Okay, uh, good evening. I would like to call to order this regular meeting
number 2 6 8 2 of the santa clara county board of education. Today
is wednesday, april 22nd, and the team is 5:00 pm
I am victoria ch, president of the santa clara county board of education. I will preside over
this meeting a live stream of this evening's. Meeting is available at
https slash slash tinyurl.com/scc
board meeting on the webpage. Scroll to the bottom and choose live language support
for tonight's meeting is available in spanish and vietnamese. For spanish support, please
call 1 6 6 9 906 8 3 3. The
meeting id is 7 2 7 3 3 4 8 1 0 pound.
for vietnamese support, please call 1 6 6 9 906 8 3 3.
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language assistance in a sl spanish and vietnamese is also available for those in attendance. Headsets
for spanish and vietnamese may be picked up at the table in the back of the room. The a sl interpreters
are at the front of the left side of the room as well as on the monitors. Persons wanting
to make public comment can do so by completing a public comment card available at the back of the room.
in the case of an emergency or the need to evacuate a room, please alert and follow an
s-c-c-o-e staff member who is identified with a yellow badge. Our student board
member participates via teleconference and they are automatically excused at 8:00 pm should our
meeting extend beyond that time preferential voting
by the student board members authorized by education code 1000 student board
members may exercise preferential voting by stating their opinion and or
position on an issue or an action item, which will be recorded in the minutes before the s-c-c-b-o-e
votes on an item student board member andino is, uh, running
a little late, so I will just ask, uh, the audience if you would like, if you would, um,
uh, join me in the pledge of allegiance. Um, if you are stand, if
you're able, please stand and please your right hand over your heart and then we will begin.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america america
due to republic for which dance? One nation under god,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
thank you everybody. Um, I will also,
oh, is he here? Oh, student and student
board member andino. Are you here with us?
our student sean, excuse me. I think you need to unmute the, the
phone. Thank you. Student board member andino, are you here?
present? Oh, wonderful. Thank you. Just in time for the land acknowledgement,
can you please lead us into the land acknowledgement?
let us take the time to honor the ancestors, caretakers of the land on which we
stand. We are currently in the lonni territory. Santa
clara county is homeland of the lonni people.
today, indigenous people continue to protect the land.
it is important to recognize the indigenous culture within our communities and
remember that we all gather, live, learn, and work on the traditional lens of
indigenous people.
thank you. Student board member andino,
can we? Yeah, I think they're
closing the doors.
are they gonna walk in? Staff? If
I can ask you to close the door. Oh,
I think they're coming in.
alright, I will now conduct a roll call vote. I'm president sean and president, when I call your
name, please respond accordingly. Vice president pfizer.
here. Trustee berta. Present trustee laurie
bin. Trustee pacheco. Present. Trustee rocha. Here. Trustee?
she krishnan here. Thank you. Can we shut the
door just 'cause we can't hear the meeting going on. Thank
you. Alright. Uh,
we will now move to the agenda. I'll entertain a motion to accept the agenda.
so moved. Moved by trustee krishnan, seconded by trustee alberta.
uh, board members please vote. And board docs. Thank you.
I'll be a verbal eye. I haven't logged in. Uh, a verbal eye from vice president
visor.
and that motion carries with seven yeses. Thank you trustees.
alright, we'll now move to our, uh, special recognitions. We have three special recognitions
this evening. The first will be presented by trustee rocha. Our volunteer of
the our volunteer of the year, uh, is caden and I would like
to invite caden, trustee mo rocha and monica abba
to the envi uh, environmental education liaison and recruiter. And marie
bobbi, director of environmental education to the side podium, uh, trustee
rocha. Will you do the honors? And then after the presentation board members, please join at the podium
for photos.
all right. So each year in recognition of public school volunteer
week, which is april 20 20th to the 24th, santa clara
county office of education takes the opportunity to celebrate the volunteer of the year. Scoe
relies on volunteers to support the instruction of youth in the county. Specifically, we
honor volunteers who have outstanding performance in carrying out duties, work efficiently
with staff and students, show desire and ability to make a difference, demonstrate
care and support for others, create and foster a positive school environment and
motivate others. Tonight we are pleased to honor caden, also known by his nature name
badger. Caden is a graduating senior at summit public schools to
homa. He's being recognized for his dedication to helping youth succeeded at our walden
west outdoor school and summer camp. Over three years, volunteers or
cabin leaders are recruited at walden west to help oversee and care for the fifth and
sixth grade students. Each cabin leader can have 20 or
more campers that they are responsible for during the week. Walden west relies on volunteers
to ensure a smooth and successful program. Caden is very easy to work
with, is receptive to feedback focused on our camper safety re and is
very reliable. And an all around great addition to our walden west community. Said monica
abakan environmental education liaison and recruiter cadence. Time
as a fifth grader, uh, camper inspired him to become a volunteer. He
remembered three things from his time at walden west. He said he had amazing time. My friends
also had an amazing time and my cabin leader was part of making the week. Awesome.
a few years later as a sophomore, caden returned to walden west through his school's self-study
opportunity. Since then, he's been a cabin leader nine times and a core crew volunteer
twice. Caden credits these experiences with helping him grow his confidence,
find his voice, and build his leadership skills. Caden said, I
used to be extremely excessively self-conscious. Yet each week I came back
to walden west. That old shell is shattered more and more and I instantly
expunge any new thoughts of self-doubt. As a volunteer cadence said he has seen
change in his empathy, public speaking and ability to adapt, which in turn has
helped him ensure students have a memorable experience. At walden west, he recalls
a student being homesick and saying they were scared that they wouldn't become independent during their
stay. After a heart to heart talk, the student continued to do their best to achieve
their goal. By the end of the week, he could not stop sobbing that he had to leave. Caden
said he had gotten his lesson in independence and I was a part of it that stuck with me.
and moments like that are why I keep returning outside of walden west. Caden volunteers
for community cleanups at the japanese friendship garden in guadalupe park. He
also sorts food at second harvest food bank. After graduation, caden plans to attend
a four year university, berkeley or uc, santa cruz to major in linguistics.
he hopes to aid in documenting and teaching endangered languages. Very interesting.
we appreciate and commend caden for his hard work and his dedication to walden
west and the sculley community. I'd like to congratulate caden. He will receive
a frame certificate of recognition signed by the county superintendent of schools,
dr. David toson sr. And president of the santa clara county board of education
victoria hon caden, monica aon and marie lobi,
director of environmental education. Or join us this evening. I'd like to invite them to say a few words.
congratulations caden
marie bobas. I'm director of uh, walden west, um, environmental ed.
and instead of a speech I wrote a poem. So I have some folks here
'cause we're walden west. We can't do things normal, so gotta bring some
joy here. So I wrote a poem called life of a volunteer at walden west,
part one, science camp spirit beneath the redwoods, where
the scents are sweet, the cabin leaders stand. They can't be beat armed with
their cabin list and their can-do grin. Ready for science camp chaos. To finally
begin, they're chasing down fifth graders who've lost the stray shoe
explaining that no, you cannot eat banana slug
goo. They're earning those community service hours in style
for campfire songs and a weary bright smile.
part two, the career path.
it's valuable experience working with youth, which is
code for patients of a saint, to tell you the truth. But look at our staff.
many started out here volunteering their time for most of the year.
they survived the wet socks and the bunk bed debates.
and now their s-c-c-o-e employees isn't life great.
they love the banana slug boogie and the all day hike lunch. So
they joined the official employment based bunch.
part three, the summit expeditions. Then we have summit to homa, our partners
in crime who students arrive and have a sublime time through expeditions.
they explore the environmental education career thinking, hey, I could guide
kids throughout the year. They trade their laptops for a pair of hiking shoes with
the magic of walden west. They have nothing to lose. Just look at our volunteer of the year.
badger is the name. A summit to home. A legend now entering the
hall of fame,
part four happy trails. So cheers to the cabin
leaders, the brave and the bold who handle the spiders
and the shivering cold. You're the heart of the forest, the soul of the mess,
the tired, smiling heroes of walden west.
sorry, mine's not as cool or cute, but here I am.
it's just, I'm I'm kind of cool. Uh, good evening dr. Tosin board
and everyone intendance, um, especially caden's family. Uh, my name
is monica abba and I am the volunteer liaison at walden west outdoor school.
it is my absolute pleasure to be here to honor s sec coe's 25 26
volunteer of the year. Caden hixson, caden or badger
as he's known around camp, came to walden west during his sophomore year expeditions with summit
oma high school, not knowing exactly what his week as a voluntary cabin leader
would entail, but ready to tackle anything that came his way. Every
time he returned to camp, he learned something new and showed immense growth as
a leader and role model for our campers, our staff, and his peers.
um, I reached out to our evening staff purple caterpillar, and I just wanna
read what she wrote 'cause I you'll get it. Um,
working with badger over three years has been amazing. He always prioritizes
the campers no matter what and always prioritizes their safety.
whenever badger comes to the hub, I know I am either going to get an extremely good question or really
hard laugh. Badger is always willing to ask for support and
no staff member has any problem helping him. He is always willing to jump
in. He's an inherent problem solver and works his hardest to try and
help as many people as he can. He's extremely kind and
is always welcoming to new volunteers. He's been amazing to work with
and I'm super sad that he will be leaving us soon. I do know that wherever he is
going to end up, he's going to be an amazing, hardworking addition to that team.
uh, badger. I wholeheartedly echo these sentiments and I cannot
believe that the time has come for you to graduate. I really can't. I
, oh badger. I am extremely proud of you and I have been honored
to watch you grow, not only as a leader, but into an amazing human being. And I know that you
will do great things wherever you go. Congratulations, this award is
very well deserved. Thank you so much for being an incredible person and volunteer and a
great asset to our community. I cannot wait to hear all about what you are up to next.
please know that you will always have a home at walden west, and that we are always rooting for you.
uh, I did not prepare a speech, I didn't, uh, realize that I should have.
however, I would like to take this time to thank my family here, uh,
especially gemma, for having to deal with, uh, me going
away for five days all of a sudden in the middle of the school year. I know you don't
like it, but maybe when you grow up you'll understand. Um, I would like
to thank all the walden west staff, uh, for being so supportive throughout the years.
um, and you've really made wal west a place where I can,
uh, a place where I can feel safe and where I can feel like my
skills or talents can be, um, can be appreciated.
I, I would also like to, uh, say to any of you whether,
uh, you yourself volunteer or you know, someone else who does keep
encouraging them to volunteer. Keep volunteering yourself. If you have free time
and you feel like giving back to your community, I'd say go volunteer. It's great.
thank you.
congratulations.
too long.
congratulations caden. Alright, um, our second recognition
for this evening will be presented by trustee pacheco, our student of
the year, uh, from alternative education is shamar shamar
will be joining us by phone this evening and next time is principal maria yakob,
tri pacheco. Will you begin with the honors? Um, and then we'll be followed by
principal yakob afterwards, followed by shamar. Sure.
thank you. Can you guys hear me okay? Um, welcome everybody,
especially oak grove teachers. I see my sister's fourth grade teacher, mr.
fam right there. Um, each year we take time
to honor and celebrate students who excel often overcoming significant
obstacles to reach their personal and academic goals.
specifically, we honor students for their academic achieve improvement and achievements,
leadership skills, good attendance, citizenship and character,
community service, and perseverance in pursuing their studies and goals.
tonight, we are pleased to honor a student who epitomizes
all of these excellent qualities. Schu mar shamar
recently graduated from osborne school. We are recognizing him for
his academic achievement, leadership and strong character. Let's
give him a round of applause.
schu mar is a leader amongst his peers and has earned their respect
and trust. So much so that they read speeches at his graduation,
remarking on how he has had a positive impact on their lives.
he is very empathetic. He is that person others can go to when they are
having a bad day. Set. Michelle decaro, alternative education
counselor. He always comes to class with a big smile and
positive attitude. Schu moore has duly enrolled in community college
while taking his regular high school classes. He has been taking part
in a small business and entrepre entrepreneurship pa pathway in
collaboration with san jose city college.
his academic achievements also include earning the state seal of civic engagement,
incredible. For his project on homelessness, he developed
a proposal to help unhoused people have support in the community and
access to different services such as housing, drug, alcohol, and mental
health counseling and job development. This commitment to his community
and active citizenship has influenced his decision to pursue political science
in college. Said to karo. On behalf of the co county board of education,
I'd like to congratulate schu mar. He'll receive a frame certificate
of recognition signed by the county superintendent of schools and the president of the santa clara
county board of education and an ipad to help him continue
the path of academic excellence. Schu mar is joining us
via teleconference this evening. The principal of schu school,
maria yaku is also in attendance. I'd like to invite them to share
a fewer marks starting with principal yaku. Congratulations, schu.
good evening, president chon trustees and superintendent dr. Tosin.
my name is maria yaku. I'm the principal of osborne school. It's a
distinct privilege to be here tonight to celebrate our student of the year shamar.
at osborne, we look for students who not only excel at
academically, but also model a path forward for others. Shamar has
done exactly that while completing his high school requirements. He went
above and beyond by duly enrolling in college courses, proving
that his focus remained firmly on his future. He is
also a pioneer at our site, becoming one of the first students to earn the state seal of
civic engagement. His project, developing programming to
support unhoused members of our community demonstrated a deep level of empathy
and a desire to give back to the world around him. One of shear's
most vital contributions is his influence on his peers. In
an environment where staying motivated can be a challenge, shamar often serves
as a beacon for his peers. He doesn't just focus on his own success.
he actively encourages those around him to stay in school, dream big
and work through their personal obstacles. His peers have shared that
shamar has, has helped him help them through difficult days and
reminded them that their passions still matter. Shamar, your resilience
and leadership have left a lasting mark on osborne school. We are
all very proud of you. Congratulations. And now shamar
is going to be sharing a few words about his journey.
good evening everyone. I just want to say I appreciate y'all for, for
no for nominating me for the, uh, student of the year. Uh,
I want to give a special shout out to miss, miss michelle decaro and all the staff
that helped me through, through this journey. Uh,
I I want to thank everybody that that helped
me, that helped me get through this and helped me get to this point in my life. Thank you.
thank you. And then we'll make sure he gets those, um,
recognitions and that ipad. All right. Thank you. We have one
more recognition for this evening. Our final recognition is for the public affairs department,
the pub, we can clap for them now.
, the public affairs department was recognized by the california school
public relations association, cal spra and the
three, and with three communications awards, along with individual recognition for
one of our teammates. Um, this honors this cal
spra honors outstanding achievement in advancing strategic goals through
effective communications and public relations. S-c-c-o-e
received an award of excellence for its branded sponsorship outreach kit template,
two awards of merits for its relaunched internship program and for child
for a and for a childcare provider appreciation video.
additionally, paige redmond communications and public relations specialist was named the
cal spra rising star recognizing emerging leaders whose innovation
and commitment strengthened connections with students, families, and communities. We
would like the public affairs team to join us at the side podium for a photo so we can congratulate
you all. And then I know I, uh, interrupted that applause. So we will also give
you guys applause. Thank
you. Trustees. If we could go to the, uh, side podium please.
you're in the,
we're only missing, right?
I feel like .
sorry about that. Okay.
alright. Thank you. And again, congratulations
to the public affairs team. All right, we are now going to move
on with our agenda to the student board member report. Student board member andino, can you please
share your report with us?
hold on. I know.
say something. Hello. Hello. We
can hear you. Yes, we can hear you. Good evening. President john, superintendent
dr. Tossing and steam board members outside county
middle school students attended an animal assisted happiness farm
at the farm. They show the students the barnyard animals and how to take care of them.
it is really joyful in a therapeutic experience. Both students and staff
enjoy their time at the farm. The high school students will also be going to the
animal assisted happiness farm, and they are motivated to go
as so no students have the opportunity to turn a barbershop. They will
gain hands-on experience and gain hours towards their barber's license. And happy.
this program is taking place as a no because a lot of kids talk about being
barbers and give and this gives them the opportunity to real
earn real life experience. And osborne students are getting ready
to register for summer and far college courses. I'm one of the individuals
who, who will be taking classes in the fall.
I'm all set to take business classes. I chose to take business class because
I, I wanna know how to operate my own company and manage my own money.
next semester, the cohort will be starting at their third business class in the small
business into entrepreneurship pathway. At
this time, I want to take the time to honor my brother shamar ellis for getting student of
the year. Since I've, since I've been here, he has overcome
a lot of obstacles and never give, give up. He is a very
resilient young man who also helped me in many ways
in my educ my educational journey and teach me life skills. Thank
you. Thank you. Student
board member andino for your report.
did you have something to add?
no. Okay. Alright. Um, your perspective
is important to our work and we always look forward to hearing from you at our meetings.
all right. And we'll now move to agenda item four or public comment. We are now moving to
item four. This portion of the meeting is for comments for items not on the agenda,
but within the santa clara county board of education's jurisdiction, state
law prohibits the board from discussing or acting on non agenda items. The board expects
all participants to maintain respect and civility. Public speaker cards
must now be submitted as no additional commenters can be added once public comment begins
under government code section 5 4 9 5 7 0.95, the
board strives to maintain orderly and civil meetings and prevent disruptions during
public comment. We'll maintain a respectful and peaceful environment. Verbal
abuse, threats or physical violence will not be tolerated and may result in removal. Please
refrain from clapping, cheering, and snapping, booing or shouting to show support for a comment.
you may use a universal sign of appreciation by waving your hands in the air like this.
moderator, do we have any public comment? Yes. We have 39 cards.
okay. Thank you. As public comment period is now commencing, we'll not be able
to accept additional commenters. Uh, tiffany, can you please present the one minute
timer? If language support is needed, time will double. A timer will be displayed
and when the allotted time is up, the buzzer will sound, you'll be muted in your time to speak. When
moderator, can you please begin public comment? Yes. Thank you. As
you hear your name, please line up for public comment behind the podium located at the center of the
room. As a reminder, one person at a time can be at the
podium to present their comment. Unless language support is needed by an
s-c-c-o-e interpreter or a sl interpreter, the timer
will begin. Once you start speaking comments extending past the time allotted will
be muted after time expires and you will be asked to leave the podium to
prevent sound distortion. Please keep the microphone a short distance about a hands
distance from your mouth. Our first 10 speakers are issa
segun, tina chang, jeff mccannon,
jeremy stret, alina charles
zoo buie, ron lauder, todd
martinez, alex valenzuela,
and stephanie pone. Our first speaker
is issa pu guen.
hello everyone. My name is issa. I'm from the
deaf program at oster elementary and I've
been noticing things there at the school. So I'm
gonna go back a little bit. There are four or five things that
I wanted to tell you. The first is that the teacher, um,
I that I see there, they're very frustrated and stressed. They don't have enough
assistance. They're having to deal with students in a one-on-one setting.
and I am also a para myself. I deal with students in a one-on-one
setting and I'm wondering how are
the students supposed to get what they need if paras are being laid off?
how is the teacher supposed to work alone? I refuse
to give up on these students despite being laid off.
the students are young, they're in third grade, and they need
a deaf leader. I myself am deaf.
I have to continue to support these students. I care about
what is best for these students. The fourth thing
I wanna say is that I grew up in oster elementary,
went to dartmouth and lee high school. Oster
used to be such a beautiful and wonderful place and it's just not the same as it was.
what is going on there? The kids deserve better.
they need the help. They appreciate the help.
again, I cannot wait.
the next speaker is tina chang.
good evening, um, trustees and dr. Tosin. My name is tina chang
and I'm the parent of a deaf disabled child who attends oster and
I'm active, um, in the selpa cic. Today I implore
the lord to prioritize the most vulnerable children in our county.
our children are not numbers. They have faces like evan's.
in prioritizing kids like evan, I asked you to ensure that you support the
teachers and service providers who make it possible for him to go to school and to get
a quality accessible education. Our teachers are irreplaceable.
I know that there are many families in our county who still struggle to get an accessible education
and are forced to leave the county homeschool or battle for nps placements.
the closure of special education classrooms and reduction of highly trained staff
in our county will only push our struggling districts that are already closing schools to
pay the high cost of sending students to np ss, which are more restrictive
and less, um, opportunity for inclusion. Please consider the downstream
effects of your budget decisions. The next speaker is jeff mccannon.
good evening. The grant supporting wellness centers were built around providing
direct mental health services to students through licensed professionals.
mental health specialists are the staff who deliver that care, providing counseling,
supporting high need students, and generating mecal revenue tied to
those services. Yet those same positions are now being eliminated
at the same time. The wellness center model, the coordinators and the billing
infrastructure all remain in place. So this raises a serious concern.
if the structure remains but the clinicians are gone, then the core service has effectively been
removed. And more importantly, how does eliminating
the very staff responsible for delivering grant funded mental health services align
with the intent and requirements of those grants? Thank you.
the next speaker is jeremy st. Strt. Good
evening. Good evening. President and board members s-c-c-o-e rightly recognized
the urgent mental health needs of our students and secured major grants to address them.
with the 12 licensed mental health specialists last year, we delivered thousands
of hours of direct therapeutic service to wellness centers, helping hundreds of students.
more than half of those specialists and thus more than half of the direct therapeutic
support have already been cut. This year we were on the cusp of making the model
sustainable through medi-cal billing. Exactly the goal of these grants.
instead, all remaining licensed specialist positions are being eliminated. Next
year there will be zero direct therapeutic services by s-e-c-o-e clinicians.
even though a large amount of direct service grant funds remain unused in
holding accounts, I respectfully urge the board to restore the
licensed mental health specialist positions as promised in the approved grants,
or require a clear funded plan with mou so students do not lose these
critical services. Thank you. The next is avelina charles.
my name is avelina charles. I'm a clinical social worker and I have been with youth
health and wellness since the beginning of the program. The reason why I took a position here
was because the mission and values aligned with my mission and values. We serve high risk
populations and I myself was a high risk population as a student.
therefore, I'm very highly invested in this program. When it started, not only have
the values changed, but there are two years left in the grant and our positions are
being cut. Therefore, I urge you to consider how this
is going to affect those high risk populations and the progress that we've already made and how much
damage will be done by just removing these services. Thank you.
the next speaker is zu. We,
despite pretty words of reassurance that sustaining walden west is a priority, the actions
of the county office remain at odds with their communications with the public and staff. Renovation at walden
west was supposed to occur in 2015 and now more than 10 years later, it appears that few
contingencies were planned to ensure us to move transition. Instead, the actions of
the county office reflect poor planning and hasty decision making. As construction received the go
ahead in january, layoffs were quickly sent before evaluating options to continue environmental education
in our community. Despite this, we were told to continue registering families for the summer.
the county office has reversed course and as such has canceled more than half of our planned programs before
even securing a construction firm or considering starting on a date that would allow for camp to
continue unencumbered, this move means that almost $500,000 worth of registrations
now have to be refunded by our staff who must also apologize to our longtime returners. On behalf
of the decision making of the county office, I implore you to to consider your decision before we move, lose
more of the trust and respect of who we are improving our facilities for in the first place.
thank you. The next speaker is ron lauder.
this is ron, better known as spider. And I'm the morning program lead at
walden west. First I wanna say it has been heartening to see the progress being made toward
the goal of continuing to run program during construction next year. Unfortunately,
it is coming at a great cost to some of our essential staff. I'm here
specifically to speak for my friend and colleague, todd martinez, who was haphazardly
notified via a slideshow presentation that his evening program lead position was
set to be eliminated. This shows a complete lack of understanding of how our program
runs for the safety and wellbeing of the students. While camp is in session,
we have a 24 hour cycle of leadership, which consists of myself in the morning,
todd in the afternoon, and an overnight supervisor. Removal of todd's
position is completely unnecessary and shortsighted. It will lead to inconsistencies that
will affect the overall program, fellow staff, and most importantly, the students.
please advocate for the continuation of the evening program lead position at walden
west. Thank you. The next speaker is todd martinez.
good evening. My name is todd martinez. I've been a dedicated s-e-c-u-a employee for over
26 years. Walden west is my home, my community. I'm here because
I was told my program lead position is being eliminated. The irony is almost hard to
believe. Just days after being told my role was expendable, I received an invitation
to a staff recognition ceremony for my 20 years of service. After almost
three decades of loyalty, I feel betrayed. Leadership claims to
be cutting costs, but their decisions are ineffective and out of touch. Our director
is contracted for 261 days and supervisor for 221.
while the frontline staff are reduced to 170, that is 91 days, three
full months where leadership is paid their high salaries to work at an empty site without
students. It is heartbreaking to see the program I love compromised by such poor
decision making. You are cutting the front line to protect the overhead. Please prioritize
the staff and the students who serve them. Uh, don't trade. 26 years
of service for student safety and administrative overhead. Thank you. Before
our next two speakers go, I'm gonna call the next batch of 10. So if you hear
your name, please line up. Uh, dan robinson. Susan
slop. Michelle oliver fabiola, bat
dipali, parla car. Christian, christian,
kristen, excuse me. Uh, hinden. Chris
bel, dan capoli, renee,
uh, louis and sarah steinbeck. Our next
speaker is alec barrera. Valenzuela.
good afternoon. Thank you for your time. My name is alex and I work in the transportation department here at
s-c-c-o-e. Our job as school bus drivers isn't just driving a route. It's providing
safe and reliable access to education for the most fragile students in all our santa clara
county. Every day I transport students with special needs from home to school and back.
some require bucket guards, vests or harnesses
to stay secure while the bus is moving. I secure wheelchairs, monitor oxygen tanks
and work alongside nurses and aides who provide medical care on board. Several
students have medical time limits. They cannot be on the bus longer than 30 minutes due to their
conditions. To serve the entire county, we have to be strategic. With routing, just
getting one student to their school can take up to 40 minutes in morning traffic.
if we lose six drivers, routes get longer and more combined, that will not help us get
all students to school on time and safe with their medical conditions
and time limits. Of course, my role requires specialized training and constant
focus because the bus ride itself is part of their care plan. My job is to central
to these families, to this county. The next speaker is stephanie poone.
good evening. My name is stephanie poone and I'm a professional educator. I'm
also a parent, a union member, a community member, and a constituent.
I'm here to ask a question, what is your job? Because right now you
are not supporting students, you're not supporting educators, and you're not bargaining in
good faith. Do your job support students support
educators, support families bargain in good faith? We cannot wait.
the next speaker is dan robinson.
good evening board members. My name is dan robinson. I'm speaking on behalf of ms.
twe, which could not be, she could not be here today. She's a special education teacher
with 28 years of service to our children. The decision to close ritter
park elc was only communicated to staff on april 16th.
given the significant impact on students, family and staff, it is important
to ask whether this decision was made with thorough consideration, transparency,
and appropriate checks and balances, or if it was made without fully prioritizing
those most affected. Riter park elc opened just
this year with resources already invested, including the construction of
a bus stop to support student access. Closing the site by july 17th, 2026
raises serious concerns about fiscal responsibility and long-term
planning. How can this level of recent investment be reconciled with claims
of insufficient budget to sustain school operations and retained staff? The
situation calls for clear justification, accountability, and a more transparent explanation.
the next speaker is susan slop.
good evening. As a parent of a special needs child in santa clara county, I strongly,
strongly support our county programs and the educators who work hard for our students every day.
but from speaking with parents and teachers, one thing is very clear. There is no clear
planner strategy coming from the santa clara county office of education. The
recent issues with walden west county special education classrooms and incarcerated
student programs, our clear examples of what happens when decisions are made
has hastily and without proper planning or input from parents, staff in
the community, these decisions impact the most vulnerable students.
we need proactive leadership at sko that acknowledges problems and solves them. This
is not how an organization that supports children should be run. Please
fix the problems or they will get worse. We will continue to show up and advocate until
the scoe administration leadership start putting students first. Thank you.
the next speaker is michelle oliver.
good evening dr. Tossin and trustees. I'm here again and
I'm gonna ask for some self-reflection on your part.
I wanna pose a scenario of my team and I showing up for an iep
unprepared. We leave a family waiting 30
to 60 minutes. When we start the meeting we're we didn't come with our
assessments complete and we're not prepared to present
services to the family. If this happened, I would be written
up. A family would be complaining.
we would be showing complete disrespect to this family and
the student. So why is the negotiations committee allowed
to show up in this way? Why have they been allowed to do
this on numerous occasions? Dr. Toss and I have faith
that you can rectify this. It needs to happen urgently.
we need to be back at the table. Um, and we need
you to make that happen. The next speaker is fabiola bata.
hello, my name is avila vatas. Once, once here again. Um,
this time is a different route. Um, was told some of our students are
being degraded on their disability from severe to minor,
from minor to light, pretty much normal kids.
where does it say you guys have that option
to choose our kids' disability. That way you put 'em in
a regular school setting so it'd be cheaper for you guys.
my kid brings money into the system. I know this is a business.
he's just a number. They make it count.
'cause as the parents were getting frustrated person, you're
gonna graduate and tell him that he can't go to to the age of 22 because he is already good enough.
'cause he can talk, he can walk miracle. 'cause you guys want that to happen.
it's not gonna happen. Don't cut off the teachers.
the aids the pass drivers. We need them. The next speaker
is ali parla car.
harvard business school. Research shows that organizations that invest in
their people, no, don't just have short-term gains, but they perform better
over time. This applies directly to s-e-c-o-e,
but we don't need harvard business school to tell us this. We know this from
our personal experience that the key for an institute to be considered
a premium institute is how well they invest in the prosperity
of their employees and how valued they make their employees feel.
the teacher contract expired in june, 2025 and there has been little
movement from s-c-c-o-e to make to work with union representatives.
how is this fair to the teachers? But we, the teachers
have continued to show up at work, serve our students, and carry the system
forward. Employee prosperity, which is
being fairly compensated and supported directly affects how people
feel about coming to work every day. When educators feel valued,
they bring energy, focus, and commitment. Before the next group, before the next speaker, I'll
call the next batch of speakers. If you hear your name, please line
up. Amy bennett, sandy fsi,
bob pearl, uh, dang.
huang
missin, mendoza, aria,
lila salinas grace penso perez.
christine, he heley hedley. Debbie
yon, please line up if you heard your name. Our next speaker
is kristin hinden.
I am here today as a former employee of the deaf and heart of hearing program where I worked for
nine years. And during that time, I had the opportunity to meet so many
incredible staff and other people throughout the organization. People
whose work ethics and compassion made them friends to this day
as well as mentors. And it's the children and families that kept me going to work each day.
however, unfortunately, there's also many administration, administrators
and people in power who forgot why they were here, who forgot the people
they were supposed to be serving. And this is how I met reju, krisna
krishna, ace president and that's who I stand with today.
I was introduced to her because of administrator behavior. I always thought of her
as a guardian angel, someone I couldn't always see, but she was always
standing by me as well. As many of the people you see here today,
her compassion, intelligent work ethic and commitment to advocate for her
students and countless staff is unwavering. Her energy seems to have, have no limit.
and the next speaker is chris bel.
hi, I'm here to raise serious concerns about sco e's oversight of our county schools.
california law specifically education code 4 2 6 3 oh through
4 2 6 5 2 requires that district expenditures
be approved or ratified by the governing board. Morgan hill unified does not present
warrant registers for board review, meaning millions of dollars of public funds are spent
without public oversight. I raised this with the school district. No
response. I raised it with in a zoom meeting, uh, with stephanie gomez
on march 20th and was told she'd follow up in two weeks. No response despite
multiple attempts. It's been over a month and I've heard nothing. Tiffany jones says,
you're the team is handling it. Uh, won't let me talk to you. Uh, so the
ques so, uh, at the same time, public records are showing that your office is
allowing the district to edit o oversight letters, softening findings and weakening accountability.
so the question is, who's the oversight body working for the district or the public?
my request is simple, respond to legitimate concerns, enforce the law and maintain oversight.
taxpayers deserve transparency. The next speaker is diane capi.
good evening trustees. And dr. Tosin. My name is diane kae. My
son colin is medically complex with vision impairment as one of the main disabilities
affecting his education. He's currently in a scoi run special education
program. He benefited from the early start and preschool vision programs, which I understand
are no longer available. During the march 18th, 2026 board meeting,
several public comments addressed the availability or lack of vision
services across santa clara county. While colin currently receives support from
a dedicated and a tent teacher of the visually impaired, he needs access
to a comprehensive visiting program similar to the dhh program at oster,
unfortunately no program exists in our region. We've been told s-c-c-o-e
is a vendor and that districts must come together to create regional programs. However, the selpa
local plan states that the executive se director is responsible for implementing
regional services and identifying program needs. And this role is overseen by
the county superintendent. So my question is, who is responsible for ensuring visually impaired
students have access to an appropriate regional program? And what is done? Next speaker is renee lee
liu.
good evening. My name is renee liu. I'm an s-c-c-o-e
employee and I'm also a parent of three children,
um, in santa clara county. On march 19th, 2026,
I received an email from one of my daughter's, um,
school district superintendent joint negotiation
update with district teachers association
bargaining teams. And the teacher's union reached a tentative agreement
on march 17th, 2026 on a new contract for
the 26 27 school year. Major items include salary
increase and restructured schedule, extra duty stipends, class
size, and extended personal leave clarification.
bargaining teams for both parties express their appreciation for the
collaborative and problem solving approach to these negotiations, which enabled
them to reach an agreement so early in the school year. The next speaker is sarah steinbach.
hi, my name is sarah steinbach and I'm reading this for darlene poni.
good evening. My name is darlene po. I'm a retired educator and
I was a union member for over 23 years. I've spent my life in education
and I've seen a lot over the years. I know how hard educators
work and how much they care about their students. I
truly believe s-c-c-o-e would bargain correctly and
in good faith, it matters not just for the educators,
but for the children they serve. At a time like this, we
should be working together, not making things harder, prolonging
this will only hurt everyone. Please do the right thing.
settle this, support your educators and support your students.
thank you. The next speaker is amy bennett.
I was hired in 2003. I worked as a teacher in
2003, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.
and then had I had gap of two years and I came back as
a teacher and worked 2019, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
and 26. I was laid off because I didn't work
here for two years in layoffs. The county went
back seven years for teachers. If these seven years of
teachers are gone, what about the next seven years and so on?
this has been demoralizing and heartbreaking. My whole career ended
abruptly. And I want the board to please put a face to my name.
amy bennett. The next speaker is sandy fow.
hi, I'm sandy. Um, I thought about I've been subbing, I subbed and then I
was permanent. So I've been here since 1993, over 30 years of my life
and my heart's breaking because morale is at all time low. In this
organization, we seem to be getting further apart rather than
working together and get getting closer. Um, I represent people
in the office typically and I see patterns at the site. You know,
patterns of complaints all coming from multiple complaints coming from the same area.
um, I tell my kids and I tell the kids that I coach,
use your voices when things are bad enough. You have to speak up and use your voice
and we have some protection. We'll take care of you. Now when we have members
doing that, I see layoffs happening in a way that I really think are retaliatory
not only to members, but to leadership in the eyelid department.
I'm concerned about that department. I don't believe that we have good
leadership there and there's a lot of retaliation. I'd like you to look into
it. The next speaker is bob pro.
good evening board. This is bob perla. I have some questions that I'd like
to ask you to reflect upon. Do you support the retaliation against
employees who speak up for themselves? Do you support the intimidation
of teachers who have the audacity to advocate for themselves
and their students? Do you support union busting when
employees say something that you don't like or you don't want to hear?
that's what this superintendent is doing in your name.
you need to take control of the situation and force a change. Of course,
the road that this superintendent has you going down hurts teachers and
support staff. And what's worse than that? It hurts students
who are the most vulnerable ones in our community. If you don't right the
ship while you still can, it tells voters exactly what you
do and do not value. Turn this situation around
bargaining, good faith and rescind the layoffs. The next
speakers, d juan,
good evening board members and dr. Tosen. My name is hong
dng, one of the negotiation team. I would like to ask eoe to return
to the bargaining table and to resume the faith negotiation for
our contract. I have been worked with headstart over 25 years
and never been faced significant stuffing step shortages
like this. Current time many classroom ratio are two step with 20
young student with high needs diapering, cell help skill, behavior limit
language ability. These repo responsibility require time, attention,
and staffing to ensure both and student success
and stop wellbeing in. So please rescind the layoff. Has studies committed
to committed to provide high quality early childhood education
and cares for our student success? We need fair contract
now and reflect the reality of outwork and support both
staff and student alike. Thank you so much. The next speaker is ms. Rayan
mendoza.
uh, ms. Rayan mendoza on does not
look like she's here onto the next speaker area.
area, not here as well. Lila salinas.
oh, oh, shoot. I kind of messed it up.
uh, there we go. All right. My name is lila salinas.
I'm an organizer with community service organization san jose, and
I am here and will be here every single time to condemn these attacks
on our students, educators, unions, and the political repression
of ace president reju. We have no confidence in
superintendent tosin, as he has shown a complete disregard
for the needs of the people of santa clara county actively pushing
for cuts to programs. For those most in need, you
need to be held accountable. We can't wait.
before the next speaker goes, I'll call the next batch of speakers. If you
hear your name, please line up kelly shapiro
area. Amen.
heather, uh, burns. Cynthia puno,
niku sni, luis velazquez,
christina moore, dana wynn,
and jack mcgovern. Our next speaker is grace pso
perez evening. For
20 years, I have served this co uh, county in early childhood education,
helping pioneer full inclusion at the preschool level. If our
displacement is due to not being in integrated site,
then why will you remove us from an integrated site with full inclusion
in the first place? Now, reader park preschool is closing. We
are being sent to the bid board with only one position available.
I was only assured a position next year due to a posi procedural issue
because I did not receive a pink slip within a required timeline.
it is how 20 years of service is honored. I receive recognition from my years,
yet I now face possibility of losing my position. That contradiction is
unacceptable. If I am to be retained, place me where I will be effective
in an early childhood where I can serve my purpose. Follow seniority. Please
stop making decisions that put unnecessary strain on her mental and emotional wellbeing.
if 28 and or 20 years of service, the next speakers, christina
hedley. Hedley.
good evening superintendent tosin and board of trustees.
you've all spoken out and fought for causes that you believed in.
um, one of you was even a union president for your district.
what would it take for you to encourage your negotiators
to negotiate our contract in good faith?
what would it take for you to consider covering our healthcare again
as well as the cost of living in silicon valley?
it's not fair to make us worry about our jobs and wait and see what cost
of living in healthcare would be covered. Please
respect s-c-c-o-e staff. Our students depend on this.
the next speaker is debbie yon.
good evening. My name is debbie yon. I interviewed for my school nurse
job in 2002. There was a mural on that wall
on the other side, uh, at that time that,
uh, stated coe's roots and contributions to the silicon valley.
I met dedicated team members who were passionate experts, 30 year
employees. The disability rights movement was founded here as technology
blossomed in this diverse, fertile and energetic valley of
hearts. Delight, coe supported families through the
pandemic with technology, home-based instruction and food outreach.
I am appalled at the board and the superintendent's app. Parent disregard for
human capital of students, employees, and community.
while the superintendent is an interloper. The board seeming
dissociation from the culture and excellence of coe and the
surrounding community is inexplainable and negligent.
I appeal. The next speaker is kelly shapiro.
good evening board. And, and dr. Tosin. First of all, let me introduce
myself as kelly shepherd. Sorry, my handwriting can
be a little sketchy. Um, I have
come to talk tonight about the, that my observations
indicate that there is, seems very clear that the closures of the special
ed classrooms are in an effort to promote inclusion act
strategies. Ie increase the percentage of disabled
students in the districts. My observations are the districts
are not ready to accept our students,
nor have they ever been in the 19 years. I worked for san jose unified,
backed up by my colleagues, by the other school nurses that I keep in touch with
all around the county. They are not trained.
can you please provide transparency regarding the timeline for complete integration
to staff, parents, and especially the students for the launch? The next speaker is area.
amen.
second call for area. Amen. Uh, going on
to the next speaker, heather burns.
hi, I am heather burns and I'm a proud public school teacher and union members
speaking in support of ace workers in our county schools. During negotiations,
there's been no offer to address critical safety needs for our most vulnerable
students. This is deeply concerning and quite frankly, heartbreaking.
um, common sense measures like preventing unsupervised classrooms,
ensuring safe learning environments, maintaining a da
compliance and providing accessible alarm systems in the dhoh
classes are not optional. They're essential. When
these basic protections are missing, students can't fully access their education
and staff are placed in unsafe and unsupported situations. It's
scary. Scary. Okay. The county has a responsibility
to ensure that every student can learn in a safe, inclusive, and well supported environment.
and right now that responsibility's not being met, I urge you to take meaningful
action for our students. The next speaker is cynthia peo.
hello. Good evening. My name is . I'm speaking on behalf of
cap catherine. In support
of educators and support of bargaining in good faith.
she works with some of the most vulner vulnerable kids. Students. Not
everyone is willing or able to support. And still, she, she knows,
she shows up them every single day. Aside
from her sisters, her students are her life. She's first
advocate for them and for the educators who serve them.
so when educators speak, you should listen. When they ask
for support, you should act when, when it's time to bargain. You
must do it in good faith because supporting
students mean supporting educators. And if you are not doing that,
then you are not doing your job. Thank you. The next speaker
is niku raja.
hi, uh, I'm niku raje at walden west. I'm known as moose.
um, I ask that you rescind all of these layoffs and
stop doing more of them please. Um, these are permanent positions
with over 26 years, um, of experience.
you can't like solve that with money. Um, I am
a, uh, substitute. I don't have that kind of experience.
if I'm put in a position that requires experience, I cannot make sure those children are
safe. In order to put children first, you need employees with experience.
I've heard multiple people who have over 20 years of experience laid off
like that. That's not okay. That doesn't put children first. That doesn't
respect staff with experience that, that puts students in
danger directly in danger. That's not okay.
the next speaker is luis velasquez. Good evening board
and superintendent. I am luis velasquez, president of the gro educators association.
I'm here to represent, uh, and support the county educators and seiu local 5 2 1.
uh, we can wait to fully staff schools. We can't wait for small, smaller
class sizes and caseloads. We can't wait for stability and safety on
our students. Our students deserve. We can't wait for competitive wages
and benefits. We can't wait to recruit and retain quality educators. We
can't wait for our reliable healthcare coverage. We can't wait for proper
training equipment environments to support our students. We can't wait for
safe learning environments. Maintaining a da compliance and providing acce accessible
alarm systems. We can't wait for ensuring that iep services are in place before
students start. We can't wait to support the whole child and actively include families.
we can't wait for consistent and legally require 15 minute breaks.
we can wait. The next speaker is christina moore.
the curriculum and environments in our county classes are specially designed to meet
individual student needs. It is irresponsible to place students with opposing needs
in the same classrooms such as students with high medical support needs,
with students with high behavior support needs. The program must fit
the child. The approach of expecting students to fit the program ends up being
ineffective, more costly and leads to safety concerns for staff and students.
instead of using the false lack of funds narrative as an excuse for
the bad practice of closing specialized classes. First, be transparent
about the misuse of funds and then do better stop wasting
time and energy on retaliatory actions and put that time and energy
into creating partnerships with staff, parents, and families to strengthen and keep
coe programs open. It is an, it is an egregious falsehood
that our programs and services are not needed. Talk to parents and professionals
throughout districts and you'll hear stories of students not being served
or of students being inappropriately served and overwhelmed compared district next. The
next speaker is diane wynn.
hello, I'm diana. I'm a parent. Dr. Tossin. I think
you remember me. Former head start, pc rep. Um, same
thing ms. Beiser. I think you remember me. I'm just here 'cause I'm in support
of all the teachers and walden west. I didn't really realize what was going
on with walden west, but, um, after hearing, um, you know
what's going on, I just wanna say, I was born and raised here in san jose. I went to
hillsdale, which is now jason m doll, um, stonegate silverdale,
andrew hill. Um, I'm back in school for my nursing program and,
you know, both my kids are in head start and it's really sad to see that
walden west could be closing. I went to walden west. I loved it. Um,
and to see that all these things are happening to it, um, I feel bad that
my kids are not gonna get to experience that. Um, but I'm here in, in support
to the teachers at head start. Um, ms. Hong, ms. Lan, everybody,
um, they, they, they're my village. And I, I want you guys to bargain
in good faith. And, and the last speaker is jack mcgovern.
good evening board. My name is jack mcgovern. I'm the political director of the south bay labor
council. Uh, I'm here on behalf of the labor council and our 100,000
union members asking the board to support our teachers and union workers
speaking here today. And all those who can't be here. The south bay labor council
stands in support of ace, seiu, oak grove educators
and everyone else here in demanding attentive and respectful leadership.
and we stand in support of ace president reju krishna. The labor council
supports the call for our superintendent and the board to step up and provide
the leadership needed to support our workers to negotiate in good faith
and to rescind the layoffs. Thank you. This concludes
public comment. Um, president ch uh, for item six, we have
two speaker cards. Thank you.
alright, that concludes public comment. Our next agenda item is
our bargaining unit reports. Please note that state law prohibits the santa clara county board of
education from discussing or acting on non agenda items. A five minute timer
will be presented and comments should not exceed past five minutes. Um,
our seiu president sarah is already here, so thank you. Please state your name and
title and present your comment. Uh, let's wait for the five minute timer though.
alright. Thank you. Sarah genaro, seau, chapter president, representing over
1400 permanent and substitute classified staff and defender of public education.
today we're gonna talk about s e's top five ways to build relationships and trust
with our union. Number five, be transparent. Release the requested
information to the bargaining units, including the march 15th leadership position. Layoff list
management claims. The layoffs are equivalent to the bargaining units, but the limited data available
from educational services does not support this. Provide the requested information
regarding custodial positions and bus drivers who are impacted by the march 15th
layoff notices and also has not been provided. What is the office trying to hide?
number four, be accountable. Tonight's budget revisions includes a certificated retirement
incentive, yet management already announced that they would not offer this to ace and has refused
to provide one to seiu. Why were members told they needed to
resign or be laid off and not to share that information with anyone yet their positions
were not actually being eliminated. Stop the anti-union behavior,
recognize seamless card count and cease violating our weingarten rights. Be fair and transparent
with the reasonable accommodations, complaint, processes, and discipline. Number three,
collaborate and partner with the bargaining units. Decisions continue to be made without
input, including layoffs, benching, and budgets. Sciu was not invited
to participate in the lobby day, which we understand the board members requested. Number
two, reverse the layoffs. Eliminating paraeducators and associate teachers is
insanely shortsighted, especially when considering the high rate of unfilled absences.
additionally, part of the justification for keeping a special education principal while closing
the 15 classes that they supervise and a site director who supervises the five classes
that are being closed, is the staff absences and lack of subs that is near 20%
unfilled. Instead, we should just retain the staff so that we can fill the
positions. Laying off bus drivers that transport our most medically fragile
or have the most support needs is unreasonable. Our drivers have shared that some students have
a ride limit of 30 minutes due to their medical needs, and that students have accidentally or un intentionally
disconnected vital pieces that help them to live. I shared those documents with you yesterday.
others shared about students getting out of all of the safety devices, requiring
them to pull over as soon as possible. Additionally, one bus driver or submitted
their retirement paperwork after the march 15th notices, but business services said
that this will not be filled. Thus, the department is actually reducing the number of positions by
more than half. Our college liaisons are vital to the success of our alternative
education program, not just in the quantity of services provided, but also in the
quality as you've heard from both them and their students.
and finally, number one, negotiate a fair contract for seiu and ace. We've been
at the table for over a year just for a reopener, and our second reopener is starting already.
ace's contract expired last summer. We've never had negotiations take this long and
0% raises while over a hundred million dollars sits unspent in the bank. Grant
funding is rising and our students' needs are increases. Is is incredibly
disrespectful to the people who are doing the work, providing fully funded
healthcare and a cost of living increase commensurate to the state cola is fair and affordable.
s-c-c-o-e must invest in students in our communities now, restore confidence in our
fiscal processes and transparency, defend public education and stand against these decisions
that are devastating to our students, staff and community. We can't wait.
our students can't wait, and our community can't wait. Thank you.
thank you. I would like, I would now like to invite the designee or president of
the psychologist and social workers association, pswe forward.
it does not look like a representative is here. So we will now move to, uh, the designee
or president of the association of county educators ace forward. Please clearly state your name, title,
and present your comment.
krishna, ace, president, and a defender of public education. I stand here
today with educators who continue showing up under strain, uncertainty, and disruption
because that is what this profession requires and what our students depend on.
we are here today to speak up for students who are losing stability for ace and
seiu members who've been laid off. Teachers, counselors, mental health therapists,
paraeducators walden best staff and management personnel impacted
by these cuts. Each one of these roles represents children,
students, a human, a need, a future. And right now, all those
lives are being disrupted. Then there are contradictions that cannot be ignored.
example, agenda item eight d $30,409
in general funds was allocated to support an early retirement incentive
for certificated employees. This funding was generated from salary savings
incurred in the second interim. Yet when ace brought forward
a structured early retirement incentive that could have saved jobs,
coe withdrew the mou and claimed ace refused it. You cannot
set aside funds for a solution on paper and then reject the very agreement
that could have prevented layoffs. Closing programs after investing heavily
to establish them is not planning. It's a failure of planning. Silence
on agenda. Item five b reflects a lack of accountability.
withdrawing the retirement. Mou that could have saved jobs is not good. Faith
bargaining and bad faith is not right. Just not
right. Lack of parent collaboration. So many more
examples. These are not exceptions. That patterns of bad decision making,
coe's, culture of inconsistencies, lack of accountability, complete disregard
of labor partners and bad faith patterns must end today.
we are demanding. Stop all layoffs, keep counselors
in their positions. Invest a portion of the $109 million surplus
directly into student programs. Preserve mental health and wellness service
staff. Protect special ed and head start programs for our most vulnerable
students. Be demand accountability for fiscal mismanagement and for
your action plan. Dr. Tosin for the fiscal misdoings as brought forth in agenda
item five b from november 19th, 2025.
actually build in processes for transparency in budget decisions and governance.
stop the scapegoating and stop this culture of retaliation and harassment.
negotiate in good faith with ace. Ace has now entered fact
finding. If no agreement is reached, we are prepared to
take further action. Ace remains willing to negotiate in good faith,
but we are also prepared to go on strike for our students, our staff,
and the integrity of public education.
recently I was trying to bring my critically son back home for urgent treatment.
there was a narrow window when it was possible , I had every
step. People who had the ability to help and make it happen
did not look for solutions. Everybody offered a reason for why
it can't happen. Everybody had an excuse. Every single person
I talked to had an excuse. No one asked me one
question that could have brought him back. How can we make this
happen? I carried that question till his very last
moment, even during his cremation. And I will carry that question
till my last dying moment. And today I ask all of you here,
why are you not thinking about the one way that you
can stop these layoffs? That you can preserve these programs, that
you can actually make things happen? Why are we so invested in telling
everyone we cannot? We cannot. We cannot. No.
please sit together, sit with us and think of that
one reason, one way that you can make it happen. Because
that one way can save a life. That one way
can save a life. Today,
board members and dr. Tosin, this is your
responsibility to find solutions, to focus on how this
can be done and not why it cannot be done. We've heard enough
of why it cannot be done. Ask the question that matters.
how do you stop these layoffs? How do you preserve these programs? And how
do you negotiate with us in good faith? Find
the one way we can and not cannot. Thank
you.
thank you. That does conclude our bargaining unit report and my condolences
to you, reju and your family. We'll now
proceed to our next agenda. Item item number six, our consent action items.
moderator, we do have public comment on this item, is that correct? We do. We
have two cards. Okay. Can we do public comment on this before we, um,
uh, discuss and possibly pass? Uh, yes.
our two speakers are, if you hear your name, please line up at the podium.
michelle oliver and diane kae,
if you're still in the room. Our next two speakers are michelle oliver
and diane cap. Our first speaker is michelle oliver.
as you move forward on these consent items, which are often just listed and
voted on, um, I think we need to evaluate
how genuine it would be for you to consent to
recognizing teacher appreciation and recognizing national
stress awareness. Right now, the amount of stress
that your staff is going through is pretty significant.
um, as teachers, we don't feel appreciated. I have been with the county since
1998 and apparently my position is not important enough
or valued enough to be part of the retirement incentive list.
but apparently some management positions are.
what are you saying to us by consenting that these are important
things, but the actions are not supporting that
you need to show us more integrity. The next speaker is
diane kae. Hello? Oh, sorry.
hello trustees. And dr. Tosin. I just needed to take a minute,
um, to collect myself after rudy, you spoke. Um,
I just wanted to come up here to give a quick shout out to my son's,
um, scoe school nurse suzanne williams. She has been collin's
nurse since tk and he's
now in fifth grade for medically complex students. As school nurse is an
essential part of the iup team. Suzanne played a critical role in facilitating
colin's transaction back to school after his third open heart surgery,
as well as, um, other procedures and surgeries. Over the years,
she's trained classroom staff on multiple procedures and consistently helped ensure that
colin can safely attend school. She's currently helping not only my
son, but my whole family as we navigating new diagnoses and determine how best to
support him at school. Susanna has been incredibly important in many situations throughout the
years that con that continuity of care has been essential and in building and
maintaining trust. Conclude comments. Thank you. Uh, and, uh, president
john, we do have one card for item seven a. Thank you.
alright, um, we'll now I'll now entertain a motion to approve
consent action items a through h move by
move by trustee krisna, uh, move by trustee kernan second and
by trustee pacheco
board members, please vote on board docs.
and that motion carries with six yeses and one not present at vote. We'll
now move to agenda item seven or consent act or consent information items. This item
is on the agenda for transparency. There. There's no presentation or action required
unless there are any comments. Um, but we have one. So moderator,
if you could do the public comment for item uh, seven. Thank you.
our speaker is diane capi.
good evening trustees. And dr. Tosin. My name is diane cap and my son colin
tenson, s-c-c-o-e run, sai special education program.
colin is one of 715 students currently enrolled in an
soe special education program. Declining enrollment is often cited as
a reason for class and staff reductions. However, I would like to point out a discrepancy between
the special education enrollment figures presented on a slide during the budget study
committee meeting on may 17th, 2023. And those shown
on a slide during the march 19th, 2025 meeting. While the
reported change in the number of classes alliance, the enrollment numbers themselves do not the
march 19th, 2025 enrollment numbers look much more favorable for sco e.
this inconsistency undermines trust and transparency. I respectfully
ask for greater clarity regarding the reported decline in enrollment, not just as
a broad statement of declining enrollment, but a more detailed breakdown of where students are
going, especially since this decline is being used to justify class and staff reductions.
one minute is not enough concludes comments.
thank you. We'll now move to agenda item eight, or action president
sean uhhuh , I, I recognize this as a, uh,
consent information. Can we get clarification on the discrepancy?
uh, sure. Dr. Tossin, do you know who can
give us some information on that discrepancy or
if there's, uh, at a later time as well if there's additional information? Yeah,
I wouldn't be able to speak to that at this moment, so, okay. If you can get back to us,
that would be appreciated. All right, thank you.
okay, now we move, we will move to, uh, agenda item eight are action items.
um, this action item eight, a discussion and approval of candidates for the region 20
csb delegate assembly runoff election will be presented by dr. Tosin.
thank you, president john. On march 4th, 2026, the board voted to select candidates
for four seats on cs b's delegate assembly for region 20.
following that action, the csba completed the count and certification
of ballots for the 2026 delegate assembly election on march 25th, 2026,
as a tie vote occurred for one seat in region 20 csba
has initiated a runoff election. The runoff election is to fill one
delegate assembly seat for region 20. The candidates advancing to the runoff
election are elizabeth holiday campbell union high school
district, uh, the second candidate, jody muirhead, santa clara unified
school district, who is the incumbent. I will now conduct a roll
call, vote for each of the candidates. As a reminder, board members may
vote for one candidate only. When your name is called, please respond yes
if you wish to cast a, cast a vote for that candidate or
pass if you do not wish, wish to cast a vote.
once the roll call has been completed for both candidates, the staff will tally the yes votes
for each candidate. The candidate receiving the highest number of votes will be identified
as the board selected nominee and submitted on the ballot on behalf of the board.
are there any questions before we begin?
trustee alberta? I just wanted a comment or clarification.
'cause I had heard that technically elizabeth halladay had won the,
the vote, or not technically, but she had unofficially won the vote,
but because of a discrepancy in the way that the votes were
reported, that, uh, that it was not
captured, uh, it was not finalized. So I just wanted my
colleagues to have that same information. Okay.
thank you. Trustee pacheco, could we find
a way to get trustee rocha back?
let me text them
or no, that needs to be voted on too. It's already
he heard you. All right. Uh, dr. Tossin, could
you do the roll call? Vote please. Thank you. I'll begin the roll con
roll call. Voting, uh, the first candidate, elizabeth halliday,
uh, trustee berta aye. President
sean aye. Trustee la
aye. Trustee pacheco aye. Trustee
rocha? Aye. Vice president spicer
pass. Trustee shanan? Aye.
I have seven ayes and one pass.
I'm sorry. Six, six eyes and one pass. Can we skip the
next one, dr. Toten? Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah, we still, we'll still
go through it. Yeah. The second candidate, jody muirhead,
uh, trustee berta pass, president chon pass,
trustee laurie pass, trustee pacheco,
a trustee rocha pass, vice president spice
pass. Trustee nan pass.
I have seven passes for jody muirhead. Um,
the, the selected, uh, representative is elizabeth holli. Elizabeth
holiday, uh, staff will record the selection and submit the completed
ballot reflecting the candidate selected. May I have a motion to approve
the board selection of the candidate for csba delegate assembly runoff election
for region 20? The candidate selected is motion
is elizabeth holiday. I second moved by trustee
laurie's second by, uh, vice president visor. I'm sorry, what? That's
trustees. Please vote on board talks.
and that motion carries with seven yeses. Thank you. All right. Uh, thank you and congratulations
to the candidate selected by the board to represent region 20 at the csba delegate assembly. And
thank you trustees for your participation. We'll now move to item item
eight b presented by dr. Michelle johnson, director of charter schools.
good evening trustees, president sean and dr.
tosin. Um, people demographic balance
has been a concern. The county board and santa clara county office
of education for a long while, county staff has
worked to collaborate with all s-c-c-b-o-e authorized charter schools and support
their development and implementation of plans to increase their efforts
and successes in enrolling a more diverse student population consistent with the
letter and spirit of the charter schools act.
as part of the s-c-c-o-e standard charter oversight and review process,
csd staff compared the demographics for all s-c-c-b-o-e charter schools
and compared it to the district or county demographic data for the
district in which each school was located. Then csd staff
compared those schools which had disproportionality amounts with the amount, with the enrollment
demographics from the previous renewal period for any school whose
charter is due to expire on june 30th, 2027. When
comparing each charter school's enrollment data on the 2025
da school california school's dashboard, in comparison with its
previous renewal enrollment demographic data, three schools emerge
disproportionate demographic data in indicates that
discovery one, tahoma and rocket ship rising stars are
not serving all pupils who wish to attend. The data indicates that the disproportionality
per percentages of some student groups have decreased for some,
but not enough. And for others it has grown. Underrepresented
disproportionate student groups at discovery one in tahoma include english
learners, hispanic and socioeconomically disadvantaged students.
while the dis while at rising stars, the data indicates
that socio economically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities
are now disproportionate. Pursuant to education code 47 6 0 7
e. The county board may non-renew a charter if it finds that the charter school
is demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program due
to substantial fiscal substantial governance factors, or
is not serving all pupils who wish to attend education
code 47 6 0 7 e also provides procedural steps
for the county to follow in such cases, including providing at least
30 days notice to the charter school of the alleged violations and providing
the charter school with a reasonable opportunity to cure those violations,
including submission of a corrective action plan proposed by the charter
school. By authorizing the issuance of these notices
in advance of the receipts of discoveries to hoas
and rising stars renewal charter petitions, each school will be
provided additional time to cure these issues, including through a corrective
action plan that could be incorporated into and or otherwise be addressed
as part of their renewal charter petitions. Therefore, staff recommends
that the county board take action to authorize and delegate authority to the county superintendent
or designee the authority to issue the notices to discovery, one
to homa and rising stars pursuant to education code 47 6 0 7
e. And provide a reasonable opportunity to cure the matters raised in the notices.
thank you. Thank
you. Dr. Johnson. Uh, trustees or dr. Or dr. Tossin, are there any questions?
trustee pacheco? Um, what's the
threshold for when you de when you conclude,
um, that a population is
disproportionate? So it's at least a five plus or minus,
and have these three schools,
uh, demonstrated these same problems
for a long time? So with regards to both discovery
and to homa, during their prior renewal period
when their terms were up for renewal, they were both notified that
they were disproportionate in, in the same areas that they're currently disproportionate
in. I see. So that's
terrible. And also, yeah, so they have improved, but
not enough, and that's why we're providing this notice again. Okay.
well, it seems like it's a historic problem for those two. And then this
for the third charter. Um, this is a new problem for them. This is a new problem
for them. This is, they have not been in this position before.
okay. And then so we'll, we are expected to see their renewal
petitions for board action probably by 20 early
2027. Uh, we've been working with all of our charter
schools, and you should see all of them
begin early 20, early fall, mid-fall.
so, um, all th uh, discovery
one will bring their, actually, they'll be bringing theirs
in december. The
other two will have their, um, they will come in august.
my last question is, how will we know if whatever plan, because it
seems like they just, at least for the first two charters,
all they have to do is just submit some type of plan that looks like they're
gonna take some action. But how
do we know that if their first plan wasn't effective enough to get them out
of this hole, that this second plan is gonna be any different
in terms of the accelerated improvement that we need?
um, I think the fact that we are
actually issuing a notice, which we did not do, um,
five years ago, because the law was not that way.
the law changed in 29, in 2020. And
so we're now at this point where we're issuing
a different, so they're actually having to update and create a plan, which they didn't
have before. I see. So this, so we're not gonna be comparing it from one plan to the
other, but it is a historic problem for them. It's a historic problem, but it's not a
torical plan. Mm. Okay. Thank you.
thank you. Trustee pacheco, any or trustee ?
thank you. And thank you for those questions. I had some very similar, but I'll ask
another path, which is around their engagement in this process, or
I'm, I'm sure they're aware that this action is coming before the board tonight. They
are. Okay. And as far as past practice, do they ever submit
a letter in acknowledging the circumstances and or committing
to work with staff? Um, you know, and obviously I would expect that during the renewal
process, but even here I was a little surprised to not have been contacted or, and
maybe I missed a, an email to me that I didn't see in terms of
their interest in having a conversation, but not even a correspondence to
us.
while the, the school may be aware, um, that this letter's coming,
the, this action tonight will, um, generate the letter that
they would respond to, it would gotcha. Conceivably be a little bit premature
for them to say, we just wanna let you know we're gonna work with
you for a letter they hadn't received yet. Gotcha. So, but they're,
they have, as I mentioned, they've already been informed of this action. They knew this was coming and
okay. There's, you know, oftentimes they've got an opportunity for public comment too, to
attend and talk about their acknowledgement and recognizing the issues to work through, or,
anyway, that's why I was curious if they were engaged in this process, in past
practices of how engaged they've been in when these decisions are made. And then,
um, last question is related to, uh, our authorization.
now that's part of our role. And that's, is that part of the new legislation
you mentioned, or has that always been the role the board is authorizing the, um,
the issuance? I'm
not sure I understand the question. I think I do. It is,
so our role is to authorize the issuance it says here in the right. Yes.
okay. So let me ask you this question again. Is that always been our role or is
that new legislation? That's part of the new legislation. Thank you.
any other questions? Trustees?
oh, trustee berta. In the development of the, um, the,
the plans to address the discrepancies, is
that something, um, the charter school department supports them with, or
is it really up to each school to, to
build that plan? So each charter school is responsible for creating
their own plan. However, we have had conversations about
their, a variety of different things that each school
can do to improve their recruitment efforts. Um,
some of those efforts include changing their enrollment
preferences. Some of them include, um, specifically
looking at the, the population that
they might not have actually been out of alignment with before.
and so the, because they, a charter school cannot
specifically say, uh, I want to enroll special
students with special needs. They can't specifically do that, but they can
contact, um, other schools and let them know that we
do serve all students. So it's, it's part of that, that
advertising and notification and they need to create, create their
plan to make sure that they are removing some of those barriers.
for example, saying, oh no, we can't serve, no, we serve all students. They need to change
some of their language. Is there a way for this board to know which
recommendations they agreed with or
which suggestions if they didn't go a particular route or if
they decided to, um, I guess not focus
on a specific concern? So with regards to each
of these notices that we're sending out, we're giving them a list of different possible
options and they get to pick and choose because it's not an exhaustive
list, but as part of their renewal petition, that
plan will be included. So you'll be able to see what their plans include.
right. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate you bringing forward this item and
the consistency and, and monitoring as well.
thank you. Um, in terms of seeing that plan coming forward, is that at the re at
the time of renewal or will we see it before then?
the intent was for them to submit it with their renewal. Okay.
if they want to submit it early, they can. Okay. Alright. Thank you.
okay. Seeing no other questions, um, we do need to
make a motion. So I'll entertain a motion to, for, to
issue the notice of concern or reasonable opportunities. Let me finish
the sentence to ki pursuant to education code 4 7 6 0 7
e moved by trustee, seconded by trustee pacheco.
trustees, please vote on board docs.
I'm not sure if my, um, reply went. So verbal eye.
okay. Thank you. Trustee laurie, verbal eye from trustee laurie,
just in case. Thanks. Oh, it did go through. So, uh, we have seven eyes,
um, on item eight b. Thank you. Thank you, dr. Johnson.
okay. We are now moving to item item eight c, uh, which
will be presented by dr. Matt wayne, assistant superintendent of educational services.
nope, actually, dr. Lee instead .
all right. Thank you.
good evening, superintendent dr. Tosin, president sean, and,
um, trustees. So my name is kristen lee, manager of planning
and support in the early learning services department, and I'm representing
the early learning services department. So this evening, the early
learning services department is seeking approval from the governing body, um,
on the recruitment plan set for the 26 27 program year.
uh, to note, the policy council has approved this plan on
april 14th. So
we wanna first thank you for your questions, um, and review of the powerpoint. And
so to optimize your time, um, I'll be focusing on the concrete shifts
we're making in preparation for enrolling children in our zero to five
services. So we recognize
that the staff at the early learning services have worked extremely hard this
year. Um, especially under challenging circumstances.
we are still continuously placing our 150% effort in
reaching full enrollment, but as of today, we have not yet been able to meet our
funded enrollment levels in our head start program. Hence
in our evaluation and with the recommendation from our consultants, um, the
recruitment plan focuses on how we can make a more effective and coordinated
approach to our recruitment. So
again, our staff have been phenomenal and resilient,
um, especially in our recruitment efforts. Um, we want to just add
to it, um, and we wanna do this by looking at not just activity based work,
but focusing on results driven systems. So
some core changes that, um, we're making, for example, is to have
a more targeted recruitment, focusing on the outcomes and finding
different avenues to streamline processes.
and with that, I'd like to focus on the three main areas for the 26 27
recruitment, which are one, easier application process,
two, stronger recruitment focus, and three, improved enrollment
process. So eliminating
barriers and using technology to aid in the ease for parents to access our
services is an expectation of the office of head start. We have
replaced our interest form with an online application for the 26 27,
um, program year. This can be accessed via qr code or actually
directly through our website. We do understand that not
all families have a computer, um, especially to be able to access the application,
so it is mobile friendly. We also understand that
maybe not all of our families find technology to be the easiest
to use. And so for those who find it a challenge, we also still provide
paper applications for those families.
so to build a stronger recruitment process or focus, we're taking
on a two-tier model. So what we're doing is, is we're making
a distinction of roles and modes for how recruitment is done. So
one tier is the program wide recruitment level, and in
this we believe that everyone is a voice for recruitment. And
so coordinated by the se or enrollment supervisor. Events attended
will target a comprehensive prenatal to five, um, demographic
group. And we're focusing on high needs neighborhoods. Another
tier, we'll focus on the recruitment that happens at
the site or program level. So the site specific recruitment. So these,
um, recruitment efforts focus on what works for the community.
so depending on the location, we understand that certain recruitment efforts
work better than others. So for example, at our san antonio
site, our family advocate focuses on developing relationships,
um, with different agency and organizations and family resource centers that are nearby,
uh, to gain interest in our program. Whereas, for example, in our
gil location, our family advocates have recruitment tables at a medical
facility twice a month. Um, another great example is our edenvale
site in which the family advocate canvases the neighborhood and has been a staple
in the community.
in addition, we're working on our advertising efforts, um, focusing
on updating our flyers, our, um, supplies for recruitment, also
looking at different advertisement spaces we can utilize and also re-looking
at, um, our recruitment budget. We're also placing
a focus on coordinating stronger partnerships and also looking at our
greatest advocates, our families present and past to support us.
so as stated, one of our greatest partners in recruitment is our
families. Historically, our greatest recruitment effort has been word of mouth,
and we'd like to revitalize that relationship with our families and our
recruitment efforts. Also, we're looking at informal and formal
partnerships we have in strengthening these partnerships while also
looking for new relationships or partnerships we can build. So
ways we're developing and improving, um, our partnerships is by
creating mous for referrals to our program, creating a greater pool
of networking for care for our families. And lastly, creating greater
visibility and presence by attending events and networking with
partners to exchange information. Last
but not least, from an operational lens, we're focusing on our enrollment process.
we've already cut our time between, um, a family being accepted
into a program. And when we're able to schedule our intakes by half,
we realize that on the ground and in the central office having a
high warmth, high clarity approaches paramount not just with our
families, but with our staff. Our greatest area of improvement is to
focus on creating clear procedures for our staff so they have the tools ready at
their fingertips. In doing so, we're working towards creating a more streamlined
process. We've already reduced and combined forms for easier access
and use, and we've, um, consistently trained our staff in
all of the processes. Us is
at the end of the day, we see that when we clarify roles, we're able to have
greater coordination. What we hope this plan does
for our families in 26 and 27 is to remove barriers in
our enrollment process. In other words, we want to make life easier for
our families, not harder.
similarly, um, what this means for our enrollment
is to streamline our processes to making, supporting full enrollment that much
closer and attainable. So no plan
is without tweaks. This
recruitment plan is embedded on the cqi process, or cqi is
continuous quality improvement cycle. And so in this, we're
going to continue to collect data and we're going to analyze it, make
strategic decisions, and then implement those strategic decisions and then start
it all over again. So to conclude,
we would like to focus on the outcomes we're hoping to achieve. Our goals
are to be close as possible to funded levels across all of our sites
to reduce time from application to enrollment, increase applications,
um, from our targeted outreach, and then lastly, build stronger relationships
or partnerships, which will generate greater visibility and
consistent referrals.
questions. Should
I krishnan? Thank you so much. Um,
so I wanted to know if you can speak more to inclusion, um, for
students with disabilities and how that's being intentionally planned in this enrollment
strategy. So, so according to the head start program performance, there
is a number, right? So you have to have a minimum of 10% of children
with special needs. So we do not dissuade families, um, at all.
uh, that's one all of our fa um, all of our classrooms, we don't
restrict them and say, okay, well if you have an iep, you can't come in.
um, in addition, we do have a partnership with allen rock union school district
in which we work with lyndale elementary school. So for those children in their special
ed program, um, in their early learning program who qualify for head start
state, they're actually able to come into our classrooms and participate
in our program as well.
are we reaching that 10%? Yes. We're actually
usually much higher than the 10.
any other questions, trustees?
okay. Trustee , thank you.
uh, thank you for the presentation in your work. I have a question regarding the partnership
slide. Mm-hmm . And the ones that you listed here, are those existing partnerships
or new partnerships we're exploring? So most of them are already preexisting.
the ones that we're explore exploring are things like, um, the probation department
and gu uh, amigos, the guadalupe. Um, so those are
some of the ones that we've currently started to establish a more formalized relationship
with. And what we're trying to do is take
some of these partnerships we do have that might be more informal, and we want
to make them formalized so that there's a clear process for referrals
rather than just kind of waiting with bated breath, hoping someone's coming in.
I see. Okay. And then, um, health and nutrition partners,
can you elaborate on that one? Is that such as non-profit,
um, medical facilities or what? Sure.
so we actually partner with valley med down in gilroy, and they're the ones
that allow us to park our recruitment tables out there twice a month. Okay. Um,
we also partner with santa clara county public health and san benito public health.
um, for example, our santa clara county public health sits on our health
advisory committee. They also provide a lot of workshops and training.
um, one of the great things that they've done is provide us with workshops and training
for our staff for oral health. They also come to our local parent meetings
and they do presentations there. So for example, one of our biggest goals
in head start is the successful transition right from preschool to kindergarten.
so they actually speak on the kinder oral health assessment that's necessary
for children to transition into kinder. So we do have that type of partnership
as well. And thank you, and this is very helpful and very
much appreciated and great work. Um, can you expand a bit on the educational side?
sure. Schools, um, preschools, what type of,
so we actually, um, have a great relationship with parents helping parents.
so a lot of the times our families with special needs, they,
um, they need services and resources. And so our,
we actually partnership with them to be able to have them come into our local parent
meetings and they actually provide information on the resources that they provide,
such as parent support groups, as well as some of the legal services that they
provide. Um, a great example actually in our april parent meeting
at our santee site, parents helping parents came and they provided, um,
information on the services they provide as well as local events,
um, that parents can participate in, um, to be able to help their children and
for parents to be able to engage their children in their developmental process.
okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm . Very much appreciate it. Thank you trustee
for your questions. Any other questions? Trustees? Um,
I have mm-hmm . Question for, from my earlier question because, um,
I know that there was, um, we have had inclusion
programs at chandler trip and other sites, and so
have we have the inclusion levels gone down.
so the model that we take is that every child
is eligible for a program who fits the qualifications. An iep
is not a barrier. So in so long as we're able to provide the, um,
the child with the adequate resources, they're included in our
program. Um, so in that sense, the concept of inclusion
is never, um, has never disappeared. So we have a lot of
families and we have, um, a lot of partnerships. So for example, we have a partnership with rebecca's
children's services that do come in, do continuous observations on
families. Um, our family advocates are highly trained on being able to
provide support and referrals and to be able to help families walk through.
a lot of the times our, uh, preschool students and our infant toddler,
this is their first experience. So typically they don't necessarily come in
with an iep. So we want to make sure that those families are ready and
we find ourselves to be the primary kind of first
kind of stop, um, in being able to help families be able to get the resources
and time for them to enter kindergarten. So that's one way we also,
um, create a more inclusive space for them.
thank you. Any other questions? Trustees?
okay. Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve the student enrollment recruitment plan
for head start and early head start and early head start childcare partnership. So
move second. I'm gonna,
I did heard it, heard it from trustee rocha as well, so I'm gonna take that from trustee
roach, then seconded by vice president's advisor. Sorry, trustee. She
trustees please vote on board docs. And we lost trustee laurie. He's why we're
trying to get her back on
president sean. I thought she had said she was going to retire as
in perhaps discontinue,
or is she trying to reconnect trustee laurie. Oh, okay.
and that motion carries with seven yeses. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
okay. We are moving on to our, uh, last action item, action item eight
d, uh, which will be presented by stephanie gomez, assistant superintendent of
business services. Okay.
um, good evening, president sean, dr. Tosin and trustees. Uh, this
evening we'll be giving, uh, a summary of our budget visions for the month of march.
uh, we had about approximately 456,000 in restricted revenues
that we allocated for the educator app, apprenticeship pathways, and
wraparound services for early childhood education participants. Uh, we
also had approximately 581,000 in fund balance.
I wanted to highlight a couple of these items. Uh, one of the items was, uh, in our fund
balance, and this was related to our solar project. We were required to fully
complete the solar project by march, 2026. And as part of that project,
when we came forward a couple years back to receive approval to go get the
escrow for the project, we had also set aside funding from our restricted
redevelopment agency funds to help support the project. Uh, so we did
allocate 531,000 to finalize that project.
and the second item that I wanted to highlight was there was, uh, one time general funding
in the amount of 30,409 that we were able to generate from salary savings
as a second interim, uh, for a retirement incentive. Uh,
that item is here. Uh, it is my understanding though, that we will not be moving forward.
so you'll see that reversal in the april budget revision. I wanna
highlight that when you see it come forward again. And then lastly, we
received approximately 2.8 million in allocations and apportionments. These are funds
that we get, like, uh, csi funds that we get apportionments from the state.
and so some of that funding is to support and expand programs and school improvement
community schools, student enrichment, and early childhood special education.
that concludes the update, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
are there any resy, berta? Yes. Can you clarify a
little bit further on the, the retirement incentive piece? Why was that
not changed if it's going to be reversed next month?
so the timing of when we did the budget report, um,
the intention was to move forward. And so the timing from when this got processed and put into
our financial system, there was, roger can speak more to it, but for
the finance piece, if we don't move forward, we would allocate it to put it back in our fund balance
in the month of april because the books were closed for march and we had already allocated
it for the month of march. Um, if there's specific questions related
to that, roger can answer that, but I wanted to give a heads up that it will be coming next
month as a reversal to put the money back into general fund.
okay. Is there any chance of, of figuring that out in the meantime, since you're
asking us to approve it as is tonight, which is it including, uh,
that allocated amount? So I guess my question is, is there still an opportunity to
include that or to actually follow through with the, the retirement
incentive, or is it going to be brought back with certainty? Uh, in terms
of that reversal? It was rejected twice by ace.
um, with the caveats that we had put around it, we, um, specified a
exact dollar amount, $25,000 for sort of, for the first 25 people
who, um, had hard to fill positions. And
we had a set amount of money because it was coming from the general fund.
um, the ace rejected that and offered
revisions. We countered with our original proposal and they
rejected that as well. So we withdrew the offer. And timing
wise, now it's a month later and so the incentive
to notify us in advance has lost, um, sort of steam
because it's now pretty late in the year.
hi, if you record your name and reason for calling, I'll see if this person is available.
okay. I, I guess I'm a little still a little confused because I believe we
had gotten some, some back and forth information on this. And so
the withdrawal of the proposal, can you explain why
that occurred? We were not coming to an agreement on
what the terms of the incentive would be.
okay. Uh, dr. Tes,
oh, sorry. Not dr. Hold on. Um, trustee board, are you done with your questions?
yeah, for the, for the time being. I, I, I guess I'll just state that I don't
quite understand the, um,
the lack of movement on that to, given the importance of that.
um, and it's difficult for me to sit here and approve these budget
revisions knowing that it's gonna come back to reverse this and knowing that there wasn't,
uh, an agreement that was able to be, uh, reached.
so just state that
I thank you. Uh, trustee boarda. Trustee krishan. Yeah. And sorry to, I
got to excited president trump. But, um, did, uh,
did you mention the, uh, retirement incentives were for hard to
fill positions? Yes. So why are we incentivizing retirement for
hard to fill positions? We're not cent incentivizing retirement. We're incentivizing
notification that they're going to retire. Why pacific?
oh, oh, because they're hard to fill. They're hard to fill. We want to have a head start on
filling them because those are critical positions for, for children in classrooms for difficult
positions. Can can I ask a follow up on
why it would not be done on, um, educators more based on seniority as
they're, you know, uh, the burdens obviously are
much more so is there a reason that it was just done in
that manner? Based on what we experienced last year, uh, and
the conversations that we've had informally, we recognize that, um, having
an early notice of a retirement might be allow us to rescind a layoff
for a very hard to fill position rather than a general early, uh,
retirement, uh, notification. Uh, so for example, last year with
the vi classrooms, um, we had a layoff.
um, there was, I believe, and I may be wrong with a program, but there was a subsequent
retirement and then we lost the opportunity to rescind the
layoff because that staff member had, um, gained employment elsewhere.
and so knowing, uh, that a hard to fill position, uh, if a
teacher who's not, um, being impacted by layoffs, um,
notifies, uh, the office early of their intention to retire,
then we could rescind a layoff for someone with less seniority.
um, there's no, uh, for a, a staff member who's retiring,
um, they may wait until june 30th. Um, if we know that early on, we
might be able to say, okay, um, mr. Giz is retiring. Um,
we know we have a vacancy for a teacher in this specific program.
we can rescind the layoff, um, that we issue to david because we
know we're going to have a vacancy. And so if there
was a broad, um, early notification in, uh,
incentive, um, a teacher, for example, an alternative
ed might notify us that they're retiring, um, early on, but that doesn't allow
us to rescind the layoff, um, in special ed. Uh, and
so these were targeted incent targeted incentives, um, to try and
rescind layoffs earlier rather than later. Um, expanding it
to the, um, full certificated staff, um,
minimizes the potential reward and benefit of the early notification
if we're not able to rescind layoffs.
okay. Any other questions about that
trustee ship? Actually, that one, and I'm trying to understand again, it's probably on
me. Um, but when I see the 30,000 and it's spelled
out here, how that's being utilized, thank you for that. So is that just
for one position or is it a total of 30,000 for
a number of positions? It was originally, so the, it's $25,000
was set aside from the general fund, $1,000 for the first 25 people who
okay. Notified us. So then that was we. And then the additional cost, yeah, the
statutory benefits on money. And how does that divvied up? Uh, that's,
that's, uh, the statutory retired benefits are like state disability
unemployment insurance. Okay. And then that's paid as a whole in one. Okay, got it. So it was,
and that amount was arrived at, have we done this in the past?
'cause I'm trying to understand the 1000, I couldn't speak to that perhaps. Uh,
ms. Gomez had, I know that a few years back we tried this incentive and
we didn't get a good turnout. There's a lot of eligibility requirements. People have to be
eligible through their respective retirement systems. And so when we did this a few years back,
I think we got like two people and it was a thousand dollars. It was like seven plus years ago.
so we've tried it again to see if this would help with the budgeting and the positioning for
next year. Okay. I would, I would say also, sir, that
it's, um, rather common in school districts to do this.
in fact, some collective bargaining agreements have it as part of an annual
piece to, um, usually they do it like in december or january to,
uh, incentivize people to tell us in advance that they're gonna retire. So it's not
an unusual action. Yeah, actually I guess it's a little different focus for teachers. It's, you know, these are
just standard teaching jobs and that's not a, I'm not saying it's not a hard to fill position, but these are
specific for hard to fill positions. And then I'm looking at the thousand and I'm not gonna minimize a
thousand dollars, but that just seems like a small amount.
um, the idea is not to say, not to convince somebody to retire, it's
just to convince 'em to notify us early. Yeah. So then that's the difference between the two examples that
you gave me. 'cause the other one, in some cases, oftentimes to encourage retirement. So
yes, that would be like significant amount of money, like 20% of your salary. That's
why I was trying to reconcile the two and what the whole purpose was. Thank you sir. Uhhuh ,
I, I do appreciate that clarification too, that it's a notif no,
uh, incentive for notifying about retirement, not incentivizing
retirement. So thank you. And this is an area where I, I want
to be explicit and continue to reinforce that we are not a school district.
um, the special ed programs are a contracted service. We do not
have the authority to add costs to the contract for retirement incentives,
which is why we had to move dollars out of the general fund for this incentive.
um, all of our programs, again, are in different cost centers as well. And so
the limited resources that we have, um, that we have some savings,
um, from unfilled positions in the general fund. Um, we wanted to have a
targeted, um, early notification incentive and our special ed program.
um, because trying to, uh, recruit I'll say
a-a-a-a-d-h-h teacher is not, uh,
is, is far more difficult than trying to recruit someone who,
uh, has a pe credential, um, or a multiple subject credential
like in our alternative ed program.
okay. Any other questions? Trustees?
I did have one question about the solar, um, project. I
will say it's great to see it finally starting to come through. 'cause I was on the board when that first
came out and it seemed so far away back then. So it's
great to actually see that come through. Um, do we, like, just in general,
um, I was wondering like what the cost savings was in terms of
our pg and e 'cause I do hear that come up a lot as a rising cost. So are
we, um, you know, what, what, what kind of cost savings are we gonna see?
and then, you know, I am sure we've talked about it before too, and how many years
will we see like a good return on that? So the performer
that we presented earlier on, I think it was gonna be over a period, we would see it, it has to start
generating solar. And then we got in, in a good time with solar credits when they were a little bit higher.
so I would say we were told in the next, you know, two to three years we would start seeing more of
that solar generation, but the whole project would pay itself back. And then some, I think that we
projected over like 19, 20 years. Um, and with the rising cost of
pg ei think it was 17% when we brought this forward two years ago, we will
see those long-term costs and benefits. The whole reason why we went for this project was when
we were looking at, um, costing out what that would look like long-term we're,
we don't get any growth in funding to match that. So it'd be unsustainable.
so I would say within the next like 19 years, we would pay it back and then sum and bring some
revenue savings there. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank
you. All right. Seeing no other questions, um, I'll entertain
a motion to approve the budget revisions.
I so move, move by vice president visor.
seconded by trustee shahan,
president sean, excuse the interruption. We have a comment for
item nine c. Just fyi. Okay, thank you. Um, and
that motion carries with five yeses, one no and one abstention.
okay. Um, moving on to item nine. We'll go
with our first item. The first information item is dis disposition of
surplus items from january 20th, 2026 to march, 2026.
there are no presentations for this item, but trustees, are there any questions?
okay, seeing none, I'll move to the next information item, which is employing compensation
increase, which exceeds the ec 1 3 0 2 a limit. This
information I item will be presented by roger dei, interim assistant
superintendent of human resources. Good evening, superintendent
and trustees. You have before you under education code 1302 a an item
for discussion. One employee received a promotion which created an increase in
their salary of over $10,000. The employee was promoted
from one leadership position to the other. And to clarify, a promotion
means that the employee went through an interview process, was selected for the
position, not designated or appointed for the promotion.
are there any questions? I do
have a question. So in the second scenario, would that also require this public notification
as well? Yes, absolutely. Okay.
any other questions? Thank you trustees. And thank you. Interim assistant
superintendent zi. Um, okay. Moving on to item nine
c in accordance with the brown act. Items mentioned under this item are being suggested. So they may
be considered an export for follow up according to our board bylaws topic raised under this item
or not agenda or board discussion, but rather to create space for trustees to
mention topics for review or, uh, for consideration as future agenda items. Um,
but trustees, before we go to our discussion, we'll go ahead and take public comment on this item. Moderator,
if you can call the public commenter up. We have one public comment from christine moore.
when you get to the podium, please clear, restate your name and provide your public
comment.
I'm reading this on behalf of kpia mendoza, who would like to request a future
agenda item regarding mental health and wellness services.
my name is kipps mendoza and I serve as the counselor for opportunity youth academy.
I'm here to raise concern about a layoff decision that creates an avoidable risk
to both academic and wellness services for students. My role as
an academic counselor includes time sensitive responsibilities, such
as state reporting transcript evaluation and graduation tracking
functions that require specific training and cannot be quickly transferred without risk
to compliance and student outcomes at the same time, this decision removes
a mental health therapist from their role as a wellness specialist disrupting
critical mental health support that students rely on daily. This is not just
a staffing change, it creates two gaps instead of preserving two essential services.
maintaining both roles is not about preference, it is about protecting students,
ensuring con continuity and avoiding preventable disruption. I
respectfully urge the board this concludes public comment.
thank you. Um, trustees, are there any items within the board's jurisdiction you
would like to mention at this time for our future agenda items?
trustee berta. Thank you, president sean. Um, I just wanted
to, uh, ensure, and I appreciate trustee nan for, uh, raising the
item, but, um, regarding the mental health and wellness center updates, I'm just wanting
to make sure that we, um, if possible also receive information
regarding the grants that the county office has received and how,
uh, how that works in terms of the different types of, um,
supports that are offered, not just through the wellness centers, but that could be one component.
so it's just expanding on it, the request a little bit further. Thank
you trustee bert. Thank you, trustee. Oh,
just wanna make sure I understand. Are you looking for information related to all of our mental health related
grants? The mental health related grants, the personnel that support
that, um, and, and what the process has has gone as those grants have been
implemented, which, uh, some grants are ending
some grants. I don't know if there's new grants that are starting, but just so that the,
so that the board, but also the community understands, um, you
know, since as, at least since I can remember in terms of, uh, there
were some grants that kind of, uh, started around covid and,
and some were supporting those efforts, uh, returning to in-person.
I'm just trying to get a better sense of where we are in the, in the recent history
of the work the county office has done with, uh, with mental
health. Some of that's specific to wellness centers, but I think there's additional components
as outlined in the grants. May I ask a clarifying
question to her? Um, are you also asking, there are new, there's a new grant
that we've gotten from mental health and, and whether it can help, help backfill some
of the stuff that's happening? Is that what you're asking? I'm just curious. Not necessarily.
okay. It was more just to understand where things, what grants exist
right now, which ones have ended, which ones are starting, and what the focus areas
of those are when it comes to specific positions or wellness centers.
so grants that fund positions in, well, wellness centers
on the topic of mental health, but yes. Okay. So mental health grants that
fund positions in wellness centers, not specific
to wellness centers, specific to mental health.
so more broad, more broad. I imagine some,
most positions do specifically support that.
so for example, we have the, um, c-y-b-h-I grant that
is a significant grant. Um, it is not a grant where we're providing
direct services, but it is mental health. Uh, so I'm not,
I guess I'm, that's what I'm trying to reconcile. It's a mental health grant. Um,
it's connected to wellness centers and that there can be reimbursements,
um, that's part of that grant. Um, but I'm not sure what
question is being answered or being asked about that grant. So more information
about right. If that's one of the efforts. And I know we spent a lot of time discussing this at
jac, um, and at our advocacy day. So that's why I am, I'm also, um,
wanting for that information to be amplified when it comes to the efforts
that the county office has made in the recent history, but
also what grants are still in place to move forward.
and I'm happy to provide additional context
as needed. Dr. Toss? Yeah, go ahead. Hey, have we,
um, launched major mental health programs outside of the wellness centers
since in the past few years? I know we
are engaged in a number of, uh, grants related to mental health, but I wouldn't
have the exact number. Uh, and some of them are, again, statewide technical
assistance. Um, and, and others are capacity
building. So we, we can provide a list of, uh, those grants.
okay. Thank you. Thank you trustees. Are there any other
agenda items you would like for discussion?
okay. Seeing none, we'll move on to, um, agenda item 10. Our board committee reports.
as this time, we'll hear committee reports from our committees that I've met since our last meeting.
four committees have met. Those are our head start policy council. Jac, our
s-c-c-s-b-a and silicon valley reads. Um,
let's go ahead and go with a head start policy council first, uh, vice president advisor.
I was in dc and they had it in person, so I did not make it to head
start, uh, policy council. So I am sorry for that,
but as I understand, the enrollment plan was approved by
them from kristen lee's presentation. Oh, yeah, that is true. Well,
thank you. And, um, very cool to hear that that has now moved in person.
okay. From, uh, ja, who, I'm not sure who
chairs that committee. Is that president? Uh, trustee berta. Thank you.
yes. Uh, I'll share. We had our advocacy da yesterday in sacramento,
and I really wanna thank all the staff that put together a really incredible
program. The format was a little different this year, and I think it allowed us to
be really efficient with our meetings and, um, we're able to meet with
a number of legislators and their staff, and we learned
certainly the importance of the staff as well. And, um, it was great
to elevate a lot of the priorities that we were talking about, not just in our retreat, but
also in our jlc subcommittee. Um, and was
joined by vice president spicer, uh, trustee pacheco, dr. Tosin, and
a number of our govern, uh, government relations support team as well.
and then today we also took a look at preliminary list of bills,
um, that we are considering position taking positions on. And
those will be revisited at our next jac meeting in two
weeks. Awesome. Thank you. Um, trustee
berta, and thank you to our trustees and staff who, who attended the advocacy day. It's
important to work. Um, I'm sorry, I could not attend, but it is good to see
us doing our work at the capitol. Um, moving on to santa clara
county school boards association. Trustee laurie, are you able to give that report?
yes. Uh, so I attended the s-c-c-s-b-a lunch and learn zoom meeting
with the valley transportation authorities director, sam sergeant on wednesday,
april 8th, director sergeant discussed their partnerships with school
districts in our county. More than 20 school districts have partnerships with vta
to encourage santa clara county students to learn and experience the
benefits of public transportation through their various programs. He discussed
the upcoming five county regional transportation sales tax revenue measure,
and how these potential revenues can be prioritized to deliver a better
traffic experience, including safety and security enhancements. Something
that's very important, uh, to our students and families. Uh, they're looking
for input such as on fair programs for students and would
welcome our feedback and, um, a partnership. Um, thank
you. Thank you trustee laurie. And lastly,
we have silicon valley reads, uh, trustee, and I know this is the
report that everyone's been waiting for, for silicon valley
reads. We met on april 2nd, and dr.
tosin came and welcomed the group and,
um, I believe celebrating what was your first full season
of silicon valley reads. And also, debbie gargiulo, uh,
represents us really well on that committee. And silicon
valley, by the way, after my report, I'm gonna turn to you, dr. Tossin,
putting you on the spot to give your thoughts. Um, it was a major
year. Silicon valley reads hosted over 250 events and has
already reached more than 11,000 participants with final numbers
still being tallied. And many partnerships occurred this
year, including collaborations with stanford, santa clara university,
juvenile hall community organizations like magical bridge
and animal assisted happiness, and local
institutions like walden west. And on the funding side,
there have been a lot of contributions from partners. And so
looking ahead, we are thinking about next year's theme,
and there's really an interest on wellness, health, and longevity.
um, also there was a notable conversation about
how to better engage adolescent boys and young men. And, um,
I think that's really important. So there'll be a next step for
summer to identify strong book options. And I think
we're meeting, uh, again in a few months. Was that it, debbie?
okay. So dr. Tosin gave a lot of great words about silicon
valley reads and supporting silicon valley reads. Um, and
I know you've been working a lot with reed myers, who's our executive director, so
I'm gonna turn to you to share your thoughts. Uh,
as I shared with the, uh, the committee, just a phenomenal experience being part of, uh,
sv res, um, the collaboration, the work, the impact. I had an opportunity,
um, to engage in some in-person events, but also welcome authors
with students. Um, it was very inspiring to see the culture of literacy
across the county and the, um, excitement of the kids and
the authors in being responsive, um, to their questions and sharing their
stories. Um, and, you know, building on the success of
sv res, we also want to, we're engaging in conversations around how we might,
um, build, um, on sv res and connect it to other,
uh, literacy, uh, related initiatives because it is a sprint,
um, for sv res in terms of planning. Uh, and then once it launches,
um, with the kickoff event, everything happens very quickly. Uh, and so
we're, uh, thinking through and looking at the resources that we have across,
um, the, the partners to see how we might extend that into a much,
um, more, uh, robust, um, and continuous, um,
literacy initiative. Thank you.
thank you. Thank you both for that report. Um,
all right, that takes it for our county board, um, committee reports.
we'll now move to item 11, our county board of education. Um, member reports
in compliance with the brown act county board member reports must be limited to activities
directly related to our duties as trustees on the santa clara county board of education. Would any trustees
like to report on activities to their official responsibility within the board's jurisdiction,
trustee sh krisna and, and john, I'd like to report. Okay. Uh,
we'll go trustee sh krisna and trustee pacheco, and then trustee laurie. Thank
you. I just wanted to wish everyone a happy earth day and you know,
I'm out here in this office, I go get coffee and
I, everyone, I meet everyone. And so, um,
you know, I sometimes hear about what people are doing. I
don't intrude, but, um, I got to hear that. Our environmental
services department, they're working with, I believe camba union high school
district on a climate action plan. So happy earth
day. That is so cool. And, um, that was something dr.
tossin a few years ago, we passed a resolution that was even named in
it, and we talked about it and of the, one of the many things they're doing.
and I just thought, that's so cool. So let's keep doing that. And happy
earth day. Mm-hmm . Thank you, trustee kerstein. Trustee pacheco,
I just wanted to quickly report and thank, uh, report on and thank
the county office of education and the staff for
arranging for trustee, uh, vice president spicer and myself to,
um, advocate for not just our county students, but all of california
students and public schools, um, at the capitol, especially during times as tough as
now where things can feel a little, you know, stalemated.
and so we advocated for, um, special education. Um,
we advocated for, um, additional funding
as well as credentials, uh, for our technical students. Uh,
uh, and then we also did a lot of,
um, relationship building with our congress people. And so that was really important
as well as our colleagues from all across the state in the area. And so, and then lastly,
I wanted to thank again, trustee, uh, berta,
and then vice president, um, spicer for, um,
being there with us for the advocacy day, um, led by our
staff that was really effective. We're building great relationships and, um,
this is gonna help us, um, on a really large scale as
long as we continue to keep up the energy over the years. So that's all I wanted to
say. Thanks. Thank you, trustee pacheco. Trustee
laurie. I actually just wanted to thank, uh, dr.
tosin and staff for the excellent resolutions on recognizing april as
national stress awareness month this month, and national child abuse prevention
month during the last board meeting that I had suggested, um, helping advance
awareness and action. These are very important issues that they can have long-term
impacts on the wellbeing of our students and families. Our schools
can play a critical role in creating a safe and supporting environment where students can feel comfortable
sharing concerns and accessing the help they need. So I really appreciate
the work, um, on the resolutions. Uh, thank you. Thank you. Trustee laurie? Trustee
, did you have something to add? I just forgot to mention also, happy earth day.
um, wanted to reflect on the environmental services department, but also
just wanna show my support for walden west on happy earth day.
thank you. Dress han, vice president spice. Um,
yeah, I really enjoyed my trip to dc and, and it was amazing
to see, you know, not only the contingent from santa clara county, our
sister county, san mateo county was well represented in,
in all. I I was actually in three, um, meetings with,
uh, congress, uh, people or, or their staff. And we,
we presented well and we got the point across for our, our students
and our, our districts and the county. So I, I really appreciated
that trip. It's always worth, uh, the time. Um,
even with the climate that we're dealing with. Um,
I also, uh, went on a tour of the north county, uh, she family
shelter, uh, which is in sunnyvale that is, um, run by the bill
wilson center. They just over just did a renovation
of the center to make it, uh, even better, uh, for
families. They're in this transitional stage of, uh, lack of housing.
um, so, and it, I'm, I did it as part of the, uh, success
unhoused, uh, group of the santa clara county school boards association.
uh, 'cause we're really looking to make sure everywhere that families are,
uh, there is a, uh, standard of care. Um, and
so it was good to see how they were doing. Um, and
I, um, went to a, uh, gala for the mountain
view educational foundation, um, to raise money for mountain view
westman, um, and also, uh, youth community services,
uh, impact exhibit in palo alto. Um, so it was,
um, all these students from palo alto, los altos mountain
view, um, that are doing community service
and actually coming up with their own, um, projects
related to community service, not necessarily their own nonprofit,
but projects. Um, and it was really good to see kids coming up with
great ways to help their community. And that's it. Thank you.
thank you. Vice president, advisor, trustees. Any other comments?
okay, thank you. We will now move to our superintendent's report, dr.
tosin. Good evening everyone. I wanted to share, uh, one of the
highlights or a number of highlights over the, since the last board meeting, uh, one
specifically, I, I met with andre, who's a student, uh, and trustee
nan and, uh, michael valez, our emergent, uh, emergency preparedness, uh,
school safety and security administrator. Uh, andjay had an interest
in, uh, natural disaster preparedness and wanted to have a conversation.
uh, and I entered the call, uh, and mike, if you could put your hand up in the back,
uh, entered the call wondering, okay, I don't know what I have to offer this conversation.
um, and the moment and jbn asking questions.
and he and michael began engaging in conversation. It was
fascinating to see their energies, um, align and their shared
interests and commitment to being prepared, um, for, uh, natural
disasters. And as a student, uh, his, uh, andre's depth of knowledge,
um, around different topics. And so I just wanted to highlight that, um, that
experience and, uh, watching two folks, as the kids say, kind of
nerd out, um, on emergency preparedness and the support,
uh, that, uh, michael valez, um, provided, um,
to the students and even the offer to continue the conversation and follow up. So I wanted
to highlight that. Um, the team has been focused on
a number of, um, items that are going on. I wanted to, uh, provide
some additional context, um, regarding, uh, walden west. Um, this was a,
uh, a future agenda item. Uh, and there were comments tonight
about, uh, the closure of the summer program. Um, before I
touch on the summer program, uh, it's, it's been released publicly. We were making
progress on the education program for the school year. We have commitments,
uh, from a number of schools. While mous have not been signed yet,
uh, a number of partners have provided firm commitments of
their intention to participate. Um, we are finalizing,
uh, the lease, uh, and still continuing to have the conversations,
uh, related to staff. Uh, the alternate campsite, um,
um, per their lease offers some, uh, services and
positions that, um, for example, food services, we wouldn't have access to
the kitchen. Um, and it's their contract. And so that will result in
a layoff of our staff, um, because we wouldn't have, um, work necessarily
because via west provides that service. And so that's one example
of, uh, some of the complexities, um, as we're transitioning from walden west,
where we had complete control to, uh, a lease site where they have requirements,
um, and in some areas provide their own staff. Um, specifically related
to the summer camp, um, in january, staff were given the,
the approval to begin recruiting. At the same time we received the notice
of the permits. Um, the intention was to
continue to gather information, um, with the hope that we'd be able to have
limited disruption, uh, during the summer. Uh, as information
evolves, um, some possibilities, um, are taken
off the table, uh, specifically in july. And to give you some context,
uh, of the july program, the cost for families,
um, with full service and access to walden west is $725
this year, uh, because of the construction, we would not be able to have access to the
full facility, which includes the lodge, uh, in several buildings and
the pool. Uh, and so we would be losing using a
portion of the camp. And during, uh, summer camp, I'll remind
everyone, there's a group of, uh, campers who make a large portion of
the camp called wild things. These are kindergarten to first grade
students. The idea of having kindergarten and first grade
students on an active major construction site where
the utilities may be on or off. Um, we don't have any,
uh, control over that because the construction firm, um, will be
managing that. The construction firm that will not, that has not been selected yet, and also has
insurance requirements related to, uh, construction sites.
uh, additionally, uh, not having access to utilities, we
would have to use, uh, porta-potties essentially, um, for
all of the campers. Um, and additional details that we would have
to structure for this temporary, uh, one month opportunity, uh,
that seemed, uh, insurmountable and not, uh, the best investment of
resources and at a, fundamentally without the ability
to know for certain that we would be able to keep staff and students safe,
um, during active construction. Um, the solar project, um, that
we had going on here at riter park, um, there were choices, uh,
the team made at the time to have some work done on the weekends to avoid,
um, disrupting, uh, the office, um, that added cost
to the project. Uh, and so that is something that we've done in the past. When we can accommodate
that for this project. With the timelines that we have for the permits,
we need to demonstrate, um, I forget the exact language, but significant,
um, progress on the construction, uh,
before january 2nd. We need to give the construction
firm the greatest opportunity to take advantage of, um,
construction friendly weather, uh, in the window between july and
early fall. Um, because once it becomes wet, uh, the heavy machinery
may not, may become inoperable. Um, and we do not want to have a restart
related to our permits because we've not made enough progress, um,
on the project. Um, by next year in january, our, our
primary goal and as demonstrated by the 10 plus million dollars investment
is to reopen the camp. Um, to have walden west
continue to be the, uh, special, uh, unique opportunity it is for
students in our community, um, and beyond. In order to make that happen, we
unfortunately have to make decisions in the moment that allow us to meet
those goals and maintain the integrity of the program, uh,
and safety of students. Um, we considered if we
decided to try and go away with a, um, a, a
revised program, uh, during the construction, um, we might also
lose parents as well who are expecting the, uh, pro full program only
to find out that the majority of the camp is unavailable. Um, and we're using porta-potties,
so, uh, could not move forward with clarity at this point and a hundred
percent certainty that we would, again, safety quality of program, as
well as all of the components that need to be coordinated in july, um, to start
the construction project as well as, uh, transition to
via west. Uh, and so all of these things are happening concurrently.
uh, and so that's why, uh, the, the decisions were made that we could not operate,
uh, the summer program. And we were canceling and are canceling some of the leases
of walden west in august, um, from outside, uh, groups that
wanted to use the camp. Uh, this information, uh, actually I'm
sharing a little bit more detail, but there is a, a press release, uh, on the website,
um, that articulates all of those major points as well.
what good trustee
berta, um, thank you for sharing the information with
the board and also the public in terms of the updates. Um, and I
appreciate the responses to the questions that I had also sent ahead of the meeting regarding
walden west. Um, can you talk a little bit more clarification? 'cause I
think we, we've, we're hearing some different numbers on the
impact of our summer programming and, um,
what the financial impact will be of, of, uh, canceling
the contracts for the summer programming. I, I don't
have that information specifically, uh, in front of me now, but, uh, the,
some of the conversation looks at the revenue that would be generated without considering the expense.
we obviously have fixed costs in terms of the staff and the resources to run the
program. Um, what is not included, um, in the previous plans were
if we needed to, um, have, um, porta potty service,
how that adds to the cost if we needed to bring in other components,
um, whether it be shade structures, um, because this camp happens in july, and
so peak of summer, um, heat, uh, heat related, um,
illnesses and injuries are, are a concern as well. Those aren't
included in that, um, proposal as well. Uh, and so while there was
rev potential revenue on the books, um, there would be additional costs
associated with operating in the summer camp, um, that we can't fully
calculate, um, because we don't have the construction firm identified yet to
understand how they might be phasing. Uh, and so rather than waiting until,
um, early june to make the determination and leave families and
staff scrambling, um, we've made the, the hard decision
now, um, because while there's revenue coming in, the cost to provide that program
may have exceeded the revenue. And we are managing and monitoring,
uh, the general fund contribution, uh, for walden west, um, because
we are increasing that next year to maintain the, um, outdoor education
program. Yeah, if you could follow up with that information in
terms of, because I know, I believe some of the information was 70,000
was the cost of the, at least the july programming, but then another figure
that was just thrown out was 500,000. And that's obviously a, a big
difference in terms of cost, so it would be helpful to have the
clarification. Uh, I, I can't speak to those numbers. Uh, and I, and I
recognize the optimism and, and hope of the team, but revenue's
only one side of the equation bringing in $500,000. Um,
for an activity that costs $700,000, it's not advisable.
and so we have not been able to calculate the full cost of the summer program,
um, because we don't have all of the information to be able to determine what other,
um, added, uh, components would need to be there. So there's not a comparison.
um, the leases of the facility in july, uh, there may have been potential
contracts of up to $70,000, but again, the
facility is not, um, usable and all of the revenue projections were
based on full access to the camp and the experience that
folks have already always had. I, I suspect if we communicated
the, what the strip down program would be, um,
families might make different options and we would see a decline in enrollment for
those summer components. So at this point, um, we have
some of the projected, um, revenue, um, based
on who is, uh, signed up for camp. Um, but we don't have a cost
proposal, um, for the modified camp because the decision is made not to operate
it. So I wouldn't be able to say what the potential loss is. And when you
say the decision's been made to not operate it, that is on the,
the belief that we will begin, or the intent that we will begin
construction july one that is based
on the commitment to ensure that the camp is fully accessible by the construction firm
at the beginning of july. And you had also stated that the
construction firm hasn't been identified yet. So do you have an idea of
when that's, that process, uh, will commence? We have to,
the process has already begun. We have to go through a, uh, request for proposals,
and I believe it is early june, uh, may 7th,
we will have the vendor identified, uh, and then that's going through contracting, and then they'll
develop their plans. Okay. I, I'm just a little concerned
because that seems like a very fast turnaround to make it from
the day that the vendors identified to beginning construction on july one.
um, it just seems like a very quick turnaround
and I would hate to lose programming if, if there's not
full feasibility of actually beginning construction july one. I'm just,
I'm just wondering about whether that's that, you know, fully appreciate the
enthusiasm to begin as soon as possible and demonstrate the, the commitment to
construction. Um, I just also think it's important to be realistic about
how quickly these things can begin, especially in the, in the scheme and in
consideration of the other, uh, of the revenue potential if the camp were to
stay open during the summer and for the construction to begin after that
period, to also allow for the construction company to have some additional time
to prepare for those efforts. Yeah. Uh, the timeline
is reflected in the rfp and again, uh, the, the firm will have access to
the camp. And our intention with the camp is, uh, again,
this is a major project with very firm timelines that we're investing
$10 million in. And so the potential revenue associated with
a, uh, a, a one month summer program that would be difficult,
um, to operate under the conditions. Um, that's
why we're taking it off the table. The timeline is quick. Um,
county offices are not like school districts. We have to take a two step
project, or I'm sorry, a two step process for major
construction projects. Um, school districts are able to, I believe, develop their plans,
um, and begin the construction component at the same time when they're having
their permits approved, county offices are required to have a plan
approved, have the permits, and then begin the next phase. And so we
are, um, at the, um, at the
will of, uh, the statutes, um, related to, uh, county office
construction, uh, the timeline of our permits and many things outside of
our control. And again, our, our goal is to reopen the camp, uh, for,
for everyone as soon as possible. Um, but trying to
plan for a concurrent, um, major construction
pro pro project and five to seven year olds
and elementary students on the same site is, is not
advisable. Uh, and I'm sure our insurance, um, would caution us against
that as well. I understand. And, and, uh, agree
with the support for, um, keeping our students safe. I think that's, that's
also where a lot of my questions are coming from is just in the interest of not just
the, you know, the bottom line or the dollars, but, um, the students and families
that we made the commitment to when we offered, uh, when, when, when,
you know, they had intended to, uh, be a part of the, the summer programming.
so that's, uh, so students, I'm also thinking about thank you for answering the
questions. That was that it for your report. Okay.
alright, thank you. We are now moving to agenda item 13, our closed session.
the board is about to enter into closed session. Closed session involves confidential information
for families and district representatives attending inter district appeals this evening. Here's
what to expect when your name is called both the parent or guardian and the district representative
will enter into closed session. Each party will have five minutes to present their perspective
to the santa clara county board of education. If interpretation is needed,
an extra five minutes will be provided. After both sides speak, each
will have two minutes to respond to another board. Members may ask questions
and then when the hearing ends, the board will deliberate in private. Once a decision is made, both parties
will be invited back to hear the decision. The closed session agenda item
includes two items in our district attendance appeal filed on behalf of student resident
district, a rock union school district, desired district, moreland school district, and
b conference with legal counsel, real estate government code 5 4 9 5 6
0.8. The board will enter to closed session. We'll return an approximately
one hour on or after, uh, 8:45 pm thank you.
okay, , we are ready to resume the to open session.
the time is now 8:55 pm upon completion of agenda item
13 a. A motion was made by trustee bura and seconded by trustee shian
on two, approve the appeal, um,
upon completion of agenda item 13 b. There is no reportable actions.
the santa clara, the next santa clara county board of education regular meeting is scheduled for
may 6th at 5:00 pm may I have a motion to adjourn? Move by, uh, trustee
pacheco. I'll second trustees. Please
vote on board docs or let me know if you have a verbal, verbal verbal eye from trustee
krishnam. Verbal eye from trustee pacheco. A verbal eye from myself,
verbal eye, a verbal eye from trustee rosha and trustee berta, vice president
visor. I just voted in board. Docs voted in board docs. She is
efficient. Yeah. , I'm making up for
nine. And that motion carries. We are adjourned at 8:55 pm thank
you.