[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:02] Good evening and welcome to the Board of Education meeting on Wednesday, September 9, 2026. This meeting is now called to order at 7.35 PM. Thank you all for joining us tonight.
[0:14] Clerk living will now read a civility warning and report out any action taking during close session.
[0:21] Thank you to ensure this meeting is conducted in an orderly and efficient manner and to safeguard the rights of those members of the public who wish to address the board.
[0:27] We would like to remind the public of the need to maintain order in the board room and refrain from the
[0:32] disruptive conduct.
[0:33] Any individual who continues to interrupt or cause a disturbance will be removed from the meeting.
[0:38] Now I will report action coming out of closed session on a motion by myself, second by
[0:44] Barbara Woodrup.
[0:45] The Board took action in closed session on a risk management settlement for Aden Smith, case
[0:49] Number GL 23, 0630, 93, 48 by a roll call vote of six to one as follows.
[0:57] Cassaris I, Davis I, Jonathan Rosas, nay, Thomas I, which rip I myself, I, East,
[1:03] plus I.
[1:05] On a motion by Board Member Davis, second by Board Member Thomas,
[1:08] the Board to action and close session on a risk management settlement.
[1:11] For Dulce, tell us Ramirez and Wana Francisco Ramirez.
[1:15] For case number GL24092512850 by a roll call vote of 7-0 as follows.
[1:24] Gassara's I, Davis, I, Johnson, Roses, I, Thomas, I, Wichra, I, myself, I, East last
[1:29] I.
[1:30] On a motion by board member, Johnson, Roses, seconded by board member, Thomas.
[1:34] The board took action in close sessions, deny minor, claim GL19090118247 by a roll call
[1:43] load of 7 is 0 as follows.
[1:45] Cassaris i, Davis i, Jonathan Roses i, Thomas i,
[1:49] Wittrop i, myself i, and East less i.
[1:53] On a motion by Boardenberg Cassaris, second by Boardenberg Davis,
[1:56] the Board took action in closed session to deny minor claim.
[2:00] Number GL 26, 0301, 17238, by a roll call
[2:05] load of 7 is 0 as follows.
[2:07] Cassaris i, Davis i, Jonathan Roses i, Thomas i,
[2:12] which of I myself, I e slash I,
[2:15] on a motion by board member e slash,
[2:18] second by board member Jonathan Rosas,
[2:20] the board took action and closed session
[2:21] to deny minor claim GL26062218154
[2:27] by a roll call vote of seven is zero as follows.
[2:30] Casaris I, Davis I, Jonathan Rosas,
[2:33] I, Thomas I, which of I myself, I e slash I,
[2:37] on a motion by board member Casaris,
[2:39] seconded by board member Whitrup,
[2:41] The Board took action and closed session to deny Tainisha Greer.
[2:45] Claim number GL26021118255 by a roll call vote of 7-0 as follows.
[2:54] Cassaris I, Davis I, Jonas Enrosis I, Thomas I,
[2:57] Whitrip I myself, I, East last I.
[3:02] On Emotion by Board Member Whitrip, seconded by Board Member Kassaris.
[3:06] The Board took action and closed session to deny minor.
[3:08] Claim GL26020217121 by a roll called vote of six to zero to one as follows.
[3:18] Cassara's I, Davis I, Jonathan Rossis, I, Thomas abstain, which are of I myself, I, East
[3:24] last I, on a motion by board member Davis, seconded by board member Cassara's, the board
[3:30] of action in closed session to deny minor claim GL26012018231 by a roll call vote of 6 to 0 to 0 to 0 to 0 to 1 as follows.
[3:42] Cassaris I, Davis I, Jonathan Rosas I, Thomas Absent, which rip I, myself I, East
[3:48] last I. And finally, on a motion by Bourbon, Bourbon, Bourbon, Bourbon, Bracassaris, the Board
[3:55] the action in closed session to deny Jose Ricardo de Jesús Negredi, claim number GL260222018179 by a
[4:06] roll call vote of 60001 as follows, Cassaris, I, Davis, I, Jonathan Rossus, I, Thomas,
[4:15] Absent, which rip I myself, I and East last I.
[4:21] Now, clerk living will read the board's share agreements.
[4:25] As a reminder, these jointly established shared agreements are one element of our governance efforts to focus on student outcomes.
[4:31] The shared agreements are as follows. Respect and civility on our shared agreements, be honest and honorable,
[4:38] honor my word, do not lie, deflect or disparage others, honor the process in the time limits, honor confidentiality, be prepared and on time,
[4:48] be on time, read materials, or share questions ahead of time, share as early as possible
[4:53] if I will be late or mis-committment, and finally represent all students do not represent
[4:58] solely my region or area.
[5:07] We will now move to the conference and discussion agenda.
[5:10] We will begin with item V1 to discuss and approve the 2025 Unordated Actual Financial Reports.
[5:16] The 2025-26 year end budget revision and a top resolution number 20706, again, appropriation limit.
[5:25] And we have Patrick Jensen, who will present this agenda item.
[5:30] Thank you.
[5:32] Good evening.
[5:33] We're present in east, last members of the board, deputy in the superintendent, Drottie.
[5:39] This evening, we're going to be talking about our unaudited year end financial report.
[5:46] So, just kind of as a signpost and at any time during the year we can be in two to three different fiscal years as far as action items that we're considering.
[5:57] So, really we are now in the second to last item regarding last year's budget, so the 25-26 school year, and the board will be seeing the final audit of our books in December.
[6:09] So what this is really a representation of is, when we come to the board in May and June with the budget for the forthcoming year, and we're making estimations as far as what the end year of end balance is going to be on June 30, those figures aren't finalized yet, we go through process called year and closing at the end of June and into July.
[6:31] And so these are going to be we're going to be updating the board briefly on how the fund balance and other numbers have changed since we discussed those during the budget.
[6:40] The short news is there's been a very little change, but we're going to walk through that now.
[6:46] So effectively, there've been we were anticipating an ending fund balance of $176 million as far at the budget time.
[6:54] We ended up within ending fund balance of 182.65 million.
[6:58] This is a combination of restricted unassigned balances and assigned balances in the unrestricted general fund.
[7:08] We'll talk a little bit about those major changes from what we anticipated during the end of the year.
[7:14] Our LCFF revenue went down slightly about $200,000.
[7:18] We received slightly more state lottery funds, about $600,000.
[7:22] We received some one-time additional monies from what we call the MAW program in the Chibi program, which are programs.
[7:30] Tied to the State Medical Program, and because interest rates are high right now, we had about $2.2 million in additional interest rate income.
[7:38] Offsetting that, athletic, special education extended your contracts. We actually had a really good participation in special education, ESY, and we had excellent participation in our summer programs.
[7:50] On the downside of that, is that obviously increased our costs.
[7:54] We staffed to ensure that we had full coverage for all of those programs, so we had additional costs there.
[7:59] We had additional legal expenses that were unexpected.
[8:03] We had additional fuel costs, as you know, the war in the Middle East is driving up fuel prices.
[8:08] We tried to buy it, get all of our fuel contracts in advance, but still we are not fully immune to rising oil and gas prices.
[8:15] So as you can see, like I think at our my local gas station, I think diesel was over $7 a gallon today.
[8:21] So you're seeing that in additional expenses in fuel for our buses in our white fleet.
[8:28] And then we did have offsetting that $1.2 million in utility savings.
[8:32] As we get better and better at, you know, a lot of the HFAC improvements that the board made during COVID with one time dollars.
[8:40] A lot of the systems are a lot more advanced and we have a lot more control over the programming of those.
[8:43] And so I think you're going to see continued utility savings as we have more of a efficient
[8:48] aid track systems.
[8:51] This is just sort of a pie chart that explains how the assigned and committed fund balances
[8:55] are set up.
[8:56] We still have a chunk of pandemic and recovery money that we're actively spending down and
[9:00] will be spent down by the end of the year.
[9:04] We have our textbook adoption fund and then the other fund is primarily the FDA support fund,
[9:09] the $30 million fund that for FTA student supports.
[9:14] That still has $24 million of unspent funds, as well as some carryover
[9:19] summary modeling expenses.
[9:21] And then just a part mental carryover on expenses that didn't close out at
[9:27] the end of the school year and some last-minute donations that the district
[9:30] received prior to our budget cycle or after our budget cycle.
[9:34] This is the graph that we've seen previously, so you can see
[9:38] What the trend is for the ending fund balance, so you can see the 2526 unordated and then the 2627 where we're estimating right now, you can see the continued reduction in the pandemic.
[9:54] The key trend here is the reduction in the funds available for the pandemic recovery funds, those funds are being spent, those funds are exhausted.
[10:01] And so you're seeing that blue bar shrink down and so that you will those funds were primarily spent and exhausted in twenty five twenty six.
[10:11] And so what you're seeing then is the unrestricted balance in the pink and then you're seeing some prop twenty eight in ELOP carry over in the light green.
[10:21] But the overall trend is the fund balances decreasing. So this is something we're watching very carefully to make sure that we're maintaining our required state minimum.
[10:32] and that are not deficit spending to a very high degree.
[10:38] Some of our other things that we do as part of this,
[10:40] we always look at our central admin ratio,
[10:42] and this is a measure to determine,
[10:45] it's a measure that is determined by the state
[10:48] and looks at certain resource codes
[10:52] to determine kind of what our central office ratio is.
[10:54] We try to keep this at approximately 5%.
[10:57] it peaked in 2001-2002 at 5 and a quarter percent, it was at 5 percent last year, for 2425.
[11:06] It went down to 4.99 for 2526, but we think this will drop off significantly next year
[11:14] because we had a major software conversion for our human resources and payroll software that
[11:21] impacting that significantly, kind of for comparison purposes, central unified, the last
[11:30] figure is 5.4% and Clovisus was 4.95%. So we're in a pretty normal range for our districts
[11:39] in the local area. This is our internal services fund. This is our general liability fund that
[11:45] we fund based on actual analysis,
[11:50] this is for projected general liability and we fund our funding
[11:54] this currently at 100%.
[11:57] We have our workers compensation fund, we're anticipating being able to fund that at about
[12:05] 83% for the 2627 school year, we're currently at 95% and our board target is a range between
[12:13] 70 and 90 percent. So we'll be funding that slightly less next year, but still within the board's targeted range.
[12:21] Internal services fund reserve. This is what we call the IBNP. This is effectively in the health fund.
[12:30] These are costs incurred, but not paid. So this would be the time between when someone goes to the doctor and when that the plan actually pays for that service.
[12:39] And so that's been steadily increasing as costs and health fund have gone up, but that is 100% funded.
[12:48] Another thing you're going to see is the Unencumbered Reserve.
[12:52] We have a guideline of two months worth of expenses.
[12:56] That is the recommended balance for the reserves for the health fund.
[13:01] That's the blue bar.
[13:02] The green represents additional funds within the health fund above those recommended reserves.
[13:07] So, the positive is that we have additional funds over the reserves.
[13:11] The negative is you can see that that green bar has been dropping rapidly, as healthcare costs have been increasing lately.
[13:18] And so that's something that obviously that the gym bee has been looking at very closely and considering ways to reverse that trend and stabilize the fund balance.
[13:31] This is effectively, the feature unfunded liabilities for pension and health care commimates the district has for retirees.
[13:42] We've actually had fairly good investment performance lately on this, although the bar is still substantively read.
[13:48] You can see that, very steadily and slowly from 2019-20.
[13:53] We've gone from 5% funding to 13% funding, so the funded amount has more than doubled.
[14:00] But it's something that we are constantly chipping away for, and this is really represents
[14:06] the funding for a point in time when we feel when the actual area allows us to say that
[14:13] we're going to have maximum health care costs.
[14:15] when the number of retirees is going to be at its peak
[14:18] while the number of active employees is at its minimum.
[14:22] This forms a reserve to help pay for those expenses
[14:25] when it may not be possible for the expense
[14:29] to be paid by contributions by ongoing employees.
[14:34] With that, in the back up, we have all our schedules
[14:37] for unrestricted contributions to restricted programs
[14:40] and in committed and assigned restricted
[14:43] and path on balances, reserve levels for under other funds,
[14:47] and all of the year and data for all of the charter schools is also included in our backup.
[14:52] So, where our recommendation is that the board approve the 2526 unordid and actual financial report,
[14:59] the 2526.
[15:00] 526 year in budget revision and resolution 2706 again appropriation limit.
[15:08] And with that, we stand ready for questions.
[15:10] Thank you. We'll first defer to the public and then we will turn back to our trustees for question.
[15:16] We do have three individuals who wish to address the board on this item. Each speaker will have three minutes and click living will read the names.
[15:26] Thank you. Our first speaker will be Alina Cortez followed by Brenda Kisbe.
[15:55] Do you want to hear
[15:58] some?
[15:58] Do you want to hear some?
[16:01] Do you want to hear some?
[16:12] Good evening. My name is Brenda. My daughter will not speak.
[16:17] So I'm here to talk about
[16:24] on I think it's under expenditures and contributions for the
[16:32] FDA Student Support. I believe this falls under the field trips. So I'm just trying
[16:37] to get a better understanding because it's been a lot. I believe it was budgeted.
[16:46] Fifties?
[16:50] But, I don't wanna go.
[16:53] Hmm, hmm.
[17:01] Because for, you know, in your original, people were,
[17:06] it said that it was budget for and then all of a sudden,
[17:09] you know, disappeared.
[17:10] So I'm just trying to get better understanding what happened there.
[17:15] And I'm grateful you know that the foundation,
[17:17] and which missiest part of and other leaders they decided to fully fund it for this year, I believe.
[17:24] But it's not certain for the following years, and I know, for a Ryan remember there's going to be like a committee or something of community parents students.
[17:35] I'm really excited for that, that's great.
[17:37] But I do want more, like, a little bit of work.
[17:44] A little bit of what could happen for field trips because that's so important, just different ways for schools to be able to sustain like, you know, we have great TTAs, PTOs, so just different things like that teaming up, you know, what parent university and trying to figure out, okay, how can we support school sites, so they're empowered.
[18:11] But it's really important that we really have these discussions with our students, our parents, our educators.
[18:24] Because we do, we need to definitely change how we go about field trips.
[18:30] Maybe what we've been doing hasn't been working.
[18:32] We need to figure out, okay, what can we do?
[18:34] should we bring field trips to the school sites
[18:37] because the cost of bus is so expensive,
[18:40] just to bring our different ways.
[18:41] So I'm really excited for this community
[18:43] to get to work and seeing what other districts
[18:45] are doing, that'd be great.
[18:48] And then I also want to talk about legal costs
[18:51] because it's my understanding that it
[18:53] it increased, right?
[18:54] The legal expense increased to 1.2 million.
[18:57] And one of them is going to one of the board members.
[19:01] Ms. Thomas, wait for me.
[19:04] So it is concerning the whole, how that's going about, I know it's just
[19:10] gesturing close session, but honestly I don't even know what item was, if it's
[19:14] going to continue to be covered by us, you know, the community, or if it's
[19:20] something it's going to be a personal cost because of everything that happened,
[19:23] I feel like that really is important that people take accountability.
[19:28] Thank you.
[19:29] Thank you.
[19:30] Thank you very much.
[19:33] I know that there is at least one of the topics that came up that we will not be able to address.
[19:38] But I want to invite Patrick Jensen to respond to the field trips.
[19:45] There has been a lot of misinformation about this.
[19:47] And so I just do want this corrected for the record.
[19:51] Yes, thank you. We're President East last for the opportunity.
[19:54] So on field trips, there's schools have always been allocated money for food field trips.
[19:59] That's been the case for decades.
[20:02] One of the things that this district chose to do starting in 2016 with full LCFF funding and then increasing right after COVID was to provide an additional district office fund to provide additional field trips.
[20:17] To basically guarantee field trips at every single school.
[20:20] One of the things that happened this past year is we did reduce the central office funding for field trips by about 50%.
[20:27] that did not impact school budgets or their field trip funny money, it was the sort of the central
[20:34] office support for field trips. And as far as the question where the money go, this one's really
[20:40] kind of hard, but the money isn't there anymore. We're funded based on the number of students that we
[20:45] have in the district. We lost 900 students last year. We lost 1800 students this year.
[20:56] So we have
[20:57] We have less money, that's where we have to make really, really hard choices and really hard
[21:01] reductions.
[21:02] So, the money didn't go anywhere, it's just that the money doesn't exist anymore.
[21:10] So we want to respect the time of the public.
[21:15] I know Trissie Gosset has a brief question that she would like to make.
[21:19] I think the question on where do the money go is that last year for this year's budget,
[21:23] we approved money for field trips at Sandalcy FF, and then there was a miscommunication
[21:28] is representation of that money doesn't exist anymore, did exist and if you could just clarify
[21:34] there was money approving our budget for field trips, where is that in our budget and
[21:39] just make sure that I didn't go anywhere? The money that was approved for budgets in our
[21:42] field trip. Sure, if you look at the LCAP, if you look at last year's LCAP and you look
[21:49] at this year's LCAP, you will see money allocated in both years. The amount of money was
[21:55] reduced from, I think, around $5.6 million to around $2.3 million, but all those funds were
[22:02] allocated to all of the school sites and are part of their budgets and have been available
[22:06] for the sites to spend since their budgets opened on July 1st.
[22:11] Thank you.
[22:12] We'll turn back now to the questions from the public.
[22:17] Thank you.
[22:18] Our next speaker will be Brenda Kiespef, followed by,
[22:24] I'm sorry, was that Speaker Brenda?
[22:25] So, Alina Cortez.
[22:32] Excuse me, I'm sorry. So, okay, so our final speaker will be, I'll lean, Jane Giron.
[22:51] I want to ask you not only the filter. I'm seeing a lot of things that you're doing right now. You say we don't have funded money for filter, right? Why are we doing a lot of renovation like the school side and the president unit, obviously? I just see right now we are doing renovation and you keep on saying we don't have money.
[23:11] for funds, for fund, for field trip, for whatever you want to tell it.
[23:16] Second of all, why you have to tell the social media,
[23:21] not to tell the parents from the school side, to come out from the field trip.
[23:24] The communication is not really good.
[23:26] When we hear it, no filter for the kids.
[23:29] If the kids is important to you, all of you who are sitting here,
[23:33] as a board of trustees that we elected of you,
[23:36] you're supposed to be listening to the parents who's coming.
[23:38] And sometimes you never, no, not something all the time you never listen to what we are telling.
[23:43] Because I'm seeing what's going on and I'm watching you even though I'm not coming here.
[23:48] And I'm trying to get an address for this one.
[23:51] And I don't know where this is our superintendent right now.
[23:54] Because a lot of parents are really upset that day.
[23:57] And it's the community member never come out to show the moral power that we have.
[24:02] You're not going to be listening.
[24:03] I know, we have money, we have located money, we have savings money that we are putting somewhere
[24:09] and we are wasting the money that they are being used in budgeting correctly.
[24:16] So if we don't have those funds for the filter, why we are supposed to be renovating schools?
[24:22] Or the school that we were renovated is good.
[24:25] But now I'm seeing outside renovating this building again and you can say there's no cost money.
[24:32] But I think about it before you allocate the money.
[24:42] Can we also just for our point of clarity so that there's clarity about the dollars that are being used right now.
[24:49] Patrick, do you mind addressing this?
[24:59] Good evening again.
[25:01] So school renovations are funded under a separate fund from the general fund.
[25:04] Those are funded by bonds dollars.
[25:07] So effectively the school board issues bonds.
[25:13] those bonds are sold, and creates a pool of money, and that is then repaid in the former property taxes.
[25:20] Those funds are completely separate from the general fund, and can only be spent on construction and renovation of buildings.
[25:27] We cannot use those funds for general operating expenses.
[25:32] Some of the funds for this building renovation are coming from the general fund.
[25:37] They're doing a spestis abatement, which is something that's required.
[25:42] And, you know, the thing about this building is not to go too tangential, but it's 100.
[25:47] It's nearly 100 years old, it was built in 1939, under the, uh,
[25:55] the, um, uh,
[25:55] didn't, uh, work's project, uh, administration, uh, just prior to World War II.
[26:00] Um, it's a great building, it's free, um, but it's also almost 100 years old.
[26:04] So the HVAC systems, the electrical systems, the water pipes, everything like that, is nearly 100 years old.
[26:11] So the structural integrity of the building is really good.
[26:15] It's still reinforced concrete and block.
[26:17] It'll live forever, but all the systems are aging.
[26:20] And so it's significantly less expensive
[26:22] to the district to renovate this building periodically.
[26:26] Then it would be to rent a class A office space downtown.
[26:29] And so that's what they're doing a lot of,
[26:32] they're doing a lot of electrical upgrades.
[26:35] The painting is occurring because we had chunks
[26:37] of the building falling off.
[26:39] and so that's, you know, I'm not going to suggest that spending $1.8 million dollars is insignificant,
[26:46] but it's certainly less expensive for us to maintain this building and keep it in good condition
[26:51] than it would be for us to lease office space downtown. Thank you, Patrick. We'll now turn to
[26:56] my board colleagues for any questions or comments,
[27:04] and we'll start with Trustee Elizabeth
[27:06] Janice and Roses?
[27:08] Thank you.
[27:09] I just wanted to make sure that we know that this was last year
[27:13] and that this year's picture is,
[27:17] that's not what we're looking at for this year.
[27:19] This year's picture is looking a little less rosy.
[27:22] And I also wanted to see, since we have a lot of people
[27:25] that are in the audience that are obviously
[27:26] interested in the subject matter,
[27:29] talk a little bit about the next week's workshop.
[27:33] Yeah, actually, thank you for that opportunity.
[27:34] So, one of the things is this presentation is really reflective of the end of last year.
[27:42] We do projections every year on the number of students we're going to have and that gives us
[27:46] projections on revenues and expenses.
[27:49] Coming into this year we're projecting the loss of about 1100 students.
[27:53] We are actually now on track to lose around 1875 students.
[27:58] So, about the equivalent of three elementary schools worth of students.
[28:01] So for folks who are interested in the budget,
[28:04] for folks who are interested about how we fund programs,
[28:08] and what that's about, and how attendance and enrollment matter,
[28:12] we're going to be having a board workshop here.
[28:15] Next Wednesday, open session starts at, I believe, 5.30.
[28:20] 5 o'clock.
[28:21] And so these are the things, when folks say they want to understand
[28:26] how the budget works and where the money goes,
[28:29] that presentation is the start
[28:30] about everything that is going to occur for next for this coming budget cycle is going to start
[28:36] in that board workshop on attendance and enrollment so anyone who's interested in the subject
[28:40] of highly encouraging you to come because this enrollment and attendance are critical to the
[28:45] funding of our district.
[28:47] Just if we can preview for a second those extra 700 students that we thought we were going to
[28:54] get this year that we did not.
[28:57] What does that mean for, as we look to maybe
[29:00] do any revisions in December, what does that look like?
[29:04] Yeah, so at the end of the day, we get nearly $17,000 per student.
[29:09] So if we have seven or an additional 700 students,
[29:16] we are looking at $11,900,000.
[29:22] That we need to cut.
[29:23] that we need, that we don't have.
[29:25] And that's with nothing else changing.
[29:27] And that's with nothing else changing.
[29:28] And what else could potentially change?
[29:31] And we could have, you know, we were projecting
[29:34] in currently projecting enrollment that could go down
[29:37] in future years, right?
[29:39] We have tons of inflation in our system right now.
[29:41] We're paying more for everything from parts
[29:44] for our laptops to fuel.
[29:47] Our expenses are going up constantly.
[29:49] So there's an in our federal funding scenario is is not favorable as far as what we think we're going to be getting from the federal government up in the next couple of years so
[30:00] That's kind of the economic reality that we're underpinning the district right now.
[30:06] So, even this year, we might be looking at cutting an additional at least 11 million.
[30:10] I would say that would be, would be conservative, yes.
[30:13] Okay, thank you.
[30:18] I don't see anybody else in queue, but I did have some questions, so if there aren't any other of my colleagues.
[30:25] So, Patrick, I'd like to turn to page 5 in specifically the table relating to charter schools.
[30:32] because I want to understand what this table is telling us.
[30:38] So I see that there is a beginning,
[30:41] but it's at the bottom of page five of the report that was included.
[30:50] Thank you.
[30:51] Sorry.
[30:52] Not the presentation.
[30:53] The back of the material.
[30:54] The back of the material.
[30:55] Thank you.
[30:56] So we can see a beginning, a fun balance,
[30:59] the net change, and the ending fun balance.
[31:02] But can you help elaborate about what that means to us?
[31:07] Sure, so there's a couple things.
[31:09] One is we are the overseeing entity of these charters.
[31:15] So we have a financial responsibility to review their finances
[31:22] at the same rate that our board reviews our finances.
[31:27] So we review their finances multiple times a year.
[31:30] And so what we are checking is for basic financial stability and really at the end of the day that they can exist as an ongoing concern for the next school year to ensure that they can maintain their presence.
[31:44] So we're looking for steep drops in funded balances and or unrealistic projections around revenue or expenses.
[31:55] And then also that's also representative of obviously if those are Fresno unified students
[32:00] that's that's the revenue in those columns would be potentially
[32:03] Fresno unified revenue if those students were within our district.
[32:07] Yes.
[32:09] So thank you that specific last point was something that I did want to stress.
[32:13] So when I'm looking at this if you can correct me if we're looking at it correctly
[32:17] let's start at the top with Aspen.
[32:20] The beginning fund balance.
[32:22] The net change was an increase.
[32:23] right? So their ending fund balance is much larger than what they started. That's correct.
[32:30] If we dropped down to the first negative, which would be golden charter academy,
[32:35] they started with 1.8 million. The net change was 1.3 and so they're one of the smallest
[32:41] ending fund balances that we have. So does that mean that they're starting off sort of at a deficit
[32:49] that we need to be worried about?
[32:52] So yeah, they do have a relatively low ending fund balance.
[32:55] Our team was in constant communication with them.
[33:01] And they've had some increased costs due to some construction.
[33:05] But they're, we feel that they're financial projections for next year are sound.
[33:10] And we did sign off on, we've signed off on all their financial statements
[33:13] with a positive certification.
[33:15] OK, thank you.
[33:18] So that was the extent of my questions and again, I just wanted to one last call before we move from this item.
[33:24] It doesn't look like there's anybody else, so I will need a motion and a second to approve the 2025, an audited actual, so moved.
[33:34] We have a motion, is there a second?
[33:36] Second.
[33:36] We have a motion and a second roll call, please.
[33:42] Member Cassadis.
[33:43] All right.
[33:44] Member Davis?
[33:45] Aye.
[33:46] Member Jonas and Roses?
[33:47] Member Thomas?
[33:48] member Woodtrap. I clerk Libby, President Isles. I.
[33:54] motion carries. Thank you.
[33:58] We'll now move on to agenda item B2 to discuss and approve the initial
[34:03] 2627 reopening proposal from the California School Employees Association.
[34:08] Chapter 125 to Fresno Unified School District number have a David
[34:12] Chavez who will present.
[34:19] So we have a motion in a second, on this item, can we have a roll call vote please?
[34:31] Member Cussett?
[34:32] Member Davis?
[34:33] Aye.
[34:34] Member Jonas on Roses?
[34:36] Member Thomas?
[34:37] Aye.
[34:37] Member Whitrup?
[34:38] Clear living?
[34:39] Aye.
[34:40] President Islas?
[34:41] motion carries.
[34:43] With no further action on this agenda item, we will now move to agenda item B3.
[34:48] Item B3 is to discuss and approve the 2627 initial reopening proposal from Fresno Unified
[34:54] School District to the California School Employee Association Chapter 125.
[34:58] And we have David Chavez ready to present.
[35:01] So moved.
[35:02] Second.
[35:03] We have a motion in a second, or are there any members of the public wishing to speak on this item?
[35:08] Okay.
[35:09] Since there are no members of the public signed up to speak on this agenda item, and we have a motion in a second.
[35:14] Can we have a roll call vote?
[35:17] Member Cassad is?
[35:19] Member Davis?
[35:20] Member Jonathan Rosas?
[35:22] Aye.
[35:22] Member Thomas?
[35:23] Member Wood Trump?
[35:25] Clerk Libby?
[35:25] Aye.
[35:26] President Isla?
[35:27] Motion carries.
[35:28] With no further discussion on this agenda item, we will now move to the consent agenda.
[35:35] All consent agenda items are considered routine by the Board of Education, and will be enacted by the Board of Education.
[35:40] one motion. There will be no separate discussion of items unless a board member requests
[35:44] in which event the items will be considered following approval of the consent agenda.
[35:49] We now have the opportunity for public comment on the consent agenda. We do have a list
[35:55] of speakers that is coming before us.
[36:10] So we will have four members who are wanting to speak.
[36:14] I do see that some of them are interested in speaking in specific agenda items. So you will
[36:20] have three minutes each to speak and trusty Levine will call up your name.
[36:27] Thank you. Our first speaker will be Trisha Olson, followed by Riley Talford.
[36:44] Press the button.
[36:47] I've never done this before. Here we go. I'm pretty big voice. I didn't know I needed that.
[36:52] I'm Trisha Olson and I'm an FUSD parent and I'm speaking on consent agenda item C5, C6 and C8.
[36:58] On C5, the board quarterly report shows 0% of its public meeting time,
[37:03] student and family engagement and zero percent under community engagement. I know that doesn't include
[37:09] every conversation outside these meetings, but seeing zero and both should still make a stop and
[37:14] take a look at that. I understand the district is planning a community budget advisory group
[37:19] and I think that's wonderful. Nevertheless, meaningful participation has to be more than a community,
[37:24] a committee, or a three-minute feel on a mic. Parents need clear information before the vote.
[37:30] What it costs, who it affects, and what to expect, or what we expect it to accomplish.
[37:36] If we only understand it after the decision is made, that's not participation, my friend, that is notification.
[37:43] On C6 more than 211,000 ELOP and general fund money is being used for subleasing the career in college readiness center.
[37:53] I want to know how much of that building is being used for eligible ELOP programs, how that
[38:00] share was determined, how many students benefit, and what other options were considered
[38:05] before deciding this was the best use of the funds.
[38:08] Access matters to in 2023 and the summer of 2023 camps reached about 1 in 10 students district
[38:15] wide.
[38:16] It's 2026, parents still are relying on three-year-old numbers to know what these programs
[38:22] were reaching.
[38:23] On C-8, we're looking at three-year agreement, totally more than 900,000.
[38:29] The proposal has measurable goals.
[38:31] How will the results be reported to the board and the public?
[38:34] And what happens to those goals if they're not met?
[38:38] And the really biggest issue I have, we keep hearing resources are limited, while seeing cuts
[38:43] that directly affect students and classrooms.
[38:46] Before we spend more, we should know, are we fully using what we already paid?
[38:51] Is it being used the right way the way it was supposed to be with the training tools and resources needed to make it work?
[38:59] Are we paying for things that are overlapping and does the data show it's working?
[39:04] I'm not asking you to blindly cut programs, but please don't blindly approve them either.
[39:10] Parents should have to become, shouldn't parents shouldn't have to become amateur auditors just to understand where the money is going.
[39:16] I'm asking the trustee to pull C5, C6 and C8 for separate discussion before the vote.
[39:23] Explain the student impacted how success will be measured and give parents a real chance to be heard before these decisions are made.
[39:30] Thank you.
[39:31] Thank you.
[39:34] Next, we'll have Riley Talford, followed by Christina Holmes McIntyre.
[39:43] Good evening, boy president, trustee, superintendent, staff, family, students.
[39:47] My name is Riley Talford, and as a candidate for Fresno Unified School District Trustee,
[39:52] I believe our budget should reflect a highest obligation, protecting supporting students.
[39:58] Our urge for Fresno Unified to reconsider spending approximately $5 million per year to
[40:02] place Fresno Police Department officers on district campuses while the district faces
[40:07] serious budget pressure.
[40:09] This is not a question of whether safety matters.
[40:11] Safety matters deeply.
[40:13] The question is whether this is the best use of scarce education dollars when student-facing
[40:19] supports are being reduced.
[40:21] President-unified students and counselors, psychologists, mental health services, foster use
[40:27] supports, attendance interventions, classroom staff, and trusted campus staff.
[40:34] Those are the supports that prevent conflict, improve attendance, and keep young people
[40:38] to school. Spending $5 million a year on police contracts is a values decision.
[40:46] It chooses enforcement capacity over prevention capacity. That same investment could
[40:51] protect counseling time, expand mental health support, strengthen restorative practices,
[40:58] improve attendance outreach, support special education, or higher trusted adults who
[41:03] So relationship shows before problems become emergencies.
[41:08] Students do not thrive simply on an officer that an officer is nearby.
[41:13] They thrive when they are known, supported, challenged, and treated with dignity.
[41:18] Police involvement may be appropriate for immediate threats, weapons, credible violence,
[41:23] serious criminal conduct, or emergency response, but it should not be the default response
[41:29] to routine discipline, tardiness, disruption, conflict, or mental health needs that trained educators
[41:36] and support staff can address.
[41:39] I am asking the board to adopt a limited use model.
[41:42] Paul offers only for clear safety threats of legal emergencies, defined those situations
[41:47] in writing, make the rules public to the families and students, report how often police
[41:52] are used, why they are called, and what happens afterwards.
[41:55] Consider using reserve police officers as significantly reduced cost for eliminate circumstances when police presence is necessary.
[42:02] And review the contract annually before committing millions again.
[42:07] In the declining fiscal budget, every dollar must be measured against what students lose when that dollar is spent elsewhere.
[42:14] If students safety includes emotional safety, academic stability, mental,
[42:34] tomorrow and more student center path for Fresno Unified.
[42:37] Thank you.
[42:38] Thank you. Next we'll have Christina Holmes McIntyre followed by Smiley.
[42:52] Hi, good evening board. My name is Christina Holmes McIntyre. I am one of the co-founders
[42:57] of Fresno Community Parent Coalition. I'm also here to speak about the SRO contract. I want
[43:03] to speak from a parent perspective. As a parent who has had SRO summons don't them twice at two
[43:10] campuses, what I think is important for the board to know is that these SROs are actually used
[43:15] as weaponized against parents, right?
[43:18] I was not a threat.
[43:20] I was not yelling.
[43:21] I was not cursing at anyone,
[43:22] but I was being very direct and very demanding
[43:24] in what I expected from my child.
[43:27] On two different occasions at two different schools
[43:29] and I won't say their names, SROs were called on me.
[43:33] It is also important to point out
[43:35] that the DOJ has several different research reports
[43:38] that shows that the presence of SROs or campuses
[43:42] do not increase safety.
[43:44] As a matter of fact, one of my neighbors is a police officer and when I told him I was coming
[43:49] to talk on this topic, what he told me to tell to you is that if there is an active
[43:55] shooter on campus and there's only one SRO, they cannot engage.
[44:01] They cannot engage because their protocol is that they wait for backup to respond.
[44:08] So what I want to ask the board is, what are we prioritizing here?
[44:11] When I look at the board materials and I see SROs that are making $200,000, I see
[44:17] sergeants that are making $230,000, why are we funding the sergeants?
[44:23] Why are we subsidizing for the city using education dollars?
[44:27] That is a huge problem for me.
[44:30] I think that this is a contract that we need to review, why are we paying $95 per cent?
[44:37] I'm in favor of cutting the contract completely, but if we have teachers and administrators that will
[44:44] feel safer with police on campus, let's talk to the city.
[44:50] Let's see if we can do equal share on that, right?
[44:52] Because what I know is apparent is that these SROs do not make the kids feel safer.
[45:00] The daughter had an assembly at McClain High School. She came home and she had several questions, because in that assembly, the SRO explained to her different circumstances that would cause her to be handcuffed on campus, that would cause her to be given a citation on campus.
[45:18] Why are we policing our children like this? Right? I think that's a huge problem.
[45:23] We need to show our kids how to make sound decisions not over the threat of fear, but over the threat of what is right and what it is that we're
[45:33] instilling in them based on their values. Please reconsider this contract.
[45:39] Thank you.
[45:41] Next we'll have Smiley followed by Sandra Saladone.
[45:56] Ellie will invite you up to speak.
[46:02] Thank you all for being here and thank you for this forum to talk about these important issues for our children.
[46:09] My name is Smiley.
[46:10] I live in here in District 7.
[46:13] I'm an educator and a journalist with the Community Alliance newspaper.
[46:20] I came here to talk about the SRO, which is an acronym I just learned,
[46:24] I don't know what that meant, but before I do that, since I have three minutes or two and a half now,
[46:32] I do want to address the whole filter situation.
[46:40] First of all, I hope that now that we've found the funds
[46:43] for this, that we are not disenfranchising other employees, I hope we are not going to be cutting jobs
[46:50] So that we could make this PR campaign look good because that's what it was, I mean, really, like when the decision was made to remove the field trips, whether or not they're important, the parents showed you that it is important.
[47:07] It's important for the families.
[47:11] So then, and I see the response as well, we don't have the money, it's because we don't
[47:19] have the students, right? That makes sense. We don't have the students. So then my question
[47:24] is, why don't we have the students? Why are we losing the students? Fresno is growing,
[47:30] everyone knows this. It's the fifth degree in California, it's growing. And there will be
[47:37] students. If Fresno is not getting their market share of students, what are we doing Fresno?
[47:43] Why are we losing the students? Maybe this is the reason. We're cutting things like
[47:47] field trips. How does that help the market brand when other competing districts will offer?
[47:56] Something as simple as a field trip. It changes our perception.
[48:03] So, cutting the field trips was not a smart idea, especially when we're increasing salaries
[48:08] of people that are not even teaching.
[48:12] You feel me?
[48:13] All right.
[48:14] About the SRO's, like I know, I have 50 seconds.
[48:18] I didn't know what that acronym meant until one of my friends told me that's an officer
[48:21] as an officer.
[48:23] Why are we putting officers in our schools?
[48:27] I mean, there is a racist pipeline to prison for people of color, whether you believe it or not.
[48:36] And you're going to start it with officers, no offense, man.
[48:41] I mean, but you stare me when I look at you because I have memories of such that maybe you all don't have memories of.
[48:50] And until you live that experience, you're not going to know that you're terrifying our kids,
[48:55] I'm walking around with the gun and you're solving things with this kind of force reminding
[49:02] us brown people that if you mess up, this is where you're going to go.
[49:07] What we need are resources for mental health and to fix the problems, not officers.
[49:14] You feel me.
[49:15] Thank you.
[49:17] Thank you.
[49:17] Next we'll have Sandra Cedon, followed by our final speaker, will be Eileen Jane Turel.
[49:26] Good evening.
[49:26] My name is Sandra Saladona. I'm here as a parent today, and I really want to urge you to
[49:33] completely eliminate the $5.6 million that you are allocating from education dollars
[49:39] to subsidize the Fresno Police Department. I want to remind you that the Fresno Police Department is fully funded by
[49:45] general dollars that we already pay as constituents and taxpayers in the city of Fresno.
[49:51] And so as parents and as taxpayers, we should not be doubly taxed for services that are already
[49:58] provided and are already paid for.
[50:00] As a parent, I have a problem with your agreement, which states that you are paying $5.6 million
[50:08] to perform regular duty law enforcement services.
[50:13] And if that is what you are paying for, then I am paying doubly for the same services that
[50:18] I'm actually already paying under $308 million under the City of Fresno, which also pays for
[50:26] the same police officers to provide the same services that you're actually asking these officers
[50:32] to provide under exhibit A, which is around helping to reduce crime and address safety issues
[50:39] and build relationships with our students.
[50:41] That is already addressed under the President-Police Department policy manual policy for 13,
[50:49] which actually speaks to school safety, which is about making sure that police, neighborhood
[50:56] resource officers respond to these very issues.
[51:00] That there are already assigned to do that under their regular duties, which are already paid
[51:05] for by tax dollars under the City of Fresno Budget,
[51:09] which 47% of that general fund dollars
[51:13] that are allocated under the City of Fresno,
[51:15] pay for these services.
[51:16] So I have a problem as a parent with education dollars
[51:20] being utilized to subsidize Fresno police officers.
[51:24] And I also have a problem with education dollars
[51:28] being utilized to subsidize vehicles.
[51:31] If these officers are stationed in schools,
[51:34] Why are vehicles being subsidized at 100%, they don't need vehicles to drive within schools if they're actually stationed at our schools and engaging with students?
[51:44] So that is a not a good job of doing and conducting your number one duty as elected trustees, which is to watch over our dollars, to ensure that you're a conditioning duty to our students.
[51:59] That dollars are actually used to advance the success of our students and my child, who's a senior.
[52:06] And I want to make sure that you also recognize that we're actually not getting what you're stating that we're getting under this contract.
[52:14] And 2024, which is the latest report that the President Police Department has posted on their website under their SRO unit,
[52:22] they reported only 178 students, interactions under their cumulative...
[52:30] They had four programs that they reported. Their first responder camp, summer program, their pal basketball summer program, their hero camp, fall program, and their pal flag football program.
[52:43] Those were all programs that were subsidized, not just by Fresno unified, but also by central unified and singering unified.
[52:52] 5.6 million dollars. Just from Fresno unified, I didn't have time to look up the other two school districts.
[52:59] but only a 178 students were served.
[53:03] I'm sorry, but that's not a good use of $5.6 million.
[53:07] What I would like those $5.6 million to serve
[53:09] is our special at students.
[53:11] There's only $11 million gap.
[53:13] You cut seven nurses this year.
[53:16] Inside colleges and program managers and office support,
[53:19] you cut 15 custodial positions this year,
[53:22] and I'm going to wrap up because I see their clerk giving me the time limit.
[53:25] I also saw 14 child and welfare attendance specialist being cut this year.
[53:31] So there is a better use of those 5.6 million dollars.
[53:34] There is no reason for us to subsidize the Fresno Police Department.
[53:38] Thank you.
[53:40] The next speaker will be Eileen Jane Duran.
[53:49] Is Eileen in the room?
[53:51] There's there she is.
[54:02] I hear that we are renewing the budget for police.
[54:06] And I'm a tabby with that one.
[54:10] Second of all, there's a happening in my school
[54:12] that you are put at temporary SRO, almost got hit my kids, my spectrum kids, and my
[54:19] two eyes. How you hiring an SRO, and training them to put in the shoes they are safe
[54:31] the officer, but why are not known how to do their job? Because my kids got almost hit
[54:43] And you're going to renew a budget for this one for Fresno, please.
[54:49] Kids doesn't need a police school need to be safety.
[54:54] It's a heaven for kids.
[54:56] We're losing kids in school.
[54:59] Do you know why?
[55:00] Because Fresno unified, they're not doing nothing.
[55:04] They say we're the third largest school in California.
[55:09] But where I'm losing my school, I lost kids.
[55:13] I'll go down for $500 only.
[55:17] In other schools, you want me to say to you,
[55:18] how many kids in every school, elementary and high school,
[55:20] in every school, I can give you the status and the states and the states.
[55:26] But if I do that, it's not going to be your job.
[55:29] No more. It's going to be mine.
[55:33] I don't know, really.
[55:34] You're throwing money for other things that you're not thinking
[55:38] for the kids safety. If you put the Annets are a police officer in the school, they need
[55:43] to do their job. They're not need to be terrified of the kids. Oscar at any kids in the
[55:48] school.
[55:54] Thank you. Are there any more speakers? Sign up to speak.
[55:59] Thank you.
[56:00] Great.
[56:04] There are agenda items that board members would like to pull for further discussion. Those
[56:09] items are C6, C8, C11, and C13.
[56:14] We will start with item C6 and invite Trustee Davis to make her remarks.
[56:23] Thank you.
[56:24] I spoke to our Chief of Staff earlier, but my questions are on number six.
[56:33] At the College in the Career Readiness Center, I remember that there's a, let me call
[56:38] that a warehouse or something in the back.
[56:40] And there was some renovations that were happening with it.
[56:44] So can you tell me what our plans are?
[56:46] Yeah, good evening, Board President Eastless.
[56:48] Members of the Board, W.J. President, J. Rady.
[56:52] Yes, we currently have the College of Career and Department
[56:55] is located on Millbrook and Shields.
[56:59] The part of the building and the original acquisition
[57:01] of the building for least was for us to have a center
[57:05] the back for students to continue as we're trying to expand paid internships, internships,
[57:11] certifications for our students. One of them is that project, that was one of the reasons
[57:15] to lease. So that way through the lease agreement, we're able to make these renovations. We've
[57:19] done some, but we still need to do the line share of the renovation that the rest of the building
[57:23] is up and running for the most part. We were supposed to have some people from the industry work
[57:30] with our students like some of the PLAs and I was wondering how many of our union members
[57:38] we're working with some of our job students in like the Constructions at Fresno High
[57:44] or at the different CTE programs.
[57:49] Yeah, I'm on my assistant superintendent, Ward to give you some of the details on
[57:53] on to both placements.
[57:56] Good evening, President East less members of the board and Deputy Superintendent
[58:00] So, as a part of our project labor agreement with the Union, we have all of our trades-related
[58:06] programs, CT pathway programs. They are obligated to come, which they do, obligated to come and
[58:12] present about career opportunities, job-showning opportunities, and where there are internship
[58:17] opportunities. So that includes programs at Dunkin Polytechnical High School, Sunnyside High School,
[58:22] Fresno High School, Hoover High School, Indian High School that has like construction-themed
[58:26] credits related programs.
[58:28] As well as Farber with the certificate for the, moving the, you call those, those four
[58:33] good things.
[58:34] That's correct.
[58:35] The logistics.
[58:37] So, at the end of our school year, what, what are the average number of students that get
[58:42] the certificate throughout the district?
[58:45] I wish I had those numbers in front of me.
[58:46] I can tell you that there are thousands of students that earn industry-based certifications
[58:52] annually.
[58:53] And I'd be happy to provide that for you.
[58:54] and they range in all forms of industry from digital media to construction to health.
[59:03] Most of our pathways have some form of industry-recognized certification attached to it.
[59:08] Fabulous. Thank you.
[59:10] Move for approval.
[59:12] I'm off second.
[59:15] So we will open up our questions.
[59:17] I just failed to approve the other items.
[59:20] So can we do that very quickly and then we'll come back to this one?
[59:22] So, aside from the items that I read, again, which we're seeing,
[59:27] six, seven, eight, I'm sorry.
[59:32] Six, eight, eleven, and thirteen, can we get a motion to approve the remaining?
[59:37] So, move.
[59:38] Second.
[59:39] Will couple please?
[59:43] Member Cossettis?
[59:45] Aye.
[59:45] Member Davis?
[59:46] Aye.
[59:46] Member Jonathan Rosas?
[59:48] Aye.
[59:48] Member Thomas?
[59:50] Member Whitrup?
[59:51] Aye.
[59:51] Clerk Levine?
[59:52] All right.
[59:53] President Islas, I motion carries great.
[59:56] Now we do have a motion on the floor in a second to approve.
[1:00:00] Item 6, Trustee Cassette has had a question.
[1:00:04] Yes, earlier in public comment, there was a question for one of our parents that mentioned this contract in this site.
[1:00:13] So, if you could just explain briefly what the site's main purpose is and whether or not we're occupying most of it, part of it, what percentage of it.
[1:00:24] And what its future use will be as well, just briefly.
[1:00:26] For sure, there's two main purposes for this site.
[1:00:30] The first one was to more adequately house the college and career readiness department.
[1:00:36] Formally located at 4-2, I'm not going to get the address correct, we've gone too long.
[1:00:41] On 1st street, we have 56 employees within the department and the conditions within the
[1:00:48] building were, we'll see limited.
[1:00:51] So priority number one was to be able to provide adequate housing for the employees to be able
[1:00:55] working space, part of number two was to expand and really create an innovative work-based learning
[1:01:03] environment for students to come and have access to internships, simulated work-based learning
[1:01:09] student-led enterprise because finding these opportunities while we have thousands of students
[1:01:15] that participate within our district and outside job site locations, we have many students
[1:01:22] within our district and finding opportunities to get them to these opportunities is it's difficult.
[1:01:28] Transportation, everything else, and so the vision is that we will be able to provide
[1:01:34] meaningful work based on opportunities which is now recognized by the State of California
[1:01:38] on the CCI dashboard within this center.
[1:01:41] Within the facility that Trustee Davis was talking about within the warehouse
[1:01:45] facility. There's three primary industries that will be focused on that with that facility.
[1:01:51] The first one is IT. I'm happy to share that during this school year, that center will open.
[1:01:56] We'll be able to have well over 100 students that will be accessing that center, earning certifications,
[1:02:02] and actually doing the work within IT to re-image, refresh, and re-screen our own student laptops.
[1:02:10] The second two industries are logistics and distribution and then manufacturer.
[1:02:14] So that is the work-based learning experiences that will be taking place in there when I say manufacturing I mean
[1:02:20] Advanced manufacturing
[1:02:22] Training within CNC mills lays and advanced machine.
[1:02:32] So we have a motion in a second. Can we get a roll?
[1:02:34] I have one more thing.
[1:02:36] Can you kind of go into just some light detail about our first responder pathway in which our police officers are included in and then to add to that
[1:02:47] Dr. Castillo, can you add their parameters about what there's the post to do on campuses?
[1:02:54] Please, and thank you. We're still on item
[1:02:57] C6. Yeah, okay. I'll come back to you Dr. Castillo, but C6 has to do with pathways
[1:03:03] So we have
[1:03:05] Public
[1:03:06] Service public safety pathways that exist within several of our high schools. One of them happens to be with in the Edison high school region
[1:03:15] We are building and expanding that pathway out, as we currently speak, and that pathway program this past year actually launched with opportunities within the elementary schools of Edison High School for police officers to come to those schools and teach lessons around resiliency and the value of education and striving to continue as life gets,
[1:03:44] as life becomes difficult so the program is called pivot and there's lessons that were developed
[1:03:49] between the Fresno Flight School District and Fresno Police Department. Those were delivered
[1:03:53] last year to fifth grade students in the Edison Region. Those were delivered by law enforcement
[1:03:57] officers and the purpose and design of that was to be able to have positive interactions and
[1:04:04] positive lessons being given by law enforcement officers to students in a very safe environment.
[1:04:09] And can you remember the outcomes from the presentation?
[1:04:13] Oh, there are several.
[1:04:15] Some of them had to do with a student's comfort
[1:04:17] around law enforcement officers.
[1:04:19] Some of them had to do with their own self-perceptions of their personal resiliency,
[1:04:26] and how they viewed education and educational opportunities.
[1:04:30] And they all favored better from the start of the experience
[1:04:33] to the end of the experience, all students demonstrated
[1:04:36] or a remark that they grew in those areas?
[1:04:39] Thank you, sir.
[1:04:43] I just have more of a comment because I know as we have declined enrollment in free-up space at schools,
[1:04:50] I want us to think creatively of how we utilize our existing space instead of having to do additional lease agreements,
[1:04:58] and this is a kind of a different situation.
[1:05:00] but as space becomes available at school sites or school sites get consolidated,
[1:05:08] using that space that we are young instead of having to run would be a big priority of mine.
[1:05:14] I think it's a really good suggestion.
[1:05:18] I have a question.
[1:05:20] So we do have a motion in a second roll call.
[1:05:22] Vote please to approve item C6.
[1:05:28] Member Cousin?
[1:05:29] Member Davis?
[1:05:30] Aye.
[1:05:31] Member Gianna Soto Suss?
[1:05:33] Member Thomas?
[1:05:33] I remember with Trump I clerk Levine President Isla I motion carries we'll turn now to item
[1:05:43] C8 and invite Trustee Caseras to make her remarks
[1:05:55] thank you
[1:06:00] I submitted a question and it was it was well-answered
[1:06:04] But I have a few follow-up questions
[1:06:07] My question was how long has the district had a coaching contract for portrait of a learner and how many more years?
[1:06:15] should we expect this to be necessary. It is a high price. I know it's a very important
[1:06:22] program and it's tied to our goals. And I don't want to diminish that at all. But I am
[1:06:29] scrutinizing as my colleagues are all of our costs to consultants. And just wondering, when will
[1:06:37] our staff have the capacity to do this work for ourselves? Absolutely. Great question. So the first
[1:06:43] question, this is the first year for the professional earnings piece. We did have smaller contracts
[1:06:48] in the past that let us up to this point. One of the things we didn't want to do with a portrait,
[1:06:53] work, was we wanted to make sure that we didn't do it with four people in an office,
[1:06:57] and create a poster, and they put it out there, and then no one really understands what it was about.
[1:07:00] So to do that, we enlisted the help of teachers and site principles and district leaders that
[1:07:06] have been part of this group that actually helped me with to pick this next piece, which is on
[1:07:11] learning. So this contract is really, it's a trainer of trainer models. We did hear from
[1:07:16] our teachers in terms of them wanting to be able to do a lot of the training, but we also heard,
[1:07:22] we want to learn some things too. So this for us is really a combination of those two concepts
[1:07:26] where we're going to bring in PBL works that does business.
[1:07:30] The bucket is too, which is very credible around project-based learning, which is really the deeper learning
[1:07:34] part of the life skills goal that we want to accomplish for our students. The piece here is to
[1:07:40] really train trainers of trainers, so that we are teachers and our administrators become those trainers
[1:07:46] of trainers, and that's really the goal here. But we will definitely every year. We'll look to make sure
[1:07:51] we're getting the return and the faster we can implement to turn it over to us is that's how
[1:08:00] fast we'll do it. To your question the reason we pick bug gets to two is one is the most
[1:08:05] credible one in the country but also their design is specifically to do what you're asking which is
[1:08:11] to turn it over to districts so districts don't have to continuously depend on a consultant the
[1:08:17] information becomes ours and that's part of the logic model in the backup material where it shows
[1:08:21] is the gradual release from the book to our district?
[1:08:27] I don't know.
[1:08:28] It wasn't that evident to me.
[1:08:29] I'll look back at it.
[1:08:31] But I think that if we're going to invest this much money every year,
[1:08:37] we have to have a very sustainable plan that our staff takes over the capacity
[1:08:43] and takes over this training and it actually becomes ours.
[1:08:47] Because as long as we just keep hiring consultants every year,
[1:08:51] It doesn't really have the stain power that we need to make the transformations that are needed.
[1:08:57] So I'll be looking for the end of this when we can actually sustain it.
[1:09:04] Absolutely.
[1:09:05] Thank you.
[1:09:08] And my comments are more around.
[1:09:10] I'm feedback from staff regarding consulting contracts.
[1:09:14] In general, when there's been contracts for train or professional learning, a lot of our staff asked,
[1:09:21] why don't you ask us?
[1:09:22] I mean, we've been here, you know, 26 plus years, 30 plus years.
[1:09:26] We're the experts on our students
[1:09:27] and we're the experts on what our students should be doing
[1:09:30] as our neighbors and our future leaders.
[1:09:34] And so I'm a little bit more concerned about that
[1:09:37] and how this contract looks in terms of the budget
[1:09:43] that we're trying to cut some more programs from.
[1:09:47] Additionally, I know this is related to the goals
[1:09:49] that we said a year and a half to almost two years ago.
[1:09:52] But it was meant that the formation of that goal is meant to include our staff in building
[1:10:02] the portrait of a learner and not somebody from St. Raphael who probably doesn't want to
[1:10:06] think about the San Joaquin Valley. So, you know, I'm just not in favor of this consultant
[1:10:10] contract.
[1:10:11] Thank you.
[1:10:22] There are no board members wishing to speak on this item, CA. We need a motion in a second
[1:10:29] in order to move this forward.
[1:10:32] So move, so we have a motion in a second.
[1:10:36] Roll call, please.
[1:10:39] Member Cassidy?
[1:10:40] No.
[1:10:42] Member Davis?
[1:10:43] Aye.
[1:10:44] Join us in roses?
[1:10:45] No.
[1:10:47] Member Thomas?
[1:10:48] Aye.
[1:10:49] Member with Trump?
[1:10:51] Clerk living?
[1:10:53] President Isla?
[1:10:54] Aye.
[1:10:55] Motion carries.
[1:10:56] Thank you.
[1:10:58] We have a few different board members who have pulled the next item, which is C11, I was among them.
[1:11:05] And I'm going to take a point of privilege to begin the remarks on item C11.
[1:11:12] So first, what I would like to comment on is that I think it is a very reasonable concern for our parents.
[1:11:20] To call to question about the use of a very large contract, the use of many for this very large contract in particular, when we are at a budget deficit and we are struggling to make ends meet.
[1:11:35] While we got a reprieve in terms of the field trips this year, there is no guarantee of those dollars being made available again.
[1:11:44] And so I think the community has spoken about their priorities and
[1:11:49] relation to wanting to preserve the field trips.
[1:11:53] So what I wanted to do was share with you sort of some rough
[1:11:57] math of part of the challenge that I have with this contract.
[1:12:02] And that is that if we were to calculate 52 weeks in a year with five
[1:12:07] working days, there would be a possible 260 work days.
[1:12:14] For the school board, there are actually 180 school days in a year.
[1:12:20] And even if we added the five by back days, that we would get 285 days.
[1:12:27] So we're paying full time, the 260 days out of a potential 185 days that they would work on our campus.
[1:12:35] And even if we rounded this number up, it's about 72% that they are actually spending in terms of a full time equivalent on our campus.
[1:12:46] I do not find it reasonable that we are paying 95% of their time that we are paying for vehicles that we will never own.
[1:12:54] That we are paying for our sergeants that are supervising them that will never set foot on our campus, right?
[1:12:59] So there is just for me always been this question.
[1:13:02] We have across the board been reducing our contracts in a letterly in a number of areas.
[1:13:09] I don't think this is one that should not also be commensarily.
[1:13:15] I do think that there is a lot of information that we want to have addressed before we
[1:13:21] would adopt this budget.
[1:13:24] So I would like to make a motion that we table this item for our next meeting where we can
[1:13:31] more of our questions answered before we take a vote on this. So that is my motion.
[1:13:40] I have comments, but I'll second that motion as well. Okay. So we have a motion in a second,
[1:13:45] and we will turn to discussion with our fellow colleagues. And so I will
[1:13:52] call up a trustee or click live in first.
[1:13:56] Thank you. Thanks for pulling this item for discussion and for your comments. I'll echo a lot of them.
[1:14:04] Just not as eloquently, eloquently, but I want to start by saying I think we can all agree on the status
[1:14:11] for all of our parents, for all of our students, this is why that safety is of the utmost importance and concern.
[1:14:16] I think the disconnect or the disagreement potentially comes in of the constant equating of safety
[1:14:24] with policing.
[1:14:26] When there are, we know there are proven strategies, interventions, resources and programs that
[1:14:31] are just as effective if not more effective in providing and ensuring safety on campuses.
[1:14:35] And we also know that, as has come a couple of times tonight, that the presence of policing
[1:14:40] and police officers on campus can oftentimes have the opposite effect of instilling
[1:14:46] confidence and safety in our students depending on interactions and experiences.
[1:14:51] And so I think that's where the disagreement comes in just as importantly as it has
[1:14:56] also come up several times tonight, this is an agenda item, this is a contract.
[1:15:00] For almost $6 million, which is a significant amount of money, and we've heard tonight. And throughout
[1:15:07] really the last several weeks and months, as we are in a very serious and stressful budget situation
[1:15:14] with declining revenues and resources. As we have, we heard tonight, even further declining
[1:15:19] student enrollment to the two- and almost 2,000, it looks like fewer students enroll this
[1:15:24] school year, then the previous school year, which equates to it sounds like at the minimum and
[1:15:31] likely larger, at least $10 million additional dollars in cuts will have to find this year.
[1:15:36] And so $6 million in that context is in my mind very significant.
[1:15:42] And so I'm in full support if there's support from others of tableliness that we have some
[1:15:46] more time to ask more questions to really scrutinize this and to make sure this is an effective
[1:15:53] in responsible use of our limited resources, I'll put my questions out there in the meantime
[1:15:58] whether they're in a couple of weeks or for tonight, but just with that with my reservations
[1:16:04] and concerns in mind, I would be curious to know, when this came up a couple of years ago,
[1:16:09] I think we were just starting to really be more intentional about investing in alternative
[1:16:15] supports and programs around violence prevention, around student safety, around really protecting
[1:16:21] and supporting students that need that most direct intervention.
[1:16:25] And I think we've made some significant steps in last couple of years to invest in some
[1:16:29] of those alternatives and proven practices and programs.
[1:16:33] So I'd be curious to know what that all entails, what supports and investments and resources
[1:16:38] we have put in place that are alternatives to policing and SROs on campus, that, again,
[1:16:44] are investments in safety.
[1:16:45] This is not a question of whether we have investments in safety and safety for our students
[1:16:50] It's a question of whether police officers are the right investment and strategy for that policing, so curious to know now or in two weeks what the full list of
[1:17:00] investments and programs entails that we've invested in in the last couple of years.
[1:17:05] I know we have previous data, but I would want to have the most recent data around SRO interactions with students, voluntary and involuntary and
[1:17:15] specifically looking at the breakdown around student demographics, racial demographics and
[1:17:20] otherwise, and ensuring or making sure that we do not have this proportionality around
[1:17:26] students that are interacting again voluntarily and involuntarily with police officers and
[1:17:32] potentially the presence of SROs on campus having detrimental and negative consequences
[1:17:37] in effect on them.
[1:17:40] And then finally, I know we are just in the process in this beginning of the school year of
[1:17:44] our student advisory board back together will have I think in two weeks our student trustees
[1:17:48] here for the first time would want to know and hopefully ensure that we have taken more
[1:17:55] recent steps to listen to and ask our students through our SAP and otherwise what their thoughts
[1:18:03] are on the effectiveness of having SROs on campus and whether it's having the intended effect
[1:18:10] or potentially, in many cases, for our students having a negative consequence and if students
[1:18:16] are concerned about having the presence of SROS on campus?
[1:18:22] Yes, so in terms of collecting the data, you provide, I think, maybe the next time when we come
[1:18:28] to discuss, we can certainly do it then, but if there's some specific questions about what the police
[1:18:34] officers are doing right now, we can certainly answer those today.
[1:18:37] Thank you.
[1:18:40] Okay, I do want to call up to other colleagues first who did ask to pull this item, so we'll
[1:18:47] start with Trustee Woodrup.
[1:18:49] Thank you.
[1:18:53] Having worked in our schools for 37 years, I really appreciate the police when they were
[1:18:58] on campus and they saved my life several times.
[1:19:01] So I will just say that, but I am very concerned with the deal we made with Fresno PD.
[1:19:07] I don't know that we're getting our monies worth because trusty or President Eastless mentioned,
[1:19:16] they have possible 260 work days.
[1:19:20] We have 180, let's say 185, and we're paying 95% of their salaries at a 471% of their
[1:19:29] time, plus the vehicles.
[1:19:31] So, I mean, who's making this deal, it doesn't seem like it doesn't feel right.
[1:19:42] It's a lot of money and we're paying more than we should.
[1:19:48] I'm not sure if you're the person to answer that.
[1:19:51] Good evening.
[1:19:53] I can absolutely answer that.
[1:19:55] So this is a contract that we've had with the Police Department for several years.
[1:19:59] The proposal was for a one-year contract to give us time to go back with the PD, to look at our priorities and renegotiate the contract with them.
[1:20:10] So the idea of the one-year contract was to allow services to continue as they are while we renegotiate this contract and look at what better meets the needs of our district than priorities of our district.
[1:20:23] Is that correct, though, as this math correct, that they have, you know, that we're paying 95% of their salary, but only receiving 71 to 72% of their time plus the car?
[1:20:41] I mean, and their supervisors, that was a new one I heard too, it doesn't feel like we're getting a very good deal on this.
[1:20:49] who is doing the negotiating, and is this is something that we really need to look at.
[1:20:54] It's a lot of money at a time when we don't have a lot of money.
[1:20:58] It agreed, and that is why it was proposed for a one-year contract.
[1:21:01] So that gave us time to go back, meet with Fresno PD,
[1:21:04] figure out what the priorities of our district were and renegotiate that.
[1:21:08] To your point about the amount of time that we use our SROs,
[1:21:11] so they are currently used during summer school, during summer camps, during summer bridge.
[1:21:16] So we are using them 95% of the time currently, but that is something we could absolutely re-examine and that's something that we plan to re-examine
[1:21:23] I want, yeah, I wonder if we need them all that time
[1:21:26] I mean those are things we really need to look at closely. We should have been looking at closely last school year
[1:21:34] So I'm disappointed to be getting it now and it not being the very best deal that we could make in this time
[1:21:41] And thank you, that's all I have it.
[1:21:44] We'll turn to Trustee Thomas next.
[1:21:53] You work.
[1:21:53] Trustee Thomas was the other person who pulled it.
[1:21:55] That's why I'm calling her.
[1:21:58] So can you talk about the parameters of their work?
[1:22:01] If we're using them 95% of the time,
[1:22:03] and we owe them 95% of the money, that's just that.
[1:22:05] It's pure and simple math.
[1:22:07] But can you talk about the parameters around their work?
[1:22:12] Because it's not the police kids.
[1:22:14] And we made that very clear in the training.
[1:22:16] So, can you just please talk about the parameters?
[1:22:19] Yeah, absolutely.
[1:22:20] So, obviously, our SRAs are on our campuses to help protect our campuses and for student safety, right?
[1:22:25] That is a paramount duty of theirs, but they are also there to make.
[1:22:30] Positive impact with our students. They are there. Many of our SRO's serve as athletic coaches. Many of our SRO's
[1:22:38] serve as club advisors. They serve as role models on their campus. They are there to support
[1:22:45] as Assistant Superintendent Ward mentioned our CTE learning or work-based learning opportunities.
[1:22:51] So currently in the Hoover Roosevelt Bullard and Edison regions, our SRO's are supporting those,
[1:22:59] learning
[1:22:59] He mentioned the pivot program, which is going on in the Edison region, and currently
[1:23:05] are schools.
[1:23:06] We have about 21,000 students that are served by our SROs under the current contract.
[1:23:14] Trustee Davis?
[1:23:15] Yeah, that's some of the data I'd like to be like to know, because we are in an urban city
[1:23:22] with an anniversary of 9-11 coming up on us.
[1:23:26] And we have moved our policemen to football games, basketball games, soccer games, baseball
[1:23:31] games with metal detectors and now clear,
[1:23:34] purses and bags in our facilities and even when you came
[1:23:37] in this evening, yeah, I would like to see the data.
[1:23:41] Because I know they work more than just the boxing
[1:23:45] that they have for the pal, because I sit on the board
[1:23:47] for pal, the girls and boys club, basketball,
[1:23:52] and romaine boxing with girls and boys, basketball
[1:23:55] camps, and soccer, and baseball, and bike riding camps.
[1:24:00] I know I'm aware of, along with the shopping at Macy's at Christmas and $300 per child for every child that goes to the Roman playground.
[1:24:10] So I'd like to see all those numbers, you know, and in our 26 of 109 schools, how important they are to student staff community in this urban city.
[1:24:26] Thank you.
[1:24:27] Trustee Jonathan Russes?
[1:24:30] Thank you, and I know we've talked about this periodically over the years quite a bit.
[1:24:36] So I'm not going to talk about the philosophical stance, but I will talk about a little
[1:24:42] frustration with this agreement and not having addressed some of the issues that I was
[1:24:50] three years ago that we were talking about this.
[1:24:52] We had some of the very same issues with the cars, the sergeants, the percentage, three years ago, and at the time, okay, well, the contract expired, but we're going to negotiate, we're going to sit at the table, we're going to do all this, and now none of that happened in those three years. That's frustrating, especially since, and I don't know if those things have changed with our neighboring school districts, but our neighboring school districts have a better deal.
[1:25:21] and they're not paying for what we're paying for.
[1:25:25] And so, I think my frustration is more
[1:25:29] that we did not address or staff did not address
[1:25:32] the issues that this board had from three years ago
[1:25:37] in bringing this back in the exact same manner.
[1:25:40] And now we're gonna, and there's no assurances
[1:25:41] that we extended for a year
[1:25:43] and that we get anything that we wanted either.
[1:25:46] So,
[1:25:48] that's where I sit.
[1:25:51] Again, I want to address the philosophical,
[1:25:53] but I'm just really, just I guess annoyed
[1:25:58] that I guess we were ignored as a board.
[1:26:03] Thank you.
[1:26:04] Trustee Katheles?
[1:26:06] I'll echo Trustee Jonas and Rose's comments.
[1:26:09] And I don't think that they were the first time we made them
[1:26:11] three years ago, I think we made them three years before that
[1:26:13] and three years before that as well.
[1:26:15] So I do want to I am a contract person so I do want to say to clarify for clarification we are running without a contract right now then because this takes us back to July 1st.
[1:26:25] That is correct. Okay, so having said that I am more leaning towards bringing this back another day if we that gives us some time to answer some of these questions.
[1:26:34] I, again, not philosophical, we've heard, last three years ago, we heard from teachers that
[1:26:41] were in support of the program, but I do want clarification on what the trustees have
[1:26:46] asked.
[1:26:47] I also had a question that I wrote down from one of our parents that I think is very important
[1:26:52] is we don't have, I don't think we have somebody here from city admin or city PD, that
[1:26:57] could have answered the question of, I'm paying taxes to the city P.D.
[1:27:04] Why I'm also having to pay them $5.7 million to put to all the schools, right?
[1:27:08] So I would have loved to have somebody here to clarify that and maybe identify how,
[1:27:13] that's a different if it is.
[1:27:15] It's fun to different.
[1:27:16] It's a really easy question to be able to answer if the numbers of the math
[1:27:21] maths.
[1:27:22] Having said that, you do want to read something.
[1:27:23] I was sent from a student.
[1:27:30] SROs never intimidate me or my friends.
[1:27:32] They have been at rallies, classes, class meetings,
[1:27:35] where they express how they are expected to do their job.
[1:27:38] But I have no reason to be worried scared or intimidated
[1:27:40] if I didn't break the law.
[1:27:42] These officers are here to serve and protect.
[1:27:44] And when I talk to them, they have amazing personalities.
[1:27:47] It's one of the ways some of our students view our SROs.
[1:27:50] But we also have students that have negative interactions with them, so having said that we want to make sure we're getting the best services out of this contract that we can get.
[1:28:01] We do have Lieutenant, do we hear if you wanted to see if he's willing to address your concern?
[1:28:08] We have a motion and a second that we're entertaining in relation to this.
[1:28:14] I do think there's an opportunity to hear from PD when we bring this back if the motion passes.
[1:28:20] But I just want to address a couple of comments that that were made and one is that if we did
[1:28:30] If we did significantly reduce the contract there are millions of dollars in savings that could be redirected to the field trips to our other needs and that's that's what I would really want us to explore
[1:28:43] And the other thing is there was a comment about them working over the summer.
[1:28:48] We do not have all of our campuses open in the summer and so there is a reduction there just by virtue of the number of sites that we have so again
[1:28:56] I don't feel that there is sufficient reason to for us to continue to pay 95% of their time and yes, the cars the sergeants their retirement, which is also part of the budget, it's very excessive
[1:29:14] And lastly, what I just wanted to say is, and mention to our sporting events, is that those
[1:29:20] are actually times where we pay more because it's over time.
[1:29:23] And so I think that also has to be reflected about, is that the best use is there are other
[1:29:28] resources that we might be able to maximize in terms of offering the same services during that
[1:29:36] time.
[1:29:36] So we do have a motion in a second.
[1:29:39] So I'd like to do a roll call vote in terms of tableling this.
[1:29:44] And I want to make sure that staff captures all the questions,
[1:29:47] because I would like those questions either coming back
[1:29:49] to us before the next meeting in a BC or making sure
[1:29:53] that they're going to be addressed at the meeting itself.
[1:29:56] So let's take the motion and the roll call vote.
[1:30:01] Member casters? Aye. Member Davis? Aye. Member Jonathan Rosas? Aye. Member Thomas? Aye. Member Wittrep? Aye. Clerk Levine? Aye. President Islas? Aye.
[1:30:17] Motion carries. Thank you. We will be bringing this back for further discussion.
[1:30:25] Now we will turn to our last item that was pulled, which is a C-13.
[1:30:32] Thank you, agenda item C-13 and tonight's consent agenda includes purchasorters between
[1:30:37] Fresno unified school district and CSUF Fresno and the CSUF Downing Planetarium.
[1:30:42] I did not participate in the making of the purchasorters related to the agenda item, however,
[1:30:46] because of my employment for Fresno State, I have a remote financial interest in the purchasorters.
[1:30:50] Therefore, the interest of full transparency and I'm standing from this vote for suing
[1:30:53] to board by a lot of 9270.
[1:30:56] Move for approval.
[1:30:57] Second, roll call, please.
[1:31:00] Member casters?
[1:31:01] I remember Davis. I remember Jonathan process. I remember Thomas. I remember which one.
[1:31:07] I clearly mean President East less. I motion carries. Thank you. With no further action,
[1:31:14] we will now move to end scheduled oral communications. Individuals who wish to address the board on topics within the Board's subject matter jurisdiction,
[1:31:21] but not listed on the agenda. Me do so at this time. The board recognizes that individuals may ask the board to answer questions or
[1:31:28] response to statements made during unscheduled oral communications, and in accordance with
[1:31:32] Board by Land 9323, the Board shall take no action or discussion on any item not appearing
[1:31:38] on the postage agenda, except as authorized by law. While trustees will generally not respond,
[1:31:44] I ask that staff members follow up directly in the days following the meeting. The Board would
[1:31:48] like to remind the public of the need to maintain order in the boardroom and refrain from
[1:31:53] disruptive conduct. Any individuals who continue to interrupt or cause a disturbance will be
[1:31:58] move from this meeting. Clerk Levine will now read a statement regarding the Brown Act.
[1:32:03] The Brown Act requires the public to be given an opportunity to speak on matters related
[1:32:06] to school district business during the board meetings and this board welcomes public comment
[1:32:09] as it designated on the agenda. The board expects all speakers to respect the rights of others
[1:32:14] by conducting themselves in a civil and courteous manner at all times. Our goal is to ensure the right of the
[1:32:19] public comment is safeguarded without compromising the efficiency and effectiveness of board meetings.
[1:32:27] We have 10 individuals who wish to address the board during unscheduled oral communications.
[1:32:33] Each speaker will have two minutes.
[1:32:37] Thank you.
[1:32:38] First and secondly, Gregor E. Guyardo, followed by Angela Barrett.
[1:32:58] Press the button.
[1:33:03] Good afternoon, members of the board.
[1:33:05] Superintendent.
[1:33:05] My name is Greg Glardo.
[1:33:07] I am standing here before you today to address serious, procedural, serious violations regarding
[1:33:14] transparency and due process and the collective bargaining agreements under our union agreement.
[1:33:23] At the last meeting on August 26th, 2026, I submitted a letter of intent to speak in an open
[1:33:30] discussion. However, due to severe lack of transparency from HR directions, Carlos A and David
[1:33:39] I was not given the time for the meeting or informed about proper procedure, like speaker cards, etc.
[1:33:49] Even more concerning is the complete violation of my right to representation.
[1:33:56] Under the CSEA Chapter 125, I'm explicitly protected by my collective bargaining agreement.
[1:34:05] Okay,
[1:34:09] the meeting on July 27th, 2020, eight days prior to the meeting, I formally notified
[1:34:17] FSUFUSD legal counsel via email that my CSEA union rep would be on vacation and requested
[1:34:26] the meeting to be rescheduled.
[1:34:28] Despite having eight days of notice, they still still did the meetings, which is a violation
[1:34:33] of the Wine Guard Act.
[1:34:37] Okay, anyway, proceeding with our representation without notice has been properly given
[1:34:43] directly undermines due process and basic bargaining rights.
[1:34:51] Okay.
[1:34:52] I am asking the board.
[1:34:54] All of you, the board.
[1:34:55] to address these FUSD HR and Union Procedures directly, the district must represent employee
[1:35:05] rights under the CSEA 125 and upheld Procedure Procedure Fairness.
[1:35:12] Thank you.
[1:35:13] Is that it?
[1:35:14] Okay.
[1:35:15] Thank you.
[1:35:16] Thank you.
[1:35:16] Thank you.
[1:35:17] Thank you.
[1:35:17] Thank you.
[1:35:18] Thank you.
[1:35:20] Why you are raised?
[1:35:21] Please consider.
[1:35:26] Please consider.
[1:35:35] All right, my name is Angela Barrett.
[1:35:37] I do want to start by saying that the absence
[1:35:39] of mischief her speaks volumes.
[1:35:42] She's ill.
[1:35:43] She's ill.
[1:35:44] I'm sure.
[1:35:46] Yeah, I mean, you know, she knows that we're all here
[1:35:49] to face her and we'll all have to come back to the next meeting.
[1:35:54] For years, students and parents have been forced to accept
[1:35:58] last due to budget cuts. Now we have a literacy crisis and a decade long decline in
[1:36:06] foundational skills. Instead of cutting or combining positions at the school level, we should
[1:36:13] be pouring into our schools. Our teachers and our support staff, they are the ones that work tirelessly
[1:36:20] alongside parents and children. The cuts should start at the executive level and executive
[1:36:27] staff should take on more. They're certainly getting paid more.
[1:36:33] They should reduce their staff and share
[1:36:36] resources and put a freeze on their raises and focus on serving our students.
[1:36:45] So what I've
[1:36:47] heard tonight I had questions about, you know, the $2.2 million dollars and now I've heard okay,
[1:36:52] it was in the budget but we've spent all our money or we lost students. Does that include students
[1:36:57] who have graduated, are they dropouts and where's the data of the birth rates, who's coming
[1:37:04] in, how do you determine, like the kindergarten students that are coming in?
[1:37:10] I'll give him a minute to get that information.
[1:37:14] Anyway, what resources are being cut from the foundation in order to subsidize these field
[1:37:24] Because from what I understand, it's meant for
[1:37:30] Sorry, I've been sitting there for a long time, mental health services for students and it's not.
[1:37:37] Okay, according to the website it is, of end scholarships, yes.
[1:37:44] So, yeah, we just want answers.
[1:37:48] Thank you.
[1:37:52] Thanks for inviting me.
[1:37:54] Rays followed by Katie Adams?
[1:38:00] Good evening.
[1:38:01] My name is Dilat.
[1:38:03] I am an early child development student.
[1:38:06] I am a future teacher.
[1:38:08] I appreciate the filters have been restored
[1:38:10] for this school year.
[1:38:11] However, I am asking for clarification
[1:38:13] about how the funding and the original decision worked.
[1:38:17] The approved 2026 LCAP showed approximately $2.35 million
[1:38:22] for district funding educational enrichment trips.
[1:38:25] We were later told approximately $2.2 million in centralized TK to six field trips, funded, funding, were eliminated.
[1:38:35] Now the foundation for Fresno-Infite students is contributing $1.5 million dollars to help restore the trips.
[1:38:43] My first question, can the district clearly explain how these three amounts relate and what happened to the original 2.35 million identified in the LCAP?
[1:38:53] Second, was the original 2.2 million reductions specifically approved by the Board in the public
[1:38:59] vote, if so, at what meeting and under what agenda item.
[1:39:04] If a separate board vote was not required who had the authority, the authority to make that
[1:39:08] decision.
[1:39:11] I am also concerned about the future since the foundation contribution is for this school year.
[1:39:17] What is Fresno Unified's plan to make sure these educational opportunities continue to
[1:39:26] as a future educator, I believe students should have access to meaningful learning experiences
[1:39:31] regardless of how much money their individual school community can raise.
[1:39:35] I'm not here to accuse anyone. I'm asking for transparency and clarification
[1:39:40] so parents, educators in the community can better understand how decisions affecting our students
[1:39:46] are made. Thank you for your time. Thank you.
[1:39:51] Katie Adams, followed by Grace pitcher?
[1:40:01] Good evening.
[1:40:01] Members of the board.
[1:40:02] My name is Katie Adams.
[1:40:03] And I am here representing Synthet Elementary PTA.
[1:40:06] We would like to express our dismay about the loss of guaranteed funding for field trips in elementary schools.
[1:40:11] I know the superintendent recently sent out a letter addressing this issue,
[1:40:14] and apologizing for not making those budget decisions clear,
[1:40:17] or communicating in with schools and parents in a timely manner.
[1:40:20] The letter also implied that the field trip funding would not be coming back,
[1:40:23] regardless of community input.
[1:40:25] While this grade at the foundation will cover the cost of this current school year, it seems
[1:40:29] there are no plans to continue that fundraising beyond this year.
[1:40:32] The Sunset PTA does not feel that this is acceptable.
[1:40:36] We have seen the tremendous educational value of field trips.
[1:40:38] The level of excitement and engagement they create is difficult to replicate in the classroom
[1:40:41] alone.
[1:40:42] Field trips truly make a difference for our elementary students and we believe that they should
[1:40:45] be considered part of the curriculum and something teachers can count on being funded as
[1:40:49] they plan year to year.
[1:40:50] I know the district is facing significant budget concerns, but we firmly believe the funding can be found,
[1:40:56] and priorities can be adjusted to ensure students have the best education possible.
[1:41:00] In the end, all of our decisions should come down to one question. What is best for our students?
[1:41:05] And field trips is what is best for our students at sunset elementary.
[1:41:09] So we need to find a way to make that happen because that is the duty of the school board and the school district to serve the students.
[1:41:14] And while we appreciate the superintendent's acknowledgement that the communication about the budget was not properly handled,
[1:41:19] We want to emphasize that in the future we expect to be notified of any such changes to
[1:41:23] central programs or any kind of change and funding effect in curriculum such as this
[1:41:27] before it happens, so that we have an opportunity to address it and fix it before it
[1:41:31] is too late. We already asked so much of our teachers and lastly we want to do
[1:41:35] us ask them to fundraise because we know that they are going to continue fundraising
[1:41:39] to support field trips and that is not a valuable use of teacher time.
[1:41:45] And teachers should be able to plan for those field trip regardless of the PTA bake sales
[1:41:49] success.
[1:41:50] They should be able to count on it as part of the curriculum and not hold off planning
[1:41:53] until enough doughnuts are sold or raffle tickets or cookie dough.
[1:41:57] Teachers and parents should be able to count on the school district to fund the programs
[1:42:00] that are essential parts of the curriculum instead of relying on fundraisers and the
[1:42:03] hard work of teachers and parents who are already giving so much.
[1:42:06] Thank you.
[1:42:10] Grace pitcher, followed by Mirna Garcia.
[1:42:17] Good evening, President, board members, and superintendent.
[1:42:21] My name is Grace Pitcher and I'm here to speak on behalf of students, teachers, and families who are directly affected by several district decisions that deserve immediate attention.
[1:42:31] I am not only a teacher but also a parent of a person unified student.
[1:42:35] Firstly, I want to address the reduction in elimination of funding for school field trips.
[1:42:38] I know this has been a broad topic today and the last few weeks.
[1:42:42] The bill trips are not extras.
[1:42:44] They are not awards.
[1:42:45] They are a central part of a well-rounded education.
[1:42:48] Educational research consistently shows
[1:42:50] a field trips increase student engagement
[1:42:52] and improve content retention, build, critical thinking skills,
[1:42:56] and provide real world context in classroom learning.
[1:43:00] Student to participate in educational field trip experiences
[1:43:03] often demonstrate increased cultural awareness,
[1:43:06] stronger social skills, and greater enthusiasm from learning.
[1:43:09] When funding for field trips is students lose access to valuable educational opportunities, teachers
[1:43:15] also lose one of the most effective tools they make they have for making learning meaningful
[1:43:21] engaging. At this time, when we are working to improve attendance, increase student engagement
[1:43:27] and close achievement gaps eliminated access to hands-on learning experiences, moves us in
[1:43:32] the wrong directions. Second, I would like to address an ongoing issue of overage teachers
[1:43:37] who remain without permanent assignments.
[1:43:40] Currently, there are more than 10 teachers in this district
[1:43:42] who have been overage and still do not have
[1:43:47] any permanent placements inside of a classroom.
[1:43:50] Rather than this training, these educators
[1:43:51] are stable teaching position when they can build relationships
[1:43:54] and contribute meaningful, meaningfully
[1:43:56] to school communities, they have been asked
[1:43:59] for, meaning miscellaneous duties at their original school
[1:44:02] sites.
[1:44:03] At Story Elementary, for example,
[1:44:04] the teacher who currently has no placement is being assigned to push into classrooms
[1:44:08] to provide small group and spectrum across grade levels that that teacher is unfamiliar with.
[1:44:14] Well, this may seem like a simple staff and adjustment the ripple effects have been significant.
[1:44:19] Not three grade level classrooms and one three third grade classrooms and one fourth grade
[1:44:24] classroom have been impacted. Thank you.
[1:44:30] My name is Mirna Garcia, followed by Christina Gutierrez.
[1:44:43] My name is Mirna Garcia, and I appreciate you taking the time to listen to all of us here that are parents of children in Fresno Unified and concerned community members.
[1:44:54] So I wanted to let you know, I went over the financials as best I could. There's 390 something.
[1:45:00] Pageance, outrageous. For someone who has a background in accounting, in that is not my profession. I struggled. I can't imagine what your typical person who works nine to five is how to do to try and figure out where the issue is to resolve the financial crisis that we're looking at. So I wanted to go over a few things with you. I just picked up top five. The health funds, the report acknowledges a four-million
[1:45:29] and accounting air, the funds recorded in the wrong year.
[1:45:33] This is not a small mistake, right?
[1:45:36] This seems to break down internal controls
[1:45:38] in our community needs assurance and financial oversight
[1:45:41] to be strained and not weakened.
[1:45:44] The other item that I was looking at
[1:45:45] is workers compensation fund is negative
[1:45:48] over 1.6 million in the red.
[1:45:51] El Sulphinsurance fund operating below zero
[1:45:53] is a structural risk.
[1:45:55] It means claims exceed reserves and failure bailouts.
[1:45:58] future bailouts will come from the general fund. That's an issue. The other one is restricted
[1:46:04] general fund dropped 216 million to 148 million. That's a 31% decrease. There's a time and
[1:46:12] funds meant to support students directly. In decline in this steep demands, a clearer explanation
[1:46:16] of how restricted dollars are being managed and whether programs are being stretched beyond their
[1:46:21] funding. We have issues, right? And if you want us as a community and parents to help, we need
[1:46:29] to be able to look at these financials at understand it so we can contribute back.
[1:46:33] The other one is legal expenses. I have increased by 1.2 million. Multiple act of lawsuits.
[1:46:41] The other one is several charter schools. Golden charter academy in Sierra Charter.
[1:46:46] I will respect hundreds of thousands of dollars. Thank you so much for your time.
[1:46:50] Thank you.
[1:46:52] Christina Gutierrez, it's she's here.
[1:46:56] If not, we'll move on to the next speaker, I'll lean Jane Jero,
[1:47:02] and she'll leave.
[1:47:08] Then we'll move on to Risfot Bellard, followed by Christina Holmes McIntyre.
[1:47:17] Good evening, Board members.
[1:47:19] Dr. Droddy, how you doing?
[1:47:21] Again, my name is Risfot Bellard.
[1:47:22] I'm a community member and a neighbor and Southwest Fresno.
[1:47:25] Today, I just want to address two quick pain points that I think everybody is filling in our district.
[1:47:30] And I know I've limited time, so I'll make it quick.
[1:47:33] The first students and seats being a former revenue, and then when that number is not
[1:47:38] met or that revenue number is not met, we talk about how strapped we are for cash.
[1:47:42] I think there needs to be a reframe and thought around why don't parents and students want
[1:47:46] to come to Fresno unified.
[1:47:48] Why are we not attractive enough?
[1:47:51] Why are the schools not attractive enough for students to come into instead of saying we
[1:47:54] have limited dollars every year, we're losing money every year because we don't happen
[1:47:57] of students in the seats because we are losing students in our seats.
[1:48:01] I mean, I've been this up in the district for about three years.
[1:48:03] I teach agriculture in the district.
[1:48:05] The amount of educational programs and gym that we have in our school district, students should
[1:48:10] be flocking to our schools from dual immersion at dual immersion programs at Sunset and
[1:48:14] Vain Powell, the medical pathways at Edison and Duncan, the entrepreneurship program at
[1:48:19] Pateneo, dual enrollment all across the district to go to, you know, J.C.
[1:48:22] Why aren't students coming into the schools, right, and that begs me to a question, are we going
[1:48:27] on to the campuses to ask those questions?
[1:48:30] What are the likes and dislikes of our schools?
[1:48:32] Are we going into the communities to ask those questions?
[1:48:34] What do you like and don't like around our school?
[1:48:36] Or are we not going on campus?
[1:48:38] Are we not going into community?
[1:48:39] Are we not speaking to our constituents?
[1:48:41] And then my second point, before my phone dies.
[1:48:45] Transparency, I think that's a big issue tonight.
[1:48:47] Transparency, the dollars are making sense.
[1:48:49] And so when the budget when the LCAP that is publicized to the public says one thing and then the district does something else in the middle of the school year
[1:48:56] It doesn't add up. That's a pain point, and that's hard and then when you try to tell us one thing
[1:49:01] But the LCAP is still public and it still says that there's funding for field trips in this case
[1:49:06] Where is the money at if it's not there if the LCAP should be changed so the public can read that and be well informed and then lastly in my nine seconds
[1:49:13] suggestion for the SRO, look into community organizations, reallocate funds to support community organizations like
[1:49:19] Buddy Osonee, those in breath of evolution, who are in community with our students who are in crisis.
[1:49:24] I think that would be a better use of $5.9 million.
[1:49:27] Thank you.
[1:49:28] Thank you.
[1:49:29] Christina Holmes, McIntyre, followed by Sandra Siddleton.
[1:49:40] Hi.
[1:49:41] Thank you for letting me come up again to speak.
[1:49:44] So I want to start with kind of where Rissville left off, which was what's happening.
[1:49:48] Why don't parents want to bring their kids to prison?
[1:49:50] We have to be honest and one of the things that we do with our organization is we raise the political understanding of our parents.
[1:49:58] One of the issues is you have FTA, the Fresno Teachers Association, who consistently gives out misinformation to parents.
[1:50:07] I have listened to several parents come up here today and I don't think it's their fault that they continue to message the wrong misinformation that's being put out by FTA.
[1:50:17] I think it's surprising to hear that we have a candidate that is also echoing that information,
[1:50:22] especially as we just heard staff talk about what was budgeted last year, what was budgeted
[1:50:30] this year, what's been spent this year, right? So I think that's part of the issue.
[1:50:34] It's parents aren't coming to Fresno Unified School District because there is too much negative
[1:50:39] misinformation. Fresno Unified School District has enough issues without us needing to make up stuff.
[1:50:46] The second thing that I want to address as a parent is with Miss Keisha Thomas kept wanting to make a point of which is that
[1:50:54] Officer is something that what they're doing is helping kids to feel comfortable around police.
[1:50:59] I'm sorry, that is not the school's responsibility. As a mother with a black child, I actually don't want my children to feel absolutely 100% comfortable around police.
[1:51:09] Why? Because in Edison region where those young black kids are stopped on a regular basis by police,
[1:51:16] they're not being spoken to like they are SROs in a school campus.
[1:51:21] So as black parents, we have conversations with our kids about how to respond when you are encountering the police.
[1:51:28] The school district does not have the right to undo that safety and protection that black parents
[1:51:35] that deal with police brutality on a regular basis are instilling in their kids.
[1:51:40] I think I've been to that.
[1:51:42] You don't have the right to re- indoctrinate our kids with your own concepts.
[1:51:47] It's important for our kids to understand how to engage with police,
[1:51:52] and it's not how you deal with them as RROs on campus.
[1:51:56] Thank you.
[1:51:57] Our final speaker will be Senator Saladone.
[1:51:59] It's
[1:52:05] good evening. I think I mentioned earlier that my son is a senior this year, so I've actually been reflecting a lot about his experience since he started in T.K.
[1:52:14] So I just wanted to mention I just wanted to start to end my comments tonight by seeing that not everything is negative in the district.
[1:52:21] There's actually been some really good progress that I wanted to think all of the district staff and the board for helping to achieve. I was looking at
[1:52:29] And...
[1:52:30] The latest LCAP data earlier about and just noticed there's actually some improvement that's happening in our district that I really wanted to appreciate, that there's been improvement in our SPAC scores.
[1:52:45] I think both in math and in English the district actually had an increase of almost 10 points, but a couple of things that actually stood out for me and specifically around long-term English learners and foster youth.
[1:52:58] English learners had almost an 18-point jump in English
[1:53:04] scores, and foster youth had an almost 18-point jump in math scores if I
[1:53:11] remember with the data correctly, and we've also had an increase in
[1:53:15] graduation rates. I think it was about a five-point jump. So I just wanted to
[1:53:19] say that that is, that is great progress, and that I think that we need to
[1:53:24] make sure that our budget aligns to continue that momentum. That, like, yes,
[1:53:28] areas still gaps, specifically around making sure that our young folks are prepared to continue
[1:53:34] to pursue higher education. And so, of course, there's always room for growth. And there's
[1:53:39] always room for improvement, but I don't want to lose sight of the fact that even since
[1:53:43] I graduated from Roosevelt many years ago, that there has been progress at Fresno Unified. And
[1:53:50] just want to just end the night by saying thank you for that work. And I also just wanted to
[1:54:00] highlight the fact that there's also been improvements in our facilities and that I recognize
[1:54:06] the importance of field trips, which many folks have mentioned tonight, but that our young folks spend
[1:54:12] most of their day in our facilities. And, you know, my son went to Yosemite, middle school, and when
[1:54:18] He was at Yosemite Midosquan, fortunately, they didn't have a functioning AC unit in their gym.
[1:54:25] But thankfully, the kids going to Yosemite now do, and so those are some of the improvements
[1:54:31] that we've been able to see in our facilities, and so I'm just grateful for that, and then
[1:54:37] I'm also grateful for his experience at Design Science, and he's had a wonderful last four
[1:54:42] years, and so I just wanted to end the night by saying that I am grateful for the progress
[1:54:46] that we've been making and recognize the fact that we have a long way to go, but thank you
[1:54:50] for that. Thank you.
[1:54:56] Yeah, maybe because I heard some comments about where why I'm sitting here
[1:55:02] and not superintendent her, you know, a killer for not being here today, but she fell ill over the weekend
[1:55:09] and as as late as four o'clock today, still still still, she was still about to try to come in.
[1:55:14] So we convinced her to go ahead and stay home to rest up because we need her energy for
[1:55:19] for the future, so that's what I wanted to make sure I clarify that.
[1:55:24] Thank you, Ben.
[1:55:26] Now I would like to invite my fellow trustees to share a reflection related to our shared commitments.
[1:55:36] We'll call up a trustee with you.
[1:55:38] Thank you.
[1:55:40] I just wanted to talk a little bit more about the board policy for the death of a child.
[1:55:48] if it happens, if that were to happen, well, a child was in our care.
[1:55:53] And I sent an email to the Board by law committee this week asking for some specific components
[1:56:01] to be in that board policy, such as any time that a child dies well under our care, which
[1:56:09] has happened a couple of times now, it would trigger an immediate independent investigation
[1:56:16] into what happened before the incident, a timeline of actions and behaviors taken when that
[1:56:25] emergency happened, and what happened afterwards by an independent investigator who answers
[1:56:30] to the board. And the purpose for that would be to be protective to make sure that we are
[1:56:39] strengthening our protection and our care for our students, that if we have training that
[1:56:44] was missed that we're doing that, that we are debriefing to explore anything that might negatively impact a child in our care.
[1:56:57] And so I just wanted to share that.
[1:56:58] And I do look forward to seeing a draft for us to look at and to adopt.
[1:57:04] Thank you.
[1:57:06] We'll turn next to Trustee Cassettis.
[1:57:08] Thank you.
[1:57:10] I also wanted to share that one of the positive outcomes of the Fresno Fiscal District
[1:57:17] is our new automatic admissions program with UC Merced.
[1:57:24] And I want to congratulate Esther and senior in the audience tonight that has received an
[1:57:30] email from Duncan congratulating you for being eligible for the automatic admissions program
[1:57:37] to UC Merced.
[1:57:43] But that really is a testament, that really is a testament to staff.
[1:57:47] We as parents try our best, but he's here most of the day with staff.
[1:57:51] So thank you to his students and his counselors and his principles.
[1:57:54] He's had over the years.
[1:57:56] I also wanted to share a little bit about the echoing the concerns for the policies for what
[1:58:08] We do after a tragic death at one of our students,
[1:58:10] I'm also concerned with that and would like to follow up
[1:58:12] and be an evenier assistance to that as well.
[1:58:14] Thank you.
[1:58:16] Thank you.
[1:58:16] Trustee Jonathan Roses.
[1:58:19] So just two plugs.
[1:58:22] One is for our workshop next week.
[1:58:25] I appreciate people being very interested in our budget
[1:58:28] and our attendance and how all that gets calculated.
[1:58:31] Really, we'll have a lot more in depth conversation next week,
[1:58:35] a same time, same place, would love to have view all there.
[1:58:40] And then we'll also be having, they're open to the community, please correct me if I'm wrong,
[1:58:46] but some additional training for people that are seeking to be on the sport, but also just
[1:58:53] the community in general on what we're doing in terms of outcomes-focused governments.
[1:59:01] and that'll be our goals in guardrails and the new process and how we're conducting
[1:59:07] ourselves a support.
[1:59:09] Thank you, Trustee Cossett, for really taking the lead on that, but I also encourage
[1:59:12] people who really want to get more involved to come to those.
[1:59:16] We have a couple of sessions.
[1:59:18] Where are they, public?
[1:59:19] Because there is one that is meant for our public and our parents and teachers that
[1:59:23] have an anybody who's wanting to join us.
[1:59:25] It is Thursday, September 17th from 5 to 8 p.m. Location, the location for that session is
[1:59:35] actually in the border. Thank you. Yeah, and so there will be diving deeper and can answer
[1:59:41] questions specifically as to this model of governance that we've undertaken these past couple of years.
[1:59:48] So, welcome to the public.
[1:59:53] Thank you. So, I do have a couple of announcements as well.
[1:59:58] Thank you for reminding about the...
[2:00:00] Board workshop. I really want to encourage people to come next week. That will be here at 5 p.m. We do have a couple of listening sessions. So earlier, there was a comment about, do we ever listen? Do we ever go out and do we ask questions? And the responses, yes, we do. We had a series of listening sessions last year. There are a number of listening sessions. I know, Trustee, General Center also says conducted a few. So there will be one next Tuesday. It will be at Bernie Elementary.
[2:00:30] and you're welcome to attend that at 5.30 pm.
[2:00:34] We also will have a special listening session.
[2:00:37] It will be on a Saturday on October 3rd
[2:00:39] at the Betty Rodriguez Library.
[2:00:40] We're also going to have a featured book reading
[2:00:43] by Adamita Esminos on that night.
[2:00:47] So we're excited for that.
[2:00:50] The other thing that I did want to mention tonight
[2:00:53] is that today was a spectacular day for a number of reasons.
[2:00:57] And I was so proud to attend today's official launch of the Yes on S campaign.
[2:01:05] This is what we are now calling better road safer streets and this board did take
[2:01:11] a vote to support this.
[2:01:14] So to my colleagues, thank you all for endorsing this measure to our students.
[2:01:19] This is about you.
[2:01:21] Measure S will ensure that you are safe walking, biking, driving or rolling to and from
[2:01:26] Additionally, measure S will provide free transit for every student making it easier for our students to get to our schools and colleges, which also helps raise our educational achievement goals.
[2:01:37] This measure will also help address the very budget challenges we face today by providing free transit to our students.
[2:01:44] Lastly, it requires us to partner with the cities and counties to ensure that we are investing in the most important infrastructure projects needed to ensure safe routes to school.
[2:01:54] So I hope that you will be willing to join me in supporting this effort and keeping our students safe.
[2:02:01] Trustee Thomas did jump in, so go ahead.
[2:02:05] So I just wanted to give a shout out to my new principal over at Edison.
[2:02:10] She's amazing, this Blanco is amazing, an amazing principal.
[2:02:14] And today the Williams Act, Williams Act people were there and they shared how impressed they were with the amount of instruction
[2:02:23] and that was happening in all of the classrooms around the whole campus.
[2:02:27] So I just want to tell her congratulations on a great start to a school year, and I'm very proud
[2:02:33] of my teachers that are there.
[2:02:38] Thank you.
[2:02:40] With no further business for the sport this meeting stands adjourned at 937 PM.