Board of Education - Regular Meeting

This is an official title. This special meeting and study session uh to order at 6 o'clock on January 13th. Uh can we start with a roll call to establish quorum? Student trustee Cho here. Student trustee Shepard here. Trusty Boyd here. Khan here. Hopwood here. Vice President Inklas here. Mahoney here. Superintendent Stone here. Thank you.

Mic adjustment. Um, can we have the student board members read our mission statement and meeting norms, please? The mission of Albany Unified School District is to provide excellent public education that empowers all to achieve their fullest potential as productive citizens. AUSD is committed to creating comprehensive learning opportunities in a safe, supportive, and collaborative environment addressing the individual needs of each student.

Meeting norms. Number one, maintain a focus on what is best for our students. Number two, ensure a safe environment for all views to be expressed. treating each other, staff, and the public respectfully. Number three, endeavor to find common solutions to issues through collaboration without sacrificing one's belief in what is best for students. Number four, make a commitment to effective deliberation. Each one listening with an open mind while others are allowed to express their own points of view even if one disagrees.

Great. Thank you. Um and now we'll say the pledge of allegiance. stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And can I have a motion to approve the meeting agenda? I move to approve the agenda. I'll second the motion. All in favor? I

against. Great. Um for the next item, we're going to move into the main item for the night. We're going to move into the study session on budget development and strategic planning. Um before we jump in, is there any public comment on uh on this agenda item? And seeing none, let's move on to the agenda item.

All right. Good evening um President Mahoney trustees and um our amazing uh administrative team here tonight. We have our um site leaders, our principles and um our executive team members here. Um tonight we're going to be talking about we're this is a study session to talk about how budget is developed and how strategic planning happens around that. I do want to just note that this is not a budget session. We're not talking about what we're going to do in our budget. We're talking about how we make those decisions. And part of tonight, um the intention is to really understand how districts get the money to budget and how our dollars actually are what um we use to make our strategic plan come to life.

Oh. Oh, it worked. Okay. [laughter] So, tonight we're going to um talk first about uh what is a budget? How does it tie to the district values? We're going to talk about budget development at a glance. So, we're going to start kind of big um at the state level, then at the district level, and then what that looks like at school sites. Um we're actually going to talk a little bit about I'm doing a we're going to do a little um foregrounding of something that we're going to be starting across the district through some of our budget development town halls but also through other engagements and um really what that is going to do is help us to create a strategic plan for the future and that's our graduate profile or portrait of a graduate. We're going to ask for a little bit of guidance from the board tonight about what we what the board would like to see us do in terms of next steps in terms of community engagement around understanding budget development and then we'll close. Oops, I keep going backwards. Sorry. So, the purpose and outcomes for tonight, we want to sh create a shared understanding of California's school budgeting system. Um a few uh a month back when I did a board report I again I I kind of foreshadowed tonight um and shared that it's budgets for schools especially in California are very complicated and we're going to talk about that tonight. We're going to talk about our specific budget development process in um Alama Unified School District how it's um how it's shifted over the last couple of years. We're going to connect some of our decisions um or we're going to talk about how we connect our our decisions to student outcomes and our emerging graduate profile and we're going to identify some priorities for followup community town halls and other engagements.

So I have a glossery of terms. You have uh these printed out. Um as I've said before, educators can have an entire conversation only using acronyms and every educator would completely understand it and no one else would know what we are talking about. Um and so these are a lot of the acronyms that might come up tonight. Just want to make be cognizant that we try not to use acronyms, but if they do come up, this is what they stand for. And of course at any point if anyone has a question about even what they mean not just the acronym but the actual term um please stop us and let us know why is it not going oh. Okay. So for us to create a budget or a plan we really do have to engage the community. Um, I think that when we talk about this, there's kind of a compliance aspect of it that school districts have to do. And at the core, it's beyond that. It's about ensuring that every single student gets what they need each and every. Um, and the way we do that is we hear from our community and we center our students and we center our student voices. And so we want to really make sure that as we're con moving through this budget development process this term, we're staying student centered. We're using data to make our decisions. We're keeping our budgeting and our conversations in close proximity to where the students are, which means that that's at the school sites, the closest to where the students actually are expending every single day. We're working to align our spending with our planning. If we have something written in a plan and we haven't

budgeted for it, it's going to be really hard to do that thing. And it the the reverse is if we're spending money on something and we haven't actually created a plan around it, that's actually not a good use of funding. So, we're really working on that. One of the things I heard loud and clear when I did my listening campaign when I first came in, and I continue to hear it, is people want transparency. They really they want accountability, but they also want to understand how we're using our dollars. And the goal around community engagement is to create shared ownership. So, I love this quote. Um, the budget is not just a collection of numbers. It's an expression of our values and our aspirations. And so I'm not going to just hear my own voice tonight. I'm actually going to call on people to help me tonight. Um and so I'd like for I know that we already read our vision and our mission, but I would like for us to do it again. So I'm going to ask somebody could be anybody to read out the vision um loud because this is part of our values. Go for it. Thank you. vision. Each and every student is empowered to realize their fullest potential, ready to lead, contribute, and thrive in an everchanging world through the support of a diverse, engaged, and committed community.

Thank you. And if someone could read our mission. Thank you. Mission: Albany Unified School District provides an excellent public education that empowers every student to achieve their fullest potential. We honor the unique ways students learn and are committed to creating inclusive, supportive, and collaborative learning environments. By valuing individual strengths, celebrating differences, and fostering critical thinking, we ensure that every student is prepared to contribute to a just and joyful world and thrive as productive members of society. Thank you. So, what's exciting is that our mission and our vision are starting to create a road to where we want students to be when they graduate. But what we don't have clear and we haven't developed yet is exactly what does it mean to be prepared to contribute to a just and joyful world and to thrive as productive members of the society. And that's where as we continue to move forward this year and as we start to develop a new LCAP because our LCAP will be ending after after 27 um and the LCAP should be our strategic plan. So as we're creating that, we really need to understand what is it that we're trying to do there. We also do have a set of values. And so again, I'm going to ask folks to read out loud the values and anyone from our admin team can also join in.

I'll take the first one. Uh we believe in equity and excellence. Every student deserves access to highquality, rigorous, and inclusive learning experiences that honor their potential and ensure that they are prepared to thrive. We believe in student centered learning. Students flourish when they experience agency, belonging, and wellness in safe, supportive environments designed to meet their individual needs. We believe in collaborative leadership, shared leadership, and transparent, accountable systems are crucial for building trust, driving improvement, and fostering a culture of learning. We believe in honoring individual strengths. Each student brings unique gifts, identities, and ways of learning, recognizing and valuing these differences is foundational to meaningfully educa meaningful education.

We believe in the power of community partnership. When educators, students, families, and community partners work together, we create schools where everyone belongs and every student is empowered to lead, contribute, and thrive. Thank you so much. So in order to uphold those values and to put those value to put our basically our money where our mouth is, it's important that our budget process um is one that aligns to hearing about how we can do that the best way possible. And that means that we have to be really transparent. We have to have these community engagements. We have to listen and we have to understand. And if we say that that's what we want to do then our dollar should show that um we have to look at some trends. We have to understand um the numbers. So when we are budgeting I think the most probably the most important thing about budgeting that budgeting 101 in school budgets is that enrollment drives the dollars. But it's not just enrollment. So, we could say we have 10 students, but if only eight students show up every day, we get money for the eight students. We don't get money for the 10 students. So, we'll talk a little bit more about that. And really, it's about a percentage, too. So, you know, if we if we we're going to talk today about um bottom line, 100% of our budget is this, but we're but if we only have a 95% attendance rate, we're only going to generate dollars at a 95% rate. That's incredibly important. And so, I do think that one way that we can as a whole entire community really think about that is thinking about how can we ensure that our students are attending most of the time. That's a way

to generate dollars. Also, turns out it's hard to learn when you don't go to school. We need people to go to school so they can learn. So, both of those things are true. And also, there's a lot of things we need to do to make um the schools the places that we want them to be so all students feel like they can attend and and be valued and and um belong. So those that's all work that we need to do. But bottom line 101, enrollment drives how many how many dollars we're going to get. Attendance is actually where we get to cash the check. Again, we want to make sure that everything is student centered, closest to the kids, closest to um the classrooms. Very important is that we have fiscal stability. We are mandated to have a certain percentage of a reserve, a 3% reserve. That's our mandate. That means that's like our savings account basically. That's if for whatever reason um something terrible happens and the gen the the money doesn't get generated that means we can pay our bills keep our lights on pay our pay our um our employees ensure that we are you know continuing to to move forward. If we dip below the 3%, well, that can create a a terrible compliance issue for us and we could be get taken over by the state. We could there's a lot of things that could happen. But at the end of the day, even worse is that we wouldn't be able to pay our bills. We wouldn't be able to pay the people that work here. So, we have to make sure that we're maintaining that 3%. More important than that is that we, you know, the savings account matters. So, we have to think about what is it that we would need for a certain amount of time if for some reason the money isn't coming in and make sure that we have a reserve that's appropriate for that. So, we're going to talk a little bit about

that tonight. And ultimately, we want to make sure that we have a a long-term healthy district in terms of um our fiscal resources. um deficit spending erodess over time and that can erode the impact that we have on our students and what we can do. So all of these things are important and these are all things we're paying attention to as we're developing budgets and as we're thinking about long-term planning. So we could plan for next year and spend all of our dollars. Great. Is it going to be something we can do yearover-year? And if it's not something we can do year-over-year um in a a fiscally responsible way, then it's really not a good plan. So why is budgeting for schools and districts so challenging? Well, here we are. It is January 13th. Um last Thursday, the governor basically released his proposed budget. It's not the budget. It's not like the guarantee. It's not like the dollars are in the bank. It's, yeah, we think we can maybe do this. Sure. And the state won't actually know what its revenue is until after April 15th. So, keep that in mind. April 15th is tax day. That's when the state actually knows what they have to spend. So the the governor has proposed a budget on money that they don't even know if they're getting. Districts per ed code have to make budgetary decisions that impact staffing by March 15th. So we don't know how many dollars we're going to get. The the state doesn't even know how many dollars they're going to get until April 15th. And yet districts already have to make decisions by March 15th. Well, you don't just make a decision on March 15th. You have to make those decisions prior. you

have to really understand what are we trying to do next year and all of this is connected to student enrollment. So, we also have to have pretty decent enrollment projections to be able to even understand what it is that we're going to need for that March 15th deadline. So, we're building our budgets before we have any idea of what our known final funding is going to be. We have a we have a projection. We have a thought, but we it's it's almost like looking into a crystal ball in some ways. We do and we are getting better and better at creating the systems around enrollment projections. Um we've put some really good systems in place and we're working really hard on that. And yet it's also still a little bit of a a dart throw. We think it's going to be this, but we're not sure. So that all happens and then May 14th the governor releases the May revision. So January 10th he says this is what I think we're going to do. We do all of our budgeting. We've done our we've done everything. And then May 14th he's like actually it's this. So then we have to actually go back and see okay did what we project work? Did it not? Where are we where do we need to make adjustments? and then we have to do our final lock in by June. But the legislature doesn't even pass the budget until June 15th. So all of these things are happening at the same time. It's it's I don't have a better way of saying it. It's kooky. It's like it just doesn't really make sense. And yet this is how districts budget. I want to pause here and see if there are any questions. Anything I could explain better? anything or any other things that Linda you might want to add? Reena, any of the the team?

You might need to use the right microphone. Sorry.

Is it on? Okay. Yeah. I guess I would just add or ask to I would ask Linda to explain what a 3% really means in terms of like how many weeks or months of operating expenses that can actually cover for us. Thank you for that. That's a great question. So on average spend the district spends about $200,000 a day. Um, so if you're thinking about our 3% reserve, which is like a little over two million, um, we could we could survive for 10 days, which is you typically not enough, but obviously we're not managing cash per se, but the 3% I want to say is a reminder that that's just the minimum reserve. That's not the maximum reserve that they're recommending.

All right. Thank you. Any other thoughts? Yeah, please. Um, it's also about the 3% reserve. Is that like a turnover each year or is it like we only get 3% each year and then that money goes away for the next year. So each year when we're building a budget, we have to make sure that we're factoring in that we have 3% left over whatever commitments that we've make out of our total expenses. And that includes unrestricted and restricted funds. And so that changes. If we spend less, the 3% reserve is less. If we spend more, the 3% required it becomes higher as well.

Can I see a question? [laughter] So does that mean like the 3% is continued on from last year? like just like is stored up or is it you're saying that it's just like factored in and used and then it's new 3%. Sorry, I just like didn't understand that. Great question. It's factored in, it's used, and then we have to make sure we have another 3%.

And again, that's the the floor. That's not that's that's what we must have. But if you're looking at how much money we spend every day and we think about the operating costs, 3% yes, it's good. We're glad we have it. I would feel safer if we had more um just because we want to make sure we can pay our bills. Ask a quick question on back on that subject. Um so I know you've told us this before, but I just for everyone's benefit, what's the typical amount? We have 3% as a minimum, but with our like comparable school districts or neighboring school districts, what's the average for their reserve?

I think it varies across the board. Um the average usually is somewhere swirling around 5 to 7%. But um to Concel's point, if if we were to actually say we saved it and we squirreled it away, that means you'd have to stop deficit spending. We're going to do that.

Yeah. Thank you. All right. So, I've already explained this, but I just want to look again. So, we've we've spent November and December and we're continuing in January to figure out our our enrollment projections for next year. Like I said, imperfect science. Um, but we use what we're doing is we're using the last five years average and kind of taking a look at, okay, somewhere in the middle is what we think would be a um conservative enrollment projection. That said, we did our absolute very best to do enrollment projections for TK this year, and lo and behold, they keep coming, which is wonderful. We're so happy. We love our four-year-olds coming every day. We didn't necessarily know that we would get that many. And so, we, you know, we're going to have to continue to really kind of figure out that um that grade level. Um, one thing to just note is that this is the first year that we have the full age um, group. Um, and so probably more and more families are realizing that this is something they can do and it um, it's actually saving them probably some money um, not having to go to child care. Um, and we we love having them and keep coming please. We love our we love them. Um, but we but it's hard because we don't know how many we're going to get. Um, again, December, January, we're doing our budget and staffing projections. Next week, our principles are going to get what we call our budget one pager, and we'll we'll show that in a little bit. And that's going to show what their enrollment projections are, um, their staffing projections, the space allocations that they have at their school site. Because the other thing that is so important to remember is we have to make sure that we have enough space for all of our classrooms and for all of the things that we're trying to do. And so um we know that some of our

um schools are a little squishier than others. And so that also matters in terms of where we're going to place different programs and um how many students we can actually serve December through February. And I know that our um principles have already started some community engagements, but that is really the time for listening, for explaining what we've done in the past, for looking at our past schools, our LCAPS, um our SIP says or school site plans. I'm going to get better at not using acronyms. Um and spending time talking to the community. So principles are meeting with their staffs, they're meeting with their instructional leadership teams, they're meeting with their school site councils, other community um groups, PTAs, etc. And really at this point, they should be looking at data, how the money's been spent before, and if that's the best way to use the money. I do want to just name that, and we'll see this later in the in the presentation, but most of our money goes to staffing. So, we have a very slim little sliver of money that we would say is discretionary. And so, it's a really tricky, again, it's like I said before, it's a little kooky because we want to do all of the things to get to the um mission and vision and to en um enact our values. And again, we have what we have to spend and most of it goes to staffing. So, we'll talk about that a little bit. After we've done some of this, governor's budget is proposed. We got that. Um we'll talk a little bit about what we saw in that. Although I have to say I don't think we're 100% prepared tonight to really understand it yet. We're going to be going on Tuesday to um a meeting to better understand the governor's budget and what they proposed. But it it looks okay. It's it doesn't look as completely horrible as I thought it might. And again, we don't

know if it's really going to be the the real budget. February and March, we're doing what we call budget lock-ins. So budget lockins are where we meet with the site leaders. They should have had engagements at school sites. They should have been talking to staff, to community, really understanding what it is that people want to see the money spent on and what the goals are for the school site plans. And then we're going to sit and we're going to have conversations with them. We're going to look at their enrollment projections. we're going to have a conversation. Does this look right? Principles often actually have um sometimes a better uh view vantage point of like, yeah, that doesn't really look right. I don't understand why that enrollment projection is what you're saying. I've been here for five years and it never has been like that. So, those are the conversations we're going to have. Um we're going to kind of look at those. Again, enrollment is going to drive the the dollars, right? We're going to look at the dollars. We're going to look at basic staffing. Basic staffing meaning there is a teacher in front of every child during every class period. There is a a principal, there's a custodian, there's office staff, there's yard um supervision or campus supervision. Um and some of those other things that are just like core basic basic basic. We have to have it. Our our prep um our prep periods have to be staffed. So, um we currently use our specials um teachers for that. And we have to have um our A through G aligned courses and the correct courses for um our graduate uh um the word is escaping me Darren to be able to graduate. What is the

Thank you. requirements. That's the word. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. So, we need to do that. [laughter] Um and also at that point we want to start if we know that we're going to have openings we we want to start hiring um teachers um especially teachers who are really high quality teachers who know that they're going to be moving on. They start looking for jobs January, February. We do not want to be waiting until the end of the school year to find our staffing. We really want to start now. And so for that reason we are um not just our teachers this year. We're asking everybody include admin including administrators um are you thinking that you are coming back next year? We hope that you are and if you're not please let us know so we can start our hiring process as soon as possible. It's really for planning. It's it's again we want every single person to come back. We appreciate them and we also the sooner we know the better. Then May June we have our May revise. We kind of look at it. We do what we call scrub. We scrub the budget. That sounds like a funny term, but that's what we're doing. We're like looking at the dollars and making sure they're they're they're clean. [laughter] And we're um completing our LCAP, our site plans, and then we're going to be bringing our budget to the board for approval. Questions about this comments? Um, we do have we do have a question in the audience and given that this is a study session, I'm inclined to just have the question question come up. Um, my first time doing this, let's see if we can do this. Um, Mr. Martinez, do you have a question? How do I How do I take him off? You got it. Thank you. Thank you, Julian.

Hi. Thank you. Can you Yeah, we can hear you.

Oh, perfect. Thank you. Um, first of all, thank you very much for putting this meeting together and for including audience. Um, I think it's per it's just speaks volume on transparency. Um, one of the things I wanted to ask is how did the parcel tax revenue reduce the district's reliance on the general fund and how does that support maintaining the 3% reserve? Has it made it better to where uh the portion of the district's structural deficit will fall less onto the general fund if the you know as the parcel exists now. That's my second question.

Thank you. I'm going to let um CBOU take a stab at that one.

Thank you for a great question. Uh it could be twofolded convoluted and so forth. So, I'll do the best I can to kind of explain how the parcel tax helps to support the school district. As you know, Albany Unified School District is not uh one of the larger school districts as some of our neighboring cities like Berkeley Unified, Oakland Unified, San Francisco Unified. Those school districts actually qualify for a lot more funding, but because our unduplicated percentage is actually below 55%, we don't qualify for the concentration portion of LCFF funding. And so therefore, in order for us to operate as a regular school district, even for basic functions, a parcel tax was actually passed to help support that those operations. Okay. So what it has done is uh basically uh where we wouldn't the the areas where the general fund uh has been limited due to the fact that Albian does not fall under a lot of the other schools um that has helped subsidize that amount and therefore it has uh I correct me if I'm wrong it it has uh has not made that much of an impact on helping the 3%. Is that correct? It c we will it cannot on a technicality standpoint it cannot be used as a part of reserving the 3%. The 3% reserve has to come from unrestricted general funds. And so with that said um it is helping to offset expenses that would have otherwise been charged to general to unrestricted funds. So in that way it's contributing but it's not actually being held as part of the reserve.

Oh thank you. No I understand. I was just uh wondering the impact that has had on not having to use so much of the general fund. But yeah, I appreciate that because this helps um not also great understand that but as a community to see where we need to come in and see how we can help too. So I appreciate that. Thank you for your question. I appreciate it. And I think we have some more on that a little bit later in the deck.

Thank you. Yeah, just a few slides and we're going to take a look a little bit at different districts and how they get funded just in our county. Okay, any other questions about this process? Again, this is very complicated and I've been an educator for 33 years and I think I finally kind of sort of understand it. [laughter] Just kidding. I understand it, but it is very complicated. Okay, moving forward. Okay, so basically what what the governor talked about last week um was how he has um decided how he thinks he wants to allocate the funds that are going to come in through um taxes. So what I want to be really clear about is I think people are under the misunderstanding that our local property taxes just go straight to our schools. They do not. What happens is the taxes go to the state. The state then takes a look at all the things that the state has priorities around and then reallocates back out to different um to different uh departments and and priorities the money. So currently what we've noticed is about 42% goes to health and human services of the state um revenue. 25.1% goes to K12 education, 7.2 to higher education, which would be um community colleges and four-year colleges, 5.6 to transportation, 5.5 to corrections, and 14.6 to other state services. I do not know what those are, so please do not ask. when we get our funds. So, of that 25.1% that gets allotted to the different districts based on what is called the local control funding formula. And we'll

talk a little bit more about that in a minute. That means that um there's a basic amount that every district gets period based on enrollment. Then there is above that what's called the supplemental dollars. And we're I'm going to I might as well go to the slide. Well, no, I'll wait to the slide. There's a supplemental dollars that we get on top of that and that is based on what we call our unduplicated students. So, those are our foster youth, our English learners, our multilingual learners and um our um blanking up for our sorry, thank you our Thank you. our our free or reduced lunch count. Another way that the community can help us, just so you know, is I know that we every year we ask for people to um share a statement of um whether or not they might qualify for free or reduced lunch, even though we have universal lunches. That that form that gets filled out actually helps us because it helps calculate how many of our unduplicated students we have and if we have um the threshold to get more money, it helps us. So I I know that that's sometimes a challenge for a community especially when they're like I don't need it. We all get free lunch. It doesn't matter. Why are we doing this? The reason why we're doing it is it's more data and it's this data that the state uses. So we get about 80% of our funding from the state, 15% from our partial tax. So thank you for that question. 1% not even really one almost 1% from our federal funds. So I've gotten a lot of questions. What is with all the just uncertainty at the federal level and the department of ed closing and all of the things. What is that doing to our budget? It's not really doing much to our budget. Honestly, it's not good. It's not good that it's not stable, but

it's not actually impacting Albany Unifi's budget in the same way. And we get some remaining funds from small local sources. I will say school care, Albany Education Foundation, the music fund, the booster clubs, all everyone who's raising money for us, it's so helpful and we appreciate it so much because it actually goes towards helping us um to offset just the dis disproportionate amount of money that we get to serve our kids. So again, I just want to go back. state collects taxes and redistributes. Our local property taxes do not go to our schools. We are not what is called a basic aid district. And I am not going to do basic aid 101 tonight because that is a whole other we could do a whole study session on that. But basically um we do not qualify to be a basic aid district. Basic aid districts tend to use their local tax dollars for their schools. And actually it's great because they they have a lot more money to spend because of that. [snorts] All right. So, we have the four primary funding buckets. We have our local control funding formula, which is unrestricted. We have the little federal dollars, the state dollars, and the local dollars. And so, Linda, do you want to explain this slide a little bit better than I am? This just breaks out the four flavors of funding that we get. Uh we talked about the LCFF, the unrestricted funds which is driven by attendance. Uh the federal funds that we get, the million dollars that we get is really to support some of the special ed uh education programming or we get things like title one, two, three, and four primarily um to support some of the um intervention and EL supports over at Ocean View. Uh the state funding comes in at about 10.7 million which is made up of things like lottery. Um it is we do also get state

funds to support special education and so forth. I won't give you the laundry list uh but just kind of an idea of what falls into that. And of course Sarah just uh Superintendent Stone, sorry. [laughter] [gasps] Um just talked about the parcel tax and some of the local donations and fundraising stuff that makes up the local funds. Any questions on that? I was going to stop and see if there are any questions on anything we've talked about so far. So in that 12.7 million that does include school care AF PTAs. Yes, it does.

All right. Oh, go ahead. No other questions. Let's go. We can move ahead.

Okay. All right. So again, just to to um put a slide to something I've already explained, we talked about the base grant. That's what everybody gets. It's like the foundational amount of money. Then we have the supplemental. So, it's an additional um 20% on top of the base grant. And that again is targeted for our English learners, our multilingual learners learners, our lowincome and foster youth. Um and then other districts, AUSD does not qualify for this, but other districts also can get something called concentration dollars. and concentration dollars are for districts where there are quote unquote high need students um and that exceed 55% of total enrollment. So a district like um West Contracasta or Oakland Unified, they get concentration dollars. Um and so you'll see in a slide that we have in a few that kind of what that looks like. So again, I think the key point I want to drive this home today, if nothing else, enrollment is how many students we have registered. Average daily attendance is students who actually attend daily. And funding is driven by our average daily attendance, not our enrollment. This is actually something if people were paying attention, if you're if you're uh education nerds or budget nerds like I am, you're paying attention. The legislature just had a big conversation about this because the way that we get funded through ADA creates um a challenge because we have on our lists all the all the kids that we that means if we say we have a hundred kids or let's let's do it by class level. We have 24 kids. That's a teacher. 19 of them show up. It's still a teacher. We still have to pay for that

teacher. Yet, we're not being paid for all 24 of them regularly. And so, that is where those gaps really come um come to play. And so, in California, they were talking about, and I'm not exactly sure why the legislature isn't moving forward this again. Hopefully after next Tuesday we'll have a little bit more information about this, but there was some discussion starting about funding for total enrollment and not just for average daily attendance. That's a conversation. So again, for folks who want to advocate for us to get more money, this would be something that's really important for people to to go out there and say, "Why don't you just budget schools based on their total enrollment?" Because we're planning for a 100 kids. 90 show up every day, but we have a hundred on our books. That means we need to pay for 100% of what we're trying to do. Again, another way that we can all help is by getting our kids to school as much as possible. If we have an attendance rate above 95%, we get more money. So, if we get if we're at 99%, we get 99% of the of the dollars. Um, and that we're hoping actually to start to really put out some um some attendance um uh incentives and things to really kind of boost up our attendance. And again, it's not just for the dollars. I want to be really clear about that. We want our kids to come to school because that's where the learning is taking place. So, I actually I think I'm going to ask Linda if you could um talk about this budgetary constraints slide a little bit. Sorry, CBO. We're very informal tonight. I apologize.

We've been talking to each other all day. [laughter] Yeah. So budgetary constraints is in in a lot of ways it it's trying to ensure that we've set aside the funding for the basic stuff that we need to operate a school. So when we look at the budgets constraints for like core staffing uh as superintendent Stone mentioned earlier today in order to run a school you need teachers you need custodians you need clerical staff um and so forth. So those those are some of the things that we must do um regardless of you know what the attendance levels are. Um in terms of mandated services, we're legally required, you know, to provide specifically for special education, we're legally like required to actually provide services based on where all the needs are. Uh in terms of infrastructure, the non-negotiable costs would be how much does it cost to keep the lights on? How much does it cost to keep the water running? Right? the utilities, student transportation, facilities maintenance, things break down, we have a leak, we have to fix those things. Um, and then lastly, the fiscal integrity part is ensuring that we're maintaining the 3% minimum reserve requirement, otherwise some bad things could happen, you know, to our school district. Um, and also producing multi-year projections that ensure long-term solveny.

Any questions about the constraints? or comments. Okay, moving on. So, this is that slide I said I was going to show you. It is really hard to see. I apologize. Um I actually um received this through the Alama County Office of Education. Um, but what I can show you is this is Albany Unified School District right here. This is all of our revenue sources per ADA across the county. So, the way that this is the way that this looks is that blue or that periwinkle color. That's the base staffing or I'm sorry, the base um funding. Thank you. These other little colors are different funding on top of that. And so what you'll notice is it's just fascinating. So this is this is Albany. And you can kind of see where we are across the um the county. Also, what's not on here that's also I think really important is um enrollment size. For instance, um I believe it's Sinnol Glenn who's at the the end is like 500 kids. Um, and Emery is not much more than that. Emory Unified. The purple is local funding. So, if you look at Emery, you're like, "What? How'd that happen?" Well, what industry is in Emeryville? Pixar. So, Pixar is helping Emry out. Very nice. I that we appreciate that and wow that's a lot of uh revenue there. Um if you look at some of the other um

school districts again I'm not sure exactly where all the local revenue is coming from but it is an important thing to look at. So this our purple is our parcel tax and I believe our bond. In these little other colors there, you'll see this is um uh the other uh state revenue and um concentration dollars. Where's Oakland Unified? Oakland Unifi's here. Concentration dollars are pretty big. Um you'll see we don't get those. The concentration's that strange green color. Um and then um yeah, there's there's other funding in there. So, I think this is an interesting slide because it just gives us a sense across the entire county kind of where Albany fits in to our our revenue. Any questions about this slide? And I apologize for how tiny it is. Do we know what Piedmont um is the other funding source, the local funding source?

Is it a parcel tax? It's a parcel tax. Okay. I I don't know, but I'm hearing from people out there that it is a parcel tax. Any other questions about this slide? This slide fascinated me.

It's a good slide. It's a good slide. I mean because it really shows where we sit on a LCFF perspective which is kind of towards the bottom of this group. Um and you can see the good work that the parcel task is doing for us to kind of get us to be much more in par on par with the rest of the uh school districts even if we're not at least getting more towards the middle of the pack which is helpful. Yeah. So that's been an important important part of obviously our budget uh to this point.

Yeah. Yep. Great. Thank you. Okay, moving on. This is another again I apologize how tiny it is, but this is also a really important slide. Um, what what I wanted to show is across the different districts and this is a little bit of an imperfect slide. This was an incredibly hard slide to put together because as you can imagine, this data had to be collected from each and every district. Um, this the county did not create this slide. We created it. But what I wanted to show with this slide is again this is Albany right here. And so this um gold or orange um is our average classified staff and it's their um total compensation. So it's pay and benefits. The purple color is our teaching staff or our certificated staff and then the green is administration. And again, this is kind of at the average. Again, what you can see is where Albany kind of sits at this line. You can select I keep getting stuck behind this. Okay. Where you can you can see where we where we are at this line. You can see where we are. Where are we? We're right there. Where we are here. We're right about there. And then you can see where we are here. And I think this slide matters because again, if you're thinking about total revenue in districts, you can kind of see again, I think where some of the districts are um prioritizing their dollars. But also I think it's important oops it's important for us to see where we just sit across in terms of um total compensation

questions about this slide or thoughts data available that breaks that down further I'm not saying that we have it but is it available so for example at the bottom I see a note that says that the total compensation includes salary and benefits approximately 30 to4 45% depending on role. Um I'm just curious how other districts allocate the total package in terms of benefits versus salary. It's a great question. Um I know for some of these the answer and for others I don't. Um I can say that um where is it? It's not on here. Huh. Weird. Dublin's not on there. Um Dublin. Is it Dublin? I think it's Dublin. Doesn't pay any They used to not pay any benefits. Okay. Now they do. So, Marina, you might know a little bit more about this this group. Um, which of this group are paying um the level of benefits we are, which is full benefits? We pay full benefits for um our staff as well as their family, which is actually very, very, very unique. Oakland Unified also does that. Um,

and Emeryville and Emeryville does. Others do not. And I'm not sure where the where the ratio breakdown is. Fremont, Hayward, they don't contribute towards health benefits. They put the cost of benefits on the salary. Um, uh, places like Alama, they only contribute like five or 7,000. Yeah. So, their their total compensation is a little bit I mean, it's a little bit higher, but it's it's probably more take-home salary, but then people have to pay into their benefits. Um, so Oakland, Albany. Are there others on this um that we know pay full benefits? Just Oakland and Albany.

Oakland, Albany, and um Richmond bargain it, but they're not they're not in our county. Yeah, they're not in our county. [laughter] And they aren't currently doing it. They bargained it. And Emeryville. Emeryville pays the full. Yeah. Okay. But when we talk about that, we're talking about that for all of our staff, too. We're talking about that for all of our administrators as well as all of our classified staff. Any other questions, comments, wonderings? Okay, I have one just a comment. What is happening in Oakland with their administrators? That's insane.

[sighs and gasps]

Yeah, they they uh they also have um a very huge district office. Um their compensation for their superintendent is quite high. They're also paying um for a superintendent that's no longer there as well as other um things that they've Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to comment on that, [laughter] but I again I do want to go back to Whoops, wrong way. I want to go back to again this this slide actually matters when you're looking at that slide because when you're looking at the total revenue and you're looking at Oakland Unified and all of the funds that they're get I mean they're not no one is getting paid enough revenue let's just be clear there is not a district in California that has enough revenue to do what we need to do for kids that said some of these districts are produ are have more money and so how they spend their ends up being connected to some of these salaries. And so again, we go back to what our values are and how we're enacting our values. What do we value? What do we we we clearly value that we want to make sure that our um that we're doing a total compensation package that we are we're doing beneful benefits. Um other districts that's not their core value. their core value is maybe more money in the pocket, but then those those teachers have to pay back into their benefits if they need them unless they have somebody else that they can uh rely on. All right. Yeah. Go question. No. Okay. So, this is also something I wanted to look at because a question keeps coming up about um our district size, our district office size. So, one thing that we didn't really talk about in base staffing, but something that's important

is um we actually do need a district office to operate our district. Without a district office, it's going to be very hard to pay the bills. It's going to be very hard to make sure our budget is um fiscally sound. It's going to be hard to hire people. Um it's going to be hard to make sure that we get all the um books and all of this uh professional development and all the data and all the things to the schools that they need. and we have an incredibly lean district office compared to similarlysized districts. That is important to note because we really truly are, if you look across all of our um districts, we are the leanest district office. What that means is some of the services that people would like for us to be able to provide, we just cannot provide. If our priority is to provide more of those services or to have more efficiency, then we have to we do have to look at where we are. It's not to say that we need to be a bloated district office, but that is it is an important piece of the pie and piece of the puzzle. Questions about this or thoughts about this? We have somebody

Sorry. [clears throat] Go for it. What what's the question? previous question the number of people right like it could be that Oakland has four admin they don't but let's say they only have four that wouldn't actually be a lot of administrators even if they paid them all so do we have that breakdown

we don't but it's a it's something I would love to see as well Yeah, the ratio is important. What I can tell you is about our district office. So, our district office, um, unfortunately, part of what we don't have at our district office that some of these other district office have, um, our clerical staff. We actually do not have clerical staff in our district office. And I think people don't understand that. Um, and so a lot of the people who are in the district office are wearing many hats. And so when questions come in or um things that I think we get a I don't even know how many requests we get for public records, but it's it's actually quite um a lot. Somebody has to pull those public records and do the work. We don't actually have anyone to do that. And so that means somebody else has to stop what they're doing and do that. And so it's just, you know, again, this is all about decisions we make. It's about how we want to prioritize and what we want um support with and what we don't from the district office. I think it's a good question for us to start thinking about though because I think the efficiency part I've heard that a lot. I've heard you know customer service efficiency things can get better, communication can be better. Totally agree. There's no question about that. But again, we have to think about how are we supporting um the folks to be able to do those things. And I thought it was also interesting like some of these districts like what what they're spending their money on at a district office. Um apparently San Lorenzo has um is heavily staffed in special education and human resources. Um Newark has a a lead negotiator and a graphic artist. I who knew? Um [laughter] we um we do we have a pool which is wonderful. We have a communications um support person um and Piedmont has a

diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging um and wellness uh uh coordinator leadership. Okay, I'm going to just go back. Any other questions about this kind of a meaty slide? Is there any other big group that we're missing given that our our percentage is quite a bit lower besides clerical staff or is it

I mean I I would say that our departments are are are lean but I I would I would also say for the number of students we serve I think we're okay with I mean we do need Okay, so to be honest I know that Linda would say we need um an accountant. We don't have an accountant. That's some that's something we absolutely need. Um we need an electrician. We don't have an electrician. We need um uh additional Thank you. We need some more tech support. Um and we don't have that. So yes, thank you for that question. In addition to clerical, there are other positions that would help us to be more efficient. The other thing about that though is is those positions would potentially help us save money in the long run because right now we have to outsource electrician every time and so potentially if we were to figure out okay how do we budget for an electrician so we don't have to pay every time we might actually end up saving money might be cost-ffective um having an accountant would help us because it would make sure that we are really crisp with our numbers and we are really clear with what we're spending not that Linda isn't doing an incredible job with that, but she wears many many hats. Thank you for that question. Okay, so we are here staffing review, budget kickoff, which is today. Um, planning at sites and communicating very shortly. This has been a very quick January. Um we are going to be sitting with our team at this who's sitting [clears throat] at the tables talking about their site level budgets. Um and so it's really really important that people are really clear that they have a say in what is happening. There are some

things that we wish we can do that we just can't afford. But also there are things that we are doing that maybe we don't need to do anymore and maybe there are other things we should start doing. So it's important again that people understand that we're trying to direct resources as close to the classroom as possible. So the base staffing is the essential staffing that we provide to every school based on student enrollment numbers. It can be teachers, principles, secretaries, custodians. We want to make sure every single school is safe and has a professional foundation that they're operating what they need to operate on every day. Then we have the discretionary dollars, what the school decides to use their money for. So it's a little bit more flexible. The principal and the site council are officially the one to make the decision about how that money should be spent because it goes with the site plan. So the site council will um approve the site plan. The site plan is the narrative of the dollars. That said, all folks who are connected to schools should have some say in how those discretionary dollars are spent. One thing that we really do need to note though is that about 65% of the discretionary dollars really really really well a it needs to be focused on students but b it needs to be spent on non-salary items. So supplies, books, technology, materials, um experiences for kids and um sometimes there are services like specialists or workshops or um contracts that um that would help with professional development. Those are things that we think about for discretionary questions about this.

McKenzie, sorry. What's the current like process for like each admin to like discuss like with their site for like the discretionary? That is a great question. I'm going to have some of my site leaders answer what they're doing

or I should say our site leaders. Anyone want to talk about what you've been doing? It's on. Okay. Um, great question. Thanks for asking. Um, so what we're doing, um, at Marin is talking with sites about with, um, with our staff, uh, we had a staff meeting talking about budget process, what this looks like, and what to expect throughout the spring along with looking at our one pagers that we got from, um, CBO last spring to explain how we're spending that money this year and looking forward. So this is what we've allocated money towards this year and this is the process for how we're going to be defining um our priorities for next year. So we're just getting into the bits of that. We've started that conversation with site council um and PTA is next.

Yeah. Similarly at Cornell, I would also just add that um you know during this time we also send out surveys to like our staff, parent groups, students, what are the bigger priorities, right? Like really being able to name like here we're talking like big buckets of money and big strategies. But then when we start talking, you know, to students, teachers, what does that look like? Does that look like noon time activities? Does that look like, you know, more assemblies? Does that look like more wellness, you know, wellness hours or wellness space time? So,

to add on to all of that because we do similar things um for high school and I think probably also middle school, we also uh devote certain money specifically to departments them to spend for their needs. So, um, for example, like the science department and the, uh, visual arts departments for supplies, and that's just a pile of that's just a pot of money that's set aside for, um, uh, those departments to use as they need to buy supplies over the course of the school year. Um, and part of our discussion at the secondary level also involves working with, uh, department and our department chairs, um, for allocating what needs to be department specific versus what's going to be uh, whole school.

[laughter] Um, Melissa, I sorry I was I was focusing on a little bit of something else while you were talking, but I know you and I spoke today about the use of data in these conversations. Do you want to highlight that a little bit?

Sure, absolutely. So, um, specifically for Marin, part of a part of what we've spent a lot of our discretionary dollars on is math intervention over the years. Um, that's something that, you know, I'm interested in in moving forward and continuing the conversation with with staff and the community around what the priorities are. In the past, we've we've used surveys and just conversations at meetings for folks to kind of weigh in. And this year uh with our emphasis on data, I'm asking our math intervention teacher to put together some data about how successful the math intervention program has been over the last few years so that we can effectively evaluate um its effectiveness and whether or not we want to keep it. It's part of what we're doing, right?

Yeah. And I just want to highlight that. Thank you for that. Um because I think the most important thing we can do is use data to make these decisions. Um, especially when you're making really hard decisions because I think one of the things I know being a parent is I want what I want for my kid. I know what I want for my kid and everybody knows what they want for their kid. And as a whole district, we have to make those hard decisions because what I want for my kids might not be what's the best interest for, you know, the students who um need something a little bit more or it may not be the the the same as what everybody else wants. So that's why these conversations are really really important. Um, we need to be thoughtful about also going back to our um, our students who are considered unduplicated students. Those dollars are supposed to directly impact and support those students. So, we think about our students who are English or multilingual learners. We think about our foster youth and we think about our students who come from lowincome um, families. It's important that we're really paying attention to that. And so we have to use the data to see if what we're doing is making a difference for our students.

I think we have another question on uh on the Zoom. See if I can do this allow to talk. Okay. Uh Mr. Martinez, I think you're up.

Uh thank you. I think that um first of all, thank you very much um again. And so one of the things that uh comes to mind is that we are a small district trying to do what other big district does and what I'm hearing a lot of the budgeting um situation is that how do we get there? So you know when when a small organization individual is trying to compete with a bigger you got to try to see where you can uh explore technology to come in. So, as one of the comments you made in the beginning was if you're not going to be in the district, let us know what are your thoughts for the future. I think having a survey to the teachers and those who retire and everything like that will really help out because that way in the future you can and and I'm not saying eliminating any position because everyone in this district is important but if they're retiring or are transitioning out then that to take a look at that opportunity to see where we can upgrade or get um look at technology to do to do that portion. of the of that in in a way that we don't eliminate anyone. We're just taking the opportunity that is already there when the when the person is out of that position and now we can downsize in that because the budget's 145,000 more than the teacher compensation. So that would help kind of minimize that and do it in a way that we're not eliminating anyone. Just my thoughts.

Great. Thank you for that. Yeah.

Okay. So again, I wanted to just kind of uh highlight where the dollars are going in our district. So we talked a little bit about we do have a pretty lean district office. Um, most of our dollars go to our school sites, which is great. They should, that's where they should be. They should be closest to the kids. I do want to note that this is not staffing. This is just the total dollars. So, this is discretionary dollars as well as um staffing dollars. Um, so, you know, there there's questions about, oh, what is the 16% going towards? I mean, I would say probably a huge portion of that 16% is going to staffing, but there's also operating costs at a district level that that's going to also the district um uh we So, the way that it works is if it's a core curriculum that we've adopted, then at the district office level, we make sure that it's ordered and paid for. If it's a supplemental curriculum, something that teachers or schools want to use in addition to that, then they have to think about using their discretionary dollars for it. So, you know, things like parent square and having a website and um there's a lot of things that are in here. Linda, I don't know if you want to share any of the other things, but I think it's important to note some of these things we actually also have to pay for for schools. So not this 16% isn't just sitting at a district office.

I'd just like to add to that we're still combing through and evaluating all of our coding on how we've classified like locations and stuff. So this is at first blush when I with the some of the offices that exist within the district offices like teaching and learning, curriculum development, we have maintenance and ops and we have student services. So there's a whole lot of things that actually make up the district office. And if we were to take out the offices, like some of the special ed funding is also in there, too. And so if we were to actually dissect this out, I was doing this right before this meeting, [laughter] that percentage of what's really functioning a district offers is closing closer to like a 10 percentile. And over time, I would like to get this slide out with more detail to the community. I think it's important again for transparency what's going on. I'd also love to start to break it to be able to break down what is happening um in this 84%. Like how much of that is going to staffing versus all the other supplementary things?

Can I ask a question? Yeah. Um do we know how that breakdown um sits for other schools in our district? I mean in our county? I I don't I'm sure we could find out a little bit more about that. Do you have a sense, Linda? I don't have the specifics by the school district, but typically it ranges somewhere between like 15 to 20% that's considered district office and it coincides basically with what's considered indirect costs. Sorry, just to follow up. So basically anything that's considered like a shared service like util utilities are sitting in the district budget. Um anything that's a shared any shared service across multiple sites is probably sitting in the district office. Is that the right way to think about that?

Yes.

Yeah. Okay. Good questions. So, we're getting to our one pager. So, on the 22nd, principles, get excited. You're going to get your one pager. Your one pager. This is an example, and I know it's teenytiny, but it's an example of kind of what's on the one pager. Um ultimately what you'll what you're gonna have on the one pager and this is something that can be shared with um our the community. These are these are not private and and you know we don't have um staffing information on this um so we can share this but what it shows is our enrollment projections our base FTE FTE means full-time equivalent how many teachers um and other staff we are um believe based on that enrollment are going to be needed what the restricted dollar amount is so restricted dollars are dollars that have to be used in a very particular kind of Okay. Unrestricted dollars which is more discretionary and this could be you know used in multiple different kinds of ways and um the discretionary dollars um which are unrest could be discretionary dollars can be restricted or unrestricted. I should have done a different slide here. Basically discretionary dollars are divided between restricted and unrestricted. Did I say that correctly? Okay, good. See, I've learned over the years some [laughter] [gasps] some I've gotten so much better with this. Okay. Um so what's going to happen is um we have to think about what our um what our funding is based on our enrollment and our attendance. We have to make those decisions by March 15th around staffing based on the enrollment. So, if our enrollment goes up, we need

more staff. If our enrollment goes down, we will probably need fewer staff. And that's where it gets really tricky with that statutory law March 15th. It also gets really tricky when you're not getting your full dollars because you're get only getting average daily attendance. Again, some funds are discretionary and have to be um or can be spent any kind of way. And many of our funds are restricted and I think there is some confusion also about I think when people look at the reserves there's the 3% of the general fund reserve and then we do have reserves for some restricted dollars but those reserves for restricted dollars still have to be used in a particular kind of way. So a good example of that would be Prop 28 which when I first got here people were like what's going on with Prop 28? At one point we had reserves in Prop 28. That was not good. We needed to spend them. They are spent. We are spending them. They have been spent. Um and so sometimes it looks like we have more reserves than we do, but it's important when you look at the reserves that you're breaking it down by what's um general funds and what's restricted. One thing I also want to just be so crystal clear on is one-time funds should not be used for ongoing positions. Part of what you're seeing in other districts across the state is one-time COVID dollars went to people and those people now are not funded in a position anymore. And so those layoffs are excruciating. We are working really hard and this goes back to being fiscally responsible really hard to make decisions that don't do that because it's not fair. It's not fair to kids because we start to rely on those positions and we need them and it's certainly not fair to those people who inhabit those positions.

Questions about this slide wonderings. Okay. So again, our budget reflects our values and our job is to reflect our core values with what we're doing and also stay fiscally responsible. So we have to be very intentional. We can't just say, well, we've always spent it this way, so we're always going to do it because that's not we don't have the same dollars that we had before. So that that's part of the problem. But also our data might tell us something different. We might need some we might need to do something different. So we want to really think about what is our strategic plan. What are our priorities? How are we moving towards that mission and vision? And what are we doing to ensure that each and every student leaves Albany Unified as a 12th grader ready for the world. So, we really are working on creating um what what we would call a um a um God, my brain. Sorry. We're we're we're looking at a cycle. We're looking at building shared understanding, engaging our school communities. Inquiry cycle, that's the word. There it is. We're looking at doing some inquiry, building shared understanding, engaging our school communities, defining our site priorities, finalizing our site budgets, planning for the future, and we're going to keep doing this over and over again. We're not going to just stay static because if we always do what we always did, we're always going to get what we always got. So, this is part of that process. And we are really working on doing this in service of that graduate. So this is our little gingerbread portrait of a graduate. We're really trying to think

of what do we want them to know, be able to do, have in their heart, what kinds of skills are they going to have, and what kind of future can they look forward to? And so we're right here. We're in spring. Um we're going to start actually talking about this. We're not going to have a completed graduate profile quickly because this is a conversation that's really important. And I will say that probably the most important people to talk to in this conversation are our students. And so I've been speaking to our um student trustees about starting to really engage with students. One thing that they're working really hard on that I'm so appreciative of is creating um a superintendent advisory committee of students where I can actually speak directly to students regularly. But we also want to have really robust engagement process for students. But of course, we want all of our staff and all of our families and our outside community be to be a part of this process. We are going to be finished with our current LCAP. It was a three-year cycle, our local control accountability plan. We're going to be finished with it next at the end of next year. So, we're gonna have to write if we still have LCAP, [laughter] if that's still what we're doing in California, we're going to have to write a new LCAP. The LCAP was always supposed to be the strategic plan and it should be one and the same. So, if we have a really great robust strategic plan that we've created based on where we're trying to go with our students, that that north star or that portrait of a graduate, then it's going to be very easy for us to have a robust LCAP. So, we're going to be creating that new LCAP based on um our graduate of profile and our strategic plan. And then we're going to continue to look at our data and our budget and we're going to continue to

plan around it questions about this and this process. Okay. Well, we're going to do some we're going to do a little activity tonight. We are actually going to have a conversation about what we think today. Again, this is not the graduate profile. This is just this group of people in this space, including people who are in the audience. Everyone can do it at home. If you'd like to join along, you can do that, too. But what we're going to do is um we are going to do an activity where everybody is going to get a gingerbread Albany person. And what we're trying to do with this activity is as a community clarify where we want our kids to go. And then we're going to use this to align our strategies and resources. So tonight we're just going to do the activity of where do we think we want? Where do I want I have a 12th grader. Where would I want my 12th grader to be at the end of the year? He's only been here since the beginning of the year. If he'd been here all the way since TK, we'd have a different conversation. But where do we want our kids to go? And once we have this and we've got we've gathered all this information up, we're going to be able to use this again as more data to figure out what is it that we're doing in terms of our planning to make that happen. So, here's the activity. Everybody's going to get and I will need some help passing this out. If people could start doing that, maybe everybody's going to get their gingerbread friend. And you can use you can use a marker, you can use lots of markers, you can draw, you can you can write. Um, you can do it however you want. This is this is your own activity. But what you are trying to

convey on your picture or on your writing is what you want students to know. So what academic knowledge, content mastery, foundational skills do you want our students to have when they are standing up in front of thousands of people and Principal McN is calling their name, handing them their their diploma, and then they get to call him Darren afterwards. What do we what do we want those those students to to know? What do we want them to be able to do? such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, problem solving.

Just a time check. We have three minutes. Just about another minute.

Okay, finish up wherever you are. Wherever you are is fine. And here's what we're going to do. I'm going to ask for people to find two other people. So, you'll be in groups of three. You're going to find each other. So, you're not going to sit next to the person. You're not going to talk to the person you're sitting next to. So, you're going to get up and move around a little bit. You're going to find two partners. One person is going to be the person who has to be able to share out what the conversation was. Okay? So, everybody is going to we're going to um have about a five minute conversation. It's not going to be long. It's not going to be but you're going to kind of try to notice what are the things that seem similar and what seem um maybe a little different. And then one person's going to be able to share out. Make sense? So everyone has about two minutes to talk and one minute to make meeting. Okay. All right. Find folks. Two other people. Three. Three total. There has to be a group of four. That's okay.

Anyone And then lower also. questions to follow.

[laughter] [laughter]

I mean, it's easier when you're in school. We don't realize we beyond.

All right, everyone. We have just a minute left. So, if you can make sure everyone's had a chance. Also, make sure you know who's going to report out. All right. Thank you. Thanks for coming back. Okay. So, um, now I don't know who is with whom, so we'll just sort of I'll I'll point to somebody and somebody from that group that was with that person can, uh, report out. Um, so why don't we go ahead and we'll start um with the gentleman in the back, David. Hi. Thank you.

Concel. Yes. Wonderful. Are you the Are you reporting out? I am. Oh, great. Perfect. Okay. Since I'm not in circle, it don't let me. Yeah. He needs a Yeah. Thank you. I'm loud, but not. [laughter]

Um, okay. Okay, so now I have to talk more quietly so I don't blow out speakers at home. Um, I think the thing where we really over overlapped was both like learning the basics, you know, your reading, writing, arithmetic, but then building upon that foundation to expose kids to a bunch of things they might be interested in, support a passion if they find it, and then give them the skills to go in the world and really pursue that passion, support themselves, their community. Um, and we there's also a big lot of talk around like community and empathy and connection with with other people. Um, I think did did I get it? Do you guys want to add anything? Okay,

great. Perfect. Thank you so much. All right. Um, Dr. Biggs, [laughter] principal poll. All right. All right. Hey, friends. Okay. So, I we were in a group was with Dr. Bigs and Josh and Linda. And part of what we talked about um was, you know, have kids having um empathy, a sense of identity, compassion. Um but part of where we got into a really great conversation, I thought, was need to adapt to a very rapidly changing landscape.

It's really challenging for an 18-year-old kid to know exactly what they want to do. um leaving high school and especially with all of you know jobs changing the you know technology changing jobs that we don't even know exist may be existing so having some grit and resilience to be able to adapt to those changes is going to be really important for our graduates thank you all right principal Mapes

okay so I was with Michelle and Dana um it was funny we were all talking we started thinking about our own kids when we were doing this. You all have kids who have graduated from high school and seen them as they go get ready for their next path in their lives. And so I think the big idea was we want them to be ready and confident to face the world and what might come as the years go by and that realizing that no one has a straight path from where they are when they graduate from high school to where they end up finding their passion in life. It's a journey and it's going to have its ups and downs and um so we you know we talked about we want them to have a world view and them to see beyond Albany, beyond California, beyond the United States. Um be ready for this journey and we came up with some words that I think other people have used. Kindness is really important in this world. Um being empathetic and civic-minded. So rooting those kids and and you know that all comes from that also having that foundation in in academics and also trying things and failing from them and being a risk taker and uh yeah

thank you. All right I think you and Linda's already your group's already gone. Uh Principal McN.

Yeah. So my group uh was myself, Trusty Hopwood and director of technology um Eric Povich um and Trusty Hopwood and Mr. Povich have kids who graduated from Albany High School in the Albany Unified School District. I'm the one who shakes everybody's hands when they graduate from Albany High School. And if things go according to plan, I have a daughter who will be a 2040 graduate of Alb High School. So um yeah, we'll yeah, we'll see how that goes. Yeah. Um, and I what what I think was really interesting to us when we reflected is that we uh we all three focused really on uh who they are as people um and the character traits that we wanted to see them have. And um when we talked about it, that came from a place of actually having a lot of confidence in the academic preparation that our kids uh did receive or will receive. Um but really actually feeling more need around uh who they are as people. And so we used a lot of words like um resilient and empathetic and accountable and creative. Um and that's where we had a lot of our common ground.

Thank you. All right. Um Miss Bril, are you able to Oh, got [laughter] all right. So my group was

um Devon Marina and um a lot of the things we talked about were actually around like ethical citizenship, financial literacy, uh life skills. social skills, um how to be like engaged within your community, politically aware, um a good problem solver, and um I think the one thing we really cared about was self- advocacy skills. Um and also how to take care of yourself once you're done with college, I mean high school. So like, you know, cooking, all of those kind of skills are things that you need, financial literacy are things you need to know um to excel beyond um high school. We also talked about just um competitive core knowledge, critical thinking, cultural um empathy and awareness. We talked about restorative justice and having those social skills. Um empathy, kindness, compassion, all of those things came up for all of us. Um and then we there was a quote that I used um that just kind of came to mind as I was writing everything, which was an MLK quote around uh service to others is the rent you pay for your room on earth. And I think that's kind of like what we want to instill in our kids. So yeah,

that's really a great quote. Thank you. All right. Um and I know that our uh reporter is uh Trustee Shepard. So

um so I was with Superintendent Stone and Trusty Boyd and we talked about being academically and socially prepared and some things that like some examples for academically prepared is like critical thinking skills and then socially prepared is how to communicate feelings. And then feeling ready like you're feeling like you're ready for real life um like duties like college career and also just how to live like dealing with like money and stuff and like how to like handle being in a house by yourself and then always feeling that you were supported throughout your AUSD journey and being able to look back at it and be happy with like how you maneuvered it and then also look back and be confident and happy with how you were treated. Thank you.

Great. And we have uh some people who did the activity on Zoom. So, let's uh let's see how that went. Um allowed to talk. Okay, I think you're up. Um, mine is an Albony graduate should understand that they have the tools to succeed, be able to apply practical skills such as budgeting, real world situation, carry the confidence to make a positive impact and change their own future and stay informed about local, state, national, and global issues to make a thoughtful informed decision. and always also be uh humble and caring.

Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. So, that was an activity that my my goal is that everyone who is connected to Albany Unified School District will have um access to that activity and will give their um feedback and their ideas through that activity. And how we do that is um how we do it is going to be kind of one of the things we're asking uh our board to talk to us about tonight. Um there are usual the usual ways of doing it is and usually the best is to be in the same room with each other and have those conversations and I also recognize that it might be hard to get each and every person's u opinion in that way. So we want to think about maybe some creative solutions for how we can do it. Um definitely there are virtual options and um I'd like for it to be beyond just the regular survey is is something I'm thinking about. So um there is a lot of value in not only just writing down your own ideas but hearing everybody else's. Um so thank you for engaging tonight in that. So from that we we create our system design. So, our student outcomes should give us um the what what I call the north star where we're trying to get and then we need to build the road to get there and that's the systems that we put in place. So, that's um the learning conditions that we need to put in place for students to get there. Um the adult actions, how are the adults ensuring that those learning conditions are the right learning conditions? and then what systems and structures need to be at the base of that to make those things happen. And so that is what becomes our strategic plan. Questions or thoughts about that activity?

How was that for people? I discovered that CBO Woo is the artist in our group. At least [laughter] just wrote down words. She actually drew pictures. So that was a key learning for me at the very least. No, I thought it was uh it is a good way to start putting the things that are in your head on paper and starting to get people you realize I think that a lot of the same values um other people have as well and that's part of opposite what makes us strong as a community and so I'm actually really excited for the community to kind of go through it because I think it really gives a an opportunity for us to align on what success looks like and I don't think we often have that conversation. Yeah. Other other comments.

I think I'm most curious to see this activity done by students um just to see what they feel um that they need to learn and are we actually delivering on on what they feel they need to learn or how can we grow and learn from them as well. So just curious about that. Me too. And actually I'd love to Yeah, I was going to say our students who are in the room, how was that for you? Um I really enjoyed it. It was like fun to like think about like stuff I've learned throughout my years in the district and then also like by the time like this time next year like how I want to feel.

And then also just like cuz it's like all adults in here. It's really interesting to like hear how you guys care a lot about like who we are as people rather than our academics because like we are so like defined and like our futures are like kind of on the line based off our like academics. But it's like nice to hear that you guys like care about how we like develop as people as well. It'd be kind of cool if there was like a way to like also like not like test that but like also like show that like we've learned that way too. So yeah, powerful. Yeah.

I wanted to echo on the part where um we focus a lot on the technical things. Um I really I appreciated the discussion part of it a lot um because I got to hear about the value side a lot more than what I was thinking about originally. Um and I kind of dismissed it at first. that was again I was more focused on like I don't know like like core subjects or like like what are you going to do after like after you graduate um but I think there's a lot of value in that and so I appreciated that a lot

thank you yeah um I just thought it was quite well it was really an enlightening um process and I was interested in the fact that we didn't really focus on academics other than it being a kind of foundation but one thing I was curious about is whether we had any alumni from the district talking about how, you know, when they look back at their what they wish they had known when they graduated high school because I think so much of what we talked about focused on sort of readiness for life really and I kind of feel like you don't know what you don't know at the time and perhaps um we might have some alumni or parents of of alumni to reflect as well. That's actually a a great um idea. And actually when I did this in a previous district, we did get um small groups of alumni to come that were recent alumni, recent grads, but to come back and say what they wished it could have been like. So I think that's a great idea. Yeah,

we've got some feedback on the Zoom. So let me try and do that.

Okay, I think you're up. just want to say um [clears throat] the fact that I was able as a person with disabilities sometimes it's uh hard to be in person anywhere and the fact that I was able to participate in an activity that's community based it it made me really feel really good um so I appreciate this activity and the fact that you included me even virtually everyone virtually and also as the students mentioned is one of the things that I I noticed is is that we really focus on we wanted how we wanted to see our students as person instead of um like drill academics because that just shows how how we as a parent I think that the the teachers are doing a great job at teaching and we don't have to worry about the academics and we can kind of concentrate on what we want to see as a whole person. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Okay. So we do have some next steps. Um in addition to working on the portrait of a graduate or graduate profile activity. Um we also want to get um we want to receive some feedback from the board about how to best organize discussions about the budgeting process. um how to best help people understand the complexity and also all the little bits and pieces um and um what are the best formats for those dialogues? What's what are the maybe there are some creative ideas about how we can um get more feedback from um more of our community members in a more virtual format. whatever it is. I do want to note that we have um three upcoming meetings where we are dedicating time to talk about um the budget budget town hall to get some feedback from folks as well specific and unique to some of our um our uh our students who are our unduplicated students. Um and so we're looking at our February 4th um we have our uh DAC um budget town hall. We are going to do that virtually so that more and more people can um attend. And I also want to note that you do not have to be a member of DAC to be a part of that meeting. Anyone and everyone is welcome to come and share their opinions and their and to learn. Um we will also be doing uh the a similar thing February 11th. Um it is going to be a special education budget town hall. Again, we we might focus a little bit more just on how we're supporting um at the DAC one, how we're supporting our multilingual learners and get more feedback on that. At the special education one, we'll be thinking about supporting our um students with special needs. And then also um February 25th is our student advisory um committee, excuse me,

student achievement committee, not advisory, I always do that wrong. Student achievement committee um budget town hall. And again that is um the group that helps inform our LCAP but also um is really thinking about achievement across the board. Um and again all of these will be virtual. You'll get information about them and we're looking for people um to come and and share learn and share their opinions. So now I'd like to turn it over to the board to help us um think about how we can not only through these engagements but also the site leaders as they mentioned are also doing their engagements at their school sites. So any kind of feedback or guidance around this would be very um welcome. Thank you. Um, so one thought I have is I I don't think that the community is truly aware of what these town halls are and they're going out in the regular updates that we're sending, but I think it would be useful if the principles um also sent information and it was a little bit more of a marketing campaign, right? because I I do think I know people are really busy, but I would suspect that if people really understood what they were going to get to learn tonight, we would have had more people participate. So, I think a little blurb from the principles and maybe a few other ways um a few other communications would be helpful to get people here. Um, I don't know if there's a version of the deck that is translated into different languages or if that's possible to do on parent like through parent square or something like that. I actually think and I don't know whether maybe it's just gotten the information so many times that like this time stuck. I I feel like I understood this deck better than I've ever understood any deck about our budget like in timeline

like the difficulty around we don't even know how much money we're going to have and we're making these choices like I just it personally has never resonated that clearly for me before. So, I think making this available in as many different languages as possible, as many different ways as possible, in addition to the virtual meetings that are live and all that, I think would be great. And I agree with what um Vice President Inglas said as well. Um, a few other things I might think about. Um, I mean, even as we think about marketing this conversation, I think thinking about the marketing as how do we empower community members to help us with this challenge. Um, whether that and I think we have to be we need to be clear about what we want in terms of whether that isn't from a fundraising perspective, whether that's from an advocacy perspective, whether that's from an attendance perspective, etc., etc., etc. There's a bunch of things that I think parents in the community want to do, but they just don't necessarily always know what those things are. And I think if we can use these as an opportunity to both educate and then empower, it could be really uh powerful or effective hopefully. Um, and I also think it's probably important to have, and I might be signing myself up for some of this, but have some people who aren't specifically within the district there to help uh, as a translation back. Um, you know, we joke about uh, educators can talk in um, acronyms.

I guess the word was used earlier was marketing. I think that making sure that all interest groups like really really understand first of all what is being discussed, what is being um what is being like thought about and then also the impact they can actually make at those events and interactions activities needs to be really really clear. Um, I think specifically for SMAT that best fits that interest group and those constituents that you're trying to smat that best fits that interest group and those constituents that you're trying to serve and then really hammer in those points that you wanted again in um the language that best suits them. So, I just like really wanted to emphasize that again that there has to be more like stuff coming out about these events that are really really important. I agree and I think um from the high school perspective having information be being given out during advisory would be helpful because then that's all students reached and not just students in specific areas such as leadership and then also just having the information that's given to us more digestible because I feel like a lot of students if they were handed a packet like this they'd kind of wouldn't understand like any of it but if it was more like visual for instance or just more condensed and I think students would understand it better and then be able to like give their thoughts more easier. And also they also just like a way to condense it more so then they feel like they actually have time to like go through it and like not cuz like they might look at this and be like, "Oh, this is going to take like forever." But if it's like smaller and more condensed and they can like actually feel like they can process it and then have a response for it. I have one more comment. Um, similar to the condensing the information, I think that's true for parents. I think if there really was like a one-page, you know, what did I miss with some of the

key highlights, they would read it and then if they found the information interesting, they can go back and and look further. But there really were probably a handful of really key nuggets out of there that I think would be helpful for everybody to digest. I know we don't want to focus on dollars as opposed to education and why it's important for kids to be in school, but I think that might also be something to emphasize is how impactful attendance would be like what would be the impact of of raising our attendance from say 95 to 96%. What does that look like? Right? I just for people to really understand that it's important All right. Any Going once, going twice. Yes,

please come to the mic. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, one thought on the email from the principles that I want to give my wife more work, but um, [laughter] asking room parents, at least at the elementary schools, to send out like to that smaller contact list could help create the back and forth of like they can actually explain what is what the meetings are for so that there's less of a we get a lot of messages as parents and it's hard to sort through what we really all need to read and what's important. So, that's one thing there. I think an activity for potentially parents, maybe others, is if you have like a grid of the budget and it's like a bunch of it's already shaded in because that has to be spent on salaries and then okay, you here are all the other buckets we spend money on. Shade in the area that you you know something like that you think each bucket should get as a way to show priorities of because it's we all want extra tutoring. We all want math intervention. We all want reading support. We all want Mr. are Lego um [laughter] um right but we can't have all of it so just that understanding that like the pie gets smaller and smaller as you start adding those things okay and then last thing I thought there was a lot of value in having multiple stakeholders like speak to each other today like uh Conel you were saying you you realized there was something about values but I also overindex on values and I was like of course you care about requirements A through G like right like there was a moment of just like light bulb going off that really was helpful and it we we learned something. It wasn't just what we wrote on the paper, right? So, I think there is value also in that cross um stakeholder talk that's harder to make happen but I think has value. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Got a comment on the Zoom.

Okay. Should be able to hear you. Um, so what uh I'm involved in in in different groups and and and also in the parent group. Um, and one of the things that it has been hard to kind of break down is one of the things that it's like kind of to voting. Why am I going to vote if my vote is not going to make a difference? It's just going to be the status quo, right? So why am I going to come to a meeting where my thoughts and what I say it's either going to be, you know, it's just not gonna nothing's going to happen. So getting that away from that, you know, the the the parents and the students and everything away from that that thinking, it only is happens when we hold these kind of meetings. When we take it down to the smaller groups and as the gentleman was saying, breaking it down to the smaller groups and as others say having this but in a way that we can also digest it and and have it communicate it's really helpful and I know how hard it is to always speak in lingo because I have to do remember that I'm not in the bank and not everyone is in the bank world so I can't talk that l that jargon. So that also is a great one. And another one that I heard is the language. I I would like to see this in in Spanish. I like to see this in, you know, uh in any other language. That way we can involve other community members and they can understand it. Um thank you very much.

Thank you. We good back to Trusty Shike. [laughter]

Um yeah, I want to like say again like the activities part. Um I we were talking about this earlier but for students I think some student student run uh student run activities and like events could be really useful. Um we're having one soon I hope. Um but I think um trying like for example parents too like parent run um parent run activities I think there's just like a more like a sense of trust with those groups um when they're being supported by others in that group. Um so just like need to note I guess

all right I hear a volunteer that you're going to help me run some budget discussions with kids. Great. I love it. All right. Um just some closing reflection thoughts. we're not going to um share out since we're sort of at time, but um just thinking about a takeaway you had from tonight. Um a hope that you have for budget and planning process. Um and um not everyone has to share, but if anyone wants to share um just one of those some key reflections or you can think about it in your mind, which is completely fine. Um, one hope I have, and I just want to be really clear about this, is I really do want to hear from our community, and I want to make sure that we're hearing from community members that we don't normally hear from. Um, and so for me, that's really important. And so, if other ideas come up about how to access um more voices, I'm I'm in. We'll try and figure out how to do it. We may not be able to do everything, but I think gathering the ideas is really important. So, thank you so much for engaging in the work tonight. Thank you um to our site leaders and our executive team and um our extended cabinet um for being here tonight. We really appreciate um your engagement as well. And I'm going to pass it back over to

President Mahoney. Thank you. That was uh that was a fun exercise. I didn't expect to be uh making gingerbread people or whatever that was. Um but it was great. Okay, moving on to some a couple of action items that we have. Um, the first action item on the agenda is board members school liaison selections. So, uh, as a sorry, I'm so sorry. I want to collect your gingerbreads. So, please do not leave with them. Just before you go tonight, just make sure I get them. Thank you. Noted. Apologies.

Noted. Uh just as a reminder for people, board members serve as liaison to uh selected school sites. And so in doing so, we attend PTA meetings, um site councils, other appropriate school related events at our adopted schools. And so at this member at this meeting, we're going to kind of reshuffle the cards, so to speak, and uh decide on what our school site selections will be for between January and December of this year. Um, I guess before we do that, I'll open it up for if there's any public comment on that subject. Seeing none, I'll enter into the conversation with the, uh, board. Uh, but before I start, uh, student board trustee Shepard, do you have a question?

Um, comment. Yeah, I was just thinking that it would be kind of cool for people to do a different school than they did last year. I don't know if that's already required or not, but like having that be a rule. Um I'm I'm certainly a fan of that. Just and just maybe I should give a reminder of I what I believe the uh current school assignments are. Uh and maybe we should each just go down and say where we currently are and then we can talk about getting our our new ones. Um I'm currently with the ALB Children's Center and uh Marin the high school ocean views. Great. Um, does anybody have a passion about what they would like to um change to? Can

I ask a question? Yes. Sorry. Go ahead. Um, is there I think I heard it said at some point that there's perhaps a preference to not have a school where your kid is enrolled. Is that true? Um, I think that's for us to decide. Um, uh, speaking personally, I I like the idea of being able to get a broad sense of what's going on in the district. And I know as a parent of a high schooler, I get some of that already. Having said that, I'm also empathetic to the fact that boy, I could simplify my meeting schedule if I had fewer meetings to go to. So, um I don't think we have a uh published um but the intent is to be able to have a good sense of what's going on in the district across the board. Other questions?

Okay. Yes, Vice President, I support being able to stay with my school, but if you're going to make me switch, I'm going to go to AMS. [laughter] Okay. Well, I I don't I don't know that this is a uh I don't think I make people switch, but I I I I uh I do I I have points of preference, but other people like to hear where where else they'd like to go. I would like to go to Marin and ACC if possible. I have not um been allocated or served either of those. Right. I'm happy to take the high school. [laughter]

No, I just I don't know. I'm happy to stay at AMS, but I'm also will going somewhere else, too. I think you get uh Vice President's second choice would be the AMS. So, if you could switch to either Cornell or Ocean View, that would make life easier. Cornell is a block from my house, so I'll go ahead and do that. Great. That's an option.

Let me let me [laughter] I'm not sure how that went, but I'm going to declare victory on that. Okay. So, um, Vice President Inklas, you've got AMS. I think that means I have ocean view by like a process elimination, which I'm very excited about. Um I see Hopwood you've got Marin and ACC [laughter] and let me and Cornell for you. Yes. Okay. Great. I don't think we approve that or motion that or anything like that. Or do we? We do.

All right. Um I guess I'll make the motion since I wrote it all down. I'm going to make a motion that we accept the following uh school assignments. Alb Children's Center, Trusty Hopwood, Cornell Elementary School, Trusty Boyd, Marin Elementary School, uh Trusty Hopwood, Ocean View, myself, Alb Middle Schools, Trusty Inklas, and AHS, Trusty Khan. I'll second the motion. All in favor? I I against Great. The motion passes and thank you. So, now we move on to committee assignments. This is a fun This is a fun first day as uh

Yes. I'm sorry. Sorry. Would you like me to put the uh spreadsheet up on the screen so

that would be lovely. Um and just I'll give some context and then we'll take any public comment and then we'll move on to the arm wrestling and negotiation. Um so uh we also do uh committee assignments between January and uh December of 2026. Um there are some uh committees that are specific to the board that are board assigned that we must have members to and there are others where we will we will actually be and there's others where we will be attending. There's a long a long list of them that um is going to be brought up on the screen. Um there are a couple of new ones that we should probably bring some context to. Um the two newest ones I think are um the Albany city of uh the the AOC city of Albany alignment uh team and the UC Guild track community farm advisory committee. Those are the two final ones on the list. Um Superintendent Stone, maybe you could talk a little bit about those two just to pro provide context for both the board and the community.

Yes. Um so the guilt tract um committee is um or advisory is something that um I believe we had a member on at and previously um it is a group that is um uh there are members from UC Berkeley Guiltrak I believe the city and um they're asking for somebody from our board to also represent. Um I think that um they have started to meet. It would be very important I think for us to get somebody to start going to those meetings as soon as possible. Um so that one is is sort of a done deal. I think the other one oh and we also have a note about the wellness committee that that actually isn't is an inaccurate committee that that doesn't exist. So we're taking that off. um the newer committee and again it's something that had existed in the past but we're kind of we're I'd like to talk about it tonight and get a sense of if if anyone would like to be on it. Um I am uh currently speaking with um the city manager of Albany Unified. In fact, she and I are speaking tomorrow to talk about how we can um just create more communication, more consistent communication between um not just she and I, but also um the city council and our board. And so, in the past, there had been um a Brown Act committee that existed. We're not interested in creating another Brown Act committee. We're were more interested in creating um uh having one board member who would join myself and um our city manager and somebody from the city council perhaps the mayor, but not regularly, not as a a big formal meeting, but more as a check-in meeting and um when we need to have those conversations. Um so she and

I are still having conversations about it. It's not a done deal. It's not, we have, she and I have not yet decided if we wanted to um propose that it is one of the Brown Act um committees or not, but I I wanted to just have that conversation tonight to get a sense of if anyone's interested and if so, great. Then when she and I have moved forward, we can bring that back to you.

Uh so, so I sort of think we should engage in this. I think it's super important and uh I mean I'd be interested in in in doing it. I'm not excited about another committee, but I do think it's an important it's important work that needs to be done. But if other people have strong feelings, obviously feel free to speak up. I'm interested to but I mean it depends very much on if um city manager wants the mayor to take part then I think it should be you um as the kind of counterpart but I think I mean it's something that I've met with John Mickey over the break to discuss and it's something that I hoped we would resurrect at some point since I've been on the board um so yeah absolutely but obviously once you've had an opportunity to figure that out be too and happy that was also something that I'd spoken to previous mayors about bringing it back and um at the time obviously the conversation didn't go forward but I would love to see it come back because it's important for us to know what's going on with the city but also the city negotiates with UC um and we don't get any funding from the UC even though we serve a large population and it'd be nice to have a voice and active you know communication and negotiations with them.

Great. Okay. So, it sounds like as that moves forward, TBD, you've got some eager eager um trustees to engage in that. Great. So, we'll bring that back after it's more solidified. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So, um Oh, I guess before we go to committee assignments, I should do public uh is there any public comment on the uh committee potential committee assignments? Seeing none, we will move on to the discussion and uh uh arm wrestling and debate over who should go on what um committee. Do you want to just Would it be easiest just to go top of the list and move our way down? I'm looking for u head nods. Yes, I'm seeing head nods and some audible yeses. So, the board policy committee um is typically my understanding is the board president plus um one other board member. Um so, I'll I'll sign up for that one. Uh,

can I take this moment to mention that our student trustees can attend any meetings that you would like? Do not have to sign up for one specific one, but if you would like to come regularly, we would we would love it. Is there any interest among other board members to be part of the policy committee? Trusty Shepard is is interested. So that that that that would be actually really good input, but uh um I still need another uh non- studentent board member.

So currently it's um I was serving on that as board president and um Vice President Inklas was serving as the other trustee who was also then the secretary of that committee and I was the chair. So we definitely do need another Yep. I need another one. I think uh

I'm looking at trustee Boyd reluctantly waving her hand. She's smiling and nodding. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Appreciate it. All right. The Citizens Bond Oversight Committee. Um, this meets every couple months. I'm currently on this one. Actually, I'm fine staying with this one unless people want to uh if anyone is interested in it, feel free to raise your hand. I have I have a feeling that I'm not going to get a lot of competition. It's more so because of the timing and location that it doesn't work. That's the problem. It's not the topic. I promise.

Excellent. Excellent. So, I have successfully uh kept my position on the citizen bond oversight committee. We'll just put you down for all of the committ. Yeah, I' I've like All right. Facilities Master Planning Committee. I'm actually on this one already. Um, anyone and I'm on the I'm not sure if it actually makes sense to switch midway through, but we can certainly do that if if if people are interested in this. And I suppose we could have two members on it um if that's of of interest to people. I would be interested in this one. I'm happy to share it. Okay. Not passionate.

Okay. So, if I if I said I was still interested in keeping it, you'd be fine with that. Okay, great. We're going to go president and vice president on that one. Uh, technology master planning committee. Uh, I'm on this one. I'm leading one of the subgroups right now. Um, I don't Do we have anybody else from the board on that one? I don't think so. Um, I I should at least get my subcommittee through the uh the process. Anybody else want to join me?

We could also do how we could do this because I have my eye on some that I might be interested in. So, I'm just wondering whether otherwise it's going to be like Josh is going to be on all of them and I'm I'm I'm like tapping out guys because of course because of course if if ones I'm interested in other people are too then we can Okay, fair enough. But we'll keep going with our first pass. Student Achievement Committee. Uh Trusty uh Trusty Shepard has raised her hand. Trusty Boyd raised her hand. I guess that's maybe we should just do like raise your hand sort of thing. Yeah.

Okay. So, we got Trusty Boyd. Um the aforementioned We only need one, right? Correct. Yes. We can have two. I realize. Yes. Thank you. I want to at least get all the boxes filled in. Uh DAC, the the English learner advisory committee. See, Hopwood, she's in. Finally,

she's on the board. uh special education advisory committee. Oh, I got three hands with with authority, which is great. We got uh Trusty Khan, Trusty Hopwood, and Trusty Shepard. Um which is all good. Yeah. Oh, so you can go. That's amazing. This is working out better than I expected. uh the all instructional leadership team. Uh can you tell us a bit about that? Yeah, because that's another new one for trustees, right?

Yeah. Well, it's it's an offering. Um the the all district instructional leadership team is a group of teachers, um principles, assistant principles, and executive team members. and the they are basically an advisory um to all things instruction that are going on in the district at a kind of like a closer level. So looking at things like um coherence across the schools schedules um things around multi-tered systems of support looking at data things like that I mean I would do it too. So for

okay why don't we do mind you to do it. Uh trustee Hopwood and vice president. Yes. Yeah. The superintendent's equity council. I will wrestle someone for this one. [laughter] I like we had one raised hand in wood authoritative voice. So that's good that that the good news is that also added up to two. [laughter] Yeah.

The trusty Shepherd raise her hand. Sorry. And then um we're waiting on the AUSD uh city of Albany alignment team. Um are we selecting someone for guilt track? We need Yes, please. It says TBD. Yes. No, it should not be TBD. It is kind of fun that actually it's always ended up with two. That's right. No, not me. Oh, yeah. It's it's vice vice president and trustee Khan. Matt, that was much much easier than I thought it was going to be. You don't want it.

No one No one doubts your ability. The question was your desire.

That's great. Fantastic. Uh, oh, Trusty Khan as well.

Yes. Question. Can I can I hear more about the equity council? I just want to like know like what what do you guys like do like like I know what the goal is, but like what do you [laughter]

what like what what does like a meeting like like a normal meeting look like? I'm just kind of curious. Yeah, it I mean the the goal for that um for that group is to really just continue to focus on how are we ensuring that there is a sense of belonging um for each and every student across the district. Um and so um currently there is um the way it's um we haven't we've only met uh we met last year, we haven't met this year yet. Um but currently uh our um parent and family-led affinity um groups, there's a leader from each group that comes and meets and then again there are um some staff from different schools um a few of our site leaders um executive team members. Um and the goal is to really just kind of continue that conversation of how are we ensuring that each and every student feels a sense of belonging in our district. Can I sign up for that?

Yeah. Um, also, wait, can I can I sign up? Sorry, I was like thinking about it, but can I also sign up for the the student achievement committee as well? Sorry, I'm a little behind right now. Yeah. And again, you both can come to any committee meetings that you can come to all of them. I have another for you. Okay. So, we think we have it. Do you want to um can I have a motion to accept what's up there on the spreadsheet as our um assignments?

I move to um allocate as per the spreadsheet. Thank you. Second the motion. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. And seriously, thank you for making that a lot less painful than I thought it might be. Uh, we're gonna move on to the consent calendar. Um, we just have one item today before we uh move on to conversation or just action on the consent calendar. Is there any comment from the public? Um, seeing none, do I have a motion? I move to approve the consent calendar.

I'll second the motion. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. Um great. And now I think we're moving on into close session. Um in close session today, we're going to talk about um potential litigation, personnel matters, um public employee performance evaluation, and a negotiations update. Um before we go into close session, is there any comment from the public? No. Uh, you're on.

Thank you for very much for um today and I really appreciate the meeting. I just wanted to say that. Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay. So then uh I just we will uh dismiss to close session.

Uh we're reconvening from close session. Reconvening from close session um where the board took um no action. Um, I move to adjourn uh tonight's meeting at 10:00. I second. Oh, seconds. Seconded. Trusty Boyd here too. Trusty Boyd. Here we are. All in favor? I. Meeting adjourned. I'm going to bang the gavl because I can.