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down down down. Huh? I told you. Happy birthday. la. Hallelujah. Amen. Amen. Heat. Heat. Heat.
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seconds. Anybody? Oh my god. I need you. Come on. Calling this meeting to order at careful here.
Here. All right. We have item B1 on resolutions. Approval of resolution 2861, Women in National Association for the Advancement of Color People, NAACP, Women's History Month,
2026. And Trusty Bailey is introducing Trusty Bailey got to get up. >> Okay, we'll wait for you to be ready. Hold on. My computer is just booting up. Sorry. I appreciate your patience.
Okay. You know what? Um, I don't know what's going on. the computer hasn't updated to the file. So, let's move on to someone else. >> We'll um swap B1 and B2. So, Trusty
Holly, uh if you could introduce approval of resolution 2865, Women's History Month. >> Principal Tulumian will be coming up and bringing some guests. Good afternoon, board president Frederick's, esteemed members of the board, Superintendent Dr. Blanco,
members of SLT and PUSD community. It is my honor and privilege to reintroduce board resolution 2443. Do I have the number correct, by the way? Is it two? It's 2443, correct? >> 2865. >> 2865. Thank you so much. honoring March as Women's History Month in the Pasadena
Unified School District. On behalf of our Women's History Collaborative Committee, I am joined by my committee members, assistant principal of curriculum, instruction, and signature programs, Miss Katrina Narvvice, and MTSS coach, Dr. Mary Stevens. I would like to take this opportunity to once
again highlight the revisions made last year as they continue to be relevant today. Whereas on January 7th, 2025, the eaten fires in the areas of Aladena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre devastated the homes in communities where PUSD students live and attend PUSD schools.
Whereas, according to the United Nations, women and children are disproportionately impacted by climate change and natural disasters. And an estimated four out of five people displaced by the impacts of climate change are women and girls. The Women's
History Collaborative has had the same goal for nine years for women's history and the women's liberation movement to be included in our curriculum at a much broader scale. Our assembly has flourished over the years to include all secondary schools and with keynotes such
as former Secretary of State Hillary Rodm Clinton, labor leader and civil rights activists Dolores Werta, US Representatives Judy Chu and Maxine Waters, and State Senator Sasha Renee Perez. Board Trustee Holly Lee is thrilled to announce our keynote speaker
for this year. >> Good evening. Thank you very much for that intro. So, we have the honor and privilege of having our state of California first partner Jennifer Seibble Nuome and our LA County Supervisor Katherine
Barger to deliver keynote addresses. The first partner visited PUSD after the eaten fire and she absolutely loved PUSD. She will deliver a great message to our students. Thank you. We have provided each of you with print
materials for this year's event, including a flyer designed by Women's History Collaborative Artist, Miss Leanne Shei, depicting past keynotes and teams who have worked to bring about positive change. Students in grades 6 through 12 will write essays and/or
create art with the theme and prompts in mind. Selected students from every secondary school will present their work on March 25th at Marshall. You are all invited to attend. We would love to have all of you there at 6 o'clock. The prompt this year is as follows. Women's
athletics at various levels, professional, collegiate, high school, and club are experiencing unprecedented time in the spotlight. The expansion of the WNBA and NWSL as well as the introduction of the WPBL suggests that
women's athleticism and teamwork will continue to gain prominence. Despite the newfound popularity of women's sports, the concept of teamwork, work done by a group acting together so that each member does a part that contributes to the efficiency of the whole is very much
aligned with maternal values and maternal values of caretaking and mutual support and is not only limited to athletes. Katherine Johnson, NASA human computer and one of the three hidden figures stated, "Without a team, you're just a person with an idea." And the
success of every woman should be the inspiration to another. We should raise each other up. Her words and legacy highlight the importance of teamwork, especially women's teamwork in all contexts and settings. Whether it's found on a basketball court, soccer
field, NASA mission control, or a classroom. Teamwork as dominated by women has had significant historical, societal, and academic effects. The Hidden Figures, Girl Scouts of America, US gold medal teams, there are so many professional uh women's professional
collegiate and high school teams, the Pasadin Unified, all female administrative teams are just a few examples of significant and influential teamwork by women. Write about an experience where you have benefited from the teamwork enacted by women. Explain
the context of that team. How were you affected by it? What was your part in it? How were you inspired by it? How was the teamwork of women significant to you? How did you benefit from their work and influence? What difference have they made in your life? How have you changed as a result of being influenced by or
participating on a team consisting of women? We believe this prompt is highly accessible to our students in sixth through 12th grades and will allow students to express themselves and their experiences through their words and art. Our assembly on March 25th is live and
will also be livereamed by our amazing Klearns team. We hope you can join us on Wednesday, March 25th at 6 PM at Marshall. Thank you for your time, consideration, and support. Does anyone have any questions?
Anybody have a comment? >> I just want to thank you for the consistent work since we put this together back in 2017 and it has grown and it's been the keynotes are starting to come to us and
that's really exciting for our students. So, thank you. >> Thank you. There's also a desire next year for 10th anniversary to include K through 12. So, stay tuned. Yes. Hard. >> Thank you so much for bringing uh
forward this this amazing resolution and and I think that teamwork is so important in this day and age. Um speaking, you know, for myself, >> I've had the pleasure of working and serving with amazing women in this community uh in the academic community. You know, they've lifted each other up
and they lifted me up as we support public education. So, I've been extremely thankful for that. I'm I'm a proud father of two daughters and uh they're growing up to become amazing women. Uh I know that that um I'm I'm proud to be supporting a resolution that
honors uh current, past and future contribution to this to this country. Thank you. >> Absolutely. Thank you so much. >> Oh, you do want to speak? Okay, Trusty Velasquez. >> Sorry.
Um, across the United States, um, I need to switch glasses. Sorry. Well, across the United States, women make the v majority of the teaching workforce, particularly in K12. Um, where more than
threequarters of teachers are women. Similarly, for school principles, about half across the United States are public school principles are women. Um yet women remain significantly behind or
under represented uh comprising roughly one quarter of representations at the levels of superintendent. Um and a similar um data transfers to uh higher education where women are less likely to
be uh presidents or provosts or deans while comprising most of the teaching population of higher ed institutions as well. Um this persistency in the leadership gap underscores the structural disparity
for women in education. And so in light of this resolution recognizing women history month uh and the power of teamwork, um I want to call to a deeper reflection, especially today as we our district faces a painful reality of
workforce reductions. And I want to take a moment to acknowledge that uh many of those that are most impacted by the resolutions and the work that we do today are women. um women who have devoted their
professional lives to students and families and communities. So, I want to honor the work of all of you in PSUD, but also within the context of Katherine's Johnson's reminder, without
a team, you're just a person with an idea. I want to um um think that especially in times of loss and transition um it is important to understand that women who power our schools are seeing
our value and are respected throughout the process. Thank you. Any other comments? Well, I just look on this entire room and our presence is felt as women here. So, I appreciate our leadership, the
allies that support women, too. Um, so I cannot believe it is the ninth annual celebr uh women's history month. So, thank you Trusty Holly and Principal Tumian and and your team for continuing this legacy.
Um, okay. Okay. I would like to entertain a motion to approve resolution 2865, Women's History Month. >> I'll make a motion to approve. >> I'll second it. >> Okay. Any further discussion? All those in fa favor raise your hand.
Any anybody against? Abstensions? Thank you. Motion passes. Thank you. And now we will go back to resolution um 2861 women's women in NAACP women's history month 2026. Trusty Bailey.
>> Yes. I am honored and privileged to make an introduction to this resolution. It is not the first time that this matter has been before us. And so I will just start with um the Pasadena Unified School District
Board of Education's approval of resolution 2861 reaffirms its commitment to ensuring that every student is educated in a safe, inclusive, and equitable environment. California Education Code 2011
guarantees students the right to an educational experience free from discrimination and harassment. And fulfilling this promise requires ongoing attention to systemic inequities. National research has documented the
persistent impact of the adultification bias on black girls. The 2017 Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality report, Girlhood Interrupted, found that black girls are often perceived as
older, less innocent, and more responsible for their behavior, leading to harsher discipline, and reduced access to support. Likewise, in 2024, the United States Government Accountability Office
reported continued disparities in school discipline affecting black girls, and other marginalized student groups. These findings underscore the importance of addressing inequities at the intersection of race, gender, and
disability. As we observe the 2026 National Women's History Month theme, leading the change, women sharing a sustainable future. We commit to resolution 2861
entitled leading the change, honoring black girls shaping a sustainable future. Additionally, we must recognize that building equitable and sustainable systems require centering the dignity,
safety, and leadership of black girls. Approval of resolution 2861 affirms the district's commitment to confronting adultification bias and advancing policies and practices that
ensure black girls are protected, supported, and empowered to thrive in every PUSD school. I would like to acknowledge the women in in NAACP Pasadena chapter and Joselyn Griffin,
the author of this resolution. She apologizes that she could not be here this afternoon to present this to the board. Thank you. >> Thank you, Trusty Bailey. Um, anybody would like to comment?
>> Trusty Harden. Uh I would just comment that um this is really a valuable statement of of you know intention that PSUD strives to be a district of belonging and so I think this is an an important statement to um continue that
value and and and build up um commitments to um protection of our students. So I appreciate this. Thanks. >> Any other comments? Trusty Holly, >> I'm really appreciative that this has
been brought forth because this topic is something that I've read about, but when I talk about it with people, they don't necessarily have the facts around it. And I think it's extremely important in light of our work here with suspensions
and belonging and the really good work that's been done. So, I just want to thank you and Miss Griffin for bringing it. Any other comments? I also want to thank Trusty Bailey and Trusty or Trusty Miss Griffin for
continuing to bring this back and I think we haven't done enough and we have to keep keep striving for this. So, all right. I would like to entertain a motion to approve resolution 2861, Women in NAACP, Women's History Month 2026. I
move approval. I'll second. >> Okay. All those in favor, raise your hand. All those against? Any abstensions? Thank you. Motion passes. All right. Next item is special update
C1 citizens oversight committee presentation to the board of education with um Mr. McNamera, the chair of COC. >> Yeah. Thank you, President Frederick's, full trustees,
Dr. Blanco, and the Fool's leadership team. Tonight's report is for the fiscal year July 1, 2023 through to June 30th, 2024. An annual report to the board of education is requirement of the citizens
oversight committee COC as enumerated in the committee's bylaws and shall include a statement indicating whether the district is in compliance with the requirements of article 13A section 1B of the California constitution and b a
summary of the committee's proceedings and activities for the preceding year. The committee itself is a requirement under school board uh school bond related California education codes 15278 to 15282 which mandate a formation of an
independent committee with enumerated required duties. These duties follow from education code 15264 which states the intent of the legislature that among other responsibilities taxpayers directly participate in the
oversight of bond expenditures. Members of the committee promptly alert the public to any waste or improper expenditure of school construction bond money. This report pertains to bond measures TT and O as expenditures during this
relevant fiscal year were authorized and accounted for under either TT or O. During the relevant period, the committee held 10 meetings. The committee generally reviewed individual capital projects, summary spending
reports, and projected spending reports. The committee was aided by a specific presentation by Clifton Larson Allen LLP on June 25th of of uh last year whereby they provided a summary of the financial audit they performed for the bond
program for the 2024 fiscal year. Importantly, the auditors formally concluded the results of our tests indicate that in all significant respects, the district has properly expended the funds held in the measure
TT and measure O bond building funds on authorized bond projects. Accordingly, following its own work and that of the financial audit by Clifton Larson Allen, the committee states that to the best of its knowledge, the district is in compliance with article
13A, section 1B of the California Constitution. As for the requirement to report on the proceedings and activities of the committee, five topics were particularly relevant during this fiscal year. Namely, financial audit, district
capacity to manage the bond program, documentation, change orders, spending summary of the fiscal year, financial audit. Clifton Larson Allen performed a financial audit uh for for the relevant year. They presented their
summary report to both the board of education as well as to the COC. Again, importantly, as stated earlier, the auditors determined that based on their tests, all in all all significant respects, bond expenditures were made in accordance with requirements under the law.
The audit enumerated a finding relating to errors in recording certain expenditures as having occurred in fiscal year 2024 but having actually occurred in fiscal year 2023. The total amount was 1.396
million. The accounting record has been corrected and there's no implication that the expenditures were in any way improper. The auditors did make a written recommendation regarding improvement in internal controls. The audit tested salaries and benefits
that recorded to measure O. They sampled $346,000 in such expenditures representing 63% of the total for personnel allocated at less than 100%. In effect, dualheaded folks that work for the district projects that that as
well as for bond related projects. They obtained time studies to verify the percentage charged to bond bond funds were supported. District capacity to manage bond program. Several COC meetings during this year included discussion and
exchange with district personnel expressing concern that the district did not have the capacity to take on the bond program inhouse after the termination of their program management consultant. Safe Work Committee members specifically advised district staff that
their hiring plan was unrealistic given the available labor in the market for the specific skills being sought. Committee members felt the district was exposing itself to potential risks. The committee did not question the right of the district to terminate the contract,
but did strongly recommend a replacement manager be hired. Monthly meetings generally included an update on hiring plans and at no time during the relevant period did the district complete its hiring plan with evidence provided such as difficulty
hiring program managers and an accounts payable technician by period end. The committee notes that the auditor's finding on internal controls deficiencies is consistent with the COC expressed concerns. To be clear, the COC
is not aware of any specific errors in the program management despite the risks exposed it the district exposed itself to. Again, the auditors test for allocation of personal costs for those uh less than 100% allocated to allowable
measures TT and O activities. They obtained personal transaction request forms to validate the accounting and they included all such costs were allowable. documentation. During the course of project reviews, the committee found
documentation generally acceptable. Occasionally, documentation did not clearly show the summary of non-winning bids. The committee advised that in such circumstances, it would help the public to include such documentation, such information to asssure that a
transparent process had been followed. Monthly reports regularly contain one or more errors that were noted and corrected in subsequent reports. Such errors were in reporting of expenditures or commitments, not in the actual expenditures themselves. These errors
arose due to manual work required to reconcile between Kahooa, which stored program management data transfers from safe work and the internal PUSD accounting system called accountability. The committee urged the district to consider upgrading its reporting software and evaluation. The district
committed itself to change orders. Change orders are reviewed by the committee and seem to be well managed. Spending summary per the performance audit $1.35 million were expended under
measure TT and 24.9 million expended under measure O. Under measure O, 80 million in bonds were issued and the year-end funding balance was 84.6 million. Okay. For the record, all CLC meeting minutes
and agendas, including the annual report, are available on the PUSD website. Committee members for the record during the relevant period included John Robinson, Teao Sierra as chairs, Stephen Aino, Wayne Hammock,
myself, Paul Narenburg, Wes Rudman, Angela Yuru, Eliza Eliza Jane Whitman. I want to particularly thank u John uh an uh Eliza and and Stephen who have rolled off the committee and thank them
for their service. I especially want to thank John Robinson publicly for his service, for his technical contributions, for his attention to detail, and his strong leadership as chair. Uh, thank you. I'm happy to answer any
questions or take comments back to the COC. >> Thank you, Mr. McNamera. Thank you for your presentation. Do we have any questions or comments for the COC? Okay, thank you so much. Thank you for
>> your presentation. Okay, now we have a a new standing item for um our board meeting. It's a update from the superintendent student consolidation,
I'm sorry, superintendent school consolidation advisory committee, the ESCAC. And um Dr. Blanco, can you um maybe describe what this is? And I just want to remind us that this is just an update. If the board has any questions,
they can um send it to Miss Montoya and we will forward that on to the total school solutions. Dr. Blanco. >> Yes. So, we have Joseph um Dr. Pulo um meeting with us after um the meetings
that we held with the committee to give an update to the board. So all board members will have the same information regarding um the committee and we've had our first meeting. I believe there might be sometimes two meetings before um some of the board meetings but we do have a
schedule and we will be reporting uh what happened at the meetings at every uh board meeting as a standing item. Thank you. Is the audio working? >> Okay. >> Oh, there I think we hear you.
>> Can you hear me now? >> Yes. >> Yeah. It's great to the board once again remotely. I'm here tonight to give you an update on the the meeting we had on Monday evening. Um and uh this, you know, to
put the meeting in context, this is, you know, what I consider kind of set the table meeting. So there there wasn't a lot of hard data presented about uh any of the metrics. Um but it was more about just some background information and give the committee a chance to get to
know each other and and to hear uh you know all this robust experience that they bring and talk a little bit. So I'm sharing the the contents of the agenda but the first thing we did u is we talked about uh committee first we had introductions so we had the group go
around and speak about themselves and we asked them one thing they liked about the district and they were very complimentary about many many aspects of the district so there was a lot of good positive energy with the committee they tell us about themselves and and the the experience um frankly is amazing I mean
some there's some there were some people there who were uh graduates uh from many years ago who are now working with the district. There were longtime staff members. There were parents with multiple kids, multiple age or students. Um just just a wealth of experience,
knowledge and really um some very very fine people on the committee. And so they get they had a chance to introduce themselves. We talked about and and just like any committee um you know what are our norms? We want to make sure we uh get started that you know we're we're having respectful conversations that we
can disagree but we don't we aren't harsh with each other. So u the so committee went through that and um also talked about what the committee objectives were. So that that was the first thing we covered. Um then we went through you've seen this the historic
involvement for the county Los Angeles and the district. And uh we just wanted to reinforce the district is doing nothing wrong that this is just you know California's declining the county is declining. We wanted to make sure the committee understood that that this is not uh this discussion is not unusual
that it's for Los Angeles County especially there's been a lot of loss. U the next thing we did is we went to the uh AB1912 uh first off we explained what it was. We went into the board approved metrics and and went through specifically down
that list of metrics of what was uh contained what what they meant, what we were going to bring forward to them. We talked about the two factors that the board had the meeting um and that they were uh you know two other factors or data points to look at to consider as
we're looking at things. We also, as requested, went and showed resolution 2852 and went through specifics about what instructions were in the uh uh resolution, what some of the guidelines were and especially when it came to
enrollment because we were going to uh look at schools that you know uh we were going to highlight schools that did not meet the uh criteria for that resolution. um not necessarily because any actions to be taken with those particular schools per se but just because it it would it resolution
guidelines. So we went through that went through these specific instructions uh that were given to this to staff on what what would need to be done if some schools did not meet those guidelines. Uh we went through and had a really good discussion about uh you know why
districts consider school consolidation best practices. there was a robust discussion back and forth different opinions. I thought it was very healthy and and people were very engaged with that. Um we then we started this is the first time next bullet is actually start
to look at um some specifics. It's important that the committee knows where all the schools are from one geographic location which is also a factor. Um the the the one thing about the committee sometimes you get members who are from
one part of town or very familiar with one school or one set of school or one side of town but don't really understand the totality of the district. So we made sure we showed a map, we showed all the uh schools, we showed this year's uh seabeds enrollments from October, the benchmark date and what what the schools
were enrolled at and so they had an idea what and also what grade levels they served. This past meeting is a little unique in terms of what the schools serve. Uh and then we we had u we talked about future dates for meeting for the committee and for the board. Um we had
some time for discussion at the end which is again I thought pretty robust and very uh very lively and then we also uh provided a QR code and then I follow up with those things like I guess a couple QR code because we wanted to get input from the committee. It's a big
committee, so you want to make sure that when things are all said and done that you hear from everybody, get input from um everyone to see to try to address as much address as much as you can uh that we can do that. So, we got they got a a
link now with with uh that they filled out. I checked around three this afternoon. There were six or seven responses. So, hopefully um we'll send out a reminder maybe tomorrow just try to get more responses and be able to get that data. Um so that we're so we're looking forward to the next uh meeting
which is a week from Monday and then we're going to start digging into more uh facility data is more that could be the focus of that meeting. So that that was essentially a review of the meeting again. It was more aesthetic table for future
discussions more than anything else in this first meeting. >> Thank you Mr. Bandalfo. Yes, Trusty Kenny. I think we can take maybe clarifying questions if you have a clarification. >> So this is the time we um I think said
when we were beginning this process for the public since they can't speak at the committee meetings, this is their only time to come and speak on this topic. Is that what we said when we >> Dr. Blanco, do you want >> answer? >> Yes. That they would be able to speak at
the board meeting on the topic. public comment. >> Public comment will be taken here. >> Okay. I I guess I would reflect that 4:30 might be difficult for some parents to as a time. So perhaps these updates could be at not quite so early during
the working day if that's the only time that we're affording the public to make comments during the process. Um I guess I misunderstood. I thought the board could ask questions, >> but I I guess what you're saying is that we cannot during this time.
>> You can ask you I would prefer that you just email those because it will then extend the item. So >> the one that we have another 15 minutes. Well, we're trying to have a, you know, a standard of the way we're
going to up provide these updates >> because I do I do have a question about the process and the schedule. So, >> okay. I mean, it's a clarifying question. Go ahead. >> Well, so at our retreat, we we asked
that um that the process identify the assets and areas of duplication to streamline efficiencies. And I wasn't clear how that's being incorporated into the process or when that is happening during the process because that was not
part of the original um documents that was shared by TSS that those steps it it was something we added at our study session. >> Okay. So Dr. Blanco if possible.
>> I would say that there is a program review and uh that was in the original contract um and uh Dr. Hill will be bringing forward the full program review um that we promised um when we started asset
management and that was delayed and she's a professional expert on the committee and we'll be able to share that information with the board as well as with the committee. So, I do think there is a space for that. I'm not sure why you think there is not. >> I I have a question.
>> Yeah, Dr. Phil. >> Um, you say that at our board retreat there was a question like did we agree on this question? Because I I I thought that all the things that we had consensus on are later going to be ratified. So, who who had this question?
>> I just quoted from one of those desired outcomes. >> Yeah, that was a direct quote. Mhm. >> And so again, because it was not something that was >> But actually, those have not been ratified. So since we don't know if they're going to be approved, we shouldn't have this conversation right
now. >> But we can't have it later either because he won't be here. >> So we can have it at his next meeting pending approval. >> Okay. This is becoming a discussion now. So I've asked for clarifying questions.
Um, Jesse Kenny, you could submit that. >> All right. So, I could, if I want to make a comment, do it as a member of the public is my only option during this entire process as a board member. If I want to make a comment about this,
again, this is my only location to do it at board meetings and I won't be able to do it from here. I'll have to go there. I just want to clarify >> because I I guess I suppose I guess I thought the board would be able to give some input. >> Can you clarify that? I don't know honestly.
>> Thank you. >> It seems really odd, but I'm not going to make a decision here. Trusty Bailey, >> there's just something unnatural about hearing information in this space and not being able to ask
questions. Um, >> so not that not that I'm suggesting that this become a discussion item. I think like you say the questions could be emailed or answered later, but
I think that we at least need the opportunity to decide collectively as a board whether or not that's something a question is something that should be addressed in this space here and now as we hear the information or if it's something that
could be dealt with later and you know emailed and dealt with later because it's just unnatural sit here and hear information and not be able to it feels very restrictive. >> Okay. So, thank you for that and uh this is a new
process so we're just sort of figuring it out. So, I appreciate your comments. Um the intent was it's very similar to committee reports and for committee reports when we do our board reports committee uh facilities committee the
policy you know we have that item on here it's very it was supposed to be similar to that we report that out and then you know no one really comments it's just a report >> I think that's just because nobody has any comments. Okay. So, let's This is
becoming a request. It's evolving into a request. I'm kind of falling back to our training. So, we will we will talk about this at the end. It's not that I I don't want us to talk about it. Um so, let's let's move this item to the end of the
meeting where we have item S, board questions and requests. So, let's parking lot that to the end. >> Yes, Dr. Bronco. This is something I need clarification on and maybe Miss Mononttoya can help me. So my understanding is things that
we talk about here at the general comment the community can still make comments or do they have to make it before here? I was under the impression that we were this is like a public comment. So they could do the public comment right now on
the item or they can come back at 7 when we do a regular public comment and they can speak to any any item that they feel like the board might be of interest.
>> But are these agendas? >> Hold on. Hold on. Let's wait for them to finish. >> I think she was finished. >> I know. I need people to raise their hand before they speak. Trusty Bailey. >> Okay. So, my question is,
are you now saying that items that are on this agenda here before we recess to close session can now be addressed in the next meeting after we adjourn close session because there's already a full agenda
for that. Sorry, no I'm correcting myself. Yeah, we put the agenda item so they can make the comments right now. >> Yes, >> trusty Hardy.
>> Quick question of clarification. So in your proposal to move discussion to item S at the end of the meeting, does that mean that that's when we we're giving any feedback or or or comments on what was presented just now? Is that what you
you were suggesting? I'm just not clear what you were what you're proposing. >> We were talking about how we would format this item. >> Okay. >> Differently. And there was a lot of feedback about that. So we will move that discussion to the end of how we
would >> structure. >> I would just advocate so long as the consultant is present when we're asking the questions because they're the ones presenting the information. That's all. >> I don't think that's what Mrs. Frederick's saying. She said you can have a discussion as how you want the
item to be on the agenda in the future and the time and that. Right. Yeah. So I have to kind of be careful because that's where we take our request uh Dr. Blanco and I who we craft the agenda. So that's the place where we
take requests. I sorry I should say we are not going to discuss it. We will take your idea, your idea, your idea and then we will take it back and discuss it. You can also email us if you have you know variations or you think of something later.
that would you can bring it up at the end or uh you could email us and I really don't want to keep Mr. Pandalfo here until the end. >> Thank you for the question. >> We can talk to him later about your requests. Thank you though, Trusty
Harden. That's a good point. Okay, I think that's it. Okay, let's let's talk about this later. Yeah, let's talk about this later. if you have clarifications. All right. So, we will adjourn to close then. >> Oh, there's public. Sorry, there's
public comment and closed. So, are we going to wait until 5:05 in case someone wanted to make public comment but doesn't come until 5:05 or 5:' or are we going I if we leave early I just worry that >> we
>> I mean we could we can allow early public comment but we don't want to close it the opportunity >> board clerk trusty McKenzie would you like to comment >> I would like to say that for the people
who are here now and that have submitted cards, I'd like to acknowledge any electronic correspondence that has come in, it'll be made a part of the public of the permanent record with our um agenda and minutes. And I'm going to call the names that are here for public
comment that are present now. Is it Caribbean? Sto >> is it three? Three, right? >> Yeah. >> It's kind of a group letter. Dear members of the board of education, school psychologists carry an extraordinary breath of responsibility,
always grounded in a steadfast commitment to the well-being of students. Much of our work resists simple quantification. It impacts its impact cannot be fully captured in numbers or spreadsheets. We bring critical specialized expertise to our
school teams, including comprehensive knowledge of special education law and regulatory compliance, ensuring that students rights and protect are protected and upheld. While we acknowledge that certain elements of our role are inherent inherently unquantifiable,
we also carry a defined set of essential measurable responsibilities. The following 15 duties I will list reflect the core functions of school psychologists. responsibilities we carry out with expertise and accountability which the majority of school psychologists in our district have
collectively affirmed as foundational to our practice. Number one, trienal evaluations. Number two, initial evaluations. Three, designated instructional service or DIS counseling. Number four, DIIS and group counseling
preparation, progress notes, logs, progress reports, annual reviews. Number five, educationally related intensive counseling services or ERIC's evaluations. Number six, specialized circumstance instructional assistance or SKIA
evaluations. Number seven, functional behavior assessments or FBAs. Number eight, manifestation determination assessments. Nine, social emotional assessment. 10 crisis response and mental health intervention hours uh to
include suicide or threat and risk assessments, deescalation support, and other specialized support, recordeping of documentation, follow-up support. 11, consultation hours. 12 IEP meeting hours such as but not limited to all
assessment results uh DIS counseling annuals amendments uh for behavior transfer intakes transitions ERIC schools and exit IEPs 13 intervention hours such as student success teams or SST uh MTSS and 504
meetings 14 professional development and presentations 15 >> Can I pause you for just a moment please I just want want to clarify and reiterate that during close session you have to speak to the item that you which you have signed up for and the item that you signed up for is F7
Congress labor negotiator I need your comments to be related to this item that you signed up for for close session >> is the spedou not something we're negotiating with with the case loads for psychologists >> under council of labor negotiator that's
the item that they signed up for >> okay so negotiator >> I'm not hearing the connection yet. >> Okay, >> I'm sorry. I think we need >> So, should I >> Okay, we need to stop just having d, you know, impromptu dialogue. So, Trustee
McKenzie asked for clarification on which item they'll be speaking on. >> I'm aware of the item they're speaking to. I'm trying to make sure that the comments are specifically related to said item. >> Okay. So, the question is, is your comment related to F? >> I don't need you to ask my question again, Madam Chair. I was very clear
for the purpose of close session when you speak to close session items and give public comment you have to make your comment specific to the item which you have signed up for. I was unclear when what you have said thus far is if your item specifically relates to conference with later negotiator.
>> So it's a special right? >> Yes. But because our comment is long we divided up against or between the five of us. So it is related but this is the first part of it. >> The answer is yes it is related.
>> Okay. >> Thank you. >> But each person does only have three minutes. >> Correct. Okay. Thank you. >> Okay, we'll give her extra 20 then. >> Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. >> May I go ahead? >> Yes.
>> Okay. The last one was just pre-K kinder transition assessments. Uh so all of these responsibilities are billable services. PUSD requires us all to document all 15 essential duties and paradigm for medical billing to secure reimbursement funds. In other words, our
work not only serves students but it also generates revenues for the district. >> Karina Reyes >> just say your names. >> Your cards were not given in any specific order. I'm calling them in the name that they're in the stack. Okay. Um, hi, I'm Alexandra Minford. Is
it okay if I begin? >> Proceed, please. Thank you. >> The problem. The core challenge we face is the persistent underrecognition of our professional expertise as school psychologists resulting in the underutilization of our services and limiting the full impact that we are capable of delivering. Although POSD
requires us to carry out these 15 essential duties, it does not track or measure them. Instead, data collection is limited to initials, trienals, and dis counseling. This narrow lens fails to capture the full scope of our work, and when the data is incomplete, the decisions based on it are incomplete.
The result is the misallocation of services and resources, ultimately impacting the students that we are here to serve. We are expected to be unicorns on campuses. They're rare professionals who can seamlessly speak to academics, behavior, social emotional needs, and family dynamics. We connect systems. We
guide teams through complex decisions and ensure that interventions consider the full picture of a child's needs. Every outcome for our students rests on these 15 essential duties that we perform. Without them, success is impossible. This is the very success that the district relies on us and depends on us to deliver. So again, how
is it possible that decisions are being made in consideration of only three of our 15 essential duties? Doing this creates three major problems. One, misallocation of psychological services. Two, shortage of materials. And three, overdue cases. Can you state your name for the record,
please? >> Karina Rees. >> Thank you. And I'm a school psychologist at PHS. So, I'll be talking about the misallocation of psychological services, not accurately tracking our 15 primary duties means that district the district does not know exactly how to quantify
how many school psychologists are needed per school. Again, only triannuals, initials, and dis counseling numbers are considered when projecting how many school psychologists are needed at each school. Every school is different with varying intensities of needs in one or
more of the 15 primary job duties. For instance, data collected from just one of our high schools shows that for the 2024 25 school year, there were 106 crisis situations. School psychologists serve as first responders for students in crisis, coordinating with agencies
like DCFS and the psychiatric emergency response team. This is critical work and it continues uh through re-entry meetings, safety plans, referrals, participation in uh development of SSTs, 504s, IEPs, all essential to keeping
students safe and supported. While other mental health services exist on our campuses, school psychologists are unique. We can respond without limits regarding medical coverage, IEP status, or parental consent in an emergency. We have no boundaries, no barriers, and no
delay when student safety is at stake. Undoubtedly, this is a critical crisis work uh takes hours away from our three monitored duties. In the same year, this same high school completed 75 trianials, 44 initials, and provided counseling to
20 students. And that's not even counting the many other essential responsibilities we performed. Many of our duties extend to general education students as well. And there's no caps on our workload. Failing to recognize the importance of our 15 primary job duties
doesn't just affect special education students. It affects also general education students. In elementary schools where behavior often dominates the day-to-day challenges, assessments that lead to interventions, all of which co is costly to the school district, are
not included in the formula that determines how many school psychologists are uh there to support each school. When the 15 primary job duties are not counting, critical work like 101 support skiments like FBAs that lead to behavior
intervention services are ignored in staffing decisions. Furthermore, a clear misallocation of psychological services can be seen in PUSC's recent recently collected data which shows that some schools have one maybe two psychologists while others have three. In the same
data, it shows that while most psychologists have completed 10, 20, 30 assessments to date, two psychologists have completed one and another six, highlighting how incomplete data skues resources and support. Good afternoon. I'm Tony Sneeed, school
psychologist at Willard Elementary. Um, I'm going to be addressing the shortage of materials. Not acknowledging our 15 primary duties means that materials are never in stock for us to faithfully promise you that all students are receiving a robust assessment. Many of us have fa volunteered to make lists and
more lists and more lists needed for um assess multiple times every year. um time being spent by our teams calling test makers multiple time uh and providing exact links to clicks to order the correct materials. Nevertheless, it is now the end of February and many of
us are still waiting our materials. Worst of all, we are headed towards what we call March Madness. It is a time of year when we have the highest amount of referrals and assessments to be completed. Yet, this happens every year. Meanwhile, the materials have arrived. When materials finally arrived, we are
asked to only pick up tiny batches at a time. sometimes just five um at a time as if we only work on five students. We do acknowledge that at one time when requesting the 2, which is helps us better serve our students with autism,
we were asked to pick up a 27gallon material full of materials to from one school, load into our car, transport it back to another school and into our office. Clearly, this was one time when we were not given such a small batch of materials. Even more concerning is that we are put in times and positions where
we compromise our professional ethics. There is incidents we administer um assessments but we cannot score them. Administering an assessment and scoring are two different things. Because the district does not track our inventory, it leaves us without necessary tools to fully complete our jobs. We are asked
what should we do? When will the materials be available? What what do I tell the parents when I can't score an assessment? We received no guidance forcing us to navigate these ethical dilemmas on our own. Addressing our overdue cases, late cases are inevitable primarily because PUSD does not collect
the uh data to validate our 15 primary duties. We don't have a full 60 days needed to complete our assessments due to the after the last day of students in the first few uh in the first two months of school. This is because testing can do not begin. We must reach out to
parents, obtain consent, and gather necessary materials which are often all before sharing the assessment process. Even with superhero efforts, PUSD fails to uh PSD data shows that in this fall they could see 10 late assessments
in elementary schools, five in middle school, and 27 in high school. 44 overdue cases in the first two months of the 2627 school year. Failure to recognize our 15 primary duties cost the district money. PSD often hires agency psychologists to do overdue cases. They
accomplish far less and less investment in our thoroughess and timelines. In some cases, the district ends up paying for the same students assessments three times. The contractor, a district psychologist, and independent evaluators because all of an infectant contractor
practices. >> Thank you. Hi there, Steven Pis school psychologist and I'm going to be talking about uh what we would like for there to be change. So if there was ever a time to work on the backbone and support uh the
first responders to all students, this is the time. Please help us avoid costly litigation that further marginalizes students from minority, low-income, undocumented, and neurode divergent backgrounds who often lack the resources to pursue legal support. We ask that you
support our psychological services uh by accepting one our primary 15 job duties and all of its revalence. Two, collect accurate data, three base our supply order on accurate numbers and provide us our orders before the school year starts. And four, instead of hiring um
pricing contractors, allow us and provide district psychologist supplemental compensation to uh to bring late cases into compliance. PUSD already pays for the information systems that track this data on safe and paradigm. Uh and most school psychologists have
already voluntarily provided uh the department with live shared documents that track these 15 essential duties on a day-to-day basis. Please understand that we are important because our children are important. Support um supporting us is supporting our students
at a time when the focus is on budget cuts. Um, we must be clear. There's nothing left to cut from the psychological services team. It's time that what we use what we have left wisely. Over 80% of our PUSD psychologists have signed in unity
standing together to protect essential student services. In just the past two days, supporters across every site, including administrators, nurses, special education teachers, general education teachers, clerical staff, and counselors have added their names to our
petition for change. This is not a small concern. It is a district-wide call to protect the psychological services of our students. Uh I I also just want to mention thank you for the district for helping um protect our undocumented students. That's something I wanted to say as well. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Any further public comment over closed? All right. Thank you so much. All right. Now I will adjourn to close. Oo hey you love I got a
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Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. All right. This I told you. How are you? I'd >> like to read out the close session items
concerning item F1, case number 202510360. By a vote of 7 to zero, the board took action to approve of the settlement of special education litigation in accordance with the terms of a written agreement concerning item F2 case number
202510784 by a vote of 7 to 0. The board took action to approve of the settlement of special education litigation in accordance with the terms of written agreement concerning item F3 case number 20251000845
by a vote of 70 7 to 0. The board took action to approve of the settlement of special education litigation in accordance with the terms of a written agreement concerning item F5 in close session by a vote of 7 to zero. The board approved a settlement agreement in
case number 23 STCV10646. The settlement is for the amount of 95,000 and includes a full and final release of any and all claims. Non-reelect certificated employee certificated employees by a vote of 7 to z. The board took action in close
session to authorize the issuance of non-reelection pursuant to ED code section 44929.21 to three certificated employees. FTE 1.0 employee ID WF7104212
FTE 1.0 WY 0160313 FTE 1.0 0 employee ID TS426114 administrator release and reassignment in close session by vote of 7 to zero. The board took action to issue notice to
release and reassign the following employees from their administrative positions pursuant to ED code section 44951 effective at the end of 2025 2026 school year and directed to directed the superintendent or designate design to
send out appropriate legal notices. Employee ID FM948-3944 XJ 3772013 SG1815180 HQ4932249 WC9670269 0T 0907987
PW7489895 SM728-4173 XB B1338218 JD7583606 PG0588610 voluntary resignation from administrative assignment effective June 30th 2026 and reassignment for the 2026
2027 school year in close session by a vote of 7 to zero. The board took action to accept the voluntary resignation from an administrative assignment effective June 30th, 2026 and reassignment for the 2026 2027 school year pursuant to ED
code section 44951 and directed the superintendent or designate to send out appropriate legal notices. Employee ID PQ 5853436 MH1391470. The announcement of close session action.
is complete and the close session stands adjourned. Okay. >> Uh calling the meeting to order at 7:06. Um can we please have the roll call, please? here. >> Here
>> here. Are we good? Oh. Uh, so next is the pledge of allegiance. Trusty Holly, can you do the honors? Board clerk. Uh, Trusty McKenzie, what do we have for public comment?
>> 26 cards submitted for general public comment. Um, I'd like to recommend two minutes per speaker in order to accommodate the people who are here and present. Uh do we need to make a motion to extend the public comment to an hour in the beginning?
We just say any objections to that. Okay. So 2 minutes 1 hour cap any overflow would go to the item. >> There are members present at the item. So we are doing our very best to
accommodate everyone who wants to be able to speak. So, what I will ask of you is you adhere to the twominute limit. In order to allow everyone to have their opportunity to speak, we're going to ask that you really be diligent and really be disciplined with your remarks tonight. And when the buzzer ends, we ask you to complete your
sentence and allow the next person to speak. With that, I'll call the first name, and that is Beth L. Got it. Okay. I plan for a minute, so I'll save you some time there. All right. Good evening. Uh my name is Beth
Ela. I'm a proud teacher at Marshall and vice president of UTP. We are here tonight to stand up for safe, stable, fully staffed schools. I'm speaking to the skipping criteria. Skipping less
senior teachers simply because they are assigned to certain programs while laying off more senior teachers, some with over 10 years of PUSD experience, is wrong. It negatively impacts students at schools that are never skipped,
robbing them of experienced teachers and causing instability at those sites. Your rationale for skipping is the district's investment of 18 to 24 hours of training. But haven't you invested thousands of hours and money in our
veteran teachers in their professional development, their mentorship and service to PUSD students is now going unrecognized and unappreciated. Senior teachers are the glue that holds the district together. Right? When you
protect programs over people, the message you convey is clear. Programs matter more than experience, loyalty, and institutional knowledge. That is not how you build stable schools. And I know there's one ex exception with our DIP
teachers. Obviously, they have a skill that we don't all possess. Anyway, there is still time for you to revisit the resolution and eliminate the skipping criteria. Choose fairness. Choose stability. Choose to stand with the teachers who have built their careers
here in PUSD. Thank you, Maggie Capusian. Good evening board members, superintendent and superintendent leadership team. My name is Maggie Kopushian and I serve as the community assistant at Daniel Webster Elementary. I'm also the proud parent of two
children who attend Webster. I am deeply honored to hold this position. I'm a product of public school and serving this community is my way to give back to the system that shaped me and that my own children experience every day. Tonight I'm speaking about language access across Pasadena Unified School
District. PSUSD serves more than 400 Armenian students and families. 83 of 258 students at Webster are Armenian. Nearly onethird of the school population. 26 families have requested Armenian communication and districtwide
80 families have requested Armenian language access. There are families who want to f uh fully participate in their children's education. With four roving community assistance, there is a chance because I'm the only one that speaks Armenian. We will not have this access
for our families. Community assistance will be available based on seniority. And if there are four roving positions, at least one should provide Armenian access, language access districtwide. I speak both Eastern and Western Armenian dialects, allowing me to
support families with cultural and linguistic accuracy. It's not only about language. It's about cultural context that we bring every day. And this is not only about me. I know that seniority plays a big role. But if we have one Armenian speaking community assistant, this will serve our
community best. I support all families. I interpret for conference conferences, SST, and 504 meetings. and I run and interpret our ELAC meetings with our incredible MTSS coach, Mrs. Kim. All families deserve access to their children's education. For our family
support, it's not just translation, heritage understanding, cultural context, real-time access, and navigating school systems. Equity is not equal cuts. Equity is protecting access, trust, and opportunity for our children. Thank you for thinking about our families.
David Edel. >> Hi. Uh, I wasn't planning to speak, but I decided to. I'm a parent at Jackson Elementary, and I just want to urge you if we're able to discover and get any extra money, we should think about allocating it to the elementary school
sites. If we start to ravage art and science and music in elementary schools, we run the risk of families not wanting to use PSD at all. If you don't join an elementary school, you're not going to go to PSU in high school. That's a fact. And music is just so important for young
children. If you don't learn music at a young age, starting to learn music at fourth and fifth grade, it's a foreign language. You'll never pick it up. I went to a public school that didn't have music until fourth and fifth grade. I never learned to play an instrument. I never learned to sing. I love music, but it's I don't understand it. So, if we
don't have music for our youngest kids, they're never going to learn how to play an instrument. They're never It's not going and not every family can afford to do outside music instruction for their kids on nights and weekends. Just think about all the kids and if we're able to
allocate even a little bit of money, let's try to dedicate it back to the elementary schools. Thank you. Charmaine Barry. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Charmaine Barry. Oh, sorry. My name is
Charmaine Barry and I'm here to advocate on behalf of Mr. Phelps, Scott Phelps of the Independent Study Program. My daughter Emani attends the program and by all challenges losing my home in the fire and everything. It's been tough,
but Mr. Phelps have been there. He goes above and beyond. And it's not only that he's a teacher and he's a mentor, but he's there to navigate Immani and the other students, navigate them about life, about everything, you know, having
that one-on-one talk. I remember that when we were going through our tough time during the fire. He would check in with Immani every single week just to see her well-being, see where her state of mind was at, how can he help. Just recently, last week, she's also taking
college classes at PCC College. I wasn't able to get her to register. And right away, I reached out to him the same day, in less than 15 minutes, he contact me back with the PCC form for permission. Within days, Imani was able to register
for the spring semester. And I could tell you many many other examples of how wonderful he is as a person, as a family person, as a dad. You know, it goes he goes above and beyond. And eliminating him is just not right. It's not right
for any teacher to have cutbacks. Think about the impact on our children. It affects them tremendously. You cannot have oversized large classrooms of 50 kids or more and you're downsizing, cutting the teachers. You cannot eliminate them. They're essential part.
They're a big factor. They're valued employees and mentors to our children. I also want to advocate for the CTE health program that Miss um Debbie Carton is part of that organization. My daughter
attends that program as well and we would like the program to also continue. Thank you everyone for listening. Thank you so much. Anna Medina Witch. Hello. Thank you all. I haven't ever attended one of these before because my
son just started. He's finishing up his first year of TK at Jackson. Um so I'm a proud Jackson parent and I'm here to kind of um request some special consideration for the schools in the area of Altadena. Um, I I just want to
say that, you know, my son, we we lost our home. My son is just about to turn five. And what I want to say is that he needs to learn how to express what he's gone through. He needs art. He needs music. He needs the tools of expression
for him to be able to figure out what it is that he's gone through and what he's going to be continuing to go through for years. Um, also how to relate to his to, you know, even for the outside community who didn't lose their home, people who are displaced or maybe just trying to understand what he's going through.
Those tools of expression that you learn through art and music are invaluable, especially at that age and especially with what they've gone through. I also want to advocate for the library and those resources because the amount of books that that aided him through this
process and helped him to understand what it means for his home to be gone and what it means for his community to come around him. Um are are countless and and again just an an invaluable resource that I I can't imagine him not having. The school that he attends
should represent those values. It should represent the fact that art, music, and literature are core fundamental rights that he has and things that he needs to be able to succeed in this world. Um, I appreciate you all listening. I hope I
wish that you didn't have to make any of these decisions and I know that they're hard. Thank you all and you know, just thank you for listening. Amanda Miller Good evening, Superintendent Blanco, members of the school board and staff.
My name is Armando Mayor, and I stand before you tonight as someone who has dedicated nearly three decades in teaching the students of our district. With these uh proposed drastic dogeelike budget cuts, I have to be honest, this feels like the movie Groundhog Day. the
same conversations, the same decisions, the same consequences, the same uh after 28 years in this district, it is disheartening to say that it feels like we haven't learned a darn thing. Once again, we are turning the same old method of balancing our budget, cutting
the very resources that directly support students in classrooms. Our schools do not shine when you cut the very programs and personnel that are supposed to help our students succeed in science, math, reading, arts, and physical education. You do not demonstrate leadership by
shrinking opportunity. You are not showing vision by narrowing access. This approach is unfair to students, teachers, and staff alike. Our students are like the canary in the coal mine. When resources disappear, when class
sizes grow, when intervention programs are reduced, students feel it first and they feel it the most. We know that when we invest in their education, their success pays off many times over. Yet, even as you reduce support and
resources, teachers efficacy will be continued to be measured by the same yard stick, the students academic achievement will be continued to be judged by the same assessment. We are asked, we are going to be asked to produce equal or greater outcomes with
fewer tools, fewer support, and fewer people. That is not accountability. That is just very nearsighted and highly unfair. You all said sweet things and made your promises to get yourselves elected. Now is the time for you to roll up your
sleeves, do the hard work that you signed up for, and do what's right by our students. I think we all agree that they all deserve no less than that. Thank you, >> Penny Malog. >> Let's see how fast I can read. Good
evening, Superintendent Blanco, members of the PUSD board and staff. My name is Penny Magalong. I'm a PUSD teacher and former PUSD parent. I'm concerned about the proposed staffing reductions and their potential impact on students and staff. These cuts will result in the
loss of essential academic interventions, behavioral supports, and enrichment activities across all schools in the district. While our dedicated teachers and staff will continue to provide highquality instruction, support, and enrichment, it will be so
challenging to do so effectively under diminished resources. This will significantly affect the overall student experience with reductions occurring at the district level. Intro in individual schools will also be required to assume
additional responsibilities. Have any members of the board consulted with school administrators regarding how they plan to manage these increased duties, maintain existing responsibilities and budget for the upcoming year? Teachers will still be expected to meet certain goals and
students will still be expected to perform at specific levels, but these will need to be done with way fewer resources. So, are these cuts absolutely necessary? Will they enable us to avoid future reductions?
If after careful review, some staff reductions are determined to be unavoidable, I strongly recommend that these decisions be implemented only when absolutely necessary. Once layoffs are issued, talented employees leave or wonder leave PUSD or wonder if they'll
be reinstated, which leads to unnecessary stress. I respectfully ask that you re-evaluate the planned reductions for the upcoming year and develop a precise plan that prioritizes serving our students and providing them with safe, stable, fully
staffed schools. Thank you for your time, Amanda Getty. My name is Amanda Getty. I'm a Pasadena resident and a PTA parent. My daughter is in third grade at Longfellow. We are all here tonight because the workforce reduction resolutions being voted on
tonight represent this district's failure to the kids we entrusted you to protect. you have let us down. The other thing that's true is that we, the people in this room, we're actually the ones who hold all the cards. We're the ones who make this community run.
And I'm using my time tonight to call on this community to take hold of its power. We owe it to our kids to look to the United Educators of San Francisco, where tens of thousands of community members, students, families, and educators exercised their collective power last week during a historic 4-day
strike that led to victory. That victory means that fully funded family healthcare and raises, support for special education, protections for sanctuary schools and housing programs for students and families. They came together. They organized a big fight and
they won big. It's time for us to do the same. Our community is in crisis, multiple crises. This is a call to defend and protect it, but we have to get organized and stop relying on this board to save us. I invite all of you here today to join me in this fight.
Let's build a movement where students, families, and educators in Pasadena get what they deserve. Thank you, >> Gilbert Moa. Uh, good evening board. Uh, Dr. Blanco, I don't even know why I'm here. Uh, this
is my third year here. Um, and it really disappoints me to see that we're making these kind of cuts because now as I'm talking to all the staff and stuff and they've said it many times over, this is a broken record. You guys
have been doing this for the past three decades, just laying off people and then telling them just before they're going to move on to a new place, oh, never mind. We're going to bring you back. I saw it last year. We lost a couple of good math teachers because of the weird
layoff system you did and then all a sudden you brought them back and they ended up at different schools instead of the back to where they were originally. Um, I'm definitely on the chopping block and I really don't care that I'm on the
chopping block. Uh, I'll find a job. I'm Gen X. I don't I don't bend. I don't break. I don't do nothing. I I I I land on my feet. But there's a lot of young talented teachers out there that are just going to be disheartened and just
like wondering what the heck went on. I gave you my all. I taught all these kids. I've got them doing these things and you're just pulling the rug out right from under them because you're not willing to make the deep cuts upstairs that they really need to make and leaving the frontline people who are
actually affecting the lives of these kids and actually making a difference in their lives. I mean, I can pray a thousand kids in front of you and they're not going to know anybody any of you. >> But are they going to know them? Y
>> I go down the hall, I get high fives, I get, "Hey, Mr. Boy, Mr. Moore, half these kids aren't even on my case load, but I make sure I they know me that that I'm a resource for them. But I'm not going to be a resource for them because you're going to cut me. So, please do
better." Cindy, Sabrina, Patty, Sandra. It's one set of two minutes for the four of you. >> We understand the assignment. >> Good evening. My name is Sabrina Mandigo, >> Patricia Maras,
>> Sandra Salgado, Cynthia Kim, >> and we are proud PUSD parents and proud UTP members. We are here tonight to stand up for safe, stable, fully staffed schools. This means undoing cuts to MTSS
coaches, custodial staff, bilingual aids, library coordinators, IT techs, clerk typists, and science, music, and international academy students. Instead of locking up the extra $10
million from the June budget that was documented at the December board meeting, you could use that money today to save MTSS coaches, custodians, bilingual aids, clerical support, IT techs, library coordinators, and science, music, and international
academy students. You guys found that extra money. That's amazing. We need to use it for this. Why aren't you using it to improve students experiences school? Having clean schools that are welcoming with MTSS coaches and paras who speak
language student languages is worth it. Saving clerical staff who can follow up on attendance issues and bring in attendance dollars is worth it. Saving it techs can keep Chromebooks working properly for students is worth it.
saving library coordinators so that students can foster a love of reading is worth it. This is money waiting to be freed up in order to make student learning better. You have the power to make this happen. Use it. We urge you to seriously
consider our suggestions and give the budget another look. Delay the riff vote. Neil Tyler It's very disappointing that we parents are having to advocate for less cuts once again. We all thought things were for the most part settled in November
when very specific cuts were approved following the ESPback process and then giving the thumbs up by LEO. It was our understanding that those cuts were based on detailed budget projections. What was the point of all of that work and budgeting done if the district is going to now just issue riff notices to
hundreds of additional teachers and staff and just see how things shake out? The cuts being approved tonight should at worst mirror what was approved in November. The actual financials for the first half of this year show millions of additional funds available to the district as compared to what was
budgeted. The district brought in more revenue and spent less than budgeted according to what we see in the documents that are public. And historically, that has been the case, as this district has budgeted in an overly conservative way for decades, leading to unnecessary issuance of riff notices
that just get pulled back over the summer. But this is not the year to do this. If you approve these resolutions, a massive number of teachers and staff, both at school sites and the central office, will have their lives upended for absolutely no good reason. They will leave for districts and jobs that treat
them better, and families will follow. And this district will be even further out of compliance with the requirement that it spend at least 55% of its budget on classroom education, which this district has now violated for four straight years. Right now, the PSU
community is in fight mode. As you can see from the turnout and other comments being made here tonight. But if you approve these resolutions as proposed tonight, a large chunk of the community will quickly shift to flight mode and the death spiral of this district will begin. Amazing teachers and staff will
leave. your most loyal families will leave and it will all be on your watch. I know this board doesn't want to tell the senior leadership team how to do its job, but it's apparent that it's necessary after seeing these resolutions tonight and the failure to account for actual financial performance. You should
reject both resolutions and cut less, not more than what was approved in November. Elizabeth Agula Elizabeth Agular. I'll go to the next speaker in the meantime. Mate Ald.
Good evening. My name is Ma Alde and I'm a parent at Octavia Butler Magnet Middle School and a former Jackson Elementary parent. You've seen me and heard from me at almost every board meeting the last few months. It would be really easy to stop showing up. It would be really easy to lose hope. But what kind of message
would that send to our kids? Our students are watching us. They're learning whether adults stand up and fight for them when decisions cause them harm or do we stay quiet and accept it. They need to know that when people in power make choices that affect their lives, those people need to be held
accountable. Whether it's at the national level or right here in their own backyard, the budget cuts approved in December will cause real and lasting damage. These nearly 30 million in cuts were based on projections, not final data.
If updated numbers now show revenues were underestimated or expenses overestimated, then moving forward anyway is not a financial necessity. It's a choice you're making and the consequences of that choice belong to this board. At AB, some of our students have had almost 20 different science
teachers since the beginning of the school year. 20. That instability is completely unacceptable. When learning loss grows, that is not avoidable unavoidable. When teachers leave, that's not a coincidence. Those outcomes are directly tied to the choices that you make in this room.
At OE, these cuts threatening core programs, science, arts, music, library access, and academic supports. These are not extras. These are essential to student engagement, achievement, and well-being. In fact, OB's library has been nationally recognized and honored by the American Association of School Librarians as a finalist for a national
award. This is what success looks like, and these cuts put it at risk. But you know all this. Now the question is, will you have the courage to do the right thing and challenge each other and challenge leadership? On behalf of OAP and all the PUSD parents, students, teachers, and families, we urge the
board to reconsider the proposed 2627 budget and pause before the damage to our children and our community becomes permanent and irreversible, Elizabeth Aguilar. Uh, hello. Good evening, board. Uh, I'm gonna spin this into a narrative because I heard that's a great way to get and
hold people's attention. So, here's like a little bedtime story. Um, once upon a time there was a district made up of uh stable, safe, and fully staffed schools. The special education teachers had their guaranteed planning and IEP compliance periods. They had the guaranteed support
of aids that staffed their classrooms. The general education teachers in the middle and high schools only had to teach grade level classes, which means that they did not have a split class made up of, for example, seventh and eighth grade math students. This was possible for the district because
despite declining enrollment, the board of education members engaged in the extensive naval gazing necessary to be able to make balanced and informed cuts. The cuts were proportional because the board members heard the concerns and desires of the people who were deeply invested in the community. They
conscientiously audited their administrative overhead. They evaluated program effectiveness based on comprehensive and accurate data, aggressively pursued external funding, engaged in transparent communication, and prioritized equity and the well-being of the district's students
above all else when deciding where to make cuts. I really hope this is a story about the Pasadena Unified School District. And I know that it can be. Thank you for your time. Christina Castro, we'll wait until she gets in the room. Angie Coronado.
Hello, my name is Angie Coronado. I'm a senior at CIS Academy and I'm also a student of Mr. Phelps. Um, I'm here to speak on his behalf. Because of CIS Academy, I've been able to succeed in high school. It's not because of anything in person. I just it
was just convenient for myself and my family. I've been able to take classes at PCC at a higher grade level. I'm taking calculusy right now. I've been able to work to save up for my future for college. I've also been accepted to Tain University with a full tuition
scholarship. >> My sister is a student was a student of the other teacher who will be affected by these cuts, Miss Reoso. She's also attending a 4-year accredited university. She's attending Wam University in Oregon with um a half tuition scholarship as well.
I was able to succeed at CIS because of teachers like Mr. Phelps and Mr. Reo Mr. Reoso. I urge you to think of the other students who won't have these resources, who won't have these people to support them. Um,
sorry. Yes. I really just urge you to think of students. Think of their needs. How they how are they going to succeed if their schools are underfunded and understaffed? I was able to succeed because of these people, specifically because of Mr. Phelps. He helped me especially with my application, with my
extracurriculars, with my um with my studies at CIS and PCC. I just urge you to think of students and the teachers who will be affected by these reductions. Thank you. Christina Castro. >> Hello. Good evening.
My name is Christina Castro. I'm a parent at Jackson. We are here tonight to stand up for safe, stable, fully staffed schools. This means instituting reasonable class size gaps. When classes are appro are appropriately sized, wonderful things happen. Classroom
climates and learning conditions are better. Teachers are more able to build relationships, deliver content, and tailor their teaching to individuals needs, student needs. Students don't slip through the cracks. They are supported and more likely to
thrive. When students when classes are too big, behavior becomes unmanageable, content goes unlearned, and students don't have the chance to learn their potential to reach their potential. There's simply less to go around. We all know this intuitively. Just as our
public comments get shorter the more people sign up, the minutes a teacher can devote to any individual individual child creates a child decreases the more children she is tasked uh with teaching. This is what happens in a a 45D lab
combo class with 36 students, a middle school math class with 44 students, and a high school science lab whose 41 students made it impossible to do any experiments for lack of physical space. All real examples from our district. There is good news. Our district has
many classes that are appropriately sized. The problem is the outliers. Classes that are undersized or oversized. UTP's proposal would simply even things out. However, in bargaining sessions with the district, UTP's proposal for
reasonable class sizes continues to be rejected. This is the time to work together in good faith to find solutions that benefit everyone. Class size caps are a win for teachers, for families, for students, and for the district. Now
is the time to come together for a safe, stable, fully staffed schools, which means reasonable class class size caps. Thank you, Suku. >> Lou, I'm sorry. >> Good evening. I'm also a Jackson parent
of a TK student. Uh, over the past year, I've learned more than I cared to about our district's financial situation. Um, the PUSD budget cuts have already impacted our school at Jackson in dramatic ways. Um, and I will note that our school faced lower enrollment this
year due to the eaten fires, which has displaced hundreds of families. Um, and these are families and children who, by the way, and have already been said tonight, are still suffering daily from these losses. In light of the changes earlier this year, another Altadena parent and I set
up a GoFundMe to try to fund raise to support and um, hire an institutional aid to or instructional aid to help support the classes. Um, and we were able to do that just by sheer grit and will with along with raising money through the annual fund and other
sources. Um, but we are doing everything that we possibly can. Now, we're being told that we will likely lose our beloved science teacher, Mr. Newell, who is not just a science teacher, but the heart and soul of our school. And honestly, it's what drew our family to Jackson, as well as potentially music,
PE, arts, garden, and even custodial staff. All of these things are things that we saw on the tour that made us want to choose Jackson for our daughter. This move to cut these beloved positions seems short-sighted in the grand scheme of trying to attract more people to our schools. However, I want you to know
that when we were told that these cuts might happen, our parent response was, "How much will it cost to keep them?" Because we are willing to do as much as we possibly can to keep them. And I'm here to ask you to do your part, too, to try anything that you can to find out
how to keep these important positions. Parents shouldn't have to bootstrap the failures of PUSD just to give our kids the education, stability, and opportunities that they need and deserve. We are doing everything that we can, and I hope that you will, too. Thank you,
Martin Davo. Okay. Gina Cohen. Hello. My name is Gina Cohen. I am a mother of five and I'm the type of parent that a lot of um people here have been talking about having five kids. Um
I have currently have two kids at Jackson and one child at OEB. Unfortunately, uh my other two kids I've removed from the district because their needs are not being met. I'm having as we go on and these budget cuts continue, I'm having to consider
sacrificing my kids lifelong friendships so they can get a proper education. I've learned that since the cuts that were approved last year, which were already pretty bad, that a solid $44 million was found through the audits that's been unaccounted for. And yet more cuts are
being suggested. What am I supposed to think about that? I I really feel panicked about it. And so what's clear is that this isn't an issue of money. It's an issue of poor planning. So these are all things that I'm
considering as I'm looking towards the next academic year. PUSD's mission uh states that the vision will transform education to empower students to succeed. How does cutting the budget for science teachers and librarians and overcrowded classrooms align with that?
When is the board going to make change so that every meeting doesn't start with a special education lawsuit? Jackson's Mr. Moore taught my kids to love science and he's on the chopping blocks. My eldest two kids have straight A's and after their experiences at OEB
where they haven't had consistent science teachers, they literally told me they didn't care about science anymore. My eldest daughter, who I transferred to a charter high school, told me yesterday, "I love science again. I forgot how cool it is." Because if you have substitutes and temporary
employees, they can't really teach science. So anyway, I've said enough, but I'm really disappointed and that I hope that there's better planning and less budget cuts. Martin Durab. Good evening. My name is Martin Doro and
I'm a fifth grade teacher at Madison Elementary. I'm a nine-year me veteran of the field and I come here to speak on my own behalf as well as uh the other teachers facing these looming cuts. I was here last year for the same reason and the majority of you still voted to
lay me off as well as dozen of dozens of other dedicated teachers. My students were also here who represent the community and uh you chose still to lay off their teacher. However, I still want to share my experience with these cuts. As a teacher, our job is to address the
needs of all of our students in the classroom. The plans we create in the middle of the year are to address that stability in the classroom. But to really answer the diverse needs our scholars present and really provide enrichment requires longitudinal
planning, something we are not budgeting for at the district. For example, I believe not only do our scholars at Madison Elementary deserve a class library with culturally relevant texts, but I also believe they deserve exposure to literary masterpieces such as Lord of
the Rings. It has been my goal to create a context in our classroom where this text has meaning for our students. One way is by accumulating 30 copies of the book so that we may read excerpts together and understand how Frodo's path in the book is similar to our own path
in serving our community. However, your plans to cut me instead require me to plan not to have a position. This is the cost of your irresponsible decision-making, the enrichment of our scholars. Please be responsible for the budget with the
budget for our kids and importantly for public education. Thank you, >> Steven Co. Teacher of the year of the year, >> Tom Hos, Scott Hos, Sophia Pelman, and Lauri Rammani,
Genevie Miller. When they come in, the room will allow them to speak, but I'm going to just keep going. Lisa Cruzie Good evening. I'm Lisa Cruzie. I'm PUSD PTA Council President, but I'm here tonight as my own person and as a PUSD
parent. Um I wanted to ask a couple of questions. First, the um chart of numbers here, it does not include a 6 through 12 school, which two of our high schools are. It does include a K through
8 school. Um, I'd like to point out really quickly, um, the Helen and Will Webster Foundation has given $750,000 to, um, Allied Charter Schools. They
have 13,000 students with 25 schools, which equals about 520 students per school. They talk about how successful they are and how their students outperform. Perhaps one of the reasons why is
because of the smaller school sizes that they have and more connected communities. I'm happy to send over information about this. It's also painful for me as a parent to
see schoolboard members who are advocating behind the scenes and in the boardroom um to close our schools and posting at the same time on social media about how nice it is to know through all
the change and challenge in one's life, sometimes you can go home again after visiting your own high school recently. me. So, I appreciate you all. I know you all care about our kids and I just want you
to understand how some of these things land because I don't think you necessarily realize what it feels like as a parent to believe that maybe there are split alliances um or double
standards. Thank you. calling names again. Genevie Miller. >> Yeah, Genevie. >> It's hard to hear when you're in the overflow. Sorry. Um, good evening. My name is Genevie Miller. I stand here as
a proud EUTP member and a parent who had three children go all the way through and graduate from PUSD schools. I'm here tonight to stand up for safe, stable, and fully staffed schools. This means not unnecessarily riffing teachers only to bring them back again. In my 11 years
as a PUSD teacher, I've been riffed four times and transferred five times due to a declining enrollment. I am just one of many teachers who's been in a similar situation. I know I'm not alone when I say that teaching for POSD means anxiety every March as it approaches because we
don't know if we're going to get to keep our job or not. We build relationships with colleagues, students, and families only to be reminded that we're expendable. At my side alone, these cuts would affect almost our entire kindergarten and first
grade team, which is the foundation of everyone's schooling. No good comes from unnecessary riffs. They are demoralizing and destabilizing. Bad for teachers and bad for students. I really hope that you consider everything you're hearing tonight. There's a
different way forward. Thank you, >> Sophia Palman and Laura Leammani. >> Good evening board members. My name is Sophia Pelman and this is my colleague Laurel Romani and we are first year teachers at Jackson Elementary. We are here with UTP to stand up for safe,
stable, and fully funded schools. And for us, that means hiring and retaining teachers on permanent and not temporary contracts. >> We care deeply about our students and our schools and the long-term health of this district. Um,
but we are teaching in a state of insecurity. We don't know if we'll have a job next year, where we might be teaching if we are invited back, what grade level, or what school site we might be at. And now with the possibility of laying off hundreds of teachers and support staff, that
instability is not just about us. It is expanding to the entire district. the entire school communities are being disrupted where our relationship with students that we spent building are ultimately gone and these students rely
on consistent trusted adults in their classrooms and we right now can't plan for that to continue. I've already experienced this instability firsthand after being hired to teach fifth grade in my first year teaching. I was abruptly moved to kindergarten after two weeks. To be clear, I'm very proud to be
a kindergarten teacher at Jackson in the dual language program. While I have stepped up with professionalism and care, shifting grade levels requires rebuilding curriculum, assessments, routines from scratch. Um, we rely on the instructional support staff. Going back to fully funded staff schools,
music, PE, science, right? We're a we're a steam school. Um, they enrich our students lives because they provide essential collaboration and planning time for us, especially new teachers who need that support. If the district would like new teachers to have longevity, stability in our careers, especially new
teachers who are excited and who chose this career for various reasons, right? Um, we need fully staffed schools. When programs are cut or positions are unstable, it impacts the entire ecosystem of a school, especially our students. Um, when we lose educators, we lose relationships, and we urge you to
seriously consider all the options presented and take a closer look. Please delay the riff vote. Thank you, Stan Hos. Did Scott Hos come into the room? >> Good evening, board members. My name is Scott Hos and I'm a parent of a CIS
student and I'm here to urge you not to cut CIS. I feel these these cuts would be shortsighted. One of the biggest issues at the district now is enrollment. CIS is a is retaining students that wouldn't be in the district if you
didn't have that program where it's a unique program. My family is one example. My son is not just would not go not be in the district if it wasn't for CIS. I want to highlight one in important
aspect of that is the teachers. If me as an employer treated the teachers this way, my employees, they would come from my head. I can't believe what these teachers are saying. You guys need to do better for them.
And I want to bring it to example of Scott Phelps. He's helped my son with advanced coursework. There's nobody else in this district that goes beyond what the teachers do. You need to con cut the hire staff. You need to get into
the weeds. That's your job is to look at every single line item. Little decisions you make is what has the effect in the long term. And some of the decisions that were made prior are still affecting
you, but the decisions you make now will affect the p the future. So, I urge you to keep CIS because it keeps students in the district and that's what you need at this point. Thank you, >> Tom Hos. Good evening, board members. My name is
Tom Hos, a student at CIS. I want to explain this with a calculus idea. When you change something, you can't just stop at the first result. In calculus, we call that the first derivative, the immediate effect. You also have to look at the next part, the second derivative.
What change what change causes after what change causes after people react. Here the first order effect of cutting CIS is easy to see. You save money. But the second order effect is what really matters. You lose students. Students
like me don't just switch to another school program inside CIS. We leave the district. And when enrollment drops, funding drops. That's the second order cost. So, what looks like a saving can turn into a loss. You might think to yourself, "What does a 12-year-old know
about math?" However, because of CIS and my teacher, Scott Phelps, I'm taking college level classes and studying linear algebra and multivariable calculus, working with matrices and solving complex systems. And the lesson is the same. If you ignore what happens
next, you get the wrong answer. So, please don't cut CIS based on only the first order savings. Look at the full equation. retention, enrollment, outcomes, and the funding impact of students leaving. Thank you,
>> Stephen Cole. >> Hi everyone, here again. Uh my name is Steve Cole. I'm a former parent and now teacher, three and a half years at Blair. So I'm a relatively new teacher. If I wasn't at Blair, I probably would have been out in the last riff last
year. Um, but I'm here to stand up because we do need safe, stable, and fully staffed schools. So, we have to undo cuts to things like high school athletics intervention and the superintendent school zones. Instead of
hoarding the 3 and a.5 million or 3.1 million in unad audited actuals, we could instead restore the full athletic experience in all the high schools and restore intervention in the school superintendent school zones. Study after study has shown that students who participate in athletics generally have
higher attendance rates, GPA, and better standardized test scores and higher graduation rates than students who do not participate. Why should these outcomes be limited for all of our high school students? Superintendent zone schools, they're created for localized
support that would increase student attendance and academic performance. Many of the superintendent zone schools have improved with these extra supports. Are we willing to actually remove these supports and revert to the inequality we had before? Is overestimating spending
to make sure that we're good at the end of the year really worth risking a backslide for these students? Now's the time to actually be brave. Now's the time to go right up to the edge with our actual spending so that we can make sure that we maintain our schools as much as
possible and our student experience. This is money that is waiting to be freed up. These unodudited actuals that are here to make the student learning better. You guys have the power of course to make this happen. You guys have the power to be brave and we want
to make sure that you consider these suggestions. We should probably delay this riff vote so that we can actually look at the data as we should. Thank you very much for your time. And the last speaker doing general
public comment is Rene Gonzalez. >> Good evening everyone. Um, I don't think we should be here talking about uh layoffs of teachers. I don't believe we should be here to talk about uh school consolidations.
I have watched teachers waste their entire lives advocating for reforms only to see the reasonable ask go to deaf ears. To continue to do the same actions and expect different outcomes is
actually the definition of insanity. And so I encourage everyone, teachers, students, uncorrupted administrators, not you, to direct your valuable time
and amazing talent to reach out to your legislator, contact Adam Schiff, contact Sasha Perez, bring your detailed case to them. PUSD is not a stranger to the federal government.
We need to protect the children. I repeat, we need to protect the children. They're your bosses on the organizational chart. So invest your energy and collective
efforts to pro to progress or you will end up insane unemployed while decad old parasites continue to ruin our public education system. Not a single penny
spent on solar green energy. Not a single penny. Right? we could have these teachers charged for free. I deescalated the corrupted power purchase agreement. The only one that didn't vote was a mathematician for from Caltech. So if a
mathematician for Caltech did not stop this corruption, I'm sorry, little boy, but you're talking to the wrong people. This needs reform. A complete reform. Dr. Mr. Blanco, you're doing a wonderful job to fire that comeback.
>> Sorry, your time is expired. Thank you so much. >> The facilities, that was a wonderful courage. You could do better. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> We also want to acknowledge receipt of public comment that has come in by email. It will be compiled and added to
the record of this meeting. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Trusty McKenzie. Thank you for the public comment. Next item is comments from labor groups. >> If we can try to keep it between three and five minutes, that would be
wonderful. >> I timed myself. It should be close. Okay. So, um you might have noticed the um theme for the um UTP labor partner comments. This will be about safe, stable, and fully staffed schools.
Uh UTB is excited that both Tina Frederick's and Scott Harden took us up on our uh invitation to visit school sites. We're grateful to Jennifer Holly Lee for reaching out and hoping that we can schedule that visit soon. Uh for the rest of the school board, we hope you will work with UTP to schedule site
visits to the schools you represent. On contract management, the safety one in particular that um we are very grateful for. Every elementary teacher has been confirmed that they're receiving contractual 10 minute physical relief break at this time and we hope that with all the budget cuts that will
remain in place. Um LCAP must prioritize safe, stable and fully staffed schools. UTP demands a real seat at the table in writing and editing the local control accountability plan. Every LCAP so far has missed the mark. We've heard many
comments from board members and others uh speaking to that. Frustration is evident among parent groups, educators, students, and community in being cut out of the decision. So many student outcomes are consistently below the target. The cuts should steer away from should
be steering the LCAP away from safe and stable. Um right now it is uh steering away from that. The most effective LCAP spending is on class size reduction, preventing staff turnover, guidance counselors, health services, PD see cuts. You're literally cutting the
things that are most effective in um achieving the goals that you claim to be wanting to achieve. The this is a picture of instability. 46 teachers, child development cuts. That's nearly half of the department. And yet there is
no cut to admin in child development. How is that? >> Secondary teacher cuts. It's a jumbled mess, but that's what I could determine as far as the 32.3 middle and high school teacher uh cuts. I have no idea
what 1.7 French, Armenian, Spanish, and Mandarin positions is. It's I don't even know how you get to 7 with our contract. Uh there's also the out of the classroom cuts, the 3.4 counselors, 2.3 nurses and librarians. The nurse and librarian cuts
are almost certainly against our contract, but there's been no discussion about anou or anything like that. So approving those is likely setting you up for a contract violation. Our TOSAs are at the core of that PD we were just
talking about and to be cutting those is unconscionable. PSD needs safe, stable, fully staffed schools. instead classified and certificate of management
with 168 positions for next year. I don't know where the one went. Um is nearly double Alhamra's 85. 168 admin positions and we've confirmed that they're all being paid close to the 180k average
uh with benefits. PSD must fully fund classroom instruction. These cuts, if approved, will lock in the fifth year in a row of PUSD spending less than 55% the state legal minimum on classroom instruction. The audit finding you'll approve today shows that you only spent
42% on classroom instruction. 2425. Turning over 140 teachers and certificated staff by all the estimates on turnover is $2.3 million. And that's before considering any impact on student learning. unrestricted
contracted services is nine million more than the actual suggest. I don't know why you're budgeting so much more for it. It is leading to cuts you don't need to make. Books and supplies is over by at least a million and that's just when unrestricted. The actuals make clear that UTP positions
and proposals are well within reach. The cuts are not based on actuals or even the trend. Choosing staff over contractors does not make safe, stable, or fully staffed schools. In order to sorry, you need to choose staff over contractors. Invest in our
own special education professionals instead of wasting funding on outside contractors. Pay special ed professionals fairly for additional work to catch up instead of legal or contracted services. Many contractors have to be trained by and have their work fixed by UTB members.
Cut out the middle. PSUSD voters want safe, stable, fully staffed schools. PSD voters have approved 16 million in additional funding through measures J and uh E. Do we really want to be here next September and have a surprising 20 plus million
surplus after defunding our schools and student experience? How will that look to PUSD area voters? On a positive note, Proposition 55, uh the renewal petition to maintain school funding for safe, stable, fully staffed schools. This is something that affects
schools across the state. 15% of our funding uh currently comes from a modest tax on people making 360 or couples making 720 or more. UTP will has shared a resolution with the PSD board and we hope uh in to support the renewal of Proposition 55 and we hope it will be
agendaized soon. together for safe, stable, fully staffed schools. We can have I'm done this last. >> We have the future of our students. Um we can have the future our students, family, and community deserve. Collaboration and shared leadership with parents, students, educators,
schoolboard, and administration will lead to the best learning for our students. Thank you. >> Thank you. I didn't even hear a call for the union presentation. So >> Oh, that's Thank you. >> Um,
>> Mr. Leon. >> So, before I go into my speech, I just have been having a hard time sitting and hearing a lot of this stuff. So, I've been reading school budgets for over 20 years, and I'm pretty good at it. And if
there is $1 that's out there, I'm going to get it for my members. So, I heard 10 million. I heard 44 million. I heard 1.3 million. I just wish somebody would show me where that money is cuz I can't find it. Anyways, good evening, President
Frederick's, school board members, Superintendent Dr. Blanco, Superintendent Leadership, team members, and members of the audience. I'm here this evening to obviously address the layoffs. This is the worst part of my job when I have to meet with my members to explain that they're being laid off. I understand the need and I know the
budget, but it's still a hard pill to swallow. I am hopeful that the district will do the same for my members that they did for the teachers last year and bringing back many of them back to their jobs. As all of you know, I'm uh all of my
members are very important to me and I'm very passionate about protecting their jobs. However, one of my biggest concerns at this point is our grounds department. Currently, there are 12 members working in the grounds. Two crews of six members to cover the entire
district. One crew has uh one side of the district while the other crew has the other side. When these layoffs go through, there will be five members on grounds. Now, one crew less than the crews that they had before, but still responsible for the entire district. The
curb appeal will not be able to be maintained. weeds um and tall grass will be out of control resulting in the increase in animals and pest. However, that's not bad enough. I understand the board has an interest in increasing green space in the district. I would recommend that you do not move forward
with this plan. It's going to be a waste of money because whatever you're going to plant is going to die because nobody's going to be able to maintain it. The impact of the grounds will happen on July 1st, which means all summer long you will experience overgrowth. By the beginning of next school year, the uh schools will not
look as they do uh as they do now, plus any of the collateral damage that the overgrowth will cause. The grounds need to have enough people to re uh remaining to maintain uh the facilities until the whole crew will be able to come back. So
again, I I hear everybody. I know the the money. I know you made tough decisions and it not have been easy. Like I said, um I have other members out there and we're still working to try to do whatever we can to support them, but this is to me I know the classrooms are
important, but people pull up these schools next year, they might just drive by. Thank you. >> Thank you. Are there any other labor groups in the room? Hello everyone. Good evening, President
Frederick, board members, and superintendent Dr. Blanco. As we approach the March 15 deadline, our classified staff are experiencing a growing sense of unease as we face these reductions. While we while we understood this
possibility possibility might come, the reality is now here. I stand before you today to continue to advocate for those who are losing their positions positions and for those whose futures remain uncertain. My request to the board and
the entire leadership team is simple. Please support and assist our classified staff now more than ever. These are dedicated employees who serve the district and our students every single day. Many are now confronting the difficult reality of seeking new
employment to continue providing for their families. I will continue to advocate and work alongside the district as issues arise. In my role as a chapter president, I have learned that my responsibility is to ask questions, especially when
clarity is is needed. I do so not to challenge for the sake of opposition but to ensure transparency, fairness and understanding understanding for the members I represent.
Before I close, I want to give credit where credit is due. I would like to thank doc Dr. Canal and Dr. Alensard for and our CSEA negotiation team for their hard work and collaborating in maintaining our summer saver program.
This program has been in place since 2019 and is administered through the state of California. It is critical for our 9, 10, 10 and a half and 11 month employees, helping them navigate the difficult summer months when paychecks
are not issue and providing much needed financial stability during that time. Thank you for your time and cons and consideration. I will continue to stand firmly and support our classified staff. Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Good evening, President Tina Frederick's, board members, Superintendent Blano, and my esteemed ABSA colleagues. My name is Karen Anderson, and I'm here as the marketing chair for the Association for Pasadena School Administrators. We represent 68
certificated administrators in the district and a roughly 100 classified managers. March is we're going to just change the tone for a second here. March is Arts Education Month and we want to highlight some amazing events happening with our
students this month. Our all-star band represented us beautifully as they march down Main Street Disneyland on Monday. They are 130 instrumentalists, dancers, and color guard. And this is just the beginning of the joy they will bring marching the Rose Parade 2027.
Thank you. Please watch the videos online. They were amazing. Our secondary instrumental music festival is next week on March 4th. We will have the pleasure of hearing our middle and high school honor bands and orchestras. Please join us at PHS for this special night of music with
over 400 6th through 12th grade students participating. Moving to visual arts, our district-wide art show, No Boundaries, opens with Art Night Pasadena on March 13th. We will be we will be back at the PO showcasing the incredible creativity of our K12
students with over 450 pieces of twodimensional and three-dimensional art. Our spring musicals are starting up at all of our middle and high schools. We are grateful, so grateful to Dr. Eric Barbara and the theater tech teacher, Mr. Martin Oconor at Pasadena High
School for their flexibil use of their beautifully updated performance spaces for Altadena Arts Magnet. Altadena Arts Magnet show which will be in the little theater at PHS and Elliot Arts Magnets production of Bring
It On in the main auditorium. Not only that, they also host all of our district-wide events and support and there is so much behind that. So, I really appreciate them. We are truly a team of arts educators and students
proud to bring joy to the community and soulful creativity to Pasadena Unified. Thank you. >> Thank you. Is Pacti here? Nobody from PATD. Okay. Thank you. That
concludes our comments from labor groups. Uh next item is the student board member report. Trustee Robles. I'm sorry. Is there a public comment? >> Renee Gonzalez.
>> Okay. >> He submitted two cards. One of them says agenda item L. Trusty Rob student board member report. >> Thank you, President Frederick's esteemed board members, Superintendent Blanco and PUSD leadership team for
continued contributions and dedication to PUSD students. This is a difficult time. As you may know, the student assembly and council meets in person on the Mondays before the board meeting to reach consensus on the votes that are going to be cast on behalf of PUSD students. The voting on two items that
were most draining were the potential layoffs. We recognize that our teachers and staff are the foundation of our schools and the inspiration of many. The potential ramifications of budget reductions are deeply concerning as these decisions inevitably affect people's lives as well as educational
quality and school culture. We would like to express solidarity to those whose positions are on the list. We stand with you. We see you and we are grateful for all that you've done for PUSD. We also continued to discuss the actions of the superintendent school consolidation advisory committee, the
SCAC. The two students who are on the SCAC SCAC joined our weekly virtual meeting last night and delivered new information from the first meeting, which they will continue to do so. The student assembly and council members as well as the think tank will then get feedback to the SCAC members to take
back to the next meeting. While we appreciate the inclusion of student think tank members at on the consolidation committee, we remain apprehensive about the prospect of school consolidation. We believe such actions may cause undue harm to students and the broader community without fully addressing the underlying challenges of
fiscal stability and declining enrollment. We respectfully urge the board to prioritize student welfare and long-term community impact as these deliberations continue. We appreciate PUSD's board of education and district leadership for leaving room for students voice in these difficult
decisions that will affect us. Against the backdrop of layoffs and consolidation, many of us are still facing challenges one year after the E and fire. We are still displaced and our family members are struggling as they deal with inadequate insurance. We are having a difficult time talking about
layoffs and school consolidation even as the impact of the fire ripples across our community. And in these difficult times, we acknowledge the challenges outside of our schools. We stand in solidarity with members of our Pasadena, Aladena, and Sierra Madre communities who are facing fear and uncertainty due
to go due to ongoing ICE activity. We are especially proud of the students who organized and participated in the February 6th protest at city hall, exemplifying unity and civic engagement across all PUSD high schools. We are beyond thankful and delighted of the
school staff who supported us as we marched through the streets to reach city hall. On a more personal note, we would like to address concerns expressed at the February 12th board of education meeting where there was a discussion about whether serving on the board and committees alongside you is a strain for
us and that participating in district high level meetings might detract from our academics. We would like to let you know that the student think tank and assembly members want to serve on these committees. And we see it as an honor, opportunity, and a meaningful learning experience that supplements our
education in ways the classroom cannot. We gain firsthand insight into governance, policy, and district decision-making while making a difference for all PUSD students. Many of us are firstg high school stu high school and aspiring college students. We
are grateful that you continue to invest in authentic student engagement and ensure that our participation is supported and substantive and impactful. Finally, we would love to inform the board that Pasadena High School student law and public service academy as well as Pasadena High School student leaders
are still discussing Chief Justice Sonia Sotomayor's visit to their campus. JP Ramirez, who you all know is now part of the student think tank, had the opportunity for an intimate visit with Chief Justice. A direct quote from him states, "It was an incredible opportunity to see such an impressive
public servant at her high school. We were all inspired by her presence and her commitment to making our country a better place for all, and we're grateful for the opportunity PUSD gave us to meet such a renowned figure. Thank you. Thank you, Trusty Rob."
Oh, yes. Do you have a question for Trusty Rob? >> Well, I have a question for the board. So, >> I heard her uh the comment from the um assembly about >> Hold on. Is this a request because it should go at the end of the meeting? >> Yes,
>> it's a question about what the next step is >> next. At the end of the meeting, please save it, write it down, and we'll address it. Thank you. I really appreciate you complying with Brown Act and Rosenberg. Next item. Don't be offended. We're just do we're just following the law. All
right. Staff presentation M1 goal monitoring literacy math college and career readiness. Good evening. Good evening, President Frederick's, members of the board, members of SLT, and Dr. Blanco. My name is Nadira Nayo, and I'm the director of curriculum instruction, professional
development, and edtech. And I'm here tonight to give you a midyear update on our academic goals on literacy, math, and career, college, and career readiness. So, just as we go through just real quickly, I like to always bring us back
to where we are. We talk our strategic pillars. We're under learner focused instruction. And once again, when we're talking about two different things, we talk about accountability when we're talking about things like the CASP, and we like to call that big data, but now we're talking about what's going on locally as
far as the implementation. And that's where we are talking about today. I always love to bring this back forefront because this is the way that we see our effective implementation structure. the things that need to be in place in order for our students to
succeed. And that's high quality instructional materials, the fidelity of implementation, and strong instruction. Just very quickly, our board of education goals that go through by June 2030. And now I'd like to talk to you about
the give you the uh the update on the on the reading. So right now what we have we use our I Ready data as our local data in order to measure how our students are doing uh locally in our schools and things like
that. So what we have in front of you is our relative placements from winter to winter. From winter to winter 23 24 25 and 25 26. There's something different here about this. As you look at it, you see our winter data in we did it in
December in 2023. We did it in March last year because of the fires and then we resumed back to where we were normally in January. But the one thing about this data right here, if you take note, is that our students now in January 2526
are at the same place that they were with two months more instruction last year. So they're actually above pace of where we were last year because we took this assessment in March when they came back and now we're actually doing actually a little bit we're doing more
better or just as just as much as they were doing with two month two months more of instruction. And I'll show you what this means here. This one is talking about grades three through eight. just highlighting fifth and seventh grade because when we talk
about once again we do have the um the difference in when the moon tour was taken. It was taken in March last year and so but you if you look at it in fifth grade and seventh grade we have students there our students are actually pretty much excelling. Those are big
jumps for them at that point that they are actually doing a lot better or just as good once again with two months more of instruction or if we put it if we put it this way two months less than instruction they had when they took it in last March.
But this is a really big highlight here. This is our norm comparison for our third through eighth graders in reading. If you look at this, we have the national norms, the year-to-date national norms from 2526 and California year to date winter 2526.
Our students are outperforming all of them. We are above the norm comparison. Okay. And I like to say we'll talk about the things that this what this means. It's a lot of hard work that's gone into uh the instruction um with um
on various levels instructions whether it's coaches is teachers is it's principles a lot of people are doing a lot of good work around here and just to see from fall to winter when we look at fall to winter we had a 9 percentage increase in the levels of
placement uh from in the green going to on level um we still, you know, we we we do have a decrease in the the reds. I'd like to see that that decrease go even further because we're talking about two or more grade levels behind. So, that's
the place where we want to look at. It's is shrinking, but of course, we'd like it to shrink faster. Once again, this one is just showing us third grade. Same thing, but broken down by grade levels here. And we see in some places we have we
well actually in all places we do have a shrink a shrinkage in the below three grades or more or more below which we are really proud of because there's been a lot of work going into this but this is the one once again this here
is the same data that you saw from the last slide shown in this way. So what you see here if you the top right quadrant there high performance and high growth that means our students are knocking it out of the
park as far as growth and what they are doing in this. It is above the national norm in this case and we have two grade levels. This is by grade level. Um, two grade levels that still have high growth but low performance which means that we are also hitting those students who are
below level at the same time in those grade levels. We still have work to do there and is what we want to see. Uh, when we met with our partners who give us we go through a whole data dive, they said they have never seen this much growth. They have never seen a chart right now that looks like this. And they
were they were trying to figure out what are we doing to get this growth. Um so what happens if you look at this they also the data says that 20% of our students have already achieved their stretch growth. So if there is stretch
growth is and let's just say in one year we'll just say that students are supposed to grow 50%. At whatever it is we're going to say at 50%. So they've already reached 100 those 20%. They've gone above and beyond that. What stretch growth does for students who are
particularly behind is it accelerates their learning because I just don't want to do typical growth. If I'm doing typical growth, I'm going like a railroad track. I'm just moving along, but I'm not really growing and catching up as fast. But stretch growth, when you do your stretch growth, what happens to that is you're accelerating the learning
faster at a faster pace. This one is our high school. So our high school students here once again we have they they also take the the reading as well and just kind of the data that's here we have from fall to winter in here
and we get we're we're lessening the red. We have uh a little bit more. We have a little bit more on level that are going um going from going getting into early and mid and on
grade level. And once again, this is it broken down by grade level. Here we see that our ninth and tth graders are doing very well in this area getting the growth that's going. We want to uh work on some things as we talk about this to get to
get this even once again faster in those earlier grade levels. But what we're going to do is we're going to talk about some of the the midyear some of our growth goals that we've had some very targeted on this. I like to say I pulled this and I went to
there was something wrong here because I looked at this the these are the incorrect numbers here because and I'm going to ask that we repost the slides on that but because I looked at that and I said oh from 34 to 58 that was we're talking about midlevel mid midyear but
that was supposed to be over the course of the year. So, I'm going to talk about some things here. Um, because we actually did make our growth in here. I want to see this here. So, here overall, we've had, let me pull
up my notes here. We have this one here. So, overall, we had a 13 percentage growth overall for the district. Our focus students were Hispanic and Latino students in third grade for reading and our black or African-American students third grade in reading. So what we did
is we actually had a 15% increase for our Hispanic Latino students which brought them up to a 46% uh on level. And our midyear goal was not 58, it was 45. So they actually met
that midyear goal. The midyear goal has been met. Like I said, I want to have these reposted because I want my stars next to these. Um, yes, I wrote my stars next to these. Um, for our Africa, our third grade African-American students, African-American or black students, uh,
we were looking, we hit a 12% increase. Their midyear goal was 48%, not 53. And they were only had two percentage points to go. So, they made 46 instead of 48.
So, we're still working towards that as well. That's when we didn't meet quite, but we're still working towards it. And so when we talk about these, you know, what is it that we're doing, some of the things that we're doing um to get
this growth. So first of all, I'd like to say that our students are why we do this work. What we do, everything that we do exists in the service for one purpose, and that's accelerating learning and expanding the opportunities of our students.
That's where our focus is. And what we did was some of the things that we really focused on was really getting into the more consistent use of uh the adopted highquality instructional materials. There are highquality instructional
materials for there there's a whole thing on what it entails, but the thing is it brings consistency across grade levels to students everywhere, right? And so it there's certain components of it that make it so that every student
has the same access to these materials and these these idea in this content. Uh with within that definitely we've been on a continued focus on our reading foundations. we have to uh make sure that our students in those early grades
are getting those reading foundations so that they can move on further you know through the grade levels and not have reading gaps. uh we've had designated ELD professional development and that's the we've trained over the past three
years 112 teachers in to implement designated ELD uh for our students that was 81 elementaryaries elementary teachers and 31 secondary teachers and we plan on like as we getting a rotation
of who else needs to be trained when they need to train be trained new teachers or anything like that uh um a lot of the PLC's the data analysis and plans that teachers are making and being very focused on what they need to do
doing like the elementary taking their grade level it I know in the beginning we had a lot of guff I'll call it about we want PLC's and we want to do you know why can't we do what we want to do but the idea that the teachers actually took
hold of it and and began to own it and then taking it and saying Okay, for our grade level, this is what we're seeing and this is what we want to focus on. And that's exactly what we wanted to see. It's like, okay, so what are you seeing that you need to focus on? And so this is where this is coming in. This is
from the teachers and the coaches making these plans support with the the principles making these plans to be able to say what is it that we need to focus on in reading in this case, right? So he did that. Uh we have improved usage of IR pro for middle school. I pro is a
digital uh platform and for the most part part most of our I don't know I'm going to say there aren't any but I don't know many middle school or secondary teachers who are actually reading specialists and so this program
we had we implemented this about a year and a half ago because it does work on reading foundations for students to fill in those gaps whereas a teacher may not know what to do like I I don't know how to do, you know, phonics or um
>> thank you or phenemic awareness or other things that she's going to tell me about. Right? So, this is what this is for, but it's at a level that is age appropriate. So, they're not seeing ducks and whatever, but may be on there. So, it's age appropriate. Uh what you see in the numbers here, these are the
percentage of students at the middle schools who are actually on the on the pro on the program. So we'd like to get more students on this program because it's not only once this is the other thing it is not just for uh remediation
it actually is for enrichment and acceleration it will always meet them where they are so but this is what we have as far as the usage uh for our middle school we also when when I like to think about the work that's being done in the district I know we have PD
in our name but I also like to say we are not the curriculum and instruction police department. Um, it is not, we don't own PD. We do not own it. It just happens to be in our name, but everyone does professional development and things like that around this district. And
really, um, highlighting, uh, our ELOP program for their powerup reading intervention, uh, focusing on depending on the schools first through fourth grade with those phen phonic awareness skills, um, and things like that. So
really like it's it's not just us is what I wanted to say. It's phonics. Okay. Phonics. Okay. So this is what I mean. It's like it's not just CIPD. We don't own professional development. There's professional development going on in various places.
Additionally, as I like to say, you know, how do we do this? Through arts integration. And I know Miss Anderson, you know, she talks about the arts and we think about them in terms of, you know, oh, they're they're learning band or violin or
>> music, theater, and dance. But, right, but when you think about the things that that are going on in some of these lessons like in early childh, I mean, childhood music and movement, you know, the connection between rhythm and the phmic phmic awareness and solocation. um
elementary lessons that are written to integrate into the programs. You know, you're talking about tier one ELD strategies in there. Secondary, you're talking about creative well-being artists. Um and just a whole host of things that are occurring that actually feed into reading and literacy.
And finally, some of the things just site instructional support. What's going on at the school sites? We talked about the PLC's a little bit, but the one thing that we did very intentionally to make sure that we were doing more of because we saw that it worked in the middle school math project were the
learning walks or you want to call them instructional visits that are occurring. Uh the principles are doing and the administration and in some cases the teachers alongside with them. From October through February, there were 66 visits across classrooms across the
schools across all schools. And so the thing that you will tell you, you know, if someone's coming, it means something. If someone comes, it means something, right? So when you're principal and people are coming, it means something.
Like this is important. And not in a bad way. It's like, oh, you're here to see me. Oh, you're here to give me feedback. Oh, this is how I can get better. Oh, I did that really well. You know, all of those things our teachers need and want those affirmations, too. it helps with
their efficacy. Um, we've had data chats with students and teachers. Uh, we've documented 838 so far. And when I talk about that, that means individual students and then some teachers. So, how that goes is data
chats. I like to say or like imagine you went and took your driver's test and you finished it and you didn't pass and they said, "Okay, come back in two weeks. What would you know to work on? You
didn't pass. You have no idea of what you're doing." That's the the the analogy I like to give. But when you tell students do you see your whatever it is it can be I ready data it can be science data whatever data it some cases we've done seal and behavioral data
right it doesn't matter what it is but how do I get better if I don't even know what it is I'm supposed to be doing and this has helped students actually take more ownership because now it's not just like oh I just I got to do better but what do I have to do and then uh
teachers at the same time modeling our coaches modeling for them this is how you can do a data chat because I know it can be very daunting. Sometimes they're one-on-one, but we've tal we've uh modeled how do you do a whole class data chat in front. So, you know, because if you're high school and you have over 200
kids coming through, you're not going to be able to do that in a reasonable way. You may be able to do a whole class data chat and then get the kids some other kids personally that you really really need to hone in on. Um once again um in our coaching hours in our ELA and
literacy we have documented about 17 almost 180 hours of coaching in this area alone um with 333 logs made. And these right here these are just data slides of that same data. So I don't
they're pretty but you don't need to don't need to go through those. So what we're thinking about here, we're talking about so we're doing all this and what do we need to do our next steps I like to call it what is the path ahead what do we need to do next
we need to do we have our black and African-American students are less than you know 10% probably closer to about eight or nine% of the district when I it struck me when you look at numbers and you say oh we have 95 Five, we have 96
third graders. 96 identified, I'll put this, identified black or African-American third graders across the district. You mean we can't do anything for 96 students? And so this is where I'm talking about like we really need to in this particular
population if we're going to meet our board goals by 2030 is really have a really even deeper focused analysis on what we're going to do. and all of them and it it's not that all of them are doing poorly. That's not the case. Sometimes there's something else. Um in
my research when I was doing my dissertation and one thing I did find out is that when black students came in at the same level as any other student, their white counterparts because we're always compared there by the end of kindergarten they were behind. They took
every demographic that they could saying socioeconomic, parents, everything. And at the end of kindergarten, these black students were behind and they came in in the same place. That is important to know because
it's not always about um oh I just can't do the math. What is happening in the culture? Are you seen? Are you valued? Or do people even believe that you can do this? Right? So this is where we're talking about. So, we need to do some more of that work
there. Um, the I Ready Pro support for middle schools, I think. Um, I I really thinking about this and talking to the team, I'm not quite sure that teachers truly understand
what it can do for students who are struggling or students, older students, right, who are challenged with this because it's embarrassing for them to to to be reading and to do all these other things. But and like I said, they're not looking at ducks and chickens or
whatever funny fuzzy things on the screen, but it actually is something that is to help them with those foundational skills for those and to help them through that time to help them get there. And there's two different things. Once they get through that, I think it's called elevate. Once they get the foundations, then they elevate that
and they keep going on to um to push them forward at a more accelerated pace. So just really um I think once all of our teachers kind of understand what that is and not something just to be put on but to be monitored. You just can't put students on this and say here go do
this for 30 minutes a week or whatever but monitoring that progress as well. How do we monitor progress? And then we have been talking about just a a a supporting a we a a stronger implementation of integrated ELD. um our
integrated ELD because we do have high quality instructional materials. They all have something in there that addresses that piece of it. I'm not quite sure. No, I am quite sure we have not done a good job of really really pointing that out and that is across all
curricular areas because our students who are English learners, what better way to learn than in context of what of this, right? So, designate ELD is to help them um is to help them learn the language. Integrated ELD is to help them
access the content. Okay. So, that's what we need. We know um I've been talking to uh Mr. Ivvada and we going setting setting aside a plan to get that done like where do we go? How do we start this and get better? Okay. So that was kind of third through
8th and 12th grade and I mean in high school. So what we did is last oh this year it's this year this year is going fast. What we did for K2 is our K2 used to
they used to um do the I Ready, but since we have this year was the mandated reading difficulties reading reading difficulties risk screener that was put into place and the program that
we chose that was um yes it was a mirror and it was uh state approved. That state approved program also has a progress monitoring within it and it does the kind of a similar thing that I does which is that progress monitoring where we can go year of one
two three across the year. Um so our idea was let's not two things let's not over test our kids and give them I ready and this two it's integrated within the ELA program that they have already and so using that so we've kind of shifted
this year this is our first year using it and so we just have our beginning data and so into next year as we move we'll have more data on those but the reading difficulty reading screener risk screener is actually informed performs the progress monitoring and we're going to talk about
the progress monitoring because that's the part that we're talking about. It tutors students at their individualized level. Kind of same thing that they were doing on I Ready. Um but in this case it they can speak and they listen. Teachers can actually go back in and listen to the students to make sure that things
are not um if if the room was too noisy if this but they find out the students were actually speaking correctly but it just wasn't picking up for whatever reason. The child was talking softly. So we can go back and do those things and it provides our teachers regular data
points to support their instruction. Um what we've done here professional learning once again partnering with uh various departments but in this case our family and community engagement we've
hosted um parent nights for the uh reading difficult no it was forgi >> it was for progress monitoring for progress monitoring um the first one in October to give an introduction to the to the to the parents so they understand
what this was and the difference of where we were switching to and then February so they understand the results. what are you getting when we get this because it's going to be different from the I Ready results that they were getting. um in that in that particular I think it was the second one we had over between the two we had over a 100 plus
families who who attended um and particularly the second one I think that was more you know for stu for whatever somehow we got a whole bunch over there um but there was a lot um and in that middle of the year benchmark
mark we had 97% completion rate for our students in there and about 3% had already opted out for for various reasons Um, all K2 uh teachers were trained during our August PD and our MTSS coaches and principles receive
professional development and there's ongoing coaching that's attending for them so they can um like I said, it's a new program. We're we're just starting it so that everybody gets on board and they understand what it is and its usage. So, some of the data from there right
now the the yellow's not bad here. You know, usually yellow's like, "Oh, that's kind of, you know, caution." But that's not true. Right now, we have 79% of our K2 students are on track or above for where they are, right? So, we have about 21% that are in that catch-up range. And
in that catch-up range, there are uh certain things that teachers are doing in order to um the program will give them very specific like this student needs to work on phonics. Oh, it's not phmic awareness like you
need to work on whatever it happens to be. It's very very particular and gets very very granular for the students and so it's very important that uh teachers they follow this in order to help students go. But the idea that we have 79% of our students are on track. Very good.
And this kind of breaks it down by um by grade level. Kinder first and second of where they are. And this is the progress monitoring. This is what they're using in between. They're using
kind of the tutoring program and then they'll do a progress monitor a benchmark. They'll do another one. They'll do a benchmark. To be honest, we did not do a a beginning of the year this year with them because of we had system problems. Just we would leave it like that. We had system problems of
implementation and trying to get the actual platform up. It was up by the middle of the year one. So, we were able to give that and we'll give a um the end of the year. And so, we'll have more data starting out the beginning of next year to do our three beginning, middle,
and end. Yeah. Okay. So, what we have just our plan ahead for this is that we have continued progress monitoring for um to inform our our um instruction. It's on the program for K2. It's on Amira. Um we're going to continue coaching
teachers to build that capacity for them to understand the program. And we'll do like I said, we'll do an end of year progress monitoring assessment to measure that. And then beginning in the fall, now that we've gotten uh pretty much everything settled in a row, what
we need to do, we'll be begining our annual baseline for um usually around September, October in that area. So, we'll have all three data points there. Okay. So, next we have our math. And
this kind of the same thing if you look at this uh grades 1 through eight in the district and we have our change winter to winter. The same thing here. If you look we have the December, March and January. And then in the January once
again our students are still without with two months less instruction are still kind of in that same place where they were last March which is good because they're actually ahead in that place. uh first through this breaks it down first through fifth grade. And once
again, we have our fifth graders who are kind of showing that oh wow, we were really ahead of or a little bit ahead of where they were by uh last winter in comparison to this this winter in January. Last winter which was taken in
March instead of January. But this was a big one. So once again, we see seventh and eighth grades are were places where we're seeing um some pretty still some steady growth. I'd like to say I would I'm believing that it has to do with the work one of the
coaches that are still there and two of the the middle school math project and the continued implementation of some of those strategies. I won't say all, we're going to say some of those strategies that are still helping us uh make that growth. And once again,
Pasadena Unified School District is above the national norm and California on this. And this is Pasadena Unified in mathematics in grades 1 through eight in a norm comparison is above the national norm.
and California. Yes. Now, we know that in math across this nation, we have a long way to go. Just across that, we have a long way to go. But it's still something to be celebrated because it still goes to the
work that's being done by the teachers, by the coaches, by the principles to get this to happen. and then the students who are taking that ownership into that. So for math and grades one through eight, we had a 15% um increase from
fall whoops from fall to winter in this case here. And then this one we have grades one through five showing us what this data looks like here. Um, we see and here, you know, in third through fifth, we do
see from fall to winter that shrink actually across all of them, the shrink in reds, whether they're dark red or or or light reds. But really thinking about how do we address the reds completely anyway. And then we have this um sixth, seventh,
and eighth grade. It is our eighth graders that are showing the most progress. which is another thing to be very very proud of the idea that you know um they're coming through this you know you had your sixth grade your seventh grade
your eighth grade so it it probably it points to some strong instruction and strong strong supports that are going on there this is where the high performance here as you can see the eighth grade this was the thing the high growth and high performance eighth grade was kind of
outdoing everyone in this case. And then we have our high school. So once again, we have high school, we have a decrease in our reds, we have an increase in our greens as we go through here. Um and there's some things that we want to do. Um talking to Dr. Malone about how we're going to um maybe
restructure how we do high school because as we heard I think last year from some of our students it's like by the time they get into a certain grade and at the end of the year they're like we don't even take it seriously. So what can we do to actually get the good data in the beginning of the year but also
you know not burn them out at the same time. So, we're going to have some plans for that as well. And this just gives it to us in fall to winter by um by grade level. Our ninth graders, ninth graders are
doing very well in that case in the growth from fall to winter. So, once again, was this the one? Yeah. I'm gonna get my starves on this one, too, because I looked at this and this isn't right.
Okay, so for this here, overall the district, we had a 15% um overall increase in proficiency here, we had for our Hispanic or Latino students actually met their goal and exceeded it by two percentage points. It should have been a
mid-year goal of 31 percentage points and they they met it um by 33 they they did 33 percentage points and this is fifth grade. Our black or African-American students uh their midyear goal was 28%.
And so we would still have four more percentage points to go because they made it at uh 24% in this case. But see, those are the stars. I'm going to put in the other one. Those are the stars because our eighth grade students,
once again, as you saw, it was that our Hispanic or Latino students, um, their midyear was actually, even though it says 34, it was tw their actual midyear was supposed to be 20 is actually 28. And so, they exceeded it by seven percentage points. our black or
African-American students in eighth grade, their their um mid-year goal was 27 and they exceeded it by 14 percentage points. So, yes, they they did this. Okay, so we met those goals for those
students. So, and I won't go through all of this. The idea there's some actions that we're doing to improve it. some of it has some of isn't aligned with reading but only with the math. Um there's some things but I do want to once again point out we
are using grow by paper tutoring which is high intensity uh high intensity uh tutoring in grades seventh and eight to help students get better in there and once again that's through ELOP. Um we have arts integrated integrated lessons that that
help they visualize. We have intentional math talk and like I want to talk about is what do we want to do moving forward? Like I said, there's some things we want to do as far as um maybe changing some things or figuring out what do we do with high school in terms of our ninth, our 11th
and 12th graders. Um but we want to once again do really focus a n data analysis on our black and African-American and Hispanic and Latino students to figure out what is it that we're doing here. even going deeper because we have our Hispanic and Latino students and
focusing on the subset set really of our English learners to actually move it forward even further. Um we're talking about um a math pilot um potentially for 2627 um and that is yeah we need to talk
about that. um just because of it needs to be something that's going to support teachers in a manner that we're not going to be able to support them in at this you know moving forward with a lot of the cuts. So being very strategic about what does that pilot look like and what does the selection look like and
who we select as a partner because your partner if I can't get in touch with you now I'm not going to be able to get in touch with you when my teachers need you and that's something very important for me. Um, and the other thing was, and that was so wrong, to analyze and act on the grow data that we're getting that
we'll be getting. Um, they did it in the summer. They there was something that they weren't able to get it started in the fall and we just started it now again in the spring for the spring semester. So, I'm uh So, these are the last couple slides and this is the college and
career and this was on the previous slide, which is why I just skipped over it. We had our goals, our mid-year goals for African-American students that they would go from 43 to 50% on track. That was their goal. What they did reach, they reached uh 48%. So, they had two more percentage points to go at that
point. But year-over-year, they've had a 5% uh increase in that A throughG preparedness. And then our Hispanic students, uh the goal was they would move from 38% to 45% on track A throughG completion by midyear. um
45% was it. Uh they have one percentage point to go at this point, but once again, we still we're still seeing a 6% year-over-year increase in their A3G preparedness at this time. And so just the thing these are just uh
uh college and career some tasks that have been completed around counseling their career goals DF rates updates made to to the area system things that will systematize and make things easier for counselors and um principles and other
people who are looking at the data to really act upon the data very in a very quick quick manner. And so the idea has been reorganized counselors meetings including middle school um indicators because why are we waiting to high school when some kids
are already struggling in middle school. So let's catch them there to see what we can do there um and doing professional development for counselors and targeting in um more of the u improvements in the use of the data that we have.
And if you have any questions, the whole team is here. >> Thank you, Dr. Nio. >> Yes. >> Oh, yeah. >> She just covered 47 slides.
>> Um, I gave you 45 minutes and you got it at 35. So, >> got you. >> Gold star. >> Thank you. Thank you. Give my gold star. >> Double gold star. All right. So, this is a staff presentation. So, we are here to
ask questions, gain understanding. If you have a request of or new ideas that we we can address at the end of the meeting. So, anybody have any comments or questions for Dr. Nyo and her team?
Dr. Velasquez. Thank you for your presentation. Um what I see is that um a lot of the students who are at grade level or above grade level are showing great um success and are
benefiting from some of our instructional changes. And that is encouraging. Um however um the data presented also shows a greater divide between the
students that are on grade level and the students that are one two two and three. Moreover, it the data that you just presented is also showing that students that start at one grade level
progressively um keep moving towards two or three levels behind. And so while we are seeing encouraging numbers for some of our highest performers, er
we are also seeing uh the ancreased conflict in our district where we're going to have some really high performing students and a growth in students with
needs. And so to that end, my first question is what are some of the targeted instructional strategies that are placed specifically for students um that are one grade level, two grade levels, and three grade levels. The
second thing that I'm going to say is a um a comment about how as a board we've crafted our goals and how we might have to rethink the aggregates of our goals and then be
very specific about uh targeting students that are two or three grades behind because I think that the system and the goals that we've set up um might unintentionally encourage a continuation of this model
and might have some difficulties uh when it comes to sustainability of growth or targeted supports. So we really do need to think about this as a board. And the second question has to do
with um the significant drop in percentage of students from year to year. And um particularly when students move into higher grades and this question has to do has two sides.
One, is it like a summer effect or um has it it does it have to do with increased rigor and the foundational skills that are required for the next level uh or of standards? And in that case
um is there a possibility for uh summer work or summer recommendations that we can make to parents and students about how to mitigate the year-to-year erh loss. Uh finally
there's an issue of parent engagement and we have some great and we should be very proud of the sustained parent engagement that we get from students that are high performing in all of our schools and that is fantastic and I want
to know if we're distinguishing some of the uh parent engagement that we're doing with the students that are um underperforming arming whether it and and whether or not just like the instructional practice are we having
some differentiated engagement. Thank you. >> Thank you Dr. Velasquez. Thank you for the context and the questions. I'm just checking with Dr. Nile. Did you catch all of that? >> I think I did. >> Okay. >> I think I did. >> Feel free to ask to clarify the question.
>> Okay. So as far as the summer work is concerned, there's always going to be if students are not are not working in any academic capacity over the summer, there is going to be what they call the summer slide. And it's not that they for it's not that they lose
knowledge, it's just that they kind of forget, right? We we we know that until it's um brought back. So, I was just having a conversation with um Miss Harmony Cono today about that about what are we going to do for the summer just to keep kids
working. It's not that they need to have um you know, in some cases, yes, they need to be in a program, but what are some incentives that we can do to have a very targeted um group of kids working in with in reading and in math. Um so we
we are going to um work towards that like across that beginning in the our plan is to begin after spring break and then move into like what's the summer what does that look like to keep that because as long as they're working and doing something in math and something in
reading that's really what they need and I always I would always tell that to my parents when I taught and they're like what workbooks do I need I need to get all these workbooks I said please don't have your child hate math please don't do that I said let them give them and tell them here I need you to work in
this for five minutes a day just to keep the skills up just to keep the knowledge up just to do those reading is a little different of course so you want them reading and you can do that together but really it's like if we can keep them engaged in academics over the summer at
some level then we we mitigate that a little bit right and then we do have the students that come to the summer programs where we can be more targeted in that case uh the grade level support for those students uh who would be one and two grade levels behind. My concern as well
this is that data is nothing new. We've see we see that divide has been happening for years. Um, we have more more growth in some cases where we have students who I had who was it? There
were a couple students who actually went who moved up in their in their assessment by an entire level and this was the work that the teachers and the coaches were doing with them. I do believe that showing students what it is they need to do, how they need to do it
actually works. I'm hoping to see that more so and that's why I say I want to do more targeted for th that group of students like really look at that data look at that analysis who are these kids and what is it that they need what are we going to do for them like I really want those kids targeted so that we can
have um that accelerated growth because we cannot keep moving them along at the same rate they will never catch up we need to accelerate their growth is what we need to do um parent engagement. Can you go back to
that one for me? >> Different >> differentiate parent engagement. You know, for the past, it's been two years or three years, we've been working with the parent um family engagement office. And to be honest,
we're trying everything that we we do know how and that we can. um talking to Nancy Molina trying to get ideas from her and she says she has difficulties. So we're doing some different things. We're doing we tried online. We got
online, you know, we don't see who comes then though, right? We we can't see who's there necessarily. We've gotten a lot online. We've done in person. We don't necessarily get that. I'm really believing that maybe it's at the school sites. You know, it's localized. It's at
your school. Um we've tried some of that in the past. um we've gotten minimal um engagement as well. I think the the goal is to keep trying. It doesn't mean we stop. It doesn't mean we we we say, "Oh, that's not working, so we're not going to do
those again." We we're going to add to the repertoire of everything we're doing until we can find something that is working for for a majority of of parents. Because you're right, it's like I'm not sure, you know, what we're going to do. Trusty Kenny,
>> should I just do one question at a time? >> Oh, that would be lovely. Um well, this may not be able to be answered tonight, but I wanted to clarify the metric that we're looking at for the midyear for um A throughG
because I think you had grade 12 on the slide, right above the 48% it says grade 12, >> but somewhere else it says grade 11 in our documentation. And so I'm not and and the board didn't approve interim goals. So I don't know where kind of the
official interim goal target list is. So maybe that's a follow-up question. >> This data is for grade 12 and but you're saying that somewhere else you saw it for grade 11. >> Yeah. So, I just again I just don't know where the official
um and on a lot of those I Ready um graphs it at least on the one where you had the the actual goal stuff, you broke it down so we could see how many kids were tested out of the total number of kids on your horizontals.
>> On most of the other ones, you can't get that sense. Um, >> oh, you mean like on the >> like it'll say for 9th grade 582. And I assume part of it is is because you only can count kids who took both
tests. >> Yes. This this is a match set. So they had to have taken the first and the second at that case. >> But we have closer to 900 kids in ninth grade. Do you see what I mean? It would be interesting to know. Yes. how big
a group aren't reflected here if you see what I mean. >> No, I understand that and we've been I was I've been talking to Dr. Malone about that too. We want to understand what it is that we need to do in order to get >> and especially because there's such a sharp drop off from 9th to 10th 11th
12th. >> Yes. >> All right. Um and then on the slides that had the national norm am I seeing that it's from 2223 >> hold on I go by national >> either on the
>> so yeah so you have the national norm from winter 2223 and the national year to date is 2526 >> right which I saw that said that one's not necessarily representative >> which of the student the national in California at the bottom paragraph
there. Yes. >> But the national norm it sounds like it's >> that's where they are in their research. And so they when they come up with the next set of data, it'll have the next >> and and the reason it caught my eye is that's so close to the end of the pandemic when we know kind of across the
nation there was a lot of >> blows. We were still doing good >> of course. Okay. So I'm just saying so to compare us against three years ago. Okay. Um but we can compare us to California year two, >> right? And again, so this is to so may
maybe I just want to clarify. So it says it's not a not represent of the student population. Is that because this is just the I Ready clients in California? >> Correct. Okay. >> Correct. Yes. >> So we don't know. I mean I don't know does LA USD like do the some of the big
districts use I >> are they have a huge um Yeah. >> Because that's a lot I mean that's a lot of kids. If it's all, you know, kids from up north, I mean, it would be a different >> But if it was all kids up north, >> it without knowing it's
hard. Okay. Yes. >> So, my other question is not about data. It's about many of the strategies that you shared with us >> and in you may know what I'm about to say in light of our upcoming action
item. Mhm. >> So PLC's is one of our strategies, >> but the teachers that make PLC's happen are not going to be there in 2627. Coaching strategies, you talked a lot about walkthroughs, about different
kinds of coaching. Again, coaching will be greatly decreased. >> Correct. >> The benefits of art and music. the music for I think grades K through three will be will be going away. So
how would how is that going to be addressed next year? Because if these are our strategies and we don't have the staff and the resources to keep implementing those strategies, what are we what are we looking at? There are some things that um for a lack
of a better word that will have to be deimple deimplemented and we'll have to find strategies to make this work as best we can. So the idea when we talk about PLC's to be honest there were and that's elementary for the most part elementary um there
were actually many schools who are actually doing PLC's before we even implemented our model. So it's not like it can't be done. It might be a little more challenging because now you've become used to this model, but it's not that it can't be done and it might not be as as much. And I think Karen was
right here. >> Oh, there she goes. She was telling me about, you know, maybe the model is like not all of it's going away, but maybe it's going to have to be a certain, you know, you don't have it every week the way they had it. Maybe it's every other week. Maybe it's so different things
that we can do um to do that. We're in the planning stages of figuring out what that might look like with the um with all of that in the um with the school sites and administration as well. >> Trustee McKenzie. Oh.
>> Oh, Dr. Blanco, go ahead. >> I just wanted to ask for a little clarification on something that Mrs. Kenny said that the board did not approve um interim goals. So my understanding is that you know you
approve these big goals and then we you know that's the what you want us to do and then we figure out the how and our how is our interim benchmarks that we already have set up. So, are you suggesting that you have to approve of them? Because that's like part of our
instructional plan that we have. Like we've always had a schedule of interim things that we do to diagnose children and, you know, know where they're at and what we should do next. >> No, what what I tried to say was it's not our job to approve them. So, it's
not as easy to find the list of what they are as the ones that we approved. we can just go look at the approval item, but the interim goals, I don't know where the official list of what they are. So, if one place it says 11th and another says 12th, then I I don't know what
>> we can give you access to all of our schedules and calendars for the different grade levels, too. >> Well, I'm just saying if we've set targets, it's for a specific thing. And so, is there just a a list of these are the things that we're tracking and we're not changing it every time?
Could you repeat the question while I'm doing? Sorry. Can you repeat what like >> what you're seeking? >> So in one place it says that the interim that's being tracked for A through G is grade 11 for African-Americans and
Hispanics. Here we saw data for 12th grade. So did we really mean that the target was supposed to we were supposed to be measuring 12th grade or we were supposed to be measuring 11th grade? I see what you're saying. So, we can give you the
11th grade data. We uh >> No, no, no. I'm not asking for the data. I'm asking for is there is there a written document that just says these are the interim things that we're tracking. Just so on the slides where
um Nadira said I have to go back and change these because I took the end of the year, not the middle of the year, but again. So, where is that document that says >> Sorry, I need to interrupt this. Sorry, >> I think we can just clarify this outside of the meeting.
>> Don't worry. Yeah, this was not part of >> We can meet after this meeting. >> Yeah, I think it'll be clear. >> All right, Trusty McKenzie, >> thank you for the presentation. Couple of quick questions. Um, I know that you talked about the quality of the
instructional materials having an impact on the data that was presented tonight. um within those instructional materials, is there a sense I you mentioned the I Ready, the new um language arts materials?
>> Um how much of these materials have digital components that are attached to them and how much of it is sort of like live instruction with them? >> All of them have digital components attached to them, but that's not the
focus. Um for I Ready I know people think that it's because we talk about it so much they really think that it is this platform but actually the students have for math they have a math book it's called I Ready classroom or classroom mathematics they've changed the name but
there is a place there is a physical textbook that they use this this is where they can get some of that um I want to say tutoring small group really um instruction that the teachers they might not be able to give students like Or I could say when I was a teacher and
I wanted to know where my students were and I would give them a a a test the beginning of the school year and then you know six seven weeks later I disagregated the data and now we've moved on to so many things. So this is what this does for teachers. It pins it
very quickly for them to say oh Miss McKenzie is struggling in this let me focus I have this group of kids struggling here. So that's what that's used for. It is live instruction. It's all live instruction. >> I do understand that. I'm just trying to get a sense of sort of like the ratio of
time because I know that there are a lot of families that are concerned about um screen time especially at a young age and are we >> overexposing students to >> so the for the for I Ready it is 30 to
49 minutes a week is what is suggested. For the K2, it is 30 minutes a week and they're broken up into like 8 minute chunks, five minute chunks. So nothing, nobody wants them on the screen for any length of time, very small chunks of
time. And on um slide 22, when you mentioned the research that you were doing around how um we are looking to support um
black students. Um, are there strategies that we're implementing in the district to sort of reinforce the things that we know that work such as, you know, kind of affirming students, having instructors who actually believe that
our students are capable because I think that's a lot of it is that, you know, there's a sometimes there's not a willingness to think that certain students have the capacity to learn. Um, I think that there are sometimes
educators who believe that one's zip code or ethnicity are correlated to their ability or their social economic status. Um, you know, one's income is not correlated to one's intellectual capacity. And so how are we
overcoming these barriers in terms of how we are training our instructor and and our educators to make sure that that kind of um bias is not showing up in the classroom and impacting our outcomes. >> Correct. Thank you. Um so we still have
the work that's going on in our equity and belonging um and run by Miss Coy and Dr. Stevens who are who are running that and it does talk about that it's a different model than we were doing with our anti-racist series where we're actually taking
cohorts of our schools like they have to have an administrator uh they need to have someone from CSEA they have to have UTP they have to have you know a certain number of people and she can speak to it more but really taking that work in a as
a whole system and then them doing the work for a year not having to take it back to their staff. But in their second year, that's when the learning goes back. Now, can they go back and share with their staff? Yes. We're not going to tell them no. But it's not a um a requirement that they take that learning
back at that time. The first year is a learning year for them where they're learning as a cohort figuring out how are we going to give this to our staff? What is going to be our um our presentation? And a lot of that has to do with a the things that you're talking about in there.
And then I think the last thing is to reiterate, you know, Dr. Bless's point about parent engagement and family engagement. Um, how are we thinking about different ways to reach people? I think a lot of it has to do with relationship building
>> and how can we cultivate that sort of trust and credibility at school sites such that when we invite families to meetings, activities, events that they're willing to show up because they know that we believe in them. They have
the ability to believe in us and that um there's a relationship that's being cultivated. it's not um just sort of we want you to come out to this event that it's less sort of it's more relation than transactional. >> Where I've seen that the best has been in places where they have very strong
community assistance. Um and it's those community assistants that get them out there. Um there have been places I know OEB a very strong community assistant who I've seen get people out to come out and to do things. And you're right, it's about the relationships. And so it's like how do we continue to build that in
light of what we're having and and actually keep that in some places because we may be losing them. >> Yeah. >> Well, thank you so much, >> Trusty Harden. Uh myuh colleagues asked many questions
I had but I I do um wanted to ask a little bit about our TK students to see if you know we're doing any tracking to see that students are coming from TK into our elementarymentaries uh are if we're seeing any uh benefit uh to that
in terms of uh student outcomes. >> Good question for me to look into. Um, do you have >> It's odd because we do TK falls under our director of early childhood, Lindsay
Lewis, but I connect with both of my directors. So, one of the the nice um nexus points of TK into kinder is that at those young ages, you do a lot of observational data. So, the DRDP is the desired um results um measure is what we
use across the board at the younger ages. In kinder, we also sort of have this soft onboard where they do sort of a preassessment. Um what now it's slipping my mind, Carmemella, see it's not phonics. Uh but uh the pa, we used to
call it the pria, right? Um and so those two tools are actually more individualized. It is time inensive, but um you get a better understanding of how the students individually responding. That's if they were in our TK classrooms. We have the data that comes
over. Um Dr. Lewis has also been working on getting that poured into a central system that we would be able to then provide to the schools. Uh there is some movement. So the the tricky part is actually just matching the data student to student once they move on to their new class. But yeah, but the data is available,
>> right? That would be some some good wins if we can tout that we are seeing uh success from that. Um and then the just the you know guidance I would give uh on family engagement uh and and especially you know targeted uh differentiated
family engagement is to leverage the power of our our parent organizations um especially as we are having to make these difficult cuts that that these groups I think we've seen you know in the LCAP uh area that when we do mixers and town
halls and things like that that's a good opportunity to reach them and say Hey, we need your help and this is what you can help do to build those relationships that um our trusty McKenzie was talking about. >> Yes,
>> Trusty Bailey. >> Yes, thank you for this presentation and I like to celebrate every chance I get. So, I really really heard the good news, but I heard everything else as well. So, um, one of my questions, I kind of think
you answered it. Um, you had made mention, uh, that I think it was when you were talking about the K2 reading, the path ahead. >> I'm not sure if that's the slide, but I think that's where I noticed it. Um you
you mentioned that we missed the mark and um my question about missing the mark is can you identify when or how that happened? And it kind of sound like you
answered it a little when you commented about the the teachers knowledge of some of the the attributes of the I Ready program or the whatever program it is they were using. >> Okay. Yeah. I think if let me see if I
understand. So if I'm looking at this, what I meant by we it didn't say missed the mark, but what it is is we were unable to do a beginning of year. So we missed that opportunity. that mark >> we missed that mark that beginning opportunity that we would normally have
done in I Ready and stuff and then had to do complete system problems and it just wasn't Pasadena it was >> with the pro the platform itself okay so we were able to come back and do the middle of the year which we did and we'll do the end of the year and so next year we'll be able to start fresh and go
one middle beginning middle end you know >> so but are the teachers now knowledgeable of the program and all everything that it has >> for as much as you know learning in the program right now. I think it was a a good start for them. Uh Carmela could speak more to about if you'd like to
hear more about that, but >> No, that just eliminates my next what my next question was going to be. >> Um but thank you for that. The other thing that I wanted to ask was were you able to
to grasp whether or not the students whom were most successful had the parents who were mostly involved or more involved in in their education.
We didn't do that yet. That is some of the data that I there's a lot of data I want to dig into very individually and certain of those those student groups. Some of it is actually um doing uh surveys of the students themselves to find out um and then some of it is
looking at some of that data too. Who are these students like all the way down demographics where they come from so we really get a big picture of what is happening here. >> Yeah, >> that's all I have. Thank you. Okay,
>> Dr. Nyo, you are just the master. Um, and I really appreciate our board uh really delving into this and you presenting this um really extensive presentation that originally was a
shorter one, but you you really pulled off the the whole thing. I appreciate that. Um, I want to ask about HQIM. the high quality instructional materials. >> Now, I'm just sort of interpreting that
having that HQIM like the right HQIM >> is the foundation of of this process is is that >> it's do you agree or >> it's part of the process? >> Okay. >> So, I bring back once again our effective implementation structure. high
quality instructional materials by themselves won't help you if you don't have strong instruction to go with it. If you don't have the fidelity of implementation, it's all three of them together that make this happen. So, what we're saying is yes, at one point we
were we four years in now with our adoption for our ELA for elementary like having that real solid thing that all teachers are doing. They're doing the phonics, they're doing the, you know, the reading foundations, they're doing all these things and it's being consistently used across. And so we're
we're starting to reap and see those benefits. But we, yes, it is one piece of that puzzle that we need. But if you if you think this is a good HQIM but you try it and it's not being adopted
readily, do you just keep trying or do you find a new one and start over? >> Well, we we don't find a new one immediately. We try to we we because we go into long-term adoptions anywhere
from five to seven years, right? So what we try to do is we we try and choose the best one first that's the best for our context and what we have because all of them they they can be high quality instructional materials but there's some things that aren't going to work well in our context. We found that to be honest
in our um high school math Carnegie is a great program honestly when it's implemented the way it's supposed to. It just didn't fit our context. Um, I would support that in its high quality instructional material, but for our context, in the way it had to be
taught, it was not good for us. So, which is why last year and the year before, our uh high school teachers went through that kind of patch adoption because we needed to find something else that was going to work better for them because and if you're not using it, it's not working.
>> Plain and simple, it's not working. So, why stick with it if we didn't have to, right? So, at those times when we can, you start looking for those new materials. >> You got to give it a chance, right? >> You give it a chance. >> Um, and then I want to piggy back off Trusty McKenzie's um belief value. Uh,
and I'm your you're citing the study about the kindergarteners. It's just going to stick in my mind. um in your data walks do you um have something that supports increasing the belief in students?
There are very particular I can probably share some of the um it yes I'm going say yes it and on the data walk it really depends like on what you're looking for at that moment right so in some cases right now our principles are
really talking about um student engagement and what that looks like um so we're there's the focus on there but it does include when you talk about student engagement you talk about trust you talk about belonging you talk so these things are kind of in there you have to have that foundational social
emotional um foundation of trust in order for that to happen as well. So yes, it does have it in there. It might not be the focus of something when they're doing a walk at that time, but it is there. >> Thank you, Trusty Holly. >> You mentioned context.
>> Can you explain that with that Carnegie >> with the Carnegie? So Carnegie has a philosophy in their math program where it is a facilitative model. It is a completely facilitated model. So it wasn't something that a sub could come
in and pick up and do. Like I couldn't get a sub for the day and say, "Okay, come on in and now you're going to teach this math class." because it was completely facilitated where you're doing a lot of instruction facilitating students to come up with questions to have them talking to one another to do
those things. So in our context and I did I I talked to the VP about it. I said it's a good program. I've seen it work and the teachers who were able to implement it because they were there. It worked well and they said my students learned more. They retained all the stuff. They they decided all the things,
but it was like, but I can't leave sub plans. When I leave sub plans, it's just like I got to get them to do a worksheet type thing because there were no like um workbooks that came along with it. There was no um skill pract, you know, things that they're kind of used to that you could you leave for the sub. It's not
something that a sub could come in and do. Um it just was not and we it was like, okay, this isn't going to work very well. It wasn't working. Thank you. >> All right. Any other questions? Oh,
trusty roles. >> I had just had a question about um how will the layoffs go? How will the layoffs impact the training the teachers will need for our the students and our success?
>> Miss my heart. Yeah, it is. It is. and that that one. Yes, we do have PD in our name because that's what we do. That's what we need to do. Um we're we're trying to think through this at this point. Um we know that what we some
things that are going to have to go away like we had the best kind of professional development isn't the here come in learn something and then go back to your classroom and just do it. It's come in learn something let's bring you back in four or five weeks and do some
more. let's bring you back in another two or three weeks. That's it is ongoing learning. And even if we're not doing that, it's the coaching that comes along with it because coaching is professional development. People don't realize that you are you're getting professional development when you have someone coming there observing you, giving you feedback
and things like that. It's going to be a great impact on how we can do things. Um we have two professional development days um that are in a year. Um, I'm just going to say this. I have one team member left after this.
So, I'm not sure. We're going to do something because professional development is what we do because our students deserve to have good teachers and good instruction. It's just not going to look the way it has looked.
>> Okay, we're about to wrap up. Trusty Holly, >> what do you mean? You have one team member left >> based on the the existing cuts that that go through. There's me and one other person left in my department.
>> Okay. Thank you. >> Well, excellent presentation. It was originally going to be 30 minutes, but we extended to hour and 15 and we made it at an hour and 10. So, fantastic job everybody.
And I really want you to acknowledge your team because they sat there for a long time. >> Can you can you call out their names and their titles maybe? >> Okay, >> stand up. So, we have Ashley Butler, who is our she's actually a she's
technically the literacy history coach, but she does math secondary. She does a she's quite a learner. She's done that. Um we have Stephanie Cozy who we is our equity and belonging um kind of and and
our our um liaison between special education. So she has this lens that we need and has been very valuable. We have Rebecca Black who is our edtech specialist. Um we have Carmela Ching who is our elementary specialist. We have Lilia
Romero who is our coordinator for professional development >> and she's not part of my team. >> She's part of my extended team. That's Dr. Turley and you'll hear from her next. And then of course we have Karen Anderson who's also part of our extended
team as well for Gate and um arts. >> Oh David. Oh and Emma sleep. Yes. Okay. >> And David B. I didn't even see you there David. I'm sorry. David Ibata in our language assessment and development department. >> The A team. All right. Thank you so
much. >> Okay. Thank you so much. Fantastic. On to the next item. M2 on local control and accountability plan midyear update. Dr. Turley.
Good evening. >> Hold on. I think we may have to extend the me the meeting time now. We are about 45 minutes um behind due to the lot of public comment. And so that if I
add that to our estimated end time, that would put us at um 12:30. So you want to go 1:00 a.m. just for fun, >> Madam Chair? Okay. A >> do I hear a motion?
>> Move approval to extend to 100 a.m. >> Okay. I >> a second. >> I I can't. That only gives me like less than 4 hours of sleep. >> Trusty Daily, what is your What are you suggesting then? >> So, what is the end time now? 11.
>> Well, if I add We're behind 40 minutes, so put us at 12:30. >> I You guys can extend it. I can't stay that late. >> Okay. So 1:00 a.m. >> Just for a context, Madam Chair, you still have speakers on items. >> Oh, how many >> upcoming?
>> We have to give them two minutes each. >> Seven. >> That's fine. Oh, I see. Yeah, but 1:00 a.m. will give us extra. Yeah. >> Okay. Did we say 1:00 a.m.? Good. >> I only saw three. Oh, I'm sorry. Is is there a policy like I it it was my
understanding that we could not extend beyond midnight? >> No, you have to make the mot we have to agree to it >> even with a motion. >> Many boards stay beyond midnight. I told them to try to use our policy. >> You're not on the mic. >> So it's not against any law to go beyond
midnight. >> All right. So I I saw Okay. >> Thank you Dr. Turley. You may resume. >> I'm sorry. Yes, trusty role, please. >> Sorry, I will have to leave early.
>> Okay. What time? >> Uh 10:30. >> 10:30. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. >> Good evening everyone. Uh President Frederick's esteemed trustees, Superintendent Blanco. Um I'm here to
present the LCAP midyear. Uh this is essentially to give you an update on our spending thus far as it pertains to our goals um and any data we have related to the goals. However, you just heard a lot
of data um as it pertains to goal one. So I will briefly cover that and I was also given um 10 minutes. So um I will adhere to that. Uh so this is our budget overview for
parents. I just wanted to highlight here that our total LCFF um dollars is over $190 million. Of that um 34 a little over 34 million is um what we mainly track in our LCAP
for supplemental and concentration and also this year we have or yeah this year's LCAP um accurately reported our local funds. So measure J was accurately reported um under local funds as opposed to last year where we put it under our
um general funds. So again everything is aligned. This is um this is what we do and what we constantly think about is our strategic pillars which are directly aligned to our LCAP goals. So our first uh five
broad goals in our LCAP directly align to our five strategic pillars and then our focus goals six through nine um can also they are uh differentiated goals for subgroups of students. Um that can
also be found under goal one. Uh and these are the board goals which have already been reviewed. Um these are things we keep in mind as well as we are making progress. And then our north star um which is aligned to everything that we do is our graduate profile. We do all
of this because we want to see our graduates um embody the buckets of our graduate profile. Um so our expenditures so far um we are right on track. Again the the midyear gives you an update on
our spending until the first interim which uh was done in November. Uh so you can see we're we're pretty on track with our spending. we should be around 25% because that is a quarter of the year. Um and we are on track with our spending
um in our LCAP. This is just the same data if you like bar graphs. Um we presented in November on our um on our goals uh under goal one um which are
academic goals. And so I'm not going to repeat this slide. This is the same slide that was um presented to you back in November and it's a highlight of our um dashboard. Um our goal two is centered around uh
well-trained staff and Dr. Nyo talked a lot about how we are doing that. Um some of the data we we pulled is um from our uh professional development platform kickup. So there have been uh 326
opportunities for professional development in our dis district thus far. Um and through those aggregated uh surveys, staff reported that they had a um positive experience, 93% of staff uh
reported that 92% of staff reported that their professional development was useful or relevant to their jobs. Um an area of success that I will highlight is 2025 summer professional development um
was implemented based on staff needs survey. So we pulled the data um from staff indicating what they wanted to focus on and the PD department um centered the options for the for the PD
around those needs. an area of um continued growth is to continue to use the professional development platform. So our data is cleaner here um through kickup. Our goal three is centered around safe learning environments. Um and we have
seen that our students are meeting their um our attendance goal which is 94.08% and we're at 94.29%. uh we will we will savor those um point percentages um because that does mean
that our students are are meeting that goal. Our district suspension rate um our goal is 2% and um the rate is uh that we're currently at is 1.12%
of suspensions. So we are um definitely meeting that goal as well. some successes that we have had. Um we um Dr. Reynoso's department has onboarded a school crisis counselor. I think she's talked to the board about that um
previously and they are uh in process of onboarding another um crisis counselor. Uh as we all know, our students are in desperate need of this service. Um, we are still uh looking at and um trying to
reach the goal um for our suspension rates for our African-American, our special education, and our youth and foster care um students. We've made some progress uh in this area, and I'll highlight that um when we get to goal nine.
Uh transparent and effective uh systems. Um this goal is largely centered around my department. Um, so we have had 100% of our school account accountability report cards have been updated. They're available to the public. Um, so that
highlights a lot of individualized data for our school sites. Um, we have published um, spending reports and we've actually improved upon that. We've created SPSA trackers for all of our sites um, so schools can see in real
time their spending. Um and our next goal will be to do that for departments. Um but every school's budget is updated um after we receive the budgets and um the principles and school site councils
have access to that information. Actually, everyone in public has access to that information if you can navigate our website. Um uh we've had success with our um advisory committees um and their support
for various decisions that the that the district has made. It seems like years ago that we did our ESBACK, but we had a lot of participation um and valuable feedback from that process. Some areas
uh of growth is um communication around our school year budgets and planned cuts. That's something that we are still working on. How do we communicate to our families um the services that they will receive uh in PUSD next year?
Uh welcoming school environments. This is some of the um the midyear data that was pulled um from our uh family engagement department. There have been 410 workshop parent workshop um
participants. They have processed 181 level two volunteers and they have increased um parent portal accounts from fall of last year to fall of this year by 7.1% which is great because they increased um
parent portal percentage last year as well. Um they are our family engagement department has finished uh their welcome kit and has published it both in English and Spanish and I believe um they completed that kit just last month and
so they're very excited to to push that out to our families. If you haven't had a chance to look at it um I suggest you do. It's very comprehensive. Um, something we are still working on is,
as you all brought up earlier, is replicating those successful parent events and how do we um bring events to parents that are meaningful, on time, targeted just like uh what we try to bring to our students.
Um so when we get to goal six, this is where we start to break down the goals for specific student groups. Um our goal six is centered around youth and foster care and our homeless students. Um we have seen an increase uh in foster youth
graduation rates by 7 u%. Um they've grown to 70.6%. Um, and you can see I've uh provided a a dashboard um comparing um all PUSD students with our youth and
foster care and our homeless student population. Um you can see that there is definitely a gap that remains. Um however, uh there have been increases in graduation rates for those two groups of students. An area of continued growth is
our English language arts and math. um for our homeless students and math um for our foster youth. Um so these are areas that uh we continue to focus on.
Um goal seven again uh pulls data for our English learners. Um and some successes that we've had are um Mr. Ibara has worked very hard with his team to train classroom teachers on the ELPAC administration. We're hoping to see some
positive movement um in scores uh for our English learners. Uh we've seen significant growth in our ELTEL students, so our long-term English learners. Um this last year there was a
14% increase um of our ELTEL students in college and career readiness. Um and then some areas of continued growth are going to be our English learners um as they are 85 points from standard in English language arts and 110 points
below standard in math. So um we are continuing to to target these students and make sure there's growth in these areas through our various initiatives that you've heard about. Um, and then I've uh given you a graph of our graduation rates for our English
learners um broken down by LTELS and ELEL's in general. 2223 LESS were not pulled um out of the data that um started in 2324. That's why you will not see them show up in 2223.
I've already gone over my time. I'm going to be quick. Um our goal eight is our equity multiplier goal and that um that goal is for our two schools that qualify for equity multiplier funding
which is CIS and Rose City. Um so we have seen a lot of um growth um at both CIS and Rose City particularly in their graduation rates. Um there have been significant improvements there. Um and
some areas of growth are still um in academics in math. Um there they saw a a a decline for their Hispanic students and socioeconomically disadvantaged students. This data is always
hard to pull out and and uh find exactly what's going on because the student population at Rose City in particular is so transient. Um so whatever data we present on this, just keep keep that in mind.
Um and this actually speaks to some of the things we were talking about for African-American students. uh the idea of um students themselves, not only the teachers around them, uh administrators around them and all the support they
get, but students themselves believing that they can learn. Um so 79% of our African-American elementary school students on a Panorama survey indicated that they believe they can learn anything. Um and 71% of our secondary
students uh believe that they can they can learn anything. Um some successes that we've had is the launch of our immersive storytelling academy at McKinley. Um and there was a significant increase in college and career readiness
for African-American students with an 11point gain. Um, we continue uh to decrease suspension rates for African-American students. So, they're currently at 6%. However, there's still a gap because overall our district rate
is 2%. So, we want to continue um decreasing the suspension rate for this particular group of students. Um, and we want to continue to increase English language arts and math achievement. um
both decreased over the last year. Okay, I think I only went three minutes over, but uh a lot of the data you saw in the previous um report out. >> Thank you. Now, uh there any questions or comments
for Dr. Turley? Trusty McKenzie. >> Thank you, Dr. Charlie. Um, you acknowledge that the suspension rate for black children is disproportionately higher.
>> Um, what can we do to mitigate that given that the student population is low? >> Yes. It's also dis disproportionate to the number of African-American students
we have in the district. And Dr. Reynoso is working with our team. have um a myriad of tools that were implemented and introduced a few years ago. Um we have our MTSS tools, we have the um the coaches, and we're still seeing
disproportionality in rates that are so higher than what they should be. >> We agree. um the work that we had done together a couple of years ago also with our AAPC was really um a really tipping point for us to continue that work and
after we received our annual determination letter from the CDE um it pointed to the direction of our special education students and our African-American students. So we um although it wasn't significant, it is still concerning to us and primarily in
our middle schools where it continues to be the the issues sixth, seventh and eighth grade. So we are going to actually create our own internal team. We will be pulling in parents from AAPC from CAC. Um, we're going to be finding the the top five schools where we are
seeing this disproportionality, the principles so that they can be a part of that case study and change management system so that we can begin to use our framework in MTSS and all the things that we know are powerful and yet again I will always say the most important
places in the classroom and our students need to remain on our campuses and in our classrooms. So we need to remember that investment and continue to do the work with um Dr. Nyio's team. um so that our teachers feel completely um supported and and confident in serving
our students. So we are going to be launching that effort um the next month. >> Thank you. >> Trustee Kenny, >> thank you for the presentation and I appreciate you mentioning the the um correction for the local funds. Um, but
I'm still seeing this year that the expenditures as we're laying out for supplemental and concentration funds um that are to be for our targeted students are still not matching what's in our budget. Um, it's about 20% I think which
is about $7.1 million of the SNC funds. They're they're allocated to to different um actions than a person would think by looking at them from our LCAP. And because that LCAP is really the the readable document for the public, you
know, I want to raise this concern again. It was it was an issue last year. Um, but what I'm even more concerned about is as we're looking at the cuts that we are implementing tonight through the the ones we made through the ESPback and the
central cuts about 8.5 million of services that are using SNC money this year will not be next year because those services will be gone. And I guess I'm trying to figure out how are we going to reallocate those funds to appropriate
services for the students for next year. And how is that part of the planning? Because I know that this we're in the middle of the three-year cycle. And so we can't make a lot of we're not changing the goals or the metrics, but we're we're going to be making some changes, I guess.
>> Yeah. We can't make changes to the to the larger goals, but we can make changes to how we are implementing. Um so to answer your first question um the allocation of funds is aligned to the
LCAP. It may be sitting in uh resources that have not and it hasn't been pushed to the departments yet but that is the intention is to um make sure that we have budgets that align to the LCAP and we are constantly working on that with
the budget team. So as new budgets are posted, we are making sure that the that the funds are allocated as the as decided by the LCAP, we internally haven't changed anything. So um the budgets may not keep up with what we're
actually doing um because there is a lot happening in that cycle. Um but we're spending um as we have laid it out in the in the LCAP. Um to answer your second question,
there's a lot of thinking we still have to do around um how we are going to meet our MPP and make sure we are spending our SNC for the students and the um all of the the the goals laid out in the in
the LCAP. That's something that we're starting to have conversations around between academics and the budget team. Um, and that's kind of our our next step is to look at now that layoffs are um we're farther into that process. Now,
we're going to have time to kind of look at at what's remaining and how we're going to make sure those students are are getting the services that they need to get. >> Trusty Harden.
>> Thank you, Dr. Charlie. Um I also wanted to thank um uh you and all the parent leaders um of all the uh committees that came out for the u LCAP mixer uh that was a great turnout couple week or two
ago. Um are there any emerg as you talk about as we look to next year? I know this is midear report for this year, but as we look to 2627, are there any emergent themes that have come out of that that input uh that would guide you into um next year?
>> Yeah, I I mean our our parents, our community, you heard from them this evening. I mean, they're they're um concerned about what is going away um and how that has um spurred progress with our students and how we're going to
keep the momentum and keep our students moving forward with less resources. So, that that was a reoccurring theme. um our English learner families are definitely interested in how we're going to continue to support um our English learners given that some of our
bilingual aids are going away, our community assistants are going away. Um so that's definitely a a theme that was that was reoccurring. Um funding for our special education uh team and students uh that was a concern
as well. So there are reoccurring themes um that we will discuss as an academic and and budget team. Yeah. So that that mixer did did derive a lot of great data for us. >> And lastly, the welcome kit I will say looks fantastic. Um hopefully
>> that team >> Yeah. >> did it. Yeah. >> Hopefully parent input uh with it will help you improve it over the years. But uh but it's a great first start. >> Yeah. I will pass that on to Dr. Muma. >> Thank you, Trusty Rob.
Um I had a question about how has the ice and the fire the eaten fires affected the attendance that we've had that the students have had. >> So that's a that's a great question and
oddly our students are still coming to school. Um, and last year we were on target to meet our our attendance goal and uh it was a very small percentage. I'm so sorry I can't can't remember Dr.
Row >> that we didn't meet >> looking ahead. Sorry. >> That's okay. >> Ask the question. >> Um, it it's all right. Uh, it's a very small percentage that we didn't meet after the Eden fire. So we were we were actually surprised that our attendance
was our students came to school um after the fire. We you know we'd like to attribute it to um the safe spaces that we create for students and the you know the continuity and the the fact that our teachers showed up um and you all know
that our teachers were affected by the fire as well. But the fact that they showed up, I think was a a driver for our students coming back because the teachers cared so much to show up. They put their own personal
um issues aside to show up for students. So, I think that was a a big factor in um our attendance. But that's a that's a great question. >> Any further questions or comments? Fantastic. Thank you, Dr. Charlie.
>> Thank you. >> And we are ahead of schedule on that one. Now we are at action items. Um Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, for this item. >> Okay, hold on a second. Um,
so we're at action item uh resolution 2858, certificated layoffs. Yes, Dr. Velasquez. >> I actually would like to propose a sweep of N328. >> N328. >> I would prefer not to sweep since I
don't want to vote the same way on all of them, but >> Okay. So, yeah, I've >> Yeah, because we can't >> and eight needs a specific nomination. Some folks need want to vote differently. So,
>> okay. So, I'm going to amend my motion to sweep 3 to 7. >> Second. I just want to note that we have public comment on item N1. >> Thank you. But >> N1 is not included in the sweep.
And and this week does not preclude >> comments or >> so items N3 to 7. >> Can I clarify? >> Does anybody have a different vote than they >> No, I just want to clarify. >> Correct.
>> Will we still be getting presentations on the audits or does a sweep preclude that? >> We'll still get the presentations. Oh, is that what you're trying to do? No, we'll still get the presentations. Let's let's just stick with the the
individual. I know you're trying to be a little efficient here. >> So, yeah, you did make a motion and second on the sweep. My understanding is that just because you decide that you want to
take action at one time doesn't preclude you from being able to present information. You've got a motion. You got a second which opens it up for discussion and presentation. >> Okay. So, yeah, we can move forward with the vote. So, does anybody
who would support a sweep motion of 3 to 7? >> I again have to want to vote something on something differently in that group. So, I would have to vote I >> can we call for the vote? >> Yeah. So, all those in favor of the
sweep doing a sweep motion. Oh, I'm sorry, >> Miss Montoy. >> Oh, sorry. I'm I'm kind of >> I am confused, too. Now, we're deciding whether to do a sweep or we're doing the sweep.
>> To do a sweep, >> but not not actually doing the sweep. >> No, I believe it's >> so my understanding is Okay. >> There was a motion made and it was seconded. So, unless the maker of the motion withdraws the motion, we need to
vote on it. >> Right. But we're not voting on three through seven. >> Correct. >> No, you're voting on a sweep. >> I don't Yeah, I don't think we vote on this whether to do a sweep. I think that's >> that was the motion.
>> Okay, >> that was the motion. So, we're voting on >> I do want to clarify. So, we're voting >> on three through seven. >> We're voting on three through seven. So, we're going to have all the So, before we vote, we actually have to have all the presentations. >> No, we are voting on whether to sweep.
>> No, no, no. >> Three through seven. >> No, we don't sweep. >> Can you remake your motion? Restate your motion, please. I don't I don't think that's allowed actually to vote on. >> Should you restate the motion? >> No, no, no. I I don't think it's allowed
to vote on whether we can do a sweep motion >> withraw then individually on the items. I guess that's the the question. >> Okay, come on you guys. This is not hard. If the sweep fails, we go back to the regular agenda. How about that?
Okay. But so can you please restate your motion so that everybody's clear? >> My motion is I would like to sweep items three and three to seven. >> So we're going out of order. We're
skipping ahead to 3 through 7 and skipping one and two. >> Looks like it. >> And we're not having any presentations even though these have >> presentations. Yeah, let's go in order. >> It's it's what she said. It's her motion. I understand motion was seconded. >> So we either you either vote to support
it or you don't. >> Please can I'm point of order on this and I'm going to consult Miss Mononttoya but I believe we need to go in order. We could do a sweep but we got to do the N1 N2 first. >> No you don't.
>> No. So just for clarification the motion that Dr. Velasquez is doing is she's moving for approval of item N3 to N7. Okay. So now I'm clear on the on the motion. Thank you. >> All right. So now we're not going to vote because we're doing all the other
things. >> No, we have to vote on the motion. It's on the floor. >> Okay. >> Well, I was told that we would do the motion and then have the presentation. So now I'm confused. >> Okay. So rely on Miss Montoya. So we are
going to vote on three through seven. Um, but we first need the presentations. >> That's right. >> Correct. >> That was my question. >> Yeah. Anything relevant to those items needs to now be presented and discussed.
>> Uh, I would like to ask the maker to withdraw her motion. >> I I was about to I'm going to withdraw the motion because this was supposed to save time, not extend it. Okay, let's get back to N1.
>> So, is there a presentation for >> You've got public comment. >> Sorry. Yes. Um, >> public comment for N1. >> Yes. Cynthia Robinson. I'll go through the names again just to
make sure that I didn't miss someone. Mary Beth Lauderdale, Eric Martinez, Denise Bureki. >> Berskiata. Thank you. Am I saying that correct? >> Briskiata. >> Briskiata. >> Briskiata.
>> So, >> Bersciata. two minutes. >> Thank you, >> Miss Montoya. Two minutes. >> Good evening. My name is Denise Bersiaga. I am a teacher at CIS and I'm here tonight to represent on behalf of my colleagues and students for the
Center of Independent Study. Independent study is not a side program. It is not an afterthought. It is a vital, growing, and deeply necessary part of this district. It provides students who cannot attend or simply cannot thrive in a traditional classroom setting access
to a highquality education and right now our program is overextended. We are over ratio. In fact, we are growing every year and we have had to pause enrollment this year because we do not have enough teachers to meet the demand from families in PSUD.
Despite our numbers, we have been informed of a proposal to cut two secondary teacher positions from our staff to only six, I'm sorry, our staff of only six. In addition to our longerving CTE teacher, our CTE teacher
is not an extra. That classroom is a hub for connection community to our students. You cannot have a program that is growing, that is over ratio, and serving some of the district's most vulnerable students and remove one-third of the education educators to make that
success possible. This makes absolutely no sense. Our program has anchored families to this district in times of crisis. We supported families who continue to and want or need a virtual education setting after COVID. We continue to support displaced families
during community tragedies such as the eaten fire and ongoing ICE activity. We retain students who will likely otherwise leave the district for charter schools. Reducing our teacher staff will put current and future students, those who already struggle in traditional
setting at risk of disengagement, credit loss, and academic decline. These proposed cuts make it impossible to serve the students who need us the most. Independent study should be recognized for what it is. It is an asset. It is a retention strategy. It is an equity
strategy. Thank you. Thank you, Tonita Fernandez. Jamari Fernandez and Warren Bleecker. >> Ah, got it. >> Does that conclude public comment for
the item? Okay. So, Dr. Canal, do you have a presentation prepared at all or are you just going to accept questions? >> Madam President, I just introduced the item. No presentation, but I'll be introducing the item. >> Okay.
>> Staff recommends the approval of resolution 2858, certificated layoffs. The resolutions are a reflection of the ESPback process. The resolutions are a reflection of the ESPback budget adoptions and other physical presentations uh at various different
board meetings. Vacancies, staff interatials, expiring funds and grants have been discussed multiple times and so staff recommends the approval of the resolution. I'm joined with uh Otavio who's here from the county who also has
a uh statement in the introduction of the item. Thank you board, members of the board of education, community uh cabinet. Um I think we all share the same goal. We all want to protect students, support our schools, support our staffing, and
sustain sustain um have schools that are successful and sustainable. My comments focus on the fiscal realities that determine what options are truly available to the district. At this point, there's been significant discussion about postponing reductions in force and instead drawing down the
$150 million fund balance. The concern is that these actions do not solve the underlying problem. They just delay it. This district is facing a structural deficit, meaning ongoing expenditures exceed ongoing revenues. One-time reserves cannot permanently
close an ongoing gap. They only postpone the correction that may increase the size of future reductions. There is also a legal timeline. State law requires the district to issue preliminary notices of termination to certificated and classified employees by
March 15th. If that deadline is missed, the district forfeits the ability to implement personnel cost reductions for the fiscal year of 2627. Missing that deadline would further erode the unrestricted fund balance and increase the likelihood of county
intervention. Solveny certifications carry real consequences. At each interimm reporting period, the district must certify whether it can meet its financial obligations. While the district currently holds a positive certification, that status would be
downgraded to a qualified or negative if correcting action is not taken. Such a downgrade would jeopardize local control and likely result in heightened oversight, including the possible assignment of a fiscal adviser or fiscal expert to direct the district's finances.
The fund balance, while substantial, is not a remedy for ongoing overspending. It is a finite reserve meant for stabilization, not to sustain structurally unbalanced operations. Once depleted, it cannot be replenished without deeper cuts or new revenue.
using using it to avoid immediate decisions does not eliminate the deficit. It simply pushes the problem forward. This challenge did not arise from a single emergency. It reflects years of operating beyond ongoing reserves,
ongoing revenues, and delay necessary adjustments. As stewards of public resources, you have a fidiciary responsibility to ensure solveny, transparency, and long-term sustainability. Responsible governance sometimes requires difficult decisions.
Acting within legal timelines and addressing the structural deficit now is essential to protecting the district's future stability. >> Okay. At this point, we can um entertain questions for Dr. Canal and Mr. Octavio.
Trusty Kenny and Trusty or Trusty Harden afterwards. >> So can you explain a little bit about CIS. Is it I wasn't sure if these were vacant positions or it it almost seems as though we're getting rid of about a third of their staff. Is that
approximately true? >> In terms of CIS, we are looking at uh staffing and looking at the staffing ratios for that uh site. And based on our staffing ratios, um, yes, with the reduction, they would still be able to observe the student population that they
currently have. >> So, it's approximately a one-third reduction of their staff. I I know we did something similar to Rose City last year. >> Yes. Um, is it the district's position that we
can um provide a one half librarian to each of the middle schools and be in compliance or uh agreement or I'm not sure where I'm sorry not thinking of the right word with our uh bargaining agreement with um UTP.
>> Yes. >> All right. So during the ESBAC it said we may have to have anou. We don't. Is is that the decision? >> Um I don't know who said they had to have an MOU, but the district's not in agreement. >> It was in the ESPback. >> Yes. >> Documentation presented by staff at
ESPback meetings. So >> yes, that was not in consultation with HR. Um article 10 allows the district to move forward in this direction. Yes. >> Okay. and the changes we've made to some positions like assistant principles and our
clerical. We have staffing ratios that we adopt each year with our budget. Will these cause changes to that document and would we be seeing a new one going forward when we adopt in June?
The one that traditionally has been used and we've spoken about it several times. It's something when I spoke with business when I first arrived. It's a document that has been updated by year only, not by actual numbers. We would need to take a look at that to see if what adjustments are needed based on the
changes that move that if they get approved, we would need to look at those changes. >> Oh, I would I was pretty sure we added assistant principles last year for high schools to that document so that it was different from >> I was referring to the clerk. That was the only change from last year. Yes. >> Okay. But so again, be would you
consider the changes that we're making things that need to be reflected there? >> That's my question. Okay. Thank you, >> Trusty Harden. >> Um, thank you for setting the stage. I know in in the resolutions, um, both of
them there are, you know, there's a a standard format for articulating the the positional cuts. Are you able to uh you know break down in some way just and and I'm not not looking for exact numbers but rough percentages in terms of you
know cuts and their status like the amount of you know certificated and classified positions that are considered vacant for instance um which ones are tied back to approve especi rooted in just giving the public some
some transparency around how they're differentiated. >> I appreciate the question, Mr. Harden. Yes. And at times, um, it's always challenging. I remind folks that the board of resolutions initiates a legal process that includes employee notices, potential hearings, administrative law
judge. Uh, there's bargaining obligations that are tied to these um, uh, decision. It's not simply an administrative action. Um, with that in mind, um, yes. So you'll see in during the aspect process in November 20th when we came forward we mentioned that there
were several vacancies that we were going to honor and we were going to recognize for the first interim those vacancies for example you'll see them reflected in the resolution. So when you see items for example um uh at that time that were vacant uh you'll see like a
DLI Spanish position that's on there that's a vacant position that was swept um in order to address the issues in the interim. you'll see 12 elementary teachers that were completely vacant um that were um swept uh an elementary teachers bed. So yes, there's several um
vacancies that were swept as part of the process um given the vote of November 20th that we felt comfortable um acknowledging that um in the first interim, but there are positions in both the certificated resolution and the classified resolution um that addresses
that. Um >> and clarification, vacancies would be uh positional cuts that don't aren't necessarily tied to a pink slip in that is correct. There was no one sitting in that position >> right >> there was approximately um uh 44 FTE or
50 positions in the certificated and roughly in the classified there were uh 22 FTE 23 positions. >> Okay, thank you. >> Uh Trusty McKenzie then Trusty Bailey >> just asking a point of clarification on
process. So my understanding is that the action that we're going to take or that we're being asked to take gives authorization for staff to initiate a process
of issuing notice to employees that they could be impacted by a reduction in force. said notice does not mean that a onetoone ratio of people who receive said notice are going to be impacted. Is that correct?
>> Yes, ma'am. further. Um, by virtue of having to give notification, um, there's additional due diligence work that you all have to do to determine sort of like
the actual persons or positions that are going to be impacted and that there's some time required for that work to occur. >> Yes, ma'am. It's an excessive amount of work to go through that process. I I think I have a little bit of insight,
not much because I haven't done HR in a schools district capacity, done in the private sector, but I do understand the process and it's not easy. But I do know that, you know, given that you have um collective bargaining agreements and um
those kind of obligations to honor in terms of being able to determine impact, it does require a little bit more um time and work and effort. Um I also just want to
note that while I think Mr. Um Castella said this is an unpopular action and decision but a necessary one. I think that you know there are many times that we have to take actions that are not popular but they are in fact
necessary of us as leaders and of as you know governing members of this organization. Um sadly we are bound by statute to take said action. Um, and there aren't any real um, exemptions made to said action. Even in
the wake of the fire, we were still required to act by March 15th. And I know this because I called CTA myself to ask them based on extenduating circumstances of that magnitude, could we delay taking that action by just a couple weeks? And they were like,
absolutely not. because if employees need an opportunity to make a different decision, they need time to be able to do that. So I think we are faced at a situation of having approved um the recommendations or the modified
recommendations of the ESPback which were giving us direction to reduce positions and now I think people have amnesia about the fact that the direction for staff to actually initiate the action on set positions that the two
things are tied together. They're like shoes. You can't have one without the other. and if we're in not willing to take the action to um initiate the notices, we're going to be in breach of our fiscal stabilization plan.
So, I just want people to be clear about what it is that we're supposed to be doing tonight and why it is we're taking this action and why there may be some feeling that there's not sort of a onetoone match on the positions that exist on said
um ESBAC list versus positions that may be referenced as recommendations for um March 15th notices. I want to also thank um Dr. Dr. Canal and his team because they are doing an immense amount of work right now and the
work that they have to do between tonight and moving forward is going to be even more ownorous. So, thank you for putting the time in to be um diligent to be um accurate and also to um be sensitive to
what our employees are going to be dealing with at this point in time. Appreciate you. >> Thank you, ma'am. Trusty Bailey. >> Yeah. Um, you know, this is not easy. It's it's really challenging, but I just
need a point of clarity with regards to to um how this is going to work. For instance, with CIS where you're cutting onethird of their teachers, they have um an enrollment of what about 200
students, which will leave the the remaining teachers to have 50 stu around 50 students each. Um, and according to what I understand about the contract, the teachers contract, the ratio from
grades through 6 through 12 is around 36 students per teacher. And so how are you going to mitigate that to make sure that the CIS program has a reasonable uh
ratio or ratio that aligns with the teacher's contract? >> Dr. Chan Hill would be the most appropriate person to answer that question and she stepped out. But u my understanding is that they have been talking about a couple things. a program
redesign and please understand these are preliminary notices between now and June 30th many things will change and we need to take precautionary steps right so um
there is I would say um I hope I'm not out of line saying this is a misinterpretation of what maybe the UTP UTP believes the contract says in regards to CIS and what our interpretation is, but it doesn't mean
that um things cannot be changed and those notices cannot be rescended. >> Well, is it what UTP believes or is it what the contract says? They're under the UTP contract. Correct. >> It's a different and you can answer that question, Dr. Canel. >> Sure. Well, that kind of tailor to the
question that I got earlier from Miss Kenny that in terms of article 10 in terms of the librarians and nurses, um I've shared documents with the board and when we're in negotiations um with um the association uh is asserting
new language into an article that um has already passed in terms of the negotiation and they try to provide clarification of what they what they believe the article says. So no, that's why there sometimes there's hearings, sometimes you go into grievances, um you
go into different filings of perb when there's a difference of opinion in terms of what an article says. So when the articles are written, there sometimes is a difference of opinion on what it means or the intent behind that language. So you'll have discussions and you try to find remedy before u moving to more
formal process. But that happens and that's what the grievance uh procedure is for. Uh I would also say that um at this stage and nobody's disputing the great work that CIS does. So I want to be very clear about that at this stage. Um the
discussion of program modification and changes is still happening with between um the academics team and the site administration but as a preliminary precaution if the model changes they wouldn't be able to um reduce force
later but even that could change by May 15th because they're still working through um some of the design um elements that might you know make the um teachers have more students, less students. They're talking about the
best way to be efficient and deliver services for independent study. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um I think twice was mentioned about you know these are preliminary u the March
15 pink slips. um you know, you might get a pink slip, but then come May, you might not be laid off. Um but there's a trauma that comes with that. I mean, I could only identify as a
parent that cared for staff and was concerned when my children's teachers or librarians and staff got the pink slip. I remember it very distinctly. It's very
traumatic for the entire school comm community and um you know Dr. Canal you haven't been here you know for decades or anything but you know this does keep repeating so
um what's my question? My question is are does it if we can close that gap between the number of pink slips in March versus May, does that indicate better planning?
because I I that's what people like I think the perception is that there's bad planning and maybe you could just sort of you know add some context to that because there's
all sorts of sort of timing issues as well and numbers that aren't really firmed up yet but at the same time you know March is the like worst case scenario um number of pink slips But that doesn't
you know minimize that trauma. So like people are worried that this is just going to repeat and what is the what is the difference today you know compared to last year or two years ago
have when you took this process of um you know we did the ESPback and you did further analysis was there a difference in your process in order to get ahead of better projection, you know, uh, better
projected layoffs in the future so we don't have as many pink slips. Sorry, that was a really long >> I will let Dr. Canel explain the process that's in the ED code in UTP collective bargaining agreement. Um, the other agreements and how that works. But I
would say the root cause of this repetitive cycle is that we have repeated using one-time money to hire people. And when we do that, because we love everything we have and we want to keep it all and it's really great for children. And so when we do that and the
m we we don't address the structural deficit, we find a way to put a band-aid on things. And so the process then has to repeat itself. Um and we're always eliminating positions, not necessarily people, and that's why the people get
called back. But maybe you could um explain the process a little better. >> Um yes, and I appreciate um the question. And before I answer, it does not escape me um uh the feeling um that people go through
when they receive uh a notice. The moment the feeling does not escape me. So I understand um what it does. Um I do not take it lightly. Um it is very difficult.
It is very difficult. Um with that said, um I'll provide a little bit of context. Um whenever you have one-time funds and grants and those expire and you do not have enough staff
attrition people resigning in that specific area, the district has two options to lay off that person if they're permanent or to absorb them into the general fund.
So, if the choice is not to absorb it into the general fund to keep the the staffing, then you're going to um want to reduce that position because it was once upon a time funded through onetime funds, grants, and things of that nature. So, whenever you have onetime
money, there's always going to be there's always going to be a rub at the end when that one time money ends. The other part is resignations and retirements. Typically, we get those sometime around May. So we did take those into consideration up to this point. So if we are aware of a
resignation or a retirement then those are positions less that we have to notice. So if we are aware of a resignation or retirement then that does save someone from being laid off. So as the year progresses we do have resignations and retirements. assuming
the resignation and the retirement is in a position, right, of a layoff, then I can hire those persons back. Does that make sense? Um, if they don't happen to have the same credential, then that's when it becomes uh difficult and I'm unable to do so. So, resignations and
retirements allow me to resend those preliminary layoff notices. A little uh to get into the weeds in terms of preliminary uh layoff notices. There's different reasons of why they're done. Um most districts um if you ask other
fellow board members will overnotice uh on purpose. I have not done that since we arrived. Um I always push back and firms will always tell you it's better to overnotice. However, we do do this just for clarity. If I know that we're going
to have a three-way tie or we're going to um add it something um that if I feel that the administrative law judge may rule against the district, I feel that it's pertinent for me um as uh the chief of HR for the district to make sure that I protect the district from that. So, for example, if I know I have a
three-way tie and it's going to be contested by the association, then what I'm going to do is I'm going to provide those three precautionary layoff notices depending on what the administrative law judge is going to decide. If I don't do that and the administrative law judge
for whatever reason decides to go against the decision of the district, then that is an FTE that you will that the district will have to observe that it was planning for as part of elimination. So that process happens several times. Another example that I I'll share is um
in typical districts right now there's always a concern. I heard it mentioned about temp contracts. Um last year after the eliminations, after the layoff process, um I shared with the board, we received from CTA attorneys, um requests for a lot of information regarding our
actual temp contracts, the list of the temp contracts and a lot of data districts around um uh around the area have been contested by CTA in terms of how temp contracts are used. um you know a knock on wood that we provided them
with the information and it suffice in terms of how we were providing notice uh to our temp teachers which also doesn't escape me but the temp contract says that they are hired for one school year when we put them through the approval of the personnel report they have a begin
and an end dates I am aware of our surrounding districts and now in our district where the association is having uh folks sign up for petition to contest the 10 contracts in our district. So which means in in discussing so now I'm going into a
little bit of the into the realm of process and even strategy which I typically don't get into in an open session but I think it's important to understand that when that happens um and different decisions are being made. I feel that there's a part there's I think
it's incumbent upon me to make sure that I protect the district from any adverse decision that may happen later from an administrative law judge for example in temp contracts. So the decision could be from my position is to make sure that they provide them with an abundance of
caution while the statute doesn't require it to provide them with a layoff notice given what I'm aware that is happening behind the scenes. So, I don't overnotice. Um, but in the resolution and and I provided information uh uh to
the board that there are several um vacancies that are on there, which I know the number looks bigger, but there's no one sitting in those positions. Um there's there's um FTEEs where I know that there's going to be some um retirements and resignations um that someone's not going to get a
notice. So, I do everything I can to minimize the impact of layoff notices because it doesn't escape me the impact that it has on folks, but there is a process, a judicial process that we're going to go through in the next coming months. So, and around answering your question that I absolutely, we don't
over notice. We're mindful of the impact that it has. Um, and in my position, I tried to put the district in a position that is going to be able to do what it needs to do um, through the layoff notice so that we're physically solvent
um, when it's all said and done. >> Thank you for that long explanation. Um, I appreciate the the very extensive explanation. Um is it also a pretty high number of
vacancies that we are adding to the list? I mean compared to last year and why is that? >> Yes. Um I mentioned um when uh serving the role on both sides
um has allowed me the opportunity uh to really um uh reconcile a lot of the information on both the business side and the HR side of the house. Um looking at um the the information on the business side and the HR bringing both
teams together more frequently. Um, I think you'll see that. Um, that's something that I'm pleased to report. Um, working much closer obviously with Armen Roan and the budget team in looking uh to see positions that have been uh funded um that have been have
not been filled for quite some time. and um it provided an opportunity to to really um address um the position control and tin enting the position control and ensuring that every FTE that is funded or even unfunded uh to make sure that we clean those and bring those
to the board for action. Um I couldn't just um um set them aside by myself. It actually takes a board action even to clean those positions whether they're funded or unfunded, but they're on the books so I bring them for your consideration. So this is norm like the
language of this resolution is pretty much duplicate of the last year where it says vacancies. >> Um it's very similar. We make adjustments based on what happens in legal proceedings but it's very very similar and I provided several samples to the board for I think five different
samples. And sorry, last last question is I think it's been a long time that ESPback process the um you know the the community and the staff going through the budget
reductions that whole process was a really long process and and even I had to kind of remember back that was just a piece of the reductions of the cuts and I think people forgot you know I I also forgot all the
different other components. So, I'm looking at the November presentation and I mean, do you want to kind of remind people of because I think we only just focused on those packages and where that line
broke and people thought, "Oh, that was it." But there's actually other reductions there. >> Yes, ma'am. There were, I believe, eight streams um that were happening at the same time. In addition to the superintendent um ESPback, uh there were the central office reductions,
contracts, grant maximization, um maintaining current contribution, but special ed, transportation, we did some looking at asset management, staffing and vacancies is on there. Um so we were looking at quite a bit of the items. It wasn't just the ESBAC.
And do we kind of align with what we had planned? Those numbers are in alignment. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay, that's that's it for my questions. Anybody else? >> Okay. >> Oh, I'm sorry.
>> Okay. So without uh with with no further discussion, is there a motion to approve item N1, resolution 2858, certificate of layoffs? >> I'll move approval. >> Is there a second?
>> Second. >> Any fur? Oh, advocacy. So we'll take uh everybody has an opportunity in one turn. Trusty Kenny. So, I think um that we've
spent a lot of time this fall looking at a lot of different cuts and while our vote on on November 20th, we were we made some adjustments, I would say that there are still many
many cuts that are extremely impactful to student supports, student direct services, operational. Um, but I do think that what we're looking at tonight in these resolutions
reflects the decisions that were made by the ESBAC or that were recommended by the ESPback and brought to the board through staff. Uh, the central cuts that the board approved. Um, expiring grants.
I think one of the areas that was perhaps not as obvious until these documents came out was the impact to classroom teachers. Um and I the one of the major parts of that is both our declining enrollment
and then continuing staffing to ratio which we started last year but because of the fires we didn't fully implement. My my ballpark numbers say that that's about 30 of the classroom teachers that are being reduced.
My understanding, and I may still have this a little confused, is that there's about 20 positions that are vacant and are unfunded, which means since they're vacant, there won't be a pink slip to an individual, but also because they're unfunded that there won't be any
budget impact in terms of savings. But I could have that not not correct. It's been very confusing. But I think we've all tried to really understand this because this impacts a lot of people and they really want to know that this is being done,
you know, as in as limited a way as possible. But I will say that that decline in staffing to ratio, I think the estimates were 0.5 back at the beginning of the fall and it was three million
uh in November. If it really is approximately 30 people, then it's more like four 4.5 million in savings at at this point in time. So again, um there's a lot here and I I do, you know, we've talked about
it tonight during our conversations about how this will impact things like student achievement. >> Trusty Harden. So, I you know, um I think through the conversation and the Q&A tonight, we've gotten a lot of clarity on
um the the the nature of these cuts and sort of the the classifications of them. Um I would advocate for us just you know as we go through this process and we were doing this in the fall with the superintendent's budget advisory committee of bringing the community
along as much as we can which I admit you know communic communicating great communication takes time and it takes energy but you know it's also important to be as you know as transparent as we can um and absolutely
uh staff has so much work to do in in getting us get getting through this. But um you know, we're in special times. I think the community needs to know our strategies. Um they need to know
uh the impacts. Um and they also need to be rem continuously reminded the public of the situations that we're in. I think we just touched on those Dr. Blanco did as well of, you know, declining enrollment and um needing to staff, you
know, strictly to ratios um and then adhering to our fiscal stabilization plan and the structural deficit that was brought up earlier today. These are ne necessary uh uh uh these are important um crises happening
that that require decisive action. But by the same token, I think what I've seen in in uh in districts surrounding us that when we get to this phase, you know, in in the year that there's a bit of of
narrative along with it that that not to lessen the perception of severe impact, but to make sure that that we're overcommunicating that community knows, you know, beyond a resolution which has a certain format that you know, these are the types of cuts. These are you
explained the vacancy uh situation uh very well. These are things we have to do that require board action that don't necessarily result in a in a pink slip. So um that's my guidance for the future is just you know communicate communicate
communicate why this is happening. Trustee B McKenzie, >> I I understand the desire to communicate and be transparent with our community, but at the same time, these are personnel matters. So, at some point, there's only so much information
that can actually be disclosed. I think we can talk about processes that we can talk about sort of like mechanics but at some point these are HR matters that have a lot of confidentiality tied to them because I think that if it were you
or me you would certainly wouldn't want the matters of your employment um disclosed in a public manner in this way. So I think we have to be really sensitive to that in terms of trying to you know share information but we have to be really delicate about how we
approach that. Um I think the other challenge that we have is that um by statute we were asked to adopt three-year budgets with one year of money that we know about right now and we don't even know about that one year of money in full. We have you know a
projection that came out from the governor in January. Um once May comes and the May revises introduced, it could be a different situation, a different scenario. Um all indications appear so there's supposed to be more money, but until it's like signed June 15th, it's
all speculative. So we have to make, you know, really sort of um advanced projections without a whole lot of firm information. So this is always kind of a game of you know
I don't want to say magic but definitely it's a it's a lot of projection without a lot of like certainty and that puts us in a really tough spot sometimes. I also would just really underscore for our community that the advocacy that we need
to be unified on right now given all that our community is going through, all that our community has suffered and all that our community is continuing to endure is that we need to be unified in our advocacy to the state and to the federal government for additional
dollars to fund public education. We are rapidly seeing the dollars and the investments in public schools being eroded every single day. Instead of fighting each other about who's right or who's wrong, we need to come together across the state
and go to where the sources of dollars live. And that's not here in Pasadena. That is in Sacramento. That is in Washington DC. I think that's something that everybody has kind of agreement and alignment on. And so we need to figure out where there's alignment there and have that conversation for the purposes
of being productive versus sort of like fighting about whether or not um the impact versus the intent and where the blame is that lives on those two sides of um that balancing act.
>> Trusty Bailey. >> Yeah, thank you for that. Those were good comments. Um, you know, when I think about this this process, first of all, it's not my first time being on this end of it. And for a few years, I
was on the other end of it. So, you know, I have a lot of empathy for everyone involved. Um, including the board. This is not easy. Um,
I think what would have made it what would have coded it a little for me, um, is a little more transparency around the planning that's going on that's going to mitigate
the reduction in staff. Um, and I say transparency because there's a lot that's being said that's not factual. And I believe that if this process was more
transparent as far as the next steps that we're going to take. Um, I think that would have circumvented some of the the misnomers and the rumors that are out there. What is really hard
for me is that that's evidence to me that the community does not have trust in the board and the staff, that everyone's listening to everyone. And
it seems to be the culture of this district that we don't get out in front of issues that allow people to shape the perception, the community's
perception of PUSD. And I mean just based on the reports we got tonight on our student success, I mean there's a lot of good things happening. Our students are being educated. Our students are going to
college. You know, we have great teachers. We have teachers who are really concerned about our students. And that message, that work, all of that is lost. It's lost
in all of this. And what hurts me even more because I love this community and I love this school district and I love our students and our families. I enjoy
serving from this this position. But what hurts me is that there's not a unified voice. We need to have a unified voice. Every administrator, every board member,
we have got to unite together in our messaging to this community so they can understand where we are and why we have to make decisions that we have to make. Everyone will say, "Oh, I'm glad I'm not
you. You guys have, you know, a tough job to do. Good luck. Good luck. Good luck. And at the same time, you're being you're hearing where, you know, the you're potentially getting a vote of no confidence
from people that you have to work with or live next to or, you know, walk in the same street with or sit in the same room with who you respect and you want to be respected. It should come naturally,
more naturally than this. It shouldn't be this hard in public education where we are all here because we want to be here. We are here because we care about the
youth in our community and we all want what's best for them. So the points that my colleague made, they were they really
they were valid points. And I wonder how many people can even remember what she said because they were very important and they were critical to this process
and to understanding this process. Change is hard and I'm not taking this lightly. I'm going to tell you in all sincerity, I didn't vote to approve these cuts initially, and I came here tonight
prepared in my mind not to vote to support these cuts, and I have my reasons for that. But, you know, for the the sake of the district's solveny,
I feel like I would be irresponsible if I took an action that put this district in jeopardy. and I can't in good conscious take that type of action. I think it is important
that the board stays empowered. I think it is important that our superintendent and her leadership team stay empowered.
We knew projections have been coming three, four, five years out. We knew that we were were landing here. What we didn't anticipate were the fires. We didn't anticipate
CO where we got that blessing and then like you said it went away and we tried to continue with programs that we didn't we weren't able to fund. So and that's because those programs served our children and we wanted to see those
programs continue. So I and I'm going to stop because I I'm very passionate about this. I just I want to thank everyone for all of your hard work. I would like to know how long
will it be before the plan is presented that is going to um mitigate the reduction in staff and actually um
show how our students are going to be served moving forward and what programs are being reduced Because when you when you talk about reducing staff,
you may it just I'm I'm trying to see from my own perspective here how certain programs are going to continue um when we when we don't have the staff and how long is it going to take to
reorganize a program like CIS? Trusty Bailey, I appreciate your questions. >> Okay, don't don't cut me off. >> I know, but I >> don't cut me off. Don't violate my First Amendment rights, please. >> We're in advocacy. >> Don't violate my rights. >> I'm not violating.
>> So, >> it's the Brown Act. >> Though, that is my question. I would like to know what the timeline is for that and when that's going to be presented. So our board protocols is that we have
inquiry period and a advocacy period. Does this impact your vote? >> That would Yes, it does. >> Okay. Um, did you get the question? >> Yes. Okay. >> Um, I think it's a multi-layered. We're
we're planning based on what we think you might do this evening and on May 15th, right? and there could be things that change along the way. So, um we have a program evaluation coming to you that was delayed because of the um you
know the fire, right? We said we were going to talk about asset management, revenue generation and program evaluation and Dr. Hill's been working with Dr. Marshall who's doing the program evaluation. So, that'll be coming in the next couple months. I know sometimes it seems really easy to people
to say get rid of all of your your special programs. Um I think we've gotten rid of a lot of the supports around special programs, but the students at the end of the day still need a teacher and they still they'll still be in a class. And so what happens
in the class like dual immersion is not really going to save us any money, but we'd be taking away opportunity for global citizenship. Right? So there it's we have to look at doing things in another way. But even through these at least three years of pretty significant
budget reductions, we've been able to um preserve all of our programs. We just have been doing them with less doing them with less. Right? So, I mean, in terms of the central office supports, um, we're thinking through that in our
district leadership network, you know, each time they meet with, um, Dr. Hill and talking about how can we do things in a different way. I don't think we have all of the answers yet. Um but some things we won't be able to do to the level we were doing them in terms of
support services um and money that we're trying to um bring back if we can get additional funds and we're asking for people who want to fund us for a two to threeyear commitment right at um through grants like Dr. Rinosto was able to
secure like $5 million from Kaiser and so we're very thankful to Kaiser. So that will continue some of the social emotional supports for the next five years. So we don't have all of those answers but we are working on it and I think we had hoped to have a preliminary
plan after um you know some decisions preliminary decisions are made this evening um and then we'll bring you the potential you know re restructures but know that some of those things could change by the end of the year.
>> Thank you uh Dr. Velasquez then Dr. Trusty Holly, thank you for the time. I just want to be very clear that this is not the outcome that anybody prefers
that um workforce reductions and the continuous position of the continuous the year after year position of being in this place where we have to reduce positions
is draining. and it is painful and um I am very aware of what the implications are for all of the people that work here at
PUSD. And I hear it and I absorb it when you come into this room. And this is definitely not the desired outcome from anybody. And
we are also bound by timelines that are set forward by the educational code. But I want to honor and respect what my colleague said
the work that we approved in December as very well Kenny said um is reflected today. It was not easy to make those decisions in December and we stand here today.
Like Trustee McKenzie said, there's procedures that we need to respect and like Miss Bailey said, we have an issue of trust. We have an issue of trust with this
community. So that when we state the positions, the community believes us. And
similarly, we have a responsibility to represent accurately some of the decisions that we're taking to continue or to build that trust. This space doesn't really provide for having that conversation. when people
come here and make a comment sometimes I'm like gh that's not necessarily true but the space doesn't conduce to having a conversation about that um the format of the meetings is very tedious to
follow monthly to really understand where we're going and and and you know it takes an amount of time that is unreasonable for a community member to invest in trying to understand what
the context of our decisions and I just don't want this to sound like an apology SOS, but that that's what it is. That's what it is.
Um my only hope is that in making all of these decisions and all of the subsequent decisions that we are embarking on which are all so complicated. It is my hope that we are doing it so
with the possibility of emerging with greater clarity and a better spot and these decisions that are make we're making today accompanied by other very difficult pos policy decisions that we've embarked
through a series of committees. They're not meant to be punitive. They're actually and I I can only speak for my intentions, but I think that this board
has been somewhat consistent in that they're meant to reframe from a place of clarity to
be able to do better. >> Trusty Ali, >> thank you. So, one of the things I wanted to mention to my colleagues is that one of the root causes of our problem is the fact that we don't get
paid enough money from the feds or the state. We are still moving $50 million or more or higher from our general education, I hate to phrase it this way, for sped services. And that is because we don't
get paid enough for special education, which is in the general soup of all children. So no matter how you cut it up, we are not getting paid enough. And so people can blame special programs. So we can strip everything. We can strip
all the music. We can strip the D-lip. We can just take away everything and then watch our enrollment sink further. You can't deny that we're in a community where we have the highest number of private schools per capita and there's about 10,000 kids out there, not in PUSD. That is part of this problem. So,
we do have to lobby for more money from the state and the feds. I don't see this problem going away necessarily because San Francisco Unifi's moving 90 million for special education. Fontan is moving 90 million. this is the reality on the ground. But we're not really talking
about that. We actually talk about taking special programs away from kids when we should be giving them more. So maybe if we could unify around that, I think it would be actually kind of helpful and wonderful. Thank you.
Oh, and the trust starts at the board. Thank you. Okay. Um, sorry. I will make I'll try to make this fast. I appreciate Dr. Blanco. Um
I mean I think it does take courage to to share that the chronic uh habits that we have as of our staffing habits and it's catching up with it
continues to you know bite us. Um, so I really want us I think of this as I won't I won't allow us to check this
box as we're done here, you know, after this vote or after this decision. I see this as a starting point of a new chapter for our district. And when we talk about spending one-time funds
continually or um on things that need ongoing funds, that's something we can control. I I get that we still need to lobby for money, but we still need to lobby for special
ed funding, but what can we control? We can control that. We can control how we spend where we spend it. And we're going to need to be disciplined about it. And I I get that we have a lot of great programs and and new ideas and that's
where the discipline comes is and especially when there's we're all a family. You know, we you know we have kids here and teachers become administrators and there's a long
history here but that comes with um holding on to things. So, I I would like to see a new vision, a new way of doing things. And that's what, you know, when LEGO came, they're reminding us that we
got to do things differently. And so, thank you, Dr. Blanco, for recognizing some potential improvements. Um, I do want to thank uh your team, Dr.
Canal. I know we asked for more information than we initially got. That really, you know, I don't I've told this to Dr. Blanco. I don't I'm not a rubber stamper. I need to
make some calculations on my own and that means more information, but not everything. So I I greatly appreciate because we have to make sure that we are not laying off as many, you know, as little as we can.
So we it's a balancing act. Um because we are talking about students and they're, you know, this is their world. They spend most of their time, their life in our schools. this is their
family and we're changing that with this decision and we cannot take that lightly. That's why those numbers have to be right. Um, and I do want to acknowledge, you know, when I visit sites, I I want
to say what I hear is how that this cut these cuts impact, you know, I I hear from principal saying, I'm I can't have office staff, you know, take a sick day. You know, they just But that's
impossible. People do. So, what where does it go? It falls on the principal to do to take up every all the slack. So, it's it's going to be really hard next year, no doubt. But like I said, this is this is not the
end. This is just the stop gap to do things differently. And that's what I want to see. That's why I want to hopefully get ahead that we're not going to be repeating this year after year. That's my hope. But yes, I believe that
this has to be done. Thank you. Trusty Harden, >> just a quick point of clarification for the clerk. Do we have a N2? >> No. N2 public comments. >> I would asked a friendly amendment to sweep N1 and N2.
>> Let's just let's just keep the motion and we'll just because now I there's a motion on the floor already. There's a motion on the floor. >> I'm trying to amend it. Okay. Well, okay. So, we have to ask the seconder
and the motioner to amend. >> I'll accept. >> I will as well. >> Okay. Any further advocacies? >> Okay. All those in favor of approving N1 and N2, raise your hand.
All those against. Wait. All those against. All those against. >> Anyway, >> any abstensions? All right. N1 and N2 passes. All right. Item N3,
approval of desired outcomes and factors for superintendent school consolidation advisory committee. Uh, the board report recommends approval of the desired outcomes and decision-making factors to guide the superintendent school consolidation advisory committee's work.
Any questions or about this? Trusty Kenny, I have a question on the um one that says the process will show a clear cost savings to the district.
A lot of times we heard you only show a cost savings if you have asset management and do something with the property. So is that statement do we think that it means inclusive of revenue that then is earned from the property
the asset management? I I'm just clarifying that >> I think um I probably made those statements. It depends on what you do with the property. there would be um less savings, right? If you move the children and you move their teachers and
depending on how big you made the new school with moving them, you might not even save money on the custodian or you could. But primarily um what you know research has shown is that um you save the salary of two to three people. It
does compound over years, but you also have to factor in the moving cost. So, I think some of the latest things that I've heard that I have not read yet is that it might take you five years if you didn't do anything with the property to recoup, like moving and then doing, you
know, other things that would have to be done for the move. So, um I wouldn't say you wouldn't have any savings, but if you're looking for big money and you're doing it for financial gain, you probably would have to have a better plan for the property to, you know, make
substantial amount of money. >> Trusty Velasquez, >> I have a question. Um are we just asking how we're going to operationalize a variable? Is that the question? No, I was trying to understand if if
this encompassed every time someone talks about you don't save money unless you get revenue, it makes it sound like that goes together and is one number that that that is that is actually
well so I I was just trying to clarify whether that was the intent of this item. So it >> okay so I'm a little confused because let's let's let's not get into whether
or not we've agreed on these or who proposed it or anything like that. But let's go back to so what you're asking is when we talk about revenue what does that mean and
how is that going to be measured I can say the same words I already said I'm trying to understand if this is cost savings is inclusive of the additional revenue that will be coming in. >> Right. I the question doesn't make sense
then. Any further questions, comments? All right, I think we're ready for vote. Oh, did you have any advocacy? >> I'm sorry. >> I'll move approval. >> Is there a second?
I'll second it. I'm sorry. Did you motion and then Nobody second it. Okay. I I'll second it. Um all those in favor raise your hand. >> Oh. Oh, sorry. >> Okay. There is process. >> Go ahead. Uh on that point on number two
I just want to you know clarify that I think you know it's it's one dimension to look at you know uh immediate money that we might save when we when a building closes or a site closes but I think that part of cost savings to the
district. The other dimension of it is is that money goes further and it reaches more kids. Um, so when we talk about a fiscally responsible responsible school system, you know, as as a piece of that, you
know, the the goal is to help ensure that every child has a high quality educational experience. And so the outcome of that can mean a variety of things. Um, smaller class sizes, better facilities, um, more stable programming,
you know, that we already love and adore in this district. Um, and just as we've uh had to make this incredibly hard decision, it can mean better um better outcomes for teachers, better pay, uh
benefits um and possibly less cuts in the future. So, I just want to my advocacy for the committee as it does its work and considers number two that you know it's important to look at this goal with two lenses and and as we do this work.
Thank you, Trusty Kenny. >> I think for me the the reason to have this um discussion about where we're going forward with our district is really first and foremost about having the the broadest offering of programs and services for our students that is
possible and that they be accessible to all of our students. Um, at the first meeting of the consolidation committee, the most frequent answer to what each member most appreciated about the district was the many programs that are offered to students.
I'm not sure that I see that kind of spelled out as directly in our list of desired outcomes. But, you know, given our fiscal situation of deficit spending and needing reductions, it seems we should also think about the opportunity
costs for our students and that preventing their that opportunity cost may be at least as important as the cost savings. >> Thank you. Any other advocacies? All right, I think we're ready for a vote. All those in favor of approving
item N3, desired outcomes and factors for the superintendent school consolidation advisory committee, raise your hand. All wait sorry, catch that. All those in favor, raise your hand. Okay. Okay. All those against
any abstensions. Did we get everyone? >> No. >> Oh. Oh. Okay. No. One. No. >> Two. >> Oh, sorry. Two nos. All right. Thank you. Motion passes. Okay. Okay. Item in for acceptance of
the 202425 comprehensive annual financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025. Is there a presentation, Dr. Canol? >> Yes. At this time, I'd like to introduce Taylor Oric with Clifton Larson and
Allan >> who will assist with the uh presentation. >> Okay. >> And the audit is for item four. And um >> thank you for >> the bond portion is item five. >> All right. No problem. And I uh good evening. Thank you for the opportunity
for me to come here and present the results of the audit for the 2024 25 uh fiscal year. Um and I have brief summary I'll kind of go through and then I'll allow some time for any questions that you may have. But just as a reminder, the the reason for the audit purpose is for us to as auditors to be able to come
in and give an opinion on the financial statements. Um, it's also a requirement with ED code as well as the California Department of Ed, a state controllers's office and the office of management of budget with the federal government that requires it through the federal funding that you receive. Uh, and as well as
just an overall fiduciary responsibility to have clean numbers that the public can rely on and as you present that information to them. Uh, real briefly, this is our kind of audit process we talk about. It's called a riskbased approach. We're not looking at every single item. You wouldn't want us to. it
would take forever and costs a lot of money. Uh we do a riskbased approach and kind of breaks down what we're doing. We we take a look at we inquire um with different people in the organization and kind of determine through analytics the areas that we're going to focus on. We do a lot of review of internal controls
the procedures and things that you have in place and even test those to make sure that you're following those um and so that we can rely on some of those controls and things and processes that you have in place. and then we do our substantive work and then ultimately present the reports to you. And so that's what I'm going to touch on next
or kind of give a nice overview. So our main opinion um the overall opinion we give it was an unmodified opinion. It means that the financial statements and notes uh are uh fairly stated and in line with proper accounting principles. Um it's the highest opinion that an
audit firm can give. We call it a clean opinion and again it means that those numbers and things in the remainder of the audit report uh were were properly reported and and and in line with the proper principles. Uh we also wanted to disclose that there was no um no other
uh no changes in the scope no um no new changes in significant accounting principles. There was one new standard implemented this year related to compensated absences. it you'll probably see that number almost tripled um because of the new reporting requirement of how it was treated. Uh and that was
across all districts across the state and country actually. Um and then we also point out kind of the estimates that are significant to your district. Uh it is related to the OPE li these are all governmentwide long-term liabilities that different standards require. uh one
is related to other post-employment benefits and the other is related to uh incurred but not reported um self- insurance claims and it all just has to do with uh management makes deci um certain um decisions and not decisions uh
assumptions that then the actuaries use and so you have a little bit more management has a little bit more control over those estimates and so we just point that out. Uh other communications, there were no difficulties or disagreements with management uh or the district. If we had those, we would be required to report that with to you.
There were no audit adjustments. I like to point this out. What that means is that the uh financial statements that you approved back in September, the unodited actuals are the same numbers that are in front of you uh within the audit report. Um there was one postclosing entry related to the ASB
fund um just to get that those numbers up but every other number there and it was just reporting issue. It was not a an error or a correction or an audit adjustment as we're saying. Um other findings to report there were a couple of past adjustments most u most of them
related or two of them related to the governmentwide side putting the again those long-term liabilities on the books and the way the reporting of the various standards. um as well as there were some acrruals that were not recorded as of June 30th that occurred in 2024 25 but
were not recorded in time and so uh they were not significant enough for us to go in and make the audit adjustments but they they were um and they're disclosed in the letter that we provided. Uh let me see uh further we're required to report on
the internal control structure and report on any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies that we may find in reporting or on compliance. There were no material weaknesses in either of those. There was a finding related to those acrruels that I I'd mentioned uh related to some of the fire
expenditures and bond expenditures. Um again it was not inappropriate expenditures. It was just ones that weren't recorded until the 2526 year that occurred in 2425 and so because of that we did have a significant deficiency to report but not a material weakness
um f so further there's two other opinions that we required to give one on the federal side because you receive so much federal funding we're required to have what's called a single audit where we go in and review a very detailed the government uh federal government gives us a instructions on how we review what
programs will we test and we look for any material non-compliance or also review uh internal controls over those compliance issues and we're happy to report that we had clean opinions on those. The two programs we looked at this year were title one and title two and again no material uh non-compliance
to report and no internal control issues to report. Uh the state of California also has a laundry list of programs that we're to look at for various compliance issues. Uh I think the number is up to 36 and and it just keeps increasing every year. Uh and that is a little bit
different um because they're not necessarily looking at it from a materiality level uh which most of our audit is. They're just looking for any um non-compliant. Most of the non-compliance we find we just have to report. And so with that we did have uh well I'll first start with our opinion. We were able to give an unmodified
opinion on compliance. There was no material non-compliance to report. uh but we did have to report a significant deficiency because there were some internal um there were some non-compliance issues uh with them. There were four findings uh related to
the state compliance all reportable items. Um one was related to the afterchool education and safety program. It was a sim similar finding from the prior year uh just about how the treatment of early early releases and
late arrival students were was not in compliance with how the program is supposed to operate. Uh during our testing uh there was another finding related to the instructional materials uh resolution that's done every year. It requires a 10-day uh posting of the
hearing and it it did not occur. It was only done with a 4-day posting hearing. Um, both of those two issues that I just mentioned, there was no financial impact to the district. It was just a reportable item that the state requires us to report. Uh, the third finding is related to classroom teacher salaries.
This has been an is uh a finding for a couple years now and it was one again this year. It was exacerbated this year because of the a lot of fire related expenditures that caused that deficit to be even larger than it has been in the past. And then the last one was an independent study again compliance
reportable issue that had no financial impact but it was related to um some of the grade book uh and supporting documentations was not maintained and so it wasn't readily available for us to audit and then whoop went too fast and then lastly I'll just
touch on this uh because of the passage of measure O in 2020 you're required to have a financial performance audit uh which we also perform uh the financial side this is similar to the district side, but we're just looking at measure O financial statements. We were able to give a clean opinion there that the
financial statements in that report and the notes are materially are fairly stated and in line with proper accounting principles. Uh we had uh the same issue because it was related to those acrruels. So we didn't have a material weakness but we had the same significant deficiency related to those
acrruels but no material weakness in in compliance. And then with the performance side, this is really where we dig into the expenditures. uh heavily and we're looking at the backup support, the purchase orders, the invoices, the bids at times to really make sure that those expenditures are in line with what
the voters actually approved when they passed that bond measure. And we did not have any um inappropriate expenditures. So, we were able to give a clean opinion on on that piece. And that sums up the the results. And again, happy to take any questions that you may have or
clarifications on any of my points. Trusty Kenny, >> I'm not sure if my questions are for you or or for our staff. Um, on the bond audit on the statement of revenue and expenditures, there's revenue listed as
other state sources. And for the bond, I just wasn't clear what other kinds of state sources there would be of revenue. And I asked this question ahead of time so that I didn't have to take up time, but the answer I got was categorical funds. And I just wasn't I wasn't clear
what categorical funds would be revenue to the bond fund. >> I can work with staff to get you a clearer answer for you. >> Okay. Because they listed some programs like ELO, but I was pretty sure ELO was I wasn't sure. >> I'll make sure they know it's understanding related to the bond
itself. >> All right. And then I asked a question because on our financial statements our total expenditures were different than what's in the bond audit. And the answer was is there was a restatement. And I just want to make sure I understood is that we
acrewed expenses I believe in 2324 and then we recorded them again as expenses in 2425 and then we did a restatement to back them out. which seems to not have anything to do
with your two audit findings that also are of a similar subject but for different amounts but for some of the same years. But does that make sense that we backed out expenditures and because we we did them twice. Is that what happened?
>> Yes. And um Ammon just left her and I and um and other staff were talking about that. We can expand on that uh for you. Okay, that'd be great because if it was all in one project or maybe across a whole lot of projects and it was all in capital, not in the tech. So,
>> yes. All right, I'm aware talking about that. >> All right, thank you so much. >> And and I would just clarify that the um the audit adjustments really speech to the ending fund balances. And so, yeah, sometimes the the total expenditures or revenues may be different because there's reclassifications of things, but we would only report if they're your
ending fund balance in any of those funds was different than what the um unodit actual showed. Any other questions? >> Um, entertain a motion to >> Could we do a sweep? >> Oh, since we had a presentation on both
N4 and N5, I would move both of them. >> I'll second. >> Are you sure? >> Did we? >> Yeah, because the last slide here is on the bond, >> which is N5. >> Okay. Sweep on N4 and N5. Yeah, I'll second.
>> I'm sorry it's so late I missed it. Just letting me know. >> So, sweep motion. Scott Trusty Harden seconded. Okay. Any further discussion on the sweep? All those in favor to approve a sweep of
N4 and N5. >> All right. Thank you. Motion passes. Thank you so much. >> Thanks for staying so late. No problem. I know it was a tough type night for you guys all. So, >> thank you.
>> All right. So, we're now at in six. Approval of resolution 2863, Board of Education of the PSD required by state facility program regulation section 1859, establishing the number of unhoused
pupils as of October 30th based on the calculation method in section 1859. 5 for the charter school facilities program. Dr. Kennel, do you have any comments? >> Just staff recommendation is that we approve resolution 2863 provided the
board with some context and communicate prior to the board meeting. Um happy to answer any questions but provided some information, some context beforehand. >> Okay. Any questions for Dr. Canel? >> I'll move approval.
>> Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor of N6 raise your hand. All those Anybody against? No abstensions. Motion passes. Thank you. Now we have approval N7 approval of
resolution 2864 finding that soil removal replacement at multiple district properties is not subject and exempt from the California from the squa determining and make and making findings of related matters. Move for approval.
Do I hear a second? >> Second. >> Any further discussion? All those in favor, raise your hand. Anybody against? Oh, one. One. No. Any extensions? Motion passes. >> Oh, Miss Kenny.
>> Trusty Kenny. >> All right. Now, we're at item N8, 2026 ballot for CSBA delegate assembly. And I believe there are up to two votes, right? Yeah, we >> up to two and I'm going to move approval
to submit a vote for Kim Kenny and Jennifer Holly Le. >> Okay, Trusty Bailey seconded. Any comments, discussion? All those in favor raise your hand. >> Anybody against? Any abstensions? One
extension. Motion passes. Thank you. Now we're at board committee reports. Okay. Board committee reports. >> Thank you for announcing the board committee reports. Any committee
reports? >> Oh yes. Go ahead. >> So we have policies for you tonight because we met in February and we'll be meeting again next week. The policy committee. That's all. The legislative advocacy committee had a meeting in January and also in February. Our next meeting is
March 9th. >> Uh facilities committee. Uh the highlight was the community work projects presentation. Um and we are meeting next on March 10th, Tuesday. Any other committees? That's it. Right.
Okay. Now we are at the consent, right? Okay. Right. Consent. Anybody would like to make a sweet motion. >> I'll move approval of the consent agenda as submitted.
>> Second. >> Any comments? >> Oh, actually, yeah. Any questions or comments? Which item >> on um the law firm's Q3E? I I asked a
question. And I said, since we are already spending at a deficit, when we increase something like this that's coming out of general fund, I said, does that mean we're just going more into our reserves? And the answer I got was, we're using unrestricted funds. And I
said, well, no, I know that. I'm just saying we've used them up already in our budgeting. So, I just went because this was about half of this was fire, but the other half was not fire related. So, that was I just want to >> Dr. Canal question.
>> So coming from reserves. >> Yes. >> Oh, okay. Got the answer. >> Just another point of clarification. Um, is there a scenario where while you may have firms on your bench, if you're not utilizing
them for their specialty or not utilizing their services, there's no cost incurred. >> That is correct. >> Thank you. Any further comments on the >> consent agenda? All right. All those in favor of sweet
motion on consent agenda items? Anybody against? Any abstensions? Motion passes. No more public comments. Oh, there are public comments. Okay. >> We are now at item S.
>> Oh, item S. Okay. >> And there's a public comment. Warren Bleecker, thank you for staying. >> Board request. >> Wait, wait, hold on. Board request. This is >> I just work here. I'm reading the note as it is
>> and I'm clear about what it says and I think that Mr. Bleecker is clear about what item he wanted to make a comment on. >> Mr. Bleecker, you have two minutes. >> Well, my understanding is board request is from the board, but >> Sure. >> It's also a non-aggendaized item, too.
So, okay, >> I'll be brief. So, I was listening about 4:30 this afternoon um when you all were talking about process and my my concern is on process with the um superintendent's consolidation advisory
committee. Um the board in December directed Dr. Blanco to develop and bring forward a proposed district transformation planning process. Um the board voted um to authorize the superintendent to engage an independent
and unbiased expert to engage in that process. And now the board has voted on outcomes and factors. And my concern is that the board has allowed and voted to have the superintendent do this process with an independent and unbiased um
consultant. And to the extent board members are now trying to get involved in that process, I feel that it's not independent and unbiased. And I am concerned that to the extent board members are, you know, interjecting themselves into this process, attending
meetings, um, asking to have substantive discussions with the consultant during board meetings. I feel that's inappropriate. the board voted to give the superintendent the authority to do this process and in doing so to have an independent and ex and unbiased external
expert and so you should let Dr. Blanco and and that process take place. I feel it's appropriate they can report back and let the board know what's going on but that the board itself should not try to be actively involved in that process. Thank you.
>> Thank you. All right, we're at item S. So uh any requests you can vocalize that now or you can email it to Dr. Blanco and I >> email. >> So
I I have one request and then I tried to ask a question earlier which if it was out of order to ask during the time when it actually applied it seems as much out of order to ask it now. So, I don't know what to do about that. >> We will consult the trainer, but I think
it's now. >> Well, again, it was it was a question on the topic that was at >> momentum. We'll we'll we'll do it now. We could do it now. >> You have the floor. So, go. >> The student board members said, "We would really like to be on the
committees and we don't have a policy that would stop them from being on the committees. So, I'm wondering why they're not on the committees." >> Okay. So we are not having a discussion. So we're you're starting a conversation
that has not been agendaized. So >> So when the student brings things up, we can't talk about them because they're not agendaized, >> right? It's a new item. >> So we can never respond and have a conversation with what the student reports on.
>> I don't think so. It's a report. >> I can go I can go back and ask our train. Kim said I said it would >> be to a a future agenda so we can discuss it. >> Yes. So what is what is the item? >> What Kim said >> again? I'm not I'm not clear. This is an
item. I'm just it it seems like there's an implementation that has to happen. I don't know that the board implements it. So >> So what we could So submit >> it was a policy thing. I would take it to policy but our policies already says they can be members. So >> we c so we can discuss it. So I was
questioning why they aren't which is a question but >> can we ask madam superintendent to opine andor give us some direction on >> I'm sorry we this is another item this is a new item that we will not create a discussion we can bring it back
when we agenda >> it discussion per se I think she asked a question and I'm asking if madam superintendent can respond to the question on the floor right now >> because she could have responded to the Okay. So, sure. So, uh Dr. Chan Hill, I
think they're asking us to invite the student board members to attend committee. So, we can do that, right? And see if they're interested and come back with the process. >> I think that's the question. >> I believe that we've miss Montoya and I
are already working on that. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> So, I have something that I would like to bring up. May I? >> Yeah. Trusty. >> So, it's about the I understand that you're trying to maintain order up here,
but it's about the way you cut people off while they're speaking. And I know you wouldn't appreciate that if someone did that to you. It's really hard to sit up here and be cut off in the middle of your
thought and while you're speaking. And it's like even for what Kim was trying to do tonight, it was like where is she going with it? You seem to already know, but it's not fair to the process not to let her get it out. And then you talk about how you want to proceed or not
with it. Then you let her know that it it's not agenda, so we're not going to discuss that kind of thing. >> Finish her have her finish. >> Well, yeah. because it sounds like you're not being courteous or respectful to those of us up here while we're talking for you to just jump in the
middle and cut us off, you know. Yeah, I think I appreciate your input >> and that's why I said something about first amendment rights because this is a public meeting and we all have the right to speak >> and I understand what you know the the
Brown Act says about us talking not um sticking to the agenda but to be cut off like that and then >> so you don't object to the the um Brown Act but you just object to the execution of how it carried out. So absolutely I'm
hearing you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you Trusty Bailey, >> Trusty Harden. >> So I just have a process question. So you know when we do have an information item that's brought forward >> and we have a clarification question for the presenter
uh we should be able to allow it seems to me that it's within order to be able to ask that question yet at the item. So I think that was a challenge in the item. You know, when we were getting the consultant giving telling us what had happened and we had a a question about
what he said, we should be able to ask it and get an answer, right? That's not a discussion. It's just a it's it's a point of inquiry. >> Sounds like >> do we do we agree that that's allowed in an information? >> Well, we're going to have to revisit. We're
going to so we're going to have a board retreat so we can discuss how we're going to carry that out because the way we envisioned Dr. Blanco and I it was just a report. It wasn't going to be >> it's like when we So I'm just repeating
myself. >> As long as it's not public comment, we still have the right to ask questions. >> Yeah, that's >> I don't know. We have Let's talk about it. >> That's what my research shows that you can ask clarifying questions. you know, just like if it was a great
>> This seems like a great conversation to have after we adjourn. >> All right. So, that was your question. That's my question. Okay. So, to be determined is my response. >> Okay. Another request. >> I just want to say thank you um for Dr.
Blanco providing us with the past district performance audits. Um, when I was reading over the Maguire study that on our organization, they mentioned the Katie report, which is a comparative analysis of district income and expenditures,
and it they made it sound as though that was one of the first things they looked at, and they cost $525. So, I was wondering if that is something that would be good information for the district and us to have. It looks at a
number of things. I printed out some information about it. >> What's it called? The Katie. >> The Katie. >> Do you Are you familiar with that, Dr. Canel? Katie. >> I don't know if it's a fiscal report. >> Are you familiar with that, Dr. J? >> Yes, Dr. Canel showed it to me. I have
it up on my desk. >> Oh, >> so it's a request to get the Katie. >> Yes, that it seems like it could be useful. We get the Saber reports which school services also produce which is the salaries and benefits and this is district income and expenditures and
analysis that that compares us to other districts but it's a very low income and doesn't require any staff time. >> So you can consider that request. >> All right. Any other requests?
>> Okay. Motion to adjurnn. All those in favor? >> All those against. All right. Most