City Council - Special Meeting

I don't I don't get to use this very often, but since we have such we have a full house, I thought I'd see if it works. Alright. Good evening, and welcome to the 05/05/2026 joint special meeting of the Salinas City Council. We are calling the meeting to order and I will

Thank you and good evening and welcome to the 05/05/2026 joint meeting of the Salinas City Elementary School District Board of Trustees and I am calling this meeting to order.

This meeting is available in Spanish for members of the public and attend and attend on Zoom. Translation devices can be obtained in the foyer.

Okay. And Zoom webinar participation is available for members of the public. The Zoom webinar ID and link are available on the posted agenda on the city website. And with that, we are going to have the pledge of allegiance and we are going to have students from my alma mater, Mission Park Elementary School lead us in the pledge. And I would like to let's see. I think Anna, I gather you have some students to introduce.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. My name is Anna Padilla, and I'm the incredibly proud principal of Mission Park Elementary School. And I would like to introduce two of our sixth grade students from missus Gaynor's, missus Docano and missus Weaver's classes. So please join me in welcoming Violet Del Real who will be leading us in the English Pledge of Allegiance and Joshua Ariano Padilla who will be leading us in Spanish.

Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I oh, hand over right hand over heart. We may begin. Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, individual, and justice

for all.

Please remain standing. Hello. My name is Joshua Sagarayan Padilla, and I stated it in Spanish.

Thank you.

Alright. Patty, would you call

the roll for the city council, please?

Council member Barrera. Here. Council member De Arrigo.

Present. Council

member De La Rosa. Here. Council member Salazar. Here. Council Member Sandoval?

Here.

Mayor Donahue?

I am here.

Thank you.

Alright, and Doctor. Andrade, will you please call roll for our district? Jennifer

Sanso.

Present. Betty Garcia.

Present.

All right. Thank you. All right. We will take public comment this evening for fifteen minutes. Speakers will have one minute. And with that, we are open for public comment for fifteen minutes.

Hi, good afternoon. Jose Guerra, Multivia community. This is beautiful to see all these wonderful people here. I like it. I invite all you guys to the city council meetings. Please come. We like to have this kind of a dais there. We like to have your support and we need it. Like I will support you guys at your meetings. Please invite me.

I'll be happy to come to any of your meetings that you have at any school district. Yeah, I would love to just be there and be able to share and and and enjoy a great company. I appreciate all you teachers for stepping up and and helping our students. And I'm just not just the teachers that teach in school, I'm talking about people, just regular people that that do give their time and volunteer, people in the community, you know, moms, dads, uncles, cousins, friends, people who care. We need that. Thank you Salinas. This is a beautiful city. I love it here. God bless you guys and thank you for coming. You're very welcome anytime here. God bless you guys. Have a good night.

My name

is Daniel Munoz. Once again, I urge everybody here to get our children pesticide air monitors so we can know what our kids are breathing. That's pretty much all I wanted to ask. I'm pretty sure everybody in this room agrees with me. Our children need pesticide air monitors. We don't have one here. So food for thought. Right? Please help us out protect our children. Thank you.

Just

in the council chambers, it's fun but not a spectator sport. So we so no no. I'm gonna ask you to refrain from from applause. There will be chance for it when we recognize the words. But public comment, we just like to receive that. So anyone else from the public? Alright, is anyone zooming from the public? They are not zooming. So we will go ahead and proceed to an administrative report. And we are looking for the city manager and the superintendent. So I'll start with.

Yes, Mayor, council members, board members, board trustees and everybody. So we're going to just take a few minutes to make a few presentations on what's going on with the city. Some of you have already seen this presentation. I know Doctor. Andrade is going to brief us on the school.

So if we can move on to the next slide. So a lot of the stuff that the city has been doing over the last years is, and particularly the last couple years, is really focusing on our future, investing in the future. On this slide, you see a lot of the, then I'll speak to a little bit more, the future growth area, some of the projects that are going on, and our general plan update that is in the process right now. Pretty So, much everybody in this room, a lot of folks in this room have participated in Vision Salinas 2040, which is the general plan, it's a blueprint for the city over setting or overreaching goals, specific plans support implementation of these goals. So over the last several years, we've done a lot of whether it's the Aliso Publicity Plan marketplace, the downtown plan, the urban forest management plan.

There's a lot of plans that are going to the general plan. A lot of documents that go into the general plan. There's been thousands and thousands of community engagements and a lot of input provided. The thing that, why this is important is the first comprehensive general plan update since 2002. Like happens in our school district, I'm pretty sure a lot of the codes and a lot of the requirements change over time and the city's really focusing on updating our general plan.

What you'll have is land use, circulation, housing, conservation, noise, open space, safety, and environmental justice, which is a new element. I think it's important to point out that our schools, all our school districts have provide input into the general plan. Provide there's places for schools at all levels. Schools are an integral part of development as they work with developers and so forth as our population goes, as in our student population shifts. So I think this is an important thing to acknowledge that while the city does focus on the general plan moving forward, it's not done in a vacuum.

Schools are an important component of any general plan. One of the big focuses of, that we'll be focusing over the last several years and you've seen a lot of it is creating housing opportunities. This is housing opportunities of all types and all incomes from entry level, our affordable, low income, market rate workforce housing. Something me and Doctor. Andrade have talked about over the last couple of years is just the challenge that we have hiring staff.

When we have lack of available housing opportunity or our kids that were graduating coming back, where do they live? I'm soon to have two kids graduate from high school and they're like, dad, is a room still available? So those are things that we all struggle with. A couple of the projects that we're working on, there was a Fairview grand opening, which is housing for unhoused homeless population. We did host the first annual housing summit which looked at different types of housing opportunities.

We're really engaged in Chinatown redevelopment, the city's buying property, acquiring property, couldn't develop it. And then hopefully our affordable housing providers and our nonprofits can step in and develop the housing. Future growth area, we are looking at three rural specific areas right now, which is the West Area Specific Plan, the Central Area Specific Plan, which is a little bit ahead in some of the projects. We hope that we'll be able to, there'll be some groundbreaking spring in the East Area Pacific Plan. So all in all, these are thousands and thousands of housing opportunities for our community.

We're also investing in our infrastructure. A lot of work goes into that, a lot of work continues. We are looking to update infrastructure and maybe be able to invest more. And one of the things that's coming up is we're going to be looking how we can shift, we can update our procurement processes and just how we develop these projects moving them forward. Another thing that we're going to speak to is an infrastructure summit that's coming and that's one of the things that we're going to look at is bringing experts from throughout the state and helping us explore other financing opportunities and just how we can really keep up with what's needed with the community.

If you move on to the next one. Also, we're looking to streamline development processes that align with community preferences. One of the things that happens when a development project comes into the city, not only is there a city component to it, but there's also a school component to it. Many of the development projects that happen have to go talk to the school about how they're going to impact the school districts and there is a school impact fee and other things that happen when a development comes forward. It's not just the city that is looking at those development projects.

Along with that, we're looking at updating our zoning code. Again, zoning code has not been updated for decades. I think it's important to bring it into 2026 and what the community is today and moving forward. Something that some of you that were here were listening to our fire department give their annual report and we're doing a lot to invest in public safety and quality of life issues. So, our police department, our fire department, our code enforcement and other areas have been a real focus of this council and how we can continue to invest in those areas.

Public spaces, similar to, I think schools are an incredible meeting space and community space in kind of the heartbeat of communities. The city complements that with our own public spaces or parks, centers like the Hebron Family Center, an incredible investment in Closter Park is underway and now we're looking at really supercharging public art and that I know that the schools really spend a lot of time on the arts. So it's kind of bringing a lot of that back and providing opportunities. Our facilities, we are slowly but surely in turn to improve our facilities. Fire station one was recently under, oversaw a huge rehab and we're in the early stages of District five Recreation Center going through that process, community engagement kind of what they want to see, then we'll bring it to the council for approval and move that forward.

Expanding economic opportunities across Salinas, whether it's the large building that people are seeing on the Southwest Side of town, which is the Amazon Building, a 3,000,000 square foot facility, which is going to bring 1,600 jobs to the area and a few, but it's also there's pros and cons to those types of large businesses that we have to deal with. Community financial empowerment, we're standing up a service where our community can prepare for the housing that's coming. So you have to prepare, you have to be ready to be able to purchase housing. So that's we're going to invest, we're working with United Way and a few other non profit partners on that. Today, the council acknowledged small business week, so how do we support our local businesses and workforce development, which is very, very key.

So with that, I'm going to ask Doctor. Andrade to finish the presentation. Thank you.

Can you hear me now? Okay. It was off. If we can go to the slide of who we are, we serve more than 8,600 students across 15 schools from preschool through sixth grade with over 1,200 dedicated employees, many of them are here. This is the week that we are celebrating our teachers, a Teacher Appreciation Week for those of you that are listening.

You have time to let them know how much value and what a difference our teachers have made in our lives. Particularly, by the way, we are hiring. We have about 1,200 employees and sometimes we forget that the school districts are actually one of the largest employees of our cities and our counties. Counties. We are currently looking for bus drivers in particular.

So I'm making that plug right now. If we go to the next slide, our budget really reflects our values and our priorities. Priorities. As you can see, the majority of our resources go directly into the people, our teachers, support staff and employees who serve our students every day. We do remain committed to fiscal responsibility and responsible stewardship of the funds that our taxpayers have entrusted us.

So with that, we want to make sure that we do our budget process and development just like in the city. We are in those final stages where information will be given to the board in May at the end of this month and then for board approval in June. We go to the next slide. Our five thirty five promise is something that we have begun in collaboration with our educational services and all of our staff really which is helping guide our instructional focus and our commitment to student success. We want every child reading proficiently by third grade, being proficient in math by fifth grade and our English learners are multilinguals to be reclassified within five years of being in The U.

S. These goals represent high expectations, but it is our belief that every child can meet these when given the opportunity. Moving on to the next slide, this is one of our signature programs that we started which is the identification for our advanced learners. It really is something unique in our county. We, I believe, we're the only school district that is beginning to identify who are our advanced learners.

We do so with the full commitment that it's English learners, multilingual students with disabilities, anyone can truly be identified as an advanced learner. So we are looking at the ability to problem solve and reason and it's not necessarily dictated by language. So there's no barriers for any one of our students. We are also ensuring that they're challenged and inspired and this is the first year where we're identifying them. So stay tuned on how we're going to be able to see that flourish in our classrooms.

But we are doing it right now through our film festival. I believe we had over 40 students that submitted their entries, so we have at least future directors and cinematographers in our midst and actors. We do have a STEAM and computer science showcase and we continue to do participation in the Invention Convention. We're really proud especially of our students. We had over 22 participate at the state level.

I think we had about six of them receive awards and one of our students is actually moving to the nationals. So that is very, very exciting. If we move to the next slide, it is another one of our signature programs which is our dual immersion. Out of our 14 physical schools, seven of them actually have Spanish as a dual immersion program and it really reflects the strengths of the language and the culture of our community. They are continuing to grow.

They are a source of great pride for our district and community. As you can see, our students are very proud of doing the Pledge of Allegiance in both languages and it is something that our board always welcomes at every one of their meetings. We are helping students become not only bilingual, biliteral, but culturally connected while preparing them for their future, which is a global future. We are actually excited to let you know that we are in the exploration stages of continuing by parent demand to continue the dual immersion to the seventh grade. So we will be providing more information to the board at the next meeting on that.

No one in our county offers dual immersion in the secondary. So this is something that we have been telling our parents, please speak with secondary schools. But in the last six years, there hasn't been any change and we want to be responsive to our community and to our students. If we go to the next slide, our community schools, nine of our 14 schools have been awarded of our physical schools the community schools grant. And this is where we really are seeing the connection to wellness, family supports and access to resources.

And we really are grateful for the partnership, particular with our city who is definitely ensuring that there is a city staff member attending the district wide events. And this year what we're doing, thank you so much Mr. Mendez for that commitment from the city. And in so doing so, we're doing structures and the frame this year by developing the bylaws, being able to finalize a recommended community schools job description to the board and next year we're really excited to be able to see it at the school site level. If we go to the next slide, another one of our important work is really listening to our students directly and through advisory groups, leadership opportunities, conference and experiences such as the student film festival that I just mentioned, they really are being more invested and involved and engaged directly in their community and in their own learning.

Their voices truly do matter. This year we started the Superintendent Student Advisory Board. So I am meeting with two student leaders from each school and it's just incredible to be able to see our work that is really dedicated to them and in service of our students but to see their experience, to hear from them directly about the student experience and see the goals and the priorities that we have through the student perspective. I want our students to know that they not only matter they belong in each and every one of our schools and each and every one of our spaces and one day they will be sitting here representing the community that they love. So that is one of the pieces that I wanted to mention.

In terms of engagement, when we look at the next piece, just like the city, we really want to be able to have as much involvement from our community. If you are a community member and you are interested in facilities and bond projects, we are always looking for a senior member. We would really welcome you to join us and it's a very important committee, the citizens oversight for our bonds because we're getting started in our multi purpose rooms, our kitchen infrastructure and playgrounds have already started that process. But we really, really want to be able to let you know about those pieces. We have a fiscal health committee, we have a wellness committee and an arts committee as well.

I already, next slide please, I already mentioned the investment in our future and made a public service announcement or a plug for a retiree. But we also have a QR code. You can look at the facility needs and I want to thank our community once again for entrusting us and the support that they have given us with the measures G and H. We really are seeing this as an opportunity to create the spaces that not only our students but our staff deserve to be working in. Lastly, the city and district partnership.

I'm incredibly grateful for your continued partnership, City of Salinas, and I hope that there are people that are interested in finding ways to be involved in the work that we do that impacts our future that is growing quickly right in front of our eyes, our children. So please stay involved. I really want to thank our firefighters and our police officers who always show up to our events and also provide workshops and educational components to our parents and to our schools and all of the other resources that have been very, very impactful in ensuring that there are safe spaces in our places. And I know that there are some other conversations that we're having that we are looking in being able to invest so that our children are safe no matter what school in our district. So thank you for your continued partnership and commitment and I just wanted to, you know, when I'm thinking about the work that we do, Nelson Mandela came to mind because he said at one point, there is no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.

And that belief is reflected in the work that we're doing together as a district, as a city, and as a community. So thank you for coming together to not only celebrate the work that we do as a district, but to celebrate the adults that are ensuring that we're shaping and making a difference for children.

Thank you, doctor. All right. Well, we're going to see if there we'll start with seeing if there are any questions or comments from council members and then we'll have the board do the same. So I'll start to my left with Margaret. Any questions or comments?

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to confirm that we'll be holding these meetings for all the different elementary schools over the course of a year, right? So we're going have a lot more of these type of gatherings because I think this is fantastic. And is it possible to hold it at a larger location so everyone can have a seat like Sherwood Hall? Those are two of my comments on the city stuff. Let me flip over here real quick. I wanted to ask what percentage are we at for math by grade five and reading by grade three. I know the numbers have gone up because they were probably as low as they've ever been, but I know you guys have been working really hard to bring those up. Do you happen to have that data?

We are currently still showing very limited incremental changes. We're still around the early twentieth percentile. Our students are actually testing this week and we really hope that the engagement and the opportunities that we've given, not only for professional development but for the student incentives, will show that the results are moving into greater proficiency for our students. And this is why this is so important that our communities stay invested and help us, because with the urgencies that happen, sometimes we forget that what we're here to do. So please put that gentle pressure on us to continue to do what we need to do.

Thank you.

Gloria? I

just want to thank all the parents that are here tonight. I'm really amazed at how many attended and I'm so glad that I wanna make a comment on the wraparound services that you have. I am, boy, I'm totally grateful because I am just grateful that all you parents now, when you send your children to school, you have all these services. So again, I really want to commend you and I want to encourage you to really support your schools where your children attend. Attend their meetings.

Support the teachers. Thank you teachers, congratulations. Support them and get involved. Get involved in whatever you can. Volunteer because they need your help. And again, thank you again for being here.

Brillo.

Yes. No, just want to thank everybody for being here tonight. As elected officials when it comes to like the decision making process, a lot of that comes from you and I just wanted to open up the opportunity and encourage all of you that are here, whether you're a parent or a student or you're in the classroom to always feel free to contact us council members. It can be a short communication if there's an issue going on regarding sidewalks, traffics, those are things that we wanna hear. When we come into our city council meetings or when we're talking about our larger strategic plan and addressing some of our city issues, sometimes the solutions come from or our ideas come from a simple text message, email or phone call from some of you.

And so I really want to encourage those of you like if you see an issue going feel free to contact council members. Myself and council member Derigo, we were both on the Hartnell College Board, maybe about nine years. So we've had that opportunity to be part of the school board. And one thing that did come to mind was the bright beginnings initiative, which I think we all know began with Doctor. Achoya Achoya over at California State University Monterey Bay.

And one thing I also wanted to emphasize tonight, as a council member, when I think about the well-being of the city, and as someone who has a seven year old daughter and a 10 year old child, I know what that struggle is like. You know, picking up and dropping off your child, worrying about things about worrying worrying about things like after school curricular activities, making sure that they're living in a safe healthy environment. I know what that is like and I know what that's like as teachers to always be worried about not just only their educational outcomes but the physical and mental well-being of children. I know that that bright beginnings is still going on. It's part of that twenty year vision, right?

Of like how our children here in the city of Salinas going through our educational system. And us being at the community college and now at the city council, really looking at how all of our work is connected. And so at some point, you know, your children, those of you that have children, there's a job, there's a career, there's a home that I know that all of you want your child to have, once they reach adulthood. And as council members, we wanna make sure that we're building the best possible city, that we have homes for them to live in, and that they have careers that they can get into. So as council members, when we talk about things like economic development, we wanna make sure that once your child is done, we want them in and out of college and we want them back in our community.

We don't wanna lose them to some of our bigger cities. We want them to come back and be with their family and be in their communities. But the way that we can do that together is by hearing from you. So again, wanted to emphasize always feel free to reach out to us because it does help us in our decision making process as it relates to our parks, as it relates to our libraries, as it relates to our recreation centers and the programs and services that we provide there albeit our after school sports or arts or extracurricular activities. So I really want to thank all of you for taking the time this evening to be here and being part of the process.

We wouldn't be able to do our work without your insights as a parent, as a teacher, as an administrator. Thank you very much for being here tonight everybody. You.

Okay. Thank you, Aurelio. Tony?

You're on mute.

I think you're on mute, Tony.

Well, welcome school board. I wanna thank you for being and joining us. You know, as partners of the city of Salinas, superintendent, how do you see, you you say you have 15 schools. The student enrollment, how do you see it in the near future, maybe in the next four or five years? Because we're moving into the future growth area here pretty soon. Are we supposed to, start thinking to build more schools? Or how how do you see that process coming along? Well,

we currently did not see in the plans any growth happening in the next few years in our district boundary areas. We would appreciate maybe some of that happening, but I think we're pretty much landlocked at this point. So what I would say in terms of our enrollment, what really is helping is when the students continue to stay within our school district, we are really ensuring that we have a little more opportunity to ensure that they know what our schools are rather than deciding to perhaps ask for our inter district transfer. So we're dealing with some of that. We currently do have about 300 of our students that are attending other school districts and we want them to just come and visit our schools, see the amazing things that are happening and know that we're offering things that many of our others are not offering other school districts such as our Virtual Academy which is STEAM based and it's blended learning and our dual immersion programs and all of the after school enrichment that is happening at no cost.

So really the investment is in our in what we have, what we're offering and providing more quality so that our students that actually are in our district can really see and be the model that brings more of those that are not attending our schools.

Yeah. And Mr. Mendez, as we look at the future growth area, you being the manager of the city, are we having conversations now with the school districts as far as what the need for new schools will be as we move on to the foothills here?

Yeah, short answer is yes. We will have conversations. I know there's been conversations in the past and more conversations will continue. We're meeting with them. We started meeting with the other school, different school districts and me and Doctor. Andre have me for lunch almost every month to keep ourselves abreast of what's going on. So the short answer is yes. We're gonna have those conversations and they're gonna intensify as more of these plans come forward. They're really we're gonna make an effort. There should be no surprises moving forward. Everybody should know what's coming and we should be addressing it as soon as possible so everybody's prepared.

And Mr. Mendez, my last question. I know there was talk. I don't know if it was an elementary school or a middle school, close by the Everett Alvarez High School. Do you know anything about that? Whatever happened with that project?

I don't, but I could follow-up.

Thank you.

All right. Andrew.

Well, I'll keep it short because we're really here to celebrate the staff of the Salinas City Elementary School District. But I do want to take this opportunity to say thank you to Doctor. Andrade for her continued partnership, specifically to the principles of Beronda, Cam and Laurelwood and the virtual STEAM Academy for hosting community meetings, hosting some of our community free movie nights. And I also want to commend the amazing Laurelwood PTO, CAMN PTO, and STEAM Academy PTO for really bringing community together. So I appreciate you always inviting us to your first day of school, and we're here to support you any way we can so feel free to reach out.

Thank you. Thank

you for those comments and yeah I would echo what councilmember Sandoval said and then just pick up a little bit on Councilmember Salazar's. By virtue of the fact you're meeting routinely, there are issues. I know one of the things we're thinking about quite a bit these days, rumor has it that people speed on our streets and that's often near schools. And so we're taking traffic calming very, very seriously revisiting what who gets what and when given limited resources. And then obviously a serious and an in-depth conversation over time.

We're all facility constrained. And so the fact we're building this relationship I think is important. And then I will just note or echo that today is National Teacher Appreciation Day. Just one more time, a show of hands, who is the teacher in the room? So let's give And I'll close with this.

I think all of us, if we were to think back who are the top four or five people who influenced our lives, I'll bet you there's a teacher in the mix. And actually there's a grammar school teacher in mind. I just think that really underscores, you know, I can't top a Nelson Mandela quote but you can with your work every day. With that we will turn it over to your board.

Well yes, any questions or comments from our board of trustees? Trustee Powell, Trustee Zanzo.

Sorry, I did have a question about the city plan for sidewalks. Is there somewhere we could see the general list of your priorities and which ones are planned in the future?

That's been asked by the council. We're working on it. So there is a sidewalk plan and then there's a traffic calming. So we'll be bringing that back.

Because I live in the Laurelwood area and I'm pretty sure they would like to say sidewalks over there could use some work. But other than that, I just want to second everything about the teacher appreciation just to add on that classified appreciation comes later in the month, but we honor all the staff educators out there. Thank you.

Trustee Ish, I just wanted to thank the city council for inviting us to be a part of this momentous occasion. It is such an honor to be able to honor those people that we value in the district in such a great place. And I'm so happy to hear that the city is open to partnerships because we are growing future citizens of Salinas and I think that as community leaders you would have a vested interest in those who we are growing and so we really appreciate everything that you've said tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

Trustee Galindo.

All I'd like to say is happy Cinco de Mayo.

And

I also would like to thank the city for allowing us the opportunity to be here this evening and let us continue to look for opportunities to work together on future projects and initiatives. And with that said, let's get on with our awards ceremony. And at this time, we would like to take a moment to honor and celebrate our retirees who have dedicated many years of service and have made a lasting impact on our students, staff, and community. We would also like to recognize the recipients of this year's staff of the year awards. So at this point, I will turn it over to Superintendent Andrade.

Thank you. So we will have what we're calling honoring our own, our retirees for their many years of service and I'm inviting Ms. Susana Mancetta, our Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources to be the one to actually call out their names. Our retirees receive a beautiful award from the district and our staff of the year are also going to be receiving not only flowers as our retirees, a certificate and I believe that there might be a certificate from the city as well. Yes.

Typically our board members like to stand up. I know that we're very short in space, but if we like shaking hands, I'm gonna be as Ms. Mansera calls them, we will be inviting them up here to shake hands and, then move forward and then we have a reception. You're welcome to, come up to the front if that's what we're expecting.

Good evening. Good evening, City Council Board members and Salinas City Elementary School Board members and everyone present. I have the pleasure of presenting, starting off with the presentation and celebration of our retirees. And I will start off with Ms. Carrie Dewar.

Thirty eight years of service to Selena City Elementary School District. Thirty eight years of service. I'll follow-up with the music service. Current teacher at Mission Park Elementary School with thirty five years of service in the district, Miss Bessetti, Danelle Bessetti. Corinna Tividad Elementary, teacher with thirty one years of service, Christian Caruso.

Academic coach for the district with thirty years of service, miss Alicia Beltran Castaneda. Elementary. Teacher with thirty years of service, Ms. Elizabeth Ramirez. Sherwood?

Yeah. Elementary school? Yeah. Academic coach, UPK, Maria Airda with thirty years of service. Baranda Meadows, teacher with twenty seven years of service.

Armando Quintana. Special education teacher at Buranda Meadows Elementary School with nineteen years of service, Miss Asusa Takagani. Kamen, elementary school teacher, eighteen years of service, Miss Luis Anne Ferracci. University Park, speech language pathologist with sixteen years of service to the district, Andrea Hayes. Natividad, paraeducator with ten years of service, Martha Marquez.

Campus supervisor at Laurelwood with eight years of service, Annette Brownfield. Lead food service associate at Sherwood Elementary. Four years of service in our district, miss Gloria Martinez. Monterey Park teacher with two years of service in the district, Bonnie Perez. Preschool academic coach with the preschool department, Ms.

Elizabeth Bro. Congratulations to our retirees. Let's hear for them once again. Next, have the recognitions for employees of the year for each school site and department, both certificated and classified staff. We start with miss Angelica Marquez from Dual Immersion Academy.

And miss Anna Talabera from Dual Immersion Academy. Barranda Meadows Elementary School, We have Ms. Pamela Conner and Mr. Jose Coraga. El Gabilan.

Elementary. We have miss Kim Koch and Maile Olivas. Ms. Mylene Olivas. From Camden Elementary School, Ms.

Nicole King and Ms. Naomi Trejo. From Laurelwood Elementary School, Miss Carrie Duer and Crystal Perez. Miss Crystal Pettis. From Lincoln Elementary, we have miss Yvonne Magana

and

Miss Sonia Mejia. From Loma Vista Elementary School, Lorena Nunez. And Josepina Carrillo. From Los Padres Elementary School, mister Rigoberto Aguilar. And Maria Chavez.

From Mission Park Elementary School, Marissa D'Apano. And Victoria Torres. From Monterey Park Elementary School, Liliana Juarez. And Pearl Rivera. From Natividad Elementary School, Veronica Avalos, and Maribel Almada.

From Roosevelt Elementary School, Justine Jun. And Nancy Sabala. From the Salinas City STEAM Academy, Ms. Jennifer Bentley. And Angelica Rosales.

Sherwood Elementary School. Miss Nicole Williams. And Miss Pamela Aguilara. University Park Elementary School, mister Samuel Swanson, and miss Sandra Santana. From our MOTS department, maintenance operations transportation, we have Diana Morales.

From our special services, we have Teresa Rodriguez and Rosie Ispuro. From the district office, certificated, we have Miss Alicia Beltran Castaneda. Miss Adriana Newman. And Miss Jeanette Jimenez. School administrators of the year from our district.

We have Mary McDermott. And Erin Laird. District Office Management, Marty Nortrup. And Abna Jabeg. This concludes the presentation of our annual employee recognitions.

Thank you to all of you. Let's hear from them one more time. Loud and clear for all of them.