West Contra Costa Unified School District Board of Education - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon and welcome to the June 24, 2026 regularly scheduled board meeting of the West Contra Costa Unified School District. The meeting is called to order at 5.04 p.m. La Junta Directiva está a punto de entrar a la sesión privada, pero antes de hacerlo, estamos aquí para escuchar cualquier comentario del público sobre los temas de la sesión privada. Las personas que deseen hablar sobre los temas de la sesión privada deben tener en cuenta lo siguiente. Si se encuentran en el auditorio y aún no han hecho, por favor entreguen una tarjeta de comentario público de Wisconsin-Costa. The board is about to go into closed session but before we do we are here to listen to any public comment on closed session items. Individuals wishing to speak on closed session items listed. If you are here in the auditorium and haven't done so already, please submit a WCCUSD public comment card, which you can find at the entryway table. Or if you are participating via Zoom, individuals will need to raise their hand in the Zoom app. If you are accessing the meeting by phone, press star nine. The time allotted to each speaker is two minutes. The total time allotted is one hour. Speaking time should not be transferred from one person to another. There is also no substitution of speakers. We alternate between a Zoom comment and an in-person comment. The public comment period is a safe space where diverse viewpoints may be expressed civilly without interruption of intimidation. Please listen attentively to each speaker's comment and respect their time as if it were your own. Be open to another point of view if one is offered. Due to the brown neck, board members cannot discuss items that are not on the agenda and do not usually respond to items Presented in public comment, the item listed for closed session agenda tonight are 1, public employee appointment. To conference for labor negotiators, is there any public comment? There is no public comment, public comment. We are now journey to close session at 506 PM. we will return to open session at 630. thank you. Good evening and welcome to the open session of the June 24th Regular board meeting, I am calling open session to order at 6.58 PM. Now to access translation, please click the globe icon at the bottom of the screen. If you are here to join and need a headset for translation, you may pick one up at the back corner of the auditorium. In a few minutes, we will begin the public comment agenda item. Members of the public are invited to speak to the board on any matter that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the West Contra Costa Unified School District, but it's not on the agenda. Please prepare now for public comment. If you are here in this auditorium and you'd like to make public comment, please fill out and submit a WCCUSD public comment card. You can find them at the table at the entry hallway. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand in the Zoom app prior to beginning of the item on the agenda. If participating by phone, press star nine. After your comment card has been turned in, the cards are placed in the order received, and we will call speakers one at a time, alternating between public comment here in Dijon and on Zoom. Public comment generally lasts one hour. The time allowed to each speaker is two minutes. In the meantime, we are moving to the rest of our opening procedures. And that is item B2, Pledge of Allegiance.

Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. We just moved. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Land, labor, and body acknowledgement.

We recognize that we are presently on the lands of the Chicheno, Muwekma, Karkin, Ohlone peoples and acknowledge them as the first inhabitants of the land we currently occupy. I acknowledge that the burden of environmental exploitation and systemic injustice falls upon the labor of black and brown bodies in the buildings of this country and its institutions. I remember that black and brown bodies were born and died working this land against their will for generations. I also acknowledge the continued contribution of the labor of survivors over the centuries to today of our immigrant labor, including voluntary, involuntary force and undocumented peoples in the building of what we refer to as the United States.

We will now move on to our West Contra Costa Unified School District Board of Education anti-racism statement.

The governing board is committed to the work of anti-racism, the conscious and active effort to identify, challenge, and correct racial inequities in the systems and institutions within our schools and community. Racism, explicit or implicit, stands in direct conflict to the fundamental principles of district education. To carry district education into the future, we recognize that we must continually renew and reflect on the roots of racism and develop new ideas to meet the times. unjust ideas and policies and the racial inequities they produce have shaped us our schools and society the board strives to uncover unconscious biases and practice anti-racism as individuals and as board members we challenge ourselves to persist through the discomfort necessary for growth and learning to deepen our understanding and our examination of racism and oppression and to develop a strong understanding of how our personal experiences and feelings shape fit into a larger picture of continual oppression Each member of the governing board, individually and collectively, is responsible for creating and nurturing an anti-racist learning environment where each student, staff member, and community partner is a respected and valued member of the district community. The governing board is uniquely positioned and it is our responsibility to identify and dismantle racist ideas and inequitable policies in ourselves and across the district. Therefore, we commit to supporting anti-racist policies, programs, and practices for our children's education and wellbeing while building strong and inclusive school communities. The board commits to holding each board member accountable towards these goals and moving the work of anti-racism forward. We also commit to holding West Contra Costa Unified School District staff, students, and community to living these standards of anti-racism in our schools.

We'll now move on to roll call. Superintendent Potter, will you please take roll?

Student Trustee Calvin Hung is absent. Student Trustee Devin Whitten?

Here.

Trustee Reckler?

Good evening, present.

Trustee Smith-Folds? Good evening, everyone, present. Trustee Hernandez? Buenas noches, presente. Clerk Gonzalez-Hoy?

Good evening, present.

Board President Inanna?

Buenas tardes a todos. Good evening, everyone, present. We'll now move on to reports, ratification of closed session. Is there anything that needs to be reported out?

Yes, regarding agenda item 821, the board voted to approve the appointment of Mary kitchen as director of business services. The vote was a unanimous. The board voted to approve the appointment of Guthrie Fleishman as Sylvester Greenwood Academy principal. The vote was unanimous. The board voted to approve the appointment of Indira Bell as Montalvan Elementary School principal. The vote was unanimous. That concludes the report.

We'll now move on to agenda review and adoption. Does the board have anything that they would like to adjust on the agenda? The agenda we will be pulling item C21 to a further, to a future meeting. Anything else that would, that we would like to change on the agenda? Okay, seeing none, we will proceed with the agenda as published with the change of eliminating item C21. We will now move on to public comment. Members of the public are invited to speak to the board on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the West Contra Costa Unified School District, but not on tonight's agenda. Public comment will last approximately one hour. The time allowed to each speaker is two minutes. Should additional speakers remain at the conclusion of one hour, public comment may be extended. The time allowed per speaker after the first hour is generally one minute. Individuals wishing to speak Please submit a WCCUSD comment card or participate via Zoom. Individuals will need to raise their hand now and prior to the beginning of the item on the agenda. If you are calling in by phone, press star 9. Speaking time should not be transferred from one person to another and there is no substitution of speakers. Speakers can also make public comment again for each discussion item and action item on the agenda. After staff presentation, the public will have 10 minutes per item and one minute per speaker. The same protocols recited above apply. The public comment period is a safe space where diverse viewpoints may be expressed in a civil manner without interruption of intimidation. Please listen attentively to each speaker's comment and respect the time at the podium as if they were your own. Be open to a different point of view if one is offered. Due to the Brown Act, board members cannot discuss items that are not on the agenda and usually do not respond to items presented in public comment. Is there any public comment? Yes. How many online comments do we have?

We have three people on Zoom. Okay, so we have three people on Zoom. Yes, our last person on Zoom is Crystal Vanagon.

Okay, thank you.

First public comment is Don Gosney.

Thank you. I had a good fortune yesterday to meet with our superintendent and one of the bigger items we talked about was our mutual thoughts about the length of the board meetings and ways that the board might be able to make the meetings more compact. Here are a few of my own thoughts. The sooner you start, the sooner you're finished, like tonight. To that end, when you're in executive session and the clock says that you're supposed to be out here with the senior staffers and many dozens of your fans both in the room and waiting for you on Zoom, that's when you need to grab your stuff and halt your secret meetings. Show the public the respect they deserve by being in your seats at 6.30, ready to get to work. If you have so much on your plate in these secret meetings, then come back after the regular board meeting to conclude that business. And if you're like the rest of us and want to go get home, then either be more efficient in the earlier meeting or schedule a special called meeting for the sole purpose of taking care of your secret business. But once again, show us the respect that we're owed. Second, with public comment, when UTR wants to protest some action you're proposing or when you cut programs or terminate grade instructors, the room is filled with people wanting to vent their frustrations. One of the reasons why they show up in force is because it's almost impossible to reach you. You don't respond to emails, texts, letters, smoke signals. We're not just talking about the board members. It's everyone from the superintendent on down. absent any other way to let you know their thoughts, they flood the chambers. If you have a policy, the public comment is not to last more than one hour, one quarter of the projected meeting time, which is one hour. To go past this, the public or the board is supposed to vote to extend that time. If you want to shorten the meeting time, stick to this policy. Whatever you do, though, do not try to silence the public. It only ticks us off. Some of us vote. The presentations are lovely and important, but they can take a lot of time, especially when the board stops the meeting to come down for the group photo. Is there some way to streamline these to be more efficient? When you have staff or consultant presentations, be more efficient. Streamline things and minimize the Q&A. I have more, but your clock is telling me to sit down and shut up.

Next public comment is Jean Kintzner.

Good evening, Vardy. As you know, Vardy is one of the lowland schools, and we lost our seventh and eighth grades. As we adjust, we're trying to keep things as stable as possible. When seventh and eighth grade were added, our janitorial team requested a half a janitor position for our campus. Request denied. We kept our two janitors. Why am I talking about this? Our night janitor was called this week and told she had to go to another location, which happens to be Shannon, because we no longer have seventh and eighth grade. Doing this will create many issues and cause problems on campus. When I was hired here, we went two years without a night janitor due to ongoing lawsuit. The scrubs crew and substitute janitors did the job. Once it was settled, we were able to find a night janitor. Our campuses were not properly cleaned during these two years. Many nights, no one was available to come clean our school. The scrubs could only empty trash and clean the two group bathrooms. They refused to clean the kindergarten bathrooms, telling me that they don't have to because they're not part of the specific group bathrooms. No substitute really cares because it's not their school. They have no investment in our school, our students, or even our community. We fought hard to find a stable janitor. Now you're taking that away from us under the guise of we don't have seventh and eighth grade? Is it okay to take a janitor and place her at Shannon as their night person instead? Why?" do not take our staff to another school let them get their own staff the substitute can go to shannon this is not equitable and not fair we need our janitor these actions make our community feel that we do not matter as much as other school communities our janitor leaves at 2 30 before all the kids are dismissed then said kids throws up and or there's blood all over the classroom or playground who cleans it the sub didn't show today the scrubs crew only comes later in the night Yes, situations like this really happened during those two years. Why are you trying to destabilize Virgie? Is this the first step to create an argument that closes us down? Let Carrie stay with us like she wants to, the school wants to, and the community wants. We just completed a strike to stabilize our schools. We deserve better. Do better and please figure it out.

Next public comment, it's Sandy Davis.

Hi, my name is Sandy Davis, and I'm one of the Fairmont parents who have been asking you not to cut our yard supervisor funding. With our school's large population and a layout with multiple portables and blind spots, cutting this funding is a safety issue. I'm grateful to the district staff, including Superintendent Cotton, who have come to our school and hope that seeing our situation firsthand will help you make a decision that supports the safety of our students. And also, to speak at a more personal level, I was telling a friend recently how draining it can be to come to these meetings, partly because it's stressful to talk to everybody, but mostly because there are usually a lot of people from other schools fighting for programs throughout the district, and it's depressing to hear all the other things that are on the chopping block. I know that other districts around the Bay Area and across the state are having similar issues, which makes me think that things can't keep hobbling on like this forever. So I think it's more important than ever to invest the money the district has today in the students we have today, not just at Fairmont, but across the district. Thank you for your time.

The next fellow comment is Salon Harrison. Please unmute yourself. Salon Harrison, please unmute yourself.

Can you guys hear me? I'm sorry.

Yes.

Okay, cool.

Good evening, board. I just want to say happy summer. I hope you guys are enjoying your break. If you got one, we've been working hard dealing with the issues of our children feeling safe and being protected on these district campuses. I hope over the summer you guys are planning to meet with parents and welcome our children back into the district with a safety plan, a policy that will address our children being harmed. This has been going on for long enough. We do not need to research anything. We do not need to go around the mulberry bush and see how many kids are saying this is happening. I will show you board meetings where I brought children three years ago behind the same harm of the use of the N-word, and now we're getting more reports of physical things. This is constantly happening, so I'm hoping that you all are really taking this summer to be considerate of the students that will be returning and what they will need from you and what they need you all to do. I'm hoping that we have some time to meet where our liaison trustee Demetrio I'm hoping that we can, you know, get some things together for our children so they can feel safe and we can have a great next school year, knowing that our children are in places where all children are felt welcome and not dealing with anti-Black racism. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Cristina Huerta.

Hi, good evening. My name is Cristina Huerta, teacher at Kennedy High School. It just felt wrong not to come to the last school board meeting. So hello everybody. But first off, there's something that I've been meaning to bring up every time I've been coming to these school board meetings and I always ran out of time. So I'm going to say it first this time. Can we please ensure that the parking lot is open for community members? So many times during the second semester when I was here, the parking lot would be closed. People were looking for parking on the other side of Dijon, people who are not familiar with the campus. And it just is a disservice to our community to not have the parking lot open always. I can't say if it was open tonight or not because I found parking right out front, but it's just important for our community to feel welcome at these meetings. Moving on to Kennedy. Thank you, Dr. Fleischman. Thank you, Dr. Shin. Thank you, Mr. Luongo, for helping us create a master schedule that's going to fit Kennedy's needs for next year. We are so very excited that we were able to retain a lot of our programs and a lot of the teachers that make Kennedy what it is and how important it is for our students. Hopefully, Trustee Hernandez and President Añana saw a little bit of that Kennedy magic when you came to our Graduación Latina. Thank you for joining us that night. Okay. It's just so important for us to know that one solution as is clearly been explained is not going to fit for every single school. Kennedy has a lot of different needs that some of the other secondary schools do not. So we are here as Kennedy teachers in our summer break asking that you do not exclude us from the conversation. As we move forward into the next school year, we have a lot of wonderful plans for Kennedy. We have a lot of wonderful things we wanna keep doing with our community and we, respectfully request that we be included in that. I have been at Kennedy 13 years. There are other teachers who've been there longer than I. Our institutional knowledge is priceless. Include Kennedy so that we can make sure that we have a better school year next year. Thank you.

Next program is Crystal Vanagon. Please unmute yourself.

Good evening, board and superintendent and other staff community that's in the room. I wanted to address the board this evening for the parents that we represent at the Contra Costa Black Parallel School Board. They want to know why we haven't seen any school level financial data report, you know, that expenditure data that we need to know if these dollars are being spent on our students. They want to know why is the gap not, you know, showing why you can't show us metrics to show if the gap is closing um why can't we see civil rights data collection reports about our students why can't we have a demographic breakdown of disciplinary actions categorized by subjective versus objective infractions where's the evidence-based restorative justice frameworks that we've been promised Why is our annual retention rate for Black educators so low? What intentional recruitment and mentorship funding is allocated in the budget to address this? I know you got it in there, but you're not spending it on Black teachers. So many things, but things like how many days of school did Black students miss this past year? Who decides if a kid gets into an advanced or gifted class? Is it just the teacher's opinion or does every kid get tested? If a Black student's struggling, do we immediately put them in a slower class or do we give them extra help? You know, how many Black teachers are here at Dijon, at any school? It's not enough, but I want to thank you for my time this evening and I'll see you next time.

Zach Porter.

Hey Board, hey Trustees, Zach Porter, John F. Kennedy High School. I don't have much to say, just want to echo what Ms. Huerta said a few minutes ago. We're really, really excited to have Ms. Hernandez staying with us next year. And I really do appreciate Dr. Fleischman and Director Longo and the team for, I think it was a sign and a gesture of goodwill to make this happen. And it was a really divisive year. And I think it's a good sign for next year that this is where we're starting. Our students have been through two years of the threat to our programs looming over them in a lot of ways, and I'm really hoping that next year we can get through a year without them worrying about ethnic studies and other programs being under attack. So yeah, I just hope that we're able to collaborate. You know us better now this year than you did last year, and we're going to continue to show up next year and fight for Kennedy, and we hope we do it with you. So have a good summer, hags and all that, and we'll see you

next time Nayeli Hernandez

Hello, everybody. Before I begin, or now I've begun already, I want to express my sincere gratitude to the students, my amazing colleagues, staff, families, and community members who advocated for me to remain at Kennedy next year, as well as those who work behind the scenes to make that possible. Thank you. What I hope we can take away from this experience is not simply the outcome of one staffing decision, but what the process reveal about the strength of the Kennedy community. The advocacy from students, teachers, staff, and families demonstrated that the people closest to our schools can care deeply about the success their successes, and have valuable knowledge to contribute. That knowledge is an asset, and I believe it should be treated as one. As a district continues to make difficult decisions about budget reduction, staffing, and the future leadership of Kennedy, I encourage district leaders to view teachers, students, and staff as partners in those conversations. We are not just recipients of decisions. We are resources that can help shape better decisions. Many educators at Kennedy have worked through multiple administrations and years of change. They understand our school's history, culture, strengths, and challenges. Our students bring perspectives that cannot be found in reports, data tables, or organizational charts. Together, our community holds knowledge that can help guide the future of our school. There is uncertainty right now regarding who will lead Kennedy moving forward. If decisions are being made about future administrators, I hope that The Kennedy community can have a meaningful voice in those conversations. The people who learn and work in a school every day should have opportunities to help shape its future. My invitation tonight is simple. Continue to see teachers, students, staff, and families as assets. When districts partners with people closest to the work, decisions become stronger, trust grows, and school communities thrive. Thank you for your time.

Kim Chamberlain.

Good evening. This is my last board meeting too as the SSA chapter IFPT president. It has been a very well thought out and grateful role to have played and been able to present and work with the school district in. I've had the privilege, excuse me, it's a little emotional, to represent 150 people grow the union to what it is today. I started out with 80 positions and I've moved it up to 80 people in positions to 147 people in positions. We did lose 17 this year, but that doesn't mean we lost the integrity that each one of those people have for their work in WCCUSD. i truly appreciate all the people that i've represented had the privilege to know watch them walk through the door to their next adventure including myself i am grateful for the time i spent on the solutions team working with many of the board members out there today seeing the growth of everybody, including Ms. Cotton, as she has gone from being a principal to our superintendent and other roles in her career. I've also got to see kids grow, including some of the students that have been on our school board, some of the students and teachers that we have out there now, some of the fellow people that I work with daily in I.T., And I can be more proud to say that I have been very successful in the family I have built. Thank you for my next feature and I'll see you guys soon.

And our last public comment is Christine Hatcher.

Good evening, President Inyala, trustees, Superintendent Cotton, and colleagues. My name is Christine Gant Hatcher, and I am representing the West Contra Costa Administrators Association in my statement this evening. As we come to the close of another school year, I am reminded of words spoken by President Barack Obama at the opening of his presidential library last week. As unsettled as we are, people aren't looking for perpetual anger or division. They are looking for fairness, common sense, and mutual respect. Deep in our gut, we want to find a way to look toward each other again, not further away. Those words resonate as we reflect on the year behind us. We have encountered challenges, philosophical differences, difficult decisions, and significant financial constraints. Yet through it all, I remain hopeful because I believe we have stayed grounded in shared understanding what we do, we do for students. Every administrator represented by WCCAA principal, assistant principal, instructional specialist, and coordinator began their careers in front of students as teachers. Long before we managed budgets, responded to crises, interpreted policy, or navigated complex systems, we taught children. That commitment to children remains at the heart of our work today. It is also fitting at the close of the school year to recognize those who have chosen to retire and begin a new chapter in their lives. David Ranch, Jeannie Williams, Denise Steen, Phil Johnson, and Julio Franco. Collectively, they represent decades of service to the students, family, and staff of this district. Their contributions have left a lasting remark, a lasting mark, excuse me, on our schools and community. And we thank them for their dedication. Can I just pause for a moment? I actually thought I was going to be able to do this during standing reports where I would have a little bit longer than the two minutes. So I don't know if I can beg somebody's indulgence to get that extended so that I can finish the statement regarding our members. Am I okay? How much more time do you need?

I don't anticipate that I'll need more than two minutes.

I kind of timed it for five, but I don't need that total amount. I'm sorry.

We don't have any standing reports tonight. Okay.

I wasn't aware of that.

And we would give you one more minute. One more minute? Yes.

Okay. I'll try to get to the heart of it. I would also like to recognize those who've retired and continue to support supporting our students. Dottie Holland, Antoinette Henry Evans, Linda Jackson, Anne Marie Marionakis, Linda Cohen and Steve Collins. Whether working directly with students, supporting school operations or ensuring that critical services were available when needed, each has continued to make meaningful contributions to the success. and well-being of the young people we serve their willingness to return in service when two students speaks volume about their commitment to the community and we thank them for their dedication i would like to offer a special acknowledgement to julio franco for many of us who had the privilege of serving under his leadership as executive director there was a unique sense of reassurance whenever he would begin a conversation with hey hey this is what we're going to do no matter how complicated the situation, how difficult the challenge, or how uncertain the path forward. Those words signaled that a solution was within reach and that we would navigate it together. His steady leadership, practical wisdom, and unwavering support will be deeply missed. And finally, I would also like to recognize Greg Santiago, who after more than 20 years as a site administrator continues to find joy in his work. In a profession that often demands long hours, difficult decisions, and constant adaptation, he remains grounded in what matters most, relationships. with students. Anyone who has seen him dancing with his students at lunch and school events understands that his commitment to young people extends far beyond management and supervision. As always, thank you for the opportunity for allowing me to speak with you this evening. Thank you for your service to students, families and staff of West Contra Costa Unified. And I hope that you have a wonderful and well deserved summer. Thank you.

Okay, thank you to everyone who gave public comment tonight when I move on to the approval of minutes for May 13 2026. Do we have a motion?

I'll go ahead and move the minutes of May 13 2026 a second.

Okay, motion moved by regular second by goes out as hoy. Do we have any changes to the minutes? We'll move on to see, you know, changes to the minutes that will be approved as is. We'll now move on to consent items. We are at consent items. Does any board member wish to put any items for the consent for discussion for later in the evening? Trustee Reckman?

I'd like to pull C9, please. 26, 27 approval contracts.

Any other changes?

I'd like to pull C22.

Okay, so we will be pulling items 9 and 22 for discussion later on in the meeting and also removing once again item 21, the new job description for adult education, adult ed, human resources, and systems technician for a future date. And we otherwise will accept the rest of the consent items. um when i move on to superintendent communication this is your item superintendent

OK. Thank you, everyone. It just hit me that I have made it through an entire year, a full cycle here in West Contra Costa Unified School District. I started on June 19th. June 21st. June 21st, my anniversary. Look at that. So this is my last of this school year superintendent report. So next slide. I want to lift up and let folks know that June is Men's Mental Health Month. To all the men in the West Contra Costa Unified School community, we see you, we value you, and we support you. Thank you for all that you do. This is an opportunity this month to break our stigmas, to talk about and support each other, prioritize well-being, encourage strong minds and stronger communities by taking care of our mental health. It helps us show up stronger for ourselves, our families and our students and our community. So again, thank you for all that you do. Next slide. We have had a wonderful, amazing, inspiring, powerful graduation season this year. I wanna thank our board members for showing up for our kids and being present, for our cabinet to be there, and all of our students and families. They were beautiful from our high school graduations to our adult school graduation, our transition graduation, just amazing times were had by all. I just want to share some of those pictures with you. Next slide, please. Continuing on, just so exciting. I found that each of our graduations had their own, each of our schools had their own little special flavor. I kept running through my head, most this and most that and most heartfelt, most support of peers. most recognition of the multicultural languages that were spoken. It was just very thoughtful work. And I appreciate everyone and I'm so excited for our students as they launch. This is the reason we do this work. to see them get to a point where they go out into the world, into their college, trade, work, the workforce, military. There's so many different opportunities and we are trying to make sure that each of our students are prepared for life. next slide in addition to those graduations we also have promotions happening all across our district as well i ended up at king on the last day of school and was able to support a first grade classroom just for a few minutes right before the kindergarten promotion started and i made a whole group of new friends It was quite fun for the last day of school. Those kids had the same enthusiasm and energy and excitement as they did on the first day of school. But there were many different promotions happening across our district, kindergarten, TK, but then also moving into middle school and middle schoolers moving into high school. So lots of excitement as we reach the end of this year. Next slide. We also had our Juneteenth celebration. So our Freedom Parade and celebration happened this past Saturday at Nickel Park. We paraded through the city of Richmond and landed to just a really heartfelt, almost felt like a family reunion, Juneteenth celebration. And I just appreciate, I think this was the largest turnout of students. We had scholars that marched in our parade. We had a Miss Juneteenth, which is a recent graduate, Genesis from Hercules High School. We also had human resources was present. Thank you to Dr. Greenwood and her team. Also, community engagement was present. Thank you to Miss Denise and Miss Sanders and their team. It was a great opportunity. Special education was represented as well. Guthrie was like, don't forget. Yes, thank you to Janine and the team there for showing up, making sure that kids had an opportunity to sign up for summer programs, information about our meals. We also had an opportunity for folks to sign up for jobs. So it was all, we were full service in West Contra Costa. But again, this was probably our largest turnout in terms of district participation. And we look to do that again in the future.

So thank you.

So what's coming up? It's summer, you said? Yes. And on Saturday, the African American Family Retreat is happening at De Anza High School from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. We encourage folks to come out and support this event. We're focusing around African American student success, building strong partnerships with schools, and advocating for resources to help students thrive. Lunch will be provided along with childcare, so please register and plan to attend. Next slide. Also want to let our families, our community know that free summer meals are available beginning. We started on June 15th. They are free for all children and teens under 18 years old. There's no need for registration, paperwork or application. food meals are available. So please use the QR code to identify locations and meal times. But we want to make sure that our kids remain nourished, that they have the food that they need through the summer months. Next slide, please. There are also many summer math opportunities. And so just wanted to lift up 15 to 20 minutes of math practice each day helps to keep you on track. So please make sure that you are taking advantage of summer math opportunities, including credit recovery for Algebra 1 and Geometry, online credit recovery opportunities for our students as well. There are many family resources that are available on our website. and our social media. Next slide. We want to remind juniors, summer is a great time to get started on college applications. This is your moment. Yes, so start your journey now. It makes senior year a little easier. But this is your time to research colleges and majors, to start working on your personal statement, to build your college list, to create your common app account, and to start searching for scholarships. So lots of work can be happening right now when you've got a little bit more time in the summer. I also want to lift up and remind folks that dual enrollment is an option this summer. You can earn college credits and explore career interests all at one of our local community colleges, Contra Costa College. Please consider dual enrollment as an option for you this summer. And that's starting as young as middle school. Also get ready for pre-K, TK and kindergarten. This is your opportunity to work on reading together. Parents reading with your student every day. Oh, one more. One more. There you go. This is an opportunity to read together every day, to practice writing your name and letters, learning your letters and your numbers, your alphabet, building independence with daily routines, letting kids understand that they can tie their own shoes, that they can pack up their backpack, they can open their own lunch thermoses. I know that, you know, those... Helicopter parents, is that what they call them? Want to make sure that students are all taken care of, but we also want to build independence for our kids. Next slide. We also want to lift up the importance of reading over the summer. Every summer story counts. and so just a few minutes of reading each day can help support vocabulary comprehension fluency and critical thinking so please make sure that students are reading every single day next slide one way to do that is through the contra costa county library summer reading program so please it's running from june 1st through august 1st their theme is plant a seed read and so just really encouraging folks to get out there and Read next slide. We do want to lift up that. We do have a number of elementary summer programs. This is not inclusive of our. In addition to this, we also have our summer enrichment programs happening across the district, but in terms of elementary. hub camps at Bayview, Nystrom, Chavez, and Downer. Montalban has after-school enrichment. Obama, Perry's, and West County Mandarin is working at Steege. For our secondary sites, we have Dijon and Korematsu are providing academic enrichment. Richmond High School and Greenwood are providing both Summer Bridge and, again, academic enrichment. Next slide. And I do want to lift up our OASA, our Office of African American Student Achievement Summer Program. So running from June 22nd through July 23rd from 9 o'clock until 1230 at Helms Middle School. It's open to our current sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students. We are focusing on African American and African diaspora history and algebraic concepts, financial literacy with money works, which is being taught by Calculus Roundtable, social entrepreneurship, which is taught by the Hidden Genius Project. So definitely, if you haven't already, sign up and participate in our OASIS summer program. And with that, do you have any questions, board? Ready for the summer. Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation. We'll now move on to Item A, action items. Moving on to adoption of the 2026-2027 Local Control Accountability Plan, LCAP.

I believe Catherine Acosta Verpraskis is on Zoom to present. This is one of her last presentations here in West Contra Costa. Thank you so much.

Yes, thank you. Good evening, President Inyana, Clerk Gonzales-Hoy, Trustees, and Superintendent Cotton and community members. I am pleased tonight to present our 2026-27 Local Control Accountability Plan for adoption. Next slide. So as part of tonight's material, we've included the complete presentation, including the data appendix at the end of the presentation, the full LCAP, And we have executive summaries in English and Spanish that provide an overview of our goals, actions, expenditures, and performance. Next slide. So to provide us a recap, on June 3rd, I did present the full LCAP and provided an overview of our annual update. I also reviewed the effectiveness of our actions and our major accomplishments, as well as our areas of opportunity and the key changes that we were proposing for this coming year. And our goal throughout the process really has been to make the district planning accessible, transparent, and responsive to the voices of our educational partners. Next slide. And it's really important for us to review that our advisory committee submitted 43 recommendations through our LCAP engagement process. And of those recommendations, 39 were fully incorporated into the plan and only four were not able to be included. And this reflects our commitment to listening carefully and thoughtfully and including community input. Next slide. And since that public hearing on June 3, I'm happy to report that Superintendent Cotton and district leadership did meet with ASAT to discuss the recommendations, and we also incorporated the feedback from Contra Costa County Office of Education to make sure that we addressed all of the required revisions necessary to make our ELPCAP compliant. Next slide. And before we move on to questions and the adoption, I want to briefly highlight our local indicators. And so our California school dashboard provides color coded performance ratings for our statewide data. However, our local indicators are really evaluating how well our district is implementing systems and practices to our local control funding formula priorities. And so those local indicators represent the five state priorities of basic services, state academic standards, parent and family engagement, school climate, and then access to a broad course of study. Next slide. And I'm pleased to report that we have met all the standards for every local indicator for 2526. Specifically, we have made sure that 100% of our basic conditions are in place. And that we're implementing our academic standards engaging families through meaningful opportunities and we've provided a thorough reflection on our school climate and making sure that students have access to a broad course of study. And so, with that that wraps up our presentation and I recommend that the board adopter 2627 local control accountability plan as presented.

Thank you for that presentation. Do we have any questions from the board trustee Gonzalez?

Thank you, President. Thank you so much for the presentation. At the last board meeting, we heard some concerns from ASAT and the LCAP about the recommendations that were not accepted. And after that meeting, I heard that there's been some conversations that have been made about those recommendations. I actually really appreciated some of those recommendations that we couldn't accept at that time. So I was wondering if you or Superintendent Khan could speak about some thoughts around some of the ideas that were presented specifically by ASAT that we couldn't incorporate now, but that we want to incorporate maybe through a different means next year.

I'm going to let Katherine go ahead and get started. Absolutely. Thank you, Superintendent Cotton. And so certainly there were a couple of recommendations and particularly the one around leading anti-racist work and particularly a focus on emphasizing and supporting the elimination of the casual use of the N-word. is something that as a district we're absolutely focused on and so superintendent cotton as well as our director lashante smith have been really targeting this but want to make sure that of course with our recommendations that we're in line with ed code as some of the recommendations that were made we are absolutely in support of in spirit however want to make sure that You know, we provide first education to our students when they make mistakes and then consequences as a result. And so So that conversation has happened, as well as there was a recommendation around the creation of a reparations fund. And particularly, and, you know, Superintendent Cotton or Ms. Sanders, feel free to chime in, but really it was around the exploration of how external dollars could be best utilized to be able to bolster what we already provide for African American students within the LCAP and other title funds.

Thank you. I just want to highlight that it was really productive conversations that we've had and have started. The conversation that Ms. Acosta-Propaskas just shared around the reparations piece and really understanding the the resolution and looking at ways to move towards a full implementation. But understanding that we are looking outside of the district for funding and support to get to that place. I really appreciate that. Not that it doesn't happen, but trying to figure out ways that we can make it happen in support of our students.

Got it. Thank you so much. That's it. Thank you, President.

Trustee Regler.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Were there any big changes between June 3rd and June 24th, or is it basically the same document?

Thank you for that question it's essentially the same document, the only changes were adding to the narrative of prompt three around effectiveness per the county feedback that was received around making sure that all of our metrics were incorporated into our response and so it's essentially the same document.

Okay, thank you. And then if it's not here, we'll address it in budget. But could I get an update on the yard supervisor discussion about team was gonna just relook at the allocations?

Was that listed as an LCAP?

It is. It is. It's part of Goal 3 and it's allocations to schools. There have been no changes to allocations to schools as presented. schools utilize the funds that they were allocated based on their unduplicated pupil count for LCAP and were able to appropriately, you know, with their PACs, assign it within their SPSA. So that will be an item that we bring up, but there were no additions to any site allocations.

Okay, follow up to that. So wasn't there going to be a meeting or a task force or some document produced that examined what the allocations were and perhaps make recommendations for sites that were a little irregular? Blind spots.

Yeah, I believe what you're referring to is that Mr. Booker and the safety team did some visits to be able to determine if additional support was needed. And I believe, I'm not sure if he's available today, but that they did do that. However, no changes to allocations came of it.

We did have an opportunity to go out. Actually, Mr. Booker, if you want to speak just in general, we have not generated a report from that at this time, but we have gone out to that was actually what was referenced earlier that I was able to go out to specifically Fairmont to take a look at that site and what their needs are. So we are gathering information at this time. Mr. Booker?

Thank you, Superintendent Cotton. Yes, like the superintendent said, I did go out and do an assessment of the site and looked at what was feasible in terms of safety and personnel for that site. So we are gathering all the information and once I finalize it, I will give a report to the superintendent.

Okay, and what's the timetable expected before we begin again?

Definitely before school begins. And it's also a conversation with the principal again as well.

Okay, thank you. That's, that's all I had.

Any further questions? Trustee?

I just had a quick question about, I believe it's slide seven, about the priorities that we met. Were these, was this slide either made or adjusted before strike or after strike?

Thank you for that question. So these were done after the strike. And so the actual walkthroughs around meeting the basic facilities and instruction happens typically in the fall. So that was done in support with the county. And so that was before the strike. And then the other, um, district level analysis and reflections were post-strike. Okay.

Thank you. That was it.

Okay. Do we have any further questions facing that? Do we have any public comment on this item?

Yes, we have one public comment on Zoom. Zalon Harrison, can you unmute yourself?

Yes, thank you for that presentation. And I just want to also thank our superintendent for holding that space for our youth. That was really, really good to get that feedback. So I didn't get to say that earlier. And I wanted to just say when we look at the district paying more schoolyard attendance, assistance, that is really good. We can look at paraprofessionals, but we really need to look at using the money that's coming in to address our playgrounds and have more support on the playgrounds because That's the place we could do teach life skills. You could teach social justice. You could teach restorative justice. There's a lot of learning that goes through play, especially for our younger children that need that supervision. So not just getting a yard duty, just a person, a warm body, but getting somebody that has some skills that can help us foster the cultures, how we want our children to interact and what type of students we want to attend our schools, shaping them as their children, but, you know, doing learning through play. So I think there is a gem there if you guys invest in our yard duty.

Our next public comment is Jane Kinchner. Please unmute yourself.

Hello, I'd like to talk about the yard duty thing. Our playground has parts you can't see at the portable soccer games that needs one person or more there. A climbing structure that's away from the soccer games and other areas. So while one person's out there and one person's alone in the cafeteria, not enough for either position. I guess the invisible non-existent person will be on the other side of the school at the kindergarten playground while they're having their recess. We just can't do it with two people. We need more help. Someone needs to come check out our school too, because I mean, I don't want you all to, but you're going to get sued. Someone's going to get hurt really bad with that situation. It is not safe. Please look into this.

That concludes public comment.

Okay. Thank you for that. So I will now accept a motion.

I'll move that the board adopts the 2627 local control accountability plan and further I would like a report to come back on the playgrounds by the first meeting in August I think it's August 3. First meeting in August.

I would second, but I was wondering just your regular if you would accept the friendly amendment to that motion it's not friendly I wonder if you would change that motion briefly to add that I would like a report to come back to us by September on. Movement that we make with a sad on some other requests as well.

sure so the motion would be accepting the al cap 26 to 27 report first meeting in august about uh playgrounds and really we're hearing from a lot of people so you know we we do need to react to that and then um update on uh aset um progress in when in september would you like that anytime in september anytime in september brief update

Okay, so we have a motion by regular seconded by Gonzalez. Do we have any board comment?

cnn uh trustee regular just again i just want to say thank you for all the work on it on this um it is um a really good document and i i actually know the strategies in it um which i not really sure i've seen before but it's really much more coherent and i really appreciate the work on it so thank you

move on to the vote. Trustee Regler? I mean, I'm sorry. Trustee Whitton? Yes. Trustee Regler?

Yes, I'm sorry. I took his seat. I thought there weren't going to be any board trustees, student trustees.

Trustee Smith-Fold? Smith-Fold, yes. Trustee Gonzalez-Hoy? Yes. Trustee Hernandez?

Yes.

And Trustee Yanezu, yes. So, we'll now move on to the adoption of the 2026 2027 annual budget.

Yes, good evening. Thank you tonight. We bring back the annual budget for 2026 27 for adoption. This is the. Same presentation as June 3rd for the public hearing. The only revision is on the combined general fund MYP. There was a typo in the figures, but it's been revised. Otherwise, the budget has been unchanged since June 3rd. On June 15th, the State Senate and Assembly reached a deal for the state budget plan that was in line and very similar and close to the governor's May revise. That gives Gavin Newsom two weeks to finalize the budget. As of today, there's no final budget, but in the next week, we expect a state budget to pass. But it is closely aligned with what we have projected in this adopted budget. That concludes the report.

All right, thank you. Do we have any. Questions just a record.

Thank you. The only question is, if you look into the tea leaves or the crystal ball, what do you think will come from Sacramento, if anything? And when would those dollars be reflected to the board in reporting?

In addition to what was in our proposed budget, SSPD is the only thing that they're kind of have a difference of opinions on. There are a few other grants for CTE and kitchen infrastructure modernization, but that would not bring unrestricted dollars. The SSPD, the governor projected or proposed $5 billion and the assembly proposed 5.2 billion. So there would be a slight increase in SSPD from what we have projected in the budget, but we're talking about maybe $400,000 more from the 21 million we have in the proposed budget.

And this 3.9 billion, we don't...

So the 3.9 billion was agreed upon from the Senate and the Assembly. They are just looking for a reliable schedule to pay districts back. So they are looking for... A commitment to a schedule to paying that 3.9Billion back rather than it being open ended.

Okay, so it's not coming they're going to defer that and pay it out over time from the tea leaves.

It does not look like it.

Okay.

Okay, I believe that's all I have.

Trustee Smith votes. With the budget that you presented in front of us now, we still have to stay the course of what we said are going to be reductions. Is that accurate?

With the budget projected, yes. The fiscal solvency plan includes $14.2 million in reductions for 27-28. And so the budget is balanced based on those reductions currently, yes.

The budget that we're looking at now is balanced based on the current physical solvency plan that we have now. Exactly. How healthy is the treasury? And when I say how healthy the treasury, you know the parameters that I'm kind of speaking in. How healthy is our current treasury and why?

From a cash flow perspective, we are not relying on Fund 17 in 26-27. We would be able to close out the year without needing a transfer. So under the current projections in cash flow, we're healthy in 26-27 based on still having partial tax this year, still having reductions built into the future years, and having... our expenditures moved to Fund 71 for OPEB.

So in 26-27, the year we're about to hit, school year 26-27 in August, we have enough cash. But that's because it comes in apportionments also, correct?

It does come in apportionments throughout the year. Those apportionments keep us cash flow positive for 26-27. Okay. And then 27-28? We only do a one-year cash flow, but based on fund balance and projected revenues in that year, we would also have a positive cash flow throughout the year. There's no projected deficit currently for 26, 27, or 27, 28 if the reductions are made.

Okay. So right now, if we're looking at our multi-year projection, there's not a problem if we stay the course?

Correct, if you say the course as presented in the public hearing and adopted budget, yeah.

Okay, thank you, I'm complete.

Any further questions? Seeing none, do we have any public comment on this item?

There's no public comment.

Okay, no public comment, I'll entertain a motion.

President, I'll move that we adopt the 26-27 budget as presented.

Reckler will second.

We have a motion by Gonzalez-Hoy, second by Reckler. Do we have any more comment? Seeing none, we'll move on to the vote. Good work. We'll move on to the vote. Trustee Whitton?

Yes.

Trustee Reckler? Yes. Trustee Smith-Folts?

Smith-Folts, yes.

Trustee Gonzalez-Hoy?

Yes.

Trustee Hernandez? Yes. Trustee Inouye? Yes. So we'll now move on to item 3, resolution number 2526-96, commit funds for modifying fiscal solvency plan and that is also Mr. Carter's item.

Yes, thank you. Tonight we are bringing forward resolution for modifying the fiscal solvency plan based on the recommendation from the June 3rd board meeting. This resolution attempts to commit funds in 2728 and 2829 for 2728 and 2829 to use one-time dollars of Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant student support and professional development grant and fund 17 these are all one-time dollars that would be used to offset and delay the reductions in the current fiscal solvency plan for 27-28 so committing using the one-time dollars to free up resources in the unrestricted side to commit those dollars towards delaying reductions all right That concludes my report.

Thank you. Do we have any questions? Trustee regular.

Yes, thank you. Okay, so can you explain, the resolution is quite dense at the bottom of page one. So would you be able to take apart for anybody listening, really take it apart by year, the dollars that are being assigned, because it goes all the way out to 28, 29, if I'm reading this correctly.

Yeah, correct. So 2829 is our three-year MYP fiscal window. The idea would be in 2728, the fiscal solvency plan talks about needing $14.2 million of reductions. Those reductions would need to happen by March of 2027. And so by assigning and committing these dollars at one time towards reduction of expenditures, we would use the one-time dollars in 27-28 instead of doing reductions of $14.2 million. So we are getting $21 million from student support professional and development grant, and we're getting an additional 1.8 million in restricted learning recovery emergency block grant and we would have about $12 million in fund 17. When you combine all of those one-time dollars, you're looking to use them for 14.2 million in 27, 28 and 28, 29, instead of doing reductions in those two years.

Okay, so in 27, 28, it's 14.2 million and then plus 1.8 million for 27, 28.

It's $14.2 million in 27-28. That would be composed of $1.8 million from learning recovery and then up to $12 million in student support professional development block grant. And then in 28-29, it's still $14.2 million of delaying those cuts because they are ongoing expenditures. And that would come from the remainder of SSPD, student support professional development block grant, and Fund 17.

And so the total over those years is?

28.4.

28.4 million. Okay. Okay. Superintendent Cotton, what might some of this money go to? What would priorities be for perhaps carving some off for literacy curriculum, new program, more yard duty supervisors? If it wasn't going into delaying cuts, what else might happen?

If those funds, if SSPD were not being used to delay cuts, we would be using them for similar to how we have used our educator effectiveness funds for professional learning, for future literacy adoption, for, again, staffing as needed. there are a whole myriad of things that we would do however i would also caution us um that before we or while we are looking at our program we're also mindful of fund 17 and fund 71 and so a portion of those funds if we could move things to make sure that we are paying back um our uh our drawdown from fund 71 and continuing to maintain a rainy day fund I think that those are priorities for the district as well given our financial situation So, yes, you've kind of nailed it, the things that we would like to do, but we are still in a situation where we're looking at must-haves and nice-to-haves, and the must-haves could be inclusive of... staffing as needed could be inclusive of literacy adoption, the needs that we have for our students, but also being mindful that we are still in the midst of a financial crisis.

I just want to say I am clear with that, but it gives some flexibility to pick off some things that district might need to, we could, we have, we would have some flexibility.

Yes. Okay, thank you.

I don't have any other questions.

Ms. Fultz. So if you do 14.2 and 2728 plus 14.2 and 2829, that's where you got the 28.4.

Correct.

But what we're getting is 21.

We're getting 21 of Student Support Professional Development Block Grant and 1.8 from Learning Recovery, and then we would use the remainder from Fund 17.

So, what's the total, uh.

22.8, so 5.2M from fund 17.

So, if you have the total of, like, 22, right and then you subtract the 28, you still have 6, right?

Correct you would still have a bit of a fund balance and fund 17 at the end of those 2 years that you would have to take.

to make up whatever you need it, because you need 28, right? So you still would have to pull six from somewhere.

We would project to have around 12 or 13 million in Fund 17. So you would need about five or six million from Fund 17. You would still have to pull it from Fund 17.

Okay. And then the other question I have for you is, as CDO, what do you think, with your expert opinion, what do you believe should be done with this 21, 22 million?

The fiscally prudent thing to do would be to make a portion of these cuts and use a portion of these dollars to either replenish fund 17, fund 71, bring new services in, expand some site allocations. There are other decisions you can make with these one-time dollars to give you that flexibility. It would be difficult to find an additional 14.2 million in reductions after doing 42 million in reductions this year. So I don't know that it doesn't need to be the extreme of all 14.2 or zero. I think there's a hybrid model in the middle there somewhere that could be a good solution to both. So some cuts being needed and as well as giving some flexibility to those one-time dollars for other decisions.

So let me ask you this question. Some of the things that are coming down the line, right? This is under the we don't knows, right? So we don't know if Measure T is going to pass or not, correct? And we'll know that after November.

Correct.

But Measure T is about $8 million to $10 million worth of stuff that we get. Stuff includes... And stuff is a very poor word, but it includes our athletics, our librarians, our counselors. Is that accurate?

That's accurate.

Okay. So if we have 21 and every year we spend eight, because we're getting measure T, right? So we spent eight to 10 out of that. It would be a hard hit in November if this doesn't pass, because then we've got to find money to hopefully keep those programs. Is that accurate?

If partial tax were to not pass, you would either need $8 million more in reductions or $8 million of revenue from somewhere else to cover those expenditures if you want to keep them.

Okay. And then we don't know, for example, about, we know that we are getting an increase in special ed, but we also know special ed costs go up every year.

Is that accurate? That is accurate.

We also know that cost to run operations goes up every year, utilities, whoopsie-dos that happen. Is that accurate?

That's accurate. There's inflation and cost rise year over year as well, yes.

Do our lawyer fees go up every year, give or take?

Based on what we can negotiate with them, their hourly rate could change. Year to year depends on how many hours we use from them.

Okay. And with all of those, oh, when do we start, when do negotiations open back up?

Our contract ends at the end of 2026, 27. So we would open up negotiations somewhere between six to eight months prior to that. So around December or January, 2027. Okay.

And that has a cost to it too, most likely. That may have a cost to it.

It could, depending on where those negotiations go. Yeah.

okay so with all of that being said and you said it before the most physically prudent thing would be the way i heard is to understand all of that kind of swirling around and have a ability to pull something if we need something is that accurate or no

Correct and that ability recent in recent years has come from having a large fund balance and fund 17, which we've drawn down. We would not have that flexibility as fund 71 and fund 17 are being drawn out upon and over the next couple of years.

Okay, I think that's all for now, but something may spark in a minute. I'm complete for now.

Trustee Gonzalez-Hoy.

Thank you, President. Thank you, Mr. Carter. I have a few questions for you. Over the last few years, the district has made a lot of cuts. How difficult has it been to make those cuts for our schools? Can you give some specific examples?

It has been very difficult to make cuts. These are jobs, these are folks' livelihoods, these are people in our community. who are many are either no longer working with us. This year, we reduced close to 10% of our workforce. So over 300 layoffs this year. Again, I mean, it's fairly consistent across the state, but they are very difficult, very challenging. Okay.

Now, thank you for that. Now, you, President Yana, and I spent six weeks, nine meetings, looking at all of our contracts and talking about everything that's outside of staffing in our district. And we didn't cut as much as we were hoping to cut. And each cut that we made, it was pretty hard and difficult discussions. Each one of those cuts affected kids directly. We heard those conversations and we hear from principals and teachers and parents now how difficult the cuts have been. So finding $28.4 million to cut in the next two years, apart from what we've already cut, where would those cuts come from?

Where would those cuts come from? They would continue to come from staffing, which again is the largest amount that our budget goes to. It would be reductions in programs as well. We only have so much funds that come in and we would have to make that work.

Now, do you feel like our schools are, for lack of better words, well-staffed and fat where we can reduce them even further?

I want to acknowledge that this is not the first year that we've made cuts and I think that there have been reductions in force across at least the last two or three years in this district. So we are, I think, at bare bones at this point. We have restructured our district office. We have reduced, again, a number of programs. And we are struggling to make sure that we are able to do the work that we need to do in order to support our students.

Thank you. And thank you for responding to those very pointed questions. I appreciate that. Mr. Carter. Now we have $3.8 billion that is going to come to us. We just don't know when yet, but it's supposed to come to us in the next few years. $3.8 billion to us is about approximately how much?

About $15 million.

About $15 million. Thank you. So if we get that, we would still have to make even additional cuts in the out years to fill the whole hole of $28 million. Is that correct?

That would be correct. Yeah.

Okay. But we have seen a growth in our budget every year for the last few years, thankfully, through state funding, because California budget has been fairly healthy.

The state budget and taxes have been fairly healthy and the COLAs have been funded the last couple of years, yes.

Got it. Thank you. So, Superintendent Cotton, using these one-time funds, even though it might not be the best idea long-term, temporarily to help our sites stabilize, to help our sites get used to the cuts that we have made so far, would that help avoid the current stress that our schools are currently going through on how they're going to make ends meet, for lack of better words, with the cuts that we have made so far.

I think that's a trickier conversation. I think that they're, in my personal opinion, I think that one-time funds have kind of got us into this situation and to continue to use one-time funds to get us out of this situation, we're just prolonging and we know that eventually we're going to have to, you know, pay the piper. Is that what they say? Um, I am concerned. I don't think that there is ever a good time to, to do this work. It is going to be a challenge now, or it's a challenge three years from now, five years from now. I don't anticipate, um, our economy making a shift where it is, um, where we will be flush with money and we'll be fine. I think that that's a tricky question, that these one-time dollars, while they are helpful in the short term, continue a pattern of fiscal insolvency.

Thank you for that honest answer. Now, my last question, Mr. Carter, we have heard from the board how upset some board members have been about using Fund 71 and Fund 17 to fill our hole. Now, we have a way to not do that. Yes, it pushes our problem to the out years, but we know more funding is coming. But it allows us to not use those funds, at least for next year. Isn't that correct?

For 26-27, you would not be using Fund 17. And 27-28, you would not either if you're using SSPD and learning recovery. Fund 17 would come into play in 28-29 to close the remainder of that gap, as well as the expenditures under the current fiscal solvency plan from Fund 71 are built into this adopted budget to come back in 28-29 as well.

Thank you. I'm done, President. Thank you.

trustee regular.

Thank you. I have one other question, which I think I heard, but I just want to make sure the parcel tax is not covered. If it fails, there's no funds to set aside to cover that until you can get it on a presidential, right? So you'd have at least a year with the, with those funds uncovered.

If the parcel tax does not pass, this adopted budget takes that revenue out and the expenditures out already. So you would have to do $8 million more in reductions if it does not pass. There are not funds sitting around for that. I mean, that's what some of these Fund 17 and SSP dollars could be used for. But yeah, you would have to bring it back to another election, which could be a mid-year election or a general election, but it could be up to a year to get it back on the ballot.

It would be a year because you'd put it on presidential of 28, right? So it would be just June 30th, 27 through. Correct, yeah. Unless it doesn't pass in 28, but... Okay, thank you.

Okay, Trustee Whitted?

um theoretically speaking right let's say all the money we get from state county donations whatever can that number either drastically increase or decrease in the next few years uh

It could certainly increase or decrease depending on state revenues, specifically income and property taxes, as well as it could decrease if declining enrollment continues to decline at a rate equal to or higher than what we're projecting now. Yeah, it could go either way.

theoretically, let's say it decreases, would we be safer using our one time funds or fund 17?

If you have one-time funds and restricted dollars, you should spend those down before they expire. Fund 17 doesn't necessarily expire. You can leave it there for as long as you have it. So you would want to spend down one-time restricted funds before they expire with allowable uses, depending on how restrictive that grant is. So you would want to spend those one-time dollars first before you dip into Fund 17 as a last resort rainy day reserve.

And in using those one-time funds, do we dig the hole deeper or do we somewhat climb out of it?

It depends on how you're using them. If you're using them to free up revenue and expenditures in the unrestricted side and then replenishing Fund 17 with them versus if you're using them on one-time services, then they then the services go away and the one-time funds go away or if you're using them on ongoing expenditures uh then the funds go away and the expenditures are still there okay and then my last question in your opinion right no ma if we either use the one-time funds to get us

into a somewhat stable financial space or we use fund 17 whichever one that may be which one would help us get out of the deficit that we're in and which one would help us maintain stability for oncoming school years

Um, so the way that's worded, so let me clarify. If you use those one-time funds for ongoing expenditures and they go away, it doesn't get us out of the hole. The expenditures are still there and you're going to have to do the reductions at some point in the future if revenue doesn't increase or there's no more one-time money. If you have the reductions and then you use those one-time funds to build the fund balance, then you're getting yourself into a better fiscal position. So it just depends on what you're doing with those expenditures. Okay, thank you.

Trustee Smith-Foltz? The learning recovery grant, block grant, it has a longer name, I think. But the learning recovery block grant, what is it supposed to be used for? What's the intention behind it?

The intention behind it is to stabilize schools. We're using it for class size reduction and small schools, keeping them stable. So that's what it's intended for. Attendance recovery is another big piece of it.

So that we're using it to, what you said, stabilize schools.

And small class sizes.

Small class sizes, maintaining small class sizes, right? And you said the attendance campaign?

Yeah, we're using it for some credit recovery in secondary schools.

Attendance recovery, okay. The other question I have, and I think that Trustee Whitton hit on it, but I want to make sure that I understand it. You said there's kind of three pathways here. you have this one time fund, one time funds can be used to for one time things, right? Or you could have one time funds, if you use one time funds for things that are going to have to go year to year to year, you're creating a deficit because there's one time, it's one time funds. And then you can use one time funds for in the word that you just used to stabilize some things that are happening, correct? But those things are things that are what I would call recovery, right? How do you recover from taking a, um, which we all agree that it's happened, taken a scalpel to things, right? We have done surgery with our programs and with our funding and with contracts and all of those things. You could use that one-time funding to help in the recovery of that. Is that also accurate?

Yeah, you can move expenditures over to the restricted side and build up your unrestricted fund balance with one-time funds as long as the expenditures are one-time.

And then just for the people listening, Fund 71, can you put a title on it? Not just we say Fund 71, but Fund 71 is our retirees health care, correct?

Yeah, so it's for other post-employment benefits. It's for retirees benefits after they've retired.

And then fund 17, we typically just for layman's terms, we call it our rainy day fund. Would that be accurate?

Correct. It's our special reserves once we've exhausted fund 01.

And then what the state tells us we have to have is one pot of money. And then we have this other pot of money, which we call rainy day. Is that accurate?

Yeah. So we have to have a 3% required reserve, which we have in Fund 01 that sits there. And then everything in Fund 17 is above and beyond the 3% requirement.

Okay. And the way that we're going now currently with the fiscal solvency plan that we have in front of us now, Fund 17 has how much in it?

Fund 17 currently in 25-26 has about 28 million. We're gonna project to use around 14 of that. We'll have about 12 or 13 million left.

That's the 12 or 13 that you were talking about when I first started this conversation. Okay. And so the 12 or 13 that you have, the 12 or 13 that we have in Fund 17 after the 25-26 school year, Mr. Carter, monthly, how much does it cost to run the district on average? I know it fluctuates through the summer months and it fluctuates through the winter months. It also fluctuates in case we have an emergency or whatever. But on average, how much does it cost a month to run the district?

Approximately $20 million.

$20 million. Approximately $20 million. Okay. So even this amount of money that we have now, let's say this $22 million, it would just float us one month.

Yeah, if we were, yes. But yeah, if that was all we had left, yes, it would.

Okay. All right. I'm complete for right now. Thank you.

Okay. Any further questions? Seeing none. Do we have any public comment on this item?

Yes, we have two public comment on Zoom. Jean Kinster, can you please unmute yourself?

I'm sorry, I think my hand didn't get lowered before.

The long Harrison, can you mute yourself?

Yes, good evening boy. Thank you for the presentation. I just want to say there was a time when they would do this budget meeting and they were mentioned. our resolution. They would mention it because it was a priority. They would mention it because these were the most neediest students in our district who needed resources. But guess what's not mentioned? It's not even brought up. And we're gonna go through years and years of still ignoring these children. And we don't put them in the budget and say their name and put it part of the, not their physical name, but call that body out, that data out. We're gonna repeat the problem. And you put resources where your priorities are. I'm complete.

That concludes for the comment.

Any further board comments?

I don't know. It's looking at like the numbers. I see the numbers, but I don't. I'm kind of confused on what exactly we're going to do with the money. There was three different options that we had in order to get us out of a deficit. And it seems like every option we're just going to go into a deficit anyway. I'm not like, I feel like for us to have a fiscal policy plan, it's not the first school year that we've had it. The way that we're going about it is just going to get us to create another one. Like I don't, I still don't understand where the money's going. I don't know how we're getting out and it's not clear. So it's kind of, confusing and unsettling to kind of notice, especially because we're grabbing at money that may fluctuate or we don't know that we have yet. So it's kind of odd, but yeah, that's my comment.

Thank you. Thank you, President. Colleagues, I actually wrote something because I feel like this is really important. I don't want to fumble through my words. As you know, I am in full support of this resolution moving forward because our district needs a moment to stabilize. I want to thank Mr. Carter and Superintendent Kahn for working on this resolution that we asked them to bring forward. Over the last few years, we have made millions and millions of dollars in reductions. We have done so to ensure we retain local control of our district, which is why I have been in support of most of the decisions we have made. Those cuts have impacted our schools, our staff, our students, and overall morale of this district. We have asked our community to absorb a lot of them, and I believe we have the responsibility to use every available tool before asking them to absorb even more. This resolution does not ignore our physical reality. In fact, it does the opposite. It recognizes that we must remain solvent and responsible while also acknowledging that new state grant funding gives an opportunity to fill the gap for now and avoid additional reductions in the immediate future. The student support and professional development grant, along with additional learning recovery funds and possibly available fund balances can help us offset the planned fiscal solvency reductions for 27, 28 and 28, 29. That means we can protect programs protect services, staff, and give our district time to plan thoughtfully instead of continuing to make cuts year after year in a crisis mode. We have also heard about some of the possible ideas that are left for us to cut. Those are, in my opinion, unacceptable. This is not about avoiding hard decisions forever. It is about creating breathing room. It is about giving our schools a chance to recover after years of instability. It is about being fiscally prudent while also being clear that student staff and school communities should not be the first place we turn to when new state resources are available. I know and we know additional funding is coming. We are not going to see a much bigger impact than what the May Revise showed, but we will see some ongoing funds in the next few years. So why would we continue to hurt our schools and students when we have the ability to stabilize us a bit while additional funding arrives? Passing this resolution sends a message that we are serious about solvency, but also serious about protecting classrooms. We would now stop using Fund 17 and Fund 71. We can do both. We can stabilize the district, meet our obligations, and prevent further harm while we continue the long-term work of addressing declining enrollment and building a sustainable budget. For those reasons, I respectfully ask that you support this resolution. Thank you.

I trust you, regular. Okay, now it's my turn.

okay so i want to begin by acknowledging that cuts are painful and making them is very difficult and there isn't a person up here who hasn't lost sleep or thrown up a meal because what we've had to do so i want to acknowledge that it's real people it's real programs and ultimately it is services provided to students the district has reached a point where the reductions are increasingly difficult and increasingly visible I do not know whether it's possible to take this amount out of the budget over the next few years, but I do know that the board and the district must continue to work to align spending with its fiscal reality. So my concerns with this resolution are fourfold. First, it postpones decisions that will very likely need to be made in the future and will probably make those decisions more difficult when they eventually arrive. Second funds intended to strengthen, deepen and expand teaching and learning and draw families to the district are largely diverted from that purpose. Third, it does little to prepare the district for known financial risks already on the horizon, which is the parcel tax. And aside from not spending fund 71 or fund 17, there's no plan to try to even try to repay those. So at the core, the resolution continues to delay longstanding issues. And that is that the district spends more than it receives and continues to face a significant structural deficit. And while additional funds have become available, I do not believe using them to preserve the status quo is the best use of those dollars. Instead, we should be asking larger and deeper questions about the long-term viability of this district and investing in reinvention. If we want to slow future cuts, the most effective strategy is to attract and retain students. Staffing levels are driven primarily by enrollment and negotiated staffing ratios, particularly those ratios in the teacher's contract. And if we want to stabilize finances and avoid future reductions, enrollment must be stabilized and ideally grown. Simply put, the more students enrolled, the more staff employed, the fewer layoffs. And as you've heard me say by now, probably a million times, there's approximately 7,000 students attending charter schools within the boundaries of the WCCUSD and thousands more attend private schools, homeschools, or leave through inter-district transfers. The students are here and the question is, what will bring them back? How do we improve teaching and learning, strengthen literacy, academic outcomes, improve school climate, Offer innovative programs that families cannot find elsewhere. Improve attendance, raise student achievement. These are the investments that have a chance at creating long-term fiscal stability. And I'm also concerned about there being money not for the parcel tax if it's not renewed in November. And if that happens, the district will face another $8 million that isn't covered, and they're either going to have to find funds to cover that or cut something else. So it's, you know, tenuous. So I totally understand why there's support for this resolution, and I respect it. You know, I get it. however the board's responsibility is long-term fiscal stewardship and we have an obligation to deliver balanced budgets and to position the district for long-term success the best thing to do is to work with the superintendent over the summer and evaluate options that save some money invest in some new programs schools and ideas and perhaps eliminate some cuts but the only way to do that is to look critically critically you know and continue to make hard choices i mean that's it's there's nothing else that can be said there to me that's the pathway to a district that's financially healthy and the district that families choose students thrive in taxpayers are willing to continue to invest in and that's those are my thoughts so i do have a substitute motion when you're ready that i'll try we'll see where it goes

Justice Smith folds. The community was told that this is a band aid. We cannot vote on band aids when we know that we need surgery and recovery. Delaying the problem is the problem. We need to make decisions, not reactions. The issue and concern comes when we as a board minimize, sanitize, and outright ignore the impact of our decisions. The soft language of budgets doesn't prevent the need to prepare. The hope of more money doesn't prevent the need to prepare. An election year doesn't prevent the need to prepare. I'm not paranoid. I'm early. The denial of the problem is the problem. What I'm asking for is for us to be solution oriented when it comes about self accountability and willingness to accept responsibility. The behavior of spinning the narrative for comfort and reinforcing resistance to reality is unacceptable. In our district and the greater school community, attack and avoidance is what's delaying problem solving. That's the wedge that keeps this district divided and these students suffering. We have to stop burying the reality under the hope of financial rescue. I am making points and not trying to make enemies, but this is the reality. The reality is going to hit us whether we believe it or not. So there's some yes or no questions that we all need to hold and be accountable to. Do we have excess money to do anything but eliminate the deficit? Do we have more room in the 400s and 500s? Do we know that the people are still coming because we are still not healthy, financially healthy? Delaying impacts to sites, do we still not acknowledge that that impact will still happen to sites? And yes, we may be pushing a can down the road, but I am saying that we are out of road and the can no longer exists. The impact of our decisions impact the students, and the students are the ones that we need to be centered around. Systematic and qualities persist in this district because the board is afraid to have its yes be its yes and its no be its no. The moving of the finish line and the adding and subtracting and re-adding and re-adding to the budget is what keeps us circling the drain. We have to be leaders in this work. And that means that we have to understand the impact and use everything we can to help with the recovery. But this will have to happen. We've all seen it. And when I say we've all seen it, that's exactly what I mean. The board is not unaware of what cutting $14.2 million looks like. We saw it. We saw it when we knew, when we made promises that we couldn't pay for. this is not something that's brand new and it's not something that's a shock it's just the reality of the decisions that we made we have the majority of the board made we have to lead at this point and that means that the hurt that is coming down with these kids that are going to impact these sites we knew it when the majority of the board said yes Now we need to do recovery. We have to help heal with this money. We cannot create more problems. With all the unknowns that we don't know, the November election, we have no idea about. We know that we are continuing to use our Fund 17, our Rainy Day Fund, and our Fund 71, which is our retirees. We keep using it down to nothing. We heard from our CBO that the most prudent thing to do the most physically prudent thing to do is not the course that this resolution is asking us to take. Again, we heard from our audience about things like yard supervision. We heard about from our superintendent about having a stable way of creating more literacy programs that will help our students adoptions, literacy adoptions. We heard about things that we couldn't cover in the LCAP. There are ways that we should use this money. And I think the board deserves to have further discussion and to bring the community into that discussion. And I think this resolution cuts that off. I will be voting no on this resolution, not because I don't think that our schools need protection. I'm voting no because I don't believe this is protection. I think this is denial of service. I am complete.

I'll keep it short the decision that brought us to this point for made over many years and our students staff and school communities have paid the price. We're repeatedly cutting programs, reducing staff and ask our schools to do more with less. If we truly believe this board is committed to changing course, then we should use available 1 time funds. as intended to reset this district, preserve critical student services and develop a sustainable financial plan instead of continuing the cycle of cutting and kicking the can.

I guess my last comment is, I support this resolution because our district needs stability, but I also want to be clear. We talk about cuts as though there's still plenty left to cut. The reality is that many of our classrooms are already operating on bare bone levels. Our students, educators, and support staff already absorbed significant sacrifices. We cannot continue balancing budgets on the back of every program and people that make differences in student lives and strengthen our communities. My question is, what is the district's long term financial plan to move beyond crisis and avoid future cuts to essential services? We are trying to stabilize the district for the upcoming years to ensure that there is no more cuts happening that directly affect our students. We cannot keep putting money in accounts for future years when our students are suffering now. We want to do what's best for our students, but our students are speaking up now. We had Kennedy come in here. We have other schools coming in here. We are talking about things that are affecting our students right now. And I think that this is, for me, the best option is to support, to stabilize, and come up with plans that can directly drive that not having to rely on these funds for future years. This is something that we are bringing to the board now in hopes that we come up with a plan that can truly affect and support not having to use up all this funding in the upcoming years. We have options that we can take, and I think this is the best option for us now. I am complete. And I will now move on to our votes. Do we have a motion? I'm sorry, motion.

I have a substitute motion that'll probably fail, but I'll just give it the old college try. So my motion is to table resolution 2526-96 and the board direct the superintendent to return with a revised fiscal solvency plan that balances immediate desires to stop cuts with the district's long-term fiscal stability. the superintendent would return with a plan that identifies strategic restoration or maintenance of reductions you know based on you know student learning greatest need district operations yard supervisors whatever comes back additionally with a plan to at least partially reserve or and restore fund 17 fund 71 and um figure out something about the parcel tax because i think that's very necessary and then uh peel off some dollars for strategic growth investments either if it's enrollment or different program or attendance or you know what's going to keep us with enrollment um and that would be the substitute motion smith full seconds trustee gonzalez

Thank you. I would like to do a substitute motion because that was just a motion just to record. We haven't done a motion yet, which is fine. Sorry. Just wanted to let you know. My substitute motion is that we approve resolution number 2526-96 as is.

I second. Okay. So we'll move on to the vote. So that would be approving Point of order.

Point of order. Who's second?

Hernandez.

Hernandez. Thank you.

Okay. That would be to approve resolution number 2526-96 as is. And we will now move on to the vote. Trustee Regler? No. Trustee Wooden. I'm sorry. Trustee Wooden.

No, because there's no plan trustee Smith votes. I won't vote for a mandate Smith falls now of trustee and not this.

Yes, trustee Gonzalez.

I vote yes.

And trustee and yes. We will now move on to resolution number 2526 president.

Can we take a 5 minute break please?

Yes, we'll take a 5 minute break. Thank you. Okay, our board meeting is now in session once again, we are now move on moving on to item E for resolution number 2526 dash 99 WCC USD. Go refunding bond. And that is.

Thank you. Yeah. So tonight for this refunding bond, we have a representative from our Nixon Peabody Council. His name is Graham Beck, and he will present this item.

uh good evening uh members of the board superintendent uh my name is graham beck from nixon peabody we're bond council to the district um i'm here to present you with a resolution to authorize the sale of of general obligation refunding bonds this would authorize the refinancing of four series of bonds originally issued between 2015 and 2016. This also approves the forms of the documents that would go along with the refunding. That would be the disclosure document that would be presented to investors, the purchase agreement which would be used to sell the bonds to the underwriters, and an escrow agreement which would hold the funds until the refinancing could be accomplished on the refinancing date. I believe you received a presentation on this item a month or two ago from the district's municipal advisor, K&N. I'm simply here to present you with the resolution and answer any questions that you may have about the resolution or the financing.

All right, thank you very much. Do we have any questions? Okay, seeing no questions. Do we have Have a look. Do you have any public comment on this item? Okay, no public comment. Oh, do I have a motion on the table?

sorry i'm on the wrong page i'll go ahead and move resolution 2526-99 wcc usd general obligation refunding bond a second and we have a motion by regular seconded by gonzalez hoy any further comments see and now we'll move on to the vote trustee whitton yep

Trustee Ruggler? Yes. Trustee Smith-Fox? Smith-Fox, yes. Trustee Gonzalez-Hoy?

Yes.

Trustee Ayanna is a yes. And Trustee Cynthia Hernandez is not here. We'll now move on to Resolution Number 25, Item 5, Resolution Number 2526-97, Resolution Ordering Specifications for the Election Order. And that is a super teleconference item.

I apologize. Resolution number 2526-97 meets the legal requirements necessary prior to any board election. The resolution calls for the holding of a regular governing board member consolidated election on November 3rd, 2026.

Do we have any questions on this trustee regular?

I actually have something that I want the board to know and that is, is that. In this resolution, you decide how many words the candidate statement needs to be and by law, it could go up to 400 and in this resolution, it's at 250 and I just wanted to board to the board to know that that, you know, there's some range in there. I marked it in governance to bring it to you guys, but since this is coming before the policy is coming, I just wanted you to know that there's flexibility in that.

Do we have any further questions? Do we have any public comment on this item? No public comment. Not seeing any public comment on this item. Do we have a motion?

I move that we accept resolution number 2526-97. And I'll second it.

Moved by Gonzales-Hoy, seconded by Trustee Regler. We will now move on to comments from the board to CNN. We'll move on to the vote. Trustee Whitton?

Yes.

Trustee Regler? Yes. Trustee Smith-Fold? Smith-Fold, yes. Trustee Hernandez? Yes. Trustee Gonzalez-Hoy?

Yes.

And Trustee Inouye? Yes. We'll now move on to Item 6, 2026-2027, Single Plans for Student Achievement. And that is?

This item goes back to Catherine Acosta-Vopraskis.

Yes, thank you so much. I'm pleased tonight to present all 2627 single plan for student achievement or also known as SPSAs for board approval. We could pull up the presentation. All right, thank you so much. We can go on to the next slide. So the SPSA is each school's roadmap for improving student outcomes, and every school develops a strategic plan based on their own student data. Please be aware that the full SPSA and a shorter infographic is available for each one of our schools through the district website. Next slide. So this provides a visual of how the process works. First, it begins with our California state priorities for education, which really shapes our district LCAP. Within that process, we establish our district-wide goals, and each school's PSA aligns to those LCAP goals, but identifies their own site-specific actions, metrics, and expenditures needed to improve their specific student outcomes. Next slide. At the heart, the SPSA is driven by data and school teams review their own student achievement and identify strengths. They identify the areas of growth. They establish measurable goals and align resources to actions to make sure that those actions have the greatest impact on student success. Next slide. Each SPSA contains several required components, and we do try to keep the plan as succinct as possible. It has foundational information about each school community. It has an annual review of the previous year's implementation, a summary of educational partner engagement, and it also outlines strategies budget to be able to guide what the program will be the following school year. Next slide. And just like our LCAP, family and community engagement is a critical part of the SPSA process. And throughout the process, throughout the year, schools engage with educational partners to refine their plans, to get feedback, and to obtain school site council approval before SPSAs are brought to the board for final approval. Next slide. And every SPSA also does include required assurances and signatures that confirm that all the required advisory groups reviewed and approved the plan. Next slide. And finally, I just want to thank our site leaders and our school teams and our parent advisory committees for their partnership and hard work throughout this process. And we're excited that we were able to bring every SPSA as a single batch this year.

Does the board have any questions based on that presentation?

Trustee Radler.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for all the hard work. Upfront confession, I only read the SPSAs for Trustee Area 5 because that's all the time I had. One of the things that stood out to me, though, was English learners, English language learners, and it was a theme that I seemed to pick up with. So what are there any ideas that worked on the at the site level or like how can you help schools do better with English learners?

Yeah, thank you for that question. It's a very important student group. And so just to provide some context, every school has a different plan and a different area of emphasis based on their own red indicators. And so, for example, for some schools, it might have been math because they have a red indicator in math, it might be a student group. And so for many schools, English learners was definitely an area of emphasis. And for English learners, we have both designated English language development time that is required by the state of California for any student who is an English learner. However, we also really want to make sure that students receive integrated support. And that integrated support is really where schools can be really creative about the strategies that they're utilizing. And so And in all of our SPSAs, I would say that the heart of the work is really around using data to drive instruction and making sure that our teachers are utilizing both in the moment assessments through their teaching, as well as providing strategies like, you know, visuals and pre-teaching vocabulary, all strategies that we know are really good for English learners. And so Very specifically, those are some of the things that are included, but I would say more broadly it's using data.

And how does the central office function help to further those goals and look at what they're doing with their dollars to make improvements?

Our ELMA department, Director Esaul Orozco and his instructional specialist, Mr. Aurelio, provide different central office professional development for teachers as well as visit, primarily designated ELD time to ensure that every school is compliant. In previous years, we've been able to provide a bit more teacher level coaching, but with the elimination of coachings, that's been really centered around providing support for principals. And so most of the offerings that we've had for professional development for teachers have been online that the ELMA department, both Esaul and Aurelio have been able to provide.

Okay, thank you. That's all I have. I have a couple of comments at the end.

Thank you. Thank you. Um, so I skimmed most of them. Um, it's so much work. I just want to appreciate you and your team and, uh, the principles, but it is also 1 of my favorite documents because you get to hear directly from the leaders on what they need, what they're experiencing their data. Um. So I really appreciate the work behind it. And my question is around Betty Reed Sosken at Pindell Middle School. Did both leadership teams work on it together to develop this document?

Yeah, thank you for that question. We were really intentional as part of our middle school design team to work thoughtfully with both of our individual school sites, but together. And so all four administrators collaborated on the school site plan. They incorporated what they felt was the most impactful strategies from each one of the school sites. And that's very evident in the plan that was presented. And then each of the school leaders presented that SPSA at their own PAC meetings for ELAC, for SSC, and for APAC to get the same approval, both received that approval. And then in the coming year, they will hold re-elections to have, you know, of course, a single PAC with their current students. So yes, it was a collaboration and approval at each of the school sites.

Got it. Thank you. And my last question is both for you and Sprint and Khan. The small box on areas of need that they really care about, they put a lot of thought, I think, into those boxes. What do we do with that data in central office? They're like sharing what they really need to move the needle. How do we use that to affect our budget or to affect our priorities for the following year? Like do you all as cabinet members read every single one and then kind of disseminated together? Like, how does that work?

Yeah, thank you for that question. I can kick it off and Superintendent Cotton would like to add our department reads every single one of them. Both our executive directors and my directors and coordinators within teaching and learning review it. We're able to provide feedback and make sure that it's really aligning to the data. In some cases in those need boxes, there are some, you know, actionable things that we can certainly support. And others, it's facility limitations or staffing limitations that have really held them back. And I think if you've read quite a few of them, many of them were really impacted by shortages in staffing. And so in places where we can make an impact we certainly do for example one of them was being able to reduce the SPSA and and sometimes it was not to change it at all and so this year we really tried to honor that and and did very few edits only the required ones but in most cases some of the barriers are really out of our control thank you anything you would add to that no okay thank you so much Mr Casablanca

Any further questions? Do we have any public comment on this item?

Yes, we have one public comment. Salon Harrison, can you unmute yourself?

Yes. Thank you for the presentation. And thank you for bringing this up early. I always ask about this every year. Where are the school site plans? Where are the school site plans? So thank you for, and thank you Board of Trustees for looking at them, because that usually doesn't happen either. So thank you for that. And I just want to, I think we're on a good path that we're looking at some things that will be happening and if we have some barriers we can deal with them early instead of later on so thank you for that and parents can get involved and thank you for keeping that the apex can sign off on the plans and look at the plans because we fought for that and i think that is very vital for parents to weigh in on those school site plans also so because that's part of the partnership so thank you thank you do we have a motion

President, I move that we approve the SPSA.

Reckler will second.

I have a motion by Trustee Gonzalez-Hoy, second by Trustee Reckler. Do we have any board comment? Trustee Reckler.

Thank you. I have two comments. The first one is um i'm wondering if there's any consolidated purchasing that could be done to save some costs if people are using similar things maybe you know you pick from three options five options something like that drive the cost down i don't know if it's possible but it's just something i was thinking about and then the other thing is um um So is it possible for schools to have goals on a couple of indicators? We're going to, a couple of indicators, the big indicators. You know, we're going to move whatever, 20 points to standard or, you know, but just like something so that you know what you're working on or working towards. And you can focus, you know, like on a point instead of just broad improvement. And those are my only comments. These have come so far over the years. I really appreciate the work. I appreciate them coming before school lets out. I appreciate them being shortened. I think they really get to the heart of the matter. So there's a lot of improvements that have been made on these. And thank you.

Okay, we'll move on to the vote now. Trustee Riggler? Yes. Trustee Whitton? Yes, justice methods methods, yes, just the analysis, yes, trustee gonzalez hoy, yes. Interesting yada is a yes. What i'll move on to. I don't have discussion and discussion items and reports. So we'll have the first read on board policy administrator regulation 6153 school sponsored trips.

And Catherine Acosta-Baprascus, your final item.

That is correct. So we are bringing forward both board policy and administrative regulation on school-sponsored trips. We want to make sure that this is in place and approved before the school year begins. We have taken this board policy and AR through our staff, our superintendent and cabinet. We have implemented the CSPA updates as well as updated it to our district practice. Some changes that you'll note are that out of state trips and out of country trips are what's required to be approved by the board, not overnight trips, as well as we've updated our ratios for students in the elementary and TK as well in the secondary. And all of these updates are ready to go and be updated in our study trip form that will be published in the fall. Open to any questions and discussion.

Trustee Rickler?

Thank you. I have a couple of things. The first one is There's a line in here. All right, I'll skip that one and come back to it. This is going back many moons, but on overnight trips, I remember that there seemed to be the need for a doctor or a nurse registered. Is that something that's required? Because I don't see it in the policy or the administrative regulation.

No, it's not required. The only requirements for overnight trips are that if male and female students are participating in an overnight study trip, a male and a female chaperone are required, regardless of the number of students participating. But I do not believe that that is the case anymore. We do have to provide and make available insurance for students that are participating in the trip. But I see Ms. Sanders has gone on camera, but maybe she has something to add.

Thank you, Catherine. Just to briefly address the question of in what case there may be a doctor or nurse required, sometimes that is the case when it's part of a student's individualized health plan or 504. So there may be individual cases where for an overnight trip, there may be that kind of requirement.

Okay, thank you. Oh, man, where is this? There was some wording that I wanted to know if you wanted to change. Okay. It says that all other school sponsored trips shall be approved in advance by the principal and executive director. Do you want it to be that specific or just say designee in the event those positions ever get eliminated and then you have a choice, you don't have to bring it back or have it be out of compliance?

That's certainly something we could consider. We do have the current approval either by the executive director or myself in some instances, but we could make that edit and say superintendent designee. So that way it can be any central office employee as directed by the superintendent.

Yeah, that just saves you, you know, the specificity. And that's all I had. Thank you.

Trustee Smith folds.

It's not really a question, but it could be framed as one. I think that do you believe Superintendent cabinet? Do you believe that it would be best practice that if we are we are saying yes to these school-sponsored trips, that we are saying yes with the guise of, you know what, it would be good to have a nurse or someone who has first aid training or some kind of like caveats that we put in there for the safety, the highest degree of safety for the students. um i know that we just said that if they have a 504 or an iep or wherever it's required that it will be provided that's one thing but that student just that person like that person in that student right i'm thinking of what would it look like if we're providing the greatest degree of service to the most children right and if we don't require our volunteers to be first aid certified or if we don't have as one of the ratios for adults to children is someone needs to have a level of nursing right i was on a trip and we had a student that injured themselves but we had a nurse we literally had a nurse with us and that aided and that it sped up the response time and what we needed to do and it also gave the parent a sense of ease because they talked directly to a I don't know if it's credentialed, but licensed nurse. I'm complete. That was a question like, do you believe that that's something that we should look into or could look into? Or is it something that's on your radars? I'm complete.

I certainly wish that that was possible, that we could have that for every study trip, but what is stipulated within the administrative regulation is that they need to have a school first aid kit available to be able to support with any injuries. At this time, that is not part of the volunteer process, but certainly in case of emergency, it is helpful.

Okay. Do we have any further comments from the board on my question? Sorry. Um, do we have any public comments on this item?

Yes. Salon Harrison's. Can you please unmute yourself?

Thank you. Thank you for making this some clarity around study trips. That's very good and informative because a lot we've been asking about the criteria is about trips to traveling when we do parent leadership training.

So, thank you guys for bringing this to the board.

Good information.

I can put a comment.

Okay, do we have any final board comments? Okay, seeing none, we will now go pick up back on our agenda. I don't see the consent. I don't see nine 2026 27 approved contracts.

Thank you. That one is mine. So first, Mr. Booker, I love you. Just realized I'm performing my fiduciary responsibility. Superintendent Cotton. is there a plan to transfer the knowledge and the systems and the expertise to district staff because what we usually do with with uh consultants is we're building skill set and transferring it to staff so is there is there a plan to do that is there a particular contract that you're referring to yeah it's booker consulting

It's interesting that we're having that conversation. We had a pretty robust conversation about particularly that contract during our contract committee meetings. There are what I asked the committee is to be thoughtful and discerning about what contracts we maintain and what contracts where we build capacity and what we kind of have to maintain. I don't think that there is a skill set. So in terms of building capacity within the district, Mr. Booker is a retired law enforcement, comes with a skill set around safety preparedness that we don't necessarily train for within our district. In the past, the work that has been provided has come from either law enforcement or someone with a military background. It's not necessarily a skill set that a classroom teacher or a classified employee would necessarily have. So I don't think at this point and knowing the importance of safety within our district in terms of keeping our students safe, Ensuring that we are mindful of all things that provide a safe learning environment for our students. That is not one of the contracts that we would be looking to build capacity. There are a number of contracts that we have had very robust conversations about that we are looking to build capacity, but that is not one.

So I'm not thinking about building capacity at the site level. I'm thinking about hiring a permanent safety person that performs these functions and hiring for that skill set or training somebody to take over those skill sets. And I think there's opportunity now because didn't Franco do some of this too? And so my question is, you know, it's not really about the sites. It's about building up and putting someone in a position.

It's interesting. My understanding is that over the years, Mr. Booker was actually offered a position, and that would have been building internal capacity. He is not able to be an employee of the district, but again, someone who is committed to our district, knows our community, has worked within our community, both now as a safety consultant, as a coach, and also as a retired law enforcement. I think that's a unique skill set for anyone who would be in this role and capacity.

okay thank you i'd like to move now to edmetrics this is the charter school people and is that is there a plan to move that work somewhere or is this another year's contract uh this contract is for the full year of 26 27. and was was there a plan to move away from them i thought

There's been, I don't know if you can, but there's, there's been discussions of building a more robust charter school team within business services. But, um, for 2627, we're still using metrics to supplement that work.

Okay, thank you. I'd like to move on to the record.

There was a focus around, um, a closer evaluation of that contract. So, going into this year, we will be evaluating that contract that contract.

Okay, thank you. I'd like to move now to the City of Richmond MRAD for the Kennedy Pool. I'm kind of speaking for Mike Peretz. I think I'm going to present it pretty well, but once again, this is my interpretation of what he's told me, so it may not be perfect. The district pays $75,000 through an MOU to pay for the Kennedy Pool. Mr. Peretz has voiced that he's concerned that Kennedy doesn't have any swim programs and therefore the district is paying money that Kennedy isn't using. And I think his preference is that Kennedy has swim program, polo team, swim team, whatever they do. You know, he wants the Kennedy students to use it. If not, he's questioning the $75,000 that's spent. So is there other district fund schools that use the pool or what's the payment for?

Um, so the does give us priority in scheduling out ahead of time if we need to use the pool. Um, if if we had a sports team that needed to use it, or wanted to use it, we could schedule with the city ahead of time. Um, the funds go towards maintenance and keep upkeep of our district property that that they're maintaining. So instead of paying to upkeep it, they are managing and keeping the facility in good use?

Okay. I think that might need to get looked at too. finally this goes back several years sci consulting is being paid from the parcel tax we were told by christy white that we are not supposed to be using parcel tax funds to pay for sci consulting because it is not in the ballot language so somebody might want to check with the auditors when we get that done again

yeah we'll correct that we have we have since that decision was determined uh moved it off of parts of that we'll reconcile this okay thank you that's all i have

I have questions in regards to the Kennedy Swim Center. Can you elaborate a little bit more in regards to the MOU agreement between the district and the city? I know you mentioned that if we wanted to use it, we get priority, but I know they hold swim classes there most of the time. So how are we benefiting from paying the $75,000? We're upkeeping, maintaining repairs, utilities. But when it comes to if our schools want to use it, not just on Kennedy, but the rest of the schools, what is the actual agreement that we have with the city?

The agreement we have is that they have use of the facility and we have the option of scheduling ahead of time to use the facility in advance at the start of the school year. The 75,000 goes towards, um. The maintenance and the chlorine and everything that that keeps the facility running. Um, there, there have been conversations and reached out to the city to renegotiate that. Um, it is, it is expiring. So we, we are in talks with the city right now to look at those terms.

And then have we looked if this partnership is suitable for us right now currently given our budget that we have? I know that you mentioned that it's up for renewal, right? And then you guys are in talk with the city. But if we're not utilizing our students are not taking advantage of this, why do we continue to pay for this maintenance?

Uh, it is an agreement and a service to the community of Richmond and the surrounding area. Um. The other option would be for us to completely maintain it ourselves and. Hardly potentially use it. Um, and it would be much more expensive than 75,000 to run that facility per year. If we were to take it on completely, um. So, it would look, it could look like closing the facility down and getting no use out of it. That would be the alternate option. But we are looking at the terms of the with the city and in cost effectiveness and how we're invoiced and build for that maintenance as well.

Okay, so I know you mentioned that it's a use for the community, but have we collected data from the city of. How many are how many community members are part of because I know they charge a fee in order to be part of this community swim centers that we have around Richmond.

So the answer to that question is no, it's not part of the that they share their data, but that could be a term that we present to them though.

I would suggest we work that out with them in collecting data of who is part of our WCCUSD community is taking advantage of this swim center.

We can ask. I'm not sure that they collect it, but we can check with them.

Thank you.

Do we have any further questions?

I'm sorry. I forgot two things. The first one is, can employees use it? the pool for what we're paying?

Not for free. For free? No. Discount? No.

No.

No. So it also goes towards some of the lifeguards and things like that. But no, we don't get a discount on use of it other than if we schedule ahead of time for specific events or athletics.

Could an event be employee swim? Employee open swim?

It could be something we look at. Yeah. Um, and and to 1 more point coming back to her trustee Hernandez, uh, these funds are from the grant revenue stream. So it's. It's from a, it's from a restricted resource, but yes.

Trustee record.

Thank you oh yeah so emrad you have to use it, I think that this is the one you have to use for public like some part of it has to be for the public. The other question I have in this are we done with the pool, because I have one more C nine question, and that is where is parents square. The last time I saw a contract for parents square was in June of 2024 I didn't see it in this I haven't seen a contract sense.

It is not on this ongoing contract that we brought forward, but we will need to bring that as an individual contract for 2627 when it's when it's prepared and ready.

Okay, because I wouldn't vote no on it. Okay, that is all I have.

Now I'm done. Do you have any final questions?

Okay, I have a question, but I have a comment. Is it appropriate for comments now?

I don't question. Okay, so this. So, do we have a motion on this?

I move that we go ahead and move C9.

2627 approval contracts. Okay, moved by record seconded by Gonzalez. Now we'll go to comments.

Trustee Smith folds, I have to say that. And I'm going to say this while you're in the room, Mr Booker, I appreciate how you have kept. I've had I have 3 daughters and. because of your historical knowledge, because of your skill set, because of your standards, because of what you require from our administrators all the way down to our teachers and the trainings that you do for our CSSs. I feel that my two that have already graduated have graduated under an umbrella of safety. The third that I have that's coming up, I believe that because you are here will have that same level of safety. I think that you... don't sleep because you are always thinking about how to maintain our level of safety. I think that we could not hire 10 people to do what you do from the level of expertise, from your level of passion, and the fact that you don't have an off button. You stay with your foot to the gas, you maintain your foot on the gas. And for that, I would like to say thank you. So that is my only comment and I am complete.

Trustee Whitton, I'm sorry.

I would like to echo everything Trustee Smith-Fold said. I think that your job is very important. I've gotten to learn like a lot about it and then see it. Because like also like before this, I knew you as a coach, you know, basketball and all this extracurricular stuff. And then also coming into the district and then seeing your position, seeing you thrive in your position and also understanding what you do. And then understanding the dedication that you have to the district, the dedication that you have to the kids, I think it's very admirable. I think you're definitely someone I look up to because that's something that is needed in our community. So I just wanted to say, I appreciate you for that. And thank you.

Any further comments. I think just want to elaborate on what my colleague said and I also want to add to that. I think when we're up here on the diets and asking questions, there's nothing personal. I think that this isn't something and I'm glad trustee regular pointed it out. You know, we all have love for you, Booker. Like, we know what you bring to the table, but I think it's also something that I brought up during our committee meetings. Like, how do we figure out what Booker does good and some of the stuff we could grow on within the organization? Because we can't hold you forever. And I say that like you might change your mind tomorrow and decide this is not the right space for you. And then we're going to be in a worse position because then we don't have you. So how can we get some of what you bring to the table and some of those things that we can Educate our staff on even to help you out and uplift you with some of the work that you are continuously doing. I think that, you know, we're moving in a direction of, like, sometimes working in silo and feeling the pressure of this big district. So it's like, how come the team come in and support you and some of those actions while we're also growing our staff. And making them also be accountable, but to some of the work that you're also holding, so it's like, you're not in this alone. And I think sometimes we're making it all about you. We're making it about what booker holds and how you have to hold everything and all this work and we're a team here. So, I think I just wanted to really. Push back on this is not you, I think. Our questions comes from a place of, like, how can we expand some of the work that is being done and drag it across a lot of other people? Because you're not in this alone, but I do appreciate everything you bring to the table. And I think we've had many conversations about how to improve things. And I've seen the improvement within our conversations and how easily it is for you to address things. So I appreciate the work that you do and what you bring in the safety aspect to this district. So, thank you very much. Um, I will now go on to, um. Votes so trust the regular.

Yes, but I encourage work in the future on those few things.

Um, trust is with it. Yes, trustee Smith folks. Smith was, yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

We will now move on to I don't see 22 new job description for director of community schools.

Yes, so we.

Oh, sorry, I just have questions, but you can go ahead and go ahead.

Please.

Okay. Liz. No, I just want you to elaborate a little bit more on the job description on the revised job description. How is it going to solve the problems that we're currently having and from the original job description to this new one that was just submitted?

Absolutely and just to clarify the revised version of this job description is to revise the 1 that was submitted on the board agenda last week. What I also want to clarify is that this is not a replacement for existing community school site directors who are at our sites. That job description remains static remains distinct. This is a district director of community schools position to make sure that our community schools work as a district is held. As a distinct body of work that needs stewardship and care separate from our work for community and family engagement. So, the revisions that were made were made based on feedback from our support collaborative. I want to think all members of our support collaborative who engaged in our feedback process over the last week. i know it was a quick turnaround so thanks to folks who submitted comments through our google form who also submitted line comments in the document and joined us for office hours i know we're working to make sure that we're balancing the importance of doing this right and doing this in collaboration and also the urgency of where we are in the hiring timeline right now and wanting to make sure that we're able to move forward with this position at a time when we can still be competitive for strong candidates knowing that we want the right person for this work Um, in terms of the revisions that were made over the past week, in response to that feedback, we got really good feedback from our support collaborative about making sure that we identify the place of in the role of the community schools teacher leaders. And that everywhere within this job description, our community school site directors are mentioned our community schools teacher leaders should also be clearly mentioned because our community school site director and our community school teacher leader work as a certificated and classified team to really lead the work of our action collaboratives. And support the work that's happening at our school sites. And so it's 1 of the key revisions that was made there. Another key revision was to make sure that in this job description, where we're referring to evaluation, we're really clear about what is program evaluation. Um, versus any performance review of staff, this district director of community schools would be supervising the community schools managers. We currently have 3 community schools managers and under our new organizational chart. We are aligning our community schools managers to the school families that our executive directors will be over working to make sure that our community schools infrastructure is healthy and that all of our school sites have someone who's really available as on the ground support. And so that's part of why we're reorganizing the community schools managers caseloads in those school families and really making sure that those folks can be on the ground in direct support. This district community schools director would be making sure that our service delivery model of our community school strategy is something that can be really aligned and really unified. That's a strong feedback that we've received from our community schools systems collaborative, our support collaborative, From any of the site directors and managers themselves, and from our lead agencies, who are our partners, and then I would be working with this district director of community schools to make sure that as we're talking about our West Contra Costa unified community school strategy as a strategy that exists across all of our sites that I am able to support that work to be infused throughout our school sites. Every single school site, regardless of whether or not they are funded school. The decision to bring forward this job description was made after a review of our budget and determining that there were funds that had been set aside for non direct services that had not been fully utilized. So this position will not have any impact on site budgets. It should mean that we are truly utilizing all of the funds that we do set aside for non direct services. and doing that to really support the leadership structure and the clarity of service delivery in our community schools infrastructure. There's lots more that I could share there. The former teacher in me knows I've already talked a lot. I will pause. If there's anything further you'd like me to dive into, I'm happy to.

Yes, this is a two part question. I know that we added the implementation of Article 53 to this job description. How is that going to be balanced with the existing collective bargaining responsibilities and the shared governance? And then after you answer that, how are we going to be monitoring the implementation of Article 53?

Really important questions. Thank you for those article 53 is the article and within our collective bargaining agreement with the United teachers of Richmond, where our shared governance structures for community schools live. And so that was 1 of the really important pieces of feedback that we got from our community school support collaborative and from the leadership of was making sure that there was a clear strong reference to article 53 within this job description. So that. If the language in article 53 ever were to change, there would still be a clear strong connection to this job description and the work being executed by this director. So that there doesn't become any future discordance and that and that that's really clear. I think there are some very strong structures in article 53 and some strong specifics there. And by providing that clear reference in this job description, we really bolster this job description by making it clear what those shared governance responsibilities look like to head to your 2nd question about performance metrics and how we make sure. That the work that we're doing here is really measured and accountable for impact. Um, there are structures built into the California community schools partnership program grant that this, um, this position would be funded by and responsible for overseeing the 2 primary structures there. 1 is the annual improvement plan. The. The other 1 is the annual performance review the APR. Those are existing structures through which we, we do make sure that each of our school sites that's funded by is defining clear metrics that are aligned to their goals. And that the strategies that our community schools are executing are also really aligned to our. One of the clear pieces of feedback that, again, I've heard from our support collaborative, our systems collaborative, our CSDs and our CSMs as I've been coming on, is that there is a desire to really strongly align those. And one of the things that we've also been reviewing are what are all of the other tools that we are using to assess our impact. We're currently also using a needs and asset assessment. There are a number of other surveys and tools to be quite Frank, as it's 954, and we're kind of losing eloquence at this hour folks have told me that they're surveyed out and that there's a need for clarity about which of these tools are we really using to measure and drive impacts. I think that's part of the need for clear stewardship of community schools. It is as a distinct body of work. And that's 1 of the things that I would be working with the district director of community schools on is to make sure that we are crystal clear in terms of how we're measuring student impact. And 1 of the things that we also want to make sure that we're doing is throughout this next year. I know that our community school support collaborative will be bringing a presentation to the board at our July 15th meeting. We also want to make sure that our support collaborative is supported to use their standing agenda or standing report time each month to the board. So that the board also has a clear updates throughout the year. What are we measuring as part of our community schools work? And how is that going? Did that answer your question?

Yes. And then just for the record, can you just briefly explain what is article? Like, what is article 54 the name of it? And what bargaining unit does it belong to?

Where is this coming from? Yes. Article 53 is the community schools article within our collective bargaining agreement with the United teachers of Richmond.

Thank you. You're welcome. We have any further questions on this item for the questions. Do we have a motion?

Sorry, I move that we approve the new job description for Director of Community Schools.

I'll second. Okay, we have a motion by Trustee Hernandez, second by Trustee Regler. Any board comments on this? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to the vote. Trustee Regler? Yes. Trustee Whitton?

Yes.

Trustee Smith-Fold? Smith-Fold, yes. Trustee Hernandez? Yes. Trustee Gonzalez-Hoy? Yes. And Trustee and Yano? It's a yes. Okay, so that brings us to the And of our agenda, um, we have four minutes to go, um, comments from the board of education. And if we could limit our comments to one or 30 seconds, put the clock, put the time on the thing. So 30 seconds. And we'll start with trustee regular.

I want to thank everybody for the graduations they were fantastic, I was a tear I was in tears almost like welling up. So thank you, they were fantastic The second thing I wanted to say is that in closed session, the board is not having secret meetings, the board is conducting legitimate business in closed session. And so categorizing it as a secret meeting is not accurate as to what the board does in those sessions, thank you.

Thank you. Next, Trustee Gonzales-Hoy.

Thank you, President. Very quickly, I just want to thank staff for the graduations as well. They were wonderful. Thank you to Mr. Booker's team and everybody involved in setting them up. I also wanted to wish Trustee Witten good luck in his next endeavors. I heard your graduations. I could hear the pain. appreciation excitement of going through our schools and that just stuck to me I just really appreciated the work you've done even if we haven't always agreed on policy I I learn a lot from you and I can see you're such a bright individual. I can see you're going to go very far. So I wish you the very best at UC Irvine. There's a great boba place in that school. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you. And that's it. Oh, and if we, I just wanted to mention, thank you. Well, thank you.

Thank you. 30 seconds Rosa. Trustee Hernandez. Okay. Well, Trustee Whitton.

I just wanted to say that the safety of West Contra Costa, both financially and for the staff and students and admin and everyone who makes up our district is the most important thing. And I think that's why we're all here. So that's something that we should always focus on. Moving forward, let's just double check, triple check, check anything that we need to do. My position is one that I value very much. I think it is one that needs to be deeply respected. My name is something that I built over the past years in this district and it's something I would like to maintain and not be tarnished. And yeah, that's it. Thank you.

Any further comments from the board? Okay. Seeing none, no trustee.

One of the doubts of the board is either . I firmly believe in . Let me start over. One of the jobs of the board should be to hold itself accountable. I firmly believe the majority of the board is willing to burn it all down to rule over ashes. We have lengthy conversations about black employees and candidates and their history and their skills. We will debate and debate and debate, but only over the appointment or hiring of Black employees. This is something you don't want to admit because it's self-examination, because of the self-examination that it would require. I'm telling you it's true. I firmly believe you cannot love someone or something while simultaneously hurting it. I don't ask much of you because I don't expect much of you, but I do expect that you support the kids and you cannot support the kids and destroy the very place that they get educated. we are making decisions without a plan tonight the majority of the board voted on a band-aid thank you for you no matter how it's fun i am just repeating the words that were used band-aid band-aid is not the band thank you for your mission that there is a wound that needs okay the majority of the board is too busy looking busy you want the position i want the progress we are not the same i have chosen truth over conflict reality over validation we are not the same