4:03 P.M. Roll call please MR. Steel thank you MR. Alexander here, MR. Fisher here. Commissioner gupta spokesperson healey here. MR. Ray here. MR. Wiseman award present him here. Thank you. Thank you. Item eight general information accessibility information translation interpretation services and virtual meeting information can be found online under item eight one to or eight two, three and four. That's if you will provide child care for regular board meetings and mandatory meetings on the first floor of the enrollment center at 555 franklin. From 6:30 P.M. To 9 P.M. Or the close of the meeting whichever comes first. Child care is for families who will be attending the regular or monitoring board meetings. Space is limited or provided on a first come first served basis for ages 3 to 10. If you have questions please
contact the board office at (415) 241-6427 or board office as if you see that edu. At this time before the board goes into close session I call for any speakers to the closed session items listed in the agenda. There will be a total of five minutes for speakers. are there any speakers for public comment? see none PRESIDENT Kim nor in line with uh I will recess this meeting at 404p m S.F. Gov tv san francisco government television S.F. Gov tv san francisco government television S.F. Gov tv san francisco governmental television and S.F. Gov tv san francisco government television
and S.F. Gov tv san francisco government television S.F. Gov tv san francisco government television S.F. Gov tv san francisco governmental division and S.F. Gov tv san francisco government television S.F. Gov tv san francisco government television S.F. Gov tv san francisco government television S.F. Gov tv san francisco government television station tonight's meeting I
just encourage you to review some of the rules of conduct for public meetings. They just have some descriptions around limitations for size. The big thing is we just want everyone to have access to the meeting itself. So if you can just watch your signs and make sure they're not covering any views from people behind you, we would really appreciate that. and with that I will get started. I now reconvene the regular meeting at 6:42 P.M. And will begin with the read out of closed session. Item c in three matters of anticipated litigation the board by a vote of seven eyes gives direction to the general counsel in the matter of student amr versus S.F. Us doj case number (202) 502-0839 the board by a vote of seven a's gives direction to the general counsel in the matter of student h g versus s of us d e h case number 202504033 for the board by a vote of seven eyes gives direction to the general
counsel in the matter of lee versus us of us d as a superior court case number cgc22603293 the board by a vote of seven a's gives direction to the general counsel and in a vote of seven eight the board took action to issue final notices of release or reassignment to 16 certificated administrators . Item d land acknowledgment we the san francisco board of education acknowledged that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the raw material only where the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula as the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions the committee shall only have never ceded lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretaker of this place as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory and as guests we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders and relatives of the romantic community and by
affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. Item two approval of board minutes of the regular meeting APRIL 8th, 2025 special select committee APRIL 17 2025 in regular regular meeting monitoring workshop APRIL 22nd 2025 we have a motion in a second on the minutes so moved the second. Are there any changes to the minutes named before? Seeing none please consider seeing student delegate montgomery yes. Student delegate lamb yes. Commissioner alexander yes. MR. Fisher. Yes. Commissioner gupta yes. Vice PRESIDENT Huling yes. Commissioner ray yes. Commissioner weissbourd yes. PRESIDENT Him yes sir. I think you responses to commissioner questions on gen items can be found under item d three. The unified board of education follow the student outcomes focused governance model based on community input.
The board has adopted our vision values, goals and guardrails in order to increase the portion of board meeting minutes of board meeting time rather we spend on zoom outcomes. Every other regular meeting is a monitoring workshop. This model also calls on the board to empower the superintendent to take full ownership of the strategies used to reach these goals within the guardrails set by the board. As we implement this new governance framework, the board will continue to adopt new systems routines and policies that improve student outcomes. We encourage the public to follow this work on our website as opposed to use governance as we commit to finding new and improved ways to more meaningfully engage with staff students and their families. With that I'll pass it to the superintendent for her report. Thank you. PRESIDENT Kim. Great welcome everyone. I know that today today's meeting we have a lot of members in our audience and I'm
sure lots of people listening and watching and of course we want to hear your voices and we want to make sure that we engage with you. But I want to share before we get into other discussion items for today a number of things that is going on around the district. First and foremost I want to make sure that everyone understands that APRIL 4th for the past 30 years we have joyfully celebrated S.F. Usd pride month in APRIL. I know that pride is in JUNE but because students are not in school during JUNE we celebrate it in APRIL. This year we hosted events for our students to celebrate as fsd pride month including special read alongs of door by door by sara mcbride became how sara mcbride became america's first openly trans gender senator by meg pinkus which yes
that deserves a big lots which I had the honor of introducing the author read her book about tara mcbride, now the first openly transgender U.S. Congresswoman to over 1500 students over zoom. So thank you to everyone who celebrated with us in our schools, out in the community, throughout the entire district, throughout the entire city. Pride month for S.F. Usd in APRIL. Next slide please. In MAY we proudly celebrate asian-american and pacific islander heritage month a time to honor the rich histories and contributions of our aapi communities. And during this month, as if usc educators have aligned lesson plans and many schools will be holding assemblies and celebrations throughout the entire month. To learn more about the api heritage please go on our website.
S.F. Usd.Edu backslash aapi. We also join communities across the country in celebrating oh I'm sorry when back across the country and celebrating celebrating our jewish american heritage month as well an opportunity to honor the vibrant cultures, traditions and contributions of our jewish americans and students and families throughout the district. Next slide please. In the past two weeks we celebrated our teachers. We celebrated teacher appreciation week as well as principal appreciation day. instagrams were full of swc teachers and principals being appreciated in all moments and all during their school days and I kept seeing pictures of our fantastic teachers and administrators throughout all of our social media platforms. We saw flowers and chalk drawings and breakfast and lunches and stickers
and beautiful lee handwritten notes with drawings from children who truly, truly loved their teachers and also truly love their principals and administrators. Also generation thrive honored two of our teachers on MAY 8th with surprise teacher appreciation awards given by a warrior legend and congrats to whitney rowe buena vista horace mann and sammy sammy tran at martin luther king junior middle school. so moving on I also want to celebrate our school nurses on school nurse day yay which was on MAY 7th. Our school nurses play a critical role in ensuring the health, safety and academic success of all of our students . They not only provide essential medical care but also serve as advocates helping to meet physical, mental and emotional health of our students. So we greatly appreciate you and honor you for supporting us
to meet our second goal. Second guardrail of supporting the whole child. And then I had the opportunity to celebrate this year's superintendent 21st century scholarship award winners. last week we had six amazing, amazing students who were who exemplified all of the characteristics because of the graduate profile. We were able to celebrate them at the asian art museum which was amazing. And I can go on and on about each one of them but I'm going to read here. So the student that won the ready to learn and work with others profile is shirley's becerra from balboa high school . Ready to think, learn and grow. delilah. Delilah blazer from mission
high school. ready for career and life. rj carlos from JUNE jordan high school. ready to be your best. Andre s melo moran oh, sorry. moreno from S.F. International. and ready to tackle a changing world. Key fam from gallo high school and ready to create rey or crew . Rey cortez cortez or ju from independence high school. oh, thank you. Sorry. so we were so proud to be able to offer each one of these students $3,000 in scholarships towards their their next stage in life and that's just really, really fantastic. We were also heard a incredible
original poem that was read by unique cooper from burton high school as well. so in APRIL on APRIL 24th I had the pleasure of attending this amazing art show by access S.F. Usd the ark. It was held at the american conservatory theater. The event was was featured original songs, dance routines all different types of art. I was joined by of course our amazing commissioner fisher where we both I will not say but we both very much enjoy dancing and singing. There were some tears but it was amazing. It is truly an honor to be able to support these are these students because they they are just just amazing and fantastic. I truly, truly enjoyed the show and I actually bought that art and anyone who goes into my office will now see it hanging
in my office there. Yeah so it's done by anthony that young man right there. He's fantastic. Okay, so moving on, join us for our annual summer literacy fair and celebrate the joy of reading. All families are welcome especially those with children in pre-k through fifth grade. This educational event will offer a variety of engaging literacy activities and games designed to support our students in your child's reading skills. It is free so please come and join us. You can find more about it on a link that we'll put on our website. And then speaking of ways to support your child during the summer, please join us for a summer institute for families to explore resources and tools to support your students success over summer break and yes, summer break is coming . Just couple of couple of weeks away the institute will have engaging workshops on literacy digital learning, health and wellness and college access
and preparation. This event is free and open to all families. So please once again go onto our website to register and you MAY have a chance to oh you will receive you'll receive a summer backpack filled with school supplies, workbooks, literacy games and more. So please go on our website to learn more. And then throughout JUNE and JULY as if you sd student nutrition services will be offering breakfast and lunch at no cost to all young people 18 years of age and younger at 45 of our schools during summer programs young people do not need to be enrolled in the summer program to receive access to the meals. So please go on our website to learn where those meal sites are. Please come and and of course help yourself to the meals because it is extremely important. And then just finally I am
pleased to announce that we will again be providing outdoor graduation for all of our high school students and so we will be celebrating graduation for all from JUNE 2nd through JUNE 4th at keyser stadium, jerry garcia ampitheater and the golden gate bandshell so you will definitely find more announcements about it at your high school. I hope to see you all there. I imagine it's going to be a very festive and fun day or several days where we honor and celebrate all of our hardworking seniors. Thank you so much to these young people. I know it's really hard to push through to the end and then just a reminder for everyone. Monday, MAY 26th is memorial day and so we will be closed that day and that concludes my report. thank you for thank you, DR. Sue. Moving to item six student delegate report I call on delegate montgomery and delegate lamb to give an update on the student advisory council. thank you so much superintendent su for your
amazing report. Good evening board community and students. It's so nice seeing everyone here today and I would love to hear from all of you guys during public comment. So to keep it kind of short so we could hear from more of you guys we langston and I on top of our PRESIDENT Of the sec all have really good news when it comes to selecting our next cohort of student advisory council leaders and we are currently in the selection of choosing leaders and we're really excited to notify them by tomorrow. And so far it's looking pretty diverse when it comes to schools and we hope to get more voices in our cohort next year and the process of choosing these leaders is a bit different compared to other years as the student advisory council applications usually go throughout the summer. But this year we decided to like release them a little earlier so we could implement summer tasks so the next cohort would be prepared for the next school year and I'm working on
summer class and I hope to get these students involved when it comes to the community as a whole. So I'm talking to all the early education educators, all the middle school teachers, all the high school teachers, every educator in this room if you are in need of help when it comes to setting up your classrooms in the beginning of the school year, please, please, please reach out to me as soon as possible. You should get like a notepad out because my email is y z l a I start us off usd edu and if you could send me an email before the end of the school year that'd be amazing because we would love to have some students getting involved in the community and notably helping out the educators who constantly help us out. we are also helping with getting everything started a little bit moving.
Earlier this year to hit the ground running with in terms of our committees for next year we really want to restructure shc so that functions more in line with how the board functions now this year since there's been some changes over that 60 the last couple of years and things have really been working for scc so the idea of doing all of this early in the summer tasks and so we can have a really strong group going into next year and how we set up and influence change in the district. We also the last time we had a report was even before the youth summit which was at this point like a month ago and so just like a quick report on the youth summit from us, we were really happy with the event, ran really smooth and had a really good turnout. We were really surprised with how well it went and but that is not to discredit any of the work that sbc officials as well as our students and sassy put in to get this event done and make it as successful as it was. So we are super excited and happy to have the next few summit for next year but again really happy with how this last one turned out and as a product
of that we have a bunch of hoodies for all the commissioners here to pass out that we designed. yes and as langston grabs that box a little bit about these hoodies, they're inspired by the stussy company. It's like a skater company now a lot of high schoolers tend to rap and we had it designed by one of the freshmen in the sec. She goes to sota, which is my school. So that was amazing. But yeah, we hope that you could enjoy some sec swag . Let me give it one more round of applause to our delegate. thank you. there's actually more room because gifts never end when it comes to students notably the student advisory council. So I hope all of you guys enjoyed all those harrys we were all wearing them like on the day of curation and and the
photos looked amazing but for one last surprise you guys the whole board at least and honestly the community is invited to my graduation. My graduation is taking place on JUNE 4th at 12 P.M. I kiss our stadium and I'm inviting all the board members including the superintendent so I only have one ask mainly because there are tickets involved. So if you are able to come to my graduation on JUNE 4th at 12 P.M. Across our stadium please please please email me by friday this friday at 4 P.M. So like I solidify the tickets to make sure it's possible for you to attend and I believe you could get my information from judson. So yeah, I hope to see all of you guys there and that is our delegate report. thank you.
I will also acknowledge a few weeks ago commissioners just for your awareness, vice PRESIDENT Huling and I met with our student delegates and had an hour long conversation around board governance y'all I don't know. Most people do not want to talk about board governance for an hour so it is so encouraging to hear that you are putting your words into action and so thank you so much for all that you're doing and and thank you for the hoodie. It's way cooler than me right already moving to item e public comments to align with our effective governance model public comment will last for one hour. We aim to respect staff, family and community time by beginning a new board visit by beginning board business rather no later than 8 P.M.. Our hope is to conduct board business in an effective, efficient and accessible manner during reasonable hours each participant MAY speak for up to one minute staff will think the
participant at the one minute mark at one minute and five seconds. I've asked MR. Steele to please turn off the mic and transition to the next speaker. I as members of the public to please respect that one minute limit so we can hear from as many speakers as possible. I encourage speakers who are speaking on the same topic to collaborate and combine their comments so that the board can hear all viewpoints during our limited time. Please also note that the board accepts written public comments via email to board officer as if you see edu you will hear first from students in person on agenda items then general public in person on agenda items followed by students in person on non agenda items and general public on non agenda items. Regardless of whether in-person public comment is complete we will say 15 minutes for remote public comment. So at 748 taking commenters in the same order as in person as a reminder board rules in california law do not allow us to respond to comments or attempt to answer questions during public comment time if appropriate.
The superintendent will ask that staff follow up with speakers MR. Seal thank you PRESIDENT Kim I'm going to call five students at a time. When you hear your name please let over the podium and as PRESIDENT Kim said you have one minute each and forgive me if I'm respondents names list crisp demo I'm sorry I can't receive I can't see what that is. daniel agnus kyra there was a kira from busy valley you can light up britney benitez, my madonna and isaac and you can use this one if it's at the top you can bring witness dennis soy student and the long fellow you me this is game molly sick in longfellow is important in lies about our laws as to
the this e is the la comunidad latino brosius thank you so can we complete the trend here for your iman its own student and fellow and it's very important to keep this school open and for the for the students and the latino community. thank you but yeah it's a well-established but abdullah's laws the laws the like universities I'm still A.J. Is a study it because then they'll distribute them as school and we witnessed that this year so your mother is the student the longfellow many most are boys and though I MISS My key like that is banal and this demo thing is a square lies when there isn't a minister. I mean we didn't regard the barrel total lack of money there is but nice to the end this ballot is e this impending we begins with the navajo I mean what's going on in the
moment or is that in the colloquial actividad a general is a dallas alumnus we get emails because it gave me a minimal say nasal key and permanence in this will get us and could be hello everyone good evening. So I'm I'm a mom here in longfellow and so we're here to well to say hello to all of you to all the people present and also to we're here tonight because we want to support MS.. Marty is an essential part of our school and this is a part for the latino community. She's a hardworking woman that she's always there when we need it, when the community needs and when the parents need it. And also we need to have a latina presence in our school. So I'm here to please tell you not to take her job away.
Thank you. Hello? Woman hello, my name is brittney. I came from outside with her and I go to visitation valley elementary school. When I was in kindergarten I didn't know how to speak english. I only know how to speak spanish but luckily because of MR. R he has helped me and helped me improve my english and he has made me realize I should be proud of myself. I I have improve on many cherokee letters and how to write in english also because of him my mom has improved her english he has helped her in meetings with my teacher stop the lay of stop the budget cut say MR. R hi my name is kira. I'm from san francisco. I got a voice and when I was in first grade he helped me feel more welcomed like for example waving hi with a warm
greeting smile in the morning and without him some students might not be acting like they're acting right now. He brings happiness. Happiness and life courage and courage to the school. So now I say stop the layoffs stop the budget cuts say MR. R dear commissioners and doctors who I'm daniel hug nose and I'll be a fifth grader students talking next year please do not squish the fourth and fifth grade mandarin classes into one it would ruin the learning environment and there are already people going distracted enough including me also also the classroom would barely fit 33 people. The teachers would also have to raise their voice a lot more just to get through a single section and could potentially lose it. It would be a lot more chaotic, a lot more annoying from the student's point of view in lots more fights would happen because a teacher cannot be everywhere at once.
Also the teachers would have to teach fourth and fifth grade curriculums all at once which would be insanely difficult. Also so in mandarin a fifth grader would be listening to fourth grade all over again and fourth graders will not understand the fifth grade characters. I also spent my entire kindergarten in covid. Then we had to do zoom. That's already hard and sad because no graduation ceremonies for us so please do not make my last year worse. You'll be here thinking okay I MISS You be hurting my education in front of others. we have worked so hard to get here and make up for how bad things were during covid. You are supposed to make sure things go well schools and you would be doing the exact opposite by doing this. hello my name is isaac. I currently attorney raoul wallenberg high school. Please don't get rid of my current job that I currently have.
I currently work for schwab. It helps you improve your leadership skills and helps you attend time management and the staff is so wonderful that they are understanding they could really tell you what you need to improve on and in the high school students I currently work with are so incredible so that they told me like what I need to improve on what hopes and what doesn't help and currently we just finished a psa contest where we stop vaping an anti smoking in high schools and it helped really good to where it went through middle school elementary high school and up. It showed us how we could stop anti smoking at such a young age to the point where smoking and vaping has damaged high schools and younger ages nowadays and the other time I have two more student cards if you're a student and you didn't hear your name called you can come up after I call these names as well like it's marianne brooks and a son can come to the podium please each
have one minute to and hey my name is my name is thomas. What? oh my GOD. Okay, my bad. Hey, my name is thomas harrison. I am reading a letter from law alumni. Um, so this is a little bit abridged but my dear members of the board of education we alumni of the global news publication are writing to condemn the actions of all high school's administration regarding the independent state run news publication in this visor. Erica sorenson um in OCTOBER 2020 for an article titled invasive and inappropriate was published alleging instances of verbal harassment from teachers on campus. Months later, in APRIL 2025 it was announced that MR. Thompson will be removed for his role as journalism advisor. According to the S.F. Chronicle, gustafson claimed that the current principal jan what is has stated this decision was due to the publication of the aforementioned article as well
as the discussion of a pitch related really regarding teachers alleged usage of artificial intelligence. We are calling on laws administration to stop infringing on the journalist's first amendment rights and reinstate MR. Gusau as soon as the laws advisory. This was written by three former editor in chief and has been signed by 64 different alumni. thank you. thank you. Thank you thomas and thank you board of education for your attention this evening. My name is marion brooks and I'm a member of law high school student run publication of the law. Earlier this month we were incredibly shocked and saddened when our advisor MR. G informed us that the administration had decided to reassign him following our work on several controversial topics we on the local have been experiencing anger, sadness and anxiety over the potential implications of this decision. We firmly believe that this treatment is not reflective of the years of thoughtful
and dedicated work MR. G has put into our school publication . Losing our advisor means losing the experience, guidance and leadership we count on to allow us to step into our own leadership roles. It is not in the best interests of the quality of work the law produces or its status as a respected part of the school community to make this change. I sincerely hope that we can move forward and work with the administration to find a solution that does not involve removing MR. G as an adviser. thank you. Good evening. My name is iman ansari and I'm a senior at law and a photo editor for the law. The situation regarding the reassign ment of our journalism advisor is unacceptable. MR. G has always been a positive figure throughout my time in journalism and he goes the extra mile to make us feel comfortable and confident in our reporting. He ensures that we are able to grow and learn as journalists and also as people. This sentiment is shared by
countless others. Former editor in chief of the law created a petition to reinstate MR. G but now has 481 signatures students and MR. Jesus was supporters of student journalism had love comments on the petition. Speaking on the amazing impact he has had on the program, so many share the sentiment that taking MR. G away and threatening student journalism in a time like this where many feel their constitutional rights are being threatened on a national level is incredibly harmful. The reassignment of MR. G is an injustice and poses a threat to student journalism student journalists throughout us of usd. I strongly urge and request you all to take action and support our right to free press. Thank you. Thank you. that concludes the students. I will go to agenda items moving on to agenda items let me call the first five names please come lineup sarah wilson ,jessica agnes and john logan
and acceptor and letitia. I'm sorry if I misspoke. Your last name is eric to you. You'll probably want me to. Who was first sarah. hi, I'm anna. laughter and I'm the PRESIDENT Of united administrators of san francisco . I'm here to implore you to lift the hiring freeze and let us hire staff for next year. yeah, there was a partial lifting but there are still hundreds of schools so positions vacant for next year as site leaders we did all the steps we were told we held the sc meetings we wrote the cip says we completed the confusing and onerous hra process and front line and we know what we need to open school in AUGUST but we are stuck with my colleague at another high school has 30 teacher openings right now and she can't even hire the 12 temporary teachers currently in those positions. If we don't hire now we will not be staffed in AUGUST
and children will suffer as a result. Stop this madness. Thank you. My name's sarah wilson. I'm a researcher on staff at seiu local 10 to 1 and also a parent in the district. I want to comment on the on the third interim report that you'll be presented tonight. What we've seen in the district's budgets and financial reports is that the district makes predictions as is part of what you have to do to budget that do not come to pass as predicted all the time. Yet the district forges ahead with taking actions as a result of those predictions that harmed students and workers unnecessarily prioritizing adherence to a budget balancing plan over the education of students and over the welfare of the staff who make our schools run. We've seen a projection of an increase in enrollment for next year after a few years of hearing that enrollment is going to plummet, we've seen twice as much in the third interim report twice as much in the unrestricted general
fund balance than was budgeted for the budget balancing plan should be adjusted accordingly and not just forged ahead with and cuts made the harm children and workers unnecessarily. thank you. Thanks for your time. Thank you and good evening jessica agnes from start starting we've spoken with many of you and welcome DR. Sue to our school. Our issue is how shortsighted our budget is. We haven't been allocated the teachers we need to make our mandarin program function. There's also a legal issue surrounding compliance and mandated instructional minutes. If language pathways are a way to grow enrollment, why aren't we being supported? The decisions being made are further pushing families and teachers out of the district rather than enticing them to stay which is harmful to long term fiscal stability should we lose enrollment to stay in compliance? Is that a better long term plan than staffing us properly and keeping folks in S.F. Usd as a student? Success funds don't cut up my
minutes as a student success fund site. We're having a hard time reconciling how the community schools model is being truly supported at the city and the state level. This model and san francisco taxpayer dollars should have proper protections to ensure success. Why aren't special considerations being made for community schools and language pathways? Cst has no jurisdiction over the students exactly. hi my name is john logan. I'm the father of two kids at star king elementary. Jessica you're a hard act to follow up the staffing cutbacks targeting star king are irrational and non-compliant in specific to mandarin positions have been cut. These cuts and plans for control excuse me class consolidation will result in class sizes that are too large and illegal according to california state law. so these roles would need to be refilled the year immediately after the cuts have taken place. We want to make very clear that a cut like this is irrational and damaging and will only need to be reversed immediately.
Shortsighted bureaucratic decisions that don't account for reality will accelerate attrition as families flee the public system for private schools. I. I am extremely proud of the diverse, multifaceted and free educational programs that star king currently supports. We need to keep these multiple program public schools alive and healthy. Thank you. Hi. Hi. Good evening. My name is lettuce as a movie on the field reference to you local 10 to 1 I do not work for the district. I often get that question but I do not. I work directly for the union. I just must say that first and foremost I could never echo any of the comments that my predecessor speakers actually did because their passion and their commitment to this district is paramount. What I will say is that through this whole process of really realignment the district stabilization we're at this
point where I don't think we're any better than we were six months ago in terms of money maybe but in terms of process no, we are truly a mess. We have not perfectly budgeted out things for the future. We are not allocating properly and we have these blind layoffs occurring with no information to the unions to actually be able to really negotiate these layoffs properly. So we must do better otherwise we're going to continue in this mess and we'll have several. Elliott touchdowns moving forward. thank you. for the next group audrey norton, rachel peterson, darcy chin blackburn, amy buzz and terry kozinski. Is this thing odd? Yes it is. Good morning. Good evening everyone. My name is audrey norton. I am 26 years old and I am a para educator at francisco middle school. I can't I am here to speak on behalf of myself. Can you can you just take a step? oh yeah.
The translator on behalf of myself as well as the other sfe city staff members classified and certificated who are adversely affected by decisions that the board tends to make. I am a classified as a U.S. Educator which leaves me and so many other paras and family liaisons and security guards vulnerable to preliminary layoffs. Classified employees are not any less valuable or hardworking than certificated employees. the layoffs and the supposed budget saving proposal proposals being made by the board are harming school staff everywhere in the district which translates to harming the students social, emotional and academic outcomes as well. I have received preliminary layoff notices in the past and I am fighting my tail to get those things reversed. The maps were bad enough but the misinformation was even worse. The classified employees keep fighting like I do.
thank you very much. Good evening. My name is rachel peterson. i'm a science and math teacher at thurgood marshall academic high school. We serve an incredibly high needs population and we do pretty well thanks to our amazing staff. Yet key staff members are either on the chopping block with these pink slips or have been left in limbo waiting for a permanent contract. We need these people. They want to work at marshall. We want them to stay. We even have the budget for them to stay. And unelected bureaucrats should not be able to manufacture staffing crises in our schools. as a district we have enough issues with that already. I urge you to reverse course and let us keep our highly skilled and highly dedicated staff. thank you. my name is amy sass. I'm a teacher at longfellow elementary and I'm here to implore the board to rescind the family liaison layoff notices. marty mays has been with us for 12 years.
She is the face the families know and love best. She's the first person they meet on tours. The one who helps them register her and the person who greets them every morning with the warmest, most radiant smile. marty supports the most vulnerable families by providing them with translation and by helping them navigate the confounding systems put forth by sf usd. the families know trust and love her. We know trust and love her. Choosing to take her away from the longfellow communities means you ensure harm to our most vulnerable who are already losing many other supports in light of budget cuts. We know it's a position not a person but the lens shifts when it's your person. Marty is our person and we ask that you allow her to remain in the community that so desperately needs her. thank you. My name's dorothy jane blackburn. I am a teacher at sheridan elementary school. I am here speaking in support
of our para educators. You've heard all these stories here about how important and valuable they are in keeping our schools stable and they are clearly not being laid off for lack of need. as you heard from the students, the pairs of the first people that our families see when they enter the school our parents help build the stability needed to address the many needs of our families and students. Our sites have shown a clear need to keep our paras by designating site money to pay for them. Despite this, the layoffs have not been rescinded. This move delay to lay off our paras and then the lack of movement to rescind them is clearly not due to lack of need or funds. It clearly appears to be a matter of someone imposing his control over our sites. His control is serving to stop us from creating the safe, stable and supportive schools our students deserve. Do not let this person continue to destabilize our schools. rescind the layoffs now
about now. good evening superintendent and commissioners. I'm going to pivot a little bit. My name is terry cohan ski. I'm the executive director of friends of scrub. And I'm here. Hello. I'm here to thank you all for believe it or not, 50 years of a partnership supporting sfd posted teachers and students 25 years of that being spent at 801 toland street, a san francisco us city property. We so appreciate your generosity and thank you for your positive consideration of our lease extension tonight. thank you. Thank you. Able to call the next group richard I I'm sorry if I mispronounced I cameron rebecca hendler so you can see what that is.
michelle vidal nawa ahmad najwa ahmad ling bush there are I'm rebecca ensler. I've been a middle school counselor for over 20 years but I've been an activist for more like 40 backing backed up. We started the chant where you shout out communities that are under attack and then commit yourself to fight for them right now lgbtq students are under attack. Black students are under attack. Immigrant students are under attack. Female students are under attack. Educators are under attack and you can fight for them but instead your sacrifice facing our most vulnerable students and their teachers and counselors to solve the budget crisis they had no role in creating. You are celebrating pride in history and appreciate asian while you betrayed them. You are complicit in the trump agenda if you don't fight for our students and educators who will if not now when? rescind the layoffs.
Thank you. Good evening. Board superintendent student delegate my name is nasira ahmed. I am a current parent of a city sd students up z grad and I also sat as a student delegate many years ago. I want to first mention that two things also in APRIL happened which is the american arab american heritage month and also we celebrated para educators and appreciated them . so that is also in event and that is why I am here to talk today to speak especially about the r 35 positions especially about the central one for andrew murano. We really advocated the child the community health outreach workers really advocated for this position to support them for many years we've been advocating for it and last year finally finally after cdc approved it, it was hired and we were able to get this person to support our child's and we were able to create systems. We were able to create
mentoring groups. We were able to support the youth outreach worker, the student help advisory board where you saw isaac come here and speak and now it's been going to be taking away. please please reconsider. Thank you. My name is michelle vidal. I'm the school social worker at ves valley elementary school and a parent in the district and as 60 I'm here tonight to support my colleague MR. Jorge rodriguez on behalf of his valley elementary school. He is the glue that holds our school together. Please resend his layoff notice . We cannot do this work alone. We cannot do this work without him. All of the people on our team are so invaluable and so important. We've been struggling to get our feet on the ground for a few years at this valley and we can't start next school year without him. We have the money in our budget . please rescind the layoff notice. Good evening commissioners DR. Sue and student delegates and happy foster youth awareness month.
My name is lynn bush and I'm a counselor with the foster youth services coordinating program and I can personally attest to the fact that our school counselors work tirelessly to support foster youth and all of our students. Tonight the board decides on the fate of 34 counselors on the list for layoffs. But this is not just a staffing issue. It's a threat to the very support system our students rely on schools counselors manage academic and college planning, mental health and safety concerns and so much more without them are already overworked. Teachers and administrators are left to pick up the pieces and it's not sustainable. What's especially frustrating is that despite schools asking to keep their be the support roles, the california department of education MAY block efforts to rescind layoffs. Why our students deserve better especially our most vulnerable . This is wreaking havoc within our schools and further destabilizing our communities. Furthermore, the timeline for
rescinding layoffs does not work. We must rehire before the school year gets out calling the next group please come line up. Maxine. David. Christine. Matthew. Anna from this valley think it's a good day for me amelia rivera so do you know gina silva? Hi my name's anna chan. I'm a third grade teacher at valley elementary school and following up with this michelle said first I want to say really appreciative that there will be no teacher layoffs. But honestly as a teacher I cannot do my job without MR. Jorge rodriguez. MR. Ah he helps with attendance. he made sure my kids are in class to learn. He helps my students and families with spanish bilingual translation he makes
he made connections with those families for like eight nine years. He's been at our school. He's helped with recess complex. I had a kid who was having a difficult day and his head was on the table. He was not engaging in lesson. I asked her what is it that you needed? And right away she said like I just need to talk with MR. R she she knew that like MR. I would be able to help her out and that he cares about her as you trust him and then got MR. R and 50 minutes with him and she came back ready to learn in the lesson so again don't take that away from us 3% all the way up. hello, my name is amelia rivera and I am the community school coordinator at base valley. Also here to ask you to rescind the layoffs and I'm here also advocating for MR. Are as proud as I am to see our students here civically engaged. It's a school night ten year old should be at home doing homework resting, playing not here and fighting for basic
resources for their school, for their teachers and for their parents. they're here advocating for their parents as well. we need we are a community school. We take care of our whole community and our parents, our teachers, our students. We need people like MR. R who are able to support our whole entire community. I am here also to deliver letters from parents staff members and students that they wrote for the board. We also have a petition with 173 signatures at a school with 200 kids so that's 173 families that have signed. so I please ask you thank you for. My name is maxine david. I'm a parent educator at james lake middle school and I'm here to speak about the peer educator layoffs specifically the layoff of kenneth hazelwood with the lgbtq students student services department. We know that at least 30% of students in middle and high school in the district identify as lgbtq and we also know that
when they have these programs and services 20% are less likely to attempt suicide. So what does it mean in a political era that's clamoring for violence against lgbtq plus people that we're so willing to put these programs last that we're willing to lay off the people who are providing vital mental health intervention for our students. thank you. when is rainbow club is a question hurled my way over the years very often thanks in large part to kenneth hazelwood as a few estes current lgbtq school climate coordinator. This position is classified as a parent educator and kenna was meant one of many to receive a layoff notice because of elliot drew shawn's refusal to authorize a reversal of layoff notices. We will be losing the only person in S.F. Who is these lgbtq plus student services effectively eliminating the department as a few city has the money to fund this one
position and we cannot let deshawn an unelected bureaucrat donate away what S.F. Residents voted for no layoffs fully fund our schools now also I'm a teacher at king all that stuff is like super illegal. we got to get that teacher back. thank you all for your time . Gina share our tiffany ago you cannot solve years of mismanagement with more mismanagement. There are about 100 open classroom positions with funding we need to be hiring for you for these positions is permanent, not temporary. We're competing with other nearby districts. Teachers have a choice we will lose quality teachers by not offering permanent contracts. we need to rescind these para layoffs. These positions have funding. We cannot let an unelected fiscal advisor elliot do sean continue to block the maintaining the hiring for these positions? we need fully staffed schools now. Thank you. I'm calling next group lisa
cola nicky stefon eldred araceli ortega. Kelly pond maria angie marino come to the podium please. Okay. Hello. Oh, okay. My name's lisa cookie and I'm the special education teacher at visitation valley elementary school. There used to be two of us. Then there was me and halftime and now there is only one. I can't tell you how much I rely on MR. R because he helps with translation. Communicating with parents, getting them much needed information about meeting with me so I can support their students and these parent layoffs impact impact our school greatly because he's not just a position he's a person and we want him at our school and we have the funding to have him at our school.
And the the layoff notices are they they take away security a sense of confidence. I mean how would you feel if you got a layoff notice and it's like oh well you know the positions there but you know we just have to lay you off. It doesn't feel very good and so I want to say it's insulting and we need him at our school. he's an integral part of our school. he's the heart of our school. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, commissioners superintendent sue and student delegates. My name is stephanie eldred and I'm the community school coordinator for taylor elementary. we next year we're going to have over 600 students where the second largest elementary in the district. If these layoffs go through we will lose six of our paraprofessional educators. We will lose our community relations specialist that focuses on our families needs. We will lose our school climate coordinator that works on school belonging and for instructional aides it is an enormous school and we cannot do this work with the core
staffing model we ask you to rescind the layoffs that was the money is in our budget between our community school grant our title one funding and our student success fund and honestly have to school. Our principal didn't even know this was happening. He's too busy trying to hire you're going to start losing administrators as well. thank you. Good evening. My name is kaylee ponte and I am the school climate coordinator at your taylor elementary school. I'm here to tonight to fight in solidarity on behalf of myself and five of my colleagues perry educators veronica moran, saida henderson, juliana cruz and jackie lowe and our community relations specialist adriana delgado as we have all received layoff notices that we are urging elliott dushan to allow districts to rescind our six positions collectively support all 600 students at air taylor especially those with the greatest academic and behavioral needs. Our peer educators provide consistent academic interventions for our kindergarten first grade
students, our community relations specialist maintains regular communication with families and strengthens our school community. I respond to behavioral challenges and provide restorative and conflict resolution strategies to create a safe learning environment and that doesn't even cover all that we do day to day. Your taylor has already allocated funds to it in our school site budget for our positions next year which is why we need transparency and answers as to why elliott design can prevent our layoff layoffs from being rescinded. thank you all right. Here. Okay. Thank you. all right. Perfect. thank you. Thank you for your help. Okay.My name is araceli ortega. I'm my mother and I'm here to talk about that all the of that is happening in the schools. There are more than 123 people are being laid off in unfortunately this is the
spanish of the interpreter speaking. There were so many things that the interpreter couldn't understand because the person was talking very close to the microphone. Okay, thank you. good. Good evening. My name is andrew moreno and I am the wellness health education and youth leadership coordinator. I am one of the art 35 that has received a layoff notice earlier my manager najwa ahmed was up here speaking on my behalf as well as my student. I like lisa so I just want to rep I was here last month I believe talking about what I do. I support youth leadership programing. I also support the child's and 34 different schools. I provide consultation professional development these are all things that towns need in order to be able to staff students and families
consistently. so I'm just here as somebody part of the community asking you to please resend this of these layoffs please don't give somebody else who's not part of our community the power to do that and please remember and reflect what kind of ancestor will you be? What will you be remembered for? I am part of an indigenous community and I'm consistently reflecting on that. okay, thank you online for online comment at this time. yes, it's time for online comments. Thank you. All right. So we're going to virtual public comment on zoom and we were doing students first. I see a lot of adult hands up so we're going to do students first so please lower your hands if you are an adult. Can we have that repeated in spanish and chinese please notice and the most amongst the comments that follows comment that is publicyou're student and you care to speak to anything on the agenda this evening.
So when you come to my right seeing none for students virtually we'll move be moving on to agenda items so please raise your hand if you care to speak to the agenda item this evening again we'll have one minute each and jjincorrect name I'm oh margaret had at washington high school as opposed needs to keep my far away from our students students need their counselors assistant principals perez in and out of the special education set setting security staff and our lgbtq student services coordinator many of these positions are the people on campuses and in our district who built the strongest connections with our students motivating them to regularly attend school and strive to do their best by connecting with them in the hallways, engaging with them with them in their classes and supporting them as they work towards graduation. one of these positions are lgbtq student services coordinator literally ensures
that our students survive thanks to this position in particular our students are 20% less likely to commit suicide than the national average. Our state financial advisor elliot dushan MAY not think that these positions are important enough to keep. He MAY think that stalling the start of speed hiring until MAY and continuing the hiring freeze for other positions won't hurt our students. But I know that having fully staffed schools and ensuring that students can survive and thrive because they feel supported is the most important reason to keep all of these. Thank you chris. I think I'm chris. thank you. Virginia marshall oh thank you so much MR. Steele and the board commissioners lipton and sue on behalf of the san francisco branch of the acp DR. Jones and both the PRESIDENT And MRS. Brown PRESIDENT Emeritus, we implore you to we thank you number one, that no
teachers will be laid off. However, in the classroom the classes for our staff then I vow I'll play a vital role and making sure our children are educated. So we implore you to rescind the layoff notice for the classified staff and look for funding and keep the classroom whole in SEPTEMBER. That means a paraprofessional that means that apparently that means all of those staff members that means the care to staff all those staff members that play a vital role in educating the whole child in S.F. Usa today I was a daughter of my granddaughter. I watched a child have a breakdown meltdown and I watched the parent calmly bring him back and get him back into the group thinking was going to play a vital role for us. thank you so much. So is gina's iphone okay. my name is gina curtis and I'm a teacher librarian. I'm at eldorado in san
francisco community school and so this month is mental health awareness month and there's been an incredible win in our district which is that our students are significantly less likely to attempt suicide and experienced bullying than the national average. This is a direct result of the services and support our district offers in a moment where students are under attack nationwide it's appalling and frankly violent to cut lgbt iq plus services as well as counseling and parent positions so we can sit here and say we're making these decisions for financial reasons but the effect of cutting them is no more than an endorsing of the trump agenda to erode rights and attack our kids. MR. Dushan whether it's your intent or not, your implicating yourself and everyone at 555 franklin and throughout the district in a future where our kids have higher rates of bullying and suicide attempts to reinstate lgbtq plus services now well thank you
pamela oh pamela audio hello my name is pamela or you're my teacher librarian at longfellow elementary and hillcrest elementary school. I'm also a parent at a local elementary school. I'm here to speak on behalf of support of marti, our our community outreach coordinator . She has a position that's are 40. She like my colleague has said in past comments she's the first person that families and students see at the beginning of the day and the last. She's a vital part of our community and the heart of our school. Please rescind her her layoff notice. thank you. Thank you. Cindy chen cindy okay, great. My name is sadiq chen and I'm a parent and starting in parent advocate with S.F. Parents I'm very concerned that the state has imposed hiring restrictions that will result in hundreds of classroom vacancies this fall. We have already experienced as
the school year this past AUGUST 2nd weeks before school was slated to start our principal informed us that we had ten classroom positions that were vacant in addition to an assistant principal position that was eliminated over the summer. The hold it city review of all positions last summer even though we informed everyone that we had teachers retiring and heading out for mat leave months in advance it took until OCTOBER and NOVEMBER to get these roles filled and urging the state tonight to lift hiring restrictions so that principals can fill classroom vacancies and all it can have a qualified teacher in their classroom on the first day of school this year starting as losing another two positions in our mandarin immersion program and mandarin cannot be taught in a combined grade format. It's a character based language that requires characters and grammar taught in a tightly sequenced progression. Losing two teachers only to have to retire for the next school year is a lot I think for our entire school community and will result in more families leaving the public school system in lieu of private options.
Thank you kena hazelwood can cannon my name is kind of hazelwood and I'm the lgbtq student services coordinator. I remain one of the 123 educators who get to lose their job on JULY 1st. My job is synonymous with lgbtq student services. Thank you so much for shouting out one small piece of my work and for your participation in the rainbow read aloud doctors do but that's only a tiny amount of what I do. Since the current administration took office I've been receiving increased requests for support from our students, staff and families they're experiencing higher rates of harassment their simple desire to come to school and get to the business of learning and educating is being undermined by people who do not understand that lgbtq inclusive schools helps everybody feel more free to be themselves. The majority of my work has been fostering understanding and extending supports. We have numerous families moved to attempt to attend our schools because their homes are no longer safe.
We have the money. If you cut this program in this moment where lgbtq identities are under attack is basically asking our most marginalized and vulnerable communities to be betrayed by the school system that they have put their faith in as if you had historically been a beacon of hope for and trans communities. Please continue to time. thank you and the out case casey hello, my name is berniece casey. I'm a parent of two children at sfo usd. I am very concerned that the district is trying to get rid of max his word. I think what they just said is super important and my concern when the board makes decisions is that you're making these decisions without having a backup. What's your backup when you get rid of all these positions, what's your backup visitation valley when you don't have
those people, what's your backup at star king when you have parents leaving in mass because you don't have enough teachers, what's your backup for our school buena vista horsemen the way you mishan build the transition from our site to another site you need to have data about what's going to happen when you do these cuts. How is it going to impact your bottom line? How many lawsuits are you going to have because you are making decisions that harm children that are not child focused? thank you thomas reidy good evening. Student delegates commissioners and superintendent my name is thomas reddy and I am a teacher at george washington high school. I also have the privilege of being our schools lgbtq liaison a position designed to promote inclusiveness, visibility and support other liaison positions can only exist with the support of our district's lgbtq support services which are vital to the well-being of our district's diverse lgbtq
students and staff. I'm alarmed to learn that asfa usd has decided to essentially eliminate our district's lgbtq lgbtq support services for when you eliminate the only position in the program you're essentially eliminating the services completely. I asked you to rethink and overturn this decision. This cut will be devasted to our lgbtq students and staff such as myself. Thank you. Thank you. Sara kern. Hi my name is erika and I am the teacher librarian at harvey milk civil rights academy. Earlier this school year I had the honor of speaking at a press conference held by scott wiener in recognition of trans rights being violated taken away. There were many speakers from as of tuesday including DR. Maria su who vowed that our
trans students would be protected and supported and I do not understand how that is possible with the elimination of the lgbtq student services s position. Like I mentioned earlier, we have had families come from other states to our district to my school specifically. Without that position I don't see how we could continue to support these these families. We need to rescind that layoff notice. thank you. Thank you, regina. Hi. My name is regina fletcher and she her pronouns. I'm a S.W.A.T. Grad and current teacher. I am really urging you to keep our one and only lgbtq coordinator position. As many other speakers have said, people come here as trans and lgbtq families seeking safety. I have educator friends at private schools and sacramento saying that trans students are
coming to private schools. I have friends in ohio who after the bathroom ban are homeschooling their children is these things actually could happen here and it is so important that we have a dedicated person on the front lines and we have a very qualified one. Thank you. thank you. That concludes our online public comment. We will be now going to our u e rep G.A. Tillery and where I go oh there's a therapist and then there and there. Everywhere I go there's a pair standing there. there. Oh. Sometimes when you run out of words you you just got to sing . good evening, commissioner. Superintendent educators, students, families and community. My name is T.R. Ancillary. I'm the vice PRESIDENT Of the
parent educators with the united educators of san francisco. I'm also a proud parent educator 25 years here in S.F. Usd. And I come before you again tonight. Not for the first time and now for the last time for sure to speak on behalf of the 123 peer educators whose futures hang in the balance. I've spoken to you every meeting since the passing of the workforce reduction resolution of brought you testimony of shared personal stories. I've lifted up the voices of the people who show up every single day to support our students. But tonight I want to be absolutely clear about what I'm asking for. I'm asking you to rescind the layoffs of all educators. All of them. I'm asking you to allow these
powers to return to serve you as dh in open positions that are being funded for the 2526 school year. I'm asking for you to truly consider the needs of our students, our families and our school communities and how these para educators and how without these parent educators the harm that can be caused because what is happening to us ,what has been happening to us for years it's not just an administrative decision. It's not just about numbers. It feels quite honestly like we're in an abusive relationship. Let me explain what I mean by that. You tell us how much you need us, how the work of supporting the whole child cannot be done without us. But when preliminary layoff notices and final notices are
sent out, what does that mean? That you needed us? It seems like this relationship is one sided. But yet we're still here begging you to take us back because we love our students. we love our schools. We love our families. Oh yes. And we love our school district even though doesn't seem like they love us back. By the way, I want to take a moment to say happy california teachers association educators and support professional day that will be happening next tuesday. I truly appreciate all that our para educators do here in S.F. Usd including instructional aides elementary advisors, student advisors, attendants liaisons, naturalist
family liaisons, child welfare attendance liaisons, school climate coordinators, school community aides, central office parent educators who support all sites and those that provide chinese, spanish and arabic so that our families can communicate with the school sites. I appreciate all of your commitment to our school communities. And if you didn't know those are the positions that we're potentially well that we are laying off. educators have shown up for us. They showed up for this district with loyalty, with heart, with strength. We are the steady hands guiding students through challenges. We're the ones that listen when no one else will. We help kids feel safe, seen and supported. We communicate with families. We discuss as we de-escalate
conflict. And we walk the halls. We knock on doors. And we hold space for every single child especially the ones who are hurting the most. And they return. We give silence. We get threats. We get uncertainty. We get pink slips every year we're told to hold on that maybe this year will be safe. But maybe this time we won't be. That maybe this town will be spared. We hear things like it's just a budget issue. It's nothing personal. but it is personal. It's personal when you dedicate your life to a job a year out the year you're told you might not have one as first of all when you you're told by your admin that your religion is safe only to have hope shattered by layoff notices without warning, without care, without accountability. it's personal when you're working with students who
depend on you every day while knowing that the district has already decided to let you go. it's the emotional manipulation and the mixed messages, the lack of the lack of transparency the way we're made to feel like we should be grateful for whatever scraps of security we're offered. That's what being in an abusive relationship looks like. and now here we are again waiting for the final blow. Final layoff notices will be sent out in just a couple of days. Do you understand how triggering that is? Do you understand how painful it is to show up to work on MAY 16th to walk into the classroom ,into school sites, into district offices to smile, to kids and coworkers to support teachers all the while knowing
that our time is being cut short. We'll still be working till JUNE still giving everything that we have to our students still giving the district the best of us even after being told we're no longer wanted. We no longer belong. This is more than just the paycheck. it's our community. This is our purpose. And it's being taken away coldly and in many cases unnecessarily. Why do I say unnecessarily? Because right now school sites across the district there are open funded positions available. There are vacancies for the 2526 school year that can easily be filled by many of the 123 peer educators that you're laid off. In fact, schools have already earmarked money to pay for these positions and yet our people have not been offered the jobs. Why is that? Oh, I know you can't answer me
as I can't tell them. Why are we pretending that there's no money when there is money? Why are we acting like there is no money when the money is already allocated? Why are we putting people through this pain when solution is sitting right in front of us ? Early edition. I'm asking you personally to allow our educated educators to continue to do the work they've already been doing in the schools and in the communities they already serve. Don't let this become the moment we look back on with regret and shame. You have the power to do something right something just something humane into my commissioners. I know you have a job to do. I know you're navigating complex budgets, state mandates, tough decisions. I understand that. But we have a job to do to. We're the ones trying to keep
the cuts away from the students just like you are. But not the budget cuts. The emotional cuts. We're trying to minimize the harm. now what you fail to realize is that we're creating more harm. We're not extra we're not optional. I know we're uniquely made as a few as d. I've been to other states when I say san francisco and they say oh I get it. But they never like us. They not like us. We have positions to support the whole child. They cannot even begin to learn . If we can't get them into the seats right, they cannot begin to learn if they're still dealing with the violence that
is happening in their community and they don't know how to express it so they act out. These are things that our parent educators help to support the whole child. These positions are so needed even if you think that they are not. They are. we've been patient. We've been hoping for the best but we're hurting. We're tired. I'm tired. we send the layoffs. I don't know what else to say. Like we're saying the layoffs. Let us continue to do what we do best serve our students, strengthen our schools and support the families in san francisco. Don't let MAY 15th become a scar that our district carries for years to come. Choose a different path. Choose care. Choose justice. Thank you. I want to thank members of
the public for coming here today to share your experiences. Provide us feedback. I know many of you have also emailed the board many of your thoughts and we've heard from a lot of schools, educators, community members and I just want to say first and foremost thank you for your time. Thank you for your dedication to our family, students and our schools and and we look forward to partnering with you to make some of the more challenging conversations and decisions that we have ahead of us. But I just want to underscore our gratitude for everyone being here today. It is late on a school night and you all have a voice and so you are exercising that and I thank you so much. So thank you. And then I go ahead and move us along to align with student outcomes focus governance the superintendent and her team are tasked with providing a draft of each agenda 12 days in advance. Once that draft agenda is made public on our website board members have made a commitment
to submit clarifying and technical questions. And staff have made a commitment to respond to those questions in advance of each board meeting. If you can please watch your volume just as you transition out of the room that would be greatly appreciated. What do we want for oak hill? why thank them again? Well I don't think ten oh oh you know 000 awesome. Okay. This q&a is linked into each board agenda on board docs. We invite the public to review those questions and answers alongside our discussion today . Additionally, to create more space focused on student outcomes we be moving most items to our consent calendar and identifying only our highest priority agenda items to discuss. Board members are reminded not to restate questions answered by staff in advance but instead to bring forward strategic questions that allow us to
better understand our progress towards our goals and the underlying strategies that we can be better informed in our decision making and to partner with the superintendent. As we hold our accountable moving item f advisory committee reports and appointment appointments item one resolution to appoint a board member appoint a member to the independent citizen's bond oversight committee or sybok. Can I have a motion and a second please? Some moved seconded. I call on the superintendent or designee to read this into the record. What we're here just to summarize. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes, I can do that. Good evening, commissioners. Listening to a buried director of the bond program. The item before you is appointment of a new c member min chiang min chiang would be sitting in the senior um or associated with a senior organization seat. This is a seat that's defined in the ed code as required on a
c back and there was an application process. She was the only person that indicated that she was a member of a senior services organization and that is why the appointment is before you tonight. Thank you. Are there any comments from the board? Seeing none. Roll call. Vote please. MR. Steele. Thank you. I want to see back appointment. Student delegate montgomery. Yes. Student delegate lamb. Yes. MR. Alexander. Yes. Commissioner fischer. Yes. MR. Gupta. Yes. Vice PRESIDENT Huling. Yes. Commissioner. Right. Yes. thank you, commissioner wise award. Yes. PRESIDENT Kim. yes sir. Moving to item g discussion items item one 2025 update on school facilities and I. Oh there you go. Hi. Good evening. I'm karen sullivan.
I'm the executive director of facilities and capital planning. I'm joined tonight by listening barry bond program director and melanie lao smith. And we are here to provide an update on the work that has been done in the facilities department over the past year. Thanks. Thanks, gentlemen. I think one before this thing great to start off we wanted to provide some context on our department. Within the facilities division there are three different programs that includes facility services. Capital planning which I oversee in the bond program which is overseen by listening to our portfolio includes 155 facilities within that 155 properties there are 120 school sites. And as you can see from the square footage numbers, you know the total of our square footage within the building envelope and the exterior square footage is in excess of millions of dollars.
Next slide please. this is an overview of the funding that is available to the facilities department on an annual basis. I think this slide really highlights the importance of the bond program. You can see that funding from the bond is far in excess of funding that would otherwise be available for capital improvements based on the condition assessments that were completed in 2022. Even with bond funding we still are not able to meet all of the repair and replacement needs that we would need to make to bring our facilities to address all the needs in our facilities. Next slide. And so since our need is greater than the funds that are available, we use the facilities master plan that was approved in 2023 to help us prioritize our capital our capital funds to the highest priority projects. So this update will include an
overview of projects that were completed in 2020 for projects that are currently underway and things that we have planned in the coming years. and so in order to identify capital projects, our facilities department works in close coordination with the different programs and so our buildings and grounds department is responsible for preventative maintenance. They also learn about reactive repairs through our work order system for repairs that are outside the scope of buildings and grounds. They are forwarded to our capital planning department. And then those projects are prioritized and assigned to either our facilities design and construction team or our bond program. And so now I'm going to give a brief update on the programs within our division for buildings and grounds. Their priority over the past year has been ongoing maintenance. There have also been some significant investments made into improving air quality and indoor heating systems.
As you can see on this slide and on this slide, this is an overview of all of the capital investments that were made in fiscal year 2020 for both by our facilities design and construction team that oversees projects funded without bond sources in our bond program. I think something to highlight here is that with both of our programs we were able to touch 108 sites and what we like to see when we look at this map is there was also a lot of geographic diversity throughout the city in our facilities design and construction department. Our focus is on improving water quality through the installation of filtered water access points, making investments into core functionality so systems that preserve the building envelope and helping with the rollout of universal transitional kindergarten and then supporting our goals around outdoor learning. The chart on the right provides an overview so just a little more detail about what's included in core functionality. and as you can see there have
been significant investments into our building systems and these investments are really focused on preserving the building envelope so waterproofing structural improvements and roof replacements. And now I think I'm going to pass it over to the senior to talk more about the bond program. Great. The bond program has major programmatic focus and fiscal year 24 has really been the security program as we've been implementing system improvements across the district to ensure that all schools have a compliant P.A. System. A major area of focus for us has also been completion of the modernization program from the 2016 bond and initiating our core functionality improvements as part of our bond funded investments. Um we have also entered into partnerships and schoolyard improvements with the sfp U.S. And cal fire. We have for school yard renovations starting construction this summer and we will celebrate the completion
of the everett middle school squared renovation next week. as for what we're doing moving forward into the next year, buildings and grounds and fdc will continue with the investment priorities that they that karen just spoke about earlier in the presentation. And we're also adding restroom upgrades which is a core functionality priority that we consistently hear from stakeholders. The bond is really focused on beginning implementation of the 2024 program. You can go to the next slide. We have begun sharing school sites where the first group of 2024 bond investments will begin focusing on sharing information with site leaders. As we begin a partnership with them that will last several years between the bond program and these sites, we're also continuing the implementation of the split funded projects that we shared with the board earlier this year. and as for process during
stakeholder engagement for the 2024 bond planning process, the bond program assembled guiding principles to select sites where projects would occur. Importantly in that process we committed to transparency to actually sharing with our stakeholders and our community how decisions were made. And so this slide provides some information the criteria that was used was geographic diversity looking to spread the investment across numerous cisco neighborhoods ensuring we had a mix of school types early ed elementary, middle and high schools, a range of project sizes in terms of dollar value and complexity and then that we use the data that we have now. So the facility condition index scores facilities data that we have from our conditions of electrical and plumbing systems . And then sort of as a sort of tiebreaker if you will, eligibility for the state facilities program. I was also a major criterion as
as I think most folks know, the state also has a bond and we want to be able to leverage those funds to extend the life of our own program. And so we are excited to get started with this ambitious program and this concludes our facilities update. thank you so much. I also want to thank you for your time in our briefings to provide us some information in advance and reminder to the commissioners that there were many questions that were answered by staff in this given it's a discussion item. I'll open it up for conversation and we'll start with one question for commissioner and we'll see how far we can get with that. Are there questions from fellow commissioners? Seeing none and just kidding. I'm just going to try really. commissioner commissioner ray hi there. Good evening and thank you for the detailed question
and detailed answers to the questions. I really appreciate it. I just wanted to get a sense from you wasn't more of a specific question which is why didn't raise it before but what do you feel are the biggest challenges facing the bond programs and or you know, facing the various projects that we're doing? And I'm wondering how you approach those. I could really talk for hours on that topic but I know that PRESIDENT Kim will not allow me to do that. So I would say that the biggest challenge facing us at every site every time we initiate a project is scope of work and trying to fit a project within a budget that makes sense both for tim to meet the critical needs of the site while not spending our entire program allocation there at that one site. So scoping is full of difficult decisions and I think yeah I would say that's the biggest
challenge. This isn't it's not really a question just a real appreciation for the work that you do and and everything that you've done to help facilitate partnership throughout the city as well. I. This update doesn't do justice to the amount of work that's been put in to bring shirley chisholm village to fruition over the past couple of years. The amount of work that's been done not just internally but with our building partners um you know the amount of work that went into last year's bond um it just the collaboration with the mayor's office of housing and community development just all the work that I just want to thank you for everything that you're doing to make safe spaces for our students to learn. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. thank you, PRESIDENT Kim thank you all. Just one question I had was on shirley chisholm.
I noticed that we're not at 100% vacancy 100% uh of of our homes um occupants are you think I know that right? I'm curious if you could say a little bit more about what's happening there. um, I can we were actually just talking about that today. So at shirley chisholm we have 135 units that are available 134 when you take out the managers unit to date we have 99 units that have been leased to us few city employees there's five who have move in schedules. So that gets us to a little close to 80% be set by sfd as d employees there is a set of units about 17 that have really specific income and accessibility requirements and so within that 17 those unit the 17 units three of them were leased to as of usda employees and the balance had to be released to the general public which is the third tier our first year teachers as
obviously teachers. The second is other non educator employees and the third is the general public and so we just didn't have anyone on our waitlist who applied who made these really specific income and then accessibility requirements. And so that leaves us at this juncture a balance of 21 units that remain to be leased up. We are hopeful that the balance will be filled by as a view as employees and but if we exhaust the waitlist then we will move to the general public at that point. Thank you and I'll just wrap up by echoing commissioner fisher's gratitude. i had the pleasure of listening in to commissioner fisher. She shared more information regarding shirley chisholm with the sba delegates who are in town and it truly is serving as a model for other districts in the state. So thank you so much for your work and with that um I bet you I do thank you. Yes.
Moving on to item h action items item 1255-13 esp one superintendent's proposal to declare MAY as national foster care month can I have a motion as I can please motion yes I so move thank you second call the superintendent or designee to read this into the record. Thank you PRESIDENT Kim this resolution is to update the data within an already existing resolution that was originally passed by this board in 2004 and it is an opportunity for us to bring greater awareness about the needs and experiences of our students in foster care. So foster care. Additionally, since 2004 the california department of education revised the local control funding formula to identify children and youth in foster care as students who need additional supports. Sfi usd receives funding accordingly and therefore this resolution aligns with our vgs and our el cap.
Thanks. That's it? Yes. I hope you all support it. Are there any comments from the board? yeah. Thank you very much and sue for proposing this. I guess I just want to make sure that this declaration is followed up by concrete action steps from the board so that we're not just because I think there's been a history in S.F. Usda of making bold statements about justice and equity and then not following through . So I'd like to make a request that when we look at our monitoring reports around our academic goals when we go back to that that we look at data on foster youth and that we also incorporate plans to support foster youth, you know whether it be around the goals or guardrails on particular strategies so that so that we're not just sort of having a resolution but we're actually tying it to the work of goals and guardrails.
I appreciate commissioner alexander's comments and wholeheartedly second those. Um and I just really want to appreciate everyone who brought this resolution to us. Um, as a former foster parent myself, you know this is an issue near and dear to my heart. Um, and I can confidently say that I wouldn't be sitting in this seat if it hadn't been for my experience as a foster parent. Um, so good things happen when you foster. Um, I also want to point out that san francisco is in desperate need of foster homes right now. Um, we have need for more than 100 foster homes right now so if anyone is interested, um, please visit. Foster dash S.F. Dawg that's the website where you can get more information. Um, and it's quite the fun journey I I 100% recommend so um, please help support our youth here in san francisco. Thank you, commissioner fisher any other comments? Seeing none.
We'll do a roll call vote please. MR. Steel thank you all on the combination for making the MAY national or recognizing maine's national foster care month student delegate montgomery yes. Student delegate them yes. Chris alexander yes. Commissioner fisher yes. MR. Gupta yes. Vice PRESIDENT Julie yes. Thank you commissioner ray yes . MR. Weissbourd yes. PRESIDENT Kim yes sir. Nice. Thank you. Moving to item 2 to 5 5-13 as to fiscal year 20 2425 third interim financial report princeton unified school district and I have a motion and second case so moved second I will call on the superintendent or does he need to read this into the record? Thank you PRESIDENT Kim I am going to invite MS. Love smith melillo smith our executive
director of all things in the district and MS.. Ann marie gordon, our interim chief our interim chief of financial officer before they they start I do want to just number one thank them and the team for doing really, really hard work over the last several months. It is our budget is a beast. It is very difficult. There's lots of moving parts inside it and I just greatly appreciate both of these leaders who have been able to jump in and and spend an hours and hours in combing through our budget trying to make heads and tails of it and and doing their best to produce a budget that not only makes sense but is going to be viable for us to make really hard decisions as well as a budget that is coherent and understandable for the rest of our community. So I just want to acknowledge
how amazing these two are and I just greatly greatly appreciate both of them for just all the all of your hard work and countless hours that you're spending on our budget. So with that I'm going to hand it over to MS. Smith thank you, superintendent. So and good evening commissioners and student delegates. It's great to be here early enough to have you at it during the presentation to hear your comments. Appreciate the time. I wanted to thank you all for the opportunity to present to you the third interim report and as DR. Sue said, I'm joined by emory gordon, our interim financial services officer who will co present with me. I did want to both anne marie and I are very aware that we present a lot of numbers but we know that behind every number there's a story and there's a person. So while we will be talking about numbers, we're aware that there's a lot of hard decisions that come with the information
we're sharing tonight as though the last of three interim reports that we're presenting to you this fiscal year and as we shared with the second interim report, the reports are an opportunity that provide a snapshot of the state of the district's budget by identifying changes to the revenues and expenditures and the fund balance. They also provide multi-year projections for the following two fiscal years. And so for this report the third interim will be looking at fiscal years 25, 26, 26, 27 and 27 and 28 for the first time. So we're getting another window into further into the future unlike the first two interim reports, the third interim report does not include a certification we didn't even ask to have the slide sorry go next slide. This slide summarizes the steps the board has taken since JUNE 2020 for towards implementing the fiscal stabilization plan and tonight's presentation
and we'll focus on the third interim and really show you the progress that we've made towards the $113.8 million worth of reductions that will be incorporating into the fiscal year 2526 proposed budget after tonight's meeting . We'll be back in early JUNE for the first reading of that proposed budget and then at a subsequent board meeting will be presenting the final recommended 2526 fiscal year budget and I'll turn it over to andrea for the next slide. Thank you mary. Good evening everyone. So millie already shared some of the context behind why third interim we do typically present just two interim reports in a year. But because any district with a qualified or negative certification at second interim is required to submit a third interim later in the spring. So that is why we're here. Third interim when you're looking at the report, looking
at the data, it is a snapshot as of APRIL 30th but it is meant to project our ending balances as of the end of the fiscal year. So it's also seen as a year end projection. If you look at the data in the actuals on the the report itself because we're here presenting a little bit earlier than is required we the actuals are a little bit earlier point in time than you would typically see if we were bringing this forward in JUNE. But the focus of the report is really on the budget and the projected totals. Next slide please. You'll also see that we do not have a third interim report for our county office. That is because our county office has had a positive certification for its interim reports forever I think. But at least recently because the qualified and negative
certification has only applied to the district, you will only see a third interim report for the district looks like as we move through these slides just for a visual cue. Any table that has blue headers is the unrestricted general fund and any table with orange headers is the restricted general fund. It does mean that on these slides we don't actually have one combined total of our general fund and that is something that we can bring forward with the recommended budget. So that you can see both sides of our general fund combined as one here we see our unrestricted general fund. This is the update for third interim as compared to second interim in MARCH as you go through you'll see that I guess the takeaway is that our unrestricted general fund has our forecast this year has slightly improved.
This is due to a an increase in some of our local revenues which you'll see in row b this is specifically leases and rentals and some of our interests that we get the those projections are higher than what we originally estimated and then you'll see in our total expenditures in contributions our budget has gone down. We've made a few reductions. This is meant to help better and more accurately reflects what we expect to spend by the end of the year. This is something we're continuing to try and improve is how we project where our spending is really going to land by the end of the year. So we're hoping that this we believe that this will be more reflective of where we're going to land. That said, while this is an overall improvement when you look at road d our net surplus or shortfall you can see that we do continue to deficit spends. That number has come down by quite a bit over the course of this year but it is still challenging when we expand to look at our multiyear
projections. Next slide. So here we have the orange header so the restricted general fund this is all of our restricted funding from all sources across the districts and you'll see here we actually have had a slight increase to our budget as well as a smaller but slight increase to our revenue there aren't significant changes here compared to second interim in terms of patterns and spending. The increase that you see in the budget is driven by an adjustment to our routine maintenance budget. This is a required there's a required portion of our budget every year and I'm actually I'm not sure this MAY have been something that was discussed maybe slightly briefly at first interim it was a it was a fairly large adjustment that we made to the way we were budgeting for those funds and basically we made one initial adjustment in the fall as we were correcting the budget.
but there was one more adjustment that was required this spring. So I think happy to share more if we need to but it's something that I wouldn't expect to see another swing of this size in the future. I think the adjustment was basically identified and corrected in the fall and so now as we're going into budget development we are clear on how the budget needs to be set up moving forward and so we wouldn't need a large mid-year adjustment in the future. Next slide. so similar to second interim and as we see up here we we are required when we submit our multi-year our interim reports when we submit them to see they were required to show what our multiyear forecast looks like without having made reductions. This is a requirement and so this is what we're going to look at here is first what our forecast looks like without reductions and then we will
come back and look at having implemented reductions. What we expect to see we have added the 20 2728 projected budget that far right column it isn't actually required in the third interim report but we wanted to get an early look at what 20 2728 is going to look like and when we come to you in JUNE with the budget that will be officially part of our multi-year projections and we will speak more about the long term plan at that time. But here we did want to at least show what what the trends look like and where things stand so overall going through these projections, both the revenue and expenditure growth is updated based on local control funding formula estimates essentially going through all of our major funding sources to estimate what reasonable changes we expect to see over this time period. And the same goes for expenditures there is always a little bit of growth in salary and benefit costs, a few
adjustments of that nature but no other significant changes because we have to demonstrate what it looks like before we've made more significant changes. And so what you see highlighted in yellow is our pattern of deficit spending continuing and growing our revenue does grow a bit and so that helps keep the deficit spending from growing sort of exponentially or I guess in a more significant way. But ultimately what you see is over the next few years we would be drawing down both the rainy day reserve and our budget stabilization reserve and within a couple of years we would not be able to meet our financial obligations without taking action like the overall pattern on the restricted side is similar. This is similar similar
assumptions around our revenue growth or change and our expenditure growth in change. So you can see that without making any reductions if we were to continue to spend at the rate or budget at the rate that we currently do, we would spend down our available restricted funding over the next several years as well. I do think it's important to note here that this picture is not quite I feel this is this doesn't reflect the fact that we are knowingly deficit spending so that we can spend down one time funding sources. right. This is sort of a if if we truly weren't to do anything but we've we've taken action over the past few years to account for how we spend short term funding or one time funding. So really here we do have to
acknowledge though that some of the funding that we have available to us will expire or we'll spend it and it will not be backfilled. And so we have to really be thoughtful about how we plan for what we can provide and what we can guarantee once that funding is used and then finally I think one note that we've added that is that we hadn't specifically built in to second interim is that we are using a portion of our f other general uses funding to support our special education overall budget we are currently using I believe about 13 million this year and we plan to increase that to 25 million next year and forward. So that is built into the total expenditures that you see here . So getting to being able to look like look at the multi-year projections with reductions we have the fiscal stabilization plan that is
guiding that process and it was first introduced with the 2425 adopted budget and it did outline the reductions that are necessary to balance the budget through fiscal year 2627. The district and the board recommitted to this plan both in DECEMBER and MARCH at the first and second interim. We're going to share with you today the revised fiscal stabilization plan. We've been spending more time looking at it deeply and making adjustments to accurately reflect the reductions that are underway as part of the budget development process. And these reductions will be built into the 2526 recommended budget. You go next slide please. This is a lot of numbers and it is a bit to go through. We added for the first time the savings from the serp, the
supplemental early retirement plan both in positions that were eliminated so you can see the savings for the positions that were eliminated plus we added what would be the salary savings for positions we continued and looking at the difference between the average what an average salary would be and the salary that the person who is retiring is and what that difference would be. We also added that the cost of the supplemental early retirement program is at about $5 million a year. So we back that out of the adjustments and even with backing that out we still we're at about $111 million 111,000,000.3 I think if I can see from here and we will continue to work looking at non fte both contracts and supplies you will also notice that we while we do we are no longer eliminating middle school bus transportation for a next fiscal year. We want to give ourselves more time to let folks know about that.
We have been able to move those costs on to restricted monies for the one time so we were able to look at that as a savings towards our fiscal stabilization plan. The and so we continue to work towards this and when we come in JUNE will also include an updated fiscal stabilization plan that will reflect the cuts that are in the 2526 proposed budget. So those two will align. So here we can now see what our multi-year projections look like having implemented it and incorporated the reductions that are in the fiscal stabilization plan on the previous slide. So essentially this is a significant improvement. I think that that's important to note first off is that when you look at the the magnitude of deficit spending right road d the reductions that are in the fiscal stabilization plan essentially cut deficit spending in half for next year, which is right that is
significant and significantly positive that allows us to maintain our rainy day reserve for another year. It allows us to draw down the budget stabilization reserve in sort of the way that we intended to that we could over time align our budget and that reserve would actually help us do that in a a gentler way or a more gradual way. And it does mean that right now in 20 2728 we are slightly in the red. That's the-1 million at the very bottom right of the table means that we'd be required to have about 31 million in our fund balance and this is projecting just under 30. But and so that is some of what we'll be looking at as we go through the recommended budget. Right. Bring in this this year officially as part of our multiyear projections and have that long term plan for how we
make sure that ideally we might have a little bit more than just the bare minimum in our fund balance by the end of 20 2728. But for a first look this does feel like a very solid step in the direction that we want to be heading. I do think in the long run it is important to note that we are still deficit spending, right? We haven't fully gotten to where we would ideally get over a longer period of time but it is an improvement and also noted on the slide is that this multiyear projection does not currently include any assumptions about negotiated salary increases as a legal requirement. In these reports we are meant to reflect any commitments that have been settled and so because we have not settled and we are in open negotiations about salary increases there is nothing that we are required to incorporate until we have finalized what our financial
obligations would be and one other additional thing was the fiscal stabilization plan that was approved by the board in JUNE 2020 for had included 13 million of cuts for projected for 2627. We are a little bit higher on a little more than double that. So there will when we come in JUNE we'll have some recommendations for a fiscal stabilization plan revision for the 2627 project. I mean I'm sorry 2526 projected no, I'm losing my mind right now 2526 projected budget I'm sorry. yeah. And that is actually on this slide because those those the the original fiscal stabilization plan included the additional reductions on the restricted side where we have block grants that are expiring where we plan to fully spend the money that we have but then
once we've spent the money right we have to then reduce our our budget. We have to reduce our spending expectations where we're no longer going to have money to support that spending. And so what you see here is really a similar sort of a similar picture where we we are still deficit spending again on the restricted side because we're managing one time funding that we received in one big allocation already. It means that that money is sitting in our fund balance and we have to spend it down. It has to look like we're in the red in order to actually maximize all of the money that's there. but what you can see is that we draw down without getting to the point where we have overspent what we have and really I think on the restricted side, you know, as we'll we'll get more information I realize I'm jumping to the next slide. We don't need to go there yet as as we are as new funding sources come into the districts
they're most often restricted and it just means that there's more that we have to be really thoughtful about when it comes to our planning. We just have to be tracking what funding we have available, how it can be used and how it all fits together because it is it can be complicated but it really is a puzzle that we're trying to fit together in the way that makes the most sense for for for our district, for our students and for our schools. So with that I think we can go to the next slide, right? Although the budget stabilization plan is a very challenging plan to commit to and to stay committed to it does it is helping us take the steps we need to stabilize our budget. We expect to get an update on big picture funding factors from the state as part of the MAY revise which should be released this week. Any impacts on our budget will
be kind of interpreting and then bringing forward as part of the budget next month any right if there happened to be any any major updates we'll obviously keep you informed as soon as we know. and then in general everything that we can incorporate will be incorporated so that the recommended budget is the most up to date and most accurate picture of of what next year will look like for for the district. So I think one final note as you look at the documents, the third interim is a slightly smaller report compared to first and second interim the it's mainly the update on the current year, the multi-year projections and cash flow we don't provide all of the other supplemental forms. They're not a requirement. So please let us know if you have any questions but it is sort of this is more more comprehensive of the entire report that we submit to C.D. Compared to a full interim report that has some additional information. Thank you.
I thank you for, uh, just your herculean efforts to get us to where we are right now. I so just in terms of process, this is uh uh this is an action item so we are voting on this and uh but it does not go to the state, correct? Or does that oh okay. Correct. Okay, great. Um so I'll open it up for questions from commissioners. Uh, if I can just start um oh yeah. Oh yeah, actually yeah. Do you all have questions that you want to ask before you need to be dismissed and I thank you so much for the presentation. Um, my question is on just you know clarifying question on the comparison with the multi year projections with reductions and without specifically for the unrestricted general fund uh the projections with reduction with reductions that's just a reduction between
the 20 2425 third interim budget to the 2526 and then from after that is it with the doesn't include any other um reductions in spending that's just as if is the state saying for those years yes yeah it's basically 20 2526 you are we're deducting out what's in the stabilization plan and then everything else kind of grows and adjusts the same way that it did in the first version. all right. Thank you for that student olympic um, can we go to slide 12 really quickly? I do have a question. So at the most basic level right um regarding a positive fiscal certification at some point it's a metric that we put on for the superintendent we're closely checking whether or not we're making progress towards that. The definition pretty straightforwardly is that we will meet our financial obligations. And so my question on slide 12 is I mean we're projecting a
shortfall continuing through fiscal year 2728 the budget stabilization reserve will reach negative by 2728 and the rainy days reserve will be zero by 2627. Those two reserves are self imposed reserves right and the 2% required by state law is the economic uncertainty reserve right? correct. At what point I mean so if you could just put in layman's terms like where we see red red is not good and if if we are to meet our fiscal obligation financial obligations for any given year, when will we reach that given the current projections, given the current projection right now as the student delegate pointed out, when we're looking at 26, 27 and 27 828, we are not anticipating any other cuts or reductions. So in order to get out of the
red we have to anticipate more reductions and part of that will be thinking about our how we strategically leverage our restricted funding to to get to the funding where we want to be is we want to be balanced with our lcf what were our obligation for our lcf based and supplemental and concentration grants and be very clear what we're funding through our restricted supplemental grants so that you could keep going each year and fund the same things on your lcf based and supplemental and understand each year what services are supplemental with your restricted monies. We're not quite there yet. We're working towards that but that really is as man and we said we're going to get more funding most likely and it will be restricted in time limited. So we as a district have to really be clear what are we paying for out of our lcf phase supplemental and concentration grants? That's our biggest pot of money and what services do we have to
anticipate either continuing to find restricted moneys for or services that end when the restricted monies and when we can get to that level you will you won't see red anymore. Okay. Maybe you see red in different ways but that I think is where we're trying to guide you to as far as we can as a roadmap starting in JUNE and then as we said before, we really budget planning is a multiyear thing and it's an ongoing thing. So we have to really be doing this all year round. So so if I can just respond reflect back just so I make sure so our fiscal stabilization plan did not account for what I assuming are increases in expenditures that we're projecting over the course of the next three years. Is that accurate to say and I don't know. I think the fiscal stabilization plan was designed to address actually if we go to slide eight this might actually
be a good way to describe it. The yes. So the the red that is highlighted in the like the net surplus shortfall all is is actually not the focus of can we meet our financial obligations right the question of whether we can meet our financial obligations is whether we have red in our ending fund balance. And so if you look at for all of this year we've had to submit our financial reports for the budget year plus two. So that's 24, 25, 25, 26, 26, 27 and in this multi-year projection we know that we do not meet our financial obligations in 20 2627 right. The red in the ending fund balance and so basically our finance our fiscal stabilization plan is trying to correct for that. okay. Sorry. I didn't mean to like hide the ball on the answer there. I just I guess that was my my wanting to get to clarity on that is that the ending fund
balance is what's most critical here not necessarily whether we are in a shortfall in any particular year, correct? yes, but it is yes. And the deficit spending is then sort of a an indication of where we are headed, correct? Right. And so that's then if you were to if we go back to the slide 12, you'll see that even though we are within $1 million of meeting our financial obligations, we're $40 million over which would be the next year we're sort of back in this, right? Okay. Yeah. Just wanted to confirm and one other thing is I think that the fiscal stabilization time is a bit of a static thing really budget planning is constantly making adjustments like as soon as you see a little bit of red you start making your adjustments so it doesn't continue to to grow. So in a in effect your whole budget process should be about stabilizing your budget like shouldn't needs stabilization plan. So I think the first one was
very static and now it is something that needs to continue but really you build the muscle of doing this naturally every year and then you won't need fiscal stabilization plans. thank you so to stay on slide 12, the thing there's two things I think that are really concerning to me when I look at this one is that if I do the math in my head and I project out it looks like although although we don't need to do this many years out for certification requirements for c the e it looks like even after making this year 114 million expected cuts if you know when we approve our budget in JUNE we will be on track to run out of money in 2829 and so we're still on a downward trajectory. It's just that we've slowed the rate basically at which we're going to run out of money and I don't know my kids going to be in sixth grade then so I'd like us to not go bankrupt. I'm sure there's a lot of folks
who like to avoid that for many reasons and so the other big concern that I have is that this doesn't and for the reasons you stated it's not required to and can't but it doesn't reflect any increases in pay for any of our staff educators or not. And so to me what this screams out especially rosy is that we have to continue to make really like structural changes to the district to whether that is our staffing model, our school portfolio, our like whatever efficiencies we can find to slow our run rate because we actually should be having in order to account for anticipated pay raises that we must have to continue to retain our staff and to not run out of money. Our ending fund balance needs to actually get to the point
where it's projected increase every year not because we're hoarding money and just to have instead of spending it on students but because we need to have that money to account for increased cost of labor which are the dramatically largest expenses that our district has as as they should be. So I guess to me this the takeaway here is that we need to potentially make more than the $30 million of changes because 30 million will get us to that ending fund balance and staying level over time. But really it ultimately needs to go up to allow for raises. Is that is that a correct understanding or overall? Yes. Yes. I think the only maybe caveat that I would add is that the fund balance once it is it is one time right and so on what right now having 40 million in the rainy day reserve we have it but once we spend it we've spent it unless we replenish it.
And so I think for for thinking about salary increases it can also be helpful there to think about total expenditures or how much we're deficit spending or not because ultimately salary increases will be an ongoing expense every year. So your fund balance could hypothetically get you started but it's not necessarily going to sustain you when it comes to that like ongoing year over year commitment. But right but I would you're your description of it all I think was was accurate that you know if by continuing to sort of take stock of our overall picture and align our overall revenue with our overall spending, you can actually think about how to strategically build space in the budget for an ongoing increase. and then can I just ask a follow up question about the assumptions around total revenues going up? I understand that there's some hopefully safety that we can count on like continued colas
and things like that and I'll see us lcf model but I just want to check do these assumptions also take into account our projected enrollment over those years and the projections in declining enrollment from demographers that we're receiving. so the well I got an echo oh the the total revenue is in our unrestricted revenue is primarily lcf and then but then it is then right some federal some other state and and local revenues. So in here we have built in this is our our most updated lcf calculator so it doesn't it's it's relatively conservative in ada growth I know we're we're seeing increases in tc enrollment which will lead to 88 growth but this is actually a relatively balanced take on our lcf projected projections over the next few years and the same is true for the other funding sources. So I think right we'll I think
that expecting some growth I mean the state budget can always take a swing that can have an impact but I think overall this is you know accounting for our patterns because we do look at three year averages for lcf also and so it isn't we don't get, you know, drastic jumps if we have drastic jumps because you're just adding in a new year into your average but that is all factored in for kind of all of the information that we have as of now. Thank you. I just want to start by thanking you so much for all the work. It's like I can only imagine what a tremendously huge and overwhelming job this must be to tackle. So I really appreciate it. I have a few questions. My first is just a procedural one as commissioners we were able to submit questions as of yesterday because of the information not coming out at the usual time. Will the commissioners question and the answers to those be
made available to the public? Yeah. Yes. Yes I if I could go ahead and add them to the document it's an active document so we go ahead and okay, thank you. That's very helpful. And then I'm sorry my other questions are substantive and I have very similar concerns as commissioner huling raised as to how we end up being stabilized if we essentially continue to be in the red for years to come. So and if we do so by all by essentially spending down all of our reserves to to even sustain what we're doing so far so I've just run through these and you could answer them in whatever order you want. I'm wondering what sort of what is the impact or the risk to us from the almost complete running down of our reserves? What are the you know, what are some of the options we have for addressing this basic problem
of, you know, of continued spending more than we actually have and I in a sense in the from a different perspective we've seen large discrepancies or swings in the past from what the district projected it would spend and what it actually spent so that you know, we've ended up better in some ways than we expected us to be. So I'm wondering how that plays in as well and whether we think our projections of what we're going to spend are better than they have been in the past. We've often seen such a large difference. Thank you. All right. We are going to tag team. So your first question about the implications of drawing down our reserves, we do end up with a it does put more strain and more risk on the district overall need to have very low reserves. Right. We are meeting our mandatory minimum but as a large district with a lot of staff having low reserves can present challenges with cash flow during the year when there's certain months
where we're right, where respond, where we have transactions happening all the time. Right. Everything isn't evenly spaced out over the course of each month of the year and so that can put some strain on whether we have sort of all the money in the bank that we need if we have a month of a low receipt of funding but still expenses coming through. Right. Processing payroll, all of that ,it can also present sort of it puts our overall forecast in a slightly less in a slightly weaker position. So when it comes to things like bond sales, other types of financing, it can affect our overall ratings because having reserves does reflect in a prop an appropriate amount of reserves can reflect a strong financial position. Anything you want to add to that? Okay. I'm going to actually skip the second one for a moment and the sort of the big swings that you mentioned. Right.
That is something that we've seen a lot of variability realistically right in between what we've budgeted and then where we come in with our unaudited actuals and our actuals each year. It's challenging because some of that is we need to make sure that we are like with a budget and a district the size of ours we have to be appropriately conservative to make sure that we don't accidentally overspend because if we do then we're in a position that can be really challenging to recover from but we also don't want to do that so much that it then means right that we're cutting more than we need to cut that we're you know that we're abandoning or ending programs or services that we actually could have maintained. And so I think that's something that we're continuing to try and be as careful and as thoughtful as we can be to make sure that we're not swinging too far to that side out of out
of uncertainty. I'm hopeful that the adjustments we made for third interim are going to be a better reflection of where we're going to end at our year end projection and our unaudited actuals. But they're like there are there are going to be changes. I think that we have made some adjustments already earlier in the year like bringing down our benefit rates where we realized we budgeted a little bit high, a few things like that. I think it has been tough speaking honestly with having having turnover in business services where you can really take the time to think about what is the approach we're going to use, analyze it, reflect on it and refine it that having having some of the turnover in in staff that we've had has made it hard to have that continuity of our approach . Everyone comes in and just looks at it a little bit
differently and so think you know so I think that's that's a factor but I think that I do also I think maybe the last thing I'll say here is that I do think that pam on one of our right our fiscal fiscal advisor has been really, really helpful in she's been here since 2021 and so she's someone who's been able to really take a look and when it came to preparing this report, looking at interim reports does have a very balanced view and recognizing where we can bring down the budget because we really don't think that spending is going to come through or make recommendations and help help me and I think help the staff who are here with sort of pressure testing what's appropriate so that we we can cover anything that might come through at the end of the year because we do tend to have more spending right at the end of the year as people want to make sure they've spent what they can without having so much there that then we have this unexpected drop. So I know that's a lot but I think it's it's just really
trying to do that and be as observant as deliberate as we can and knowing where where we're taking a conservative estimate to make sure that we've at least covered our bases um yeah I don't have too much to add and I think and we sort of answered the the question around the options so I think as we refine the staffing model that's another area to look at in terms of what are we looking at, what is the staffing model and how does that help us project our expenses and if we have expenses due to long term vacancies, do we need to rethink some of our program services? So those are the areas that you sort of look at to be sort of conservative but a little bit liberal and that really is the balance that is the the strategy of building. And I do agree with andrea. I think this first this year with the transition to front line is is a bit of a challenging year because we're in between two systems and we're trying to really
track expenses in a lot of ways . I think when you finish your first full year of frontline and you're building budgets next year with that information you're going to probably be able to track your expenditures in a way that we haven't done before and then you know you do another year. So if you on the second or third year of your front frontline I do think that your budgeting and your costing out and projected will will continue to refine and I think we'll have some suggestions on maybe some ways to work more closely to at the school site level and how are we doing budgeting to really leverage the discretionary moneys that school sites have with our overall budget budgeting projections like those all really can come into play. So I think there's improvements that can happen in the future. Can I ask a clarification? I thought when marie was sorry MISS Gordon was answering she was answering my first and third questions and not the question about the options but
I think that you were referring back to her answer so I'm sort of confused. can you just apologize what the options what some options are for addressing? Yeah. Yeah. So some of that okay. Thank you. Some of the options are also part of what she talked about like being really refined in projecting your expenses, looking at your benefits rate, understanding like where you can have the plus minus and then other options more other different types of options are refining your staffing model looking at programs and services leveraging really being clear as a district like what are we funding through restricted funds and when those go away do we back do we have a plan to backfill it and make that plan as part of our unrestricted or is our plan that those services end like being very concrete about that because if you're not then restricted money goes away and you're kind of like oh do we do we keep the program? Do we not keep it but making more of those decisions beforehand so that when that happens it's already been it's
an expectation and people are aware of that. So those are ways to sort of manage your budget as you're moving forward. You so I don't think we can echo enough of the gratitude because again just recognizing where we are starting from to where we are now and the clarity and refinement that continues to happen. And so I look forward to continuing to speak I guess not speak for my fellow board members but you know, to kind of speak we all look forward to continue to partner on this. You know, if I if I start so I just want to first make sure I understand and as a follow up to a question that I had earlier and in the prior briefing, does this reflect all our costs and all our revenues currently if I look at page 13 I know in an earlier slide there was a mention of you know some things are excluded but does this include namely when I look at say the revenue I'm
calculating so about 1.24 billion does that include city funding etc. Etc.? yes it is it is our it is our total general fund and so it does mean that what is missing is some of our special revenue funds. This would be well the county it's also excluding for example we get specific funding for our early education programs. We get special funding for student nutrition services and then bond and capital projects because those are all very unique and specific special revenue. They are maintained in different funds so they're not part of our general fund. So those are excluded from this but all of our I would say the majority of other funding that right that we talk about is all contained here. Okay. Um just to get a sense, you know approximately what percentage of the overall budget then we're looking at
here compared to all in ballpark all in I would guess we're at like 1.5 or 1 point maybe 1.6 billion. Okay but the vast majority of what's missing is is bond and capital projects the student nutrition services and early ed I believe are combined less than 100 million. Got it. Okay. That's really helpful. And then same question on the costs. You know right here it's about 1.44 billion when we look at the general fund are there costs that similarly are missing and again if we look at all in what what percentage are we talking about, it would be a similar similar rate. Okay. So really it's the the the expenses that are excluded are the expenses that we're budgeting against those special revenue sources which are all self-contained and so similar
in proportion and break out across but early education student nutrition we do have a small adult education fund and then capital projects. Um okay and and we can present a set will present a full summary of that also with the recommended budget it's just because of the smaller nature of the third interim that we only focus on the general fund that that's helpful and part of part of the intention of my questions is just to understand if what else is hanging out there if there is any significant liability that is not funded then it would be great to understand. So it sounds as though that those those pieces that are are currently not captured in this are generally the costs match the revenues. So there's nothing that that is incredibly worrying when we look at this overall picture. Okay so when I look at when I look at this and again given where we started from, it looks
as if the intent and the the way in which this is designed is in please correct me if I'm wrong is to use all the funding that we have and to save as many staff positions as we currently have as we go through this incredibly painful period is that generally accurate? Um we as we try to use the funding and would you say that that is accurate? Yeah since most of our funding is positions so we are looking to to preserve as many programs and services as possible and be more and be strategic in the abandonment of programs and I think that was the idea of the supplemental early retirement program was also looking at a way for a staff who MAY have decided that, you know, I'm going to retire now instead of
in a year or two to also look at a way to reduce positions without eliminating positions. Does that make sense and then preserving positions that we still need to preserve but not having that have some salary savings in those? So I think it's on both and I mean we we're we definitely want to preserve as many positions because those are they provide the services but we want to think thoughtfully about the services we continue . I, I appreciate that and so I guess my my question I don't know if you all can answer this now but what is that financial model that then we need to move towards or is there a financial model that helps us to get at to connect our goals that we've stated that we're focused on in the in the in the visions, values, goals and guardrails around third grade literacy, eighth grade math college and career readiness and how we then structure this because my my fear is if we're looking at it from okay well we need to get to this budget and we continue continually need to
cut that that's not as strategic and and and I recognize you know in the current moment we're in it feels like you all are doing the best job you possibly can given the information or in a way the lack thereof just given our current human resources, our payroll system and whatnot. But I you know, I don't have a particular perspective of as to how we do this. I'm kind of looking to your leadership and I guess also to to your leadership superintendency as far as how do we get to a point where you know, in in any organization that I've ran or when I look at organizations as sort of you know, there is a separate financial model that looks actually you know, that is an excel spreadsheet with the right variables or you know, the right systems to be able to sort of say okay, if we pull this lever, this is where we need to you know, this is this is where this funding needs to go. And so I'm curious how do we get from the current system?
I guess to something that then does help us to make decisions as board members as to what we then have to potentially make more painful cuts around or what we potentially even double down. I mean you let's not just frame this in terms of cuts but what might we say oh well here's where we need to invest more and recognizing that that gets us to better outcomes and potentially even you know, is cost neutral of of I'll tell you some of the thoughts I think I have an american in is as we've moved to a very student outcome focused governance and really naming the student outcome goals with your goals and guardrails we have to move the budget in that direction. I it hasn't been happening at a parallel rate but to move the budget so you can make decisions about our student outcome goal of third grade literacy is our goal and these
are the budget decisions we have to make. The first goal I think is to really deeply design your budget so that you can map it to that and I think that's where we're trying to get closer to is mapping it to we have the instructional coaches as part of the staffing model because that's the third grade literacy we have social workers as in health outreach workers as part of the whole child and be more intentional about that and having to have some really hard conversation about as a leadership like what are we can't do everything on whole child is whole child going to be this support or that support. It probably can't be both but I think where the budget as you always say the budget does define where your priorities are and we have it needs to be more accessible. So like you can look at it and say oh I understand our staffing model is this our primary goal is third grade literacy, eighth grade math and so we have a staffing model that does that and then we might I would probably I'm just
you do maybe do this differently but then we have our whole child which is that's our supplemental how do we support with our supplemental funds and really being clear with yourselves like what is our lcf based supplemental concentration for our student outcomes then that's where it goes and if a whole child is our supplemental then what is our supplemental moneys do? What are our restricted moneys? So having both of those conversations I don't they didn't happen at the same time. So I think it's a bit of I think I feel like the budget's a little behind the goals and guardrails but that's where you want to be because then those discussions when you're having discussions about student outcomes you're also having a discussion about the budget at the same time that that's really oh sorry, did you want to know I just want to add that that's the reason why having a school staffing model was so important for us to start because we wanted to make sure that we knew exactly the different positions we wanted to allocate into schools to
support the vgs to to be able to be implemented and that's why we were so fortunate to be able they had the cerb to be able to say that we were not going to lay off teachers because we knew that in order for us to really fulfill our visions, values, goals and gladwell's we needed to have teachers teacher in every single classroom on day one of school thank you. Um, this has been a very I'm going to build on what commissioner gupta just said because I appreciate this has been a great conversation and yes, much love to our budget office. Thank you for the work you're doing. Um and it is going to building on what we heard in public comment from one of our commenters too about some of the and I think vice PRESIDENT Huling you mentioned it the some of the assumptions that we make going into this budget you know under enrollment when we
have to increase this and one of the investments we've made is a brand new literacy curriculum that actually teaches the foundational reading skills because one it'll meet our third grade reading help us meet our third grade reading goals but also hopefully and the data shows in the science shows will reduce our referrals to tier two and tier three and special education cost three times as much as general education. You know the the data we have from the legislative analyst's office. So I'm wondering where those potential reductions in in services are reflected here in this budget. First of all and also following up on the strategic investments . Love to see where um where we've analyzed some of our top expenditures and what we can do to reduce them. Like for example I'm hearing that we're opening more more school psychologists positions in some of the related service providers from special education because we know they
are so costly to hire externally and it's better to it's much easier to have actual employees doing the work than contractors. Um and the other area we I think I've heard you say DR. Sue that we lose 30 to $50 million every year due to absenteeism and so what investments are we making in that area like our child's potentially family liaison some of the folks that we're cutting now like these could be strategic investments to reduce those losses. So I'm wondering where is that logic to to help close that gap in an expenditure that we're just missing? I mean closing that $50 million gap by having some people actually focus on attendance, I mean that could be a game changer for this multi year projection. So I'm wondering like where are we where is that strategic thinking in all of this? Those are those are excellent points.
Commissioner fischer once again when we built the staffing model we created knowing that we wanted to make sure that we had certain positions in our schools and then from there we went and built the budget around the staffing model and then of course from from there we made the very painful decisions to make reductions and cuts based on the staffing model. So we wanted to make sure that we prioritize what was core to meeting the visions, values, goals and guardrails and and so that's how that's why we have a budget that is what we have now where we have to make these painful reductions to meet the staffing model that we have created for ourselves. Having said that regarding regarding attendance, you're absolutely right. I've been saying that on average we are losing upwards of $50 million a year for students who don't show up to school on a daily basis. And but what's more important
is that students are losing upwards of 4,000,000 hours of instruction. What I have been doing is going and trying to fundraise private dollars so additional restricted sources so that we can implement a truancy prevention program here. I know from many, many years ago as few we used to have a very robust truancy prevention program, attendance support programs and over the years we keep shrinking this program. But we have I actually have a proposal out to several funders right now for that. I also know that the state is also looking into some attendance prevention attendance programs. I just wanted to check in something as well I hear I see MR. Dushan is here and is there anything is it okay to ask if he wants to add anything? I was going to ask I was going to put him up after our
questions were done. Okay great. Which MAY seem to be right now . Good evening PRESIDENT Kim DR. Su commissioners who ladies to my right I want to start with the good you've done some very powerful good and painful things this year. Um let's start with the less painful which is well I don't know that it wasn't painful for MRS. Smith and MISS Gordon because they probably put in hundreds and hundreds of hours but this is the best budget we've seen and I don't mean good in terms of money, good in terms of quality of the numbers in it. Part of that is is due to staff really looking at a staffing model and I want to start with that in a minute but I also want to give due credit to your h.R. Department that was very
proactive in working in your business division and working with offering of serp that obviated many layoffs that you would have had to do in order to even balance your budget in hiring and then I know it's painful as it is but letting temp positions go I want to assure you that using that staffing model as cdf for school advisors we have approved wherever there is a demonstrate need meaning if you show that there's a school with 22 teachers and it needs 24 and there's not two available we're okay and that you hire those. We're also not touching your local funds being the student success fund and the pto funds . Your H.R. Department also looked at every possible source of reducing staff in the least painful way. That being said, I want to go back to a couple of questions.
I think commissioner gupta brought up the number of positions and more than one of you talked about the model. There are two elements that are critical to your budgeting right now. One is the staff model and there are two parts to that staffing model. There's the part which is really not discretionary that means and it's it's it's pretty simple and bare bones literally it's the number of teachers required by either your collective bargaining agreement or state statute and it's like I know you hate this but the people who turn the lights on and off you can't even open the school without them that being said, you have lots of other resources that go into that staffing model in there and there's like two parts. So I don't I couldn't pull it up and put it on the screen that it's things like that are
not required by the state to do their part of your el cap. They're part of your piece some of them that puts you in a dilemma along with every other school district in california was the use of one time money to hire people and you were told to do that when you got to ask for money from the federal government, covid mitigation money weren't in recovery money. You were told to address issues of learning loss during covid the way you and every school district in the state addressed that was by hiring people. Um those of us I hate to use the term more conservative in nature saw that as a real potential problem in that you hire people, you become committed to them and there's no mechanism for the ongoing level of funding that you had from esser covid mitigation learning recovery. So then you had to as soon as you hired them you basically have to turn around with the
strategic plan to eliminate or replace the money with in order to keep those services find other money. So the model for truing up your budget using your words you don't remember them but I do from the first board meeting I visited this gordon talked about chewing up your budget, rightsizing your staffing and it's not easy when you come from a position of having lots of resources so that staffing model was a major step ahead for the district. The second thing and it's still a work in progress I think you've heard me say this before is position control and one of the issues and this is why and this wasn't in myself at take I'll take all the bad here are very conservative about saying you can hire people back is your position control is still not solid when you say
and I don't me I'm not questioning anybody's honesty or integrity it's just a matter of you don't have enough track interviews staff to say for sure there are x number of people at a school or on the payroll that will be rectified once you come into front line and you're then going to have to go through a process which is very manual to say hello and this is principal we show that you have 22 teachers. Can you give us their names? Can you validate it? And it's it's a painstaking process but very critical. So I think what I'm trying to tell you is that conservatism has a place albeit painful in the end it will probably bring back many if not most of your staff that you're also going to have to prune the tree. There are programs you have that you just don't get money
for anymore so that comes back to the question I think more than one of you has to probably commissioner who maybe all of you asked that how do you serve your vague and if you take you will never have as true zero based budgeting model that you will start at your required staffing and then build on that and that's where your third grade literacy, your student wellness and your college graduation and readiness all come into place and as a board, as a commission those are the painful decisions that even though they're good if third grade literacy is the place where you want to put the pedal to the metal, then you're going to not be able to put the pedal to the metal on your I'm just fourth grade P.E. Program although you happen to be very fortunate because you have swam and teach right? So you can do that the part of it and this is an observation
from an outsider you have a lot of money it's just distributed in a lot of places and cast this is opinion based on many years of being around that if you used it in in both more tactical but even more strategic way you would get a better performance out of whatever goals you want to achieve and that concentration of how you put your resource is an example and I know DR. Seuss familiar with this you have lesson study that's part of I don't remember how many elementary schools are doing that but lesson study is a data based proven program that improves instruction actually irrespective of the content because it's based on teaching methodology. Gee that is the type of program that's database research verified where you can say this is an efficacious way. I'm using big word budget to
spend your money and sometimes you're going to have to look at that if you want to get the concentration of benefit and not spread your money thinly. So my message good or bad in indifferent is that you have come a long way that you have a long way to go. PRESIDENT Kim I want to speak directly because I know in several conversations you've been looking for that definitive answer of what makes us positive or what makes us not negative and that's a little bit more complex than just your budget because as you MAY or MAY not recall, the district's gone through two fiscal health risk analysis out of those risk analysis there were a number a large number of very high risk things in the district including stability in some key positions particularly your cbo position. And I say that knowing your staff is doing everything possible to fill some of the most difficult positions there
are in public education. So you can't just overnight say okay, we got a cbo, we've got a cfo, we've got this and we have that but those things need to be brought into place for you to be what's considered a going concern and and be able to meet your fiscal obligations and I think as you know repeated anyway, there's kind of three criteria you can meet your fiscal obligations as the state says you MAY be able to meet it and the state says you can't you still can't. So we are working every way we can. And again, I have to say your staff and it has been easy for them because it's been a very different paradigm in terms of staffing, in terms of looking at where even people are in the district producing reports absent a sound fiscal system, an erp has been which you call it labor intensive almost literally hand counting a roster of nearly 10,000 people. So there is still plenty of work to do. I want to commend you on the
decision you have been making as a commission. I know that all of you either continued on the board or ran for the board knowing full well what you were getting into. I want to thank you for that. You have so many resources here and I think that the deliberate use of them is really critical and you are moving in that direction. There is I think as you've been told, you need to find more money. That's what to do other things than you want like to deal with employee issues. I don't think you mentioned it but I will you usually build the call it given what your projected for the next two years so the state and school services project the cola they build that into the model but just to let you know how difficult that is if you get a 1% cola you're already in the hole because your ongoing expenses are at least one and a half to 2%. Now I'm happy to answer any questions. Again, I can't commend the
staff enough unfortunately I know one of them is retiring and you but um I really want to thank them and the people who I think I saw this bear in the back of the room I'm the worker division is done with handling the layoffs, handling all the legal parts and the legal division. So thank you. Thank you, MR. Dushan. And of course as always we appreciate your expertise and guidance just just to be able to respond. I think the intention of asking around the specifics around the second positive or rather the positive fiscal certification is to get to clarity on exactly what we need to be doing to ensure we get to a place where our numbers are clear. We are meeting our obligations and that we are able to get to a point where we say thank you
very much for your service and goodbye. And so with all due respect and so I just want to be clear because in some ways while this is a very challenging emotional and very real process as we undergo some structural changes in the district, there's also a very real numbers question that we have in front of us making sure that we not just cross our t's and dot our eyes but that we can look at our budget and have the confidence in knowing that we are in the right tree. And what I don't want to do is get into a world where we have confusion on where we need to go and what our exact and precise numbers are that we need to reach. And so part of that I feel like we've gotten some great clarity from the state and understanding what we need to do to make sure that we reach our numbers.
The language of positive fiscal certification I'm merely just taking from state letters that have been received by the board if those are changing I think that's that is where I want to make sure that we have clarity as a board to hold the superintendent staff accountable to exactly what are we working towards right. And my understanding of what we're working towards is again just reading from the actions required from the state to address our deficit spending for the district to meet its fiscal obligations in the current and subsequent to fiscal years which is getting to a positive fiscal certification. So if that is different from what our ultimate goal is, I think that's the kind of clarity we need to make sure that we're going in the right direction here. But again I'm just wanting to make sure that we're clear on exactly what we need to do as a board to make sure that we are reaching the goals that we have shared between seed and ourselves. Yeah. And I just wanted also to make it eminently clear that just
balancing the budget MAY not get you there for sure because there's factors like stability your fiscal health review analysis is germane to the decision the state will make in looking at your budget so and that's where it gets more complicated maybe 1200 has standards and review that they look at and when the state looks at your budget I'm not talking about this wasn't myself but I just I just want to make it clear that there's other work behind the budget, that's all. And no and what I'm hearing is that there is a growing confidence in the numbers and the direction that we're headed if this is a conversation around the systems and in structures on the day to day we we fully trust our superintendent and her staff to be moving in the right direction. I think the question is what is the role of the board and making sure that we hold the superintendent accountable to do all of that which I think has been captured in all of our metrics for the superintendent this year. If there is something that is
missing there, I would encourage you and others to please share that with us. But my hope here is that everything that the state has asked for we are holding ourselves accountable to that somewhere either in the superintendents evaluation or in our own reflections as a board. But if there's something that's missing I just don't want to make sure that I want to make sure rather that we are very clear on exactly what's needed in the work ahead. thank you. I really want I appreciate PRESIDENT Kim you're pushing on this point because I think it's really, really important for us as a board to be clear about about what it's going to take because that is the direction we gave to the superintendent and it's not fair to her as an as our employee and for us to not be clear as to our expectation audience and we really need clarity from the state as to what that is. And if it's not just the
numbers, it can't just be it's complicated like there needs to be we need something in writing that in my view it should be measurable metrics and I thought it was I my understanding was that we were looking at measurable metrics and if we're not I would sort of request that we have some clarity on that because it's and the other piece of this and MR. Dawson I you have are an amazing resource and have been incredible for working with us but it's been almost four years now right? And I think I was concerned I have to say tonight hearing from the community this idea of an unelected bureaucrat making decisions for us that's the first time we've heard that kind of thing. I mean honestly, I think our our partnership has been very constructive. I haven't heard people calling you an unelected bureaucrat before. so that concerns me just from a public perception point of view also of like you know, is it you know, I'm saying like people should we should have a partnership where it's very clear like you're our partner
in this, you're giving us clear expectations, you're holding us accountable. We're working together and I don't want to get to a point where there's a sense in the community that folks don't understand or the goalposts are moving or it's not clear. Right. You know, we're not holding the superintendent accountable. So I just the more we can be clear, I think the better. so I don't know if you have thoughts on that. Do you think MAY I respond to so just because it's really I mean you talked about goalpost moving and I think that's where some of the frustration is is I I hear this continued you all the district not not the board the district staff is doing incredible work they're doing these things. We have a job. We have business. We have our budgeting department. We have folks doing much more in a much more thoughtful intentional way. We're seeing it's one of the best budgets you've ever seen. But it does seem what is it how long have I been on the board? Two and a half years. Two and a half years. It has were never there
and every time we think we're there there's something else that I do feel like is not not something that's tangible or anything that we understand if I don't understand and I feel like the goalposts are moving wrong or right whether they are I got imagine that folks in the community also don't understand and I don't think that is a position that we can be in because it's like we're playing whack a mole and it's not a fun game at chucky cheese . It's like you're in a nightmare. So I would just ask you if you could yeah, if you could respond to both of these about you know, how why is this not moving goalposts at this point over the last two and a half years I'm going to be very straightforward and blunt. You have received multiple correspondence from the state from your auditor, from thick matt that's why I referred to the fiscal health review analysis. There were two of them. They were not good. You're making progress is that
those goalposts have not moved one inch. You've moved closer to them but they have not moved. I don't want to drag every little piece out that you don't have a cbo. You do not have a person other than a chief fiscal officer and I think that it would behoove the board to have and we've asked for this some study sessions with us regarding things like the fiscal health review analysis and we only know that you get copies of correspondence for the state I assume you all reads in the state gave you benchmarks I assume you've seen those. They've been clear. my point earlier wasn't that a balanced budget isn't where you're headed. My point was there are more things you need to have a stable business office. You need to have a stable fiscal system. You are getting there but you're not there. So it would be imprudent and not honest of me to tell
you that while you're making progress you still do not have a long way to go. So if we use the goalposts you're not near the red zone yet. You've got a ways to go because there are all those other factors that need to be answered. Now the state it's up to us. It's up to the staff at cdc whether they approve your budget and there's a whole other processes that go along with that. So I don't you know, I hope we've been forthright. I think the letters from the state have been eminently clear in terms of what the district needs to do. Some of it are things beyond your control. I mean you just you can't help it that it's difficult to get a cbo you're not alone. You can't help it that you have certain processes that were not put in place years ago and you have a 15 year well now it's more like a 20 year old enterprise resource program.
I mean our program but people so it needs to be either updated but you're doing that but you're not by the goalposts and I just want to make it clear if I tell you that merely balancing your budget gets you there and I'm still here a year from now you're going to say you deceived us. Eliot so that's why I want to be clear about that. There was a second part to it. I mean these make sure I'm going back. No, I think that was the I think that was it. But I think that the and the more that we can get that in writing to say rather than saying there's more to it I mean I think and I those you're you're absolutely right and you've been great about this about giving us all those the correspondence all that but to be super clear about what's the next what are those goalposts I think is something that I think would help because again we don't want this dynamic where like we all want to be rowing in the same direction.
We want our community, we want our labor partners, we want everyone to understand what the goals parts are. And so it just concerned me tonight to start to hear that there's this kind of sense that perhaps we're not there and so that's we just I think it would benefit all of us to have more clarity from your end of like what what what are those markers? What are the measurable if it is the cbo let's put that on a letter and and and say it you know say once we do x y, z we ought to be able to get together to say here are the measurable outcomes. Right? just like we have measurable outcomes around students we ought to be able to say here are the measurable outcomes for sfd to get a positive certification to measure our progress toward them and again that's that's what we're we're holding our superintendent accountable to. So we need to be super crystal clear about that. and one thing that I would just add MR. Dashon is you know given your experience and given your role as fiscal advisor,
it's just incredibly helpful so that we can project out so when you say for example, here are the things you're naming them right? This is not complex. You just named 3 or 4 goalposts that we absolutely need to achieve. So if we have all of that and then we can project out 5 or 6 months again you know and I'd refer to some of the community comment that we heard tonight. You know, we heard our educators say that to to have to wait until JULY to understand whether or not they're going to have a position then that that really affects our ability to be able to bring educators to then be able to bring our families back into our classroom which then affects our revenue goals and unfortunately detrimentally affects us as a school district. So it kind of comes full circle and so I would hope we could work together so that you know, we understand well in advance can meet those goalposts so that we're able to let our educators know and assure our
families that we're going to be able to provide great jobs and we're going to be able to provide a good education for our community members. I highly recommend that we have an in-depth workshop with you because some of those answers virtually all of them are in the letters that you've gotten from the state I believe every one of them except for the last one when you had a newly hired cbo as get a cbo. And so I'm not trying to be defensive. It's just it's it is complicated to fiscal solvency. It is a lot of things and yeah I'm an elected you can call me a bureaucrat it really doesn't matter. You have unelected staff that are responsible for your budget. I could go into a long explanation of why you need to weigh and if you want I can
that I don't think I don't want to argue with comments you've gotten from the public but there is a rhyme and reason for why positions shouldn't be approved. So you have a budget I mean there's just you know, it's just good budgeting. So I really appreciate your invitation to the board to have a more in-depth conversation because that that is honestly the first invitation that I've gotten and I would really love to accept it and I think that a lot of us would like to have further clarity and further collaboration with cdc to get to an understanding of what exactly is needed. I think that you know well some of my colleagues have been here working with you longer. I have not. And so since I've joined the board what I've witnessed is the district and the board taking every single recommendation from cdc and I understand that we're not at the finish line and we are not in any way arguing that we
should be getting a positive fiscal certification as we sit here today. But we are looking forward to DECEMBER and we're planning the work between now and our first interim for next fiscal year and in that time I think that we all fully expect that we will have a cbo who will be able to be recruited you know, after this current school year ends that we will have adopted a budget that accepts all of the budget cuts that have been demanded of us that we will have our staffing model in place, that we will roll out our new fiscal system, that we will continue to work on our audit findings that we have seniority list and we will have position control and so what we don't want to do is get to a place where in DECEMBER there is something missing that appears because it was not in writing from the state in advance articulated to be more of a gut feeling from our fiscal advisor as to whether or not we should be in a positive fiscal certification.
I think that the people of san francisco, the employee of our district, the families in our schools all deserve clarity about what decisions need to be made and executed between now and DECEMBER so that we can all achieve our shared goal which I know that you share of getting us to a positive fiscal certification because we are all committed to that goal and we do not want to stray from the path simply because it was obscured and so we would really appreciate that in writing and I'm going to take the liberty of speaking on behalf of the board even though I know it's our PRESIDENT's job to accept to accept that invitation and to make sure that we are setting up that meeting because it is imperative that we are all in a place of shared understanding about exactly what the work ahead is. And we know that your job is to leave us in a stronger place
than when you came and I think that some of the concern that you've heard from both the board and the community today is that when we have a staffing model that was approved by cd one, we know that we are all committed to executing the budget cuts when we know that we will be rolling out front line in the new fiscal year on JULY 1st. We do not want to let beloved teachers who are in short supply but who want to be in san francisco. We do not want to let them go across the border or across the bridge to another district and then not be able to get them back and leave our district in a worse position even if it's not a worse fiscal position but a worse operating position in our ability to serve the needs of our students . So we would really welcome that
and we really do want to make sure that everything we do is toward the sustainable strength of our district moving forward . Can I am no excuse me I'm not going to be in a position of being defensive that invitation has been open to every board member for four years. There are details that a lot of people don't know about what I want to first of all tell you your goal should not be the certification that should be solvency and this again I'm going to say there are details about what the state says in a positive certification and I will go back to your audit please. There are audit exceptions that are critical in there. You lost 800,000 hours because of certain audit exceptions. So this letters from the state have been very clear and by the way, notice we do not make decisions. There's only one decision the
state can make and that's to rescind or stay action. We have worked collaboratively with your staff. We've listened to your staff and absolutely do not think that I don't understand both teachers and I don't understand about staff whether they're custodians, bus drivers or others. The real question here is how you really assure stable programs in the district for them. No decision that I have ever made regarding your budget is on a gut level. It's based on tried and true experience and the data that's in your budget. So you know I would not put your districts jeopardy I my gut I put it on what's provable. I'm going to have DR. Sue respond really quickly and then we'll go. I know that commissioner fisher and commissioner ray have last words and we'll move on. I, I just wanted to address
the the question of scheduling a meeting with our fiscal advisor is both elliott design and pam lozano. They have both asked us to schedule that and I know that judson has started that process and unfortunately it has taken a while. However, we are scheduling those briefings initially was scheduled maybe two months ago and then now we're trying to reschedule that and I know MR. Dushan has been generous of his time with many of us who have approached with individual questions like we've had some great conversations about special education and I appreciate your time there. Um, I, I do I want to circle back to PRESIDENT Kim's initial question and again love you. Thank you. But we do want you like as much as I want my adult children to move out of my house, I want you to move out of our house too. And I say that loving my children very much. Right.
But it is san francisco. um, so what what in in trying to figure out what our obligations are as far as getting you out of our house and um, what I found is the thick mat fiscal oversight guide because I'm a, you know, special education advocate. Show me the policy. I'm a policy nerd. You know I'm a give me the guide and there's a section about disproved budgets qualification instead of negative certification and other fiscal uncertainties and that references ed code 44 to 1 27.6 so that's the only place that I can find what actually lays out what is your authority here and that specifically calls out and I'm not an attorney so I don't want to veer into you know, um interpreting ed code so I'll just read it um, is that it's about current or two subsequent fiscal years of a school district has a qualified or
negative certification that's when you step in so when we it doesn't mention that the fiscal health report at all it's specific to the budget. So I think when we talk about moving the so my question for clarity maybe this is to you maybe it's to the cdc itself but like that to me has been the goalpost since we started this process get to the negative certification because that's been the only documentation I can find from the state that guides us. So when you say that, is that plus also the fiscal health I guess I'm I'm trying to understand where that's coming from standards and criteria for under ab 1200 I think also in that section you'll find a whole section on lack of going concern which to its own even the language in that book is poorly defined defined by state law that it basically is saying can you continue to go in good
fiscal health and some of those are judgment calls, not mine. No. Again, we're not talking about gut but when the state looks at your budget they look at a whole picture. So it's holistic and and I know you're all looking for does the temperature need to be 98.6 or going to be 98.5 or 98.7? There's just more to it and that's why I'm making a point of this tonight is I don't want there to be ambiguity and for you to come back because what you just read was that basically you're probably unless the state makes an extraordinary finding going to get a positive certification in DECEMBER because your past to the negative and there's no certification on your budget no certification now so hopefully you will move to a qualified and again under a qualified certification the state could have appointed an advisor that was a discussion that the state
had with me when I was brought on and we all agreed that that was not the appropriate time or place to do that. It was not until the district reached a negative certification that we thought it was very critical for there to at least be in place a mechanism for stay and rescind authority which as I've said before and I'll say again it's not our intent to ever use that we you know, that's a tool we want to keep in the tool box. And to this date your staff you as a board have been very considerate and I don't mean in a kind kindness way but considerate in terms of not deferring that decision to anybody else I would not want you to make that they have to have to have a decision stayed or rescinded. I as a superintendent would never have wanted that in my district and I. I don't think you want it any more than I do. So that's why we've avoided it.
So I think that you know, there's a lot of details in the weeds here but the bottom line is as you say, commissioner fischer, we're all working toward the same goal which is a constant consistent fiscal solvency and it's a set of systems that are in place to make what is ill defined as a going concern. So you want to be a going concern. Think of it as a small business . You want to have revenue and expenditures that match and are projected out for years and you want to look at the ownership of the business. Is it stable? Is it being sold? You know there's just a lot of things. So what my point here is that there's not one switch that's going to be flipped and says okay, you're positive today because I know you as a board because you'll come back with the same questions in december and say why didn't we get positive? We have our budgets great. It's better than ever. We have every staff position
filled and no extra and we have a surplus at the end of the year. So I just have to be forthright with you that it's not it isn't that simple. It's not good that it's it's a picture the state takes of so we if we do all of that you're saying we wouldn't get a positive certification is that what you're telling us? No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying it's just not you could do all of that and have all of you leave the board. I'm not saying you would but if you are if the board simultaneously you probably wouldn't have a positive certification under almost any circumstance. There's just factors that come into a balance system in the district and I don't deal in hypotheticals. I don't approve your budget and I'm not trying to defer the responsibility to somebody else. I try to be forthright with you in terms of what it takes to get there and I hope that's clear. I don't want to belabor that nor defer it. But I also don't want you to
think that getting rid of one red line is going to put you in a fiscal fiscally healthy position. I'm sorry. Sorry to interrupt you. We need to vote yes. Extend the meeting. yeah. Oh yes. I will bring it to the commissioner in just a moment after we vote on extending our meeting please beyond that I'll make a motion to extend the meeting first and second. Thank you. Thank you, MR. Alexander. Yes. Commissioner fischer? Yes, MR. Gupta. Yes. Vice PRESIDENT Healey. Yes, MR. Ray. Yes. MR. Vice ward. Yes. PRESIDENT Kim. Yes. Thank you. And I had the audacity tell commissioner wiseman ward that we would be done by 1015 and here we are sorry. I apologize publicly and on the record. Commissioner ray thank you PRESIDENT Kim okay. I also I wanted to thank you for you all for being here tonight and for helping us along through these many years
of being a fiscal expert and fiscal advisor and for working with staff we want to have as positive a collaborative relationship as possible and you know, we are very grateful to you and to pamela's on for the assistance that you've offered. I have a couple of questions and they stem in part from public comment and from emails that we've received. I expect that many of my fellow commissioners have received similar emails and I have a more general question. So my specific question I think it you know it would be helpful to hear from you about why it is if it is in fact the case that the district cannot currently hire you know, bring back temporary teachers, folks who the district wants to bring back and for whom a funding source has been identified from site discretionary funds or whatever else. Why are people being told or understanding that they're not
able to do that and for other staff positions as well to the you know where people do have discretionary money from their pta for instance when will folks be able to hire for that? If you can tell us you mentioned that you don't have any control over how those those funds are spent but a lot of folks essentially understand the state to be holding the district back from doing that. So if you could offer some. Sure, sure. Saying a lot of folks perceive the state as as holding the district back from being able to hire temporary teachers or other types of staff even when there are discretionary funds available to do so. So I just wanted to give you an opportunity to, you know, explain what your perspective or the state's position is on that and then my more general question is whether you have any you slash the state have any areas of disagreement or concern about the third interim report that's being presented tonight and about the fiscal
stabilization plan? If you could identify those concerns or areas of disagreement that would be really helpful. Thank you. Thank you. I feel like you cued me up for exactly what I wanted to answer. So I think that it's important to realize that communications are very difficult. Your superintendent issued a press release that I think answered some of those questions to the public which our sites are free from us and again I'm not foist this on the district but to spend the students success funds however they wish we might tell the district we think that's a horrible idea but we're not going to do anything about it other than the advise. Same thing with pto monies we have already approved the 162
temporary hires. So the answer is as I think I said this earlier as the district along with us we've been working hand in hand working at the same rosters identifies that there's an open teaching position at a school for a classroom position. The district can hire temporary teacher in terms of the other funding there's a whole bunch of other funding your budgets not adopted yet the state budget is not adopted yet. We want to take last look at your projected enrollment for the fall and I think from I don't think I know this from the very beginning of when you made the decision to issue layoff notices we said as state advisors that it would be at least JUNE until positions were approved. Um actually we've backed off on our word regarding temporary positions, student success funds and pta pto funds and there was a second there
was a at to your third no we have absolutely no qualms with the third interim report your staff did an excellent job. The only qualifier is you are in the process of converting to a new budget system and there are going to be that's not going to be painless either because it's going to correct some things that were problems in the old system. It's going to refine your budget. Maybe you'll find you have more money. Maybe you'll find that there are less. Um, I want to go back to a question of why there was money left over even last year and that was because there was a herculean effort to close out vacant positions. So all of these things happen on an ongoing basis. There has not been I'm not going to say there is no disagreement on anything but there have been very few
disagreements between families on myself and the staff. Probably pam and I have more disagreements but um you know that your staff is they want to do the work and the work is difficult and not to slight anybody here but your your business office is understaffed right now you had and it's been for a long time and it's been tough for the district to fill those positions and you're not alone. probably every day I get a call from somebody working for a cbo and even more difficultly I cfo so no this the reports I think as good as it can possibly be right now I think they've made the point that it's ongoing that your fiscal stabilizers and plan is this year you're going to need one for next year so okay can I to clarify something you mentioned approving 162 uh temporary positions for hire. Yeah, I understand unless I'm
missing as possible misunderstanding something but that there are other temporary teachers that we would like to hire back. Is there any what is the reason why we're not able to do that yet? We're getting in the details here. Yeah, there are a number of positions on there. We have agreed from the beginning to hire every spread position that's budgeted. Some of them are not budgeted, some of them are not clarified and when I say not budgeted again you're transitioning from one system to another. So you know, there's there's a number of teachers on there. We've met with sped staff today. We're trying to expedite that. Um, when I say budget it means that you can't hire somebody unless you have money in the bank to do that. So in a sense I guess what does that mean unless we have money in the bank to do that and how long until I guess we're considered to have money in the bank? well what it takes is what's called the position control number. That position control number this is really getting in the
detail but in your new system requires what's called an hra, a human resources action I think is the a I'm not sure I don't think anybody knows what the a is for but it's a new process so some of it's learning that new process. We want to be assured that when if a I think a good example would be because it's you talked about it earlier hiring is second just in lieu of a psychologist on country so when that happens there MAY be money that needs to be transferred in the new budget from consultants to a position that position wasn't budgeted. So you need to have a position control number so it's a detail it's not a major one and some of the hiring on speed is just going to take time because I will tell you I worked in a district that was much smaller we never could fill all of our language speech and language people they're just hard positions to fill.
So can you raise the each r on that? Can you give us a I guess is there a way to answer this question in a you know, in a way that it's easier for people to understand are we are we going to be able to hire people when I guess to the extent you can do that we have to go position by position and have that position approved or there sort of a general time frame people can look at as to when they can when they can hire people, they can hire. Well, those are two questions, right? One is can they hire people without our review of it and the other is can they hire people with our review of so right now? Well, when they have a position control number when it's in the budget which means it's entered into the budget by a budget analyst that ensures the money's there. It's it's a technical issue. right but but this but it's a technical issue that's impacting I mean we heard the PRESIDENT Of the administrators
union tell us tonight that we're going to have vacant classrooms on the first day of school. That's a concern to me. So when I hear it's a technical issue, my response as a board member is well, let's figure it out like what are the resources we need? Do you need to be here more days a week to improve all these things so we can get these people hired? These are urgent issues for kids, right? We don't want to do anything fiscally irresponsible. I mean this board has shown we do not want to ever hire anybody for a position that's not budgeted but it's this is it's frustrating to hear that oh, it's very detailed and it's technical but we're talking about classrooms that need to be staffed for kids this fall. not only that so so what think from what do we need to do to get the approvals from so that we can hire our folks? that's I think the question can I repeat myself? well, we haven't heard a response. You have heard a response? No, because commissioner ray
wozniak times when when people going to be able to be hired and you said it's a technical process and I apologize. I'm getting frustrated because I feel like you're actually evading the question. The question is when are we going to be able to hire our staff that are that are budgeted not staff that's not budgeted but but staff that's actually budgeted one hundred and 62 positions have been approved every position that you demonstrate you've seen the district where there's an opening at a school for a classroom teacher will be filled every position that you demonstrate that's needed budgeted and planned and sped will be filled. The technical part is it's got to be entered in your budget. You cannot hire a person commit to paying for them without it being in your budget. That's beyond me. That's not legal. but what he's arguing for that that's but that's those are two different questions I really want to explain that. So that there's no lack of clarity here. Okay. And we last year we are so lucky we haven't been sued to the end of the earth and back
because of the special education the debacle that happened in special education last year. so when we sit here and say as a cac member we've had district leadership come to our cac and say we've got these positions, we've got the codes, we've got everything they have bent over backwards to provide this information. so to sit here and say that that hasn't been provided I'm offended on their behalf. We cannot put ourself in the not only from a compliance standpoint but from in service of our kids. We can't let what happened last year happen again. Not on my watch. Can can we just I, I think it would be better if we could discuss this more like it's just the style and the temperature. don't nobody say we're all you know I don't mind people being angry so no I really don't and you have a right to be angry. That debacle last year had absolutely nothing to do with us. We have not disproved any bad
position up until the last week when we looked at it and there were they were not budgeted simple staff who responded really quickly last year when I when we talked about that you responded immediately and approved those positions. That's what I believe. That's what I think what we're trying to do is get clarity because we heard from the community the confusion. That's why we're trying to get clarity moving forward and it sounds like again like it's it's like it's a process. It's technical. it's long when our classrooms when our principal is gonna be able to hire people. We've got perez we've got this you know the we heard about the lgbtq liaison we heard there's all these positions that apparently have been budgeted but are still being blocked by this process. I think what we're trying to understand is what do we communicate to the community as to when when we've budgeted a position? When will they get it approved so that then it can get hired?
Is that the right am I asking the right question? And I think so maybe it would help if we could have a concrete you know, just an example and run through something. Sure. So I'll go through 3 or 4. Okay. Classroom teacher as soon as that opening is identified at the school and I'm not saying the principal thinks they're going to need two more teachers. I'm saying that alamo schools budgeted for 20 teachers. I don't remember what it is and there's only 18. They're done unless there's 24 in another school that only has 22. That's why 162 have been approved. It's an ongoing process. We look at the new hire list almost on a daily basis. They've been approved as soon as the needs justify just just to be clear, the assumption here that is that the remaining positions that have not been approved are not budgeted. you know and I say something hi, pam. Yes, please.
I okay. So just want to say that first of all the positions that we're reviewing on the new hire list when they were first put on there, there was a lot of information that was not provided to us. We didn't have the position control number. We didn't have the funding. We just had that they needed to hire this position at this site and in some cases it would say that it was a replacement in some cases it said was blank or it would be a new position. So when we started going through and asking questions because our whole concern for you is that there was a lack of position control. So when we have a list of 400 500 positions that we need to approve but we can't even tell what the position is for or how it's being funded, we have to go back and get that information from your staff. There was a lot of confusion and still is to some degree on how this is working out between the new system and the old. And so it became very clear
that we needed to pull together and they did do that in H.R. They went together and put together a list of the positions that they knew that they needed to fill at the time when we did that I had already gone through and done a reconciliation and came up that I felt that you needed 162 positions in the teachers in the classroom and so that's why we had already said we would approve those. Now in the meantime they're working through clarifying that list and if they come up that they have another hundred positions that we can see that people have turned in resignations or whatever it might be, then we would go ahead and approve those two. We're just asking for them to give us that information because we don't have that. So until we get that we can't say oh yes, go ahead and hire 200 teachers when we don't really know if you need it or not. And then this goes back to your
earlier congress session when you were talking about being positive. You've got to remember that when we were first brought in we were brought in as fiscal experts because you were not shown as being and I'm trying to think the wording basically been having that ongoing business. You know there was a concern about that. So there were many pieces that fit into that. So as an expert we were in there just kind of help and assist and do what we can do to assist with the budget and all of that. When you then went negative is when we were up to the fiscal advisor. So when you go back and all of a sudden you're going to end up saying you are not qualified or you're positive doesn't mean that you'll be totally out of the observation of cde because because you don't have your own county office that oversees your district. The cde takes that responsibility so more than likely they would still leave
and fiscal experts even though they would not have the status that we do now where we have the stand in power. So just keep that in mind and it MAY not be like you got that good positive and then we'll be gone because there are other issues that we're dealing with in addition to your budget. okay. Can we take another I'm just going to pause this right now because clearly there is a need for some greater clarity and exactly where we are with our hiring practices and what is allowed and what's not allowed, what's budgeted for, what's not budgeted for. I appreciate the conversation to get the clarity on exactly what's needed. I think the reality here and I will just say this on behalf of the board we want you to have all the information and confidence that you need to make sure that we have our positions approved so that we can move forward with hiring. I think clearly there is some questions to be had around whether or not we have that information and what has been communicated or not. That's fine. I think I just want to
underscore I think this is maybe one example of the need for us as a board to be really clear with what exactly is necessary for us to know so that we can hold DR. Sue and staff accountable. And frankly I think there is an honest question here if this is on us around needing to clarify our own systems and our own structures such that you get the information that you need that sounds like important information, then we should ask those questions to and if that information is there and has been communicated then I think there are some due questions for our advisors around where we are in that process or we're rather you are in that process of making those approvals at the end of the day what we know is true is that there are positions in schools and people need the support in their classrooms and so I think that that message has been received loud and clear from the public to the board and the many emails and the testimonies that we received both today and in the past.
I think that the urgency around this is that we will lose people. I mean we are already losing people and so I can very much appreciate the need for clarity around the numbers that we are providing and I would hope that the superintendent and her team are working diligently to provide that clarity and the specificity around those numbers and it's made 13 schools out in less than a month. Let them three weeks and and I do think that there is a reality of concern that we will begin next year at even more of a loss if we are not able to move quickly. And so so I appreciate cdw's efforts to want to move fast with us. I think there is some questions that we need to get answered and we warmly accept the invitation to have a briefing both with you and others and I know that some of that work is under way already but I want to thank you for being here today in person to have this conversation and certainly
won't be the last and I appreciate our my colleagues here for asking questions to get the clarity. I think again, we just don't one, we want to make sure that we have the utmost clarity and understanding what our role is as a board, what the role is of staff in getting what they need to get done and where the kind of responsibility kind of picks up from cde and making sure that we are all rowing in the same direction and so so with that I again thank you. Thank you pam as well who I know is listening in and we will look forward to that briefing once it's scheduled. I would. Intel intel is not the right word. Please call pam or myself any time between now and when that briefing is. There clearly are a lot of questions you have. We communicate most generally through staff and that was actually your direction to me that you to work through the superintendent. She has done an excellent job. She's put out it in a well you
can't control the information that all people have and bring to your podium because the answer today is the positions as far as we know are being filled in classroom positions. But I just I want to be clear I don't. I will say this just very bluntly. I don't view that as rhetoric from schools. I think there is a reality of our schools where everyone is very concerned around where we are with our staffing, with our budget. I do think I mean unless anyone on the board disagrees vehemently on that I think we have we. We all carry our own relationships with ours within our schools and communities as well. I don't view that as rhetoric or language from schools. I think there is a very genuine fear of what our schools will look like if we do not move fast enough to preserve our staff. Totally agree and so that I don't want to tell you that you
do not want us communicating with the public. I don't do that won't do that. I am happy to work with your communications people. Okay so I thank you. I will and I don't consider it rhetoric. PRESIDENT Kim I understand that when they come to you they come with a real concern. I think there are ways to allay those concerns. sure. PRESIDENT Kim yes? Can I ask one question? I think there might be misunderstanding going on to some extent here. know I really do want to stop our conversation and just move us on and so there was one thing I want to see but I can't reveal to us anyway, thank you MR. Duchin thank you staff for being here and and I think you all oh, we do need a vote on this. Oh, I'm so sorry. This this was about your request to meet so. Commissioners, I just want to be fully transparent with the conversations that we've had around the desire to meet with
with commissioners. so and I have shared this with that. Yeah. I just am acknowledging the request to meet so so what I have shared with MR. Dushan with DR. Soo and staff is that we would like for. I mean given all the different touch points with commissioners we want there to be some sort of structure and staff there knowing that staff are the ones who are doing the work and carrying the load here and actually making the changes in partnership with cdc. So. So and you know the request came in. I said yes, we would get with that. Yeah. Okay. So we can always trust fairly. Yeah. okay. Please yeah yeah give me a call them I'll. just to be clear. Yeah that was not a reaction to you MR. Desire. I just want to be clear, lou it will mean that we have a very
friendly but there's only so many. Yes, and she'll come back. Don't worry. I'm just worried that if we didn't sign right back because they went to get a new friend that we just want to make sure that staff are present so that they are able to take notes and follow up with the kind of day to day work that takes place between this cde. Fiscal advisors and our staff. And so that has been part of the coordinating. I know that judson and the board office have been doing to make sure that staff are present when conversations take place. What we don't want are one off conversations where we're not capturing the next steps that are necessary and clarity needed to get to where we need to go and so. So I just want to be transparent about that and we'll take you up on your training or I know that there's been conversations already about that so thank you.
I'm sorry that I do have to make a clarification. Sure. As commissioners and trustees in the district you have we work for the state on behalf of the district that includes both you and the superintendent and the staff. It's your choice if you choose as commissioners not to have those one time conversations. I think they can be very valuable. I think that commissioner fisher and myself had a very long I don't know that she agreed with anything or everything I said but at least a long conversation about speed ,speed budgeting and some of the technical stuff that goes beyond the workshop. yeah I don't I just want to yeah I don't think this is anything about clarifying questions. This is more about the substantive work that's needed to move our budget forward and frankly that work is just not held by the board. and we would recommend small. Like 2 or 3 people. yeah. So again I just am trying to
acknowledge that we don't actually have a hand in in managing the budget itself that is the work of the superintendent and her team agreed so yeah thank you MR. Dushan and with that I will go to a roll call vote please MR. Steele thank you. On the third interim. MR. Alexander yes. MR. Fisher. Yes. MR. Gupta. Yes. Vice PRESIDENT Huling yes. MR. Ray. Yes. Commissioner wiseman ward yes. PRESIDENT Kim yes. hours thank you. Thank you. Staff thank you. MR. Dushan thank you, pam. Thank you, colleagues and our mouse moving forward to item three we do have items ahead of us. Commissioners but hopefully this will be fast and you have a question on quick oh no item 3255-13sp3 legislative overview consideration and action of district positions on selected legislative proposals can I have a motion a second please?
Some of second can I uh I would like to call on the superintendent or designee to read this into the record. Great. I'm just going to hand this over to MS. Homemade peng. Are head of communications and operations or governance. I'm sorry. Good evening, superintendent. PRESIDENT Kim vpi healing and commissioners will make this brief. I am joined today by abe majella and nick rumley from capital advisors to present our recommendations on selected legislative proposals. So you're joining us virtually tonight because you're closely monitoring the upcoming governors MAY revise. Up in sacramento every year the san francisco board of education considers and adopts positions on state and federal legislative proposals to advance policies that align with our vision, value goals and guardrails. We have provided you with the list of k-12 bills of interest for your consideration ranging. A wide variety of topics we are pleased to share the final selection of bills and recommendations for action
tonight considering the district's policy and priorities and I want to take this opportunity to thank the special education community advisory council for their advocacy and also consultation as they are a key partner in developing this list that is before you we are requesting that the board take action to ratify the proposed. Recommended positions on select bills that are before you and just wanted to quickly note that the bills that you are considering tonight does not that the list does not include budget bills. We are monitoring the state budget process and waiting for the governors MAY revise so that we have a more accurate picture of the budget landscape for your informed decision making. Additionally, please be advised that as the legislative process progresses it is common practice for the superintendent to take legislative positions in between board meetings until the positions can be formally
ratified by the board. And in a moment MR. Hagel and MR. Romney will briefly introduce a partnership between as of usda and capital advisors and provide an overview of the bills and recommend. Recommended positions we would be happy to discuss and take questions and appreciate you for your engagement and I will turn it over to MR. Hagel and MR. Romney. thanks very much mike. So we'll be really quick on this. I did want to say a couple words about the budget and then nick is going to talk a little bit about where we are in the legislative process and then we'll quickly get to the bills and on the bills we mostly want to just find out if you have direct question as we could go through the entire list. But I believe that would take far too much time. yeah, we don't we don't need to go through the entire list. I understood. yeah. So the one thing I would say that's relevant to the conversation you just had MAY revision is going to come out
tomorrow and from everything we are hearing it's going to look fairly close to what was proposed in JANUARY and the reason why I say that is that you can expect a 2.3% cola that will be funded for all the programs that get cola and you can expect some one time money. Over $1 billion of one time money most likely and that all the programs that are currently being funded and expanded will be expanded. So that's the good news. The bad news is next year in the years after it looks like we're likely to have more challenging budgets next year. You want to just really briefly tell them where we are in the legislative process and then we'll go to the bills? Yeah, thanks. So just quickly commissioners, so we are at a stage now where the bills have passed through their first what we call first house policy committee.
So think assembly bills in the assembly and senate bills in the senate they have all been vetted by their relevant policy committees. They're now pending in fiscal committees largely so those think the appropriations committees in both houses and you know that deadline to get out of those committees is similarly looming. I believe it's next week, next friday we should know that the memorial day weekend, all those bills that are pending in the fiscal committees will be considered and we'll have another update into what bills made it what bills did not make it. And then remember civics 101 write the bills will swap houses so senate bills to the assembly and assembly bills to the senate and they'll start the policy process all over again. So all that to say the positions that we're recommending and that we hopefully ratify this evening will give us plenty of time to engage on the district's behalf with the legislature and then subsequently down the road with the governor's office. so just a little a little
table setting for you guys. So with that, let's turn to the bills and we'll turn it back over to you to tell us how you want to proceed. Just ask us questions or go ahead with the vote. how do you want to proceed? Yeah, I'll open it up for questions from the board to see if there are any questions. Yes. Commissioner fisher thank you for this very comprehensive list and thank you for taking into account the recommendations and I appreciate my paying the shout out for the cac and the ledge day that they just did and all the advocacy work they do and so as bills progressed and as things happen, what are the mechanisms to keep us engaged and updated on the process and the potential need like you know some of us have been to sacramento to lobby with other organizations like the cac or ccpa where are opportunities like that to engage in this process here? It's a great question. We'll keep working with trying to figure out what that process
will be, what we know is that things will change rapidly and so our goal is to either create a process where we create information in writing, send it to hung MAY have the superintendent make it's distributed to you and you can respond to it or we set up another opportunity to talk with you directly but we'll have to work with hongwei on that. Things are moving so fast on the budget that we thought we'd see where things settle with that and then see what the next step is. Thank you. Are there any questions that MAY influence the outcome of your vote on and regrettably I have 111 my question is with respect to sb 98 did we get further clarity as to whether or not that bill applies to aliens and whether the there is
an immediacy requirement in it? yes, my my apologies. So we did it does apply to k through 12 as well and I apologize for not updating this list on that and it is not currently requiring the immediacy. So that issue that you highlighted before appears to be addressed but we're going to watch the bill carefully and make sure as we go through it does it stay on our recommended support list with the application please? Yeah, I think we're still recommending support because we think it's consistent with your policy is because we don't think it has that immediacy requirement that creates the operational problem. But like I said I'll I'll confirm that with staff and and work with hong made a move that to another position if we need to. thanks I appreciate that and I appreciate the addition
of a b 1025 pellerin to the watch list. Thank you. Okay um, I'm going to go ahead and move us to roll call vote please. MR. Steel thank you. MR. Alexander yes, commissioner fischer? Yes. MR. Gupta. Yes. Vice PRESIDENT Healey. Yes. MR. Ray. Yes. Commissioner wise board. Yes. PRESIDENT Kim. Yes, sir. Moving to item h4235-13 for authorization and direction to staff to finalize certificate and employee layoffs I turn it over to the superintendent. Thank you, PRESIDENT Kim. I'm going to invite up our associate superintendent amy bear to provide you with the information. Good evening, superintendent and commissioners. I want to point out for the board and for the public that we added a presentation that's just a few slides and we're
only talking about layoffs tonight and so we wanted to provide a little bit more clarity for the board and the public. So that's coming around and there's copies for the public in the hall. So just to sort of orient all of us to where we are. Due to budget constraints, the board took action in FEBRUARY to reduce 395 certificated positions and 134 para educator positions. This included the certificated number included teachers, counselors and then again 134 para educators through attrition and through the serp the special retirement incentive program. That number was significantly reduced so we were only required to give preliminary notices to 34 counselors and 126 para educators. So we did not have to give any teacher layoff notices. Next slide please. So since then the district and usf have reached a layoff
settlement agreement 130 excuse me 103 of the para educators and 31 of the counselors signed that agreement and the board took action two meetings ago at the APRIL 8th meeting to lay off those groups of employees. Since then the district has held hearings for the three counselors and the 23 para educators who did not sign the agreement. Tonight's action is to adopt the decision of the administrative law judge and authorize the final layoff notices for three counselors and 23 para educators. Next slide please. So what are our next steps? As you heard a little bit earlier in the previous presentation we are actively working with our cde advisors to verify funding for all of these positions as soon as positions are approved. We will be rescinding those layoffs and we will do any rescinding in seniority order. So I'm happy to answer any questions before I go on to the
items. Are there a question that MAY change the outcome of your decision? Okay. One. Yes. Mike, my question given the previous conversation is of these 34 councilor positions and 126 para positions, how many of them are now currently funded? Because I remember that when we approved these in FEBRUARY, part of the concern well the real concern was we didn't have the money for these positions. So how many of them do we now have budgeted? so according to the records that I've shared with the fiscal advisors, we believe that we have positions and position numbers and budget numbers for all of the counseling positions and all but eight of the para educator positions.
so 118 of the paris yes. And so when was that information provided to the fiscal advisors? Um I don't I don't know the exact date I, I know we reviewed it last week. so but as of last week they had this information. Yes. And have they indicated when they will approve hiring for these positions? so they actually have gone through and approved some of the positions the some of the positions that are funded out of specific budgets. So we've shared that information with the unions and you know, as soon as those positions are approved we have to bring back people in seniority. Right. So we've been hoping to get more clarity about whether or not we could approve the bulk of the positions and bring people back as a whole group. and so has the city fiscal advisors given you any indication of when they might complete the review of the 118 para positions and 34 council positions for which we have
budgeted? I my understanding is that the positions that are funded out of the lcf funds have won't be approved until JUNE. so we're being asked to sort of reaffirm layoffs for positions that we have budgeted but then now we're going to have to wait until JUNE. Why are we waiting until JUNE to approve the budgets for these to your understanding to my understanding. I think that we needed to get through the third interim report which I understand we've done tonight. you know, that's the guidance I've been given. So it's essentially the cdf advisors are saying that we need to wait until JUNE but haven't given a reason. yeah. In my looking at the data we have positions that were either included in the staffing
allocation or meet the supplemental hiring guidance that we've given to cites. They have a budget number that's identified and a position number. so yeah I just thank you I really appreciate I really appreciate your work on this. I just want to sort of reiterate this concern because this to me illustrates the previous point we were just discussing. And I mean I'm honestly very concerned about voting for layoffs because I feel like we I mean this board has shown we're willing to make tough fiscal decisions like voting for layoffs which we all did in FEBRUARY. But then it's you know, if we're now being asked to vote for layoffs for positions that are already budgeted, it starts to feel like we're violating the trust of the community. And so I feel like if we you know, in if the fact is we're just going to be able to rescind these quickly, that's great and then we could vote and proceed. but we don't have that level
of clarity from our fiscal advisors at the city and I feel like it's creating this. I mean I think that's what I was trying to say earlier. I feel like with it's creating a lack of trust with the community which we started to hear tonight. And so that's I guess I don't know what the specific plans are but I'm willing to support these with the understanding that we're going to really prioritize this meeting with city and being able to then tell the public soon that I mean some of these positions like the lgbtq support person right? I mean that's a critical position which now my understanding is it's funded so we have funded it. We as a district and city is saying you can't hire that person essentially. So that to me is is not acceptable and so we just got to get some resolution on that as quickly as possible. Can I ask a clarifying question ? What happens if we vote no on
this if we know that we have the funding for the positions and we will eventually are there any unintended consequences to voting against this resolution, these resolutions, these next two since the board has taken action on the bulk of the layoffs for the employees who signed the layoff settlement agreements, my concern would be that the three councilors for example that didn't sign the agreement and went through a hearing with the administrative office of administrative hearings and those those three are not the least senior people or the most senior people they're mixed in with out throughout the list. So I think you know, because we reached an agreement with the union, the bulk of their employees signed the layoff agreement. I would ask that the board approve these layoffs and that our focus becomes rescinding them as quickly as possible was the timeline of when they would be rescinded and rehired shared with them at the point that
folks signed did they have all the information? We didn't have information about whether they would be rescinded. They they signed the agreement that they would be laid off. Is it fair to say that if we didn't approve these layoffs today we would be creating a perverse incentive in the future for folks to not go with the guidance of their union and rather to create more costs and expense for the district by going to hearings? That is my opinion. Yes. I think we're ready for a roll call vote, please MR. Steel. thank you. Thank you. On 255 dash 3013 sb four MR. Alexander yes, MR. Fisher. Yes, MR. Gupta. Yes. Vice PRESIDENT Ewing. Yes. Question right. Yes. Thank you, commissioner wise board yes. Thank you. PRESIDENT Kim yes.
Seven us moving to item h 5 to 5 5-13 esp five adoption of proposed decision of the administrative law judge regarding layoff of classified employees and authorization and direction to staff to issue final layoff notices I'll turn it over to the superintendent. so this is a another layoff item. The previous one was for the three counselors. This item h five is for the 23 parent educators that did not sign the agreement but rather went through the hearing process. So we're seeking direction from the board to authorize staff to issue a final layoff notice to 23 for educators any questions that MAY change the outcome of your decision? Seeing none we'll do will cover please MR. Stewart we have a motion on this item. oh, so sorry. Thank you. So moved or I move and yeah. Second thank you.
Thank you. Commissioner alexander yes, sir. MR. Fisher? Yes, MR. Gupta? Yes. Vice PRESIDENT Huling. Yes, MR. Ray. Yes MR. Weissbourd. Yes. PRESIDENT Kim yes. Severus I just I just realized I can motion my own item. I don't know why. Anyway, item I'm hh6255-13 sb six appointment of csp oh, sorry. Thank you MR. Chair. Thank you very much very much appreciate your leadership item h6255-13 sb six appointment of csp a delegate I am asking the board to approve the appointment of vice PRESIDENT Huling and commissioner gupta as csp a delegate to region five eight officially mean meeting that we officially have three representatives on our csp a delegate body. Can I have a motion a second so
moved second and welcome to the club any comments or objections? thank you for the quick vote work commissioner gupta could rescind his tax. Okay roll call vote please. MR. Steel. roll carver, please. MR. Alexander. Yes, thank you, MR. Fisher. yes, commissioner gupta. Heck yeah. Vice PRESIDENT Healey. Yes. All right. MR. Ray. Yes, commissioner wise board yes. And PRESIDENT Kim. Yes. All right. So I've congratulations. Thank you. I'll turn it over to vice PRESIDENT Huling for consent as I step out the I at the advice of counsel and given commissioner PRESIDENT Kim's new position in the city and the number of ammo use that the city has with the district and to avoid any appearance of a conflict or actual conflict, PRESIDENT Kim will be recusing on a standing basis from the consent calendar due to the
number of I use it appear there and so in his absence I will move for the approval of the consent calendar. Do I have a second second. Can we have a roll cover please MR. Still are there we need to ask the superintendent if anything is there anything removed and I think just a roll call. Thank you, MR. Alexander. Yes, MR. Fisher. Yes, MR. Gupta. Yes. Vice PRESIDENT Healing yes. Commissioner ray. Yes to MR. Weissbourd. Yes. PRESIDENT Kim. oh, excuse. I'm sorry. Yeah. Six will retrieve him. Thank you. um, moving to, uh, item j information items quarterly report and william's complaints are available on our agenda item k board member reports are there any appointments, commissions or comments from commissioners on advisory committees or member
organizations? Nope. Uh, moving to item I mean I during this meeting at 11:05 P.M.