Mountain View Whisman School District Board of Education - Regular Meeting

the Mountain View Wisman School District regular meeting to order. Could I will all stand for the pledge of allegiance and the students from Serakov Elementary will lead us. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. We'll have a roll call. Devin Connley,

Anna Reed, Charles DeFazio, Bill Labbert, and uh trustee uh Lisa Henry will be joining us uh in a few minutes. Next item is the approval of the agenda. Do any of the trustees have any questions or comments on the agenda? Any member of the public wish to speak on the agenda, either in person or online? We don't see anyone. Could I have a motion to approve the agenda? Motion to approve the agenda as presented. Second. Motion by Trusty DeFazio, a second by Trustee Connley that the uh agenda be approved as presented. All in favor say I.

I.

I. Motion passes unanimously. Next, we will have the school showcase from Theov Elementary. Good evening, Justice. Thank you so much for having us here and thank you to the parents who brought um some of our Theov cheetahs as well. And thank you to all the district office here for us today. Um there's nothing more exciting than showcasing their cough school and all the hard work that we've been working on. Um, but what's more important to us is student voice. So, you you'll be hearing from our students today about a couple of different things that they've been working extremely hard on and that they have a voice in and you'll hear from our wonderful teachers as well who help support them through their learning journey. So, with further ado, we have Miss Gallagher, second grade teacher. There we go. I got to move it up pretty high. All right. Hi everyone, I'm Miss Gallagher. I'm excited to tell you about our second grade to third grade gardening project that we have started this year. This year our class is learning all about how plants grow and how we can take care of our earth. Our gardening project connects to our ampli amplify science units. In cycles of nature, we learn about patterns and weather and seasons and how plants change over time. In insects, we study pollinators and how insects help plants grow. In the human body, we learn about nutrition and how plants give us the food and energy we need. All of these units help us understand why plants are important and how everything in nature is connected. In second grade, we focus on building background knowledge, talking about our learning, and doing lots of hands-on experiences. Gardening lets us do all three. We get to plant seeds, observe changes, collect data, and share our thinking with our class.

Hands-on gardening was really meaningful for me when I was in elementary school, and it made a learning it made learning come alive in a way I never forgot. I hope this project gives my students that same lasting experience, something they will remember, feel proud of, and carry with them after second grade. At the end of the year, we will put on a garden show to share everything we learned. We will sing, act, and celebrate our hard work in science and in our garden, something that these third graders right here got to do last year. We excited to keep learning, growing, and taking care of our school garden together. And then I'd like to bring forward my student, Goro, to share more. Hi, my name is Hi everyone, my name is Goro and I want to tell you what we did at our family seed meeting and what we have learned about in class. We shared the information we learned about seeds with our parents. We explained that seeds need water, space, and sunlight to grow. And that they grow better with sun and soil. We also taught our We also taught how seeds can be small or big and how they travel by wind, water, and mammals. At the meeting, we got delicious food from the farmers market and we worked together to pull weeds around our school to help our garden garden space stay healthy. We It was really fun to treat our families and take care of our campus. as well.

Hello, my name is Miss Meyer and I'm a third grade teacher at Therakov. Um, as Miss Gallagher has mentioned, uh, we have created a sustainable sustainability project that spans across the second and third grade classes at the Our third grade students are building learning experiences from what they learned in second grade. As the second grader showcased for us students in third grade are revisiting seeds, soil, and life cycles. Our main goal for our sustainability project in third grade is to connect this information to our third grade math standards of measurement and data. Students will be learning about seeds, growing veggies in a garden, and tracking plant growth. Students will become sustainable farmers by reflecting on their data and learning strategies for how to best grow their vegetables in their garden. Not only does this allow students to gain the hands-on cross-curricular experiences, but it also supports them in developing responsibility. And we have a privilege of also collaborating with partners in the Mountain View community such as farmers and businesses to support students understanding of where food comes from and what healthy eating looks like, which we've also connected to our amplified curriculum. We are grateful towards the local farmers and businesses as they donated produce towards our recent seeds meeting with families. During the seeds meeting, our students were able to showcase what they learned and they are going to show you what they got to teach their parents. Right now, we're I'm going to welcome up Melan, Shiv, and Logan. Come on up, please. Hi, I'm Miss I'm in third grade from Miss class.

I am going to teach you about the parts of a seed. There are four parts of a seed. First is the seed coat which protects the seed. Then the food store which has nutrients. Next is the first. Finally, there is the embryo. These parts are the first parts of the plant begin. We discovered that seeds are small parts of a plant that are used to grow a new plant. We also measured seeds and noticed that seeds come out all different shapes and sizes. We discovered that seeds don't make the sleeping until water wakes up. There are four important things seeds needed in order to grow. First, they need sunlight. Second, need air, which includes elements like oxygen and carbon dioxide. Third, seeds need plenty of water to help them sprout and stay healthy. The reason they need a lot of water is because it wakes the seed up for their dormant state and begins the germination process. Finally, healthy soil that includes minerals and compost provides nutrients for the seed to grow also water from the dark state. When they wake up, they begin to plant the seed. We go to teachers to our families. The seeds also help to get more space in

Good evening. My name is Jen Stewart and I am a fifth grade teacher at Theroff. I'm proud to introduce the expect of our fourth and fifth grade student leadership team. At the we believe student leadership is essential. When students are empowered to take ownership of their school community, they develop confidence, communication skills, and a strong sense of belonging. This year, our expect team has taken the initiative to create and lead several new lunch clubs. These clubs not only enrich the lunchtime experience, but also ensure that every student has a place to connect, explore interests, and feel included. We're excited for you to hear directly from our student leaders about the impact their work is having across our school. I'd love to introduce Evelyn Amelia Avery. Come on up.

Hi. and I'm Amelia and I'm free with the kindness club goal is to help spread kindness through words and actions and create a positive and positive classroom and school and family. And we also like to make your friends and play kind of games. The kindness club is really going to try to help like make new friends that can like stay for a long time. For Mr. SL, we want to learn about chemical reactions and practice measuring, mixing, and following directions. Also, we want to express creativity through colors, sense, and textures and work safely and collaborative collaboratively in a group. And now our expect respect students will share about the celebration sash sensation at Oroff which is a fun and meaningful way for classes to earn pins every month. So in the celebration sass sensation um we have each each class has the opportunity to earn pins and every month we have new a new core value pin.

We like celebrating our achievements and our favorite one. [laughter] Our favorite one is the kindest thing. We earned it because we were doing well in our class. And we also like to note that fifth grade has got the attendance paper for all three. All right. Up and we're gonna we're gonna end with um our cuff song. So, some of you guys were it last year. Feel free to tap along with us um as we sing. All right. teachers are fall.

Ready? One, two, three. Thank you so much. Sure. [laughter] Thank you. clear everyone out. Okay, before we move on to the next item, I'd like to report that Trustee Henry has been able to join us. So, item three, this is the opportunity for members of the public to address the board concerning items on the closed session agenda. Do any members of the public wish to speak on close session um agenda items?

We do not see anyone in person. Is there anyone online who wishes to speak? I do not see anyone. So with that, we will close open session and move on to uh close session.

[snorts]

Okay. The board of trustees will return to to uh open session at 7:37 p.m. No reportable action was taken during close session. We'll move the consent agenda. Do any of the trustees have any questions uh concerning the consent agenda? I do not see any any member of the public wish to speak on the consent agenda. I do not see anyone in person and I do not see anyone online. I have a motion to approve the consent agenda or comments.

So moved. just like to comment that I liked seeing the extra detail in the meeting minutes for people who spoke, but I second. Thank you. I have a second. I have a um motion by trustee Connley and a second by uh Trustee Reid that the board approve the consent agenda as presented. All in favor say I. I.

The motion passes unanimously. and we will move on to communications. Are there any employee organizations who wish to speak tonight? I do not see any. Are there any district committees who would like to speak? Uh Trusty DeFazio. Uh yes, the health and wellness committee met um on Tuesday, November 18th um where we discussed reviewed the progress report that we kind of approved in the consent agenda and then um we were working on our one of our annual goals around nutrition promotion and collecting resource collecting re food community food resources and kind of how we're going to communicate that to the through the district.

Okay, thank you. Any other um district committees? Trusty Connley. Um the district English language advisory committee also met recently. Um I believe it was Monday and um it was it was one of the longer meetings. It also included a budget discussion as well. Okay. Thank you. Um Superintendent Bear.

Yes. Uh a few items. Um, first, uh, music honors. Among our Graham, uh, choir students, six were selected for the CMEA bass section honor choir, and five were accepted to the California Allstate Junior High Honor Choir. We also had two orchestra students that will be representing Graham at the CMEA Honor Orchestra at San Jose State. So, very proud of our talented musicians. Um, our district came together to celebrate diversity, build connections, and stand united against bias and injustice as part of our United Against Hate Week. Our school celebrated with spirit weeks, multicultural potlucks, assemblies, canned food drives, uh, a Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day, and other activities uh, creating meaningful opportunities for students, families, and staff to discuss what it means to stand united against hate. So, I was glad to see that. Um, want to report to the board that as of uh late this afternoon, we received uh that escrow closed and we received just over $54 million from Foothill Denza Community College District uh closing that deal at the um workforce housing project at the Sevens. So, um I think that's probably the last thing we have to report on on that particular project. So, um thanks again to to Dr. Westover um for staying focused on that. We know it was a long road. Appreciate your uh your uh um guidance and uh setting up expectations and uh really pleased that we're able to follow through with that. I think it's going to uh it's really going to prove valuable for the district in many ways and um long into the future. So great uh great news about that. Um, I'm sure Charles will report at some point. Uh, but I know the uh the um the housing board has been meeting uh really looking

to uh to hit that lower rent for our for our people living there and getting that building fully leased up uh at the start of the new year. So, and finally, I'm saddened to share that former trustee Rose Filicetti passed away last week. You probably heard uh Rose served our district from 1994 to 2004, a decade that included a historic merger between Mountain View and Wisman uh school boards as well as the passage of both a bond and a parcel tax. Uh she also went on to lead the Santa Clair County School Boards Association as its executive director. Um I was uh proud to say that I was a a princ teacher and principal in the district when uh when Rose was on the school board. Um she dedicated her life to public service and to uplifting her community. Uh she often spoke with pride about her years in Mountain View and she uh she truly cherished the time she spent serving her students, staff, and families. And if it's agreeable to all, um, we'll plan for a resolution and some other activities in her honor at the December 18th meeting, um, uh, coming up next month. I know, uh, Devon's been in touch with the family and they'll have representation here as well. So, I think it would be really a fantastic gesture, uh, to recognize Rose and and the work she's done. So, she will be missed.

That's it. Okay. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to item eight, discussion and action. First item A is special education update and um Mr. Saja will present. Well, hi everybody. Uh thank you for taking the time to let me present today. Okay. Uh to start with, I wanted to uh share with you a highlight. I always think it's important to start with good things because I got to talk about some data trends. Uh yesterday I had our special education parent advisory meeting and I was so impressed with the parents we have on that committee. uh highly talented people that were solutionoriented and I felt very grateful that um that we have all these parent volunteers that are willing to do so so much in our community and I think it's important to recognize when we see that good work being done. So I'm here today to give you uh an update on some trends that are going on in special education. Uh before I do that, I want to let you know about some of our administrators uh besides myself, Jennifer Morgan, Marisol Shively, and I wanted to introduce you formally to Cara Clapper, uh who's our teacher on special assignment. You want to Oh, you're the only one in here. [laughter] Which one could it be? Um I I've got to say to you uh that uh Cara's been able to come in and support uh many of our new teachers this year in special education and she has far exceeded my expectations. So much so that I've encouraged her uh I think it was a nudge, maybe a push to to start pursuing her administrative credential because I really see her as a future leader in special education. So thank you for everything that you've done and I just

wanted the board to be able to meet you. Okay. So, let's uh go on to uh uh the presentation itself. Um I want to frame by always mentioning what IDA uh is about and what it stands for. Uh access to a free and appropriate public education that we're to educate students in the least restrictive environment and accommodate to meet their unique needs and prepare students for a future in education, employment, and independent living. So when we talk about special education, this is what the federal law that translates into state law tells us that we're responsible for in educating our students. So the goal uh related to the strategic plan, you can read there. I don't need to read it for you. So this lines to the strategic plan what I'm going to talk to you about tonight. We got a little bit of delay. Oh, there we go. Before I talk about data, I want to just make sure that we're talking about kids. Uh they're not widgets. They're wonderful children uh that are in our schools. This is actually our Graham uh extensive support needs class and uh those students there at their caf uh the cafe that they do weekly over there. So uh we talk about data, but we're really talking about children and I think not losing sight of that is important. So let's talk about some district data. uh we remain to have some pockets of over representation and I think it's important that we continue to try to address this. You can see there that while 39% of our students are considered Hispanic Latino in our community uh this year you can see that 56% are Hispanic Latino represented in special education. uh and and I mentioned that along with this next number because I do think it's critical if it cooperates that 70% uh of our kids

in special education are boys and 29.7 are girls and I just say that because if you look at that previous slide and you look at this slide you see there's also connections there and uh I I I do believe there's a lot of reasons why this happens and some of it relates to boys have a tendency to act outwardly and girls more inwardly. And so we notice them a lot better uh when they're not doing well, you know, when they're maybe acting out to try to learn how to adapt to school. And I think we're under under girls because we see girls more act in with their stress. And so I just want to, you know, we need to continue to address this. It's something that really, you know, personally I think is an issue because it's an equity issue that we need to continue to look at. Let's look at some statewide data. Uh, you know, this is not numbers that I look at and feel really proud about. Uh, you can see that all our students are about 63% in performance rates. Um, but in ELA, we're 24% uh for our students with disabilities. And I think we've done some things this year that'll help increase some of those scores. At least that's my hope. Um, but it still worries them, right? This is this flat rate has been going on for years in our district and we really have got to do something to address it. And it's the same same with math. Uh we're seeing that uh uh proficiency rates remaining low. Uh then you go into chronic absenteeism. I I am actually reasonably um optimistic about this. Uh we'll see how it ends up. It'll definitely grow probably a little bit. Uh but you can see I mean since uh the pandemic uh our chronic absenteeism rates for uh children with disabilities has been very high and so I am hoping that we see a decrease in that this year. We also have had an issue with suspensions for kids uh with

disabilities and um you know it's only [clears throat] November so and I can tell you there's been suspensions going already because I hear about them all. Uh and that number is going to increase. I hope it does fall below but we'll just have to wait and see. Uh I want to talk about primary disability trends. And this is really getting into the bulk of what I want to talk about tonight. Uh so we've we've had a situation happen where we're starting to see kids with more impacted disabilities be a part of our community. Uh and you can see that uh it's only November again and already we've seen ourselves go from 141 to 158 kids that have been with a primary disability of autism. That's significant. And then when you add in the fact a number of these kids um number of these students um also have more impacted disabilities that would fit into our more moderate and extensive support needs classes. And so that is what impacts us as far as programming that I'm concerned with. Now you see that little tiny intellectual disability number. We had two last year and now we're at seven. It seems like we only have seven kids. Keep in mind uh extensive support needs class where most of these students end up uh is 10 kids. So already we've basically created half a class and it's only November. Uh and and then we've had some decreased trends although it's only November again. But I will tell you that speech and language impairment and specific learning disability have gone were down last year and uh and our resource uh programs where a lot of these kids end up um those numbers are have been lower too uh this year. So we'll see how that uh ends up in the end. the the other numbers are pretty small numbers but I will I will tell you um our uh deaf and heart of hearing uh number of students two increase of two usually kids require a lot of additional

support when they're deaf and heart of hearing so we need to keep that in mind also uh so types of programs uh I hope I just didn't skip that slide so we have different types of programs that we do in the district you can read them I do want to mention to you that we've added two moderate programs This year we did add the two social resource programs and we eliminated the two mild moderate programs at the elementary level and replace them with learning centers. Uh and so just so you know what's happened uh this year as well. So our our current enrollment in You want to just say a word about learning centers?

Oh yeah. Learning centers are basically students that are in general education about 80% of their day. uh and uh previously we had what were called mild moderate programs which were more self-contained programs. Uh the worry with those that type of programming is one is California is one of the only states left to do it and uh and uh it's a concern because they're very hard classes to be able to try to teach. uh mainly because you're putting a lot of kids in there with a lot of struggles and you're trying to have a teacher try to teach multiple subjects with them. And uh and so what we know, well, at least from my last district uh that I was in, what we found out is when we created learning centers, we saw uh state testing scores increase dramatically by being with peers with being in general education peers. And so this is why we wanted to make this transition. And so what we ended up doing is kids that had more mild profiles, in other words, they could intellectually access the education, but maybe their skills were lower uh were placed in our more learning center oriented uh classes. And those that were more impacted in other uh ways uh that would more classify as moderate disabilities, they were placed in moderate programs. Does that make sense? So yeah, uh if you look at what's happened uh in uh in our programs right now, you can see our moderate right now, we're at 71 kids in our moderate programs. Uh 55 in our extensive support needs classes and then we have a handful in home hospital. Our learning centers are 56. Uh and our social resource programs, we have 16. So that's the way that plays itself out right now. Again, the left side is where I have the concern because that number just keeps to be and when I show you the preschool data of what to expect for the

following year, you're going to see that's a real issue. So, rising trends with students with more extensive needs. Uh so, be between these two years, you can see uh between November of this year and last year, if you add those two together, we're at 71 students that have moved into the district uh since that time. Uh and so if you if you break that down to how it relates to kids in uh uh in our uh requiring higher levels of support, meaning moderate and extensive support needs classes. You can see last year 45 49% of the students that entered in uh needed higher levels of support. This year so far, it's hard for me to read that sign. Uh does it say 37 31%. Yeah, sorry. uh I'm pretty blind. Uh so 31% of the kids that have moved in have needed that type of support. So 42% since last year up to November of this year have needed that kind of support. Keep in mind it's only November in that blue. And so this is where we have um concerns as well. So, this is where my biggest concern is uh and and that is uh our projected TKOK program placement for next year for kids in preschool right now that are going to move into TK and K for next year. 15 of those students will need a moderate placement if they all enroll in our district in that TKK level. Four are going to need extensive support needs and 23 of these students have a primary eligibility of autism. And so this is going to require us to address how we support those students next year. And again, I just, you know, I I've said this before, it's only November. Um, and these are projections. So things can change one way or the other. Uh, if you look at our students in alternative placements, uh, generally

our alternative placements like non-public schools or therapeutic programs, students are having a really hard time adjusting to being in our in our regular schools. And this can be result in a lot of dysregulation, a lot of safety issues on campus. And so at some point we have to decide what's the best way to support them. And in our own only options in those cases when we come to a point where we can't support them in our schools and they need a higher level of support to meet their needs, we have to place them accordingly. We ended up with 19 last year. We have 22 placed so far this year and we have a few that are we're still looking to find placements for. And so these are students that have gotten to a point where we just can't help them in the in our regular schools. So we have to place them accordingly. So what are the staffing implications? Uh well this year uh we added five uh new teachers for special education. we added a 0.4 addition for speech and language path pathologist. Um only this year alone we've had to add uh 1.5 behavior analysts. Uh so 1.5 FTE in addition to the three we've had because the behaviors on our campuses have become so challenging in in a number of our settings. So it's created a lot of work for us. Um and so student uh our behavior analysts are not only supporting our kids in special ed but also our students in general ed as well. But you can see by the numbers that it's been an issue and and so we added six instructional assistants so far and I the statistics you saw on your PDF said eight but I had uh uh Mari our program coordinator check and since November one we've had to add three more behavior technicians. And so what does that mean? So we've

gone from 104 at the end of last year of AIDS uh and BTS to 123 so far this year. So already that increase has happened. [clears throat] And then I already shared those numbers with you, but six of them have been instructional assistants and we 11 have been behavior technicians. That's a really important number because that never happens that way. We normally don't have to add that many uh behavior technicians at this point this year. So considerations uh based on the current enrollment and again we're only talking projections. It's only November. It could go one way or the other. With current enrollment though, we may need to add another four to five moderate program by this January if we continue to add more kids in that program because that program is at capacity right now. uh our pre if our preschool uh projected enrollment remains, we anticipate adding two more moderate programs uh for next year that we'd have to do. And then one middle and one elementary school extensive support needs class may need to be added. Now, on the other side of that, please click over. There we go. Uh we have started the special ed assessment process for about 10 kids right now that we're really worried about are going to need a higher level of support. And I do want to say on the other side of this, our um resource classes uh are uh many of them don't have um the higher numbers that we usually have. They've actually gone down some. So there might be a savings on that end to offset some of these costs that may need to happen. A lot of information. This is another indication to let you know why I'm concerned with the amount of students. Um, and mainly from a support standpoint, not because they're

a burden, because they're not a burden. There are kids, you know, but 25 um 25 more students now require the use of a communication device. Mainly, a lot of times it's an iPad. So they can't communicate verbally necessarily or be able to communicate their wants and needs. So they need a device to be able to do that. We've added 25 more since last year. Uh we've needed to purchase some other things just to meet these increasing needs. And so this is really it um that I wanted to share. Again, it's only November, so we really, you know, but I I still think it's important, and I know that Superintendent Barrett and Assistant Superintendent Bower wanted me to make sure that we shared you that shared with you the update on this. But again, I want to finish with the same thing that I started with our kids. And I love this. This is Pravin, one of our new teachers over at Graham. And these are two students giving a presentation. He's helping students to learn how to publicly speak uh in his uh SAI classroom and uh and it's just a reminder we're talking about children and we're wanting to help them to achieve what they're supposed to be achieving in life and I'm very proud of the work we do with all our kids with uh special needs. And that's all I had. No questions. Okay. [laughter]

So, thank you very much, Mr. Solia. Um so, questions from the board. Pressy Henry. Um start with an easy one. Um the numbers for 2425 are those the end of year numbers and then the well the some of the statistics uh like uh uh early on um were uh were based on current like up to it would say on there up to November one or but yeah most of the yellow slides most of the yellow bars were all based on the end of last year. Okay. And then the the ones for this year were Yeah. were blue when they were Yeah, they were for this year so far.

Thank you. Um, one of the slides that that stood out to me, you highlighted it so um the slide that showed the percentage of Hispanic students in the district and the slide that showed the percentage of of uh students with disability um who were Hispanic. Um I don't want to just make you your personal theories but but uh is there research around kind of the identification issues or kind of how that different proportion kind of though is it okay if I share my opinion?

Okay. [laughter] Um I think there's two things going on and and one is is I think um sometimes our uh speech and language pathologists take on the role of English language development folks um and uh because we don't know we don't know what you know our our school teams our teachers are trying to do what do I do with these kids so maybe if they got in special ed they would do better and I think you can see on the statistics that's not true right and So, I think that's one issue. I think early and and because of uh the boys and uh the Latino Hispanic uh population as well, I think you have the combination of many times boys access language and learning uh some somewhat delayed compared to girls. And I think what happens is you have the squiggly syndrome going on. boys going over the place and and also boys not accessing their learn learn learning at the same levels and as a result of that they ended up in special education at higher rates. Uh and so I think the more we can create a much better English language development strategy that really works for kids and make sure we have a good MTSS system in place to make sure that we're doing what's necessary. I think we'll see that progress and I do think everybody's working hard. Um, but that's that's my theory on what's going on. And we're not alone in the state. Uh, this is happening throughout the state.

Trusty Connley, thank you very much for the presentation. um you know kind of along the lines of something that I asked you about last year I think um I've heard from a small number of families so it's anecdotal who have moved from one school site to another and their experience with accessing special education it's comp like night and day between the two schools and it's both within our district

but at one site once they moved there there was a like a wrapping around of well, let's figure out assessment. Let's let's get our behaviorist in to observe your child. Let's and then very quick movement on an IEP versus in their original placement there wasn't. Um, so I'm wondering if you can speak about how we're training our principles and school staff and school psychologists at at all of our sites to kind of be on the same page about how we approach assessment and and services and um developing IEPs.

Yeah, I it's a I think a fair question and we tried to do a lot of training on the process. One of the things I like to uh say is when we're talking about a learning problem, we have to go through that multi-tered systems of support process and make sure we're trying those general education interventions as much as possible. Um and and to me, you were talking about a while that that's going to take place, maybe uh two iterations of eight weeks of really trying strategically focused interventions on the general ed side. So that's more of like when we have learning issues going on when we're talking about students that are having active behavior issues or maybe we're we we suspect that it might be autism or we might suspect other types of disabilities that are really causing causing dysregulation. I think when we're talking about that situation, we don't want to wait if we suspect of a disability on those situations because we've got to get those kids help right away. And so that's the message we try to send is it depends what we're talking about. We don't want to go to assessment too early if we're talking about a learning issue. But if we're talking about other things that have to do with rigidity or accessing the environment or um working in groups or we suspect autism or another type of disability that requires a more immediate help, uh we want to go to eligibility consideration for those. Does that help?

That does. I I will say in the situations I've heard about it's probably that second larger group that these students fell in and but I think you know when I was in the classroom a while ago um there was often a uh and the culture has changed

then it was don't don't do anything until a child is two years behind academically and I was a kindergarten teacher and I was like that's not good enough. Early intervention matters. Um but and so I don't know if it's that we have people who have had that historical experience who are still in that mindset. Um, but perhaps I I don't know if it's possible to do some sort of survey of parents within either already whose children are already within our our special programs or um I don't know if we ask about this directly in our LCAP. Is there a way to hear I'm only hearing about it because people feel like they can trust me and come and talk to me about it, but is there a way to gather more information about

people's experience accessing services at different school sites?

Yeah. And let me just say one more thing about that. So, keep in mind that within IDA or within special education, one of the main questions is are they accessing their education? In other words, how that's been interpreted uh maybe by site could be that look at this student is really doing well academically. They have no issues in general education, but it doesn't mean access is working. And those are two big those are two different things. And so we have been trying to have this message that even though a student is at grade level on testing they do really well, that doesn't mean they're accessing their education well. they may need help in doing that and and how to work on some of those soft skills and you know and that type of thing. So we're trying we really have been trying to get that message out but we're we're happy to do surveys and trying to in fact that's one of the reasons why I have the advisory committee is for us to give input where they're getting in insight from their own campuses to let us know what's going on. You know, I think the good news is that this family, well, I'm thinking of a couple of families actually had very positive experiences once they transferred. So, some of our teams are really kind of um taking in what what you're sharing with them and I think some of our teams still need some more support. So, I'm interested in how we do that.

Yeah, good insight. I have a few questions. Um when you um mentioned that it's November and the numbers can change, is that why is that? Is that because more children are identified in these groups or people moving into the district or

I think a combination of both factors. Uh you're going to have kids move in and then also there are going to be students that need to be assessed because they have needs. Uh having having said that the numbers can go another way too. We can have bunch of kids move out of the district. You just don't know right now. But the trends right now especially my biggest concern is preschool. Um, I've been in those classes a handful of times and I can tell you that we're talking about pretty impacted students that are going to need some support when they come up through the grades.

So, and then another question I have is when a child is identified with certain needs, do they generally require these needs throughout the time they are in our school district or do they can they go back to the general population or into the general population? It

Yeah, it depends on the needs. I think when you're talking about moderate to extensive support needs, generally these kids are going to be those types of programs overall. When you're talking about like speech and language impairment, a lot of these students eventually get dismissed from speech and language impairment. And you do see sometimes students can go on a 504 that might have a dyslexia or uh or wants on an IEP but are able to go on a different kind of plan um but are more moderate to extensive support needs. There's other factors that are going on with them. Okay. Thank you. My last question sort of uh is uh uh sort of important for one of the other uh items we have in the agenda tonight. Over just a rough number. What do these programs cost the district per year?

I don't know. You'll have to that will come in a later presentation. You're you're fine to pun. That's great. [laughter] Yeah. You're talking about having a teacher. You're talking about having assistance desk and rooms and all this speech therapy and other stuff. We can hold that. It's fine for another another meeting. Uh any more questions from the board?

Just a quick question and it might be someone who's more of a historian amongst our staff. Didn't we a long long time ago, this was before I was on the board, have a um an autism based preschool at Slater? Is that correct? Or some sort of like an autism specific preschool program? Well, our I I think our preschool program was located there, right? And then we moved we moved it and now it's at the cost. So, we do have our special ed preschool program at Slater and that that's what um that's where Director Svagio is talking about. Okay.

Right. I think just to add to um Trusty Lambert's question with the preschool, what happens is as students turn three, then they are coming into our district to be assessed. So, they're moving from one program to another within the system. And so, as they So, kids turn three over the course of the whole year. So, we're looking at new kids as they age up. Thank you, Trusty DeFazio. Um, yes. Uh, so with some of like the over representation and identification that we see combined with kind of how our our school boundaries are set, do we see things correlating with that? How do we balance I think um right like wanting to have right the least restrictive which is generally like we want them in general education classes as best we can. Um how do we

keep an eye on that or balance to make sure that they are kind of not overly concentrated in certain areas and and how do we manage that or make sure that like everyone's getting like the right least restrictive education that they can. I'm trying I'm wanting to make sure I understand the question. So, are you saying that because are you talking about the Hispanic Latino population or

Yes. or boys and like any of the demographics that we see like these are probably going to be kind of correlated with the demographic makeups of our schools which are varying in different ways and like that probably adds a second layer of concentration onto onto kind of at the individual school sites. And like how do you how do we support the schools to make sure they can do that and and and make sure every kid's getting what they need.

Yeah. As far as the breakdown as far as student are do we have higher percentage of students in special education at some of the pro schools? I think that's more naturally going to happen just because of those concentrations. And I showed you the numbers already. So, you're going to you're going to see a higher concentration of of of kids percentage-wise that are in some of those schools. Yeah. Any further questions? Okay. Um, thank you very much, Mr. Sagio. Um, is there any member of the public who would like to comment on this item? Do not see anyone in person. And I do not see anyone online. Therefore, we will return to the board for comments. Any comments?

Trusty. Um, I just wanted to say how grateful I am for the approach that you take to leading this department. um hearing you say things like talking about how uh being able to access education, you know, even though someone may be a student may be testing on grade level, um doesn't mean that there may be some challenges in in accessing education that need to be explored. Um I just grateful that you're here.

Any further comments? And trust, excuse me, trusty DeFazio. Yeah, I'm really I think just to echo Trusty Henry, I'm really thankful that we really strive to make sure that we are not necessarily just doing the bare minimum. are making sure that like we really support all the kids in our schools and like I know it's a difficult task and I think but but I love you know I love the um just the ability for public education to give everyone the opportunity to succeed and you know have have all the things that they need. So I'm really thankful for that.

Great. Thank you. Uh Trusty W. Um, I agree. Seeing the photos from the Special Olympics and the photos that you showed of their uh Thursday Graham Cafe where they're serving staff um providing not just opportunity for them to access education but overall experiences because growing that background, those independent living skills, those opportunities for interaction are so important for these students. but also um showing us the trends in the increased number that are coming up. And this isn't just this district. I think um in my district as well, we're seeing um not just an increase in the number, but kind of the um the range of the extensive support needs in particular. and um preparing ourselves for uh what's to come or what's coming up the the channel is is great to um start to think about and really excited about that um outdoor learning space particularly for these students at Graham that's going in. So when that comes in that's um I don't know of any other district that has or that's going to have a space like that. So continuing to um view these as children we want to serve and provide experiences for like everybody else. Um thank you for your work

Connley.

Thank you. I echo my colleagues thanks. Um I think this is such a challenging um facet of of education is we talk about how hard differentiation is and then we look at like really really different um needs that children have and you know one of the other challenges is when a child's needs aren't being met. We haven't figured it out or maybe they haven't gone through assessment or what have you. Um the way that that presents in dysregulation in the classroom can be really disruptive and it can be um it can be challenging for the teacher. It can be challenging for the other students in the classroom. It can be challenging to a school site. Um and you know I appreciate that we are trying to solve these problems that we're trying to be proactive. um when there's a problem, your team is trying to figure out how to fix it in conjunction with our superintendent. Um because when I hear about behavior, I I automatically think, what does that child need? Why is this behavior happening? How are we able to support them better in being able to access their education and being regulated at school? Um, and so I hope that we can continue. I like the forecasting that you're doing from preschool that we can continue to try and plan as best we can so that by the children get by the time our children get into a more formal classroom setting. Kindergarten still has a little bit of wiggle room, but by the time they get to first grade, it's become much more structured and kind of intensive. And so how much can we um identify supports for students before they get to that point is a a very important piece. And then I I appreciate you're always so responsive when I ask hard questions um and open to um trying to solve them. I I

still hear in the community that there's some work to do about making sure that all of our school sites are kind of doing this in the same way and how they're supporting families. And I I don't think that's just a your department issue. I think that's a broader district thing that we need to work on. Um, but I am glad to hear that the willingness and the energy around, you know, the messaging that you're already using is what we should be using at every site, but how do we continue to support our staff with that?

Thank you, Trusty Reed. um the 25 AAC devices I know sometimes um with this population of students functional communication if it's not available for them to communicate in ways that work for them um that's when disregulation and you see um an increase in maladaptive behaviors. I'd be interested to see how the introduction of these 25 AAC devices plays out in that. Um, do we see a lowering of uh maladaptive behaviors and do we see an increase in um in cont uh access?

Okay, thank you. Any further comments? Oh, you going to respond? Okay, let me just say I'll find that information out for you because we have an AAC specialist that can give us that data. Um, and so I'll ask Andrea to give us some insight into that, but I can tell you it makes a big difference. Yeah. Any final comments? Don't see any. Thank you very much, Mr. Spaggio. We'll move on to the next item, item B. This is an action item. Approval of school plans for student achievement. and Miss Bower will present.

Yep. So, I'm here and um Dr. New is actually online tonight. Um but we are here tonight to ask you to approve the school plans for student achievement. Plans have been were posted to the district website on October 20th and sites did quite a bit of work with their staff and their communities to develop these plans um throughout the course of the fall. I thank you for all the time you dedicated to meet with our site principles um to learn about all of their plans. since we attended many meetings between Dr. Newin, myself and director Chang. Um so again asking tonight that you approve the plans. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Bower. Any questions from the board?

Mr. uh DeFazio. Um yeah, so I know I noticed noted when we were looking at the plans that there were um kind of intermediate milestones and kind of regular reviews. Are we would would it be possible for us to get updates on those progress over time? Like I right a year is a long time but it might be useful. I don't know what format it would take but is that something that you'd be able to kind of assemble for us?

Um I think we would have to look at I think we'd have to look at that. I mean we could look at some of some of the pieces especially like I Ready and those types of things. Um, I think we also need to consider that just the sheer number of goals in the plans and maybe this is something we want to consider. Not that I don't want to provide updates, but maybe it's something we want to wrap into a revision of our process as we move into next year. Thank you. Any further questions?

Are there any members of the public who would like to speak on this item? Do not see anyone in person. And I do not see anyone online or we will return to the board for comments. Any comments from the board? Trusty Conley.

Thank you, President Lambert. Um, I want to thank all of the school site school site councils and principles and district staff who worked on putting these plans together. It is a pretty comprehensive process. I'm looking forward to seeing how these plans play out over this year, but I also am looking forward to updating this process for future years. Um I think um using 10% growth for our academic scores um it's it's both logical but also a little bit arbitrary. Um and so if we can really drill down on um our subgroups, I don't want to say let me reframe that. if we can really drill down on our different groups and um maybe set goals that aren't just 10% a year um for our different student groups, especially for our students who are the furthest behind. 10% a year isn't if everyone's doing 10% a year, it's not going to close gaps and we want to close gaps, right? Um and so I I look forward to that as a possible revision. And then um poor Miss Bower and other staff who had to listen to me bemoone the um the use of 10 percentage points for goals four and five uh for things like um let's change chronic absenteeism by 10%, let's change um some of these other rates, suspension rates by 10%. Like it it it doesn't make sense for those goals. And so, um, coming out of kind of renewing our strategic plan a little bit and going back to, um, being really focused on trying to close some of those gaps as well, I'm I'm hopeful for a new take on kind of I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but a new take on how we're doing this next year. Um, so that it feels more meaningful for all of our staff. um which I think really

engages people in being educational leaders themselves and and um serving our students best. Christina Deasio.

Yeah. I also want to thank staff. I think we met with all the principles. Um thank you director and when you're remote but um answering my questions specifically and doing a lot of work to to address them. Um and I think you know all the community members who have volunteered to work on these and and go through them like um to echo your statements about refining our goals right I view this as we go through that and I think we'll probably schedule like probably a study session or something for how we want the process to work in the future um but right I see us as having big goals as a district that we want to improve upon and then how we get there depends on the school site right what what are the important things to do at Castro are going to be different from what are the important things to do at Vargas versus Zimai. And I would love more um I guess crafted at each school site using like the on the ground knowledge that folks have for what they think is both achievable and um important at their site to help us as a district achieve the goal. Right? like we're all pointing in one broad direction, but every school site's going to push in a little bit of a different way to ultimately get us there. So, I really like the echoing want to wanting to come back and revisit this process. I'm still appreciative of all the hard work that went into this and all the work that assembled. I do I'm excited to see how how we do on these, but um yeah, I think there's a lot of opportunity for us to to get even better. Rusty Henry.

Um I guess I'll echo some of the comments of my my colleagues so far of um both the appreciation for all the time um looking at how much went into these site plans and definitely the time that the principles were willing to sit down with us and talk about their sites and talk about their plans and their goals. Um and I look forward to hearing from you and Dr. Nind about um you know what your ideas are about how this um can be better. And I'll acknowledge that some of those ideas were shared last spring. Um and um the continuing conversations about that and and also echoing on the on the 10% that um is appropriate for some goals and also there's some where maybe that's not achievable at a certain site on a certain thing and where other things where a site's ready to be much more ambitious um and giving them that space to do it. And um so looking forward to those continuing conversations.

Any further comments? Interesting read.

Um there's a lot of information a lot of information for site to prepare and to present a lot of information to for us to take in. Um but even sight specific I think like if you were to ask any site member what are your strategic goals um for this year um a lot of them wouldn't really know how to answer that and um I felt very uh looking through a lot of the documentation like I don't know what to focus on there's there's so much here and while so much of it is so great um it also felt like the purpose of what this year what our goals are gets a little lost. And so I'd love to see um revision in more pointed focus yeartoear. Um it's great to know that we're doing great things, but it doesn't necessarily need to be highlighted every year. But having something um where it's one site, one focus or a few focus points where we could really lock down instead of trying we want to change all the things every year. That's not going to happen. And when we spread ourselves too thin, then everything kind of gets lost. But if we could really um kind of tailor these things to what sites need and streamline and rework and rethink how we're doing this to really try to get to some of the the gaps which are a little bit different at each site. Um I'd like to see uh how we can move forward and kind of make things fresh but not throw out the baby with bath water but still um find a way to make it less uh overwhelming. Any further comments? Okay. Do I have a a motion to approve the uh school plans for student achievement?

So moved. Second. A motion from Trustee Connley and a second by Trustee DeFazio that the board approve the school plans for student achievement for our elementary and middle schools. All in favor say I. I. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Miss Bower. Move on to the next item. It's an action item also. Um 2025 through 2026 first interim budget report and budget reductions discussion. The um uh Dr. Westover will present.

Good evening, trustees. Before we start our presentation tonight, I wanted to point out some of the documents that are attached to this evening's agenda. So in addition to the SAX documents, we put it all into one document because we found that sometimes when people had multiple documents to click on it became difficult. So in the packet is the budget at a glance. So these are for if you want a quick look at what our budget looks like. And then there's also a summary attached. Um so it's a narration of what is in the SAS documents. And then there is also summary tables that talk about what's in our how the numbers are changing yeartoyear. And then after that is like a 130 page Sachs document. So if you really wanted to drill in, you could go in the SAS document. So in total there's three different types of summary before first interim. And then we'll talk through kind of at a very high level what we're what is in the SAX documents tonight. Um and then this evening I also have Nadia Pongo uh presenting with me who is our director of fiscal. Of course we connect everything back to our strategic plan. We also have a board policy that says in the third year we try to hit between that 17 and 20% reserve level um per our board policy. A little bit about how school district funds work. We have unrestricted funds. So these can be used for anything that's needed in the school district and generally they will also fund uh programs which are underfunded. For example like special ed. Um and then uh Mr. L Trusty Lambert you asked about the total cost of special ed. The total cost of special ed comes in at Nadia probably has it memorized at 21.8 million. Um and then the encroachment on the general fund is about 19 million. So the unrestricted general fund is what funds that uh program when there's not enough to fund it in that restricted category. Restricted funds are for a specific purpose. So we get restricted funds for things like child nutrition, special ed, titles. We cannot use those funds to

fund other things within the district. They are specifically for that purpose. And then we have our reserves which is our savings account which we're using this year to weather un unanticipated economic uncertainty. So looking at our first interim, this is our budget process right now. Here we are in November. We're presenting our first interim. Then in January, the governor will propose his budget for the next year. So essentially we're in the next few months we'll be running two budgets at once. We'll be finishing out this current year and we'll be trying to plan for the next year. So this data is actual data revenue and expenses through October 31st. We have these interim reports because school budgets are intended to change. Unlike a business where you say this is my budget for this year, we anticipate our budget is going to change. And that actually dovetales really well into Frank's presentation because we were adding employees based on the needs of the students which is what a school district budget should do. So this is our first formal update of the current year projections since adopted budget. The budget's a living document that we just t chatted about and we don't anticipate that it's going to remain static. We're going to come back in front of the board in March to update where we are from October 31st um up to second interim. So a little note about first interim um during the first interim reserves are higher because funds that were not fully utilized at the end of the 2425 year are rolled forward. So there's predictable patterns that we see in our budget and at first interim we typically see that it comes in higher because at the end of the year we when we are finishing out our budget adoption everyone is estimating how much am I going to use to finish the year and now if they don't use those funds it rolls into this next year at first interim um between now and second interim the funds that were rolled forward will be assigned and the pro schools begin to use those funds that had been rolled

forward. A little bit more background. Um, we produce a three-year multi-year projection in order to forecast the district's financial health beyond the current year. We've also started to do a six-year multi-year projection. Um, three years is what the state requires, but we also have started to do a six-year now just to get an idea of the direction we're going. We always want to use our MYP as a guide and not as a measuring stick again because we expect it's going to change. So it tells us what our trajectory is, but it's going to continue to remain in flux. Between budget adoption and first interim, we have seen individual departments change their needs by up to a million dollars. So that's why we have these interims, but it tells us the general direction that we're going. This is a look at our assumptions. Assumptions are what drive our budget. So the salary schedule, we have a 5% raise this year, 4% next year, and then the 2728 year. There is no raise calculated into our MYP or the six-year projection that we'll show later. Our assessed value, we adjusted down to 2.34. So at budget adoption, we were anticipating 3% but we didn't quite hit that 3%. So in the first interim budget you'll see it's adjusted down to 2.34 and in the out years we have projections at 2%. I have a slide coming up that will talk a little bit about AV growth and kind of what other districts are doing in the area because this is a very unusual time. Then we look at Calsters and Calpers rates. Um these are set uh by others not by the district. Our parcel tax income that's coming in the CPI and our shoreline revenue. Shoreline revenue always operates a year behind with our agreement in the city. So this year we're getting 7.7 million. Next year we anticipate 7 million which is one year behind when we look at the shoreline revenue from this past year because shoreline revenue took a dip from in that shoreline area. So we're

seeing that dip show up in the uh 26 27 year when we see the revenue go down from shoreline. So from our assessor Greg Monttoverde, RO grew by nearly 29 billion over the prior year. The rate of the growth slowed to 4.15% down from 5.39% the previous year. This marks the lowest growth rate in a decade. So this is across the entire county, not just Mountain View. Commercial redu reductions surged, rising 30% in count and 181% in value. So really the number of commercial uh reductions increased by 30% and then the value increased by 180% 81%. So each one of these uh individual counts no not only did we have more but they were higher in value. This is looking at assessment growth by city not by school district but by city. And you can see Mountain View there at the top at 0.51%. We were the lowest in the county. Um, in the small print below, it talks a little bit about why Mountain View was so low. Last year, we had a banner year in comparison to the rest of the county. This year, we're the lowest, mainly because of commercial property. What propped us up was three large residential buildings that came onto the RO this year. Um that number is also if there's questions about well that's 0.51% but we are showing 2.3%. That's because that's entire the entire city of Mountain View including the shoreline area which is separated for us. This is looking at the same information but in table format. We've had past discussions about budget reductions. Um, in the past we've been

very fortunate that our parcel tax passed that was $5.1 million and shoreline funds we were able to reach agreement with the city. So each time there was a release valve for the discussions we had been talking about that were facing our budget. This time there is no such release valve because we aren't able to say turn on the light make AV growth go up. There's no way to take a vote on this. AV growth is what it is based on what's happening in the city. So this discussion is different than the discussion we've had in previous years. Earlier I was saying we talk a little bit more about AV projections. So neighboring districts Santa Clara, Los Altos and MVLA, they're seeing similar things to what we're seeing to different degrees because each city, each school district has a different makeup within their boundaries. Mountain View Westman is about 50% commercial, 50% residential. Other cities have different mixes, different uh different income drivers, but we're seeing that AV growth is is dropping. Um what we're also seeing for projection wise is why are we seeing 2%. So you're looking at the the blue bar which is on 98 what the assessor's report uh projected for that school district and then how that school district is projecting in the out years. So you'll notice every district in the area is attempting to be a little conservative to make sure that they don't have a shortfall. And so this shows that us on the left hand side, so our AV came in at 2.3 and we're projecting at 2% in the outy years. When we look at Santa Clara, Los Altos, and MVLA, they are all doing similar things. So this is not this is not something out of the ordinary. So moving forward, the county assessor has shared that we should anticipate two to three more years of the same or less. RO for the current year is projected to be 2.34%.

This year we have weathered the storm with our strong reserves. So we made no changes and we are very very fortunate that the district is in very good financial health because if we did not have the reserve levels that we have we would have been coming to you many year and saying we need to start cutting absolutely everything that we can but we can't continue this way. If we continue spending at the rate that we're spending we will put ourselves into a fiscal crisis. Fisc we do not we don't want to get there. So now we have the ability to make decisions to avoid that crisis so we can keep the focus on student learning. This is looking at our assessed value growth by year. So on the left hand side we have 2014 2015 and then going all the way out to the 26 27 and 2728 year. You can see that AV growth has gone up and down over the years but we have never been this low before. So this is something new for our district. This is looking month by month. So we also track AV um by what's happening each month within the within our boundary and we get a report from the county assessor. So each line you can see that it's moving throughout the year and right now we are the black line um showing at 1.25%. Um the green line was last year. Good evening trustees. I will go over the major revenue changes and expenditure changes since budget adoption. So all these changes are now being reflected in the first interim budget report. For the revenue uh we uh talk about assess value and adjusting it down. We're currently projecting at 2.34%. Um the carryover definitely has an impact on our current uh first inum

budget report. The 4.4 four uh million dollars of um carryover. A portion of it impacts our um revenue portion and the rest of it affects [clears throat] um our expenditure side. Uh we adjusted our CPU rates which was a little bit beneficial for us. Um, we also had a couple of one-time funding um, including the student and professional development discretionary block grant for 1.3 million, but this is only a one-time funding. We are also recognizing the revenue of 1.4 million in our books um for the revenue of the um, former superintendent home loan um, for the home sale. And the expenditures we are um throwing up we threw up our position control. So we have a savings of 2.3 million and this is like um we adjust the current current staffing allocation as well as vacancies. Um we increase our um substitutes rate. So we um increase our budget for around $200,000. We are also um increasing our MOT budget for um mainly contracted services. This also includes um the MOT gas line repairs and as well as some grants that we projected last year but didn't materialize. We are um planning to um expend this funds in the current year. So here we have our um first interrum for the general fund for with programs restricted and unrestricted. We are projecting a net decrease of 4.7 million with a reserve level of 33.33%.

This slide is um itemizing uh the major items that we use in our multi-year projection. Next slide please. So here uh by this state we are required to do a multi-year pro a three-year multi-year projection. In this uh multi-year projection we also like to include the figures we um presented to you uh during budget adoption. Um I just went over the major changes for budget adoption to first intro and the years year two and year three and the revenue portion we are not including the revenue from leases for Google um that um has an impact in the expenditure side for year two we are including the 4% salary increase as well as the stepping column cost um in year three we are not including any um salary increases in this projection but we are including the stepping column. Um another um item that we are capturing at first in addition to the contribution to a special education preschool cafeteria and we are including contribution um to the program EOP. So as we can see in the third year out uh we have a reserve level 11.12% which is um definitely lower than the desirable uh 17% reserve level. And with that I pass it back to Dr. Wisto.

We also listed past presentations that we've had this year. I think this has been building over time since the beginning of the year. We talked about end of the year financials. We talked about um revenue and AV and how that drives your budget. We also discussed different budget scenarios. Uh adjusted revenues with a six-year myp and then we also went through the cost of different programs. So this year we've done a lot on the finances of the district. This chart probably looks very familiar at this point, but the majority of our budget is spent on personnel. So the green, the orange and the blue reflect uh certified and classified employees. And then the purple the the purple bar at the top is our contracted services. 85% of contracted services is actually direct student support in the classroom for them and moves instructional assistance. For example, the blue bar is books and supplies. I think when we think about um trying to make reductions, if we were to uh reduce our spending on supplies and materials by 50%, we would save about $500,000, which doesn't merely cut the deficit that we need to cut this upcoming these upcoming few years. This is looking at contracts by function. what I had just mentioned before. Of course, 85% going to direct instruction within the classroom. We then did a six-year projection with lease revenue. So, our official projection that is in our first interim does not have the lease revenue in it, but we are anticipating that we hopefully will get that lease revenue um from Google. So, this is looking at a six-year projection um adding in that Google lease revenue and that leaves us at negative 16.41% 41% reserve in the sixth year. So going definitely a direction that we are not able to sustain. So this is the same information in graphical format. The orange line

showing our reserve level and the blue line showing our deficit spend. So we're going to go through some data over the next couple of of several slides. Um it's important to know where the data comes from because we can pull data from all different places. Depending where you're pulling it from, it can be slightly different. So the data for positions for FTE was taken from our position control system as well as payroll positions can be listed as a partial position if they were not filled for the full year. So we don't have half a person. They may be started a couple weeks late. So you'll see partial numbers there. Positions are organized by how they are coded in the system and the function they provide and where the funds are coming from. This is looking at since the 201718 year looking at our non-management which is our green bar certified FTE and our classified non-management FTE which is our blue bar and then we have enrollment with the line going across the top. So in general what we see is enrollment after COVID has declined but our FTE the number of people that we have both our teachers and our support staff has increased. In this chart, we're looking specifically at management FTE versus enrollment. So in the orange bars are our certified FTE. The red bars are certified classified admin FTE for the years. Uh the for 22 23 we added some explanation for what these FTE were from. Um because sometimes the question is I I don't know if we have any more principles on staff. We have the same number of principles, but in for example in the 22 23 school year, we added two mental health specialists and one program coordinator for health and wellness and one assistant principal at Graham. And this was all in response to when we came back from the pandemic, there was a request for more mental

health support. So those are the positions that were added. In the 23 24 year, we added three program coordinators for special ed because we were seeing the need for more special ed support. one psychologist and one director of early literacy in the 20 or 25 year. Um we removed two program coordinators, we removed the de director of equity and then we had personnel moves uh to school admin and this year we added one mental health specialist and then we also had various administrative moves. This next chart is both graphs together but then showing uh the trend line for certified FTE in green and then the trend line for classified FTE in blue. So we'll see that both of those trend line is increasing. The same thing for our classified and certified uh management while our trend line for enrollment is going down. that we wanted to look at uh our math and ELA scores have met or exceeded versus total FTE. So in the yellow line we have total FTE after COVID. Uh in the 1920 and 2021 year we did not have testing. So there's no data available. But we notice that FTE is not connected to our uh math or ELA scores. So more stuff does not necessarily equal better test scores. This is the same information but in a chart format showing that uh the same thing that we saw in the graphs that we have increased FTE decreased enrollment. Um and then a couple of notes about the big programs that were added in the 21 in the 2021 year. We added additional at risks and SCFs at our school sites to try to help with coming back from the pandemic. In the 23 24 year we added the early literacy team and then the 25 26

year counselors at every site. So we see those counts um in the years in this table. This is looking at FTE change over time based on uh the department and their function. Uh the data is based on information from our financial system at the end of the year. This is also looking at change in FTE over time. Uh, a couple of things to call out. Noon duty. So, at the bottom of the chart, you'll see noon duty is zero. In that year, new duty were hourly. They were not FTE. So, they didn't they're not counted here. Also, something important to note is special ed. This does not include contractors. This includes only individuals that are FTE uh internally hired by the district. So that number is not fully representative of the number of staff that are helping with special load right now. So for board consideration, knowing there is a structural deficit of 11.3 million for the 2627 budget year with lease revenue assumptions, staff recommends ongoing expenditure reductions of 9 million. So this is probably the bare minimum of what we need to do. This is s cushioning a soft landing. I'll show you a six-year myp in just a moment with what this could look like. This doesn't stop our deficit spend. This simply reduces it enough. So that previous six-year, the line is going straight down into the negative. This really just levels it off a little bit in the hopes that eventually AB will come back. Um, so 9 million doesn't fully address the imbalance, but it's significant enough to allow reserves to sustain us for a bit longer.

If I could just say a word about these, right, because we've gotten you can go ahead to the next one, but we've in these next several slides, uh, we tried to make as clear as possible at the top in red, uh, that these weren't recommendations. Um but these were put forward to really understand the magnitude of uh what $9 million will require, right? What what sort of reductions 9 mill $9 million um is going to require to be made. Um again, none of these are are recommendations, but just really uh illustrative uh in in that way. So looking at about half or four million plus coming from the district office including instructional coaches, district office administrators and support personnel, 4 million coming from school sites which can be a combination of several things that we'll list. Uh combo classes, reduction reorganization of counselors and behavior techs moving from ELOP to BTP after school model. uh eliminate RTI this in and steam and have elementary classroom teachers assume the responsibility for science instru instruction but keep rhythm and moves as contractual release time. Alternatively, we could eliminate rhythm and moves and then elementary classroom teachers would assume responsibilities for PE instruction and keep steam as a contractural release time. So for this option of these two items, we would need to pick one or the other. We couldn't do both. um reductions or reorganization for SCF and Aerys positions. Move to part-time night custodians. So meaning that our classrooms would be cleaned every other day. Reduction in clerk hours. I can just make a quick comment again. So what was listed there? Those were with the exception of the uh RTI steam and rhythm and moves. Those are choices

there, right? But in order to reach the 9 million, it would be inclusive of everything that's listed.

Um, other items that are not as impactful, but ways that we can save small amounts in order to try to help. We could limit overtime to essential hours. We could reduce technology. We could turn off irrigation at the front of schools that have grass. Um this would also for this would uh accomplish water savings and then eventually help us comply with regulations that are coming in the future. We can in create an incentive plan to reduce staff absenteeism. We spend about 900,000 on substitute teachers each year and explore ways to reduce energy usage. So again this is for illustrative purposes only. Um, we could choose to close one school and make reductions primarily at the district office level or we could choose to close two schools with minimal additional reductions. Again, this is for illustrative purposes only. This is not a suggestion. This is looking at what it would look like if we made if we had the least revenue and we made $9.5 million in reductions. But this does not include raises past the 26 27 school year. So I think if you initially look at this you're like that line is still going down. Yes the line is going down but the trajectory is not the same and we are also ending at the 20 30 31 year at 16.02% reserve which kind of which keeps us pretty close in bounds of where we would like to be but this also does not include any raises. So there's some pieces in here that are still for consideration, but it does change the trajectory of that line. And I think just adding to that the the idea of changing the the the trajectory of that reserve level line is the um the anticipation that in the out years

perhaps years five and six that we will again see some AV growth that will help us um reduce that deficit spend. So for next steps, we're asking for the board's direction on the reductions and then staff will work to bring recommendations to the board in January 2026. Concurrently, we'll receive Arinda study results to inform those recommendations.

So I'll just clarify at this point, we're we're not looking for a discussion on what uh reductions you would like to see considered, etc., even though we put some illustrative examples up there. What we're really looking for is um a target number so that we can begin to do some work um between now in January to really identify where we can find uh um reductions that will total the um the directed amount and we would bring those back to you in future board meetings.

Okay. Thank you very much Dr. WT over. Okay. Uh questions from the board. Um Percy DeFazio. Um just to be clear on the last statement, this is the list of illustrative examples there are not comprehensive and not all of the things that we're going to explore. So the absence of something there or the presence does not mean that it's something we will pursue or That's correct. I have a couple of questions. the slide that shows historical assessed value month by month. This wonderful slide.

I've always uh wondered why the assessed value increases in the last two uh three months of the of the fiscal year. It's all about when uh homes are changing hands because the majority of the homes in Mountain View are because of the it only goes up 2% of year uh a year when they're sold and it transfers ownership. It then gets reassessed. And how about commercial real estate which is 50%. That is a great question. I am not sure.

Okay. Basically, this slide doesn't make any sense. I I know it's from the assessor's office. I'm not criticizing you. Okay. But it does not make any sense to me. Just my uh second, there's a number of slides here um about FTE uh uh certified and classified FTE. Do those um numbers include uh the staff from contracting services? They do not.

Okay. Um let's follow up with a comment so we don't forget. I I think that would be very very helpful in this uh you know we want to know how many as you point out these are classroom facing staff that are actually teaching and working with our students that's an important number we need to know and I would like to see that see that number in total or included in break brought out broken out in this uh sort of number here um that would be useful and I think that would help um I'm I'm sorry I'm getting into comments, but it would help sort of move us to what the recommendations we're looking for.

Um those are my questions right now. Any further questions?

Um I guess I would just add that I have a just kind of a similar question particularly with special ed of the because I I know that there's been an intentional hiring of people in-house versus um contracting. So just it would help me when we have more conversations to have a better understanding of particularly that category of the total spending and the way that um because if we're when we're thinking about potential dropping of FTE numbers in different areas like how the contracted numbers match up with what we're spending already because if it I guess I'm imagining that given the direction we've been going in particularly in special ed that it would otherwise be a positive thing that that 119 might go up and contracting might go down because we would be hiring our own SLPs or other um people that and that may not be I just I seeing the way those two numbers go together would be helpful for me next time we talk about this at least when it's a category that has has things in both.

Sure. I think something to keep in mind for special ed is in general special ed we don't have control over how many people we hire because the people that we hire are in response to students and what's in their IEP. So we actually can't we shouldn't and can't adjust those numbers just as a reference point if it's it's if it's helpful. Yes. But just in as I'm understanding of what got what it means you know like Yeah. Absolutely. That those wouldn't be positions that would be reduced. Sure. But that where that compares to other spending or just how it fits. Trusty Conley,

I think this is one of those discussions where questions and comments are going to be hard to tease apart, which is totally fine. Um I So just kind of for broader context, um well, we know also many of those special education teachers or or um other providers are moving to only being contractbased. they don't want to work full-time for a district. Um, and then districts have always run into this balance with their union partners as well between um, FTE, full-time employees, and contracted employees in part because full-time employees are an ongoing expense that um, you are contractually committed to year after year after year and contracted employees are not. they're generally easier for districts to have fluctuate and you know whether or not there are plenty of debates that happen on um school districts, school boards and in school districts and that's a whole thing. I don't want to unpack that can of worms, but I just want to point that out for the board. Um I was curious, you know, I'm looking at what other districts are doing because everyone around us is making cuts right now. Um, and Certino has a completely different slate of proposed cuts and they're voting on it. They may have already voted. No, they're going to vote on it soon. So, Trusty Reed, you might chime in because what they are really targeting and they're trying to get 8 million um in cuts is they're decreasing middle school electives. They're cutting their TK to half day. Oh, they changed that today. See, this is why I'm asking Trusty Reed. Um, and they are also encourage they have an early retirement package that they're rolling out and none of those things are in our slides. Um, and so I'm I'm curious either from Trusty Reid or

Superintendent Bear kind of the thinking behind um are those things worthwhile exploring or not exploring for our district? I'm I'm just curious at the complete difference. I can speak to the early retirement. So we accept all years of service. So hypothetically we could offer a incentive for so there's we have an incentive to tell us you're going to leave which we are already we will be doing so we can plan and then there's that that's going to come to the board in December right that uh uh Miss Green had mentioned that right we'd like to know earlier rather than later so we're going to try to incent that

but in terms for an early retirement uh incentive so some districts um if they know they have teachers on the high and they can put enough money there to make it say, "Hey, maybe you can retire a year early because they know they're going to recapture that savings because our most experienced teachers are the ones that are the most expensive." In our case, because we accept all years of service, it will be a tossup who comes through the door. So, most likely it will be a younger teacher, but it could also be a teacher that has 15 years of service. So, it makes it harder for us to say, "Yes, we want to incentivize it because we don't know what's going to come in the door." If we set a limit, and this would be something that we'd have to do with the through the CBA, we could say we're only going to accept seven years of experience. So, some districts do that still, but we do not. We accept all years of service. So, wherever you are is where you get placed.

And we could choose who we hire as well, right? We do have some control over that. We can choose who we hire, yes, but I don't think we ever take years of service into consideration when we're interviewing. we haven't previously, right? But it is a lever illegal.

I mean, I think it's, you know, in the grand scheme of things, you want the most experienced and best qualified people in front of your students, right? So, there are issues around early retirement and also is the package actually worthwhile for the person see you know that's complicated. I was just interested that we didn't have any of the same and TK we haven't talked about half day TK. I don't know if that's something that Yes, Miss Bower. Miss Bower and I just talked about this Wednesday maybe.

Yep. So, um, we can go to have So, the law the law says that if you have a full day TK, full day kindergarten, your kindergarten and your TK hours have to match. You can apply for a waiver. There is a whole process. We have done this in the past. We have actually applied for a waiver through the CDE. Um there's a process whereas you talk to your unions, you talk to your parents, you make a case for why you would go from a full day to a half day and then you send it off to the state board makes a decision on that. I think we have to consider what that would look like for our teachers. Would they be teaching an AM session and a PM session? There's a lot of things to consider with that, but um it's something we we can look at. um there's just a there's just a process with it.

I think the the the way you capture um a reduction there is by reducing the FTE, right, which would require a teacher to teach both AM and PM, right? Yeah. Yeah. Let me just remind everybody I think the solutions uh the 10 million I is we're going to hold that for another session and rather than talk about hypotheticals now without a full accounting I I we'll just get into a rabbit hole of uh this is going to be my followup question please sort of

that's absolutely that's absolutely fair I I think I've been hearing from other districts and so I was just curious about that list but we do have a lot information that we're still gathering. So, thank you.

You know, I think if don't mind just allow the public, let's uh to make their comments if they wish and then we can go back to our question comment period. Um, is there any member of the public who would like to speak on this item? I see we have one person um speaker in person. Is there anyone online who wishes to speak? Don't see anyone online, but I invite uh Miss Good to uh present. Go ahead.

Thank you. I want to say I agree fiscal responsibility is indeed essential for the Mountain West Miss School District to maintain. However, I have some grave concerns that the budgets presented year after year are inaccurate. For at least the past seven years, we've been presented multi-year projections that always indicate oncoming doom. And yet, thankfully, that has not come. But these repeated inaccurate projections of financial catastrophe indicate a problem with how we're predicting things. I I recognize that it's challenging, but I don't know if we have a poor ability to predict whether there's a choice for what we're including in these predictions, which has been discussed in the past. Whether that relates to a underlying agenda to have change in certain ways, I'm not sure, but there's something wrong with our predictions. Recently, many to most years have predicted an approximate $5 million deficit each year with up to a $20 million deficit by the third-year projection. And this is not the first year that we've talked about catastrophe, that we've talked about how things are going in a bad direction. It's year after year. And yet, the beginning balance as of July 1st has grown every year for the past six years and was static for the seventh year. And that's as far back as I went. I cite examples in 2023. These are slides that have been presented at board meetings in the past. In the 2023 to 2024 budget, there was a $4 million deficit projected, but instead we had a $5 million surplus at the end of the year. In the 2024 to 2025 school year, we had a $3.5 million deficit projected, but instead almost a $2.5 million surplus. In the 2022 to 2023 multi-year projection, which goes to 2024, 2025, there was a greater than $14 million

deficit projected. But instead, there's been an almost $20 million surplus. So, our numbers are just not correct. Yearbyear, the beginning balance has grown from 24 million in 2020 to 31 million in 2021, 38 million in 2022, 50 million in 2023, 56 million in 2024, and 58 million in 2025. But so why is this inaccuracy so important? It's because tonight you've heard a presentation outlining options for consideration, not recommendations, but options for you to eventually consider to address this speculated financial deficit disaster. And the options presented by Dr. for Westover include doing things like eliminating steam teachers and RTI. Eliminating programs provide extremely important interventions for our students and programs that eliminated will undoubtedly reduce the quality of their education. And all of this is based upon what has been flawed financial projections and a budget that's been inaccurate in all of the past recent years. So to you the board, I ask you to please do not yield to fearongering. We have yet had a deficit even though for six straight years it's been predicted. So please maintain all essential programs that are student facing and please demand a budget that is more accurate from this point on when I recognize that it's hard to do. But if it's inaccurate year after year after year, there's something wrong that we're doing. And sometimes it's a choice to decide what items are actually included. Why we had a $6.5 million store line revenue when really it was $7.7 million. It's huge discrepancies. the fact that it's $4 million less of a deficit now from when it was at the adopted budget just a few months ago and we're being asked to eliminate $9 million worth of programs when things swing so wildly. Please don't make changes and cuts before we actually have a problem.

Okay, thank you. Okay, I'll bring this back to the board for comments. You know, I like to say one thing. First of all, I I thank you very much for the graphs you've shown that show the multi-year trend lines in our district like AB growth ones you have FTE and those are extremely useful. I would as a trustee I would like to see those presented at least once every single year. Okay? And I think there's more that could be added. Generally what we see is this budget It's almost impossible to understand sort of the effects of of our spending and the revenues that come in and understand how we're supposed to handle these going forward because that's ultimately what we do. I mean, I we're here looking to to maybe, you know, talking about $10 million um budget deficit we're facing or more. you know that's 10% of our budget. This is huge, right? And I think if one looked at our trend lines, one could have anticipated that this was going to happen. Okay. Um but we were never presented that information. Um we the board needs that information. The public needs that information understand what's what's going on. It it's just uh if if nothing else um you know people count on their jobs, kids count on their education and it's very traumatic to be put in this kind of a situation. So um we can do we can do a whole lot better. Um, so, uh, there's a number of things I'd like to see and what I'm trying to do is get from where we are now understanding our budget to where we want to be to help me make make a make informed

decisions when it comes to these recommendations, you know, on how to balance the budget. For one, I I think adding the um the FTE from the contract services um to a lot of these charts, however you want to break it up, but I think they need to be included. Um I also would like to eventually see the FTE for certain programs, okay? Because we have in these recommendations. We sort of have to balance the needs of with the expenses we're making for specific programs. Some we can't cut, okay? Some we don't want to cut, some maybe we can, but we need to know what the amounts we're dealing with here in in the programs that we can cut. And so having having the the expenses broken down like that would help. So, I'll just remind you that that was presented in the October 16th um board presentation where each and every one of these programs was broken down with FTE per site and total cost. And then another thing that I think it would be interesting is um going to the various site plans. It was um sort of impressed me how at various sites we have relatively small class sizes and um you know let's say 17 kids over all multiple classes um we could be more efficient at that. So to understand some of the these numbers with respect to class sizes um and at the at and also too broken it down by site as well. Um that would be informative to me. Um especially with a couple of the options that we're looking at here. Um so I'll

stop with these suggestions now. But anything that could be done to help understand, you know, more granularity to understand how what what cuts we can make and where and how much they are. We sort of know saving water on a field is not going to, you know, move move the needle anymore, right? We want to know where we can.

Can I just make a couple response comments? one is I' I'd like to make sure that we're we're we're willing to put in the time, but I want to make sure we're putting in the time in places that we're going to be able to pull a lever on. Right. We can absolutely bring the um costs associated with um uh contracts like Row Health, but recognize that those are tied to special education function. And I do not believe that is something that we're going to be able to create some uh cost reduction in because it's tied directly to student need. And it is true that we're using contractors in that case because of this fluctuation of student need with kids coming in and out and not just kids coming out but their needs changing and them requiring different types of service. Um and um yeah, I'll stop there. And that's exactly the point I was trying to make that there's some programs regardless of what how much they cost us and they might be big items we cannot cut. Okay. But we have to identify those understand what those costs are so we can work with the other ones. Right. Trusty Conley.

No, I was just going to agree with you, President Lambert. think the um first we have to know what we have to prioritize and um and some of that are things that we absolutely cannot cut. [clears throat] Apologies. Um and um some of those are things that the work with Arunda is going to identify as our most impactful programming, right? And um and so sometimes it's about flipping the lens from I think the slides of not recommendations but let me show you the impact scared a lot of people in our community and it scared employees and it scared parents. Um and I while I appreciate the the gravity of the situation, I also um think there is real power in in focusing on what are we prioritizing? what are what is the most remarkable about what our district is doing? What is most essential and most impactful to our children every day? And let's make sure that we are preserving those really important things. Um, you know, bless the poor principles that I had school site plans meetings with because I asked them, I [laughter] said, given our budget um constraints, what are the things that you would prioritize at your school site? And of course it's different at every single school site and that's going to be very challenging. So as much as possible, you know, I think the work with Omena is is one effort to get more community input especially from our principles, our staff and our parents. Um, but I think the the ability to have programs or staffing differ by school site based on school site needs is very important. I'd rather approach this with a scalpel than a sledgehammer.

Um, yeah, just to maybe key off of what you're saying, I think I think there is some value in us kind of as a board also coming to terms with like which of these things on the illustrative examples that we had gave me a visceral reaction of like helps us prioritize, right? Like these are the things that come come to you and you say like this is not something I'm willing to to do, right? And these are things that I that I find at a higher priority. And so I think it's useful for us to have to do that painful exercise as a discussion because I think it starts us from as we think about why we had the visceral reaction, what is important to us and what are the programs that are really key to our students and key that need to be done. So just want to jump in on that that I do as as painful as that was to see all those things there, I think there is utility in us observing that and seeing what the scope looks like.

Wait,

um first I'd like to thank you for the presentation. Um, I was looking back at first interim reports from previous years and um, the level of detail that this one went into and the different charts and graphs and the different ways information was presented and um, just the amount of information there made it so much more impactful to understand the full scope of what a district spends money on. Um while yes there is some room for adding things here and there, it was really um a good idea of where all this money is going to and even people-wise. Sometimes we see a piraphph with um just percentages and then it's hard to you know fathom what each one actually means but to see the layout of you know this is how many people actually this is and um at these departments or at these sites um it was very helpful to to wrap our brain around. I look forward to hearing from Minda and their evaluations, but continued conversation about what programs are really um making impact on those students and trying to preserve those as much as possible and really trying to get back to the making the main thing the main thing. And what is driving the district to continue to focus on students and student achievement? Bill, can I just make a quick comment? Yes. Just with regard to these last comments, I I one I just want to reemphasize the and I know you know this, but I want to re-emphasize it. The gravity of the tremendous drop in AV growth is something this district has not

experienced in over a decade. Right? We have not grappled with that before. And that is the biggest driver that's going on here and we need to pay attention to it because the data is accurate. It's coming right. Um and I want to focus on programs that are good for students and not necessarily convenient for the adults that serve the students. Right? So that's why we have Arenda here as well to really zero in on those and really make sure that we're targeting or um implementing those programs that are going to make a difference because we keep trying right. The people in this organization are working tremendously hard but we are not having the desired outcomes that we want for our kids especially our most vulnerable kids. So to preserve a program that isn't making a difference doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So but we need to we need to shine a light on that and understand that better. Rusty Henry.

Um yes. Um I think that yes again thank you so much for the very thorough um presentation um such you know looking back at other um you know first interim reports um just had a much deeper understanding of exactly what everything meant. Um and you know I know I've you know a last meeting one of our our commenters um pulled out a a comment from me from 2018 um probably same from that era was uh one of the years that um you know there were examination of the budget um but as I looked back and pulled out those old agendas that conversation was around um you know that the the district had been from 2014 2015 15 2015 16 forward intentionally spending down um reserves and had you know one of the agendas I think it's from December maybe December 2017 like a long list of everything that had been added just in those few years and this district is doing a lot and I think in it so for me I do believe that we have a financial issue we need to address um and I know I've heard the sky is falling before and it hasn't fallen but this time I feel like we have something we need to address. In addition, this type of examination is something that I would want us to be doing right now, even separate from the financial situation. really looking at what is the impact of the programs that we're paying for that and are they actually serving our kids and are they improving the outcomes particularly for the kids that we are not doing as well for right now as we want to be. Um, you know, are we, you know, spending on things that we thought would have an income that was would have an impact on outcome that, um, you know,

were absolutely done in good faith, but it's turning out that maybe they're not having that impact that we we thought they would have. Um, and making changes there. Um, you know, as I appreciate that. So skipping topics a little, you know, the the intention of the the planned cuts to just kind of level out that curve so that knowing that things may reverse at hopefully given this area will reverse at some point. Um but not knowing exactly when that we are not feeling the need right now to cut everything to completely you know project out forever that we will um balance but just to level things out to give us that breathing room. Um and I I think one of my my thoughts is that it can be kind of a mix of things that uh where we're addressing making sure we are streamlining and and focusing on programs that um are really having an impact. um you know maybe they're going to be some cuts that are that in between of they're a little harder but um we need to do them. And then you know some of the things where there are some things that are more easily reversible than others you know something like the example of going to every other night for custodial services. that's something that might we'll you know save x amount of money um in this period of time and then if it turns out we don't need to do that long term that's something that can be reversed as opposed to the examples of closing a school or something like that that are a lot harder to to change from I realize those are two very those are not interchangeable um but those are some of the things in my mind of of having um some things in the mix that are um you know that are a little kind of reversible um as we see, you know, how things look a few years down the road. Um

Trusty DeFazio. Um yeah, just that that just brings to mind I think also thanks Superintendent Bear's comments. Um, I think all of this is, you know, this is spurred on by the dramatic change in assessed value growth and things, but I do think there is, regardless of the situation, there is significant value in us understanding the effectiveness of the programs, moving the needle. This is the inciting event for us to do this. But I think regardless, we do need to make sure that we are getting the results that we need for the students in the classroom from the money that we are spending that we're entrusted with. And so regardless, it's important for us to be doing this well and having this analysis and and looking through what the what works.

Okay. I just want to remind everyone that that what we've been asked to do is to [laughter] um propose a number for uh reductions that then that will help the staff give a target that they can work on you know trying to meet and then come back with proposals to the board. Uh I'm you make that decision. Trustee uh my recommendation, but trustee I mean I I it seemed like the staff recommendation from the slide presentation was 9 million. Yes.

Um and so you know I think this is if we all started poking at different numbers it would be a little bit like pin the tail on the donkey with blindfolds on because we aren't um financial experts. Um and you know so but I'm curious to hear from the rest of the board before before we move on to that just a I wanted to make a small comment um that we want to know which uh programs are having the most impact. It's so challenging to know that sometimes so and I know we've discussed this before but just that reminder of some of the impacts might not be test scores. Some of the impacts might be that we have a child who is living in a car and they are fed and they are safe and they have mental health supports and they come to school every day excited to see their friends and do some of these other activities that we might not put strictly in the bucket of English language arts and math. And just as long as we still hold in our mind that Armenda is not doing, you know, statistical regression analysis on this, we're not going to have causation um for our outcomes, but they are going to help us have a better understanding to prioritize.

Trust that was for guidance. I think like if we think we need nine or so an additional buffer for us as we discuss the programs would be useful so that as we can discuss prioritization we don't have to take the menu of options that'll get us there like giving us some additional breathing room I think would be helpful for us to be able to have the discussion of prioritization and what things are are there right so we have some ability to do that so I don't know what that number should be but

yeah I I agree with uh trustee DeFazio is you know moving up to 10 or 11 even and uh we can always back off but uh it it sort of pres presents a challenge to us and if we have to back it off we feel better maybe [laughter] okay Christy Henry looks like you're

Oh I I was just going to agree that the I think that the you know looking at our conversation in January that looking at that 9 million total and then that's two months from now. you know, we can continue conversations, but um with a maybe, you know, the wiggle room on the the list of suggestions so that we kind of know what potential things are sort of interchangeable or um I guess maybe more I guess you're saying more options than exactly then having lived through a former life, right? uh uh budget cuts uh process. Um uh you know, as harsh as it sounds, to do everything at once rather than to die a slow death by a thousand knives is uh I think much better. Um uh and I mainly by morale because then if it's slow then morale suffers and that's hard hard to regain. Yep. Okay. Um, just a couple comments based on what I heard just for mindset. Um, one, I think Trusty Henry mentioned the She brought it to me. Thank you. Uh, minutes from the uh, December 20, 2018 meeting, right, in which it was a recap of the um, charge that was given at the time to spend down the reserve essentially, right? And the one thing I'll I'll comment on, right, is that reserves are one-time money, right? And when I look at this list, they're largely ongoing expenses, right? So that works until for us AV growth doesn't come through, right?

So increase overall compensation by 23% added RTI teachers um added instructional coaches uh added school community engagement facilitators all great right and good well intended but all ongoing expenses and with increased compensation over time that catches up at some point now just we're here I think we all understand that we're here at that point um so I will keep reminding you during this process says about ongoing and one-time expenses. Um, and I absolutely appreciate your um your comments, Trusty Connley, about I agree that not all um success is measured by a test score. We are going to have to prioritize, right? Because we cannot do everything we're currently doing. And um I just think that the outcomes for kids because of our diffusion I think the outcomes for our kids in terms of um their their academic success in this case is is taking a hit. So I think if we could refine it and again will help us we're going to be much more successful.

Okay. Do you have uh Dr. West over the direction you need from the board about the target um expenditure reductions. I do. Although can I maybe ask for a vote on first interim? We can vote on that. Yes, please. We have to we have to vote to approve the pres the Oh, I will approve the budget deficit. That's separately. I've asked you we've got the direct Yes, I have everything I need. Thank you. reduction. Okay, got it. Um Okay, you're absolutely right. the other recommendation which I was going to get to. Um, do I have a motion uh from the board to approve the 202526 first interim budget report?

Come on, Trusty Henry. Um, I move to approve the 202526 um first interim budget report. Second motion by trustee Henry and a second by trustee DeFazio that the board of trustees approve the 2025 2026 first interim budget report as presented. All in favor say I.

I. Motion passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. Now I will move on to item nine, community comments. This is a time reserved for community members to address the board on items that are not on the agenda. The board and administration welcome this opportunity to listen. However, in compliance with the Brown Act, the board is not permitted to take action on non-aggenda items. Is there any member of the public wishing to speak on non-aggenda items? I do not see anyone in person and I do not see anyone online. Just point the okay button. Got it. Okay. Um, Miss Lou.

Um, hi. That's strange. This is the second time you guys missed me. Um, I don't know what's happening, but I raised my hand because I wanted to make comment at the last topic and you missed me and then you missed me again. So, I was wondering if I can make comment that I didn't get a chance to because um, you didn't get you missed my hand raised. Um so can I make a comment on that? Please go ahead.

Okay. So I'm looking at the data. Uh thank you for the presentation. Looking at the data and I see FTE but I don't see expand tied to FTE. So FTE alone um either for staffs or for student doesn't toil the whole picture because you can have like 10 people that make $10 an hour or you can have you know five people that makes $100 an hour and that's like hugely difference in expense. So I was wondering is it possible when you present data whether percentage or you know or FTE tie expense to it because at the end of the day we want to know how much money is affected like how much cash do we have to operate. Um so I would like to see that. Um another thing I surprised that this was not brought up in the option was preschool. We are a TK toa district and our main mission is serving elementary school students. Preschool is nice to have but preschool is a few million dollars as well. So I'm surprised to see that preschool isn't brought up in this. I I understand that we got the golden bell where we got all those things but there's expense incurred to it. And if these expands are taken away from our main mission of serving what we're supposed to serve, which is the elementary students, elementary student, then why are we doing preschool, especially when the city already have their own program of preschool? So if there's any way we can collaborate with the city and have them take over that that portion or figure that out, take that piece of expense off of our expense so that we can serve our elementary school population. I mean not every the TK to a uh that's great and also I like the uh option of TK half day because then that will like you know

that will also cut down expense. Um those are my um comment. Thank you. Thank you Miss Lou. Any other speakers online? I do not see any. Okay, we'll move on to uh board updates. Any board update? Trusty Connley?

Um yes, I'm happy to share that the symposium on supporting unhoused students that I uh co-organized was um incredible this weekend. Um Priscilla Bdonic, who is our one of our McKenna Vento coordinators, was on one of the panels, but we looked at big data across the county. We spoke with um direct service providers working um directly with students and families and then we also looked at a case study and it was um very well attended. There were over 50 people there. It's the first time we've put on this symposium and so that was our our goal was to get at least 50. Um I did learn something unique. So our our new county superintendent, Dr. Austin. Um he actually at one point during his um education uh journey experienced being unhoused and um spoke uh very movingly to um how that impacts children and and the more that we can learn directly from children and families going through what might be possibly the hardest experience of their lives um and how we can support them um that that's very important. And then I am so excited that we're all going to the annual education conference the week after Thanksgiving. Um you should have received an email from Bonnie Mace, the executive director of the Santa Clara County Schoolboards Association that had a message um from me about the delegate assembly that will be held and the policy pillars that will be discussed there asking for your input. I know everyone's busy, but the California Schoolboards Association uses these four policy pillars to guide its um its work and also the stances that it takes on legislation. So when we see CSBA take an oppose a support co-author or get out of the way of a bill um this

is where that comes from those four policy pillars and delegate assembly is made up of trustees who've been elected by their regions um from across the state to go and represent their community. We have eight delegates who are elected from our region, Santa Clara County, which is region 20, and then we have one appointed for the county office of education. And um those delegates want to know um your opinion on these issues. And they will be going into discussions where um their input is used kind of as a think tank for CSBA on how can we what what should we be researching? which should we be paying attention to how can we inform our approach on these issues. So if you have a chance to fill that out that would be wonderful. Um and it will be shared with all of our our delegates. And um beyond that I I really appreciate that our board is going. I think it's going to be a very informative um experience and I also look forward to hopefully having a a report out when we get back of some sort um so we can share as a group um what we learned while we were there.

Any other updates? Okay. Uh next item, item 11. Are there any items uh for future agendas? any member of the public wish to speak on this item without Trusty Henry.

I was just going to ask um since the next meeting um is our only meeting in December um I remember that last year in advance we that was that's our organizational meeting and in advance we submitted kind of preferences on committees and things like that and I was wondering if you're going to be asking us for those things again this year. I don't see any any member of the public wish to speak on future agenda items. Don't see anyone. Uh board meeting dates. Our next board meeting date is in December 18th, 2025. And then we have two in January on January 15th and January 29th, 2026. And just putting in a reminder, I'd asked you to uh uh keep an eye on that first week of January um because I expect the report to be ready from Minda. So we'll probably want to meet that week.

Good. Any further comments from the board? That will close the board meeting at 9:44.