Board of Education - Regular Meeting

Okay, I'm going to call this regular board meeting to order. Can I have a roll call, please?

Student Trustee Charlie Baldwin-Small?

Present.

Trustee Boyd? Here. Trustee Kahn? Here. Trustee Hopwood? Here. Vice President Inglis? Here. President Mahoney?

Here.

Dr. Stone? Here.

Now we'll move on to the Pledge of Allegiance for those who would like to join.

All right. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, under the rule of liberty and justice for all.

Great.

Now we'll move on to the reading of our foundational commitments. Normally we'd have both the student trustees read this. Given that we've only got one, maybe we'll just rotate through as a group so that we can all save Trustee Boland-Small's voice on the first day at his first board meeting. So why don't you go ahead, Charlie, we'll pick it up from there.

AUSD vision, each and every student is empowered to realize their fullest potential, ready to lead, contribute and thrive in an ever-changing world through the support of diverse, engaged and committed community.

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.

Core values, we believe in equity and excellence. Every student deserves access to high quality, rigorous and inclusive learning experiences that honor their potential and ensure they are prepared to thrive. Two, 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.

Three, we believe in collaborative leadership. Shared leadership and transparent accountable systems are crucial for building trust, driving improvement, and fostering a culture of learning.

Four, we believe in honoring individual strengths. Each student brings unique gifts, identities, and ways of learning. Recognizing and valuing these differences is foundational to 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.

Board norms and the code of conduct focus on what's best for students, ensure a respectful environment, value diverse perspectives, act with dignity and professionalism, maintain distinction between board and staff roles, commit to continuous learning and professional development.

Great, thank you. Now we'll move, can I have a motion to approve the agenda?

I move to approve the agenda. I'll second the motion.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Great, agenda's approved. We're now on to item two, general public comment period. So we're gonna go into general public comment for items that are not on the agenda. A few ground rules. Each speaker has two minutes. This time cannot be transferred to another speaker. This period is for matters not on tonight's agenda. Under the Brown Act, the board cannot take action or discuss non-agendized items. Comments to be made here reflect the views of the individual speakers. The board has no way to verify the accuracy of statements made at the podium and we encourage you to seek information through official district channels. And finally, if your comment involves a complaint against a specific district employee, this is not the appropriate forum. Board policy requires such matters to be handled through the district's complaint process, either Board Policy 1312.1 for employee complaints or Board Policy 1312.3 for uniform complaint procedures. And a raised share must be referred to closed session to protect employees' due process rights. Do we have any public comment? Seeing none in the room, seeing none online. We'll move on to board reports. Starting with student trustee Bowen-Smalls.

Nothing to report.

All good, you haven't even started school yet. I'll turn it to, do we have any labor partners in the room that would like to give a report?

Hello, folks. My name is Jared Law. I'm one of the new co-presidents of ATA alongside Patty Bruns. You will also be hearing from Robbie Mann throughout this year. He'll be our vice president, so he'll be speaking at some of these meetings as well. We don't have much to report. It's the beginning of the year, but ATA is currently preparing for a new round of bargaining with our contract. We're also gearing up for election season, and we have a couple of big things coming up. One big thing that we really hope to work collaboratively with the community and the district office and the board on is passing Proposition 3. If you aren't aware, Proposition 3 extends Proposition 55, which is a tax that people are already paying folks who earn over $350,000 a year for single income households, about $700,000 a year for dual income households. They're already paying this and it provides about $15 billion to the state of California each year to use for public education. And so if that does not pass, Proposition 3 extends it indefinitely. If it doesn't pass, it will have devastating impacts on the California public education system. We really hope to work in partnership with everybody here in order to make sure that that passes. We're also going to be gearing up for the school board election as well, so we will be holding a candidates forum, which I think all of the candidates who have currently filed have already heard about. Let's see. My co-president and I today met with Sarah Stone. We had a productive conversation, and so I hope to continue having a positive and productive relationship. All right, thank you.

Great, thank you very much. Any other labor partners in the room? Okay, I'll turn it over to Superintendent Stone for the superintendent's report.

All right, good evening, trustees and members of the community. I am going to share my screen. I need to replace the current share. Thank you. Do we want to pause?

Johnny, do you have any reports? You don't have to. We literally just moved on from labor partner reports. While we're setting up the Zoom, we'll take a moment here in case you have anything else to add.

No, thank you, thank you, thank you. John Paulding, President of CSEA. I just want to say summer's over with. I'm back at the middle school. And I am the head coach of the girls' black football team. So when the schedule comes out, you guys are welcome to come and check us out. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, good of us using that intermittent time. Ready for the superintendent report?

I sure am. Well, as Mr. Paulding shared, summer's over. And we are extremely excited to welcome our students back tomorrow. Teachers and staff have been eagerly preparing the campuses to be ready for our students to come and have productive learning so that all of our mission, vision, values can be enacted. And I do want to give a special shout out to our custodial and maintenance and operations folks who have worked tirelessly this summer to make our schools clean and ready for our students to come back and repaired. I myself with CBO have walked through every school over the last couple of weeks just to make sure that we're seeing you know the impact of some of our goals around making sure that all schools are clean and well maintained and I have to say our custodians have just been beyond impressive, beyond impressive. So I just again I really want to appreciate them for their hard work. So as I mentioned, a lot of preparation goes into the beginning of the year. And I think what some people don't realize is so much of this work is unseen and sometimes maybe not, because it's unseen, not really known or valued in the same way as some of the flashier positions, maybe like the superintendent. are in the district. But we have so many people across our system that are working really hard to get schools ready. And I do also want to give a shout out to our district home office team who spent their entire summer making sure that we are hired and staffed, that we have budgets that are clean, that ARIES rolls over correctly, that our students are rostered, curriculum is ordered and in the right places. And that we're just overall just making sure that things are as smooth as they possibly can be so that when our staff returns and when our students return and our families return, things feel seamless. And so of course there's always bumps in the road and things aren't always perfect because perfect is actually not a real thing. But that said, we've worked super hard. And so I just, again, I want to really give a shout out to our district office team. And then last but not least, all of our teachers and all of our other staff who returned over the last week, and some who returned prior to this week for training, I have seen just such excitement and just so much passion around entering into this year and making sure that our students have the absolute best. And our teachers are just... Yesterday, some of you were able to come to our welcome back picnic, which was very well attended and really positive. And we had music and food and bubbles and... Blankets, it was really wonderful. And seeing all of our community come together across our system, across our schools, is really powerful. And truly, the hope that I have for this year is that we really see each other as one unified team. So, we did a lot of work this summer. I've expressed some of it. Again, I want to give a shout out especially to all of our TK5 teachers. All of them now have been trained or started to be trained in our new fish tank ELA curriculum, English Language Arts curriculum, which is no small feat. To start a whole new curriculum is a big deal. And so I want to appreciate them for that. And then we had some teachers who came back early to be able to maybe take a little bit more time to understand it and dig in. And every teacher I've spoken to who is implementing this, I haven't spoken to every teacher, but every teacher I have spoken to is really excited about this curriculum. And I myself was able to review the texts that are being offered, and I'm so impressed. There's really great attention to ensuring that the texts represent the students that we serve, very diverse texts, and also that the authors are authors who also are diverse and represent the students we serve. So it's an exciting opportunity for us, and I'm really excited about the curriculum. And there's a lot of other things we did. I'm not gonna go through every single thing. But we definitely took the time this summer as a leadership team to really dig into and take an honest look, a real honest look and reflection at feedback that we received over the last year. and have worked really hard to start to implement some of the shifts and changes so that we're really continuing to move in that direction of being one Albany Unified in service of really supporting each and every kid. So here's some beautiful pictures of our times together. Just a lot of joy and a lot of really deep learning and thinking. Another thing I wanted to mention is just today we were able to, or yesterday and today I should say, we were able to get some feedback from our certificated staff about educational technology. And while we haven't completed the survey 100%, we've had probably about 120 responses at this point from our teachers. And I did a very cursory look. I read every single comment today while I was getting a tire fixed. And these are sort of the big picture pieces that I heard loud and clear from staff. Definitely we put some things in place that we're going to talk about during our technology report later. THIS SUMMER BECAUSE WE WANTED TO MAKE SURE WE WERE RESPONSIVE TO SOME OF THE CONCERNS THAT FAMILIES BROUGHT UP AND THEN WHEN WE DID THIS ED TECH SURVEY WE REALIZED THAT SOME OF THE SHIFTS WE MADE REALLY NEEDED A LITTLE BIT MORE TEACHER INPUT AND SO THE GOOD THING IS EASY TO GO BACK AND MAKE SOME OF THOSE ADJUSTMENTS BASED ON THIS FEEDBACK. But what I really want to highlight is what we're doing next. And again, we'll talk about this in a minute in our presentation. But what we want to do is we want to make sure that we have some kind of a way to see what's going on on our students' screens. And so we'll be talking about that later. And this is where I'm going to highlight out to the community. We're working on this ed tech committee, which is an offshoot of the technology master plan committee. And the purpose of this is to really sit with the educational services team and really make informed decisions that have research behind them and are really listening to the needs of staff. as well as really understand what families want for their students, and very importantly, listening to student voice around some decisions that we make. because this is our goal. Really, truly, we do have just one or maybe two goals, graduation and post-secondary readiness for every child. And so really, I'm gonna keep pulling us back to this this year. This is what we're trying to do. We currently have an incredible graduation rate as a district, we really do. That is amazing work. And we want 100% of our kids to be graduation and post-secondary ready. And how we're gonna move this year, these are actually my five superintendent goals. How we're really gonna do this is we're gonna continue to accelerate learning. Like I said, we're starting our evidence-based literacy. Program K-5, which is super exciting. We're going to start talking about and looking at different options for math instruction in elementary. We're going to have conversations six through 12 around math instruction. We're going to continue to work really hard on cultivating belonging and well-being for not just our students, but our staff. Because we know that if our staff aren't feeling a sense of care and belonging, it's hard to ensure that that's happening in the classroom. There's been a lot of good conversation. I was at Marin today and Cornell today and both of our new principals were actively engaging their staff around this conversation. Building more trust through leadership. As our new ATA president, co-president shared today, I was able to meet with him and Patty Bruns and we, I think, are starting to really be able to have those conversations and build more trust. So I'm feeling really positive about that and then of course fiscal and operational excellence We have to make sure that we have safe effective equitable systems that are supporting learning and bottom line for me working technology clean safe schools and That we're using our money well and SO THAT WE CAN REALLY OPTIMIZE WHAT WE ARE RECEIVING FROM THE STATE AND LITTLE LESS FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NOW. BECAUSE WE REALLY DO WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE PAYING THE PEOPLE WHO WORK IN THIS DISTRICT A FAIR AND ROBUST WAGE. And this year we're gonna be moving towards creating a real strategic plan and that is something that's actually the work of the board and I'm excited to do that work with you this year and I'm here to help support it by bringing together some ideas around a portrait of a graduate. So another way to say all that, we actually have three focus areas this year, goals focus areas. And we just talked about them. But we really, really need to get super focused so that we can do things really well. So one thing I just wanted to mention in terms of our portrait of a graduate. I had a really interesting conversation, and I'm gonna call her out, but CBO Wu and I talked a little bit about what does this really mean. We talk a lot about our kids going to college, being ready for college. We also need to really think about the other parts, because college is one piece of it. And some of our students will go to college, some won't, and that's okay. I want that to be their choice and what makes the most sense for them. But what we really need to think about is the other parts of, and how are we as a system supporting them? And are we ensuring that our students are leaving here not just ready to go to that We were talking a little bit before about driving your kid to college or helping them unpack in their dorm room. That's part of it. What happens after that? What do we do next? And so that's really the goal of this. And we have to be on the same page about this so that we can put our resources into the right places. If we don't get on the same page about this as an entire one Albany Unified, what ends up happening is we want to use all of our tiny, you've heard me say it a million times, we have a dollar to spend. We've got to use that dollar really well. We've got to divide it well because that's all we have and we want to do it towards this. And my commitments this year as a superintendent, I want to listen first and seek to understand. I want to communicate clearly and follow through, create more opportunities for collaboration across schools and departments, build a culture where every person feels heard, valued, and supported, and continue growing together as one Albany Unified. And what I'm asking for is provide feedback regularly. I am hoping that people will start to see that I can take the, you know, I'm human, sometimes it hurts, but I can take the feedback and I do want people to give it to me. I'm asking people to remain curious and communicate openly and respectfully. Asking for people to assume positive intent. and support one another, and again, work together as one Albany Unified. Thank you so much for your partnership, and I am so excited. Let's have a great year.

Thank you. Next item on the agenda is board committee reports. I'll just look to see if anybody had a board committee over the summer, which I don't believe we did. Great, so now I'll turn it over to board member reports, starting with Trustee Boyd.

Welcome back, everybody.

Trustee Kahn.

Welcome back. I had a wonderful time at the ATK orientation at Ocean View today. It's wonderful to see all of our teachers and parents back and especially little ones excited to be new members of the Ocean View community. I also want to give a QUICK THANK YOU TO JASMINE WHO IS OUR WONDERFUL SECRETARY AT OCEAN VIEW WHO EVEN ON HER BIRTHDAY IS WORKING TO MAKE SURE THAT OUR TEACHERS AND STAFF AND OUR FAMILIES HAVE WHAT THEY NEED WITH A SMILE ON OUR FACE EVERY SINGLE DAY. AND WE SO APPRECIATE HER. AND LASTLY AND MOST IMPORTANTLY Hopefully I don't cry. I do want to announce that effective Monday, August 31st, I will be resigning from the Albany School Board. It has been an absolute honor to serve on the board and to get to know this community on a much deeper level and to be able to show up as more than just a parent in the district. I'm sure we're a small town. I'm sure everybody already knows but Earlier this year my mother had a massive stroke and to make sure that I can show up for her I'm doing what's right both for my family and also for the district and choosing to step down And I know that the seat will be filled by wonderful folks Soon, so I'm not worried about you know, I know you guys got this. I But it's really been an honor to be able to learn from everyone, work with everyone and have those moments of ups and downs where there were moments where I was wrong and I had to make sure that I corrected that and just be able to grow with everyone and to be able to try and advocate for our district, not just here in Albany, but also at the state level, because that's where our students need to be seen there as well and supported at the statewide level. And I'm very happy that I'll be able to continue to support with that in a much smaller capacity. It's not something that I will let go of just because I'll be moving, but it's truly, truly been wonderful. And I so appreciate everyone that has welcomed me into this space and allowed me to grow especially as someone that was so young at the time when I joined the board and felt so uncertain about whether I belonged or if I even knew what I was doing. And the reason I bring that up is we have so many students who are going to be entering the world, whether it's through college or whatever pathways they choose. uncertainty will always follow you but it's what you choose with that uncertainty and whether you choose to keep moving forward that matters the most and we are the ones that are in charge of our own futures and we have to take those steps and I do hope that folks will learn to put some of that doubt behind and just keep pushing forward even when you feel like you don't know whether you know what's right or wrong it's just you got to figure it out you know and the more people that we have that are willing to try and figure it out the better changes we can make, not just for ourselves, but our larger community. And that's what I'm hoping continues to happen. And I know it will because we have some of the best and brightest students here. So thank you. And that's it.

I'm going to pause for a moment and want to say, I want to say my own sort of thank you to Trustee Kahn for her service. Speaking from the heart as a board member, I remember my first board meeting. I sat next to Trustee Kahn, had no idea what was going on, and she helped guide me to make sure that it wasn't a complete disaster. And so that support is something I've appreciated. I appreciated that I've learned about your passion and your willingness to Have things that you believe in and willing to do the work to help make change and that's So admirable. It's one thing to say something. It's another something to do something in Europe Poster child for lack of a better word for doing that. So we want to thank you for your service You will be missed Ugly crying

I do wanna just also echo everything that President Mahoney just said, and I wanna say that one of the reasons why I was so excited about coming to Albany and being a part of this community was you, and I'm gonna miss you Terribly and I know that you're always gonna be here and you're always gonna be a phone call away and I and I understand that And I also just want to appreciate I want to shout out and appreciate how much you have given to your son's school You have spent tireless hours Making things beautiful and amazing for kids at ocean view and that will be missed but I can't say enough about how much I've learned from you and how much I appreciate the work that you've done. We did get you some flowers. I don't know if other board members want to say something. Well, I'll bring flowers over to you and give you a hug.

Of course, Trustee Boyd.

I'm going to try to keep it short. so that I don't, I'm not the one to start crying. You're an exceptional person. You're an exceptional person. It's been a real honor to serve with you and to learn from you. You inspire me. Every place that you touch, every person that you touch is lucky to have the benefit of learning from you and of having your light shine on them. You're just truly an exceptional person, and I wish the universe showers you with every good thing in the world because you deserve it, you and your son and your whole family. And I will continue to learn from you and miss you, but be really grateful that I had the chance to get to know you and serve with you.

Right, you know how earlier I said that I don't cry on the dais? I feel like this was a total setup.

Okay, so I just want to appreciate the fact that four years ago you and I joined the board together, completely green, didn't really know what we were letting ourselves in for, what we were doing, and I'm so happy to have had you with me.

And I appreciate your advocacy. not only for students in Albany, but in the state, and I think probably gonna be around the world. And I'm so impressed by your recent efforts. And I know why you made the decision, but you have. And I'm sure it was the right one. And I just wish you every success and happiness. I'm going to stop because I'm totally letting myself down. I will go on to my border part afterwards because I did have something to say, but I need a break.

Yeah, you have to.

Sorry, I don't do public emotion. I will miss you, we will all miss you, and you can still attend the fundraising collab. In person or via Zoom.

I'll be honored to continue joining. I got a lot of fundraising to do. Gathered myself.

Everyone take a deep breath.

Okay, my board report. I will just do my quick board report. So a couple of updates. So one is that I attended a town hall with Congresswoman Latifa Simon last month at Albany High School Little Theatre. I thought it was an appropriate venue to inform her about our potential loss of funds from the Golden Gate Fields parcel tax revenue, just so she kind of knows what's going on in her district. I know that people on the board and Superintendent Stone have talked to local electives as well. A representative from Jesse Arrowgreen's office was there. Supervisor Bass was there. Mayor McQuaid and other representatives from city council. So it was actually really great to have everybody in the same room and able to kind of collaborate and agree that we need to have conversations as we move forward through that process. So that was the first thing. And then the other thing is that Superintendent Stone and I have been busy over the summer, I mean, amongst other things that you've been doing, obviously, with our youth voting efforts, trying to get that implemented in time for November's election. We are so, so, so close right now. We are like this close. We are just having the MOU finalized by the Registrar Voters Council. It's been an interesting process. We are so grateful for the advocacy work of Josh Daniels, who is a former Berkeley Unified trustee and current CSBA attorney. He has just kind of helped guide us through the process and helped to kind of coordinate our efforts. Anyway, we're very close. More updates to come. Hopefully we'll have that resolved very soon. Anyway, that's all from me. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice President Inglis.

I have a couple of things. Welcome back. I hope you guys all had a great summer. It went too fast. AMS, the walkthrough registration took place yesterday to kick off the new year and it was very successful. The first PTA meeting and back to school night will take place on September 2nd, starting at 545. So if you're with AMS, don't miss that. And if you're a new sixth grade family, the sixth grade potlucks are going to be happening on September 16th and 17th, and there's a third one still not scheduled. It is a really great way to meet other kids and families within your sixth graders core classes. So if you can attend, that would be great. And I wanted to give an update on an informal committee, so can I do it now? And I'm bringing this up because Trustee Kahn raised this committee during our last meeting of the year and I realized I'd never really talked about it. So I wanted to take a moment to give an update on a newish informal committee that I've been working on that we're calling the Fundraising CoLab. We started last year working with leaders from all the five PTAs, AEF, and school care to see if there was value in organizing and working together more closely, sharing ideas, building community, and talking about different challenges that all the groups face. And some, for example, fundraising and getting volunteers. So it started as a bit of an experiment. We met a handful of times to explore all those different ideas and talk about what collaboration could look like. At the end of last year, the group agreed it was worth continuing. So we are gonna kick off in a few weeks, and we decided it was important to be a little more intentional with our time. And so we took a vote on some of the topics that we've been talking about throughout the year, and we agreed to focus on three areas. One is on fundraising strategies, the second is on equity, and the third is on building community. And the other exciting part is that we're gonna have Albany Music Fund and the Boosters joining us this year. SO IT'S GOING TO BECOME A BIGGER COLLABORATION ACROSS MOST OF THE FUNDRAISING. I THINK WE MIGHT BE MISSING ONE OR TWO, BUT WE'LL REACH OUT. I'LL SHARE UPDATES AS WE MAKE PROGRESS. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU FOR PULLING THAT DISPARATE GROUP TOGETHER, WHICH IS FANTASTIC. I WANT TO THANK TRUSTEE HOPWOOD In a meeting last year, she raised her hand to take on the youth voting thing. I'm not sure she knew what she was signing up for, but I appreciate it. While I had full confidence in Trustee Hubbard, I'm not sure I believe we were going to get anywhere close to being over the finish line, and the fact that we're this close is a real testament to the hard work, so super appreciate that. And just to build on the comments around Golden Gate Field, I'm meeting with Assemblymember Wicks on September 5th. Knock on wood that that meeting still holds, and I, too, will bring up that topic as well. I, too, want to welcome everyone back. First day of school tomorrow. Was super excited to go to the picnic on Monday. I was over at Ocean View this morning labeling folders and sharp, literally sharpening pencils. I probably sharpened 200 pencils, which is great. And it just really struck me that it really does take a village to bring it all together in a financially constrained educational system that's underfunded. It's really about how we all kind of come together to do what's best for kids and to see at this time of year with such optimism and energy people coming together to try and start the year off right is uh it's exciting and promising and gives you hope for uh having a great impact on kids so uh really looking forward to the year and i thank everyone for everything they've done whether it's cleaning a desk sharpening a pencil or getting in front of our kids in time to teach them something which is fantastic Okay, we're gonna move on to our review and action items. I believe CBO Wu, you're up for the adoption of resolution number 2026-27-01, education protection account.

Good evening, Board of Trustees, Superintendent Dr. Stone, and also our Chief of HR, Student Trustee. The first item I get to present to you guys is to recommend that the Board of Trustees approve Resolution Number 202627-01, which is the Education Protection Act. This is an annual summary that we provide to the Board to basically state how we've spent the funds. and what we plan to commit the funds for. And I will say now that 100% of the funds is used towards all instructional costs. Questions?

Any questions on that one? Any public comment? Seeing none, this is a roll call because of the resolution. So can I have a roll call?

Should we move? Should we move?

I don't think we move.

We don't have to. Okay, great.

I could be wrong, but I don't think we move. I just, we do roll call.

I think you do have to, I think you have to move.

That's great. Do I have a motion?

I move to adopt resolution number 2026, 3701, the EPA. I'll second the motion.

Great. This is a resolution, so we still have to do a roll call.

Student Trustee Boland-Small. Aye. Trustee Boyd? Yes. Trustee Kahn? Yes. Trustee Hopwood? Yes. Vice President Inglis? Yes. President Mahoney?

Yes. The resolution passes. We'll now move on to the approval of a correction to the 26-27 LCAP, or Local Control and Accountability Plan.

Yes, so this is we're recommending that the Board of Trustees approve the correction to the 2026-27 LCAP Primarily we go through every year would go through an extensive review process with the County Office of Education and throughout all of that It was missed I guess on that checklist that we actually needed to identify how we were going to spend some of our carryover funds. That was a direct result of us inputting all of the actual expenses from 25-26 that carried into 26-27. We don't typically budget for carryover funds outright like that. We reprioritize when we get into the new fiscal year, so that's where This happened and this is the correction. It's basically shuffling some of the priorities on how we're funding the LCAP goals and action items from what was originally in restricted funds to our supplemental funds. Any questions on that?

No questions, any questions? General comment, any comments on this item, either in person or on Zoom? SEEING NONE, DO I HAVE A MOTION?

I'LL MOVE TO APPROVE THE CORRECTION TO THE 2627 LOCAL CONTROL AND ACCOUNTABILITY PLAN.

I'LL SECOND THE MOTION.

ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. OPPOSED? THE MOTION PASSES. THANK YOU. NOW WE'LL MOVE ON TO THE REAPPROVAL OF THE 2627 ADOPTED BUDGET. YES.

the rules of how we adopt the LCAP, we must then subsequently also readopt the same. There was no change to the adopted budget, so therefore we're just asking the board to re-approve what was already adopted in June.

Any questions? Any comments from the public, either in the room or on Zoom? Seeing none, do I have a motion?

I move to re-approve the FY26-27 adopted budget. I'll second the motion.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Great. The motion passes. Thank you. And now we're on to the 45-day budget revision.

One of the presentations I'm really looking forward to talking to you on. Let's see here. I had to hit the button and then. All right, it's working. Go back to the title page. So, I'm super excited to present to you a 45-day budget revision. As you know, that when we adopt a budget, the governor basically doesn't adopt theirs until after we adopt ours, and then once the governor enacts their budget, I have an opportunity to come back and provide to you guys what those updates and share with you what it means so far and what it doesn't mean yet. This is just a reminder of the schedule throughout the year, fiscal reporting periods, And so the purpose of the 45-day budget revision, so the governor enacted his budget on June 29th, 2026. As per Ed Code, when there are significant updates made from the governor's budget, we're required to provide the county office with a summary of updates, also known as the 45-day budget revision. And the deadline for that is actually August 13th, so we are two days ahead of the game. And then the updates from fiscal 26-27, we adopted our budget as a friendly reminder on June 18th of 2026. The estimates for the update is based on 36-27 ADA. I'm looking forward to seeing that and then some starting tomorrow. And then the impact. We will talk about what the impact is, what changed and what are some of the possibilities and the avenues that we're reviewing on what the usage of some of these additional funds could be. funding sources with no change and the reason why i'm stating that is that uh... at the time we adopted our budget they were pretty sure that we're going to get these assumptions already so we've already factored these in and we've adopted our budget based on that as a quick reminder the cola that we use for our lcff was two point eight seven percent other state funding test reimbursement uh... twelve thousand dollars uh... fifty percent transportation reimburse universal meals cola is 2.87%. I'm super happy that we're still continuing our universal meals for all of our students. ELOP, the rate was raised to $1,800, and that's based off of prior year UPP. P2, unduplicated pupil percentage count, is how that's calculated. But that was already factored into the assumptions. And then, of course, the feds continue to give us updates when they send them. Funding sources with ongoing funding. So the mandated block grant included the 2.87% COLA. And then also there was a minor adjustment to the lottery funds. There's two buckets for that. We get restricted and unrestricted. There's no change to the unrestricted portion. We factored in $190. per ADA, but there was a slight decrease in our restricted lottery funds, which pays for pretty much all of our classroom instructional materials. And that was lowered from 90 something dollars per ADA to 84. So I just wanted to state the correction. And that impact was approximately 29 grand. So with that said, what we're most interested in is what changed. So here you'll see that on the left-hand side, the LCFF COLA, there's an add-on. And I know a lot of folks are referencing it as the Super COLA. It's not a Super COLA. It's a 1.44% augmentation to the COLA. That's actually how they state it in the funding formula itself. And with that said, it is one time. They also tacked on some stipulations with regards to the 14-week, what is it, maternity leave that we must actually abide to and pay for, which is already something that's in place, but now they're kind of just rolling it in and saying that, oh, you get 1.44%, oh, and we're also tacking this onto it just in case you have expenditures related to that. So that's how we kind of view that extra $640,000 that's coming in from that. In addition to that, we're super happy, but then we're like, can we keep this ongoing? I would love for it to be more than one time. And that's AB 602, which provides additional $1.25 million for special education funding. Our discretionary block grant right now is estimated to provide $3.37 million of additional funding that expires. We get multiple years to spend that out. The expiration date for that is in 2032. I calculated, I don't think I'll be retired by then. And then also with the learning recovery emergency block grant just stating that they restored what they had actually taken a couple of years ago. And this is the remaining amount that's owed to the districts. So in total, the total impact of one-time additional funds is $5.3 million. Other things to note is that they made some adjustments to the local reserve cap, and it's capped at 10%, including Fund 17. We just talked about the paid pregnancy disability leave that's in place. Prop 28, our music grant, just noting that there were some reporting deadlines that are coming up for that. for the first portion that we received in 23-24. There's a new C90 compensation data report that we will be also wrapping up at the end of this month. And then along with that, the state basically fell $3.9 billion short of its school funding guarantee. And that's something that we should always keep in the back of our mind is in terms of, I don't know really when the state is gonna commit to repaying that to school districts. Quick picture on the state fiscal state. The state general fund, general funding sources is $284 billion. General fund expenditures are $252 billion. So in essence, the state is saying that they have about a $32.5 billion balance left over based off of their commitments. But that's something that we should continue to monitor. as we experienced last fiscal year, like a huge swing in assumptions. So I just want to be mindful of that. And then in terms of their longer-term outlook, what are they saying to the rest of the state is that in January, and this is why we should continue to monitor it, in January's estimate, they thought that their structural deficit will be $23 billion. And then the enacted budget just in June, just a few months later, is now down to $8.4 billion. So I want to be cognizant of that and to continue monitoring how the state is making their assumptions every time they come back and they're making budget commitments. This is just to share kind of like the outlook for our pension costs for STRS and PERS, because as we're looking at our COLA, our cost of living increasing, these are fluctuations that we've experienced. I think that CalSTRS for the most part has stayed readily steady at about 19.1%. Our CalPERS, however, I've seen it jump super high in previous years, but right now it looks like the percentage is also stabilizing. And then down to 2032, it looks like it'll be overall decline of approximately 3%, something to also continue to monitor as we know our cost of living keeps going up. So something to pay attention to. So putting the one-time funds to work. Obviously we need to go through rounds of having long discussions about prioritizations for the districts, fiscal sustainability, and so forth. So what are some of the things that we can consider with the one-time funds? So as we look at the eligible one-time funds, You know, there's some things we could help out the general fund with, because remember, when we adopted the budget, we actually adopted that budget with, you know, deficit spending in the general fund. So some of the ways that we could start looking at this is like, well, I could put some of the monies aside for deferred maintenance, which we've talked about. You know, our aging facilities has equipment that is also going to age. It's not just a modernization. There's stuff that we have to rebuild and replace. Curriculum adoptions, we're going to apply it towards that. Technology refreshes and other block grant priorities we've used. You know, a good portion of block grant priorities for professional development for all of our staff. So those are some of the priorities. We could fund additional PD, teacher induction type costs. We could cover some teacher recruitment retention costs. The recovery block grant, for the most part, has been itemized already to spend on one-time things. And then, you know, we could pace our spending. We have until 2032 to spend down that $3.37 million, and maybe one of the ways that we could, you know, stay fiscally sound is to pace how we're actually utilizing some of those funds. I know I put it on a slide, but I just want to say it while it's fresh in my mind. With the discretionary block grant, the state is actually still having discussions with how they're going to really fare out. So we haven't received an actual apportionment for those funds yet for the current fiscal year. They're still working out the calculation. So they estimated $930 per ADA, which was the $3.37 million. but that could change, actually, as we get our next update. So we'll continue to keep you guys up to date on that as well. Just taking a look at what the money means over the three-year period, as I mentioned, the adopted budget is forecasting that we're gonna continue deficit spending. The new one-time funds that came in from the LCFF was approximately $1.9 million. Our structural deficit, unrestricted and restricted, is currently around three and a half million. So when you look at then how that compares to the LCFF COLA as we look out into the future years, we have 4.31% in 26-27. 1.44 was one time of that. They're projecting 27-28 for another 3.3%. And then I took a look at the next five years. It's swirling around 3%. But we know that as inflation, cost of living goes up, 3% is not enough. And so one of the biggest priorities to make sure that the school district continues to function and operate with sustainability in mind. So what we know, enacted budget, LCFF, we talked about, and the pension rates. What we don't know is what the state's going to do with their $3.9 billion that was withheld. They say that 2728's COLA is 3.3% right now. As we come back in January and the governor gives his first update, we will have a better idea where that COLA might fare out. And then, of course, some of the other things that might impact some of the propositions that are out there right now as it will impact revenue to the state is what's gonna happen during the November elections. And then also just consistently paying attention to our enrollment trends and also how that impacts our attendance. What that means over the multi-year projection, we know this year, and it makes it really, really hard for us that are responsible for forecasting is to give us the assumptions today, kinda tell us what's coming next year, and kinda tell us what's coming in the future years, and that's what makes it hard, and that's why you have the question marks in the subsequent years. We know usually every year in that year what next year might look like. So what are some of the next steps? Well, we're here right now. There's some reporting things that we have to get done. Our fiscal team is working extremely hard right now to close the books accurately and give you guys a clear reflection of what our balances really are and what the state is, how well we did against our projections. And so I'm looking forward to bringing that back to you in October as an update, and then we do the cycle all over again. We start budget development, we create targets, and everything else. Any questions on that, on the update?

Questions from the board? I have a couple questions or clarifications. Yes. So as I think about the 2.87 and the 1.44, I guess the way I internalize it is basically the state sort of gave us an unfunded mandate on the maternity leave situation. And then it's like one time funded, I guess, for the duration with that 1.44%. Is that the right way to think about it? Yes. Yeah, so like, is that supposed to take care of maternity leave until the end of time or something like that?

Yes, apparently the one time is supposed to be enough for that. And it's definitely not enough. And some of that's hard to gauge because the 14-week leave depends on whether or not someone... Yeah, needs it. Needs it, exactly.

Yeah, okay. And then... Do you have any sense on what's going to happen with the settle up? Because we had the $5 billion last year. We talked about the $3.8 or $3.9 billion this year. I know all that stuff's in litigation. Is that money just basically gone? And to your other point, is this a hope for the best and plan for the worst sort of situation? Or how should I think about the fact that the governor continues to play games with the budget?

I would say hope for the best and plan for the worst because you're asking a finance person.

I guess I knew my audience or something like that along those lines.

But from my experience of working in K-12, I've seen a lot of changes over the years. And what I have seen is that the governor has come back in previous years and start repayment plans to school districts. And then they called it gap funding. And so they did eventually repay that at some point. So I'm anticipating that at some point when the governor decides that they're going to repay that $3.9 billion gap, that's probably what's going to happen too, is they'll get put on a repayment plan.

Assuming the next governor does what this governor does too. Okay, sorry, enough color commentary for me. Any comments from the room or on Zoom? Back to the board, do we have a motion?

I move to approve the 45-day budget revision for fiscal year 26-27. I second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes.

Great, thank you.

Now we're on to the capital projects update and approval for change orders for Cornell Elementary. You're rooted to the ground there.

I'd like to also invite Jeff Evans up here to stand alongside and maybe be available to answer any questions. I know Vanessa Rodriguez, who has been the primary project manager for Albany Unified School District, to help us stay on top of not just the big summer project, at Cornell with the modernization of the all-gender restroom. But in addition to some of the other big capital projects that are being supported, I know that she notified us and let us know she is stuck in horrendous traffic right now. So I will do my best to take us through the updates. And Jeff will be here to also support answering any detailed questions if necessary. And then anything we can't answer, we will come back. All right, so in terms of district projects right now, of course, the current one is the Cornell restaurant project. We're nearing completion on that. I'm super excited about that. I can't wait until it's completed. We also had $1.3 million in security program budget that we need to go out and basically do a new revised RFP for because what we want to do is to spell out all the specifics that we really want and how it wants to function and so forth. So we plan to take that back out and CPM will support us with that effort and then in the fall We've talked with H kit of course and also talked with CPM With regards to us go moving forward with implementation of some of the priorities in our facilities master plan So they will help be our thought partners wherever you know the district decides to have their engagement and I So with that said, I won't take you through all the crazy stuff that's actually on this. But the Cornell All-Gender Restroom, for the most part, the updated schedule is that they will have completion by 8-26. We've already been in close contact with the new principal, Jen Corn, over there and kept her up to date with what's happening, what they can expect. what's accessible, what's not accessible just yet, but will be once it's finished. The budget for that was $329,000 originally. There's some finishes that we have, and we'll talk about some of the change orders that would be affected by that. We talked briefly about the security camera project, which we want to do a design-build security camera improvements for the middle school and for the high school. We went through a process last year, and we just weren't... And maybe it has a lot to do with the process of what we spelled out that we thought we needed. And from talking to all the stakeholders and so forth, we thought that it was the best idea to go back and make sure that we spell that out and do exactly what we want first before we go ahead and actually construct a new security camera system. Facilities master plan we talked about. There's also other additional facility items that we thought we could utilize their expertise with. And that's actually taking a look at some of our Our classroom stuff, so the art room has a sink, it's broken, if you have to replace it, and we have to make it ADA compliant, there's a whole lot of other rules, regulations that we have to follow, and so we'll put that so they can support us with that. We're currently working on the high school gym scoreboard project, which they're also providing some of their expertise with making sure that we're following the appropriate process for that. We have storage cleanup. Marin HVAC we're continuing to look into. We have a couple of suggestions on how we can correct it other than breaking wall and putting windows in some of those rooms. But we'll see. Whatever's the most feasible is the direction we'll take it. And then there's also some barriers at the high school stairwell and so forth that we want to ask for their assistance with. You want to talk a little bit about this? You want me to try it?

Thank you. I'm Jeff Evans, capital program management construction manager, owner's rep construction manager, working on the Cornell Elementary restroom project. As everyone's aware, it's a little over schedule. due to a few things, but a lot of the plumbing had some issues, so we were kind of designing while we went. And we're currently about four weeks behind schedule, so working to work with the district and be as safe as possible while maintaining an operational campus with contractors on site. So hopefully that answers any questions about that.

All right. Well, thank you, Jeff. Do we want to talk about what are the things that came up that were unanticipated? And then how can we think about this going forward? Because obviously, we're going to do more projects with different sites. And I want to just think about what did we learn accordingly? Does that make sense?

Yeah, so this is renovation construction, so there's always going to be a few issues. There was two issues with the fire sprinkler system that we had to work through, and the big issue, which is the main delay, was the plumbing system. So that was kind of... contracted to just be kind of tied in to an existing line that was under the concrete there due to some elevation and the Integrity of that line we decided to go into that it would be best to go into the hallway and Unfortunately, we kind of acted with some bad information there and the elevation of that line was supposed to be much deeper than it was So because of this out shallow nature, we just had to tie into what was existing there and kind of go back to the original plan But we replaced everything in the room just tied in where it is in the footing. So there was some issues there with the structural foundations on either side and tying into that line. Um, so that kind of gave us some constraints where we had to tie in and then the elevation in the hallway also was a constraint. So those are the big delays.

I'm sorry. If I may add, forgive me, it was caught and then accident. So forgive me. Thank you, Jeff. You did amazing. So if I may add, though, as he mentioned, when we're doing these modernization renovation jobs, it's always very tricky. We don't know what's existing. And if you think about it and you look at it from kind of just an outsider in, we're taking an existing boiler room and turning it into a restroom, which then there's tons of complexities and lots of different variables. And what we've noticed, you know, just getting in the ground and, you know, opening things up, it was just like noodles in there, right? There was just so many different things that we could not, we could not anticipate. And so, I mean, every single curve ball you can think of we hit it, and so this was a very, very challenging project, but Jeff has been hands-on in the field almost full-time as well as Ashley and other APMs, so the oversight has been great on this project, and we're able, thankfully, to try to get ahead of some of these items. To kind of answer your question, we always try to assess risk. We always try to assess, you know, and look ahead of things to determine what's best. Planning, I know Mike had told you this on our first meeting with you all, planning is huge. And I know we weren't involved in the initial planning. CPM was involved after, but it just really emphasizes the importance of planning and really trying to get ahead of everything so we can catch any of those items.

Thank you.

Just to add one thing, I think your original question was kind of what do we learn going forward? And to speak to that planning, there was a few things that we really want to characterize. The abatement plan is almost guaranteed in a renovation to be a delay, and that wasn't really accounted for in the original schedule. So that's going to be an important one going forward to get that hazardous materials report and the abatement early and into the schedule. And then as much... kind of investigation as we can do beforehand. I don't think that the plumbing was properly investigated, so that kind of planning will really solidify the schedule. And, you know, when you're trying to do construction in a very tight window for a school and with a hard deadline, we have to have all those things, like, very clear and concise.

Great. Thank you. And knowing we've got some very old... that we're trying to address on another path, I'm sure they will, for better or for worse, have some of the same challenges.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Any other questions from the board? Comments or questions from the public?

Well, there's still more to go over.

No worries.

So he had mentioned all these kind of key points here, so did you go over schedule? Okay, perfect. So substantial completion, we're headed towards August 2026, 2626. And we'll talk a little bit more about some of the critical paths here. So this is kind of a timeline of what we've seen. We opened, we had the bid opening in May, started construction, original milestone was August 12th. As Jeff had mentioned, we've kind of uncovered quite a few different unforeseen conditions. which then kind of set those delays back. And Mark Builders has been really trying to get ahead of those and mitigate those quickly. And then as we go into the next slide, I'll kind of explain how the unforeseen conditions and how things work with DSA. So the current milestone right now is August 26th. Now, so the way things work with DSA is there's something called the CCD process. And so you have your original plans that you go into the DSA with. And any changes that require additional review needs to go in as like a permit submittal, if you will. And those are called CCDs. So we have five CCDs, and we're going to go into six CCDs now. So that really kind of frames work how much changes we've had in such a small project. For example, we just finished a brand new kindergarten building, $13 million, and we had two CCDs. So it can really show you how much of a difference between um planning and then as well as unforeseen conditions can really throw in a curveball um so uh the the the biggest question is hey what do we have left what's work what work we have left so um this week we're focusing on paint tile um in the actual restroom as well as in the uh staff area staff lounge and the hallway to complete the hallway and all the activities are being completed before school starts tomorrow. So we met a few of those items in relation to turning the project over before staff is there. There is some flooring that needs to get done, but we put down a temporary measure in the time being and we'll be installing that VCT in the hallway. The night tomorrow night or Thursday night Electrical mechanical plumbing we're finishing inside the bathroom itself final cleaning cleaning will then complete after those items Now the punch walk and punch list we will do that before Final sign off to get ahead of it that way we're not interrupting any services to try to get that bathroom live and working as quickly as possible. And then we have to demobilize the site so MARC builders will have to remove all their items and everything off the site, the barricade, the safety fence and the safety walls and so forth. So that'll take some time and those will all be done after hours or on the weekends so we do not disrupt the student staff and staff folks on site. As I believe Jeff was saying as I walked in, campus safety and security is big for us as well as big for you all. We know how important it is and we take it very seriously and it's paramount to us. In the next slide I'll show you that we have a logistics plan. We have a perimeter fence that is right outside the restroom area that includes mark builders, a staging area, and material lay down. We've managed to provide a safety plan with mark builders to make sure that there's no material up against the fence so that nothing kind of slides in. We also provided a delineator and additional kind of barrier for the students can't just walk up to the fence. It's some caution tape and some delineators. So additional site security is taking place, some locks as well as the There's going to be an inspection the morning of and then the afternoon before the project closes. Deliveries, we are managing deliveries to only get, are only timed for before or after school. So no deliveries during the school and just in case something happens, We have a plan in place that they need to contact us. We definitely don't do any movements or deliveries when children are present. Life safety and access is a huge point as well. So we maintain emergency egress at all times. And we are planning any type of shutdowns or any other items that will need district or, excuse me, campus-wide notifications. We'll plan that internally and make sure that doesn't disrupt any of the children or the staff. Work control, so we have daily pre-tasks, JHA reviews and so forth just to maintain that safety. PPE, personal protective equipment, so you know who's on site, who's a contractor, who's walking around. You're able to identify who that is. Just to note, all the contractors are DOJ certified. But typically what we try to do is we make sure that we always have a foreman or a level of site supervision with that specific tradesman. And then coordinated response, so we do have Jeff on site and then Ashley will be on site as well daily just to make sure that operations are moving safely through the campus. Hey, this is, and I'll go through this very quickly, and it's kind of hard to see, but this is the basic site logistics of what I just had reviewed, which is the secured construction fence, which is kind of the green dotted area. It says temporary fence and temporary work access. Thank you, Jeff. There's an additional barrier on the outside of that as well. So the main access for deliveries will be on this side where the staff parking lot is at. Again, it'll only be done before or after hours. NO CONSTRUCTION OR ANY TYPE OF CONTRACTOR ACCESS WILL BE IN THE MAIN HALLWAY SO THAT WILL BE CLEAR AND FREE OF ANY CONTRACTOR ACCESS AND THAT WILL BE OPEN TO AS AN EMERGENCY EGRESS FOR STUDENTS AND STAFF. AND THEN THE, I BELIEVE THAT, WE DO HAVE SOME PORT-A-POTTIES STILL IN THE TWO PARKING SPOTS OR THE ONE PARKING SPOT AND THEN A STAGING AREA DOWN AT THE PARKING LOTS. And I think a lot of this is, you know, hey, you know, how do we prevent kids from still trying to get in there? And I think it's important that we all work together and we try our best to, we can control the site, we can control the workers, we can control as much as we can within the site. And we look to you all and the students, or excuse me, the staff members and the principal for help on Just communicating with everyone, hey, do not go in this area. It's unsafe and so forth. But safety is paramount. We make sure that everyone's on board with it. And then there's consistent monitoring. So like I mentioned, there will be morning inspections as well as afternoon inspections. Oh, yes, there is a barrier in the hallway where Jeff is pointing at. So there's no access at all. It's a complete wall. The kids can't come and peek or anything like that. It's a complete wall. So there's no access in the interior side of the school as well as access for the contractors in that main ingress in the school campus as well. Thank you for that, Jeff. All right, so our original contract price was for $340,000. We did have a hazmat and allowance that carried over. Net PCO exposure, this is a very large dollar value, but it does really reflect all the unforeseen conditions that we've had experience. And all of them is a very legitimate contract. COSTS AND WHAT'S INCLUDED IN THESE PCOS. THIS IS ABOVE BUDGET AND WE REALLY TRY TO MAKE SURE THAT CPM IS REVIEWING ALL THESE PROPOSED CHANGE ORDERS BEFORE THEY GET APPROVED. and make sure that we are not only requesting any type of backup, how did you get to this number, how much time and materials included, and so forth. So we're scrutinizing every little thing to make sure that it is a legitimate cost. All right. So here's just a quick item of the proposed change order summary. I won't go through this just in detail, but just to show you exactly what we were up against and what we're looking for in each of these items and how much the cost was associated to it. Okay, current issues and mitigation. So schedule is always a concern. We do still have a tight schedule and we're gonna do our darndest to maintain it and look ahead. We've already talked with, we have huddle ups, not only at our OAC meetings, but we had huddle ups with the GC weekly, sometimes every other day or whatever it may be just to talk about schedule constraints and trying to look ahead of it. The hydraulic line, early on, we had an issue with the hydraulic line being buried in the concrete, which is unheard of. You don't really see that because of maintenance and so forth. So the elevator hydraulic line was hit early on, which also caused a delay. So we are actively coordinating with other elevator companies. Otis Elevator, who has our current service agreement, has a five to seven week lead time and had a really outrageous cost to relocate this line. So we're looking at alternative now vendors and trying to get somebody in there as soon as possible so we can get this elevator up and running. plumbing scope and clean out, that was a design resolved and we talked about kind of the, Jeff talked about the kind of the challenges and the variances there and what that all came about. And partitions and hardware. Partitions was a huge thing. In the beginning we talked this and discussed this amongst the GC even in during bidding process that THIS NEEDED TO BE PROCURED OR AT LEAST TRY TO PROCURE IT AHEAD OF TIME, DO WHATEVER WE CAN TO MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE MEETING THIS TIGHT DEADLINE. USUALLY PARTITIONS ARE ABOUT FIVE TO EIGHT WEEKS, SOMETIMES 12 WEEKS OUT. SO THAT KIND OF GIVES YOU AN IDEA OF SOME OF THESE LONG LEAD ITEMS THAT MANUFACTURERS PUT ON US. Okay, so key design and final decisions. Again, I'll let you go ahead and read this. I'm not gonna spend too much time, but we discussed the main idea or the main pinpoints here, the toilet partition, sanitary clean out, the piping slope, the mechanical conflict as well. So go ahead and move down here. Here's another change management detail with regards to the PCOs. All right, elevator hydraulic line, we did talk about that. So we are diligently working with the elevator supplier or mechanics to try to get this up and running as soon as possible. There was a lot of things and steps that we needed to take from the date that they hit, mitigating and doing the environmental response and clean out, making sure that clean out was done properly, and then out to trying to get this hydraulic line repaired and, excuse me, relocated. All right, so Cornell closeout, so we are quickly approaching closeout. There's a lot of items that need to be done on the administrative side, making sure that any items that were outside of the CCDs that are captured in the as-built, as-builts are huge and important to you all here, so we gotta make sure that those are accurate so we have it filed back into the database. Quality verification, we do all that, making sure IOR, Documentation is all, and all the compiled reports are all put together. Physical completion, obviously we talked about walking the project, making sure everything is cleaned up, and the demobilization from the contractor. Project records, again, as-built, approved submittals, RFIs, making sure that you all have record documents of this specific project. renovation and then turnover. Again, any type of review on plumbing fixtures and we'll review with O&M and make sure that there are warranties put in place and so forth. Okay, additional maintenance projects that CPM is supporting, we have the Marin Art Room Sync Upgrade, Albany High School Barrier, Marin HVAC and CO2 levels, and Albany Scoreboard and Gym Divider. So these are all active projects that we're currently running through, whether they're in planning stage or actively looking at schedule and trying to get this installed, for instance, at Albany Scoreboard and Gym Divider. All these projects were supporting with the district as well as with maintenance and staffing. All right, the next project that we'll be working on is the security camera project. Just to kind of give everybody some quick detail that the district worked really, really hard originally on providing a thorough design scope with another vendor that we went out to RFP, RFQ upon the information and the costs or the estimates and proposals that were gathered WE REALLY DID KIND OF SEE SOME GAPS IN THE PLANNING AND SO FORTH. AGAIN, THIS IS BEFORE CPM WAS ON BOARD. AND SO WE HAVE DISCUSSED IT WITHIN AND THE DISTRICT DECIDED THAT THEY WOULD LIKE TO MOVE FORWARD WITH ANOTHER RFP WITH A FULL CONCLUSIVE SCOPE THAT MEETS ALL THE RECOMMENDATIONS, REQUIREMENTS, WISHES AND NEEDS AND NEEDS AND WISHES, I GUESS YOU COULD SAY, RIGHT? SO WE ARE OUT RIGHT NOW CURRENTLY DRAFTING THE RFQ FOR COUNCIL REVIEW, AND THEN SO WE ARE TRYING TO GET THIS UNDERWAY PRETTY QUICKLY SO WE CAN START THE DESIGN PROCESS AND THE SCHEDULE. OKAY. All right, facilities master plan. So we had a meeting with HCIT. I know you all had been working very hard with them as well. So we are in coordination with HCIT now and I know they're working through those, refining the final plan and then we'll present a plan over to you all and then a implementation plan will follow in partnership with them. to really translate the master plan into kind of a roadmap and projects, budgets, and any funding strategies, therefore. All right, what does the next 30 to 60 days look like? So we are completing the Cornell project. The security procurement will then start its schedule, and then the program implementation as to the master planning and so forth, and kind of what we can see from a district, holistically from the district, what's next on the books. Any questions? I know I ran that through pretty fast, and I just want to be respectful of everybody's time.

I apologize for getting ahead of myself. Are there other questions from the board? I have a question. Go ahead, Trustee Boyd.

This is just one and it's more for district leadership who I know have walked the Cornell site repeatedly, just want to understand or just kind of hear in the space your feelings on our student safety, the, you know, impossibility that they could possibly be adventurous and kind of, you know, dive into an area that would not be a good idea, you know, if teachers are sort of kind of making sure the students understand and sort of preemptively like this is what you may see, this is what we, you know, people sort of watching these areas, like if you could just speak a bit about how we feel comfortable with that.

Thank you for that question. As Jeff can attest, I've been very focused on that. As you all know, safety is my number one. As Vanessa mentioned, some of the things we were concerned about, they put some extra effort and energy into. I'm not sure if there's now a double barrier by the fence. Yeah. So this morning we did a walkthrough and appreciated there was signage and there was a barrier and now there is a double barrier. I used my fifth grade teacher hat, also my mom hat to see all of the places where kids would be like, that looks like fun, let me go explore. I think we've mitigated most of those spots. Nothing is ever perfect, but I also know that Principal Korn has had conversations with her staff and they're going to be doing through their PBIS routines, they're getting ready for school routines that they do at the beginning of the year, explaining to kids, this is not where we're playing, this is where we're playing, this is not playing, this is playing. So they'll do that. And then the hallway, I feel pretty good about now. And I know this morning I also was pretty fussy about a part of the hallway, and I think that that got mitigated today as well. Yes, ma'am. So I think we're in decent shape. And I have to say, working with CPM has just been really, really, truly wonderful. They are super, super responsive. So I'm just going to take this moment to appreciate them publicly. Thank you. Thank you.

I would just add one thing to that. I know that kids are much better at mischief than we are at predicting their mischief. So we do see this as an ongoing. If there's something the district recognizes, we can step in and mitigate that. And the second thing is CPM has increased their personnel on site. I am on site now three days a week and we have another APM that's going to be on site the rest of the two days. So we want to have a presence on site anytime there's kids in construction.

Other questions from the board?

Can I ask if there's been noise abatement done?

noise abatement in relation to like loud noise for construction services or construction activities. So we've done all that work during the summer and the project was done specifically in the summer to try to mitigate any of that. So we don't foresee any other loud noises or any disruption to the classroom or the environment. It's all finishes and putting in toilets and partitions. So to answer your question, yes, we've looked at any areas of loud noise and any areas that can be disruptive for the remaining of the scope.

Vice President Inglis?

So maybe I misunderstood, but it sounds like you don't have a vendor right now for the hydraulic line? Yes, ma'am. How does that relate to making the August 26 date work? I don't know if it's related to the bathrooms being done or what's going to happen, and is it an additional cost to what you showed us up there?

Thank you for that, and I apologize for not making it clear. So the substantial completion date for August 26th is just the bathroom. The elevator, just to kind of give you everyone kind of the way of the land, when this all happened, we have a service contract with Otis. And we had been constantly communicating with them and literally was pushed all over the place until finally they would show up on site and not let us know. And then they would be gone. And then it was just like tracking them down. So they had told us that it would be a five to seven week lead time to get this line relocated. And it would be a $65,000 change. And we were like, absolutely not. So it's, I mean, we all know that's just an absurd amount. And there was really no breakdown either of how they came up with that price, even though we've asked and so forth. So that was really the decision. We had to make sure that it was okay for us to kind of go outside that because we do have an existing service contract. And so it was cleared, and so we were able to go. So now we're looking for other vendors to be able to provide us with that. We don't see it being close to that amount, and it's not included in that overall price. This is separate to the bathroom itself. Yes, ma'am.

And do we have any needs for that elevator in the meantime, and how are we mitigating it?

So currently none have been identified but we are closely watching that and monitoring that and of course we do need to be ADA accessible. And so we have also spoken with CPM about what we could do if for some reason we need to be able to put some kind of a TEMPORARY SUPPORT IN PLACE. THINK OF THOSE MOVIES WITH THE LITTLE SEAT THAT GOES UP THE STAIRS, WHICH I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO GO ON. SO WE'LL SEE. MAYBE WE'LL GET THAT OPTION. BUT HOPEFULLY WE'LL BE OKAY. AND DEPENDING ON WHERE WE ARE WITH THIS ELEVATOR SITUATION, HOPEFULLY IT WON'T BE TOO MUCH LONGER. THANK YOU.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS FROM THE BOARD?

Not a question, but a technical for, what is it, transcript purposes, just making sure we get this correction on the slide deck. Slide 17 says Albany Middle School art room sync upgrade. I just want to make sure that, for the record, we have that corrected to Marin. I know your slide deck was perfect, but this one, just making sure. Oh, okay. Sorry about that. That's okay.

Any other comments from the board? Any comments from the audience? Go ahead.

Hello. Thank you for all your hard work putting a bathroom in our school. I'm curious, because I believe this is happening because we're required by law now to have An all-gender restroom unlocked, accessible until August 26th or whenever this is done. Is there such a bathroom available? And then broader, are any other bathrooms being access restricted or other parts of the school restricted because of this construction?

Superintendent Stone, can you answer that?

So thank you for that question. We have had a gender neutral bathroom that has been accessible to students prior to this. And my understanding is it is unlocked. If it is not, I would like to be made aware of that. And this is not going to, the only access areas where students The only issues where students will not be able to access is the hallway where this bathroom is being created and then the staging area right outside. But no other bathrooms are being impacted. Thank you.

Can I ask a question for the speaker and for the purposes of the minutes? Can I have your name?

David McKinney.

Thank you.

Any other comments? Seeing none in the room or on Zoom, do we have a motion to approve this?

I move to approve the updated change of orders for Cornell Elementary All-Gender Restroom Project.

I second.

ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. OPPOSED? MOTION PASSES.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

APPRECIATE IT. APPRECIATE YOU GUYS COMING TONIGHT. MOVE ON TO THE REVIEW AND DISCUSSION PORTION OF THE AGENDA. TO OUR TECHNOLOGY UPDATE, I BELIEVE SUPERINTENDENT STONE, YOU'RE LEADING THAT CONVERSATION.

YES, I AM. YOU'RE GOING TO DRIVE. All right, thank you, trustees and community. I am going to do a very brief technology update. Part of the reason why we wanted to do this tonight is we were hoping to bring to the board an actual contract with one of the vendors as a result of this, and unfortunately, we had a little bit of back and forth communication with that vendor, and the contract won't be available, well, it is available now, but I'll be bringing it to port in September. But I still want to give an update on technology. Next slide, please. So we heard from our community, as we know, at our last board meeting and actually several board meetings, how important it is that we, now that we have a technology master plan, that we're actually really thinking more thoughtfully about our usage of educational technology. And so we are working currently to form a committee, an ed tech committee, which will have representatives from our staff, from our families, and I think potentially students and definitely administrators. We're working on gathering more feedback around educational technology. And as I mentioned yesterday and today, teachers were able to take a survey about their use of ed tech, their ideas about what is needed, what is not needed. And through that survey, we found out some really important information. We are going to be giving out a survey to families and to students in the next few weeks. And, as you know, we've adopted a technology master plan. I want to be clear. I think you can move on to the next slide. So the technology master plan is really more around the infrastructure of technology, making sure that we have a plan, kind of like with the facilities master plan, that we know what we're trying to do over time with technology in terms of switches and buttons and Wi-Fi and technology refreshes. But a big part of that is how are we then using that technology? And a technology master plan alone isn't going to really help us with that. So we have to do a much deeper dive. We know that the world is changing around us rapidly. Technology is changing rapidly and the needs of our students and what we're preparing them for is changing rapidly. And so we want to make sure that we're making well-informed decisions about what we're doing around things like AI or educational technology. How much screen is OK? What are our teachers say about that? Making assumptions for them is not the right thing to do. Some of our teachers use certain pieces of technology very strategically and thoughtfully throughout the day, and we can't just say, okay, we're gonna just take it away from them, because it's really a big part of what they do every day. That said, we also wanna pay attention to what our families are saying to us about what they want for their students, and then we really have to hear from students. I was talking to student trustee Bolin-Small earlier about we really need to understand what it is that our students are thinking about and what they need as they're thinking about their future. So we're gonna continue to focus on better understanding what we're gonna do so that we can have a clear idea of not just what we're implementing with the technology master plan, but also why we're doing it. Next slide, please. And part of this will be an annual board review. So we'll be bringing this regularly to the board. So we did hear from families that there was some concerns about AI platforms for TK-5, or excuse me, TK-8 students, things like autocorrect, autocomplete, YouTube. And so over the summer, we made some very quick decisions, knowing that our teachers weren't back yet to help us make those decisions, but also wanting to make sure that we gave time when the teachers came back to give their feedback on some of these changes. So we did take away the ability for any TK-8 students to use the AI platforms. We did do a survey. Most of our teachers, from what I could see, are completely okay with that. That said, we do have to be very, very thoughtful about students for whom these are the platforms that support them with their individualized education plans. And so we have to go a little bit deeper into that and make sure. The good news is, with... The thing that we're gonna do, hopefully, if I can get the contract to you and you approve it, with GoGuardian, it will enable us to make those decisions student by student and we don't have to do blanket shutdowns of things. We did disable YouTube over the summer for TK through eight. After reviewing the survey today, it became very clear that six through eight teachers actually need to use YouTube for planned lessons and things in their classroom. And they also didn't feel like necessarily across the board that YouTube was getting in the way of their instruction, but was actually supporting with the work. In fact, we have teachers who have created YouTube videos to help teacher students. We have re-enabled YouTube for 6 through 8, but is still not available for students in TK5. Teachers still have full access. 9 through 12, we actually didn't do anything this summer. 9 through 12 is very complicated because part of what, and again, what I was talking about with Charlie is... We have to teach kids how to use the technology and how to do it healthfully and really think about it from a literacy perspective. What's their technology literacy? and use it for critical thinking. And so we do need to go deeper into our nine through 12 needs and really make sure our teachers have a lot of voice in that and just taking certain AI tools away may not be helpful. And then what we've spent our summer doing is working with GoGuardian to start to put together a contract for our district so that every single teacher would have the ability to see what's happening on our district-issued technology. Unfortunately, we do have students who bring their own technology to school. There is absolutely no way for us to manage or monitor that, but if we're using district technology, GoGuardian will work on that. And I will be bringing that for review to our next board meeting. And we're in the process of creating an EdTech committee. We have quite a bit of people who are interested. We are going to try and cap the number of people on the committee to about 20, because anything larger than that is really hard to work with. 20 is kind of a lot too, I would agree. But we really do want to make sure we have a representative body of different teachers and different, even just different thinking on the subject. And we really want to use research and best practice to make some decisions. Next slide. I'm not going to go deep into student engagement, but what we really want to make sure of is that we're not cutting off our nose to spite our face. Some technology is actually supportive in helping students be engaged, and some just completely negates engagement. We really, and again, just thinking about literacy around technology and helping kids understand why you use it, when you use it, how you use it, and how do you use it in a responsible way is something we need to do. And so we are really gonna have to think about how and when do we have those lessons for kids, starting with the littles and going all the way up through students who are about ready to go to college and career. Next slide. So GoGuardian, I'm excited about. It is basically a way to filter what's happening. You can see what's happening on student screens, and you also can filter. So a teacher can say, today, I do want my kids to have access to YouTube. They turn it on. And the next day, they say, I don't want my kids to have access to YouTube. They turn it off. So basically, it allows every teacher to do what gives them more autonomy over the ed tech tools and enables them to have access to that. There is a feature where actually if students are taking home district-issued technology, that parents can also say, oh, I see your homework assignment is this. Well, I'm going to turn off all these other parts. So you can't get to that. You can just do your homework assignment. It also will allow us to monitor screen time across our system, which is something that parents have asked for and we just don't have an answer. So this will help us with that. Again, only on our district issued hardware. The other thing about GoGuardian, and we already do have a system that does this securely, but GoGuardian also will flag if there's something happening that we should feel worried about in terms of mental health needs of students. So it does allow us to see if there are certain words that are used or certain images that kids are downloading, we can take a look at that and then we know that we need to support them. And that's what this is saying. All right, next slide, please. So again, we want feedback to set the course. As I think that hopefully teachers saw today, we're not just making blanket decisions and not going back on them. We wanted to make some thoughtful decisions that were low-hanging fruit, but we also wanted to make sure that we are working in concert with what teachers who are actually at the core of using this ed technology with their students that they have a say. We also are going to be reaching out and again, just making sure that there's a lot of family voice in this conversation as well as student voice. And we're gonna continue to have some feedback loops and continue to refine based on what we're learning from implementation and shifts that we're making. And I think that might be it. Thank you.

Questions? All right, Trustee Boyd.

One comment and one question. The comment is just want to note and appreciate the solicitation of teacher feedback at AMS on the YouTube question and the quick change to that policy. I'm sure they appreciate it and it's great to see. And then just wanted to ask, and it's something that I'm sure will become a part of the discussion like in this committee or perhaps a question that has been thought about a little bit already, but when you talk about GoGuardian and the fact that it doesn't work with the I brought my device from home, it's not a school-issued device, has there been discussion around potentially the reasons why it can't be school-issued devices, like weighing, you know, kind of what's at stake there to maybe changing a policy, perhaps, or just thinking around it? I know it's a big question, so...

I would say that would really have to be a conversation we have as a committee. There's a lot of reasons, I think, why, at least at the high school level, students are using their own devices versus district devices. But if this becomes something that's important and that we are seeing as valued, then that would actually impact the infrastructure and what we're doing. So I don't have an answer for that, but I hope that we will figure that out.

I was not expecting you to have an answer on that.

Other questions or comments from the board? Okay. Any comments or questions from the room? I JUST WANT TO ECHO WHAT TRUSTEE BOYD SAID. I MEAN, I REALIZE YOU HAD TO MOVE QUICKLY OVER THE SUMMER. I REALIZE YOU HAD LITTLE ACCESS TO TEACHERS TO GET THAT INPUT. I'M SO GLAD YOU WERE ABLE TO GET SOME SURVEY. I'M ALSO REALLY IMPRESSED THAT IN THE TWO DAYS OR DAY AND A HALF YOU'VE GOTTEN SOME FEEDBACK FROM TEACHERS, YOU'VE BEEN ABLE TO QUICKLY SUMMARIZE IT AND ACT. SO THANK YOU FOR THE QUICK RESPONSE AND THANK YOU FOR THE PARTNERSHIP AND THEN ALSO LIKE I just want to reiterate, the teachers are in the classroom, so they're going to have a lot of sense, not only of what's going to work for their kids. And so getting that voice now that they're back and welcome back for first day of school. Now that we have that voice, that's going to be super important to making progress here. So thank you. If there's nothing else, this is move on to the next item.

Great.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Moving on to the consent calendar. Do we have any, I have one item, do we have any? It may have gotten updated, so apologies, I haven't checked in the last 24 hours. But the consolidated application for funding categorical aid, the protected prayer notification had, I believe, the wrong date in it. Did that get updated? We're aware of it. Okay. It says, for the record, it says 6-19-27. I believe it's supposed to be 6-19-26. I don't even know why I picked it up on it, but I had to figure out what the predictive prayer notification was. So maybe that's why I did. So thank you. Okay. Anything else on the consent calendar? And I have a motion to approve the consent calendar with that one correction.

I move to approve the consent calendar with the amendment to correct the date on item C1. That's what I thought, but I didn't, sorry. Yeah, that's the motion.

Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Great, the consent calendar passes. Topics for future board meetings. Okay. All right, great. We're now gonna move. No. We're now gonna move to closed session. In closed session, we will talk about public employee discipline, dismissal release, conference with legal counsel about anticipated litigation, public employee performance evaluation, conference with labor negotiator, and conference with labor negotiator. Before we go into closed session, do we have any public comment on the items in closed session? Seeing none, we will go convenient to close session. Thank you very much. The board has reconvened from closed session. During closed session, we took no action. So do we have a motion to adjourn the meeting?

I move to adjourn the meeting. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Meeting adjourned. Thank you all much.