Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Come on. Me. Heat. Heat. calling the meeting to order at 5:03. Here. Here. Here.
Here we have any public comment for closed? All right. So, we're going to recess to close. All right. I bang this. calling the meeting to order at 6:06
or I'm reading out closed public announcement of close session actions taken concerning item C1 case number 953 754 by a vote of 6.
The board took action to approve of the settlement of special education litigation in accordance with the terms of written agreement. Announcement of close session actions is complete and the close session stands adjourned. Journey closed.
Calling the open session to order at 607. Roll call, please. Here here. I would like to ask Danica Den to lead us in the pledge of allegiance.
Put your right hand over your heart. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all. Trusty Velasquez, public comment. The board of education acknowledges receive of public's comment via email. These comments will be made part of the permanent record of this meeting. I will call three names at a time and
you come forward. We have 21 entries for public comment. How many minutes per two minutes? Okay. Two minutes. Okay. I apologize because these are old
glasses. Arian Whitley, Ronald Matthews, Jessica Ernnandez. Turn of the base. Hello and good evening. I am the principal of Octavia Butler and wanted to provide an update. Um, I received
emails from families and we recognize that our enrollment has increased by nearly 100 students last year. At this time, to accommodate the additional students, we have adjusted our master schedule and added sections where possible and redistributed students across grade levels to balance class sizes. We've also requested additional
staffing support from the district and received that support to match the unexpected increase. And in the meantime, our existing teachers and support staff have been extremely flexible and making room for the higher numbers. Second, in regards to our science teacher vacancies, we share the
concern about the students entering week seven without a permanent science teacher. To minimize instructional loss, we have placed consistent substitute teachers in the classrooms to maintain continuity. Our MTSS teachers coaches have provided support lessons, lab
demonstrations, and project-based activities. We have also coordinated with other schools to borrow vetted lesson plans and materials to ensure that we still receive next generation science standards aligned with the content. While none of this replaces the
full-time credential teacher, these interim measures reflect our effort to protect student learning, and we're continuing to work with HR to complete the hiring process. Lastly, PE class size. To address this, we have adjusted the class groupings wherever possible,
increase supervision by assigning additional classified staff and also security guards during PE periods to make sure students have room to participate safely. Our PE teachers have lesson structures to focus on team rotations and skilled stations that allow smaller classroom sizes and
working in a large classroom setting. We are currently working on the master schedule to balance out these classes. Lastly, I'll be holding a parent meeting to address any concerns on 9:29 at 6 p.m. to listen to families. Thank you.
Thank you. Hello. Good evening everyone. I am in support of a CWA Good evening, President Hall Lee and members of the board. My name is Ronald Keith Matthews, CEO and ARCAM Construction and Local Hiring Coordinator. I rise to comment on the
board report number 1867 concerning the intent to negotiate a community workforce agreement. The board has already shown through resolution 2022 2021 that it can make firm commitment to the community. That resolution was straightforward. It set measurable
benchmarks. 25% small business participation, 25% local service providers, 25% local trades people, and 5% female trades people along with requirements for reporting and career pathways. Those percentages provide both
accountability and clarity. By contrast, resolution 2780, though well in intentioned, is supporting small businesses make no direct commitment to local workers. It contains no quantifiable outcomes for local participation, no enforceable
percentages, and therefore no real guarantee that residents of Pasadena, Aladina, and Sir Madre will share the benefits of over 1.4 billion in bond funding. Moving forward with a CD, CWA negotiation uh process under this resolution without
embedding these commitments risks repeating the mistakes of the past. The prior measure TTCWA lacked transparency and produced no viable outcomes. We cannot afford to make the same mistake again. I urge the board to direct the fourth direct that
the forthcoming CWA includes the measurable commitments from resolution 2021 enforcable local hiring percentages, small business participation goals, and student apprentichip path pathways. Without these components, there will be no true
accountability and the economic benefits will not reach the communities who tax dollars are making these projects possible. This is an opportunity to build not just schools, but also trust, opportunity, and equity. Please ensure that the CWA reflects a binding commitment to local residents, local
workers, and local businesses. Thank you. Hi, good afternoon. Good afternoon, PUSD board members. My name is Jessica Hernandez. This is my son, CJ. Like many of you, I am a parent, and have a student at PSUSD. I'm
also a wife, a nurse, a parent volunteer, and a PTA member. Um, I am here to represent the children of the Good News Club in your community. My involvement began as a visitor with my son CJ. A few months later, I became a
volunteer and now I serve as a team leader for our club. Every time I am on campus, my kids see me and they ask, "Mrs. Jessica, when are we starting club?" And we have a student here that's always asking me, I really miss club.
And so I tell them soon. And my heart is heavy knowing that these little ones are eagerly waiting for our teams to show up to their schools and we are hindered in reaching them. I have had the pleasure of meeting some of you on separate occasions and I read up on each of your
profiles on the district website and I genuinely applaud the passion behind your commitment. You all operate at brilliant capacities and it shows that you're people of action. Children are our mission at Good News Club and we see them as very precious members of the
community and they are of high priority to us as they are to you. The children's voices matter but their voices don't reach the same levels that ours do. They are children and so you are aware most donations come from Pasadena's own community members. Many who suffered
losses during the fires but still contribute. It is a disservice to your fellow community members who to impose these charges. They are already giving back so much. We have a lot of quiet unseen heroes working behind the scenes
with us. On behalf of our students and for the love of our dedicated volunteers, I implore you to please practice your advocacy and don't burden the community in this way. The PUSD children are the whole reason why you
are on the board. Positions of service like us. Thank you. Dig date dagen Johnny Driver Loose Madera.
Can you all line up? Thank you. Okay. Good evening, President Lee and members of the school board. My name is Douglan and I'm here on behalf of our Good News Club volunteers and many
families at Willard Elementary who have been touched by by this ministry. Thank you for giving me this time to speak at Good News Club. Each week we meet with the students to share the Bible stories, songs, and lessons that help
them face challenges at school and at home. Over the past year, we've seen children grow in kindness, confidence, and respect for their teachers and peers. Some even wait at the classroom door, excited, waving at us that
teacher, we are here waiting for you, eager to learn and eager to begin the class. We've heard from teachers who noticed more positive behaviors in their students who attend this club and from parents who see substantial improvement
in their children at home. One single mother told me her son finally felt loved and valued even when classmate bullied him about his weight. That change gave him deep confidence and hope which helped him actively continue
participating in class and contributing to the classroom environment. Another fifth grader told us that she wants to return when she is older when she's teenager so she can she can help us teaching good good news club. a sign
that the lessons that we're teaching them build in them a character that is lasting such as giving back to the community. Even after the eaten fires when several of us, myself included, lost our homes, we kept showing up there
because we knew those children needed us. And I'll never forget that student who came up to me and he said that teacher I want to pray for you and hearing that it showed that the values that we instilled
in them it was a lasting impact on them. We just kindly ask if you can remove this this uh facility fees so we can go ahead and put those foundation in them so they can be a better community
members in the future. Thank you driver. Uh, Madame President, members of the school board, my name is Johnny Driver, my address is 30002 Grande Avenue in Alini, California, zip code 91001.
I'm here on behalf of the member families who benefited from the Good News Club at Washington Elementary STEM magnet. Uh, thank you for the opportunity to speak. It came to my attention that the school board is seeking to charge the Good News Club a fee for using the
school facilities to conduct the club, which has been a cooperative bench in the past, as far back as I can remember, which I believe is a very unfortunate decision, and I'm asking that it be reversed. There's an old saying that is like
trying to get blood from a turnup. The Good News Club does not have the money to pay and will have to move elsewhere to continue operations at great loss to the school's missions as well as to the pupils and parents. Uh so many children
today grow up with no moral compass. They have no sense of purpose in life and wind up aimless, unfocused, depressed and suicidal to the detr detriment of themselves and to society. The Good News Club, a totally volunteer
operation, provides for the children meaning and purpose, as well as love and acceptance at no cost to the parents and very little cost to the school. I'm here today with my wife. Uh we have served as Good News Club volunteers for the past
10 years at Washington. We hope you and your deliberations can find a way to the reverse that tentative decision and allow continued cooperation with you in the moral and ethical education of the children we serve. Thank you for your time and for your commitment to serving
every child in our community. Look forward to partnering with you and with the district again in the future to serve Washington Elementary School students. Thank you. When I start Madera,
Direct speech. Good afternoon. Uh my name is Luis Mada. I'm a part I'm a member from PTA and Dilak. Uh I want to say thank you for your support at the school for your being uh for you being always supporting
us to uh to our school to our parents and thank you for the safety. Uh I'm I didn't know the fence. It was already there when I put my um my when I register my com my comment is
this is regarding 5A. So I want to say thank you for your support and your empathy to the community especially right now with everything that's happening. Yes. I want to say thank you once again uh and for your support and working together
and for the for the best of the students. Thank you very much. Shea Catalan Mat de la Cruz Sarah Graph. Good. Good evening, Madame President and members of PUSD board. Thank you for
letting me speak. My name is Shada and I'm here the director of Good News Clubs in PUSD. I'm here on behalf of hundreds of families whose children have benefited from Good News Club in many of the schools here. Um, some of them are
here tonight. Could you raise your hand if you're here to support Good News Club and there's many people in the overflow room because this program matters. Um, for over 20 years, the Good News Club has met on PUSD campuses after
school. Last year alone, over 76,000 children attended Good News Club all across Southern California with 2600 volunteers caring for them. Uh my colleagues have shared how the club provides encouragement, fosters mental
and emotional health, and reinforces the VA very values that our district champions. Earliest earlier this summer, as usual, I filed uh facility use applications for six schools. Shockingly, all requests have been
pending due to the district's decision to charge custodial fees to all groups. But the space our program uses does not necessitate additional custodial services. It never has. We meet right after schools. It's the the district's
responsibility to provide clean facilities. The custodians are simply performing their regular duties. Their responsibilities would not change if we started Good News Club tomorrow. They've been doing this since August. They're going to keep doing it. Your own B board
policy states that you believe that school facilities and grounds are a vital community resource which should be used to foster community involvement and development. This is who we are. We are part of the community. 100 volunteers,
60 are members, taxpaying members of this community and they serve selflessly. Even if we agree to pay these fees, who who are we going to ask the money from? From Mrs. Dalon, who ran out of her house with the clothes on her
back, or from these people here, Mr. and Mrs. Driver? I appreciate if you wrap up your comments. Yes, I will. We respectfully ask Pasadena Unifi to reconsider this decision, make an exception for Good News Club, and wave all the fees this year and every year because we only add
value to the lives of the children and to all P USC. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Martina La Cruz. I am a uh longtime member of labor's local 300. I worked out on the field for about 15 years and now I've
come into the representation part of this. Um I was in the Marine Corps for about eight years. Uh served the country. Uh came out came back and I had absolutely nowhere to go. There was no transferable skills that I can take into
the to the you know into the workforce. Um, the labors gave me a a place to go to be able to make enough money to support my family, to get a livable wage, plenty of benefits, and a great pension plan. So, I'm I'm asking and
hoping that you guys will consider uh negotiations for the CWA so that way we can help these families, help a lot of our members that are out there. um people in the community that don't have jobs, they can all these trades. You're going to hear a lot of our trades, our
union brothers and sisters that are going to let you know that we do have apprenticeship apprentichip programs that'll help. It's it's not just a program that that'll send you to school and then have nowhere to place you. Um it's a you work as you learn. Um so
we'll send you to to school and then we'll send you to work. So you're making money as you're learning. This gives them the skills that they need, a career, not just a job. So, it gives them the skills that they need and they'll uh give them a livable wage that they can actually afford houses in this community. And we have a lot of the
members that that we represent in this area. Um and and we're always looking to to teach careers to new new uh new people, anybody that women, men, uh different walks of life. They, you know, they educated uh they have high school
diplomas or they have a checkered past. We we help them get on the right path. And if you guys uh approve this negotiations, you will not be disappointed. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Sarah Grafe and
I am a resident of district 7, the parent of a fifth grader in the French program at Altadena Arts Magnet and a professor at Cal State LA. Our children started school during the profound trauma and learning loss of COVID. Devoid of normal formative interpersonal
interactions, they've lost their city, school, and homes to fire. Some are afraid to leave home because of ice. They endured an evacuation on the first day and two lockdowns in the past two weeks, hiding under their desks under
the assumption that someone was outside their classroom shooting people. More than ever, we must teach our students to think critically. Instead, the immovable machine of norms and numbers dictated the reassignment of a beloved teacher
two weeks into the school year. She was uniquely prepared to enhance our deal program, but the machine didn't catch that. Our French teacher has now taken on the curriculum for the reassigned English teacher and must divide that time between two grades. This is
teaching our kids they are fulfilling a quota and that what they learn is not as important as their name on a roster. Parents have sent hundreds of emails and made phone calls. We pled with you to reconsider, but were met mostly with an
impenetrable refusal to interact with your constituents. We cannot teach our children who made signs and who marched in front of your offices that critical thinking and activism will accomplish nothing.
In a time of cataclysmic disaster, in light of Governor Nuome's hold harmless EO, and to curtail further emotional trauma and loss of learning, I urge you to agendaize our resolution for a three-year moratorum on involuntary
teaching assignments. Our children are resilient, but they shouldn't have to be when you have the power to protect them. When the rules aren't working, change the rules. Thank you. Heidi Givaldo
Noel Tyler Ana Mason Dit. Hello, my name is Heidi Garbaldo and I have two children who attend um Blair High School and Blair Middle School. So, dear school board members and
superintendent, I'm here today to deeply concerned parent of of Blair High School, in light of the two recent swatting incidents at our school and ongoing nationwide crisis of school shootings, I urge the district to prioritize student safety by installing
a secure perimeter fence around our campus. The reality we live in today is sobering. According to K through2 school shooting database, there are 350 incidents of gun violence in school grounds in 2023 alone, the highest on
record. The Every Town for Gun Safety reports that firearms are now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the United States. Our children deserve to feel safe in their learning environments. A parameter fence would provide the essential layer of security,
deferring outside threats, controlling access points, and giving staff precious time to act in an emergency. The issue extends beyond school shootings. Many of our immigrant families live with daily fear, including concerns about ICE presence near schools. The lack of a
protective barrier makes the campus feel open and vulnerable, not just to potential violence, but also to intentional to im intimidation and fear. A fence would signal that our district takes the safety, dignity, and peace in mind of all students and families
seriously. Installing a fence is not about creating a prison-like environment. It's about fulfilling the district's responsibility to protect children and staff. Our children in the region already have secure perimeters. Our children deserve the same protection. I respect that the
board can approve the installation of a perimeter fence around Blair High School as soon as possible. Our children should have the balance not should not have to balance their education with the fear of their safety. Thank you for your time. Good evening. My name is Neil Tyler. I'm
a parent at Jackson Elementary. Uh I'm here to comment on the uh resolution to continue the local emergency declaration. find it very ironic that here we're recognizing that these are unique and dangerous circumstances facing the district. But we have diff
staff going and talking to parents, going to school sites saying it's been an uneventful start to the year. Everyone knows there's been mid-year cuts, class consolidations, the elimination of programs. You've heard other comments about it. It's been anything but uneventful. We all know
there's significant changes and cuts that need to be made to address the $30 million deficit, but cuts in the in the classroom and that affect our students and teachers should be the last resort. Just because there's collective bargaining agreements that say you can make mid-year cuts and do things like
norm day doesn't mean that you should do it during these times after the fire. And you especially shouldn't be doing it to these schools that have been so heavily impacted by the fires. you should do everything that you can to find the savings from other areas. There was an op-ed this week about central uh
staff and redundant positions that can be eliminated or cut to get some savings. Um you can cut down on wasteful contracted services. You can reimagine the real estate that PUA owns. Better lease it. Think about selling sites that haven't been used for years. There's
many levers, many measures you can take to close that deficit rather than cut teachers and programs in the school. This is a really dangerous time because there are so many families displaced. People are talking about leaving the
district. They might go to other public school districts like Glendale or La Kinyatta where they now live. They might go to private schools even though before they didn't want to uh pay those costs. So, I urge you, please think carefully about the cuts you're making. Don't lead to a death spiral where your situation
and the funding becomes worse as people leave the district. I'll just end with a practical reality of what your cuts have done. Over the past two weeks, my son is now in a class in fifth grade with 36 students. There's behavior issues every week. Art and science teachers are
having to stop the classes early because kids aren't behaving. and we're trying to find funding to get help, trying to get parents in the classroom to volunteer. This is the impact immediately from these cuts. Please be better. Don't do this again. Put the resolution to protect these schools
impacted by the fire on the agenda in October. You have sufficient time to consider it, publicly debate it, and vote on it and protect our schools. Please. Thank you. Good evening board members. My name is Anissa Mason Dumit. I'm a parent as
well. Um I'm going to now go off the cuff since I have some parents who've actually said a lot of what I wanted to say. Thank you so much. Um at OEB um I have a sixth grader who just started. Um and as you have heard from principal Whitley, we have uh over a hundred new
students from what the uh student population was last year. So it is quite a a largecale situation. My my child came back for a few weeks a little bit scared of how big um the school situation was. However, we were finding
that you know some of the teachers and everybody we really we really loved them. However, there is a teacher shortage. Um, we haven't had a science teacher. This is supposed to be a STEM school. We haven't had a regular science teacher since we started. We've had over four different teachers rotating through
the science classroom. We recognize that our administrators are doing their best, but at this point in the the school year, we should have a permanent science teacher. Um, we know that some of the PE classes are up to 60 kids with one teacher. I think we've heard that some
of the uh other staff members are helping with that situation, but we should have qualified teachers in those positions for safety for the children. Um and then also because of the cuts um we just learned um this week that some of our classes will be going away. My
son came to the school because he wanted steam. He has a steam class that is now being cut. So he might get an elective like band which he did not come for. Um, but that the point being that we have so many students that deserve to have
teachers in the classroom who are stable and we know that you have the resources to help make cuts in other places to make sure that our students have a quality education. Right now with teacher changes coming in and out and now a schedule change, I feel that there
is a loss of learning that is occurring. So we ask you to do the right thing and support our parents and families and our OEB administration at this time. Thank you Dan to Vlo
Gina Cohen. Yeah. Hi there. My name is Dan Choy. I am a parent of a PUSD child and I speak on behalf of many parents. Um I don't think you guys are aware I think of the situation. I'm here to speak about um
the learned staff that what occurred at Field Elementary. And this actually started let me give you a little background. This started actually in the summer um where uh the summer program learns all the kids they had it culminated in a Disneyland field trip
and I was surprised to hear that my son we came back they only went like three rides of the whole day. I'm like what happened? Oh we all had to wait for each other. We all could we all had to ride the same ride. I'm like oh okay. And so I didn't think anything of it. But fast forward now I learned that one uh they
were completely understaffed and they had no breaks and there were only like two people manning like 60 kids which is not the safest thing. Okay. So so they were they're given no breaks. So that there's technically a labor law violation. Um then the next day um a a
an aggressive youth leader uh comes to the school and raises her voice at other youth leaders for whatever reason. Um on the July 24th um these learned staff were subjected to uh being unfairly written up for false allegations of
playing movies during program hours. Um, and fast forward now, um, now about a month later, August 26th, uh, I won't name this president, but some superior, some, uh, some some superior of the learn staff came to the school and,
believe it or not, threatened threatened a an admin staff at Field in front of the kids to go and fight. I couldn't believe my ears. And um for the rest of you guys who ever work in any other corporate setting, that'd be grounds for
immediate termination. Um then on the very next day on August the 27th, um a youth leader was emailed for demotion and pay cut without reason. And finally, all the staff who were now feeling
threatened, who um were demoted for our reason and felt like it was some sort of political retribution. Um they they walked out, but they did it before the Learns program began after school. So, they didn't do it in the middle of it. And uh why am I bringing this up?
Because here we are a month later and um of course HR is involved. And and why am I bringing it up? of all because I am a parent of a child there and as someone mentioned it's been very hard. I have
two older kids and they're doing fine in PSUD uh but this child because of COVID enter kindergarten without social skills and struggled and I want and I want to point out um for example please wrap up your comments. I'm sorry please wrap up.
Okay, sure. So, is that that this these these guys uh these learn staff are still in limbo and here's a month later and these they're just trying to do their job and my child has really benefit from Miss Briana and Miss
Katherine Lopez she was brought to tears that day and I just implore you um we already sent email out to Dr. Blanco and others, please consider um what needs to be done. Thank you very much. Thank you. And that please please work it out so
that they can go back to work and they can be back in the classroom. I'm not asking for heads to roll. I just need with all the budget cuts. We have bigger fish to fry. So please let's come to resolution. Give the warnings where they meet and even if the staff that walked out wasn't done ideally, please word
out. Thank you all day. We have two minutes per Good evening, Superintendent Blanco, members of the board and district leadership. My name is Ma Alde and I'm a parent at Octavia Butler Magnet Middle School. I'm here tonight on behalf of more than 500 students and their families. I spoke at your September 11th
meeting and I'm back because even though the school administration is doing what they can with less and being creative with scheduling, our families are still frustrated and our students are falling further behind. Our enrollment number is almost 100 more students above where we were last year. We are now entering week
seven without permanent science teachers. Students at a steam magnet are rotating through substitutes losing critical instruction every single day. At the same time, PE classes are jammed with 60 to 70 students. That is not instruction. It's unsafe. All of this is
unacceptable. Again, here are some facts about our student body. 79% Hispanic Latino, 9% African-American, one in five English language learners, over 80% socioeconomically disadvantaged, 13 student 13% students with disabilities.
And yet OB's test scores rose significantly last year. Our program is strong. Our families are committed, but no amount of commitment can replace missing teachers. Please remember, more than 60% of our families were affected by the fires. Many are still recovering from displacement. This is not the
moment to add instability and learning loss through inadequate staffing. We're not alone. Families from Jackson, Elliot, Washington, and Aladina stand with us. Together, we have submitted a resolution calling for a three-year moratorium on teacher reassignments and class size increases. We cannot keep
destabilizing schools that serve the very students who need these stability. Lastly, and most importantly, our families have chosen Pasadena Public Schools because we believe in the value of a public education. We believe in the great teachers, caring staff, diverse community, and strong programs. But make
no mistake, if you can't provide stability, safety, and staffing, you are forcing our families to leave for schools that can. So the choice is yours. Either you invest in keeping our families in PUSD or you drive us away. Thank you. Hello, my name is Gina Cohen. Um, I'm a
mom of five. I've been a PUSD mom for 12 years. I currently have two children at Jackson and a child at OEB. Uh, two of my children I've chosen to pull from the district. In all of my years as a PUSD parent, including a pandemic, I have never seen
the priorities of the budget so backwards. My eldest child who graduated from OEB did not have a science teacher her entire seventh grade year. Now, my child who is a seven my son who is a seventh grader at OB currently does
not have a science teacher. His curriculum this year has consisted of watching Airbud and YouTube videos. Ants Canada at a STEM school. My daughter at Jackson is in a split second and third grade
class because there is no budget for teachers for both. I am assuming that you are all in your positions because education is a priority in your life. But if there's no budget for teachers in classrooms, where are the priorities?
I'm begging you to have an emergency reconsideration of the budget to allow for proper credentialed teachers for classroom sizes less than 30. There is no excuse for less. Thank you.
Amy Wireless, Emily Rosario, Soil Medriano. Amy Was Emily Rosario Soil Mediano. If the next people please line up behind
then they should come up over here then. But but you can go even if you're not the first one. Uh good evening. Uh my name is Toi Madano and I'm here representing uh the Iron Workers Local 416 and 433. I'll leave most of my comments for the agenda item coming up later this evening. Uh
but I just want to recognize that we actually have members that are here that live here and making sure that we prioritize local hires specifically. They are the ones that help so much in this process to understand why we are here as a community. and they've even given me as an opportunity to be
representing them as their political coordinator uh with the district council of iron workers. I did not come from the trades. I'm a proud I'm proud coming from a public school going and getting my degree in political science at Kelsey Northridge, but these were the people that were able to open up their doors
and opportunity to me and they have come here today to share their story with you. I hope you look forward to hearing from them uh later this evening. Thank you. Amy Warless, Emily Rosario. My name is Amy Takuchi Wallace and I'm here today as the parent of a seventh
grader at Elliot Arts and a fourth grader at Altadita Arts. We've been a French Dip family since 2019 2020 school year when my oldest was in first grade. Since then, it's been an exhausting roller coaster of ensuring quality education for my children. I refer you
to my email public comments for specifics, but what it basically boils down to is AAM has not been able to find a fourth grade teacher for the French DIP program for several years in a row. That has had a cascading effect on staffing for the rest of the school. We
finally thought we had a great solution with a teacher for English for fourth and fifth grade and a French teacher for fourth and fifth grade. But with the district's careless displacement of our beloved English teacher, even that solution has now been tossed out. In the interest of time, I'll focus my asks on
specific asks to the board. They are first in a simple language, please explain to me and the rest of the parents why PUSD is being held harmless from state funding levels, but we have lost a teacher as well as many other teachers across the district um who was
integral to our school's community and our French DIP program. We would appreciate Miss Rigger returning back for the semester next year. My oldest child went through several teachers several times throughout the year. So, why can't you bring her back for us next
semester? Where can I see the results of the investigation into our child's our third grade teacher who I'm just now learning more and more of what happened in that classroom? And we are owed a resolution to know what happened to our children in that classroom so we can
help them move forward psychologically. What is PUSD's plan for supporting the French DIP program moving forward? not sentiments, but how do you plan to teach 38 children between fourth and fifth grade next year when you have been unable to find a fourth French grade dip
teacher? Please review and support the resolution on a moratorum of involuntary teacher reassignments. Thank you. Hello, my name is Dr. Emily Rosario. I'm the mother of two children, one at AAM and one at Elliot Arts. Both two schools that were significantly impacted by the
eaten fire. In fact, my daughter's class at AM had around 80% of her class um displaced, including their teacher who lost their home and unfortunately was recently reassigned. For my day job, I am a neuroscientist, which is why when my husband and I chose to enroll our stu girls at AM, we did so deliberately.
Research shows that dual language immersion and arts education strengthen not just language and creativity, but also executive function skills that drive long-term success. These are the kind of programs that drew my family and families like mine to PUSD. But today, I feel the district is undermining that
investment. Failing to continue to support the very programs that make this district special. I understand there are financial challenges in the district, but decisions that are being made after the school year has begun disrupt not only the classroom, but the stability these programs depend on. to succeed for
our students that disruption is not just an inconvenience. It is a real academic risk. Research on adverse childhood experiences shows that children who face disruption and trauma are two to three times more likely to struggle academically with lower test scores and greater absenteeism. Chronic stress keeps the brain in a constant fight
orflight mode which impairs memory, attention, and self-regulation. The very skills that are needed for problem solving and learning. In other words, kids who experience upheaval need more support, not less. That's why stability in programs and teachers are critical right now. The French DIP program at AM,
for example, had fourth and fifth grades with 50% immersion, and they shared the same teacher for two years. This um research shows that children that keep the same teacher for multiple years reduces transition stress, strengthens learning continuity, and provides stability both in reading and math. Removing one of these teachers has now split these classes into larger
multi-grade multil- language classes, compounding instability at the worst time possible. This also places tremendous stress on the teachers who were given so little time to prepare for these multi-grade classrooms. I urge you do not balance the books on the backs of the students who have already been through so much. Protect the teachers
and programs that are the backbone of their education resilience. This is why I respectfully ask you to reconsider the teacher reassignment that took place two weeks ago and to agendaize the resolution for the moratorium on invol involuntary reassignments in the schools most impacted by the eaten fire. Thank
you. Margaret de Chriser, Diana Lemon or Lyman. Hello board members and staff. Um, thank you for your continued service to our schools and our students, especially
during this challenging time. U, my name is Margaret Dit. I'm a parent of two PUSD French DIP students, one at AM and one at Elliott. And I'm here tonight because I believe that the removal of the fourth grade teacher from AM was a serious mistake. And I don't think you understand the consequences fully.
Before the fire, AM was growing, our test scores were rising, and DIP at AM was a success story backed by your consistent support um from this board. and even in even as recent as two years ago when you helped us avoid a combo class by protecting
this very teaching position. After years of struggling to fill the fourth grade French role, we have finally hired someone last year. Confusingly, that teacher has been moved and the program has been destabilized. We're left with two combo classes, three four two years of curriculum in one room with two
languages. It's impossible. Um the teacher in third grade for example is expected to teach French and French math to the third graders and English math to the fourth graders at the same time. Just doesn't work. So what's happened is
that families are being asked to come into the room and teach core subjects which clearly violates the ed code. Um I refuse to believe this is what you intended to do to our school and our program but it is the result of moving this teacher. families see what is happening and many are now questioning
whether to stay in the program or even the district. So I urge you to reverse this decision and restore a teacher for AAM's French 4th because if you don't if you allow the staffing stand staffing to change it sends a clear message the DIP at AAM is no longer supported by the
board um and the families will act accordingly. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Chris Carter. Uh I'm here to speak in favor of the 30-year Pasadena resident. I'm here in favor of speaking on the community
workforce agreement. Uh BR1867. Uh I'm a proud member of IBW Local 11, International Brotherhood of Local Electoral Workers. Also a proud parent of three passing high school graduates.
um little older now, but UC Davis graduate, PCC graduate, and second year in UC Santa Cruz. And if it wasn't for the trade that I was involved in, I would not be able to have the income, wages to pay for those schoolings. It's
given me the opportunity to learn trade when I was a little lost growing up and to learn a skill that I still have to this day. and to have the opportunity to teach young people how to work with their hands that we've kind of lost in
this world in this industry, how to be able to build things. I always tell my children that, you know, you can't outsource electrical work and it's really hard and it's always something we have. And when we drive around our community here, which uh thank God we
our house was saved. It was close and all of our friends that I know that have lost our houses, we talk about rebuilding and we re want to rebuild with pride and skill that we learned in the trade and I think it's really important. Also, I will close with this.
Uh, I started as an apprentice. Um, I worked my way through the industry and now I'm the executive vice president of the largest electrical contractor in LA. So, and I've had very little education in college, only the I've had and I
would let you know that there is a lot of opportunity in this and I would encourage you to go on that. So, thank you for your time. Good evening board members. My name is Diana Lemon. I am the director of women recruitment and support for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers here in Los Angeles with our
main administrative offices being here in Pasadena. We represent over 11,500 members, many that reside here in the Pasadena area. And I remember back in the early 2000s, actually coming to this building to do my live scan and get my
Pasadena badge so that I could actually work on your school district and some of your schools. So, it's exciting to be here again and see that you're uh looking at possibly entering into a community workforce agreement. So, I rise and support that you say yes to engaging in that uh commitment to
entering into a community workforce agreement with the Los Angeles Orange County Building Trades Council. This will provide opportunities for residents in the city of Pasadena that's greatly needed as well as your students, veterans, women, minorities, and those
that have been formerly incarcerated. So, we seek your support and look forward to this continuous continuingly working with you uh as we progress in this community workforce agreement. Thank you. Eddie Alucinez, Fernando ooa,
Mike Miguel Leong. Uh, good evening board. My name is Fernando Aoa and I'm with Sheet Metal Workers Local 105. represent about 7,000 sheet metal workers here in the area talking about installing and servicing and maintaining all the HVAC systems.
It's actually a lot cooler in here. I was in the overflow room a little earlier. It's a little uh struggling. So, thanks for again for passing that bond uh recently. Looking forward to make those uh Yeah, I was already looking for it. Uh so, I represent the local um the members doing all of that
work and I I reside in board district 3 over on Lincoln and Washington. So, uh, this is important for me. Um, so, um, our folks, our members, this is a community workforce agreement would be huge for our members. Uh, we actually have over a thousand of them working for contractors, uh, from small small
businesses up to some of the largest contractors in the nation, working based here in Pasadena. Over a thousand of them here in Pasadena. Um, so we have the workforce, local residents that are ready to go to build, uh, rebuild and also, um, recover from what we just
witnessed in January. So, um I personally experienced it myself. I had to evacuate for about a month or so and we got my place remediated and so it was a um it was a a stressful time, a traumatic time and so I'm looking forward to making some of those upgrades
so that folks uh both teachers, students, staff can breathe clean air and our members can do that work and make a living wage and have great benefits and multiple pensions, a 401 um and a middle class wage and leaving our apprentichip debtree. Um I went the
college route. I did b got my bachelors, got my masters, and I'm often envious of our members because they're they got no student loans. I'm still paying off my student loans. So, I'm a little mad about that. So, um I think this would be huge and so I encourage your I vote on
K4 for community workforce agreement. Thank you. Good evening. and I wanted to take the opportunity to support the topic since I'm sort of walking uh not waiting for my time on the agenda. But uh good evening madam president, school board members, superintendent Dr. Blanco,
superintendent leadership team, members of the audience, and my brothers and sisters from the building trades. I would like to uh talk about something that's very important to me, the community workforce agreement. There's been a lot of talk about this within the
community. Fortunately, you have some experts here this evening that will explain their role in their process. Back in the day when I was a business agent for Lyuna, we called them project labor agreements. I am proud to see the evolution in the community workforce agreement and all the benefits it provides. However, I don't want to sell
anyone's thunder and I'll let them speak on that behalf. But on behalf of the teamsters local 986, we welcome our brothers and sisters from building trades and look forward to seeing you on our campuses. teams to support community workforce agreement 100%. Thank you.
Um, good evening. Uh, my name, uh, Madame President, uh, board members and core staff. My name is Eddius Cotto Alvarez. I'm member and council representative of the Los Angeles and Orange County's building and construction council. On behalf of our executive secretary Anesa Medano and our 160,000 members, we thank
you for having us here tonight. Uh we come tonight asking you to direct staff to enter negotiations with the LC building trades for community workforce agreements. Uh agreements like this uh have and will be the catalyst for local folks to have a chance into a middle
class lifestyle such as myself. Uh through these uh agreements, our nonprofit, the apprentichip readiness fund, um ARF as we call them, have placed folks into a career in construction, not a gig. Historically, they have not have barriers to get into uh in the past. Uh real quick, some of
the numbers that we've worked on in the last three years since we've really gone heavier on recruitment. 1,800 people have been placed into union construction jobs. Uh 90% of those folks are black and brown. 35% of those folks have had runins with major runins with the
judicial system and 20% are women. The national average on women in construction is three. Uh we're doing a we think a pretty good job and and we're not finished there. Uh these stats are often are connected to real people. Some of the folks that are here tonight u uh actually they're not here tonight, but some of these folks come from places
like the Flint Rich Center down the street and uh we just don't want them put them out in the world. you know, we follow them, we track them throughout their uh throughout their journey to make sure they're successful. Uh along with robust local hire, we are putting local people to work. Uh these are many
folks who get opportunities. These folks only get opportunities if we have agreements like this. This is why we are here tonight. We want to make sure that your future projects are built with the best locally skilled and trained workers in America. Our training centers are the best in America with zero cost to our membership and future apprentices. So
that we ask you again tonight direct staff to enter a enter negotiations with LOC building trades so everything you build from now on is built right with union labor. Thank you very much and local hire. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes public comment
comments from the labor unions. Good evening. Um, members of the board, Dr. Blanco. Um, I usually project over there. Okay. Um that one's fine but normally it's
projected sorry okay um I am sharing my labor partner comments I wanted to start with um uh policy coordiner so today you're going to be looking at some AI policy and I want to submit that AI policy
would be best adopted if it's done through consultation with frontline professionals. At this time, we have not been consulted on this matter. So, um I would recommend that you set that aside until we get a chance to um discuss it together um with all those who will be
impacted and u move forward after that. Um also, um I was reviewing for different reasons the board policy on employment of relatives. Um this is it's solid language but um you need to have administrative regulation to go with it
so that everyone can be clear on how we are administering this uh board policy. Um the other the last thing is that students uh must be need to be placed uh appropriately in their special education classes. Um hopefully uh these matters
that I'm referring to will be dealt with quickly, but it's just one of those things where uh it sets everything else back. All right. Um this relates to some of the comments that you've heard today, but um there unfortunately this year there's been a continued practice of the
bait and switch of temporary contracts. So last year 71 teachers were given temp contracts. This included people in multiple subjects. So generally elementary to school teachers, dual language, science, special education, and others. Telling educators you don't
value them. Returning is why we are starting the year with vacancies in so many schools, especially in OEB. We had two amazing science teachers there that were given temp contracts and never told to come back. Um, which we know that the principal and others would have loved to
see them back. The most disruptive uh transfers this year have been uh due to taking advantage of those temp contracts because they are faster to transfer and move people around. But that does not negate the impact that it has on those classrooms.
The UTP uh looking at the budget and all these different uh things to consider, we urge the district, as I've mentioned, we have failed to meet our 55% minimum for this will be the fourth year. Um, we need to fully fund our classrooms. We
need to focus our cuts on central office. Thank you. Even the cuts that were mentioned last year, around 7 million that were claimed to be at central office, most if not all of those were teachers that were at school sites that were providing services to the
students um or directly to the teachers who were working directly with the students. We need to make uh meaningful improvements at PSD and that will require listening to parents, teachers, students, and community members about our assets and our needs. One of the things I was recently made aware of is
that um there's an exciting opportunity happening at PHS where some students are going to be dual enrolled there and at Caltech. And um this is an unprecedented opportunity. is the kind of example of ways that we can tap into the assets of
our community and I hope that we will continue to work uh to try to tap into both those and meet our student needs. A reminder of the LCAP best practices, the top three most effective strategies as and I have the link there that shows
the receipts. We have class size reduction, teacher pay, teacher retention. In addition, you see benefits from access to guidance counselors, health services, and funding quality PD. This is what we should be spending our
LCAP on. We unfortunately have been using it as a way to um maintain quite a number of our admin positions and that needs to stop this year. Our
United Teachers of Pasadena are um unified behind bargaining for this coming year. We weathered a challenging year last year. We've surveyed our members and will be sunshining next month. We're looking for PSD to collaborate with us on reasonable
proposals that will improve education for our students and retain and attract the best educators in the Pasadena, Altadena, and Tier Madre schools. Thank you for your time. switch gears a little bit. Uh, one other item I'd like to address this evening.
Um, I want to thank Dr. Blanco and her leadership team for recommending to the board U. Melissa Washington to become the next food and nutrition service director. In the time teams have been working with Miss Washington, she has shown a genuine concern and
consideration for our membership. With her focus on serving the students, she understands the needs and support our members need to accomplish that goal. Teams to support her appointment and we look forward to working with her. Thank you. Thank you.
Any other labor? You know, good evening. Um, sorry. Says, "What is wrong with not having pockets anymore?" All right. Um, good evening. My name is Jody Marques. So, I'm here standing in front of you as the
president of the Association of Pasadena School Administrators. And normally at board meetings, we like to come with celebrations and happy news to share with all of you what's happening at our schools. Um tonight I'm going to focus just as a reminder of who we are, who we
represent and what we do as an association. Um so we are management employees both confident all confidential employees and we also represent certificated and classified um supervisor supervisory employees
within our association. Just to give you some numbers, our total member uh member number is 208 who are eligible to join APSA or who do belong in APSA. 70 of those individuals are certificated administrators whereas 138
are classified administrators. Uh we have multiple statements to our purpose but I'm going to share three that I think are what all of us would agree with that we really focus on which is improving the education process by helping members become more effective in their various roles as educational
leaders providing programs specifically designed to relate the association's activities to students from preschool through adult education and cooperating and working with staff students and the public so that the needs of our learners and the school community may best to be served and that
is the work that we do each and every day. Some things that we do specifically for students is we um host the ABSA version of every student succeeding and we honor our students in Pasadena who have overcome difficult times to still
be successful in our schools. And you might remember a few years ago, one of our own students was honored at the region 15 AXA awards ceremony and her story was sh was shared on a broad level. We also are behind the warming hearts campaign where every November and
actually we'll probably start um g uh soliciting funds in October but in October and November we will take donations and we give those donations to our families at our schools so that they can have a good holiday season in um
December. We also host a student oratory contest and then we also offer student scholarships to students in all of our high schools. And at a recent um ABSA board meeting, we discussed amongst all of the board
members what does APSA mean to us? And so this is kind of what we decided ABSA is all about which is we are about advocacy, we are about professional development, we are about service and we are about accountability. So, I look forward to
working with all of you in my two-year term, which has officially started this year, and uh I hope you have a wonderful night. Thank you. Thank you. Any other labor unions? All right, this concludes the comments from labor unions.
Item I on public hearing, governing board. Item 11 one. Governing board of Pasadena Unified School District is now opening the public hearing for public input regarding sufficiency of materials in the areas of mathematics, science,
history, social science, English language arts, foreign language for courses offered in grades K through 12 for the 202526 school year. Anyone wishing to comment either verbally or in writing may do so at this time.
Good evening members of the board. Um I stand here as a science teacher. I've taught science in this district for many years and um I uh want to raise to your attention the fact that there are school sites that have set aside extra funds to make sure
that their programs receive appropriate number amounts of materials for science. Um I want to uh PHS is an example their school site councils have prioritized that but of course that means that they don't have as much money for other things. So, um, as a result though,
we've been able to see such amazing, um, outcomes from PHS. You've you've seen the, um, um, you know, that nationwide competition, the $250,000 scholarship, right? That
partially comes from having a solid science uh, department. Um, you know, I know we have the math academy there, but math by itself without the support of science just doesn't have as much meaning. Um, and and that competition in particular is specifically about
science. So, um, I just want to make clear that when we don't properly fund the materials for all of our science classes, I know that we've met the basic minimums required for the Williams purposes, but that's not what, you know, the world-class classrooms out there
that are in other districts around us that we're competing against are doing. They have above and beyond. They have, you know, um, equivalent, I think it PHS was able to get about $20,000 toward that at their school site, right? It makes a big difference to be able to have sufficient amounts of science
materials at all of our schools, especially our STEM schools, right? Um, and make sure that all of the kids can um learn with hands-on experiences that they can learn to love science and not just um, you know, have it have it crossed off their list of of things that
they've done before they graduate. So, I hope that you'll consider supporting um efforts to make sure that we fairly distribute those kinds of resources to our all of our schools and that we not just rely on our school site councils funding those sorts of extra funds for
our science classrooms. Thank you. Are there any additional comments? Hearing none, the public hearing for input regarding the sufficiency of materials in the areas of mathematics, science, history, social science, English language arts, and foreign language for courses offered in grades K
through 12 for the 202526 school year is now closed. Item I.2. The governing board of Pasadena Unified School District is now opening the public hearing for public input regarding the California School Employees Association, CSEA, and its
Pasadena chapter number 434, initial proposal for successor collective bargaining agreement with Pasadena Unified School District. 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 California School Employees Association, CSEA, and its Pasadena chapter number 434, initial proposal for successor collective bargaining agreement with Pasadena Unified School District is now closed.
Oh. Oh, yeah. If you message Thank you. Did you you didn't want to comment? No. Just I'm out of breath. I made it up the stairs. Good evening, Dr. Blanco and
board members. I'm uh here as uh chapter 434's uh vice president and just looking forward and eager to working with the district with the um initial proposals and and u for the year ahead. Thank you.
Thank you. All right, moving on. We have the approval of declaration of intent to negotiate a community workforce agreement CWA to authorize the superintendent Oh, what am I missing here?
Turn the page. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Thank you. Item J, student board member report. Trustee Magazine. Sorry.
Um, first I would like to begin by saying thank you President Hall, board members, and superintendent Blanco for your leadership and continued support of students in PUSD. Um, first we want to address the recent swatting incidents at Blair High School
on September 12th and 16th. These events created a lot of anxiety and unease for students and staff. Even teachers weren't aware of what was happening at the moment, which made the situation even more stressful. No student should have to come to school in fear. That's why we strongly support consent item E,
which will help strengthen campus security. A safe environment is the foundation for learning, and we must do everything we can to protect it. We would also like to address and talk about the cut to the cut to the PCC Upwardbound program. For over 74 P US
students every year, this program has been a lifeline, helping first generation and lowincome students prepare for college, including myself. It's a huge blow to students who need extra guidance and opportunity. We believe it's vital that our district continues to fight for resources like this that are a gateway to better
education. This past Monday, the student think tank and student assembly held our first Inerson meeting of the year. Our goal is for student assembly and the student think tank to be more diverse, welcoming spaces where every student feels feels
represented. Um, with student assembly elections coming up, we're excited to reach more campuses, encourage and encourage students to get more involved in leadership. Um, we would also like to rise I mean
raise concerns about rising transportation costs. Field trips will become harder to afford and special education students who rely on buses to get to school every day could be the most affected. We urge the district to keep equity in mind as these challenges grow. These moments remind us that students
are being affected on every level from federal cuts to local policies. Whether it's the loss of programs like Upwardbound or the fear from the swatting incident or ICE, these challenges directly affect our families and our classrooms. In times like these, it's vital that we work together to ensure
not only our students, but our district is safe. Thank you again for your commitment to student safety, inclusion, and opportunity. We look forward to working together and making PUSD a place where every student can learn, grow, and belong. Thank you. Thank you, Trusty Magie.
You want to comment? Is it possible to understand more about the PCC upwardbound program? cuts. Is that on our end? Is that on PCC's end? Okay. So, the federal those funds were coming to PUSD or to PCC.
No, Upwardbound programs are run by the the colleges and universities. But this is this is a federal impact that directly does impact many of our students, okay, who do access the upwardbound programs. All right. So, PCC lost federal funding and then that impacts our students. All
right. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for Trusty Maxi? Thank you for your report. All right. Now, item K1, approval of resolution 2839, sufficiency
of instructional materials. Like to entertain a motion. Oh, it's presentation. Okay. So, good evening, President Frederick, school board members, superintendent Blanco, SLT, and community members and educational partners. My name is Nadira
Nao, director of curriculum instruction and professional development in educational technology. I'm here this evening to present resolution 2839 stating the sufficiency of instructional materials for TK um 12 for your consideration for approval for the 2526
school year. As of September 5th, we have submitted all paperwork citing our sufficiency of materials for the core subject areas of mathematics, English language arts, science, history, social studies, English language development, and world languages. Sufficiency of materials is inclusive of both physical
and or digital access to instructional materials. As of September 18th, the Los Angeles County Office of Education has completed all announced and unannounced Williams sufficiency visits to our Pastina schools and to determine their sufficiency of instructional materials. I thank you for your consideration for
the approval of this resolution. Motion to approve. Second. Any further discussion on the item? Trusty Magi, what is your preferential vote?
Yes. All those in favor raise your hand. All those against? Any abstensions? Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Nyle. Next item.
Next item. K2, approval of resolution number 2831 authorizing a notice of exemption for purposes of satisfying the California Environmental Quality Act, SQUA, for John Mir High School's athletic facilities modernization project.
Mr. Dunny, we didn't have a presentation for this. If you have questions, motion to approve. Second. Any discussion on the item? Just gonna say go Mustangs. Uh, Trustee Magie, how what is your preferential vote?
We vote yes. Okay. All those in favor, raise your hand. All those against, any abstensions? Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dunning. Unless there's another item. I have another.
Guess you're still there. Uh item K3, approval of resolution 2840, authorizing a notice of exemption for purposes of satisfying SQUA for Longfellow Elementary School modernization project and Allenale Elementary Elementary School interim housing project.
Move approval. Second. Any discussion? Trusty Magi, how do you what is your preferential vote? Yes. All those in favor raise your hand. Any against?
Any abstensions? Motion passes. Thank you. All right. Just zipping. Now we are at K4, approval of declaration of intent to negotiate a committee workforce agreements. C.WA to authorize the superintendent or
designate to enter into negotiations with appropriate union partners and return to the board with a draft agreement for consideration. There are five cards for public comment. Oh, I was just going to move approval,
but if he has a presentation, I can wait. Is there a presentation? Yes. Okay. Let's start with the presentation. Good evening everyone. This up. Tonight we're presenting uh about what a community workforce agreement is. We want to make sure that
uh the community and the board is aware of what we're about to uh enter negotiations with. CWA is a prehire agreement uh with local building trades uh unions. It establishes consistent terms for
wages, benefits, safety, and labor peace, applies to the type of funding and limits that'll be negotiated in the agreement uh following this. Uh the goal is to ensure projects are delivered safely, on
time, and on budget. Uh why we're approaching this now, bond construction projects are accelerating across the district. U we're starting uh three large construction projects very soon. Uh
multiple contractors and trades will be working in these uh on these overlapping projects. This will help us coordinate some of the labor. The CWA would uh provide structure and predictability as we move forward onto the next phases
and and some of the even larger projects that we have coming. This um particular um board item is only authorizing us to start negotiations with the labor partners. This is not the actual approval of the item.
Uh we wanted to bring in how this really ties into the resolution that was passed last summer. uh 2780 was about was established for goals of small business participation, targeted outreach and use of skilled trades uh skilled and trained workforce.
Uh the CWA adds uh a single project wide labor uh framework with labor peace protections. Bidding remains open to all qualified contractors, union or non-union and is required by law. together. Uh they create a coordinated
compliance ready program that ties local local firms and local workers um bond projects with clear monitoring and reporting back to the board. Ultimately, what that means is uh
we think that this is a good time to approach both of these tasks. When this was passed last summer, uh the resolution 2780, uh this has kind of been um overlooked a bit. We want to make sure that we're reaching back out to the community and and getting
engagement and local hire and small business. And we're going to find a way to balance those two um uh in future projects and and provide certain incentives that are allowed in the resolution uh and try to make a a clear balance on bringing in local and small
business and looking into micro business. Um I think uh small business is is current term brings it into a very high bracket for some of the businesses here in Pasadena that want to do work with us. Uh we so we're definitely going to
need to look towards the micro businesses as well. Uh tonight I've asked Mark Hovetder to come and join us to talk about some of the myths about the construction labor agreements.
Hello, Mark Hovatter. I'm a Pasadonia Unified School employee. I used to be a school employee for another district that had a large construction program. Uh, I'll try not to mention who that school is because I have to pay a dollar every time I mention them. But, um, I've
had a lot of experience. We had a large construction program. We had a labor agreement and I was invited to speak with a lot of other school boards, a lot of other public boards uh, across the state, even in Canada once and I heard a lot of
discussions about, you know, the pros and cons about what labor agreements were. And I heard a lot of myths that we had and the three biggest ones that I want to make sure the board is clear on and the community is clear that when we enter into this agreement, uh it's the belief that you have to be a union contractor to participate in our
program. That's just that's just not true. Besides the law prohibiting it, it it's just not good business sense for us to do. uh at another district I worked at, 52% of all the contractors that did business and had more than one contract with the district over the course of the
20 years I was there were non-union contractors. There's just a set of rules that they have to abide by that we believe make all the contractors better and make the projects better that they perform. Uh, another myth is that because of
um the union wages on a labor agreement, you have to have um higher you have higher bids because you're paying your workers more. That's not true at all. Now, it may be true that someone's going to bid a higher price because we're under a labor agreement, but it's not because they're paying union wages. The
wages that we pay, whether we have an agreement or not, are dictated by the director of industrial relations on behalf of California. It's called prevailing wage. you do a public works contract, you must pay this minimum wage. And that's all of our contractors are required to do. The unions could
vote to say that the union wages are going to be higher. If the state doesn't change those wages, our contractors under this agreement are not obligated to pay more than what the state wages pro uh require. Uh, another myth is that
work agreements are not good for small businesses. You can't have a successful small business program if you have a labor agreement. Uh there is at least one district I know of that district had a goal of 25% small business participation. We had a labor
agreement for all 20 years I was there and we had a 42% small business participation group. They can work together. In fact, there are some disadvantages I'll speak to in a in a second, but there are definitely advantages for small businesses that want to emerge. When you're a small
business, you have to go out and bid and compete for work. You don't know whether you're going to have that job or not. You've got a workforce that you have to keep it. You have to keep it gainfully employed. Uh you don't want to hire more people than you're positive you're going to have gainfully employed. So, if there are two projects that are bidding,
you're only going to bid one of them because you only have the workforce to be able to cover one. You know, you don't want to have a workforce large enough to do two and then you don't get both jobs. Well, with a labor agreement, you can bid both of those jobs. And if you happen to win both of those jobs, you get a workforce readily available to
you, a skilled trained workforce that will come work for you for the hours that you're doing that job and then they go away. So you're not carrying their overhead while you're trying to work for the next one. So there are very many small businesses that through this agreement never become a union contractor, but have the same benefits
that a union contractor would with access to that skilled workforce so they can grow their businesses and they can have more opportunities. And if that's one of the goals of uh our board, which I believe it is, it gives us an opportunity to help develop our own small lo local small businesses so they
can participate in our program and be our projects contractors as the projects get bigger and bigger. Um there are there are some disadvantages and some contractors are going to look at these and we need to understand those. Um some contractors are going to choose not to
participate. they'll choose not to participate either because they believe one of the myths that I just talked about or because they're they're just not comfortable working with that job or they don't want to they specialize in other work that does not have labor agreements and they don't want to have the mixed workforce that that are
created. So, so we will lose some contractors that won't participate. The reality is there are a lot of contractors out there that want to participate and they're not participating because we don't have an agreement and we'll see them show up and start bidding our projects because they know that there's a level playing field
now. They know they're not going to get undercut by someone who's not going to bring the quality workforce that our specifications require. They're going to come anticipating that they're not going to pay their workers the required wages, the state required wages, and that they're going to get away with it, but they won't get away with it if there's a
labor agreement because there's more eyes on there and and they're not going to get that. Um, some non-UN contractors that do participate um could end up paying double benefits. You know, the prevailing wage says you have a base salary which goes to the
individual. And then there's another component that's called benefits and that's for your retirement, your health plan, um your vacation time. That portion under our agreement for the projects that qualify is required to be paid to the union's trust fund. And if
you don't work the number of hours to vest with that trust fund, it's 200 I believe for laborers up to 600 for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. If you don't work that many hours, then you don't get to get that benefit from it. But this is not a Pasaduni Unified trust fund. This is a
trust fund for the the building trades. In fact, it's a it's an international trust fund. So, if they work on any other project that has a labor agreement, those hours accumulate towards that agreement. And our goal is not to bring a contractor in just to do one contract. Our goal is to create
partnerships hopefully with our with our neighbors for long-term agreements. and they're going to continue to do multiple contracts over and over as they develop and they they hire our students and our neighbors and um grow and develop within our area. So, um it will only be a
disadvantage if they come and stay for a short while and leave. But once they get to that point, then they'll be able to develop program and it won't be a disadvantage for them. um workers have to get assigned out of the union halls that qualify for this
agreement. And there is a the contractor's workers even though they're not union members will have to act like they're union members for the duration of that contract. They will um be assigned to the union hall and then get assigned back to the contract. But there's there's a ratio that you'll do
it. It's one of your own contractors and then one from the union hall. Um, as part of our agreement, we are going to put in terms that give preference for local as we define what local is. And we'll have preference that they'll get assigned first over other areas. But there there will be contractors that may
have more than five employees working for them and not all of them will be able to work on this unless they happen to get assigned out of the union hall and that's a risk that they'll have to take and that's that's a real risk. Um, I mentioned the contractors don't have to be union contractors. a contractor
can work for us and work under the labor agreement and have a another job right across the street. They could have another job on our c on our own campus that is not under this agreement. So they'll have one project so that we're not restricting them saying that once
you work here you can only work for jobs that are associated with unions. you can still have your other projects that you're working on for your other clients. And if they're on our campuses, they'll be protected by the by the benefits that we'll speak to with a a a civilized way to resolve all disputes
without having it um turn into a stoppage of our work as we go. Um there will be impacts on um the school district. It it will cost us a little bit of money. We have to have an administer for this program. any program has to be watched and administered. We
either hire someone or our preference would be that we hire someone who is a district employee to manage this. Um they have to one um make sure everyone's complying with the rules. More importantly, they have to train everyone on what the rules are so they know the benefits. Um people that are reluctant
to bid or afraid, they can they can work with them and to make sure they understand what the requirements are. if there do happen to be disputes um they can help through that process and the steps of how those disputes get resolved. Uh but this person can also do similar type things. We have an
obligation to make sure our labor compliance is enforced. Meaning our contractors have to pay the labor compliance required by state law. The person that's monitoring this can actually work with our construction trade programs. They have a common interest of making sure workers are paid the wages the law require them to do.
and we can deputize them to help us do our interviews and help us enforce. Um, we also have a a desire that the board has recognized through its resolution that we want to have small businesses participate in our program. Well, this person could also be our
small business program. And together, these two programs dovetail very well to help get the maximum participation that we have from our small businesses and from our local hires that are going to be be participating in our program. even if they're not trained yet to be in construction, we have an avenue to get
into some of the best training facilities in the country through this agreement where we can have our our own students who um decide to adopt a trades rather than go to college or today going to college. More and more
people that are in the construction industry are going to college. Used to be you decided I'm going to go tech or I'm going to do construction. Now you're not going to do construction without being tech. So, there's that continuing education component that we can partner with to be able to produce the best quality workers that are coming straight
from our schools. Um, and there are going to be some bids that are higher. When we when we open bids, there'll be contractors that will bid higher because we have an agreement than we don't. Um, I believe that you don't measure the cost of a contract when you open your
bids. you know, um many people think you measure the cost of your contracts when you finish the construction of the contract because maybe there'll be um you know, change orders or different issues that you have. But as someone who used to be responsible for maintaining buildings that are, you know, 50 years
old, 60, 100 years old, um we want schools built that are going to be high quality. And the time that you measure the value of your school is after you've been operating it for 50 years or so. Uh, I got invited to speak at the Architect Institute of America and you
know I thank them for getting some of our schools on the cover of Architect Digest, but I said that's great and we'll take it, but our goal is to get on the cover of Maintenance and Operations Digest. We want our schools to look new. We want to be praised because of how well they performed and they're still 50 years from now, they're still going to
be considered modern and new looking because of the quality that we put in to begin with. And to do that, you got to spend a little bit more money when you do that. We're going to get better quality contractors. We're going to get quant contractors with better quality people and we're going to get better schools which is the most important for
us so our teachers can do their mission. Um benefits that that we have uh the projects won't be interrupted by labor disputes. Um I listed that first even though I've heard some people say well you know Pasadena is small they don't have labor disputes anyway. Uh
that that may be true. We haven't had labor disputes but it's been a while since we've done a you know 10 2030 $30 million projects. As the projects get larger, um there tends to be more more attention to our projects and more
disputes. Um our our partnership with our our union partners, you know, the they're a great family of brothers and sisters, but they're still a family. Sometimes families dispute have disputes. Um, a lot of people think that the labor
agreement just is between um, our contractors and our building trades partners and disputes are between contractors and unions. Well, sometimes we have disputes between unions about who's going to do what type of work. Whatever the dispute is, we have a civilized rule book that says this is
the way we solve our problem. We don't let anyone take the battle to our schools and stop our construction from happening. construction goes on and we will not lose a day's work because of a labor dispute and we will resolve our
labor dispute in accordance with this contract that's well established and laid out and we can do it civil civilized so our impact is not going to be on our school and I listed that first because I believe that's the most significant thing is that we're able to continue our projects without interruptions um we can write into our
agreements the ability to bring in local workers um as part of our negotiation we'll define what that local worker is and what that percentage is. But we understand the board's desire to have um local contractors, small businesses, and local laborers, our own neighbors
working on our schools. Um as someone who used to manage construction, I think that people who are building a school that their kids are going to live in tend to do a better job than someone who comes in from Texas. Nothing against anyone from Texas here, but we we want our own people coming in and building our schools, and we're looking for that
participation. Um there's always going to be a skilled workforce even when um there's a lot of construction going on like we anticipate in this area. Um we can partner with our trades, let them know what work we've got coming and what trades we need. And if they don't have enough people in the halls, they can go
next door and from another hall and bring someone in. They can go, you know, to San Diego. They can go up north if they need to. and they'll continue to branch out for whatever our needs are to make sure that we've always got the workforce we need and our projects aren't going to be impacted by not having a skilled workforce. Um, our
projects can be safer. Um, I mentioned that we can um, deputize our union trade partners to help us enforce labor compliance. While they're on the project and they're doing interviews to make sure people are paid the right wages, they also understand what a safe project is supposed to look like and they'll let
us know if it isn't. And um at another district I used to work at, we had an owner controlled insurance program where we basically bought the insurance, workers comp insurance, and then we named our contractors as additional insured. We saved a lot of money. It was loss sensitive. I mean, the more
injuries we had, the higher our rates were. Um, we because we had so many eyes looking at the safety of our program, not just for our students. So, not just for our workers, but for our students, our staff, and our neighbors, that we had an injury rate that was one-third of
the rate of the industrial average with our construction program. That saved us $20 million in our insurance policy because our injury rates were so low. And I give a great credit to that to our labor partners who helped us enforce safety. Um, we can have assistance with
our labor compliance rates. uh we can expand opportunities for our small businesses. We can have lots of partnerships and workshops. We can train people. We can we can take away the barriers that stop them from participating in our program or stop them from being competitive in participating in our program. Um our our
ask today is that you give us uh authority to negotiate um the the superintendent or her design's authority to designate with the Orange count or the Los Angeles and Orange County um building trades and construction trade council to come up with this agreement. We will this is not
authority to enter an agreement but to negotiate and come back and present the the negotiated contract with you. Um we believe the goals of this agreement that will help us achieve that are the goals that um the board has read has uh made us realize they have. That's deliver a a
quality high-cost contract construction program, eliminate the barriers that stop our neighbors from participating in the program, give the opportunities for the small businesses, and then advance the long-term modernization of our goals of our construction projects.
With that, we'll turn it over for any questions. So I will follow the protocol for which is this will be the inquiry port portion and then advocacy will be after. So questions right now.
Oh, public comment first. Sorry. Sorry. Let's do two. David Hansson, Elisha Montes, Lucas Lee.
Thank you all for uh uh seeing us this evening once again. Uh you've heard quite a few of us um uh give you our stories in a previous meeting, so I'll save a lot of that. You know, I've spoken on quite a few of these and and often after the education portion, I
have a lot of comments to add and I don't uh that was a great job. I I I really appreciate your work. Um uh I look forward to partnering with you. I look forward to bringing in more members from u your service district into our
organization and providing those strong middle class jobs. I'll backtrack a little. My name is David Hansen. I'm the business representative for plumbers and steam fitters local 398. Um we've uh represented plumbers in Pasadena area
for over um gosh we're at 123 years now. So this this is home plate for us. Um uh we appreciate your your support and we hope to serve you better. We hope to take your graduates and and put them directly into our program. I actually
rewrote our apprenticeship standards to facilitate um direct entry and and thereby skipping the line and and bringing your apprentices directly into our program if there's a C.WA with a local higher requirement. So, I have an obligation to
serve you once we have that that agreement in place and and and fasttrack your students into my program. So, I I appreciate you guys. I I look forward to partnering with you and thank you very much for your time. Good evening, uh, board members. My name
is Elijah Montes. I'm a United States Marine Corps veteran as well as a Pasadena resident and member of uh Iron Workers Local 433. Um we're here to speak on behalf of moving forward and negotiating community workforce agreement.
You got the last part. Okay. And um uh I'm I'm really here to speak on uh behalf of that and behalf of being a member of this community and how much it means to uh be able to speak in terms of
the apprenticeship program. Um it's giving us uh quality quality learning with very experienced instructors. um offering thousands of dollars worth of experience and certifications in um
things such as welding because we are Los Angeles local and Los Angeles has its own written welding code that we're required to have as well as a um all of the OSHA standards that we have to meet and um it's really important as a member
like I said of this community in Pasadena to be able to contribute back and it would mean a lot to move forward with this. Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Uh my name is Lucas Lee. Uh I'm a first period apprentice at the Union Iron
Workers Local 433. I am also a United States Marine Corps veteran. Uh I just got out in 2024 and uh my buddy that just uh went in front of me. He uh told me about the helmets to hard hats program which is a program where they
allow veterans to have a direct entry into the union. And uh some people I asked people on my work site they wait like six months to get in. So I felt pretty fortunate uh you know having that status that veteran status to get in. Um
yeah, no um we uh as iron workers, we strongly urge you to uh move forward in negotiating DCWA. Um it'll create good local jobs for uh members like me. Um uh this project will also improve the
life of local residents like myself and contribute to the local community. Um as an apprentice and a local resident representing the future of our trade, we urge you to negotiate the CWA. Thank you, Kenny Monteano
and Ibraim Naim. And Kenny left, too. Okay. Well, thank you. Okay. We're done with public comment. So, inquiry questions for staff.
Okay. Trusty McKenzie. Thank you so much for um the presentation. I think I have three four questions. Um Mr. Hobatter spoke to um bond assurance
and bond capacity. Is that something that um we would have the ability to do here to support small businesses that may or may not have they may have some challenge with their kind of bond capacity? Is that something we could buy out of our um bond funds to support that
or we can certainly as our program uh trying to eliminate the barriers for contractors come in. One of the barriers is you have to have a construction bond. you're speaking to. We we can create a bond assistant program. We can help train them on what they need to do to be
qualified. We can write um special provisions in our general conditions of our contract that make it less risky for shies for our small businesses so they're more likely to give them bonds as well. That's helpful. Thank you.
Um and then in terms of the person who would serve or I'll say should um PUSD decide to proceed with um negotiating and being successful with developing an agreement um
what is the criteria for the person who could serve as um the community workforce agreement administrator? You're talking about the the the work the compliance administrator. Yes. So, we'd have to hire someone and um
ideally that person would be like he said a PUSD employee. We don't want we want to make sure that there's absolutely no conflicts. Um we bring that person in. They would cover he kind of covered this a little bit where they would also serve as our labor compliance. They would be actually
checking the hours of the of the contractors that are showing up on site. um that would have give us um it's I don't think that our program is so big that we can't have that person do both roles and a bit of outreach for community. Uh that's what we're planning
right now is having uh local community outreach about at least maybe every quarter, every six months uh to keep people engaged. Uh make sure that they know and are aware of all the opportunities that are out there uh that we're going to bring forward to the local communities. and then also make
sure that we're counting and reporting in all of our labor hours and showing uh the statistics that we can show on who's local um who's being hired within the labor agreement uh that we end up with. And you're leading into my next question, which is how do we define
local? Is that something we can put parameters on? Can we sort of drive what local means? Like is it um a mile radius? Is it zip codes? Is it like what are those things that we can do to make sure that we are really um Mark can probably talk more
identifying seeking and really um working to make sure that um we're providing local opportunities for folks. It's typically ends up in zones uh and those go on during the negotiations and those will be decided in the next part of this and you would see what the
results of the ne negotiations are before as we bring them back. Mark, has anything to add? Obviously, we want our district employees. We can add things that include um a preference for veterans. We
could add things that include a graduate of Pasadena Unified, even if they no longer live here, be defined in that. It's basically up to us how we define it. Um, one of the tendencies of the agreements now are to create a tier. There's a first tier where we look first
to find people that meet the first criteria which is closest to us, live in one of the zip codes or the criteria we define and then we would expand it out to a second tier and potentially even a third tier if we're unable to fill those. And then it would be open to anyone and then we would seek to have a
percentage. So when people get assigned out of the labor hall, if we're below that percentage, then more people get to skip the line that meet our criteria of being local and then get assigned to our projects. Okay. Thank you. And I have my last
question and I'm let y'all live tonight. Um how do we stand up um apprentichip programs? I know that there is the existing work that's happening at the Flint Bridge Center. I know LLC Building Trades has an apprenticeship program. Um allegedly there's some work that's
happening that's being coordinated between um PUSD, PCC and the city. Um who or how do we bring kind of all these efforts together to make sure that we're creating multiple avenues for folks to be able to
um come into the training program so that we're growing the local workforce? like how does that work and who is responsible for that and kind of who's the sort of like I guess the brain center of that effort. So we're going to continue with outreach
for that. Um I'm not sure how many people know this but I'm actually I went through the apprentichip program. I'm product of the carpenters union. U I started when I was 19 years old. Um I got trained through them. I understand
how important this is, how easy it is to to actually pick up a hammer and get to work and make a decent wage. So, um I think community outreach is key. Making sure that people are aware that there's pre pre-apprenticeship programs that can train anybody who's willing to
go to work to to go into any trade that they'd really like to see. And that could be anywhere from, you know, IT work to electricians, uh plumbers, carpenters, nearly anything that we'd be doing. uh with our bond funds and bringing in our
our students and and walking them through some of our job sites is is one of the um not a requirement, but it's a perk of of having some of the larger contractors through the lease lease backs where we can bring them in and show them what's going on and see all the different opportunities throughout
the the the construction community and what these highpaying jobs are are are doing uh for for what they would do for this local community who's been, you know, hit with this recent tragedy. I think would be great and the to answer your question it would be me a bit. Um I
would definitely be outreach helping with the outreach. U there would be the the the person that would be tracking the labor would help organize it. U we have uh Mark as well who knows a lot about this and and has obviously done this for several years. So I think that
we're well equipped. uh we'll scale it as needed um to make sure that we're uh doing the right amount to make sure it it will be obvious I think that once we start outreaching that there's plenty of people that are looking for work and especially this type. Thank you.
Thank you. We're still in inquiry. Trusty Bailey. Yes. Thank you. Can you hear me? Okay. Hold on. Now I'm a little more comfortable. Um, so two things. First, I almost jumped out
my chair when I heard you say Orange County because when I think local, you know, I think about the communities here, Pasadena, um, Aladena, Sierra Madre, the communities that where our families live. And then I think LA County, and I
didn't hear you say LA, so I had to ask Sergio for clarity. and he assured me that it was LA County and Orange County. So, I just want to be clear that um the Los Angeles uh county community is is
what you're considering. Um, and then I I would like to know um I know when we talked earlier um Mike we talked about um local hiring, local
participation, local uh businesses and I heard um the speaker come in and um talk about resolution 2021. And so I want to know if you are going to
consider uh reviewing that resolution and then incorporating the 25% small business local providers, trades people and the 5% female trades people in your negotiations. Is that something that
you're considering? And if not, I would like to know why not. That's a tough question. Uh one of the One of the things about having labor agreements is we don't want to have them restrict our actual work. Uh there's uh
continuing work that's going to go through u at a pretty quick pace based on on what the board has approved. um creating this agreement uh with labor unions is is one part I
think reaching out to local business and making sure that the scales can be balanced in a way where we can continue forward uh and do all of the work that we need to do and have uh good community outreach and bring in as much local
labor as possible is a goal of ours. It's clearly a goal of the board. you passed multiple resolutions trying to h make this happen. Uh resolution 2021 um was was it 2021? Yeah. Um I don't know how much we saw the effects
of that. Um I tried to see if there was any reporting. Um so I'm not really sure how effective that actual resolution was. I would like to make sure that the agreement that we come into play that we bring into play is going to uh mesh the
two to make sure that we have skilled and trade workforce and we're targeting local labor and local businesses. And we're going to try to um very possibly tip the scales for for local businesses as much as as reasonably possible to
keep the workflow going. So then so how does the board then measure our commitment to local hire? I think the big thing is in the reporting. So uh again 2021 says uh and
uh 2780 also require us to start reporting back what we've what our results are and how much we've engaged and how much we've hired that's local and we'll bring those numbers back to you in real time. um it could be a an addition to the facilities committee as
a monthly report to see what's actively happening. So my concern then becomes in your reporting um you could say numerous times over we couldn't find
anyone locally. We couldn't we couldn't hire anyone locally. Um, I think I'd be more comfortable if there were some parameters set on what the board could expect, at least a minimum
starting a minimum, uh, number. Um, and it sounds like back in 2021 25% must have been reasonable, but um, it's kind of hard to to hold you or to to
determine whether or not you're meeting a goal if we don't know or have a set goal um, to meet. So, I'm just trying to establish a way to manage our role in that.
And so, Do you have any idea at all what that should be? That threshold? I think that the threshold um the threshold may not come into play as
much as making sure that we are actually doing the outreach. I think that it's it's important that if we have workers like you saw come up before me that are in this community that they they we know and they know that we're doing the projects here and that they can be hired
locally and they're driving 10 minutes to work, right? I think that that's the biggest goal. Um I think uh there's lots of ways and and Mark, if if you want to speak to this, there's lots of ways to tip the scales in different directions to make that help help that move along.
um putting a limiting factor uh is a possibility. It's not that. So, I'm not looking for any way to limit you. I'm looking for an expectation to hold you accountable because that's what we do, right? We're the board. We have to be able to measure
what you're what you're bringing us. And so, I'm just trying to find a way that, you know, when we look at what you report, we can say, "Oh, yeah, they met that goal. They met that goal. they met that goal. So if we just go into this thing with no expectation,
then we're just accepting whatever you bring to us and there's no system of accountability. And that is my concern. Um, one of the concerns I have about the way we go about our work and our role as board
members is that there's no system of accountability for us to gauge whether what direction we're going in, whether we're being successful or whether we're not, whether we're meeting our mark or whether we need to do something
different over time to change whatever it is that's not working. And so, you know, or else we'll keep running in circles and not meeting our mark and and then we're just looking at each other, blaming each other. So,
so me and Mark have actually discussed this quite a bit and I think he can give you a little bit more answer than I can. I I think the board can make it clear what their goals are and I believe they have and we understand that. We don't believe our mission is to go out and try
to find someone that meets that criteria and come in and do our job. Our our mission is to have people do that job. So if we don't get that participation when we do that outreach, we're going to go find out why. Is it that no one wants
to? That's one approach that we'll take and we'll try to educate them and convince them the the benefits that they can have through this program. if it's that they do want to but they're not able to because they don't have bonds or because they don't have the the training. You know, everyone wants to make $70 an hour or they they just
haven't got the skill set. Well, we have the ability to do that. We have partners now that have the best training facilities in the world. We can do our own part to help channel them into that. We can create programs. So, our accountability to you is we'll give you monthly reports of what the actual
numbers are and when we are not meeting the goals that you've given us to meet, we're going to tell you why we think we aren't and what our action plan is to go out and do that. And that's how you hold us accountable. So, and that's what I'm getting at. What goals have we given them to meet?
I don't think we've given you any goals to meet except for we said we wanted local hiring, but we haven't said how much or what percentage 20 2780 did leave that a little bit and and we we're acknowledging that for
sure. Um that the resolution was there was an option before we came tonight to see whether or not we should overwrite that res resolution and it's very possible that that might happen. But I think that that's going to come once we understand what the negotiation looks
like. So, and that's we're really looking at this from all angles. We do want Exactly. We want to bring this community in and and put them to work. That's a major goal of ours. This is a lot of money that the that the city has has entrusted to us and we want to make
sure that we're doing our part to make sure that they're involved in as much as they want to be. Okay. And then will you be working with staff to create um I guess some type of format or or way
for our students to enter into your apprenticeship program. Absolutely. That's a personal goal of mine. I want to make sure that that we have all types of avenues for our students to come and view our job sites and sign up for the pre-apprenticeship and get to see even through our trade
shops, right, for maintenance and operations just to see what it's like. And then how is it going to be differentiated between PUSD and PCC? Uh PCC has the same goals. Um I I don't but I mean how how are you going to
direct how are you going to manage directing students between the two um entities? Go ahead. Oh you go ahead. Sorry because now we're kind of overlapping with the educational piece.
Both entities can utilize this opportunity for learning. So PCC has set up obviously their own um partnership agreement um around this. They take in our students during the summer for internships um that that benefit our kids on the learning side and also give
them access to real um world yeah application. We can do the same. It will obviously be different credit bearing um opportunities. But what we have found is that the demand for internships, the desire for students to have internships is actually greater than what we've been
able to supply. We're constantly looking for partners. So I think this can only benefit allowing PCC to continue to expand theirs to the benefit of many students in the region and then for us to have our own internal um mechanism as well. Okay. Okay. So what I hear you saying is
that you're you're still um you're about to go into the negotiation phase for this. So, I'm just going to hope that you um give us some expectations to be able to see when we're meeting the mark
and when we because if you don't meet it, I mean, we're not meeting it, right? So, we just need to be able to have some measurable goals so that we can see the progress of what's happening and that's all I'm asking. I think you'll see the back check when
we come back to for approval. Okay. and we'll have some of those answers. Great. Thank you, Trusty Kenny. Thank you for the presentation. Um, I think I heard you say that this could increase costs a little bit, but that
we're getting more value and so that makes it worth it. Would you say that CWA's can increase the length of time of projects? No, it'll actually be the opposite. Skilled and trained work. skilled and trained workforce is exactly that,
right? And it's important that we understand what we're hiring. You're paying more for um labor that's shows up ready to do the job that they were trained to do. And that's a really big difference on the job site. Okay. And then is it possible for you to
give an estimate of the cost of the administrator or the compliance person? Is that I don't know if I'm assuming it'll be a well it'll be one of our it'll be a union job probably maybe not but is it
80,000 100,000 a year it's a it's a little high but it's not something that we weren't going to bring without the labor agreement so us tracking hours is important to to stay in compliance anyway as we get into these larger projects we're going to have to do it anyway can that be that position be funded by
the bond yes Okay, thank you. Any more inquiries? Motion to approve. Oh, hold on. I have to um Yeah, I need to go into advocacy. So, if
you have a advocacy statement first, then we'll do the motions. Go ahead, Trusty Harden. Thank you for the presentation. Um, I I I'm totally supportive of this initiative to develop this agreement. Um, and I I can see what it's going to do for our community, what it's going to
do for the adults. Um, I'm super passionate like some of my colleagues about what it's going to do for our kids and and the educational opportunities that it presents. I think the gentleman spoke earlier about the streamlining uh possibly for uh direct entry into
programs uh for apprenticeships, which is a big deal. And um you know I think this is a a great opportunity for our students to give back to their community um and and it and its pathway. I think we heard from others that said that you
know working in working in the trades is a great opportunity to to earn earn some money uh save up for uh whatever future they envision for themselves whether it be continuing in this work or enrolling at a university or you know whatever. It
gives them opportunity, gives them options. So, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Motion to approve. Any further discussion? Uh, Trustee Maxi, what is your preferential vote? Yes.
All those in favor of item K4, raise your hand. Anybody against? Any abstensions? Motion passes. Congratulations. Thank you. We're only 12 minutes behind. That's
okay. Dr. Canal for the staff presentation on information regarding upcoming issuance of Measure O and Measure R General obligation bonds. Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to introduce uh Meredith Johnson and Dale
Scott who are here. um and not new to to our board, need no introduction, but uh they'll be presenting today. Um I will say that there was one addition to the presentation, one slide presentation. So, halfway through we're going to get off on the pages, but um
it's in the slide deck, but not in the hard copy, but we'll get there. I'll point it out when we get there. So, I'd like to just kind of run through this quickly. I know you'll have questions. I'm sure you'll have questions, but let's take them um as
they come up. Please ask the questions rather than waiting till the end. And any, as you know, I've said it before, anytime there's a really difficult question, I will say Meredith and and and Meredith will step up and answer the hard ones. Let's go to page two of the
presentation. I'm going to give you the little background and then we'll talk about what's going on with the bond issue itself. Um, page two shows the past measures that have been approved by the voters. And thank you. Thank you very much. Um, and
you can see if you look in the right hand corner, um, the yellow highlighted, that is the amount of funds that have been, uh, approved. I'm sorry, on the right. Yes. Right. The right hand side of the card, those are the amounts that are
still available uh, for you to issue. In other words, they're authorized but unissued. On the next page, we have the assessed valuation historical of the district. Now a question did come up. Does this
include the assess valuation based on the after the fires? And the answer is yes. Most of it those adjustments are still being made. I believe you can see if you look the difference between fiscal year 25 and fiscal year 26. It's
essentially no increase in the assessed valuation. Um you can see that in the chart also if you look at the very bottom. So essentially you are flat in assessed valuation which is what I would have expected. Going to the next page
you have issued a fair number of bonds. This is on slide six. They are outstanding. I just wanted to have them all in front of you so you can see what the taxpayers are currently paying off. These are bond measures from both the um 2008 election and the 2020 election.
Also, I would point out if you look on the far right hand side of this table, you see first optional prepayment date and the repayment date is coming up in the middle of next year for two of these bonds. That allows you to then refinance those bonds into lower costs if the
market is available, and I think it it's likely it will be. And that refinancing savings would go to the taxpayers, not to the district. If we take all of that information, synthesize it together, we come to page
five, slide five, which shows the estimated tax rate that voter that property taxpayers are now estimated to pay for the currently outstanding bonds, not the bonds that you haven't issued, just the currently outstanding bonds.
The interesting piece here is the blue, which is the 2020 measure. We made sure that that was very short. Um, it's only been going that particular piece is going to be paid off in four years and then we'll be able to add on to it as we
go forward as I'll show you. Okay, let's now turn to measure O and measure A. So, we take these rates, these estimated rates from page five, and we Oh, I'm sorry. Now we have the
slide on the projects. So if you can turn not to the written uh the published form but also but up on the screen you can see the actual projects that are being presented or being
proposed by staff. I'm not going to go into great detail them if somebody wants to talk about them. Yes. No. I think it's important to make sure that we show what these bond funds are going to fund. So, uh, measure O, we continue
with our, uh, current bond program and measure R, there's a projection of what we will be doing with those funds as well, just so everyone's aware. Any questions on the projects? I do have, but I'd rather wait till the end if that's okay.
Okay. Now, we're going to be a little off on the slide numbers, but the next slide, which is the slide um in the packet as slide six. So, if we look at this table on the right hand side, that is the projected
rate of the issuance of the bonds. That's projected. That's ultimately up to you. We also have a bond principal amount um where we have we look all the way down to measure I'm sorry series D of an
estimated amount being issued of $100 million. This is from the 2020 bond that is still a portion of which is still authorized but unissued. The gray in this is the tax rates I just showed you from the previous bonds that
have already been issued. The purple then would be the tax rates that would create increase based on the issuance of hund00 million for these bonds. We'll get back to the hund00 million part in just a minute.
On the next page, we show an example of what we we what we could do. So, it's not a recommendation, just what we could do with the tax rate um for the 2024 bonds for the first issuance, which
would be $und00 million. Now, under the under Proposition 39, we can take that tax rate up by $60. Why would we want to do that? Well, you can see if you look at the pie chart in
the lower right hand corner, by paying those bonds off very quickly, it drops the cost of interest significantly. The bad part is it raises the tax rate significantly. Also, so you have to figure out where you want to be in that.
I'm not making a recommendation yet right now. I'm just kind of showing you what your alternatives are. If you look at the next page, same amount of money that you receive, but we've lowered those tax rates in the earlier years.
And then of course, we have to actually spread it out a little bit farther. So what I'm saying is even though I know there's sensitivity, I would assume there's sensitivity to what those tax rates will be immediately because of the
because of the um fires. We have a lot of flexibility in that. We can move those tax rates around. We can keep them down even more. But the more we repress the tax rates in the earlier years, the more it's going to cost in later years. And that's the piece to keep in mind.
And then finally on page nine would be the proposed schedule. We're here only for information. This would come back for action at your next meeting and we would like to get this
done um by the end of the year. What happens then? The bonds are sold. The interest rates are set. The money goes into the county treasury. The tax rate, however, doesn't get set until the next fiscal year. So,
until 2026 27. And it doesn't matter to a certain extent. As long as we get it done before the beginning of that year, the tax rate is not going to start any sooner or any later than 26 27. So
why now? Well, for two reasons. One, you have the you have the needs. You have the projects. The second is I think there's a great deal of unease in the economy. I think we don't really know where we're going. Frankly, the interest rates right
now are actually pretty good. There's not a great deal of supply. So, I think it makes sense to move forward, lock these in after we figure out exactly what the dollar amount should be and what the tax rate should be, and we'll have that when we bring it back to you
um for your next meeting. Meredith, is there anything you wanted to add on that? So, I'll open up for questions, please. No public comment on this. Trusty Kenny So, a couple questions on just the bond
itself or or and and on the assessed valuation. So, is there something other than the fire that's affecting assessed valuation, would you say? So, it's so low. Is that just, you know, increase
assessed valuation? Remember, we're dealing with the assessed valuation, not the market value. So you have this odd builtin um increase that happens in assessed valuations because of people living in
their homes and then selling their homes and then it gets flipped into the so I have not seen anything like that in any other district where there was some drop in assessed valuation which makes me think that all of this has to do in
your community with the fire. I can't see any other district that's had anything like this in this year. So, it's not like a slowdown in sales because you would see that in other places potentially. You'd have to see a big slowdown in sales. So, so in the uh 2008 uh period,
yes, that's what you saw a great slowdown in sales because you couldn't get funding on the I wanted to go back to those two options for the measure R. So I and I wanted to make sure I understood the maturities because I think when we
started issuing the A and B of measure O, I didn't realize how short the terms were that we went out for and I didn't realize two of them have already matured. So what we are saying so I thought I heard you say that
if we pay more initially in the 25-year bonds, it's higher for the taxpayer in those first two years. and then it goes out farther because it goes all the way to 2050.
But the other option is to have closer to 16-year bonds and in those first two years it's not as much for the taxpayer and we have less interest overall. So it's shorter, we save money and it doesn't cost them as much on their taxes
of the first two years. Am I reading that correctly? Yes. And this can be done many ways. So let's look at this one. the one that has the higher tax rate earlier. You can also see that it goes out way far, right?
And that's where the real cost comes. Okay, that's where the real exception and the difference is in the next one, the impact on the on the interest rate of moving that tax rate in the first two years from 60 to 40 is incremental. Um
the real difference is paying it off 10 15 years faster. That's the real difference and that's where the savings comes. And is there any requirement? So at least on measure TT it felt like we did all of them very long term and we've
done even our capital ones on measure O shorter term. Does it is there any requirement that it be 16 versus 25 depending on what we're using it for? So there's two. Yes, there is a maximum of 25 years under the education code for
bonds, but under the tax rules because remember these bonds are issued on a tax exempt basis. You there's limits as to how long you can finance certain assets because you're building buildings and you're doing construction that has they're very long-term assets. We're not really running into any restrictions
based on the assets being financed. So we don't really have to look too hard. We we I will analyze what you're gonna what you're going to use the monies for, but based on my understanding and my discussions with Mike, it's all long-term assets that that won't restrict us. So, we can go as short as we like to.
Yeah. You know, typically when you use short-term bonds, it's for short-term assets like technology, but right, that's necessarily uh relevant here. Those were my kind of bond related questions. my other ones. Well, so I wanted to under I understood at least I
thought I understood that we were issuing some measure R even though we haven't tapped out measure O because of the nature of some of the things we want to spend the money on. The explanation I got when I asked this question was also because we didn't want to get too close
to the maximum that we can issue for measure O, but we still have a little ways to go before we would hit that, right? We're not we're not going up to the $60 entirely for measure O. Okay. But I mean we we could you could Okay. You could. But so some of it Okay. So there's a
number of different reasons then why we're doing this. Okay. So asking about the specific projects under measure R. One of the things on that slide I don't know if we want to go back to that slide was doing the expanded scopes for Longfellow Mure and Madison.
We already approved those and on our board reports said we were going to use measure O. Are we saying we would go back and and transfer the expenses to measure R? So again, we want to keep some of our options open for the money that's in measure O. We have a lot more money to
spend and we need flexibility to be able to spend it, right? So moving outward looking at the cash flow. We want to have some space in either. If we need to if we make big decisions coming up soon for measure R and we want need to be able to have that capacity, we can.
Okay. But we would have to move them because we've already approved them and to come out of Okay. I just wanted to make sure I understood that. Um and then staff housing I didn't see on either one of these lists, but it's slated for R. It it hasn't exactly been identified
yet. Right. So we've identified every other dime of O. So, I'm assuming are that that's a safe bet. That's a safe bet. Yes. All right. And I I what I I thought that we I thought that housing was coming from R.
I just wanted to make sure and and then not for right this minute, but if we could get an update kind of just on the status and the timeline because I don't feel that I've had a update of the change of the staff housing timeline. Not right now, but I'm saying I can repeat that later under future items.
Um, so the only other thing on that, it said design work for measure R related projects and I guess I wanted to reflect again that we don't have a facilities master plan for this new $900 million of work.
So I don't know what the measure R related projects are because we haven't identified them. And I'm hoping that we're going to do some of that thinking and saying this is what might So, you know, we're putting this hundred,000 out there and I think we've probably got it
covered in in some of these smaller things, but I think the sooner we can um identify what that money is for, the better. Thank you. So, um remember we have a fiveyear master plan that has many more
expenses than money in O. So you have identified some of the things that need to be done, but formally approving, you know, a plan for um measure R is something that we have underway and we want to form a committee and start working on that, but um there's been a
lot going on with the budget right now. So we're trying to figure out how to sequence it, but we will be coming back with that plan soon. That's good to hear there's a plan. Thank you, Dr. Blanco. Any other inquiries?
Okay. And advocacy. Well, the that you took the steam out of my advocacy, but I'm happy to hear that we're looking longer range with uh a revised uh master plan that includes R and it looks a little bit further down
the road. So, I'm happy to see that cultivating. Looking forward to seeing what that is. Okay. Any further questions? I see any um like to entertain a mo. Is there an action? No, this is discussion.
Thank you for items for consent. Okay. Reports. I think we still have board committee reports. Any board committee reports? Trusty Kenny. Um we held policy. you see the results
of that tonight coming forward. And then um oh and I just wanted to say that the uh Mahmood decision, a lot of those changes were incorporated into the policies. Um CSBA worked on those over the summer and and and we incorporated
those. Um, one of the items that came up at our policy meeting was some public comment regarding the dress code for students and kind of reflecting on the varied wording um, and restrictions at
different school sites and how that interacted with our basic dress code at the district level. and expressing a desire to change certainly what the different schools were putting out there and potentially our district dress code
and um I think it was Dr. Dr. who was at that meeting and we talked a little bit about you know what would that look like and so our committee felt that it is something that should be looked at but I wanted to get the full board to kind of say is that something we want
staff to work on you know what's the next step and is that someplace where we see having a committee of students and or parents um or doing some kind of outreach and getting you know gathering input um on that so that before we give staff direction remembering how busy
they are. I'm sorry like you're getting input right now. It's not a so I for staff to go and do the next step they need a board consensus that we want them to can we take this to the future the at
the end sure a request right this is a this is well it's not a request for a board item it's a request for to just reflect on what happened at the policy and to say do we want staff to move forward and do some work
I kind of thought that the our policy committee had said to staff and staffers like sure we'll do that and then Dr. Blanco reminded me that perhaps the full board should direct word requests and questions at the end. We could take it at the end. We're just doing a reports right now.
Okay. Report of what happened at policy. Okay. Any other board committee reports? Um the CLC had their meeting yesterday. I was not at that meeting, but I
understand that they worked on the bylaws, revising or amending the bylaws, updating them or whatever. And then um facilities meeting, we spent a lot of time on the presentation, discussing the presentation that you saw tonight. So,
thank you. Any other reports? Okay. Thank you. Consent. Any polls? Yes. 2B.
2B. We also have a public comment. Okay. Any other approvals? Trusty Kenny. No. What? Okay. All right. So, um, what is that for 5e?
Okay. So, I'd like to enter one B 1B pool, right? Well, we have to vote on it individually, right? Okay. So, I'd like to entertain a sweet
motion on all consent items except for motion to approve. Second. Could I ask some questions? Yes, we can do the public comment first and then could I ask questions on the sweep? Okay. Denise Rob. Dr. Denise Rock from Blair, the PTA
president. Uh, but I'm here as me, just me. Um, although lots of our parents are excited about the idea of getting a perimeter fence. Uh, just quickly, uh, handover research homeland security emergency management findings on school fencing. There are
several benefits to schools having proper fencing. One of these benefits is the ease of surveillance. If there's a well- definfined perimeter, school faculty and law enforcement can easily identify where the public is allowed and where they're not. This allows an
unauthorized person to be identified sooner, potentially stopping a threat before it turns into a tragedy. Fencing also acts as a visual deterrent. Simply seeing a barrier on the school grounds could stop an unauthorized person from
entering. Um, we had the swatting events as you know and we have a large immigrant population, the international academy. Many of our students uh are undocumented and we're worried about them and we think a perimeter fence will give us a little more security
especially when they're heading to the gym because that whole area is open. So, uh, yes on 5e. Thank you. Uh, Trusty Kenny
on 4G on the law firms. I guess um, you know, as we've been talking about the budget situation, I guess I want to renew my or a request that we be as frugal as
we can in the current year. We know we have a lot to cut in the future, but this is big tickets and and if there's any any way we can start cutting costs now, any way we can start tightening the belts and maybe not call a lawyer if it's not
exactly necessary or if we can look something up or call a colleague somewhere else who I don't know. Um, but I would encourage us to start thinking about how we can start saving in the current year. And then on 5e, I just wanted to say somewhere I saw the timeline and I
wanted to make sure that it's clear that because of requirements from the state that the timeline for this is I think I read that construction would not be complete until summer of 2026.
Do I have that right, Mr. Dunning? The Blair fence. So I just want to make sure I saw that right. And if that's true, I wanted to make sure that people kind of had the expectation of people should have some awareness. There are some challenges that are around that
fence that that reflects in the price and the timeline. Yes. Okay. But so summer of 2026 for completion. That's that's a that's a projection. That's a projection. Okay. So not before then. Okay. Just wanted to make sure that people don't say, "Wow, they approved it and then tomorrow, why isn't
it?" Right. I I absolutely would love to put the post in myself, but just not possible. Yes. But when talking about this fence, there are aspects or areas of the fence
that are more urgent than others. So, I'm not sure, Mr. J, we could discuss further, but maybe there's um temporary fencing, which probably people wouldn't like aesthetically, but if it's places that we feel there's a danger, we could maybe put some of that up sooner.
We we are going to be looking at those options. Yes, I did plan for it. Any other advocacy or comments? Okay. Oh, okay. We will definitely try to scale back legal fees, but I want to remind
everybody that we have additional legal fees because of our um bond that's going on and that um other projects that we don't usually have happening that cause us to have to use attorneys a little bit
more than we would if we didn't have the fire insurance also happening. So that's why you see a rise in the legal fees. Any other comments? Motion to approve.
Oh, any a second? Anybody? Second. Yeah, I thought we did this. Trusty Magie, what is your preferential vote? Yes. Okay. All those in favor, raise your hand. All those against raise your hand. Any
abstensions? Motion passes. Thank you. All right, we have one B. Trusty McKenzie, just wanted to um note that the report says draft. Can we remove the draft and then approve as um amended?
No, the other ones don't have it. Thank you. Okay. Entertain a motion to approve 1B. So with the draft removed trusty hard again motion.
Oh yes. Sorry. Thank you. Aren't they draft minutes until they're approved? So is that why draft is there? Yeah, I think draft comes off after we
approve them. So when they can Miss Montoya, you want to clarify? Yeah. So when I when we create the minutes, right, since we do it from the system from Granas, um in order to export the file, we we have to convert it to war. So the war
file will say draft always. at the following day when once you approve the minutes and I activate the minutes as as is without changes, you don't see the word draft anywhere online. So that's
that's what it is. I'm not referring to a watermark. I'm referring to the draft in the title. Oh, that's what I'm saying. Sorry, it's not the watermark. Yes, that's not the watermark. It's the draft in the title. They do say that in past agendas. I've not seen it in the past.
Oh, I just pulled up May 22nd, 2025 and all three said draft in the title about the watermark I'm talking about in the title. Talking about the title. All right. So, I'll just restate my motion to approve with the removal of necessary change.
Thank you. And who seconded it? I second it. Okay. Dr. Velasquez seconded. Um, Trusty Magie, what is your preferential vote? Yes. Sorry. All those in favor raise your hand
to approve 1B. All those against. Any abstensions? Motion passes. Thank you. 2B. Trustee U. Dr. Velasquez. All right. So, long story. I have three conflicts with this AI policy. The first
one has to do with resource consumption. AI systems, particularly large scale models, require vast amounts of electricity and water to operate. Training um a single advanced AI model can
consume millions of lechers of water to cool the servers running non-stop. For example, Microsoft reported a 34% increase in water consumption in just one year due to AI related demands.
These are resources that should sustain communities and ecosystems, not to be diverted towards technological systems with unclear long-term educational benefits. A study in 2021 from the University of
California, Riverside found that training single advanced AI model can consume over 700 lers of clean fresh water. And for reference, I want to remind everybody that water is a finite
resource. And so when we think about uh our mission to commit to sustainable practices as a district and uh acceptance of an AI policy is in direct conflict with that
mission. Number two, disproportionate use of shared resources. Again, this is an issue of sustainability and using your fair share of the world. Um, the extraction of water and energy for AI,
it's not only it's not evenly distributed. Data centers are often located in um droughtprone or water scarce regions, diverting resources away from local communities. This carries a
significant issue of disproportionality. It engages and helps us engage in this principle of we are using more than our share. This imbalance directly undermines the
principles of equity that we also live by here at PSUD and that public education is supposed to uphold. Number three, stewardship for resources for the youth. This is the most important lens here as
inter it is our intergenerational responsibility to guard for the future of our students and it is our decisions who imply imp of water use, energy use and ecological systems. our decisions
impacts the future lives of the students that we educate. And thus um we if we place the immediate technological convenience above the long-term well-being of students in these
communities, we also violate some of our uh goals and u mission as both trustees but also as community members of an educational system. Number four,
in reading this resolution, it seems to me that it is uh providing guidance on academic use of AI and this suggestion without the uh
consultation of our fellow my fellow or educators seems um difficult. ult to understand. Um I I work in a system that
approved the purchased of AI for every student without any process of due governance. And I am uncomfortable repeating that pattern through different academic and instructional institutions
without understanding fully understanding the implications of policy. I believe that I strongly recommend that the board formally seeks the professional opinion of teachers in
this particular and critical matter. Um, I understand that this policy has been modeled after a um, CGA, SC, SBA, whatever the letters are.
Thank you. as the California School Board Association recommendations, but in doing so, I think that we are oversimplifying what is and will be a
significant issue for educators in the years to come. So I ask that we pause this and take a moment to really review some of the implications of adopting an AI policy and what is our responsibility
as um members of this community. So, I recommend that the draft of the A policy be revised um to include an explicit recognition of the environmental and equity dangers of
AI, particularly some of the ones that I've mentioned, but also that any adoption is contingent open a formal process of teacher consultation. Um, as
an instructor myself, I see the importance of educating our students into the implications of some of these tools.
And I am really concerned about our ability to preserve and protect critical thinking in generations to come. And I am not
opposed to technology. I am not a late adapter to technology. I just think that in this particular case, the implications of adapting a policy
may have not been fully considered. Point of information, are you making an amendment or what are you not at this point? I am suggesting that this uh particular item be tabled and further discussion is needed before we
can make a decision. Okay. So you made a motion to table or postpone I should say. Motion to postpone. Second. Oh yes I guess. Motion to postpone.
Motion to postpone. Scott Harden sec. Trusty Harden seconded. Um discussion on the motion to postpone. Trusty K. So
I guess my question is for Dr. Blanco and Dr. Hill. Do we have AI in our district? Well, I think we have AI everywhere. We can't stop it. It's on the internet. But um I'd like Dr. Hill to explain the task force that we've had for the last two
years that has included educators And here I'll just I'll say this. The reason I'm asking is because I don't think this policy is saying let's start using AI and PUSD. It's saying we probably are using AI and PUSD. We should have a policy that
directs how we want to use it, what our philosophical parameters are around it. And this may be too boilerplate and it could perhaps be more specific if if your task force or any other group says oh but I think
we should really talk about this. But I just want to say this isn't saying we are going to start using AI. This is saying since we're already using it. So AI obviously has become a very hot topic and it was the self- selected um topic of discussion for the tech um task
force. So uh the the representatives on that task force do include teachers but it also includes parents, students and community members as well as staff members from edtech uh academics curriculum and then its end result is that they wanted to
develop a handbook. This is pre CSBA's um issuance of this board policy. So it is true that that task force never got to read this board policy. This came out just in the summer. Um the handbook was intended to say in the absence of guidance we should be we should be
acknowledging that AI exists. It is growing exponentially in use and how do we do it responsibly? There are AI tools that um our schools do use not necessarily because of district decision but teacher optin. Uh turn it in happens
to be a very popular one that our our teachers um have requested things like that. Um but our general stance has has not is not to avoid AI but it is and what I hear Dr. Velasquez saying is not to encourage overuse of AI when um its
consumption also has other uh consequences. I do read this um board policy as written by CSBA as guidance for responsible use of AI. It could I can see the idea that it
could also encourage people to utilize AI in possibly situations where they don't need to. For example, Google searches consume far less energy than going to chat GPT and asking the same question. But that's something we'd have to teach users because otherwise they'll
just go to chat GPT for everything and and that increase in energy consumption etc. does impact everyone. Um, so I would say that from an academic lens that handbook can be our implementation guide. It can be sort of how do we use
it responsibly, how do we teach it, etc. But these are good points about making sure that in explaining that we're not encouraging overconumption and overuse. Trusty Harden. So um
I I think that you know when we talk about AI there we look at it through three lenses or we should um it's teaching with AI potentially about AI um and for AI you know it's it's it's thinking about being critical thinkers
when it comes to having um some um uh critical lens when looking at information that you know is coming from an AI source. So I think that's important for students to to to have um front and center and and we can teach
that. Um but I do take uh trustee uh Velasquez's point that I don't think she's saying you know let's not have an AI policy. It's let's take a moment, pause for a second and consider is there additional language that we can add to this that
um creates guard rails so to speak in terms of the environment and the things that the impacts environmental impacts that using AI in an educational setting and in the
broader world have I think that that's that's something I think that we could work into this language Um, and I think we could do it relatively quickly. Um, in terms of teacher involvement and and input, I mean, I think that that sounds like that that's that's underway. That's been
happening. Uh, but for me, it's more about just, you know, we do have words in here about ethical use. We do have words in here about equity and access. um but possibly go, you know, a little bit further than CSBA in terms of um you
know, these are things that there are aspects of this that the district is going to take care not to exceed or violate or extend. So, I do I I think I do support
um possibly, you know, taking a beat on this and and going back coming back with some some of that language to support that. So, I guess CSBA did not have a um AR regulation to go with it. So, that might be something um Dr. Hill that the task
force works on and then also considers what uh Dr. Velasquez brought up tonight about the energy because that is new information to me about all of the energy in the environment. Um and I think maybe there would be a lot of students who might want to use it less if they knew that. But I'd like to also
hear from our student and your perspective on what's going on with AI out there. Um I think what you said is true. I've heard about the massive um energy and just usage of consumption that um AI uses and I think it should stop being
used as much. I feel like it's being um implemented everywhere to the point where it's like even if you don't want to use it, you just use it. Like if I go to Google, it's just AI overview already. It's just right there, which I think is just kind of weird um
considering everything that you said. Um, yeah, that's I don't really support it. Um, our teachers use it. I see other students use it. I've used it before before I found out um what it does. You get me? So, it's just I don't know. Um,
I'm not a supportive. I'm not a supporter. So, when I talk to Siri, I'm Oh, sorry. Trusty McKenzie had your hand up first. Thank you, Dr. Bonga for asking about the administrative regulations. That was
going to be my question is do we have um any administrative guidelines that would accompany this policy and where are we in sort of developing those to accompany since this is a new policy. Someone's missing. We haven't yet. I just made that
suggestion tonight to Dr. So am I next? I Dr. Hill, did you want to answer or about the Yeah, I I don't have a problem working on an AR. I think one of the questions that often is asked when I come to the
subcommittee meetings for board policy is uh because obviously I often bring up concerns about implementation and they'll ask, but is this board policy in conflict with you being able to implement, you know, in the meantime, right? And so I I would certainly say
that though as it stands, this boilerplate language from CSBA is not necessarily in conflict with some of the concerns that we brought up. Um we could certainly move forward with it while working on the AR because I do think that there are um there is language in there about its ethical use that has
been a primary concern because we actually began this work around academic honesty. that was really maybe the entry point about how is AI affecting um instruction uh teachers ability to to you know monitor accurately what
students are doing etc. And that was several years ago. This is probably the first directly AI associated uh board policy that's come come ac across. I do think that eventually CSBA will come up with an AR but we can certainly create those kind of implementation steps in the meantime.
Could I there's a response that I want to point out in the Trusty Bailey? I was answering her question though. You said was there any responses and I just wanted to point Trusty Bailey and I'm going to Okay. I was just responding to so sorry.
So, and you kind of partly answered my question because what I was going to ask was whether or not this was a fluid document. um because you know how everything is just evolving so quickly. Um is this something that's going to be
consistently revised to keep up with how the technology evolves? And if that was the case, then you know I'm kind of I I just want to know so that I can consider that in my thinking. And um talking
about the regs, I mean that makes sense. That's my answer basically uh right there. And so um I don't know. I'm inclined to um support it because this isn't the final
um version of of the policy. So I just wanted to say that. Thank you. Trusty Kenny had a response. So in the um in the attachment in the notes from CSBA. So CSBA formed an AI
task force and so they produced a whole lot of resources for boards to use. But it also talks about a Senate bill that created ED code directing the superintendent of public in instruction of the state to um convene a working group related to AI and public schools
to develop guidance. So I don't think that's finished yet. So I think there's a statewide group that is also working on this. So that could be leading to something that would be more like an AR. So I just wanted to say that is in the notes there um of that. And I wanted to
remind us although that this policy is not just for students, it's also for staff. So um because AI is also a tool that our staff are using and our teachers are using, not just students. And so it it kind of encompasses all the
uses. um in its student centered and staff centered are the two things there. So I just wanted to remind us it's not just about student use. Um Trusty Velasquez, I believe that given the conversation
that we've had here, it is important for the committee to take some of these issues into consideration and think about the language of your resolution. of the policy and how we can workshop some of these concerns precisely because
of the expansed the use of all of the different technologies that encomp that go fall under the umbrella of AI. I think that it is important that we take a look um we have president of other board policies where we restrict
specific use of technology to specific more vulnerable populations. Right? So we have an expansive er policy um that restricts students from using cell phones and other technologies and we have specific language on how to protect students in
instructional spaces from using such technologies. In understanding that there are also different levels of use and different levels of engagement and media literacy is an important part of
understanding AI and its usage. Um I it is particularly concerning and completely within our authority to uh block um sites like Chad GPT for all elementary school children. And that
should be could be something that we include in to our policy, right? Restrict all types of AI assisted writing for elementary school children that are in their pivotal learning time
uh for writing and developing as uh scholars, right? Um so my suggestion is that this particular policy deserves more conversation. Trusty Kenny and then I will speak after
you because I haven't spoken. Okay. So I I would say I would ask then that staff figure out how to word any restrictions if staff feels that that is appropriate.
I understand um adding some language that says we recognize the you know horrible cost to our um ecological system of this technology but I don't know that that is specific
enough about saying and we then don't want people to use it or we want to restrict its use in these ways. So but I don't know that the policy committee or I don't know that I can decide what those restrictions should be. I would want that to come from staff because I
think you're the ones who then have to implement it. So, and again, there's a cost as we know. I mean, we can restrict cell phone use, but it's it's not free. It's time and energy of of people to make that happen, which is why we don't have a very restrictive one yet um as
other districts do. Okay. So, I've heard the environmental impact. I've heard the e sorry are you having conversation I've heard the environmental impact I've
heard the equity issue I've heard um respon being responsible and ethical what I haven't heard is the effect efficacy that are our does AI help our students learn
and studies actually show that it's not helping Um, so I'm going to quote the recent MIT study June 2025 titled Your Brain on Chat GPT accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI
assistant for essay writing tasks shows that use of AI in the classroom reduces brain connectivity compared to those who used just their brains or a standard search engine. So this is a study for
uh college students using chat JBT whose brains are developed already. Imagine our young children their brains are still developing. They need to have more connectivity the more connectivity in
their brains and I mean I'm sure you all use chat GPT and you're like okay do this for me. I anyway it's it's supposed to be get
students a little further on in their assignment, let's just say, but that doesn't help them because they're not doing it themselves. I mean, I could just ex this is just sort of common sense. And the opening statement of this
proposal actually says the potential for AI could potentially undermine student achievement, health, and well-being. It says that in our proposal. It says that. And it to me that even looks like a
disclaimer. Copy paste. You know, well, it could be transformative or it could be undermining your student achievement. It could go either way. I mean what? So you know there is no data that shows this actually is effective. Yes, it's
everywhere. Yes, uh my company tells us to use it, but we are an educational institution and uh are we really helping our students? We
we just approved a very am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am ambitious uh academic goals. We want to make sure that whatever we implement we're going to subscribe to some service eventually that costs something. We want it to
actually work because we have these very ambitious goals for our subgroups 10% every year. Where is the evidencebased learning? There is no data that actually shows
this works. The I've said this in committee. I said AI oftentimes produces wrong information. I mean, we know this. Okay, there's an error rate. The error rate a
few years ago was 17%. Now it's at 30%. It's getting worse and we want our children to be using this. So I yes I have a lot of reservations on
top of the academic one which I just stated but also also the environmental one. You cannot get away from that one because currently server farms need to be cooled down and they put those server farms in
the poor communities. That's an equity issue. That's a social justice, environmental justice issue and we are responsible for that. So I would like to yes postpone and rethink this. So I support the postponement. Thank you.
Can I say make one more comment? Yes. So I work at a college and I attend a college where AI use is encouraged. But
there is a way to use AI. When I think about public K12 public education classroom instruction, I trust that when the district with the district's policies that will be
established or that are already um being put to use um that the classroom teacher is instructing the students. So AI is not just used to write a paper.
um it can be used for other things and yes it does give out wrong information which makes you work a little harder because you have to go back and check the information that you get from AI which is why I don't use it. I just do it anyway. But I say all that to say I
and I hear what you're saying about the whole environmental piece. Tonight is the first time I'm hearing that because I really don't follow any of this. But I will I'm going to look into it. But I trust um that our students would will be
given proper instructions on how to use AI in their classrooms. And so I don't want to um hold back or restrict that type of
learning from happening because I think that it could be beneficial to our students to learn the appropriate ways to engage with AI during their education. Trusty Harden
and and yes and be be wary of it. You know, teaching about AI, teaching what to be on the alert for and how you can be um misled by AI, how and and as we indicated earlier, how AI AI can hallucinate and give you bad
information. So I think those are important pieces about this policy if we're going to if we're going to be mindful of it. Part of the guard rails of this this policy are teaching about AI. Uh providing students with the necessary tools to be critical about the
information they get while using it. So are you saying that we don't do that? No, I'm saying we do do that. That's that's got to be part of part part of this policy is to is to give students the but there's some form of AI currently being utilized in our classrooms. Right.
There is AI used all over the place. I think I would just say we don't intentionally purchase AI tools for the intent in uh express use of you know capturing someone through through a a an AI tool. Um,
I I think what I uh if I could impart that on the instructional level, often teachers are faced with having to um accept the reality of the outside outside world into their classroom. And so I'll liken this to social media. I
think social media has incredible benefits. It also has extreme dangers for students, which we see all the time. Putting a cap on that usage is absolutely one strategy that you can do. But you also that's why we have a rise in digital citizenship curriculum in
other things that we have to now include in some of our instruction because these tools exist. We can't ignore them. People are going to be exposed to them regardless of whether it's in our classroom or not. And so instruction will continue. We will always acknowledge AI as an existing tool. But
I do think that having some um some decisions much like a cell phone policy, much like a social media policy, all of that kind of stuff makes sense. Um, but I wouldn't say that this is a a decision that we could make around whether or not we use AI. It's here. And so that's all I was going to say.
Okay. Motion on the floor to postpone. Um, Trustee Magi, what is your preferential vote? Um, yes, I agree that we should postpone. Okay. All those in favor of postponing, raise your hand.
All those against Oh, sorry. All those in favor of postponement, raise your hand. All those against any abstensions. Okay, a motion passes to postpone.
I believe then we're done, right? With that item. Oh, sorry. So, what is the future request around the AI? Board requests questions. No, no, no. major requests for the AI is
that staff thinks of the restrictions. I'm hearing there's desire on the board to put restrictions on AI use. That needs to come from staff. I don't think the policy committee can do that. We could add language that says let's be
mindful of the water and electricity use of AI. That's that's pretty easy, but I don't think that's sufficient for the board. So, so if the staff decides to provide um more specific language for
this particular policy, where should it present it? See, that's what we should have been clear about. The committee, but I'm just saying it's not going to the committee. It's going to staff. It's going back to staff for the committee then to then bring back to the committee. But in when they finish it, I
mean, I'm not and I they're not on a deadline. Would you agree, board member Kenny, that it's more about guard rails than restrictions? Possibly. Again, I it it it has to be things that staff feels can be implemented. I don't
think we can make grandiose statements about not using AI ultimately implement ultimately whatever happens with this policy is going to be presented to the policy committee. Correct. Yes. But I'm saying it's not going to the committee for committee work. It's
going to staff for staff work to then come back to the committee. Just wanted to clarify that. I want to clarify staff work if it's going back to our task force for discussion. That's very different than a direction to put restrictions on AI. So um I don't know that everybody on the
committee and the task force will agree that there should be restrictions and there educators using it. So you all don't bring anything forward to us as far as a recommendation for us to discuss or vote on until you feel that it's ready to do so. Right? So if we're
going to hold it up and we're going to say we want to see more of something, we need to be able to articulate exactly what it is that we want them to come back with because they've brought us what they believed we were ready for,
what they were ready for. And so we're the ones who are now saying we want different or we want more. What does that look like? What is that? Yes. Specifically, Dr. Hill, um to Yeah. to answer Trusty Bailey's question. Well, I'm talking to the board.
Yeah. Yeah, I realize that. I I She doesn't need to answer my question. But I was going to ask Dr. Hill, you heard our concerns. You were you were taking notes. Could we possibly could you possibly, you know, like
reword the policy with that with those concerns in mind and then bring it back or do you need more guidance? You you're skipping over what I'm asking. Well, she's checking to see if But that's then again, you're still
you're putting it on staff to decide what we want. No, no, she's asking what she heard already and if it's sufficient or not sufficient. I heard that my direction was to work with a representative group of educators
to develop guidelines for AI use. What specific guidelines? What is what are you going to You did not provide me guidelines. What are you going to bring us that you that wasn't in what you brought us tonight? I want to be clear that I did not write this board policy. So it this is not
something that I'm bringing to the board as a recommendation. This is CSBA's board policy. So, who put this on the agenda? It's a Well, I'm sorry that's not my stance. Why is this Who brought this thing? So, when CSBA issues new policies, we
have staff review them. And I don't that it's done. No, it's not done because there's no clarity. I'm trying to figure out what the next step is unless so I I would have to see who's who had who reviewed this, but it didn't come from staff. Staff didn't
write it. It came from CSBA and we adopt their policies. I I think that if everyone's using AI, it's better to have a policy that says use it well as opposed to having no policy. But so
and it was looked over by it. So Albert at least looked over it to see whether it had anything and then we made a few minor adjustments. I think Patrice is trying to say something. Sorry, Trusty Mackenzie. Go ahead. I just want to be clear that I'm not saying that there should be a policy
that says don't use AI. My request and my decision to support the postponement was for there to be an opportunity to develop appropriate implementation regulations. That was what I was advocating for.
So I'm going to rely on the AI workg group um staff etc. will incorporate what they have heard the unreiness to be and also you know give insight based on what the task force has been working on
and what they have developed to see if there's some alignment to create an appropriate um set of regulations for implementation. That's what I'm interested in seeing as a next step. Yeah. Go ahead. So, is everyone okay if we take it back
to the committee that's made up of the educators and the other people that Dr. Chanhill mentioned? Have them look at the policy. They may or may not agree with it and we can also bring some of the research. Um, we can look it up or Dr. Velasquez can share with us about
the water consumption energy problem so they have that information as well knowing that they might look at it and say, "Yeah, this is fine." and then we can say we'll write a regulation. They may put some of the restrictions in or they may not. Are you okay with us giving that input?
I would like also to add the efficacy element as well. Okay, I think I understand direction. Thank you. I just want to make just a short statement on managing all of our expectations. It is a task that I think will take some time. It's also a task
that will take some people. So, this is not something that I'll be bringing back next month. Um, and so I just want to be really clear that um, I will always make good on tasks that you direct me to do. Um, but just to have some realism, there are other tasks that are also ongoing.
So, does this impact the current use AI use that's happening on our campuses today? Okay. Thank you, Dr. Hill. Um would it help if you brought it to a committee first um to kind of dig in a little before it comes
to the board? No, certainly certainly it would bring it but I'm saying that the work that would have to develop what I would bring. Right. Right. Okay. Um board requests. All clear on that one. Yes. Additional
board requests. So again, what came up at um policy was a public comment about and and she brought the different high school uh dress codes, which again, there's some variation that's been put in by each high school that makes them
slightly different and some of those were the pieces that she was objecting to and felt um unfairly targeted students. And and maybe she gave an example of when staff actually implemented it. A whole lot of students
were cited and the vast majority of them were female. Correct. I think that there was some sense among the the folks that were giving the public or the the person commenting that had done fairly targeted. So I came I brought this to the full board
to see if there is the desire of the full board to have staff do some kind of process. So can I just share some experience? I worked at Pasadena High School and Blair High School when they were both
implementing dress codes. It is the most involved, heavy, negatively involved thing that we could do at a school site because there are students who are going to violate it and you have to deal with
that and there are different strategies for dealing with that. It doesn't work. One size doesn't fit all. Parents are upset. Students are upset. Teachers are sending students out of the classroom because they're not dressed appropriately.
We have to keep t-shirts or sweatshirts or whatever for the students to switch out in because they can't get home to change because they took the bus to school. There's so many issues with dress codes. You even have the parents
who don't want to pay for students to dress a certain way. They wear what they have. So, there's all kinds of different types of issues that come along with when you try to enforce dress code
policies. I get it. There are a number of students that don't come to school look looking as if they've come to school to learn. I've experienced that as well. So unless this is going to be optional per school
site, it's not something that I would want to enforce at every single school unless the principal or the administrator staff are ready to really deal with it because it adds a whole another layer of of school um
enforcement, governments um etiquette enforcement. to those campuses. Dr. Blanco. So, right now we have a general policy and then each school has some of their own policies, right? And then they base
that on maybe what's happening, current trends at their school that might be inappropriate, but they're not at every school. So, I do agree um with um Mrs. Bailey. I I had a school that was a uniform school and it got to be where
some people would enforce it if the students weren't wearing the right color socks and send them to my office and then other people, you know, would not really pay too much attention to it. There's so much variation into it. Um, was the parents that came were they
particularly concerned that we weren't reinforcing what we already have or was it something about a particular school? They thought the school ones were too restrictive. And quite frankly, I think they think some of our language is too restrictive. They're like, "Why can't people wear tank tops when
why why can't they wear spaghetti tops? Why can't their bra strap show? Everyone's bra straps show these days." Um, and they're saying this this is ridiculous and and why is it penalizing girls all the time? So, that was the tenor of what came. And so, again, I
think there's a lot of different viewpoints on this. And so the question is, do we leave what we have or do we do something? And what is that thing? And I'm assuming staff will be involved in whatever that thing we do is. And so I was just wondering, does the board want
to have consensus to say yes, staff should go do something? But isn't this the principal working with their parent groups at their sites? I was going to suggest how about if we put it on one of our principal agendas and have some questions and try to get some information before we create, you
know, a more restrictive policy. We'll have them look at what they have and bring what they have and talk with each other and try to get some con consensus around some consistency and not have extremism. Um, but it's you it's also
the enforcers are the people with the students in the classrooms, right? And there's different my own experiences there's different levels of enforcement. Okay. Everyone's just speaking out of turn. So isn't CSBA have a policy that we can copy and paste?
We do have a policy again. The the parents want to make it less restricted, not more restricted. Okay. So we are going you're going to take it back and Yeah. Okay. Uh any other board requests? I was just going to ask that we have
more student achievement focused items on our next agenda because I don't think we talked about students tonight. Are you asking Dr. Blanco? What do you say? Whoever plans the agenda for the next meeting. Do you have a governance calendar?
Okay. Any other future any future agenda items? Yes. All right. Future agenda meeting.