSD parent and a Pasadena resident. Thank you for your service.
Blair is the I urge you to please keep Blair open and all the schools. Blair is the closest middle and high school to the metro train, the affordable housing being built along it, and the bus rapid transit line that will connect North Hollywood, Burbank, Glendale, and
Pasadena in 2027. Students ride trains and rapid transit free. Blair is the closest high school to the 1,800 homes planned for the 710 freeway stub. If Blair's IB program and its Armenian Academy moved or broke up, families
would leave PUSD for excellent independent schools. Blair allows students to test into their correct grade level in math. If Blair were to close, would students who are years ahead be required to repeat what they already learned and lose their love
of math? Uniquely, Blair is next to a park, a library, and an elementary school. Shuttering Blair would turn a vibrant area into an eyesore. Blair is the only PUSD managed high school south of the 210. Local residents invested $43
million in its 2011, 2018, and 2019 renovations. Keep Blair open to signal that PUSD serves all of Pasadena. Thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Rahan Hill. I teach all levels of transmanding at Pasadena High School and I want to talk
about the programs being cut in Pasadena High School tonight. Uh this cut doesn't just reduce manding program. They eliminate access to all students. For students who are interested in mentoring but not from the immersion program, mentoring one is the only entry point. Without it, that opportunity is gone
entirely. Now, when we look at the bigger picture, every neighboring high school offers comprehensive mentoring programs. If we eliminate ours, we we lose more students and families to other districts. Next year, with no French or no manding
in PHS, Spanish will become the only starting option for most students at PHS. That overload Spanish classes even more with over 350 incoming new students competing for seats just to meet graduation requirements. And not to mention that a new Spanish
teacher is also being laid off in the coming year. On a personal note, I'll build meaningful connections with my students, many of whom are planning to continue yet. I will be the one forced to leave them in the upcoming year. Our district website says that it wants to return to
a worldclass district. However, a world-class district is not defined by what it cuts. We cannot keep cutting the programs and schools that give students a reason to come and stay. When something isn't working, we don't remove it, we fix it. The reason decline
reflects a lack of outreach, not a lack of interest. And I'm ready to rebuild it. >> I'm asking the board tonight to give the program and the students a chance. Thank you. Heidi Gabaldo. Is there another Pedro Luna?
Nicola Borland and Lisa Collins. >> Okay, I'll keep reading in the interest of time and we'll come back to them when they get here. >> Martin Dorado. I don't see Martin. Nikki Aguilard, >> Robin Worhey,
>> Francis Milness, >> Good evening. My name is Heidi Garaldo and I'm a Aladina resident. I have two children at Blair and the third one joining in the fall. Um I have one in elementary school, middle school and high school. So 6 to through 12 works
for our family. Blair is unique is a unique 6 to 12 IB school. And research shows that IB programs increase college readiness, engagement, retention, and often outperform peers in college persistence and completion. Because Blair offers IB in middle school and
high school, it creates a long-term pathway that keeps families in PUSD along with the other wonderful programs it offers. Our family chose Blair for its IB program. And because it's the only high school that offers the Spanish dual immersion program if Blair is
consolidated, many IB families will leave. To keep the program going on a new campus, the majority of IB students need to remain in the program. And there is no guarantee this will happen, especially when we have Eagle Rock High School nearby offering the same program.
This means enrollment loss, not gain. Relocation, Relocating the IB program isn't cost-free. It requires trained staff, program authorization, specialized coursework alignment, and facility adjustments. You won't see the savings you you expect. You will disrupt
students like my son who would be forced to leave his senior year after enduring COVID not having a fifth grade promotion and walt walt by trauma. Blair is one of the most had the buildings modernized. Um just thank you so much and I urge you
please to not close any of our campuses. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hello. Good evening. My name is Karina Evans and I am a proud UTP member. We are here tonight to stand for safe, stability, fully staffed schools. This means supporting UTP's bargaining proposals in the four areas of health
and welfare, COLA, and salary, class size, and special education. You will hear public comments on each of these issues made by UTP members who are representing our memberships as a whole. Before sharing these comments with you, we thought it was pertinent to establish the UTP's positions fully align with USD
strategic pillars. Sorry, I'm going fast, but I only have a little bit. Learner focused instruction, outstanding and respected employees, quality learning environment, effective, responsive and accountable organization and collaboration with communities and families to increase trust. As you
listen to our comments about health and welfare, about cola and salary, about class size, and about special education, know that UTP's bargaining proposals are made this year and every year with the objectives of improving learning outcomes for our students, of recruiting
and retaining talented teachers, and of making our district stronger, stronger, and more attractive to families. We bargain in good faith in order to achieve these goals. Goals we know we share with district leadership. We urge that the board of to let PSD's strategic
pillars to be their guide to listen deeply to the comments made tonight and to instruct district leadership to engage with us in good faith at the bargaining table. Thank you. >> Can you fill a card up? I don't have my money. >> What's that? Can you fill a card out,
please? >> Oh, it was uh Julie Mlean and Topaz Lake. She lost her voice, so I spoke for her. >> Good evening. My name is Francis Milnness and I'm a parent of Amira
senior and a proud UTP member serving our students at Octavia E. Butler magnet. We are here tonight to stand up for safe, stable, fully staffed schools. This means supporting bargaining for
reasonable class uh size caps. When teachers teach five class periods, class size directly affects how much individual attention, feedback, and support they can give to students. Large class sizes at the middle school level
make authentic grading, meaningful feedback, and relationship building significantly more difficult. Large class sizes mean a teacher's energy is pulled away from engaging lessons and is more focused on managing problematic behaviors. It means that students miss
out on crucial learning either because there were too many kids in a science lab to actually use the fragile materials or because no one can possibly concentrate with a class size of 40 or above.
The needs of our students have only increased since the pandemic and the fires. Why make stu make teachers less able to meet those needs? Why make it harder for teachers to meet the standard strategic pillar three that students be
heard, valued, respected, and that their needs be addressed in a timely manner. Therefore, we call on the board to instruct district leadership to engage with us. We need to bargaining table. faith.
>> Good evening. My name is Lisa Collins and I and this is my health clerk, Omar Munoz. We're both at PHS and I am here to urge you to protect our health clerks who are essential to student health and safety in our schools. The proposal to eliminate five health clerk positions is
deeply concerning. Losing more than oneif of these trained staff members will significantly impact the care our students receive every single day. Although the title health clerk may suggest purely clerical duties, their role extends far beyond paperwork. Health clerks are often the only staff
members present in the health office as school nurses are responsible for multiple sites and cannot be on campus at all times. They are the first and sometimes only line of care for our students. Health clerks provides first aid, care for sick and injured students, assist with medication administration
under nurse supervision and m maintain essential health records. They are trained by school nurses to recognize warning signs and initiate emergency interventions, contacting the nurse immediately when additional medical care medical care is needed. This collaborative partnership ensures that students receive timely, appropriate,
and safe care every day. Imagine a six-year-old who comes to the health office with a persistent cough. there is no health clerk available. That child's care falls to the front office staff who are already managing full-time responsibilities. Someone without medical training might assume it's just
a cold and send the child back to class. But in young children, a cough can be the first sign of an asthma attack. A trained health clerk recognizes when something isn't typical. All right, I guess I'm short. So, I I'm I'm asking you that this is the safety of our children we're talking about. Please
consider. Thank you. It's good. All right. Good evening. My name is Morin Noble. I am a PSD parent. I teach fifth grade at Jackson Elementary and I'm a proud UTP member. We are here tonight to stand up for safe, stable, fully staffed schools. This means supporting our bargaining for
the annual cost of living adjustment. As the cost of living continues to rise, failing to provide a cost of living adjustment means our teachers are effectively facing pay cuts. California gives every school district cost of living adjustment funds every year. Why
don't teachers see a penny of it? Supporting our educators with adequate salaries is crucial for their livelihoods and for maintaining the quality of instruction in our schools. in accordance with PUSD's very own strategic pillar for effective, responsible, and accountable
organization. If a district is being financially responsible and honest about its expenses, it should be able to preserve educators purchasing power rather than using inflation adjustments to fund other priorities at the expense of the people doing the work. Advocating
for COLA not only supports teachers livelihoods but also helps maintain stability in instruction and community trust in our schools. Jumping to the end here, we call on the board to instruct district leadership to engage with us in the in good faith at
the bargaining table recognizing that the yearly cost of living adjustment belongs to the educators, not elsewhere in the district budget. Thank you. See you tomorrow. Good evening board members and Dr. Blanco. My name is Veronor Capara and
I've been a teacher for 12 years at San Rafael Elementary. I'm also a a PUC parent and a proud UTP member. We are here tonight to stand up for safe, stable, fully staffed schools. This means supporting bargaining for
reasonable class size caps. One of the most important factors for predicting student success is high quality teaching from a well-prepared teacher. But when we give teachers more student that they can reasonably attend to, we are setting up everyone
up for fail to fail. What does this look like at the elementary level? In these overcrowded classrooms, our youngest learners are easily overstimulated and less able to learn. Teachers can provide uh teachers in
democratic classroom teachers can provide less indiv individualized instruction. Student behavior is worse and everyone's sense of belonging suffers. This also affects teacher retention. Finally, oversized elementary classes are not in line with PSD is
strategic pillar three which says that students will be in schools every day in an environment that is safe, caring, clean, and conducive to learning. UTP's class size proposal at the elementary level is not only reasonable, it is also
completely doable. In light of this, we call on the board instruct district leaders to engage with us UTP at the bargaining table in good faith. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Ryan Flores and I am a proud UTP member and teacher at
John High School. We're here tonight to advocate for safe, stable, and fully staffed schools. And this includes supporting bargaining for health and welfare benefits. As healthcare premiums and medical costs continue to rise, passing these increases onto our educators not only reduces their
take-home pay, but also impacts their financial stability. When financial stress is a concern, it can hinder a teacher's ability to concentrate fully on their students. A teacher who is worrying about affording necessary medical care may find it challenging to
invest them in themselves in new curriculum development or after school programs. In accordance with strategic pillar 2, outstanding and respected employees to attract, value, and retain outstanding culturally diverse and qualified employees, we must ensure competitive benefits. This commitment
enhances our educators quality of life and fosters a strong and capable workforce within our district, allowing all students to thrive. Teaching is a challenging profession and imposes significant mental and physical demands on educators and to ensure our employees are heard, valued, and respected as
stated in strategic pillar 2. It is essential to provide support for their well-being through accessible and reliable healthcare. One effective way to alleviate some of the burdens educators face is by offering programs like the reduced workload option from Calsters. By allowing teachers to adjust their workloads, we not only support
their mental physical health, but can also contribute to reduce health and both our costs across the district. Let's work together to support our dis teachers and also save money. We call on the board and instruct district leadership to engage bargaining table in good faith. Thank you. >> Good evening, board. My name is
Elizabeth Nikki Aguular. I'm a UTP member. We are here tonight to stand up for safe, stable, fully staffed schools. This means supporting bargaining for a guaranteed compliance period for special education teachers. A compliance period is a scheduled time during the school day for special education teachers to
complete the legally required work behind each student's IEP. This may include filling out proper documentation, updating IEPs, preparing for meetings, holding IEPs, conducting assessments, co conferencing with other teachers, and coordinating services. The last time that I was up here, I told you
that I would tell you a bedtime story. This time, I'll tell you a scary story. With without this period, special education teachers must complete all of these tasks during one conference period. In addition to the many other duties teachers have, including grading pe grading papers and preparing lessons, all of the general education duties,
plus more. Our special education students depend on their case managers like myself to ensure that they are receiving all of the supports necessary for them to access their education. Many special educators simply do not have enough time in their day to execute these duties fully. I can attest to this. I I've worked an un I can't even
count the number of unpaid hours that I've worked outside to just complete the basic duties of my job. In addition of special education, uh this means that special education students have substitute teachers disproportionately more often than their general education peers leading to a lost learning and making it challenging for our students to meet their educational goals. I can
attest to that personally as well. I was one of those long-term teachers who was long-term subs in a special education position. I can I can talk to you about it. Come come see me at any time. Please bargain with us in good faith. Thank you all so much. Good evening. My name is Robin Worley.
I'm a proud OEB teacher and parent and UTP member. We are here tonight to stand up for safe, stable, fully staffed schools. This means supporting bargaining for case load caps for special education. In special education, the case load is the number of students whose IEPs and services a teacher is
responsible for managing. That means coordinating services, monitoring progress, preparing legal documents, communicating with families, and holding required meetings for each student. A case load cap would mean that teachers would have enough time to properly support each student. According to PSD's strategic pillars, all students are
entitled to a high quality education, and different needs require different levels of resources to achieve their potential. Students who depend on special education services deserve a teacher who has adequate time to address their unique needs and deliver the individualized instruction guaranteed in
their IEP. When the case loads are not reasonably sized, the student services either are not implemented with fidelity or become more generalized and less individualized. In addition, the teachers may experience burnout trying to meet the needs of their students. This district is constantly dealing with lawsuits, many of which stem from the
failure of the district to comply with mandated services. The cost of these lawsuits certainly exceeds the cost of limiting case load size. In addition, more students will be supported and be able to achieve their full potential. Our strategic pillars state that the students come first and that our
decisions are about what is best for them. We call on the board to instruct district leadership to engage with us at the bargaining table in good faith, recognizing the importance of reasonable case load sizes for special education teachers. Thank you. >> Good evening board. My name is Martin
Vado. I am a proud UTP member and I'm this year's teacher of the year. We are here tonight to stand up for safe, stable, fully staffed schools. This means supporting UTP's bargaining proposals in four areas of health and welfare, COLA, and salary, class size,
and special education. You have heard public comments on each of these issues made by UTP members who are representing our whole membership. I am here to tell you about my classroom and what UTP bargaining proposals mean for me and my students. I teach fifth grade at Madison
Elementary. I started the year with 36 students and currently have 29. Nine of those students have IEPs. 15 are English language learners. Five are newcomers. Many are economically and politically disenfranchised. In short, I teach some of the neediest students our district
serves, and it is my privilege to do so. However, one teacher's sense of commitment is not enough to mitigate the harmful effects of overcrowded classrooms and insufficient special education support. Teacher of the year awards ring hollow when we have to beg
for health and welfare benefits and cost of living adjustments. PSD strategic pillars say it plainly the students come first. Let's live up to our own words to our values. Let's take the necessary steps towards achieving safe, stable,
fully staffed schools. We can we call on the school board to instruct district leadership to engage with us at the bargaining table in good faith. That is two teachers of the year that are asking to do this. Two, >> put our students first.
>> Hello everyone. My name is Nicola and I'm a proud Washington Elementary STEM maget and Sam Raphael parent. Um, I don't need to tell you how great those schools are, so obviously don't close them. Uh to the board, I couldn't think of a worse job to not get paid for. But you all chose to do this job, which shows me that you've made a commitment
to do the work. And in the words of the great Whitney Houston, I believe the children are the future. Okay? That that should guide every decision that you make. The future of this school district must center on what's best for our kids. Those sitting in the classroom today and in 20 years. That requires more than
short-term decisions. It requires a clear shared vision. What do we want this district to be known for? What reputation do we want to build? I envision a district where schools work together, not against each other. No child should feel like they attend a less than school and no school should
carry a label that diminishes its value. We should be striving for every single school to be excellent without exception. When we come together with a shared vision, um, one rooted in equity and inclusion and opportunity, we don't just strengthen individual schools. We build a district that families trust,
students are proud of, communities rally behind, and teachers feel stable in. Please don't take all the information or please take don't do take do take all the information from the consolidation, the facilities, the budget. Put it all together. Get together and retreat. Put your differences aside and figure out
what the future of this is. Don't make any rash decisions. Thank you. The next speakers in Q are Max Garibaldo, Adrien Alvarez, Susanna Castro.
While I'm waiting for them to come forward, I'll keep reading. Rosina Hernandez, Sabrina Lewis. >> Hi everyone, my name is Sabrina Lewis and my daughter is in kindergarten at Don Bonito. Uh we are here today to ask
that you stop exploring consolidation of all schools and more specifically stop considering doonito for consolidation. Um the primary focus of these discussions should be the best interest of the children. Uh and we feel that
consolidation will cause confusion, trauma, hinder development and tear apart communities. I want to bring your attention to our story because our family moved from Silver Lake to Pasadena last April so that our daughter could attend Don Bonanito. We carefully
chose Don Bonanito after touring many schools including private schools. But we decided to support the public school system and support this district because of everything this community has been through in recent years. We chose this school thinking our daughter would be
here through fifth grade. We chose this school because of the diversity among students and teachers. We chose this school because of the location. We feel safe tucked away near the foothills. We love our Dominino community and we are here to fight for our school. Please do
the right thing. Consolidation will result in people leaving this community and leaving this district for our family. Personally, we have no incentive to stay in this district if our school is taken from us. the very school that we moved here to be a part of. Thank you
for your time. Good evening board members and PUSD community. My family and I have proudly been a part of this district for the past 12 years. We take an enormous amount of pride in our kids attending outstanding third grade Marshall. The
thought of our school closing is utterly heartbreaking. This is a school where students belong and thrive. They excel in the diverse opportunities ranging from ACI, AP, honors, bue sports amongst many others. The preente cohort only
allows 30 kids per school site. If our school closes, less kids will be able to participate in this beloved program. Quent is designed to help students graduate high school prepared, be college eligible, and enroll in college. This loss will also translate into
sports. The opportunity to play a sport will be cut in half. This will have a significant negative impact on students mental health. Our kids have already endured so much over the last few years. Enough is enough. I urge you to please keep all schools open. Put students
first. Thank you. >> Can you say your name, please? Um, I'm Lisa Santiago and Susanna Castro and I switched places. She went, she took my place earlier and I took her place now. Thank you. >> Uh, good afternoon. My name is Max
Garavaldo. I am a in 10th grade and I'm here today to speak about why Blair High School should not be shut down. As a student who has gone to Blair High School since it sixth grade, I can confidently say that this school means so much to me and my classmates. Blair High School for me is more than just a
building. It's a community. It's where students learn, grow, and make friends and prepare for the future. Taking Blair away would not just affect our education. It would affect our classmates as well as our lives. Closing Blair would hurt students in
many ways. It would force students to move to different schools which can be stressful and difficult. Not everyone adjusts easily to a new environment. Students would lose connections with teachers, friends, and programs that support them.
Blair means so much to families and students. Many of my friends, families have gone through so much to support to support Blair. I have heard so many amazing stories and have had so many amazing memories at Blair. Please keep Blair open.
>> Thank you. >> Um, good evening board members. I'm Adrian Albert Schwab and I'm here to explain why I believe Blair should not be closed down. Shutting down Blair will negatively impact the community. Some families choose to live in this area because of the school. Other families don't even live in Pasadena and still
choose to attend Blair. Losing Blair would leave a big gap that cannot be replaced. I can personally say Blair matters a lot to me. I'm a 10th grader and I will be in the Ivy program next year. I can also confidently say how important Blair is to my classmates and I. I began Blair I began going to Blair
in sixth grade in this Spanish dual immersion program. I have made many amazing friends in the community. Blair High School is the only high school in PC that offers Ivy program. This program gives students more challenging education and helps them get ready for college. If Blair closes, students would
lose this opportunity and have to go to another district to get it, which shows how important Blair is for people in Pasadena. In conclusion, Blair Blair High School matters. It matters to us students, families, and the entire community. Closing it would would be
more harm than good. I ask you to please consider the impact and choose to support and not shut down Blair High School. Thank you. Lisa Cruzie, Stephanie Scriber, Katherine Perkins. Good evening everybody. Thank you for
having us here and for hearing our voices. I am Lisa Cruzie. I'm the PUSD PTA council president. However, I want to make it clear. I am here tonight as a parent and as a community member. I live in Upper Hastings Ranch. We lost 80
homes there. Um, and I want to remind you all that throughout Pasadena Unified School District, thousands of homes have been lost. 40% have had permits pulled. Homes are being rebuilt.
I want to ask those of you who care about data to take a look at our absenteeism, chronic absenteeism has increased between 2019 and 2023 in Pasadena Unified School District by
14.2%. What do you think is going to happen to absenteeism? I don't have the data for since the fires. If you close more of our schools, what is really going to happen to our enrollment and to our
absenteeism rates? Because you're destabilizing our children. You have bragged to us about doing what's right for students and upsetting parents. Do you think that parents are here because we're sentimental about a building? No.
We send our children to buildings that you have been letting fall apart in spite of being given ample money to fix them. We are not here for sentimental reasons. We are here because we know our stability comments. Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Stephan, >> good evening. My name is Katherine Perkins. My daughter is in first grade at Don Bonito. We drive 20 minutes across Aladena to Don Bonito, a close-knit, supportive community where my daughter has flourished. It is a culturally and
socioeconomically diverse community that has enriched her experience in ways that go far beyond academics. A child who once hesitated to speak to teachers is now confident and engaged. That transformation is not accidental as the result of a dedicated and deeply talented group of teachers and staff who show up every day to support these
students academically, emotionally, and socially. But the fast past few years have not been easy for this community. After the fire, like so many, we were displaced from our home for months. During that time, my daughter also lost several close friends and neighbors. Loss has become a recurring theme for my
daughter and these students. I ask you not to add to that loss. I understand the realities of declining enrollment and budget pressures. I've worked in higher education for 20 years. But this moment, right now, is not the time for school closures. I urge the district to focus on assets it already has. Develop
a clear strategic asset management plan. Explore creative and sustainable revenue opportunities. Make meaningful use of properties that have been vacant since the 2019 closures. And ensure that sites lease to charter schools reflect appropriate market value. Our children have been through so much. School
closures are not just operational decisions. They are deeply human ones. They can retraumatize students, disrupt learning, and disproportionately impact the most vulnerable. For children who have experienced instability, community is not optional. It is essential. Don Boni Don Bonito is that community for my
daughter and her classmates. Thank you, >> Stephanie Scribner. And then our last speaker is Eddie Alvarez. But I was supposed to go at agenda item in one because there's a mistake on the card. >> Your card says during initial public comment at the beginning of the meeting.
>> Oh, okay. I will go now. >> Can I change it? I would love to change it. Thank you so much. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Eddie Alvarez. >> Mines are in the 7H also, but I can I can wait till that item. I think it's at seven.
Oh, it's on consent. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, I read that wrong. My apologies. Uh, uh, Eddie Alvarez, LAC Building Trades, uh, representing the 160,000 union construction workers from San Juan Capistano all the way to Lancaster and here in between in, uh, uh, Passina,
sorry. Um, I I just wanted to say uh, thank you to Madam Chair, Madam President, Superintendent, and the staff for well thoughtout negotiation, our community workforce agreement. Um, I ask you tonight uh, for an I vote with the amendment that that's been offered up. uh as a change because of language. Um
and we thank you and we look forward to a a a thorough partnership but not with just now with Pasadena Unified and the college uh and hopefully soon here with Pasadena City uh to put a lot of people to work that live in this community who used to who may have lived in this community not too long ago and are
trying to come back and we're going to make sure that things that are being built here in Pasadena uh and the surrounding areas are built with the best skilled and trained workforce in America. We're very proud of that and they live right here in the community. those dollars are recycled right back here in town. So, thank you very much. We ask for an I vote with a with the
amendment. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. We really appreciate your public comment and your input. And thank you, Trustee McKenzie, for your facilitation. We are now at the comments from recognized employee organizations.
If you could please keep your comments to three to five minutes. Good evening, Dr. Blanco and members of the Okay. All right. Um, so, uh, first thing I want to, uh, celebrate, uh, we had 668 ETP members
signed on to the petition to bring Proposition 55 renewal, uh, on the November ballot. We know that, uh, um, I appreciate that the SLT also signed on to that, which is great. Um, we have shared a resolution with PSD board to approve, uh, in support of the
renewal, and our members are awaiting being agendaized as soon as possible. Uh for reference, it covers about one in six 15% of our school funding and uh we don't want it to expire in 2030. Uh bargaining update uh you'll see on the agenda that we are opening salary,
health and welfare and hours for next year. Uh we also are going to be continuing to work on the uh special edou. Our current negotiations you've heard about today on salary, health and welfare and class size caps. I just want to uh contrary to what you've been told,
the class size cap cost is actually less than the cost of one of those 10 senior accountant positions. So just keep that in mind when you've been told that it was 11 or other other numbers. Um the maximum if things were not done
efficiently would be a cost of one of those senior accounted positions. Um on the contract management side, um we have submitted a level two grievance with regards to full-time librarians being at every single secondary site. The current plan and the riffs uh and
layoffs threaten that. Uh currently Mir is short for teachers according to the ratio. I just want to show you the math. 1242 students. The ratio is 29.75 to1. There should be 42 teachers. You're welcome to do that math on your own.
Only 38 were provided by HR. And so with the arbitration is in process. It's going to cost legal for us as well as the district. Um even though this is a clear violation and clear obvious math. Thank you. Um the LCAP consultation's
coming up. Um, I want to be clear that the frustration about the LCAP so far really is about every voice not being present and um, setting aside and not really allowing our uh, teachers and parents and community students to
actually be uh, tangibly working on the LCAP and only uh, giving comments that get responded to. Um and then on the topic of safe, stable, and fully staffed schools, uh in the first and in the second interim that
was submitted on March 12th, there were at most 50 UTP positions that were needed to be cut, uh from 811 down to 760. Instead, 135 have been given layoff notices. This is despite 20 resignations
and retirements, which likely means that 50 should go down to 30. Why is PSUSD laying off a hundred more teachers than they need to? And how does this help students? Central admin analysis on the other side. Currently, PSD has four central
office administrators uh those four positions that are paid a higher salary than the governor of California. In addition, there are nine central office administrator positions costing between 250 and 300,000 and 27 that are between 200 and 250,000. Overall, there
are 95 central office administrator positions, a total of $18 million costing an average of 180k. This for clarity does not include learns o uh occupational therapists, physical therapists or any site admin. We I we continue to ask that you invest
in our own special education professionals instead of wasting funds on outside contractors. Pay our special education professionals fairly for additional work to catch up instead of legal or contracted services costs. Many contractors have had to be trained by and then have their work fixed by UTP
members. Cut out the middle. Give our teachers the pay they that that they're ready to do that work. um we just need to pay them and we need to agree to pay them instead of pay an outside contractor and then pay the finders fee or whatever. So
um ELP so this is um between ELOP and attendance recovery for next year to preserve and or expand arts, music and PE experiences for students. We recommend that you use ELOP to fund arts, music, and PE teachers after the school day ends and or on Saturdays. The
ADA is able to be recovered in oneh hour periods at a time unlike what you might have been told previously. There just to note there are 20 million plus ADA available yearly for recovery. Um and so certainly whatever we can do to get that
money back would benefit our bottom line. So uh we can have the student experience our schools our school communities deserve. Collaboration and shared leadership with parents, students, educators, schoolboard administration
will lead to the best learning for our students. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Clarifying question. Did you send us this presentation? >> I will send it now. I didn't want to deal with other
>> any other Oh, CSCA. Good evening. Good evening, President Frederick, members of the board, Superintendent Doc, Dr. Blanco. Thank you for giving me the time and opportunity to be here this evening. I want to start by expressing my appreciation for the continued support
from the district. As a chapter president, I can honestly say my work is never done. Over the past several weeks, I have received numerous calls and emails from members who are facing layoffs. They are concerned about what the future
holds for them. Supporting each affected employee has been both a priority and a challenge for me. As I continue to address concerns across our our school sites, CSEA remains ready and willing to work together with the district to find solutions.
I also want to acknowledge Dr. Ganal and the human resource department for their support and responsiveness. It is truly appreciated. At the same time, I recognize that no single department can address every issue alone. This is why I'm asking our district
leadership team site administrators to partner with CSEA in addressing the concerns we are hearing directly from our members. These are some of the common concerns from instructional aids NBIS. Uh lack of clear roles definitions. Many
aids feel duties aren't clearly defined. They may ask to do clerical work instead of instructional support. Cover classes or supervise students beyond their jobs, beyond their job descriptions, handle discipline issues without proper
authority. Uh this can lead to confusion and being stretched to thin, inadequate training. Eight A10 behavior interventionists are often expected to support students with special education needs, behavior challenges, academic
interventions, but don't always receive enough training in areas like behavior management, IEPs, implementations, or deescalating techniques. Uh low pay and limited hours. This is one of the biggest concerns. Many a
part-time and don't get fully full benefits. Pay is often low compared to the level of responsibility. Lack of respect or inclusion. AIDS and BIS sometimes feel overlooked or undervalued, not included in staff
meetings or planning. In input about students isn't always taken seriously, treated as extra help instead of part of the education educational team. Safety concerns, especially for those working
in special education or behavior programs. Risk of being hit, bitten, or injured by students. Lack of proper support during escalated situations, not enough staff coverage when incidents occur,
inconsistent directions from teachers and adamant. Eight may receive conflicting instructions from different teachers. Little to no guidance on expectations. Lastm minute changes to assignments or schedules.
Workload and staffing shortages. When sites are short staff, eight are pulled to cover multiple classrooms. Uh less one-on- ones, less one-on ones, support for students, increased stress and burnouts.
communication issues, not being informed about students needs, behavior plans, or schedule changes, lack of communications between administrator, teachers, and aids. Many of these concerns can easily be addressed at the site level.
My role is to advocate for all classified staff, and I will continue working alongside the district to ensure our employees feel supported, respected, and set up for success. But most of all, we want to make sure that our students are safe at all times and they continue
to be su successful in their education. One more thing before I go. While I'm a must while I'm a Mustang fan, I'm sorry. One more thing before I go. While I'm a Mustang for life, I also want to recognize the incredible work done at Blair High School. Blair may be a
smaller school, but we consistently exceed expectations and that deserves to be recognized. our students, staff, and community thrive here. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you for that very detailed
feedback from your membership. I saw Dr. Canal taking notes and you're sending We have a copy of that maybe. >> Okay, thank you. Are there any other you um other employee organizations? Okay, thank you. I really appreciate
your feedback. Next item is the public hearing item J1. Oops. The governing board of the Pasadena Unified School District is now opening the public hearing for public input regarding the United Teachers of
Pasadena's reopener proposals for negotiations between the United Teachers of Pasadena and the Pasadena Unified School District for the 2627 school year. Anyone wishing to comment either verbally or in writing may do so at this time.
Are there any additional comments? Hearing none, the public hearing for input regarding the United Teachers of Pasadena's reopener proposals for negotiations between the United Teachers of Pasadena and the Pasadena Unified School District for the 2627 school year
is now closed. Item K, student board member report. Trustee Lee. Thank you, President Frederick's, esteemed board members, Superintendent Blanco, and PSD leadership team for your continued contributions and dedication
to PSD students. Students are looking up to Dolores Horta and the other women who bravely came forward to share their stories. We need to look at the broader issue of sexual assault in the United States, especially relating to students. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center found that in 2021, 11% of high
school students were coerced into sexual interactions. This is a very serious issue that cannot be overlooked. and PSD student think tank is about to publish a book titled The Learning Curve in which a few PSD students write about sexual assault. We hope that the district will continue to make schools a safe
environment by giving all students access to resources, reporting system systems, and education. We need to make sure that all students feel safe and that they have a voice. More than 150 pink slips have been sent out to teachers these past few weeks, and it is weighing heavily on students. We empath
empathize with the teachers and staff who are now looking for positions elsewhere. Many teachers that have made significant differences to students education have gotten these slips. The uncertainty surrounding staffing heavily impact students in regards to morale and the stability of classrooms and learning
environments. We know that there has been a list of schools that are no longer facing the threat of school consolidation. However, we still believe that school closure at this time is not a good idea. Students well-being will significantly decrease if their school closes. Having fewer schools means less opportunities for
students because there will be fewer spots to participate in sports, student government, musical theater productions, and there will be less academic opportunities. When deciding whether to close schools, the number one priority should be the students and student outcomes because the students will be impacted the most. We also wanted to let
you know that our team alongside the student think tank is preparing for our second youth conference on April 15th. Our members across four high schools have started fundraising in spring 2025. Following the EN fire, we are fortunate to have the downtown LA Sheran host the conference and provide space and food at
no cost. This year, Pasina City College has generously offered space to us. We are now raising money to cover costs for PCC staffing and food. Our conference titled Leaders of Progress: Cultivating the Next Generation of Trailbrazers will bring students from all PSD high schools together to learn from one another and
become future innovators. We appreciate any means of support to make sure that we have a successful and impactful conference. Despite these challenging times, there are many positive things going on in the district. Congratulations to all the students honored for their writing and artwork at Thood Marshall annual women's history
day event. Tomorrow evening, Octavia E. Butler Middle School will host their annual science fiction festival. And last week, P the PD art department launched their annual No Boundaries expedition. Currently, there are many high school campuses that are putting on very impressive musicals. Thank you.
>> Wonderful. Thank you for your report. Are there any clarifying questions? >> What is the date of the conference for the think tank? >> Um, it's on April 15th. >> And you don't know where it's going to be yet? >> It's at PCC. >> Okay. Thank you.
Any other clarifying questions? >> All right. Great. Thank you for that report. Now, we're going on to the staff presentations. a strategic plan summary with Dr. Chan Hill. Due to the extended public comment,
we're about on track for 10:30 end time. Okay. Good evening, uh, board. I'm going to attempt to create a screen share. Just a moment. Um I'm here tonight to present a uh the
public facing um strategic plan summary that has been long awaited. Um I wanted to provide some context um since obviously uh sitting with all all the public comments that have come across it's very evident that our community and our colleagues are attentive to the
strategic plan pillars that we have adopted and that we are uh working um pretty heavily on on the daily basis toward. We have um been uh committed to providing the community uh improved communication about our progress and the
work that we are doing. And I wanted to give credit to Mr. Chris Carbone, our um data coordinator, who is the programmer behind the design that you're about to see. Um it is uh an iteration that we were able to um beta test with staff
with um parent groups and a variety of other input um providers before unveiling this to the public. But I want to share that um we did receive uh some feedback that will allow us to be able to continue to improve it as it goes.
So, we are excited to share with you the opening product. Um, but know that whatever um feedback that you provide to us, we will do our best to to see how we can improve that for the um the public. So, as a reminder, uh I won't read them.
We've heard them throughout this evening already. Our five strategic pillars are um are those that we map everything to. This next um slide is what I utilize in many is to talk about the alignment of
how we get those um get the job done. How do we meet those pillars? So we know that the strategic plan lays that out. The implementation documents that uh the staff use here are really captured in the red and the lighter blue and that
would be the LCAP uh as well as the school and department plans. Each of those has various components, but all of those are um essentially the actions that are taken by schools and district teams in order to actualize anything that is described
in the pillars. So, what you're going to see, this presentation is really a um just a little bit of a showcase of the components of the dashboard. And uh my hope had been to be able to screen share the live dashboard with you, but I will probably just have to give you the URL.
So, um you can explore on your own. Uh but when you go to the live URL um that I'll give you at the end of the presentation, you'll see essentially uh this this snapshot um you'll you'll see uh a screen that says ROSE, which is reporting on student excellence. That's
just the acronym that we use when we look at our data. Sorry. And then you'll see at the bottom that there are um options to review information about each of the pillars. Each pillar will have what we call the
banner component which essentially just summarizes what that pillar says in a succinct way. Then there's an overview component that gives you a very short summary of recent progress and key strategies that have been used, meaning actions that were in
the LCAP um or other plans that are helping to actualize the pillar in uh because the pillars are all very different. Depending on the context, you might actually have hyperlinks embedded as well that will take you either to the LCAP for more information or to other
interactive dashboards um that give you um the ability to sort data. And then finally um there is a visualization component. Now all key metrics that are um described in our
plans are not visualized in this particular dashboard. key metrics were selected that could give us a universal understanding of what um what the progress might be. So for example, this is pillar four which is the effective organized um responsible organization
and um uh the feedback around the actions that we would take would be to improve service delivery and response time for employees as well as for the public. Um and so one metric that is being displayed is our um ticket
completion and work order completion. This is both in its around technology and in maintenance, operations, transportation etc. And so um that is essentially the number of tickets received versus the number that are completed. Um
we did also learn um that for example uh its technology tickets that the average is at about 17,000 tickets per year and so the team the help desk team the repair technicians etc um work to respond. We don't yet have data on response time but that is something that
others have spoken about. So, as you can see, we're providing a snapshot of some data that can share um or paint that picture for us, but there are definitely other layers of the data that we would like to be able to display eventually. Um so, with that, I'm going to read out
loud the URL. Um and if you would like to explore, um I and we can provide that update later, it is dashboard.pusd us. And my encouragement would be to start with pillar one. There are two
interactive features that um that Mr. Carbone included for us to review past data and our interim benchmark I Ready data um all uh aligned to the board's academic priority goals. So, we hope
that uh in time that this strategic plan summary becomes a uh one-stop shop for community members to get a general overview of what uh what our actions have been and what our progress is throughout.
You ready for questions? Any questions or comments? Trusty Harden, >> I want to thank uh Chris and and the team for uh really hard work in getting this together. I think it's it's going to move us in a direction of
transparency and accountability um and and how we're living out the mission of the strategic plan. Uh just a quick question. I I think this I was in the LCAP pack meeting and I think this was sort of brought up in terms of um uh
some markers in your visualizations about a baseline or an initial target and then where the ultimate target is and and if there are any interim meas you know targets along the way would be helpful in these these um these uh
visualizations and is that is that planned for sort of the next version I guess. >> Yes. In cases where we were able to input what the the goal was where it included the baseline and then the end goal if it was a multi-year goal, we
went ahead and input included that in the uh narrative around the visualization. Uh but not every one of the metrics is something that was laid out in such a manner and so we are still um working to make sure that we get that information in one place.
>> That's great. And you know I think uh the and looking at the actual dashboard and so you know tying the recent progress and the key strategies um and maybe is there a plan to put any
kind of um action I remember there were some actions late sort of related to some of the objectives stated in the strategic plan so I know last year there was some development of a you know beginning of the development of a road
mapap so maybe I know if that's planned for as well that would be you know you have strategies but what are tied actions to those >> so for the tied actions we actually did link to the LCAP the LCAP is the implementation document so I would um
you know share with the public that the actions that are laid out in our LCAP is is what we would refer to we can certainly there's a there's a hyperlink I was able to get it on this board um there is a hyperlink here >> I know the LCAP is a dense document so we can work to maybe summarize ize that
in a in a section below the strategies. And is there plan to maybe indicate where in some areas where you know we I remember when we got the interim the interim report uh interim goals report there were areas of growth >> or where we need to
>> we haven't quite hit the target but we're working on it and so maybe if there's a plan to do that >> I would guarantee you when we haven't hit the target we are always working to continue to hit the target so yeah >> but yeah identifying where there's pain points that we could that we need to
really redouble our efforts to >> pain points >> sort of improve >> to include that on this dashboard. >> Yeah, possibly, you know, because obviously you're showing a lot of success, but also potentially showing this is where we need to redouble our efforts. >> Trusty Harden, um we're just at this
point we're just presenting and understanding where they are and um ideas to push the scope is something other than what we're doing right now. So, >> okay. Well, I I think I'm got what I
need. Thanks. >> Thank you. Um maybe I can share an uh illustrative example. One of the uh items that was included based on the feedback includes a hyperlink to go to the CASP results which will take you to an interactive dashboard that allows you
to sort by school, grade level, etc. what is provided in the dashboard itself or our summary. Oh, oops. Apologies. This is now hidden behind my screen. Let me bring this down
though is um the the goal of the um of the board around the CASP. So yes, it does allow for parents or the community
to say we understand that the board's goal in 2030 is 75%. I'm sorry that that screen is so small. Um we are currently 27 points away with a target of adding or increasing by five points per year to stay on pace. So that is a different way
maybe to frame how much more we need to go. So um I'm happy to have a conversation around maybe if that isn't descriptive enough. Um, but essentially that's how we would see being able to know what our target is and then to be able to sort through what the current
status of that data is. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> I I have a question. Um, so this is not a compliance like our district doesn't have to have a dashboard, correct? No, this is just
something a tool that we created. Mr. Combone created >> and um no other district has something like that. >> Districts may uh there are districts that do have various presentations of either summary reports or dashboards
that are interactive or um just posting of public data and information. We've tried different iterations of that. that we do have um some static data reports that that live in our IT um data subgroup. But this was our attempt um
through you know guidance from the board as well as from the community to be able to be not only more transparent but to allow for something to be a little bit more summarized because we know that our planning documents are quite dense. >> I think this is this looks easier than
it actually took to the work that got put into this. I'm sure. >> So, um, so I really appreciate the effort that, um, Mr. Carbone and maybe his team put into this, maybe himself.
Um, so who would be the users of this? Would it be day-to-day or sort of a periodically usage of this? >> Oh, that's a good question. Uh, sorry for not mentioning the data is not updated every day. This is a lot of this data is sumitive either end of year or
one snapshot in time. The interim data does get updated three times a year. >> Um I will say that uh in terms of internal users, there is a staff dashboard that our principles and counselors currently have access to that
is updated um on a more frequent basis because it includes information like student grades and other performance metrics that wouldn't be available to the public. >> Thank you, Jesse Velasquez. So there are some when I go and click
into all the areas there are certain areas that say zero. Does that mean that the information is not there yet or >> can you give an you mean the student data? >> Yeah. When I'm going I'm going uh school by school looking at all of the I ready
there's a lot of categories that say zero. So, >> oh, zero may mean not assessed or no students in that group were assessed, but I can check on which specific one. >> Yeah, it would be nice to know >> which one of the two it means.
>> Is that something we can alter? >> Yes. Yeah. >> Yeah. No, I know the high school one's confusing, too. >> So, yeah. So when you click on the I ready results and it'll take you to that
tool which will allow you to um create filter the results and so the way it works here is that in our diagnostic we have three diagnostics and all the students we have a short window of the
diagnostic that the students must test and so um all the students that have tests within that window will be displays. And so as you scroll down to the bottom and if you build your so this tool allows you to um create an aggregate and
filter the results by however way you want to because there's many different ways that you may want to disseminate the data. So um as you can see right here so depending on how you filter the results may render a zero result as no
some of those students may not have been tested and it also depends on the particular uh diagnostic. For example, if you select if you're looking at uh kindergarten kindergarten has only been diagnostic for D1 and so they're diagn
they only have two diagnostics per year. So if you select D2, you're not you're probably not going to see much data for them because they haven't tested because they're like I said, they've only been they only have two diagnostics. So I would recommend and this I mean this is it's it's very nuanced and but uh
nonetheless we decided to provide this this tool for uh users to uh peruse and and view the data however they see and compare it to the uh to the goals. So you can, you know, >> I understand. So for example, I'm right
now longfellow. I selected Hispanic and English learner only because they're the first choice, right? >> Okay. >> And then I I I open it up and it says zero, for example, third grade, 00 for English, zero for math. It says fourth grade. It has a number for English. It
doesn't have a number for math. So what it would be useful is to say it's a zero because they haven't taken the test or because they're none in the like an expl like a like a little bar of >> you scroll down to the bottom. There's a table there that shows you that the
number of students who were assessed. So I have I provided a a detailed table down there at the bottom that pres that shows you the number of students who were assessed and the number of students that are proficient per grade level based on um the filtering that you selected. So in that case the zero means
zero zero students are in math proficiency. >> Well how I guess I don't know what thing that you did but if you looked at the student there's there's there's several columns there and there's a column that says >> students math tested >> and there's one ELA tested.
>> So you have that's your denominator, right? So and so based off the number of students that are proficient that would be that would be the numerator. >> Got it. Thank you. it it I just want to say thank you very much in spite of what
my line of question might suggest I'm actually very grateful for having this information so thank you for it >> but I that is noted one of the um we didn't h uh we added this um sorter this tool um based on feedback that we just
received last week um all of the other beta tests and groups that we gone to had not actually suggested something like this so so there are different steps that we want to include. Meaning, for example, high school does have some confusing um look at the data because you need to know at what uh levels they
do assess because they don't know all assessed universally. And then same thing with kindergarten uh like the description Mr. Carbone was saying. So, we can um work on including some of that explanatory context. Um but I think in the effort to to make good on this feedback, we wanted to make sure that
this was available and we'll provide more context as we go. Any other questions or comments? >> Congratulation for this accomplishment. This is a good milestone. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Carbone, and for all the
feedback and guidance from Christina Turley and her team as well. So, we'll keep working on >> Thank you. All right. Next item is the district bond program and potential refunding
opportunity. Dr. Canal and Mr. Stop. >> Uh, good evening. I was asked to keep this presentation to less than 10 minutes. So, I'm going to shoot for five and see how we do. So, Um,
let's go. You have copies. Um, let's go jump ahead to page five. I'm going to put this as simply as possible. What we're trying to do is uh is refinance outstanding debt of the district and in
doing so lower the cost to taxpayers. Now, when bonds are sold, they're sold in series. As you can see on page five, these are all the series that are outstanding. When a bond is sold, it has what is called call protection. What that means is there's a certain number
of years when the bonds can't be refinanced. And typically that's about 10 years. If you look at the far right hand side of the page, right hand column, you can see the date that has the first optional prepayment date. So
the two that are in yellow highlighted are bonds that can now be refinanced. They can be called and refinanced at this point in time. Not available until really it says August, but that's available three months prior to August.
So it can be done by May of 2026. The second piece of the puzzle which is not on a slide is that when bonds are sold they are not sold the interest rates are not set similar to mortgages where you pay one interest rate for the
entire mortgage they are sell sold by years in maturities. So there'd be one year maturity, two-year maturities, 12 year maturity, etc., etc. Each one has a separate interest rate. And the earlier maturities have lower interest rates
typically than the later maturities. And if you ever heard the term yield curve, that's what they're talking about. There's a curve of those interest rates. So the bonds that were sold 10 years ago were now 10 years into it. Those have
those have had higher interest rates than the ones that had one year and two-year maturities. But now when we refinance them, we're going to have one year and two year and threeyear maturities again. So we have lower interest rates. So by taking those lower interest rates
and applying them to the two series of bonds that you see on page five, we can produce substantial savings and we can allocate that savings in a couple of different ways. We anticipate savings
in excess of $10 million. If I can get you to turn to page eight, those savings can either be allocated proportionally. So every year whatever those savings are a small amount goes back to the taxpayers. Or you can look
at it in a different way and say no we want to maximize those savings. We want to pay off the later bonds which are going to cost more and the savings would be for future generations. I'm indifferent as to which way you go but those are the alternatives.
That is pretty much the presentation. On the last page I have two more things to mention. One, it would take um board action and we plan would be we'd come back to the board in April for um for
approval. Three things. Two is the costs associated with doing this refinancing are all are all built into the transaction itself. And so if for whatever reason the transaction doesn't happen, it's not going to be any cost to the general fund. Um, and the third is I
would anticipate a question regarding what's going on with interest rates. If I only knew, wouldn't that be great? Um, but um, yes, I would anticipate rates are going to continue to rise a little bit. You can see on the timetable on page 10. We are not planning on uh,
pricing this until the middle of June, which traditionally interest rates begin to fall because of tax payments being made in April and then people are done and the rates begin to fall. um in May and June. We'll see if that happens this year. If it doesn't happen and for some
reason we deem that this transaction doesn't make sense, then we put it on the shelf. Hopefully, interest rates then change within some period of time and come back and do it then. So, with that, I don't know if I made five minutes, but I'm happy to answer any questions.
>> Four minutes. Trustee Velasquez, >> is it possible you know how When you buy a house, you secure like a a window for the interest. Can we is it possible for us to do an
approval within a window of um if the interest doesn't exceed this amount and if it's higher than no and if it's low I what I'm concerned about is how long it takes for us to see this and approve it
and for us to miss a window for a good interest rate. I'm sure I wouldn't do it as interest rates, however, I would do it as savings. Um, so if you go back to page uh what was it? Page five, I believe
is a good example on the pre previous page, page nine. So the savings right now are really fairly substantial. Um, you might say, however, we want these savings to be at least $7 million. I made that up. $6 million,
$5 million, 10, whatever that number is. Yeah, you have the ability to do that. And that way, um, if it's not there, then we wait and hope it comes back. >> Again, my concern is that by the time we come here and go through the process
again of approval, then, you know, we might lose the window. But >> Oh, I don't think I don't think you will. >> Okay. >> I don't think that. I think the bigger potential is we're stuck in higher interest rates for a while. Um, and it's
going to take longer to get there. That's my fear. But I do think you get yourself prepared and if it's there, then take the opportunity. >> Yeah, >> that's that's >> right. >> Trusty Ali. >> Hi Dale. >> So you talked about two choices. One,
money would go back to the taxpayer. No, in both cases the money goes back to the taxpayers. It's only which taxpayers, >> right? Can you explain that to me? >> Um, sure. If you look at slide um eight, the orange in this case are the savings.
And so in that case, the savings go back to the taxpayers that are paying the bills for the next 10 years or so. The alternative is we take all of those savings and we structure this so that we're reducing the debt at the farthest
end. And if you've ever, it's just like if you go to refinance your loan and they say, "Well, would you like a 10-year loan or would you like a 15-year loan?" You know, and the price goes up the farther out you go. So, they're more expensive and we can get greater savings if we take all the savings at the end.
However, those savings then are only for the sa for the taxpayers. In this case, in the year 2000 2036, the savings are greater to. So the question is, well, which taxpayers do you care about? Is it the taxpayers today or is it the taxpayers over the life of the financing? Yeah. And there's no right
answer to that, >> right? We care about all of them. >> Yeah. Well, >> so this is a decision we'll make at a later date. >> You can give guidance uh and give guidance to the to the superintendent and the CEO. There's nothing in the resolution that's going to that's gonna going to draw that.
>> Thank you. Hold on. Trusty Kenny has a question. >> Hi. Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> I have two questions. one is I noticed that on some of the slides it talks about an assumed
assessed value um of I'm sorry annual AV growth and on your slide for assessed value you showed the very low growth last year in or 2026 was 003 and I don't know if that's a
partial year if that's related to the fire so are we saying we expect the assessed value growth to can to go back more to the old numbers. Is that what we're saying? >> Yes. Yes. That one year in 2026 is uh
due to the fires and we do expect it to go back and even the numbers that we've used as assumptions are far below what the average has been for the last five or 10 years. But yes, that is okay assumed to be a one-off. >> All right. And then someone had said
something about us maxing out on our ability to do bonds and and this is where I get a little confused and I know it's related to the assessed value. Are we I don't think we're in danger of not being able to issue bonds but are we
able to have new bonds new bonds after measure R? >> Yes. Um there are there are some statutory um limits in the amount of debt that a district can have
outstanding. You aren't near that. And when you do get near that, there are waiver procedures that allow you to still issue the debt. Um but no, you have the ability to issue debt. >> All right. I just want to make sure we weren't mute. Thank you.
>> Does anybody else have a question before I call in trust? Velasquez, >> as I understood it, you asked for a preference, and my preference would be to give uh relief to the test players
currently, not wait until the end of the just that recommendation. further comments or questions? Um, I'm looking at the timeline. Is there a difference in uh condensing that timeline or expanding
it or is this sort of this is the formality of the process? >> That's pretty much the process. There's things that have to be done prior to getting the resolution to you. Then after the resolution is passed, there has to be ratings received. You wouldn't want to get the rating if you're not
going to go because then you're going to have to pay for it. So it's that is pretty much the process. So we can speed it up a little bit. If things look like they're going well in the market, we can slow it down, but it does take uh two or three months.
>> Okay. Trustee um >> did I hear you say that the cost of the transaction comes out of our general fund? No, the opposite. The transaction costs of the transaction come out of the transaction and the cost the savings that I've shown tonight are net of those
costs. There are no costs payable out of the general fund. >> Good question. And what is coming back at the next board meeting? Then >> a resolution authorizing the refinancing. >> Okay. All right. Any other questions?
Do we need a consensus is the question. >> No, this is a report only. >> Okay. Report only. Okay. I think that's all. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Scott. All right. We are speeding through. Um
item M1, approval to award contract to Verdantas Incorporated for indoor environmental testing services at Altadena Arts Magnet following the eaten fire. Mr. Dunning, do you have to present anything?
Okay, I think presentation then the public Mr. Dunning first you want to summarize Oh, okay. But be available for questions if you have if we have any, I guess.
All right. Um, public comments. How many do we have? I think we have to stick with the one and a half minute. There's seven speakers. Stephanie Scrier, Molly Dodge, Jenny Rodriguez.
>> My name is Stephanie Scribner and I have two children at Altadena Arts Magnet. First, I would like to thank the PUSD facilities committee for acknowledging the need for additional testing for toxins related to urban wildfires at our Altadena campus and district leadership for placing the proposed contract for
testing on the agenda today. Our school community has been highlighting the need for both porous item removal and comprehensive testing beyond the initial testing for Ashlin and char for about 10 months now. So I would like to be able to support a yes vote on this contract. But I do have some concerns. The Vantis
proposal states that testing will occur in representative subset of locations and quote from various surfaces including hightouch surfaces such as desks and common area workts and inaccessible surfaces including elevated surfaces such as the top of cabinets or shelves. This contradicts what is
written in the board report staff analysis where it states sampling locations will be selected based on exposure potential and site conditions. It is not possible to determine which desks and workts have exposure potential because the site and carpet has been cleaned. So furniture that was closer to
a door having higher exposure potential has been moved around. Inaccessible areas like the top of cabinets are not high-risisk or hightouch areas. The proposal fails to address the complexities of the testing carpet despite the fact the majority of classrooms are covered in carpet. It is not enough to test. The testing needs to
be done correctly. The focus of sampling needs to prioritize the exposure potential of surfaces within six feet of exterior openings. This includes hard floor beneath carpets, horizontal surfaces directly above doors, and the HVAC ducting. Thank you. >> Thank you.
Hello trustees and district leadership. My name is Molly Dodge and I'm grateful that Dr. Blanco has changed her mind about testing Alstina. Aligning with Assembly Member Harbedian and his new piece of legislation is also aligning
with families. However, it is notable that to many of us, the contract for this work is for, excuse me, with the firm Verdantis, the very firm that the district hired last year as experts to inform all of us that
testing Altadena was not warranted. It's also notable to many of us that only through a records request did we see the visual inspection report conducted by Envirro's certified industrial hygienist conducted on
February 5th, 2025 and that states obvious signs of combustion byproducts settlement quote charlike and ashlike in appearance was observed on horizontal surfaces throughout the inspected areas of the
property. The most significant presences were observed near obvious entry points, parentheses, doors, windows, side vents, etc. End quote. I hope this contract is approved this evening with votes from all the trustees who care so much about
the well-being of our children. Please note that our community expects to see the full results of this testing. We also expect that the certified industrial hygienist from Verdantis will create a full picture with the environment envirro documents from last
year. >> Hi. Uh my name is Jenny Rodriguez. I'm a parent of an Altadena Arts magnet second grader and an incoming TKER next year. First, I'd like to thank the board and the superintendent for considering testing of the school and please do vote to do that. I own a standing home in the
burn zone that was rented at the time of the fire, which means I've been in a lot of discussions about remediation. What I've learned based on these many discussions with experts and others in this situation who've talked to experts, um, is that the most scientific way to handle remediating for s, ash, and char
is to test that debris to determine first how to clean and remediate. The Calaver campus was cleaned without knowing what the debris was made up of. If we're lucky and the cleaning thoroughly removed heavy metals such as
lead from hard surfaces, now there's no way to know what initial test data would have shown. Many experts recommend when heavy metals are found in ash and char to discard all soft goods. They say these things cannot be properly cleaned. So now that we're no longer able to
definitively say whether toxins were in the debris, we need to either get expert recommendations on what to do without that data or just do what they are likely to recommend and remove all soft goods, including carpet, in order to guarantee safety for our children.
Please address this quickly. My four-year-old daughter will be very likely to have her hands and face on the carpet. And if soft goods are not removed, I feel as a concerned parent that my only choice is to place her elsewhere. Thank you.
>> Chris Henley, Laura Sean, Secon. I'm sorry if I'm not saying your name correctly. >> My name's Chris Henley. Good evening. Wow, 90 seconds sure does go quickly. So, I'm going to kind of adjust where we were going here. I think uh good place
to start is to to thank all you guys for your time. uh the not an inconsequential amount of effort goes into being here so it's appreciated. Uh the school district itself is is deeply appreciated. My daughter's in kindergarten and uh I think testing the school is important. So I I I really do urge a yes vote on
this and and I'm I'm here because I yeah I have a I have a special concern. Um and and my special concern I think is the same that a lot of people would would would uh kind of echo here. As a parent of a kindergartener I've I've started uh getting better at doing laundry. paint, coffee, obviously not
from my kid, but I'm a klutz. I spill coffee. Uh, all sorts of things get spilled on clothes. Uh, my wife and I went shopping for uniforms at the beginning of the year, and we bought equal numbers of white, light blue, and dark blue, and my daughter's been relegated almost exclusively to the dark blue ones because I've been unable to
keep the white ones clean for more than a day, and the light blue ones not really for more than a week. Um, I would posit to you that if you tested my daughter's shirt that was obviously spaghetti stained and you wiped the the top off it after I'd already oxy cleaned
it and done whatever I had done, that probably that test would likely come back negative for spaghetti. Um, and that really it's it's not that we're talking about spaghetti or coffee or paint. We're talking about lead. We're talking about potentially dangerous
things for kids that in a surface test you're you're not gonna you're not going to see that. >> Thank you so much for your >> the shirt needs to go. Anyways, thank you all. Appreciate you. >> Laura San, am I saying your name correctly? >> Sahan.
>> Good evening. My name is Laura Sahan. Am parent of two and a data scientist. I'm grateful the conversation has shifted from whether to test our school to how to test it. My family lost our Altadena home in the fire and we are actively rebuilding. As we prepare to move back into our rebuilt home this summer, I
want nothing more than my children to return to AM Calaveris this fall. But that can only happen if we get this testing right. After consulting with multiple experts, I want to share what makes testing meaningful. A thoughtful sampling strategy that targets where
contaminants are most likely to enter and where students and staff are most likely to be exposed. Specifically, sampling should prioritize high contact surfaces within six feet of exterior openings, such as hard flooring beneath carpets and horizontal surfaces
directly above doors, as well as HVAC ducting, which is critical for assessing recontamination risk. By contrast, placing limited samples on inaccessible areas far from openings like the tops of high cabinets, would not reflect real world exposure and would undermine the
value of the testing itself. Transparency and reporting is equally essential. Test results, CI reports, and recommendations should be shared with the AM community promptly and in full. Interpretation matters here. Combined exposures where multiple contaminants each fall slightly below individual
thresholds, but together pose a cumulative risk, require careful analysis that families deserve to see and understand. We ask for a testing approach that reflects these realities. Our children's health and the future of our school depend on the integrity of this process. Thank you. >> Thank you.
Grandar. >> Good evening. My family is grateful to be part of PUSD and the Altadine Arts Magnet School community. Uh I want to thank the district for the cleaning that was done last year and for reviewing this proposal tonight as we prepare to return to the Calaveris campus. Given
the uniqueness of the campus, its location, the level of activity it was exposed to during cleanup operations, and the length of time that has passed, I fully support approving testing for recontamination and settling. However, it is important for the board to understand the context of this test.
This is not a standard pre-mediation test. The site has been cleaned and disturbed, potentially recontaminated over time, uh, and had a year of settling. The value of these test results will depend entirely on the sampling details. Before testing begins,
a detailed and properly comprehensive sampling strategy should be identified, one that answers questions about areas that are particularly vulnerable to this type of recontamination, like HVAC ducts, which were not specified in the contract. There have been questions about carpeting specifically, and
experts have recommended removal. This contract strategy cannot provide data to the contrary. Let's trust the experts. Once the contract is approved, the testing details should be documented and reviewed by multiple independent sources so we can move forward with confidence and peace of mind. Thank you for your
time, your service, and dedication to our children's safety. >> And then the last speaker on this item is Del Reyes. >> Hi, my name is Delia Reyes and I have also students at Aladina Arts. Um, good
afternoon members of the board. First, uh, I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude for your support you have shown in the Altadena Arts Magnet School community after the Eton fire. Your decision to relocate a school gave us our families a sense of safety and
stability during a very uncertain time. Today, I came not only with gratitude, but also with a sincere request. Please vote yes to conduct the necessary indoor environmental evaluations so that children can safely return to the Cala's
campus this incoming school year. I also ask you strongly consider replacing carpets and other pest materials such as fabrics that can sharp smoke particles and harmful contaminants. My family was one of the fortunate ones. Our home did
not burn but even so we have to throw away couches, mattresses, blankets and clothing because the small the smell of smoke would not go away even after washing them multiple times. As a family, we did everything we could to create a safe environment inside our
home for our family. And that is why this matters so deeply to us. If we took those steps to protect our children at home, we're asking you to help us ensure that same level of safety that school. Our children spend
so many hours in those classrooms. They deserve to learn in an environment that is not only welcoming but truly safe. Thank you so much. >> Thank you for your comments. Um we have on on the WebEx the
contractor Verdant. Correct. And Mr. Dunning. Would you like to introduce them? >> Yeah. Uh with us tonight we have Andrew Schmidt. He's uh that with the subcontractor that's going to be doing the actual physical testing at the site.
And we also have uh John Martin uh that will be um the the certified industrial hygienist on on this uh particular contract and they'll be here to answer any of your questions you might have. >> Thank you. Thank you for being here.
I think I don't know if you were able to hear the public comment. I will give you some opportunity to maybe if you heard the questions I'll give you opportunity to answer them if you or I can repeat them what I heard
but I'll give you an opportunity to speak first. Um yes um based on many of the comments that I did hear one of the things we wanted to point out is uh the actual testing scope has not actually been completely resolved yet the very first
task in the contract will be to perform a walk through so that we can identify the proper areas to test. Um, for instance, we understand that the windows, which would normally be one of the primary targets in a testing episode like this, have in fact been sealed
since the renovation that occurred back in 2016, and so they probably won't be as important a testing area as they normally would be. Um, likewise, some of the comments I heard about high surfaces like above cabinets being inappropriate
testing locations, that's not the kind of item that we would spend a lot of samples on, but based on where the HVAC outlets are, the supply registers, occasionally they might very well be a proper point if they just happen to be
directly underneath one of those. Um, issues where there could be intrusion in the classrooms like I understand a lot of rooms that have exterior facing doorways. Those will be one of the sort of items that will be targeted. But again, I I couldn't tell you now
precisely how many samples from each different type of area we're going to collect because we haven't actually performed the walkth through. We haven't been awarded the contract. So, we haven't been able to perform the walkthrough yet to identify where the high priority target areas will be. So,
we will look at all of the sorts of things that people were talking about, but until we perform the walkthrough, we really can't tell you this is what we're going to do. This is most of the examples of areas where we might test were put out there as examples based on
fire experience both in schools and other sorts of buildings which have had wildfire intrusion issues that we've experienced in the past. >> Thank you, Trusty Harden. question. >> So, you know, given what I just heard
and as you do your initial walk through and and determine where you're testing and and, you know, have a more detailed sort of action plan, is there a protocol to come back to us and report out, you know, more detail on what what would be
tested and what wouldn't before or as you're beginning or before you begin? >> Of course, we could. Um, I just know that time is one of the issues that there is some concern with. So I if it
can be done in a rapid manner, yes. Or we could just tell you, hey, these are the sorts of areas that we're intending to test. But uh I don't know how long it would take to get some sort of response if you guys are trying to indicate that you want to approve them or agree with
them prior to doing the testing because it is our understanding that we're supposed to move in a relatively timely manner just because if we do find things or certain items that need to be ordered in order to replace them or to get corrective
actions taken care of before school starts. >> Yeah. what for me is more more of communication than approval. >> I think you're talking about transparency of the process. >> Um, >> by all means, we have no problem sending something indicating these are the sorts of areas that we're going to test.
>> We could give a written communicate to you because I don't want to slow down the process if you approve the process. >> Thank you, Neil. Oh, Trusty Kenny. Go ahead, Miss Kenny. Thank you. Um, is it possible to test
the porous items and is that something that you would be considering doing? >> Not that one. >> Um, right right now the the uh the sampling and the testing again is going to be based upon the the initial
walk through and observations that are collected during that walk through. Um and it really will be depending on on the types of of use and and you know the individual classrooms. >> Okay. So it would be possible to test
the carpet that is a test that you guys do. The problem is that there are a number of academics that have put out you can do the testing this way. The problem is that there are absolutely no regulatory agencies or recognized consulting or
accreditation agencies that have methods for doing that sort of testing. Uh the problem is especially with light samples in particular, they really only impact the surface. So whether It's for instance if you look at
lead I know that's one of the target items that some people have mentioned there are standards from Kosha from Cal department of public health which would be the most one of the most important ones the US EPA US HUD there's all sorts of standards and every single one of
them involves white sampling hard surfaces and not the types of surfaces you're talking about and the basic premise of the assessment is you do this testing where you can get accurate data that is reliable and then in the event
that you find contamination on a hard surface then you make assumptions about the poorest surfaces in the area but I I can tell you certainly the way to do the carpet testing the problem is no regulatory agency would recognize it is
valid data so it's kind of a waste of your money and there's nothing that you can point to that says this is an acceptable result we can compare it to this this standard because the standards are all based on testing hard surfaces, specifically non-ported surfaces. They
don't necessarily have to be hard. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions, Trusty Bailey? >> So, is it possible that contamination could occur um under the carpet area? Would
you be testing that area? It is possible that we would generate a concept. I would have to see the the situation to see if just as an example beneath a carpeted surface that is placed on something that is non-porous. It might be possible to pull up some
carpeting and do testing of that. That's not a normal situation, but it is possible. Uh if you're just talking about carpet over carpet pad, that that's not really the kind of surface that can be tested properly. So it again
I could envision John and I coming up with a sampling protocol which would make sense, be logical and be scientific, but no regulatory agency is going to recognize this the data is valid or meaning anything. So then would
what would your recommendation be then regarding the carpet that would most likely be contaminated if the surfaces around the carpet are contaminated? >> Until we have data, I really can't
answer that question intelligently. I I have to see data first. I mean if we were to go out and pull a bunch of samples and they all say one detected. >> So that my question was my question was there was contamination around the carpet.
What would your recommendations? >> Have to see the sorts of levels we're talking about. But if if just as an example, we had found lead in a at a concentration that that Cal DPH considers a lead hazard, then we will almost certainly make a recommendation
to remove the the poorest goods in that area or room. But again, that's kind of speculative. What we're doing right now is just getting the original data and once we see the data then we can start making recommendations. It's kind of hard to get into what is without having
data to compare it to. But based on the pre of your question, if we had a real contamination that you could point to and say that data clearly shows contamination, we would recommend the course items in that area at least be removed. >> Okay. Thank you,
>> Trusty McKenzie. I just want to say thank you to um both of you for being sensitive to what the concerns of our families are. wanting to be diligent about um your assessment of the campus
and the needs to be um thorough in the services that are tested and the data that's collected in ter of being able to develop the full scope of how extensive our further evaluation is and what recommendations come back to us. Thank
you for that. >> Again, thank you for having us. I'm a father and a grandfather as well, so I totally understand. >> Trusty Harden, >> um I don't know if you're able to answer with the project footprint when it has
to be, you know, for the next follow on activities to happen, when this has to be completed, but are we able to answer that for the remediation efforts for this this project? Yeah, >> for the testing. >> Yeah, the testing goes fairly quickly. And if you guys have an idea of
timeline, it' be helpful. based on the the standard laboratory turnarounds that we were uh submitting our original proposals on. I understand that we're looking at somewhere around four I I think they said four to six weeks but we understand time is of the
essence would make it a little closer to four weeks. We it's it's two weeks just on the laboratory turnaround. So we need to do the front end work, do our initial walk through, get our sampling media, perform the testing, and then there's two weeks waiting on the laboratory data, and then
we have to write the report. >> Um, there was some comment about like the school had some cleanup done already and there was some when they did the cleanup of the area,
there's a lot of equipment that was being stored or located at the site. So, when you do your um walkth through to determine your scope and strategy of sampling,
will you bring that into the context of there was cleaning already done, things have been moved, um equipment was on the site. Do you bring that into the context of your strategy or this is just an elementary
school, we're going to treat it like, you know, younger kids are here and they're normally, you know, in these areas and staffs are in that area. Like, is there more variables that you're taking into account that has happened to number of variables? I think that for
instance, what kids are in the classroom? There's a difference between kindergarteners and sixth graders, for example. And then we know that retrainment is something that a lot of people have had questions about. Uh so again using the
example of doorways since we know windows are going to be less of an issue at this campus. Um and also the example that you just discussed about how there were you know bins and things store and equipment stored out on the hard top for quite some time. uh an exterior facing
door that faces the black top might be more likely to get tested than an exterior door facing the front street. And as an example, if we were to decide that five samples of doorways is appropriate and again I'm just making that number up. We haven't performed the
walker yet. Probably three, it's more likely three would be facing the black top where there's more issue about potential retrainment of issues out, you know, from outdoors and two of them would face the street as opposed to if the street had been one of our major
concerns for re-entrainment, then maybe we would collect more samples on that side. So, all of those sorts of things will be taken into account. And John's very thorough as the certified industrial hygienist that'll be confirming this. the the sampling strategy. I mean, I'll make a lot of
observations, but he's the guy that knows how to nail down exactly where the testing needs to be done and he will do review and approve everything before we perform any sampling. >> Thank you. Lastly is the once you do
your walk through and you have your strategy and um how soon can how soon can we communicate this strategy scope definition to the families? That's a question for a combination of the contractor and Dr.
Blanco. We will communicate it as soon as we get the information. So I I don't know, Mr. Dunning, do you have a schedule of when it would begin if the contract is approved tonight? >> So again, I think uh we haven't we don't have a delay on when they're going to
start. It's really about how quickly we can get them set up. Uh so they're saying about four weeks turnaround um for the for the testing results, but uh from when we give the approval tonight to when they can start. Uh do we have an answer on that, Andrew? Your timeline?
I would imagine we'd be able to start sometime next week. I just have to go back and look at my, you know, com confirm both the availability of Verdantis people for the walkthrough and I know I can make time for the walk through pretty much anytime early next week and then I just need to see when
I'm going to have field staff available probably later in the week or the very beginning of the next week to actually perform the field testing. >> So in terms of scope I would say within the next couple weeks. Once we perform the walk through, it shouldn't take more than a couple of
days to be able to confirm what we intend to do in terms of sampling protocol. >> Any other further questions? Okay. Um, I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the
>> contract. Second. I don't hear any further discussion on any questions any advocacy at this point or preferential vote. Trusty Wicker >> yes. >> Yes.
>> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. C. >> Yes. >> Thank you for your unanimous vote. >> Thank you, John.
>> All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Thanks. >> Do we want to take a break and also move to extend the meeting to 10:30? >> Also move. Anybody second it?
Anyone? Everybody >> in favor? Okay. So, recess for five 10 minutes. Happy Heat. Heat. All right, let's get going here. What we got? We got four.
>> So if we start it Nine. >> Really? >> I know, right? Dr. Nio, are you ready? >> Dr. Nio, how do you get everybody to be quiet? >> Wow. >> Just the look. >> Okay.
>> Okay. No, we're good. Uh, good evening. >> All right. Welcome back, everybody. Thank you. Good evening board members. Uh we are here this evening to present to you uh for your consideration and approval the secondary science uh adoption for our
materials. Uh what I'd like to do is I'd like to bring up the person who did completed this process from start to finish and that's Miss Ashley Butler, our history uh toa secondary history toa who did this entire thing and this is a completion of her work. So I'd like to
bring Ashley up. I'm short. I'm much shorter than Dr. Nyo. Uh, good evening board president Frederick's, Dr. Blanco, members of the board in SLT, and the Pasadena community. My name is Ashley Butler, and I'm the literacy, history, and social science TOSA 2 in the curriculum
instruction and professional development department. I'm here tonight to present the results of the secondary science pilot. But before I begin, I really want to thank the science teachers, review teachers, as well as all of the
secondary science department um who were really a part of this larger pilot committee. One of the teachers was here tonight. I she might have walked out, but they were really instrumental in this process. Oh, she's here. So, thank you for all of
our science uh pilot teachers. Um, as we began our process this year, we grounded our work in the strategic pillars. Um, we solicited both teacher, community, and student feedback to inform the decision-making process. We began in partnership with UTP in
September 2025 with a call for pilot and review teachers. All of the teachers who applied to be in this process were accepted. In October, our high school and middle school teachers reviewed science programs. In November, teachers
uh the teacher trainings begin. Pilot one began in January and teachers gave feedback in February. Pilot two began in February and teachers gave feedback in March. Middle school teachers recommended moving forward with TCI and Amplified.
High school teachers recommended moving forward with SAIS. Biology teachers also recommended moving forward with National Geographic while the physics and chemistry teachers recommended moving forward with HMH. Our pilot process as a whole looked
something like this. We had 12 pilot teachers. Three additional teachers supported our review process in addition to those 12 teachers. During our pilot process, we collected 1,093 student surveys. I also had the opportunity to
visit all secondary science departments to inform and answer questions that any teacher had um any science teacher had. These teachers became de facto pilot teachers providing additional feedback and insight to inform the decision-making process.
So I'll go through some of the feedback and results of this process. The key at the top is a little small. Um, so I do want to point out that um, up at the top you'll notice that there is color coding. The dark blue is
strongly agree, the blue is agree, light blue is disagree, and the tan is disagree. Also in the feedback sections, there's plus signs and negative signs or dashes. Um, the plus sign reflects positive feedback. The negative sign is
not as positive feedback. Um so what you'll see here is our middle school teacher feedback. Um overall teachers felt that both programs supported student learning. However, teachers felt that amplifies program
scope and sequence and their instructional design was more manageable and something that they could finish in the course of a year. It provided um it pro uh it prompted excuse me discourse for students and it had a much more user-friendly platform. In the narrative
feedback teachers provided they shared that their students were more engaged and more able to access grade level content. Students, my favorite part of the feedback, um students in terms of TCI
give some mixed reviews. Uh many students reflected that they enjoyed the gains in the topics that they studied but overall were not as satisfied with TCI. Amplify on the other hand had overwhelmingly positive feedback from
students. They reflected at higher rates that they were able to talk, write, and explain their thinking while they were using uh Amplify. Um, and as I went through all of the narrative feedback for students, they shared that they were really interested
in the topics that they were studying. Uh, students were able to use really content specific language when they were reflecting, which was really great to see. We did see a little bit and one of the pieces of uh, reflection from some of the students is that there was a little bit of repetitive nature of it
and teachers did reflect on that too from one of the units from seventh grade. Um but all of the other teachers as they started looking through more and more units talked about we think that was just that unit that was chosen
going into high school. Uh looking at SAVIS um SAVIS teacher feedback was overall positive um in all three subject areas that we had pilot teachers. Teachers found that the scope and sequence was appropriate for a course of
a year. It helped build background knowledge and the texts were appropriately appropriately complex and it had a digital platform that was userfriendly for both students and teachers. When um our physics and chemistry
teachers piloted HMH, they reflected that the texts in HMH were appropriately complex, but there was some concern that was brought up over some of the math concepts that were in some of the early chapters of the physics units.
Biology teachers, as I said earlier, piloted National Geographic. Um, the National Geographic had really strong language supports for our multilingual learners, which was a great feature. However, there was really significant concerns over their digital
platform. When we started looking at student feedback, um, one thing that I do want to point out, we actually received about three times the amount of student feedback for SAVIS than we received for
both National Geographic and um, HMH. um it was our first program that was piloted in high school. Um but that might have contributed to it. But one of the things that was really interesting is even though the feedback we see with
the data might not look that way, student narrative data we what we saw is about 85% of students narrative data showed that they really really enjoyed the topics that they were studying um while they were going through um SAIS. um they found that these topics were
really interesting. They were relevant to their lives. They found that the labs um that they were engaging in were really interesting. And a couple of the students even said that even though the topics might have been more challenging, it really stretched their thinking in ways that they were really excited
about. Looking at HMH, um our chemistry and physics students shared that they enjoyed the labs and and they both um both subject areas felt that the activities were explained well as they were going through many of these activities.
When we looked at the data for National Geographic, um students shared that they didn't enjoy the topics as much in National Geographic as they did in the biology unit um of Savix of Savvice. Many students felt that the content
didn't connect to their interests um or their futures in the same ways. Um and moreover, many of them felt that the um activities that they were engaging in were overwhelmingly complex or just not engaging um to them.
So based on all of the feedback and information and data that we collected uh from our pilot review and review teachers, from students, from our committee members, and our community feedback, we're bringing the following recommendations to you tonight. Amplify
Middle School for our sixth through 8th grade. Um and Savvice for physics, chemistry, biology, and environmental science. Uh both of these are seven-year adoptions. will have print and digital materials for both.
Um, and as we're moving into implementation, we always wanted to bring back this effective implementation structure. Um, because we really wanted to ground all of this work of highquality instructional materials in strong instruction as well as fidelity
of implementation because without one of these, we don't have a really good implementation of materials. We also wanted to be really transparent going into next year and future years um with this implementation.
We do know with new adoptions that training around new um high quality instructional material is always a challenge even with the amazing teachers that we do have. So we did want to point out a couple challenges that we potentially um anticipate.
We potentially anticipate challenges over limited professional learning days that we have, budgetary limitations, reduction of staffing, including that of our MTSS coaches at school sites, the reduction in CIPD and edtech. Also, we
anticipate potential um concerns or limitations around technology integration. There's always some challenges associated with integration and technology of newly adopted materials. I have time for questions if you have
any. Thank you so much. This is exciting. Um, I gave you guys 15 minutes. You didn't 10. Great. All right. Are there any questions? Trusty Harden.
>> Yeah. So, sort of going back into the challenges of implementation. I mean, I know and there was some, I think, earlier questions asked by the board, but in in sort of addressing those challenges, are there any um workarounds to some of these these
obstacles that uh get get it done? >> So, yes, we plan on getting it done. Um, but probably not in the ways that we've been able to in the past, of course. So uh we do know with our implementation and our adoption comes several layers of
professional learning and professional development embedded within the programs themselves. So at least having that first implementation with the um I would say with the vendors, the programs and and then they have a secondary they have these different layers that we can use
and in between that really leveraging our department chairs at the high schools and maybe our leads at the at the middle schools just to say who's going to be a champion just bringing this forward. Not that they would be the trainers, but really taking on that time to you utilize the time that they do
have in their um collaborative spaces to do this work. >> Questions? >> Um I have a question. It was so interesting on the SAS how you look at the data the bar data and it looks like
I don't know HMH won that one but you said that based on the anecdotal response >> that the engagement was like the excitement was there. >> Yeah, we saw and I'm going to go back to it. We saw the excitement there for both
students and teachers and then when going out to school sites um trying to receive feedback from the science departments also and them providing uh feedback through the public comment form. We saw that come through there as
well. And um what what's the signific can you give a little context on you know the timing of this adoption of science curriculum and when's the last
time we've had such a major accomplishment. So, we've had our current I believe the the current um program which is Stem Scopes since was it 201 18
2018 before and at the time STEM Scopes was the only NGS NGSS aligned science curriculum that was out there. It met our needs there. What we did the impetus we were also have a schedule since that we've been uh we've had together with uh
budget since 2013 of talking about when these rollouts will come will occur the the times when we'll do math when we'll do English when we'll do these things the the true impetus or a big impetus we were up for science anyway however what we realized is after the fires we only
had a digital component stem scopes is completely digital many of our secondary teachers and students could not access the actual applications to teach because the students didn't have Chromebooks. They left them, you know, things like that. And I said, you know what, we can
never just have a completely digital component at this point and STEM Scopes does not offer that. >> Thank you. Any other questions? >> Okay. Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Yeah, because
Okay. Um, preferential vote, trust. >> Yes. >> All right. All those in favor? >> All right. Motion passes. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much. All right. Moving on to approval to
award professional services agreement to RSSC for the facilities master plan update services for Pasadena Unified School District. Mr. Dr. Dunning. >> Good evening. Uh, I'd like to introduce uh Dr. Regina Steinbeck Shroud and Anton
Buuitt. Uh, they're going to run you through a presentation tonight. Uh, that's going to uh give you a little bit of what we're planning uh for the facilities master plan, updating the existing plan, and uh a little bit of a process of how we're going to
communicate uh with the sites. And with that, >> uh, thank you um, Madame President of the board and chair of the board, members of the board, superintendent Blanco, and members here, my colleagues at the dis. Uh, I'm Dr. Regina Stampback
Straoud, and I'm here um on behalf of RSSC. We are a a firm that uses our equity and racial literacy expertise in order to support community engage engagement that really uh leads in
centering voices that typically are not uh centered in many of our processes uh particularly around uh planning. And so if I can just uh thank you for the opportunity to share with you a little bit about our processes. I um I'd like to uh start there first.
We have two members of our team that are here. Uh me uh and I come to you with about 35 years of experience as an educator. I have been a chancellor of a multicol district, a president of the college. I've been in many mo in
multiple executive roles. uh but more so I've had the opportunity to provide leadership for for over um and oversee over about a billion dollars worth of capital improvement projects. Uh and my background is in critical race. Uh, and
um, I also have here my colleague, well, you're going to get to learn a lot more about him as he presents, but my colleague Anton Buitt, who really is kind of one of the major architects of the process that we use that has been shown to be uh, quite effective in with regard to community engagement. He's
been a senior educational planner and worked on projects across the nation as well as brings an architectural perspective to it as well as a um, a data science background. Uh but that's not the only part. There's two of us here, but we have a want to
assure you we have a full team here and that that full team includes uh we have a specialist, a community engagement specialist that brings her expertise in centering marginalized voices. uh and that's Sita Stra Dominique Benev Betetta is you know our expert in qualitative
research that really brings a lot of the uh quantitative data to life uh because it reflects many of this people's uh lived experiences and Mariana uh Leveso who also has quite a bit of expertise in
designing environments learning environments for typically marginalized students students of color students with disabil ility and then a full team um that you see on that bottom row that is prepared to um update the FCI um
integrate the information or the data that you have into your systems. Um and if I can just uh start with just some acknowledgements here. One of the things I want you to know is that the process that we propose builds on uh a number of
things. One uh it honors and understands and respects the leadership you've already provided. You have a tremendous amount of good work has been done and that uh work has represented your ability to serve as you know good public
students uh stewards. Um the other thing that I want to say is that it gives you an opportunity to really set a legacy so that you are updating your facilities master plan and
showing to the community that you um have done some work, listened uh adjusted and now those that adjustment will reflect the data and their lived experiences. It gives you an opportunity to say we went through a process that's
transparent and based on the you know I've just came here at six o'clock today and had an opportunity to hear the way in which the community is engaged uh which is very fortunate for you. Um but I can see that things that will be important to you are the transparency of
the processes, the opportunity for real and authentic engagement. uh the opportunity for the community to recognize their hopes, dreams, aspirations, their lived experiences in the work that's being done. And it gives you an opportunity to then uh establish
that type of a of a approach that the community respects and likely to have less resistance or less turmoil uh embattlement or embroilment uh when the decisions and very hard decisions are made. Uh and then I also want to
acknowledge that uh it was been really interesting seeing the presentations because I can see how the strategic plan that you've you have that's good work and it's not just a shelf document. It's living you can see it and it I can easily see that you have a strategic
plan that is translating your academic and strategic goals into you know what your helps translate what your facilities needs are. And we appreciate the levers that are are there. The uh I just want to say that the dashboard is
impressive. It is just absolutely impressive to see the level of work and it shows how those levels that if you push on one it it shows how the entire system can be implicated and can change. So I really appreciated that as well.
And with that, I want uh to uh have an Kon come up and talk a little bit about what we understand about the RFP and a little bit about our process. >> I don't take the opportunity uh to present to you today. Um I don't take it lightly. Um
it's a big opportunity getting to meet um Mr. Dunning and his just the passion uh with which they want to see this facility plan bring about generational change is unique. I have had the opportunity to work across the country and I've met many facility teams. Um just to kind of situate us kind of
within the last recent years um and just kind of a recap of where we are. >> Sorry. >> No, of course. >> Maybe not. >> Okay. >> Um is the opportunity to create a long range vision for measure R. Right. And
with measure R, uh, we're going to be working at multiple scales. Uh, in the language, you identified these significant signature projects, but at the same time, we need to look at smaller projects um, as needs evolve. And I think we're going to be working towards a transparent, accountable
decision-making process um, that's living right, that continues to support you far after, you know, we finish our work. But perhaps more significant is the major changes that have happened since 2023 when you last did your facility plan. Some of those um we've had leadership changes. Uh also the
design guidelines are recently finished. So it's really important that projects implement those new design standards that you work so hard to create. Um there's also going to be some re-evaluation of campuses. There's been significant changes in costs relative to when the first uh facility plan was
created. And perhaps most significant is the Eden fire. Right. uh thinking about what resilience really means for our facilities as well as the impact it had on a number of your campuses and then thinking about just fiscal responsibility and stewardship, the
energy and sustainability of our campuses and the relationship it has to utility costs and just the uh general fund. I do want to just mention that we um had a great conversation with Dr. Blanco and Dr. Hill. Um, really looking at the
educational master plan as a guide, looking at your educational specifications, and then our role really bringing in your community voice, their lived experience, and their expertise to all work together so that on day one, your campuses are not only addressing immediate stressors and providing
immediate joy, uh, but you actually start to see that change over 10, 15, 20 years. And this is a slide I'm actually going to spend the majority of my time. Um, I really want to just talk about how facility planning can work towards your
strategic mission, work towards those pillars, work towards your strategic values. But I want to talk about that through a sort of non-traditional lens. And before I talk about the process, I want to sort of center two key points
that I believe give you um the tools to evaluate it. Um also to this process is just a snapshot of where we are today. This will evolve with your expertise. And the two points I want to make is one, facility planning is not neutral. It can actually work against your
strategic plan. And the second point I want to make is that facility planning can actually do far more than support just the facilities or the learning environments themselves if done intentionally. They can support your programs and your people. And we heard a lot today in public comment regarding
those amazing programs, right? And do we create the conditions for them to thrive? So I want to talk about that first point really quickly. Um, facility planning actually has the potential to create significant harm to our students. So, let's talk about harm. What is an adverse facility experience? It's
learning in a classroom that's too hot, it's too cold, uh, where the acoustics are poor, where it's really hard to be heard or to hear. It's also glare. Uh, it's also furniture that doesn't fit. It could also be restrooms that don't work that have don't have dignity. Um, we
know that that has a huge impact on executive function. that we know from the research it has an outsized impact on our students with disabilities as well as our English learners. So in facility planning there's typically some big decisions we're going to make. um one we often don't think we think of it as kind of being net beneficial right
we're putting money into facilities but when I choose to invest in this campus here I'm actually making a decision not to invest over here right so there are always divestment decisions when we're making investment decisions the other piece is consolidation which often comes up in facility plans we heard today the
degree to which that might create destabilization uh in my experience it often distances resources and it can create a disruption of programs right so these are some of the things we have to intentionally navigate. But ultimately too, the way we sequence projects in my
experience, projects that are often last on the list due to cost escalation get significantly less. Right? So these are all decisions we're going to have to make. And RSSC doesn't just do facility planning, we also do facility research. And we
found that in terms of outcomes, there are disproportionate facility outcomes on low-income students with disabilities and low-income students of color. In our research, we found that in a number of districts in California, these students are two times more likely to be in aging buildings that are in poor
condition. They're less likely to be in innovative facilities, and they're more likely to travel greater distances to access resources. So, how is it that these decisions can disproportionately lead towards these adverse outcomes? I will tell you there's a belief that the expertise of your staff, your
paraprofessionals, your MTSS coaches, your educators who are in the classroom every day, your students and families, um that their role is somewhat superficial or it's performative. Um another way of saying this is that the people that are the most impacted often have the least influence in a facility
plan. And I've seen that across the country. And I know this also too because this is how I practiced. This is how I practiced for many years. Uh, it's how I was trained, it's how I was incentivized, it's also um what clients expected of me. Um, and it wasn't until I had the good fortune of meeting Dr.
Regina in 2020 that we really began to reexamine the practice of facility planning. And by that I mean bringing in uh the voices, diverse voices of the community to really participate in decision-m. The second piece before I go into the process, I do want to mention
just the degree to which facility planning when you center those voices can actually work towards the benefit of your programs as well as your people. Um on recent projects, we've done a lot of work with students with disabilities, their parents, and the staff who support them with systems impacted students, uh
low-income students of color. And we've heard just incredible wisdom around just how student services can be changed. Thinking about that touchdown space that students can have when they first get to school. This is for middle and high school students. Having a space to grab deodorant, get a fresh pair of clothes,
uh to, you know, wash clothes, take a nap during the day, grab that snack so they're ready to learn. Uh we've heard from many middle and high school students um just needing more spaces to be able to study and to do work after school. A number of students have described what's emerging as the vibe
hall, what it looks like to have the right furniture, the music, um that they need to sort of focus and recharge. Students have also described to us what CTE looks like in terms of just immediate benefit to their family. We know a lot of students are working and they want to see both immediate benefit
as well as a long-term career. Uh talking to families around what does it look like to make the campus accessible to them during the day and after hours. Um, special services is a huge one. Talking to parents of students with disabilities, just the amount of lost learning time, uh, with the distance of
restrooms, restrooms that don't work, that don't have dignity, as well as specifically for our medically fragile and medically complex students. Um, and just working towards your strategic values, right? If done correctly with the wisdom of community, um, your facilities can work towards belonging,
connectedness, dignity. But I will tell you in a traditional process um it is not set up to bring that type of wisdom uh to the front. And so our process is very deep heartfelt conversations with people spending 90 minutes not asking
questions about the facilities but really trying to understand what is and what's not working for you. What are the programs you want to see? So we start off with actually the outcomes and the experiences of people. We identify those systemic challenges before we even begin to get into the solutions. And that I
believe will really allow us to combine the educational master plan, your edspecs with community priorities to do something really special. So when we look at this process, there's three primary groups. We've got the uh campus site teams as well as the campus
community. Uh we've got the community forums and then we have the SVAC, right? And so each of these three has a very different role. uh your campus site teams and the campus community are going to help us identify at a campus level what are those systemic challenges what are those aspirations what are the
solutions those parents students and staff care about that will create noticeable improvements in their lives then when we work with the community forum um it's really about getting more fingerprints into the process specifically what are those big global priorities that exist across the
district and it's the SFAC that really allows us to go deep and to build those decision-making tools over a series of six or more uh workshops. Um so we start off with campus priorities. We then move towards global priorities. Then we start
to make those priorities actionable at a campus level. That's where the edspecs and the ed master plan get integrated. Um we test those solutions with the campus communities. Then we start to build decision-making tools. We run scenarios. That's where the magic
happens. um begin to get an initial set of guidelines and principles and then we will actually bring the broader community into the decision-making process and based on what we learned there will be our final SFAC meeting and we don't leave until you're set up for success.
So >> So thank you. Thank you Anton. And so I just want to give you an idea. This is just an example of a schedule that we would use. And the intent is not to show you the dates necessarily because we are flexible and work with you in terms of
your needs uh and in terms of things that you may be trying to respond to. The idea is to show you uh the basically uh the timeline when something might happen, what you can specifically expect
in terms of the deliverables. Uh but we basically work with your uh with the leadership with the school leadership to determine in the end the ultimate um expectation around the schedule. And if the if the idea is that the board wants
to be able to make a decision in February, then we back it out to make sure that you have top uh opportunity to carry out those processes. The process that Anton spoke about uh is the interesting thing about the process is that it builds upon each each workshop.
These are not isolated workshops in and of themselves. The work is iterative and is scaffolded so that it builds upon the information and the data that is derived from one to create the next to create the next. And with that um we'd like to take any
questions that you have. Thank you very much. That was a great presentation. Trusty Hard, >> thank you for the detail of the presentation. Um, and I'm excited about uh how you're engaging community voice.
I think that's important. Um, can you talk a little bit about your process in doing that? I know there's several tiers. You're talking about site level. You're talking about um that sort of global perspective. And
then you're also talking about um the S the relationship of the SFAC and prioritization. >> Sure. >> Give me some examples or sense of of what that looks like. >> So that's an excellent question and as a matter of fact, we anticipated that and provided some information like that for
the staff as well. Anton developed the uh entire uh process. Do you want to come and talk about the uh uh sheet that you provided for the leadership staff when we combined all three of those documents together? You know what I'm talking about when they asked for they asked for a run of
program. >> Just an example. I mean, you know. >> Yeah. They asked for a run of program and we provided that document. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's what he's asking. He's saying, you know, tell us a little bit. You're saying you're doing these different things. Tell us what to expect. >> Well, it's much easier to see it. So, we
actually presented what that first site committee meeting would produce. Um, we actually like to use the words of participants. So rather than us describing things, um parents, staff will be describing them. So for that first meeting, I think it's mission critical that it's in person. Uh
typically what happens is um a facility team will walk around with the principal, maybe the custodian, maybe a maintenance person, maybe a teacher, but rarely do you actually see students, families or staff there. So we would actually take the time to tour the site, make ourselves smarter about the
conditions, but then we would have likely 9 to2 hours worth of time with that group of 10 to 15 people to really understand um what is and what's not working. And it's also important in that that we actually look at the student demographics of that community and we're
ensuring that we're creating conditions to have, you know, parents of students with disabilities. uh we're having low-income parents and we're really being intentional about who shows up and that's actually on us to create those conditions. So that first meeting would be fairly significant. Um and that would create basically specific reports to
each campus in that community's words. Um, next, and again, we're working with your communications and engagement team, just knowing the high level of engagement your community expects to really tailor those community forums, uh, to work where it's not just a passive presentation or a town hall, um, that
people don't get to create just maybe one comment, but we can break out into small groups and have discussion. Um, one of the things that I found is it's not just sharing, it's hearing the wisdom of others in a small group and the experiences they have. And what
comes out of that tends to be priorities that are very pragmatic and very innovative. Um, in terms of the ESVAC, um, we've got tailored design workshops. So, as Dr. Regina mentioned, my background initially was actually in data science digital tools. Um my love
and passion is creating workshops and tools that bring everyday people into design. Design is typically meant to exclude uh the majority of people. So making that set up in a way where we share the actual decisions that are on the table uh with parents and students
and staff and allow them to construct them in unique ways produces some really innovative ideas. And the support then is very different because it's coming from the community. It's not coming from the architect or the planner or the facility team. Um, but we do have examples if it would help you kind of
visualize. But I don't know if that answer your question, but I'm trying to just bring you into the process. >> I mean, I geek out on those kinds of things, so it's important to me, but I don't know the rest of the course. But I would ask one question in terms of of accessibility and equity. I mean, will these uh workshops be presented in multiple languages? You know, what
what's your experience with that? We have very significant >> Yeah. Uh yes, we we are prepared to do that. As a matter of fact, um depending on the languages of of the community, we typically have translators or if they're
in written materials, materials in multiple languages. Uh we also um uh do things like uh depending on the community and the needs, uh we've had some sessions, for an example, where we provide child care so that we can make sure the parents typically who couldn't
come could come. It it just depends on uh what's needed uh and what the comm you know what's demanded in order to ensure engagement because the the reality is um sometimes you may see processes where you say well we invited everybody nobody came and so then you
move on. Uh that's not uh the way in which we work. We we feel like it's our responsibility to make sure that we're creating those conditions for the community to be engaged. You want to add anything to that? >> Yeah. Oh yes. Yes. So we have we and and
we do have um we engage facilitators that one have background in community engagement. Um so uh part of that includes facilitators that can facilitate in ult in in uh other languages languages other than English.
>> Great. No, I appreciate that. One last question. We will it looks like sort of the general timing of this um we we may in a fa in a period where we're implementing uh some recommendations that may come from a consolidation
committee. And so my question is do you come alongside that implementation process and what does that look like? >> Yes, we'll work with the with the uh school leadership as well with the district leadership as well. And that's one of the reasons that for an example,
you know, with our fingers crossed for a good outcome for your decisions tonight, we plan on attending next week's ESF fact meeting. We know that they are they have been having some conversations around some of the things that are going on. Uh and so it will be our responsibility to stay a breast with
that to make sure that we are integrating in a way in which allows you to move your agenda and get the information that you need in order to make the decisions that you need to make. >> Thank you. Any comments, questions?
Um, so basically your job is to update our current five-year bond plan or the 23 to 25 the master facility master plan. >> Yes, we know that you just did a facilities master plan maybe about two years ago and you have a couple of
things that are going on uh now. one, you have um new resources that uh you want to do and you have some decisions to make about the allocation of those resources. Two, you've learned from your processes before about things that you need and very clear you're honoring and
and want the community to be involved. So, it's an opportunity for uh you to be able to engage in this, you know, community uh centered process. Um it the three is that we wanted to make sure that we understand that we're going to be able to build on existing work for
examples. You don't have to start all over and do an FCI. Uh but there may just be some updating that takes place. >> One of the limitations of the last consult architect was
the website we have. Sometimes we people want just like the snapshot at a glance, print out or something, but for them to go through the the complicated website with this tab and interact, they don't want that. They just want
>> just give me the data from my school. That's all I care about. So, >> when you have the deliverable at the end of this process, >> will you have that flexibility of sort of exporting that data? We can kind of manipulate it in just human readable,
you know, layman's terms. Um, and will that data be ours? Like, you know, you're done with us and then we we we have that data now. So, will we own that? >> Yeah, the data will be yours.
>> Okay. And then as far as exporting to PDF or something, >> right? So depending on what um depending on what is uh indicated that is needed in terms of the deliverable we did offer the the possibility of creating the interactive website if that's what this
uh this institution is interested in but if not then I see your head going like this. So yeah, if not >> yeah, then you know we we can provide the deliverable in the format that you're asking for which is which sounds
you know simple sounds PDFish you know presentations decks PDFs those types of things >> and I see that there's the slide um is that a sample timeline the second to last slide >> things don't start till May but if we're
approving this today then >> we'll work with you with the district leadership in terms of uh design and the specific timeline that you need. >> This this was a little bit of guessing based on the RFP and >> question.
>> Thank you for your presentation. >> Yes, >> in terms of the timeline, I think that the estimation of starting in May is probably reasonable because there would be some opportunity if they're going to engage with our
current um consolidation committee that's meeting. You want to be able to come in, get a feel of what the committee is discussing, where those conversations are, and begin to sort of align
this body of work with the thinking of the current um committee. So I I think that it's reasonable to be diligent in terms of not jumping in immediately, but just sort of giving an opportunity to sort of get a sense of the lay of the
land. You know, being able to perhaps visit our campuses, see what you're working with, and then be able to build out the plan in terms of how you proceed from there. I think um information is power and being able to gather information is only going to be
beneficial to giving us a quality product on the back end. So Sure. Yeah. just depending on when the district issues a notice to proceed. If if if if we're fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work with you all as as a result of the
decisions that you make here tonight and the district gives us a a notice to proceed, we we will adjust the um adjust the schedule depending on when the board ultimately wants to see it and we'll work with the facilities leadership there. They'll let us know um you know
what their goals are and how it fits with you know the bigger picture. Thank you. >> Thank you for being sensitive to that and knowing that there are multiple pieces that >> precisely the same. >> Precisely. >> You ask this. >> I I I want to note that lack of
information is not the challenge in spite of multiple claims of our lack of transparency. uh we've consistently even make significant improvements into facilitating information towards our to
our constituents and community. Um however I would like to calibrate expectations in that uh by saying that there is miles of distance between the last
proposal and the last approval. The last strategic plan presented and the one approved were significantly different. and I just want to recalibrate your expectations about
the outcome of your efforts. >> Okay. Any further questions? Is there a motion to approve the uh project? >> I'll move approval. >> Second. >> Any further discussion or advocacy?
>> Yes, Trusty Hart. >> Um I think that uh Following up the the comment that President Frederick's made, I think there is uh value in living documents. I I think I would agree with Trusty Frederick's that the previous
website is a bit much. >> So, you know, the PDFs and and and PowerPoints are are are helpful, but I think having something that's infinitely real time and accessible to the public is powerful, but it has to be digestible
and and user friendly. Um I think uh it's sort of I think supporting U trustee McKenzie's perspective that the sooner the better to come come on board and ramp up so that you can get up
to the cadence of what's going on with some of our other work initiatives could only yield um as you engage with the public as you as you interact with the public and start get getting that feedback. it could be a good opportunity
to uh to to to this is the time the time to do it. So um so I would support starting as soon as we can. >> All right. Any other advocacy? >> All right. Uh Trusty Bleer, your preferential vote.
>> Yeah. >> Okay. All those in favor raise your hand. All right. Nice unanimously passed. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. All right. Uh last action item on
approval of conference expenditures. I don't think there's really a presentation. Any questions or Okay, I'd like to entertain a motion or did you have advocacy? Okay. Well, actually I is there a motion?
>> I'll move approval. >> A second. >> Second. advocacy. >> Yeah, I am going to continue to vote no towards these expenses especially taking into consideration the
financial situation. I think that we should recalibrate the expenses of the board and this is one easy way that we can as board members show leadership in the in our intent to um
uh be sensitive to the sacrifices the entire um district is making in the face of uh financial difficulties. So I will vote no. Trusty Harden. >> Um,
one possible way through this is to because in mo in some of this we're we're we're ratifying expenses based on costs that have already been, you know, experiences that have been consumed. Um, we have a project, we have a few
projected expenditures that that we could we have an opportunity I don't know when our next discussion is for our our retreat that we could discuss that in in our budget further and table those expenses
>> so that >> if you have a future request you could send a written >> request but thank you for sharing that yeah we could that's a possibility yes trustee Bailey >> so that's going backwards we've already
had this conversation As you look, there are some of us who don't receive the benefits that the district offers to board members and there are some who do. There are some of us who prefer to receive the public I'm sorry, the
professional development that the district provides to board members, which is also in our bylaws that the district provides. professional development to board members and there are some of us who
don't. I don't think it's fair to to make comments that kind of make the board members who want to participate in professional
development to feel as if they're taking something away from the district at a time when the district doesn't have it to give because it's there. We have a budget and it's there for us. If you don't want to
participate, don't participate. Don't participate. But we are not professional development and I prefer to participate in professional development. And I don't think that we should have to
defend our choices to do so. >> Trusty Ali, >> um, I' I'd like to add to Trustee Bailey said, "So as school board members, we are encouraged to do professional development. Our behavior,
our work, our knowledge is tied to student achievement. And this is not a mystery. This is what schoolboard members do. And any sort of simple Google search on professional development for schoolboard trustees
will show you the tiein. how we educate ourselves and how students are educated. It also helps people move from being a micromanaging board to a board that's more focused on strategic leadership. It
brings the entire culture of the board up. But if we start wheeling and dealing and putting pressure on not doing professional development, that's basically a race to the bottom. And I say we go to the top. So my advocacy is
always for professional development because it is tied to student achievement and that's what we're here for. Thank you. Any other comments? Um I
I originally uh I normally go to the C the um TSBA coast to coast DC trip. I decided against it this time um for just concerns. But I do support
this investment in our professional development as well as when we go on legislative trips, it's to advocate for increased funding. So we can invest it a little bit in taking us there so that we
can advocate, we can possibly get increased special ed funding or, you know, other funding. Advocate for entire state funding, rural count, rural districts, you know, there's, you know, uh, nutrition programs.
There's all sorts of funding that's under under threat, under attack, you know, at the federal level. So, um, Trust McKenzie, you're gonna have to go on your own for us. Um, so I I appreciate,
you know, the effort um that people are willing to step up. So I I do support this. If people choose to take this opportunity, I support it. All right. Any further uh advocacy?
All right. Um, did we do the preferential vote yet? Okay. Preferential vote. Trusty Lucer. >> Yes. >> All right. All those in favor raise your hand. All those against. Okay, motion passes. Thank you.
I wait. All right, we're are at the board committee reports. Anybody have a committee report? >> Did we vote to extend the time of the meeting? >> Yeah, we did. before we go. Very good. Thanks. I have a very brief um Elizabeth
committee. Um the committee met on March 9th and we were able to meet with um Senator Sasha Perez. It was a great meeting. I think there's some optimism about some additional dollars coming from the state and opportunity for even more dollars to come from the state. So,
time well spent. >> And we also had a great meeting with the to remind me of the Trusty Holly >> caps commercial and public spaces in Aladina.
>> Yes. Um with the commercial public spaces committee in Aladena that is looking at um as Alina continues to rebuild sort of we brought them in wanted to make sure that public schools are a part of that conversation. So I think that the work that we will do with
RSS has an opportunity to overlay with the work that we talked about doing in our community. having some um listening sessions. So I think this is a nice tie in opportunity to make sure that we're elevating voices and um gathering appropriate feedback. So the next meeting of the committee will likely be
in May. April is very very um aggressive, but we'll have some conversations and be sure to um communicate as a committee in the Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Um oh, I guess let's see Kenny is not
here for the policy committee. Um Oh, she's she's not on anymore. >> She's she's left the the microphone. >> Well, the facilities committee. Uh we had a our our little guest too. Sorry,
not little. Assembly member Harvey came to our uh humble committee meeting to um talk about his bill on um wild wildfire toxic contaminants. AB 1642
and that's the reason why we have the item of testing Aladina Arts on our agenda today. And our next meeting is Tuesday, April 14th at 6
at 6 in the boardroom. And that concludes our board committee reports. And are there any for consent agenda? There aren't. Is there a to sweet. >> Second. >> Okay. All those in Oh, preferential
vote. Trusty Bleer. >> Yes. Okay. All those in favor, raise your hand. Okay. Motion passes. Um, hold on a second. Is there anything else? Okay. Board request for future agenda
information. Okay. Any Okay. Yeah, those are written. Okay. All those in favor of adjourning this meeting? >> All right. Ajourn. Thank you. >> We finished before