Board of Education — November 19, 2020

okay good evening everyone it is now that time i reconvene to the regular meeting of the board of education thursday november 19th 2020 at 6 p.m with cruz gagne na and schaefer present for the record mr cruz mr na and i are present in the boardroom mrs garnier is joining us via zoom and miss hernandez is absent this evening this

meeting is being streamed via live via zoom for facebook youtube youtube youtube pat please the board men closed session from 5 32 to 5 49 regarding conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation conference with labor negotiators act and csca and public employee discipline dismissal release the board took the following action by a vote of 4-0 with cruz gagne na

and shea for voting yes directed the law offices of margaret h idester to prepare a reimbursement agreement for the sycamore academy of science and cultural arts chino valley to reimburse the district two hundred forty five thousand twenty seven dollars and fifty two cents for over allocated space no further action was required that no further action was taken that

requires public disclosure thank you pat moving on uh tonight mr knob will be leading us in the pledge and please the republic which stands one nation under god indivisible with redeemed thank you mr gnaw moving on now comments from our student representative justin please hello to the president of the board mr shaffer members of the board superintendent dr enfield cabinet and to

all our guests students have been hard at work coming up with ideas on how to keep students connected and how to promote school spirit during distance learning students have implemented many creative ideas for instance students at ayala high school have held several spirit days which include staff participation and some of them one of the spirit themes is think

thankful thursdays chino high school has been engaging students and staff on campus students at gina high school were challenged to participate in a series of spirit days and activities the asp students would keep track of what school had the most participation for each of the activities rivalry week against don lego was one of the events chino high school also hosted

a lunch on and event on the history of chino hines finally chino high school is in the process of planning and filming their first virtual rally don lego is keeping students connected by having virtual events such as lunch games they have us they also have drive-through senior pickups where asp brought every senior a yard sign to show appreciation for the

class of 2021. social media is being used to keep students informed about current events on campus schools are actively using social media to engage students and staff in daily activities the chino valley unified school district students continue to give students the feeling of being connected even during the season the season of coven thank you thank you justin

why don't we move on now to employee representatives let's start with miss walker act president please good evening president schaefer board members superintendent enfield district cabinet and cbusd community i want to start off by pointing to some happenings in education this week since 1921 this week the week before thanksgiving has been recognized and celebrated as american education week

to honor and pay tribute to everyone involved helping to educate students and bring awareness to the needs in public education this year we're especially reminded of the hard work and dedication of administrators and classified staff and certificated educators and so happy american education week to everyone it's also school psychology week and i know i speak for all of our members and i say that our

school psychologists are doing amazing work in meeting the needs of our students in the midst of the pandemic they've not only been assessing students in person for weeks but continue to go above and beyond to meet deadlines that have not been relaxed during the covet 19 crisis so thank you school psychologists for everything you do i want to also acknowledge the teachers

and staff that have been back to school since november 9th providing insert in person instruction for small ed um i'm sorry special ed small cohorts and sports conditioning the increase in cover 19 cases across the district has been met with an increase in concern among our educators as those numbers continue to rise for staff and students so as the district continues their

diligence in monitoring health and safety protocols and procedures we hope that everyone continues to follow the safety guidelines and last but certainly not least i want to wish board clerk irene hernandez a farm farewell on behalf of act we want to thank her sincerely for all the contributions she's made to the district we have so much to thank her for we

thank her for the time commitment that she's made over the last years her professionalism her willingness to listen to all sides before making decisions and most importantly we thank her for the advocacy to ensure the fair and equitable treatment of all of our students as a member of this community we look forward to for staying in touch

and staying connected thank you everyone for your attention have a good evening and on safe thanksgiving thank you miss walker mr hernandez csa president good evening president shaffer board member superintendent enfield community like miss walker brought out is the students being on campus has been met with tons of smiles the instruction is much needed there are concerns

of the students right at lunchtime being becoming restless wanting to take off their mask staff is very concerned beginning on november 30th that the students will then bear be there all day at the elementary school level they are concerned because they leave at two o'clock the inch certificated teacher there is either left short staffed or staffed by

themselves and the concern for these are of these instructional aides is the students and the instructor so we hope that the district can look into that because it is something that is on the forefront of everybody's mind again with the outbreaks are the cases that are increasing on the district with our students staff and staff it is again is becoming very

concerning student or excuse me uh staff members email me or call me daily about their concerns their apprehension and their fears of the ongoing cases some some sites have a complete disregard our staff members at specific sites have a disregard for the safety protocols i know the district superintendent enfield and cabinet have been very vocal in making sure that they do

wear their mask so as a reminder to wear your mask it's a small price to pay for somebody's well well-being and to make sure that they are being as safe as they possibly can and also with this being irene hernandez's last meeting is a lot of times that as you guys are most all aware of is sometimes the information that you

have to provide to people that are very sincere is not maybe not necessarily what they want to hear so that dedication and service that she's provided to the students and staff of china valley unified school district on behalf of csca we would want to wish her to thank her for her years of service and to remind everybody that this coming

holiday is to stay safe regardless of what you do to please be safe and to have everybody return after the holidays and with that thank you very much and have a great evening thank you mr hernandez and now we will go to barbara bearden champ president good evening president schaefer school board members dr enfield cabinet and chino valley community champ

is currently planning a donation drive to benefit our district's care closet more information will be shared after thanksgiving break for those champ members who ordered the champ polo shirts those should arrive tomorrow in the mail thank you for your patience finally i'd like to wish you all a happy thanksgiving in the spirit of thanksgiving we want you to all know

how thankful we are to work with the district leadership the teachers the staff and the chino valley families and i sadly i did not know tonight was miss blair's last meeting so i will miss seeing her and uh hope well for her and look forward to working with the new board thank you and have a good evening

thank you mrs bearden and thank you again to justin all of our employee representatives for joining us this evening uh moving on we are now comments from the audience and items not on the agenda uh we are now comments on items not on the agenda as noted in the public advisory posted in the agenda staff will now read into the record the

names and comments of emails received during the specified window in accordance with board bylaw 9323 meeting conduct the comments will be read in the order the email was received email comments on agenda items will be accepted during consideration of that item pat did you receive any emails from the public on non-agenda items yes we do they are as follows

from alicia syrop i am writing to request that you start to open school in chino why do i ask this i ask because i fear that we don't understand what consequence may occur if we don't start to reopen schools i fear that most i fear that the most vulnerable children ages 3 to 12 years of age will suffer

we as teachers or administrators take a note when we become teachers and that is to teach ev each and every child that comes into our classes and protect them as well i don't think we understand how many of these children need these schools to reopen these schools may be their only safe place i feel like we are letting our

future fade away because we aren't keeping our oath to these children who may fear for their lives every day that are starving because they have no food or simply because they are neglected children rely on school for their two or three meals a day rely on staff to show them that nurturing caring emotion they may not receive at home they rely

on schools to have some to take care of them because home they may be left alone because are working they rely on schools to protect them from the stress one parent might have and takes it out on them we need to think about the bigger picture here yes covet 19 is serious but so is school without school these children will be

lost please consider the great dangers that can occur without schools even attempting to reopen slowly can be a great accomplishment over 100 schools have been approved to start to reopen from upland ontario chino hills even victory baptist academy has been approved to reopen why hasn't any other school in chino apply to start to reopen from sean barrows do chino value unified

school district board members and superintendent enfield i am a parent of a student with disabilities who currently attends in-person instruction at rolling ridge elementary school in a small cohort i want to convey my concerns about the decision to transition to traditional learning effective november 30th given the recent high incidence of community spread of coven 19. irrespective of all the safeguards and

precautions the school is taking it is evident that this disease is highly contagious almost every day this week we are getting robocalls from the district regarding staff who have tested positive for cobit 19 and quarantine given the data and uptick of covet 19 in our schools and community we respectfully ask the board to consider this data and return to

distance learning effective november 30th and reassess whether it is safe to return students with special needs back to campus in january i'm compelled to send this email on behalf of my son like many children in special education programs need to have their voices heard but don't understand the severity of this public health crisis the last thing we ever want to happen is

for our son to get sick and bring the virus home or have any of his teachers aids and service providers get sick as well thank you for your consideration sean barros from michelle fleischer dear school board members i wanted to write to let you know that many students and i love coming to school each day we like being able to see each other and to

get out of the house i am also writing because the three hours that we have been at school have been a great amount of time for the students and i am very concerned about them being at school for six hours we are supposed to return to a full day of school directly after thanksgiving and some of my students have reported

that they are leaving the state and country the school district is not even asking parents to report this or to self-isolate after traveling this is not safe for the students or staff i am worried about the students being at school during lunch without their face masks or other ppes and it is already difficult for my students to

remain six feet apart at all times for three hours and to keep their masks on for shield and drape on for the entire three hours it gets sweaty and hot wearing this additional equipment the longer they have it on the harder it gets even though we take breaks to try to distance physical activities going to school now is very different

from the way school was before copenhagen and the kids want to get closer together than they are supposed to i'm also concerned for myself and others sdc teachers who have mild moderate students because our teacher assistants leave an hour and a half before the end of the day that means teachers will be alone with up to 14 students

some of whom are easily distracted impulsive and hyperactive for 90 minutes at the end of the day i would strongly recommend having at least two adults in every classroom all the time because while we are in our bubble it is difficult to get assistance i would highly recommend that the students come from eight to twelve and then continue online for

the additional hour at one to two or that the students leave it to at the same time as the teaching assistants two o'clock is also the time all other students in distance learning sdc and general education students are done with instruction in the district at this time if you are concerned that sdc blended teachers are not doing enough work

please consider we are getting no breaks we need to watch the students during recess and to date have not had any breaks during the school day for the three hours we are there we also need to get to school ahead of time because our teaching assistants and teachers cannot do any prepping copying or be around other staff after we see students i have

been getting to school at least 45 minutes before school to make copies clean things and get prepared for the day blended stc teachers and students are the only ones who directly after thanksgiving when coveted numbers are increasing greatly and students are leaving the state and country we will be going back to school full time and with the constraints of having

to stay at one's desk remain six feet apart wearing masks and limited physical education and recess students are going to get in trouble for not being able to behave and to keep their distance please please please consider shortening our day and making sure there are at least two adults in every classroom for the entire time students are present

if the district cannot do this then you're creating a dangerous conditions for both students and staff sincerely michelle fleischer there are no further email comments thank you pat thank you to the members of the public that sent in comments this evening so now move on to changes and deletions pat do we have any changes in deletions this evening

the following changes and deletions are on the agenda human resources item 2e1 certificated classified personnel items page 66 under hired at the appropriate placement on the classified confidential salary schedule appointment slash promotion add the name lisa felstead page 66 under hired at the appropriate placement on the classified salary schedule appointment michael torres strike the effective date of

november 20th 2020 and insert december 1st 2020 and on page 67 under increase in hours delete the name gregory gonzalez and add the same name with the same position location and effective date under promotion there are no further changes or deletions thank you pat you're welcome okay we have no action items evening we'll move on to consent items pat did you receive

any comments reference consent items none on consent items thank you board members who have any polls mr knox i have no pools mr cruz mrs gagne no pools and i actually have just one poll uh item 2 d8 page 46. for the remainder the consent items may have a motion on the motion by mr gnaw and the senko

by mr cruz will now take a roll call mr cruz yes mrs gagne yes mr gnaw hi and i'm a yes referential yes is preferential still with us yes okay thank you sorry about that justin okay moving on item two d 8 on page 46 may i have a motion so i moved the motion by mr gnaw and the second by

mr cruz dr enfield i just had a couple of questions [Music] if i remember correctly we already approved this item uh in september of 2019 is that correct yeah we this was brought forward to the board on september is my mic on can you hear me now okay uh it was brought forward to the board on september 19 2019

and the uh the agreement is for 90 it's a 90-day agreement so it expired i think in like december uh 18th of 2000 or 2019. okay is there any information you can provide us as to why the previous one expired and was enacted on uh yeah so the the property that this is for is the property and the preserved uh

for building the school number two and as part of the requirement uh the the property has to go through a number of different um requirements that the state requires us to to look at the property and one of them is to test the soil and so in 2019 when when we brought this forward uh when we went to test the soil we were

unable to do that because there was a large amount of topsoil on on top of it that needed to be removed and so it had not been removed and from my understanding it was finally all last week and so we're bringing this forward now so now that the soil has been removed we can now go and test that soil

and then after it's tested the results are sent up to the state of california because they have to approve any property that a school district is considering to use to build the school upon there's a number of requirements that needs to go through and this is one of those requirements okay thank you and one other quick question and i

just found this kind of odd in reading through the agreement it lists chino holding company llc the owner of the property which i believe is a lewis corporation or company chino valley unified school district has cvusd throughout the document and then when you get to the very last page which is page 52 of our uh agenda down at the bottom under owner

it is signed for by a north mountain corporation do who who is that and how are they related to chino holding company lewis corporation because they're not mentioned anywhere else in the document yet they're now the signatory for the owner of the property without being mentioned anywhere else i i'm not for sure on that but i do

recognize the name i know that uh brian goodman works for the lewis company um so i do recognize that name but i don't know the the con how north mountain corporation is is related uh within lewis okay i'm just a little concerned about signing off on something for when we have no idea who this company is and how they're affiliated

uh if we if we chose to table this item if that motion was made would it throw us off on any type of timeline that we're currently under it would throw it would delay the ability for the consultant to access the site for the testing do we have any of those consultants scheduled yet or is that pending

approval i believe mr actually already had those consultants scheduled to access the site okay i still have my reservations but does anybody else have a question but let me just jump in though so if if you if the board was to table it we would just we would find that information and bring it back in december and then we would just reschedule up

that individual to come out i mean it's it's it's already been almost um over a year okay since we originally brought it back in september of 2019 um another between now and the next board meeting is another 30 days that's 30 days is not gonna delay anything the purchase of the land because we still have to work through

the purchase agreement which we still haven't come to an agreement on okay i just you know i've done several of these in in my personal life and every uh entity that's either a signatory or going to be a responsible party is mentioned somewhere within the within the agreement or the document again unless i'm missing it i read through it

several times and i did not see them listed anywhere and it just was of a little concern to me do any of the board members have questions or concerns um mr cruz go ahead i support you okay mr now do you have any questions or comments no uh mrs chan so this will not substantially delay our our goal of

building second school it it the site is there it's just a matter of getting the consultant to finish up testing okay that's fine it's clarity but i think i need to probably am in the motion to table this item uh until we get further information as to who north mountain corporation is and what their affiliation which you know holding

company is do i have a second on that missed on you okay so i had a motion miss kanye had the second mr cruz we will go ahead and vote now yes mr naw aye mrs gagne yes and i'm a us preferential yes motion passes four to zero to table the item with preferential also voting yes okay

looks like we're moving on now to information items we have one information item this evening to any questions or comments from the board seeing none we will move on we are now at uh communications mr mr cruz who'd like to start mr cruz go ahead um dr amfo i'm going to share with you a um study that was done in denmark

it was done between april 3rd through june 2nd of 2020. they we use six thousand adults one sample was following social distancing measures and wearing a mask on outside the home and the other group followed social discipline and without mask so the first one with mass it was 1.8 percent infected and the second one without mass was 2.1 infected so this danish

study concluded that the recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the sarcoid to infection rate am i where words by more than 50 percent of the community with the modest infection rates some degree of social distancing and uncommon general mask use so you know there's a lot of there's a lot of unknown factors about

masks and you know obviously we're forcing students to wear masks that we know we have to ask ourselves is it really helping is it benefiting or are we dangering our students but you know another thing that i'm concerned with is that you're seeing you know the lockdown four or six weeks and then having the loosening and then the

lockdown and we do know that they're extending this till 2024 with the virus so you know our kids are going to be losing their minds and um you know the best thing that we could do is we should initiate another survey a survey a meaningful survey that do parents want our kids back to school and if we've got a majority of them that

want to go back then out of the respect of our community chain on chino hills we should attempt to go back now let me i'll be real honest with you dr infield i 100 believe that this virus was manufactured and when i hear biden say dark winter i do worry about a violent virus not natural but something that just

brings it in you know because it is weird what's going on in our society things aren't right and and that transition from covet to quote the great reset it's almost moving to another direction i'm not stupid something's going on when you've got the prime minister of canada talking about the great reset and what's so sad that our children are

in the middle of this and they're being hurt by this and we should start thinking critically what is actually happening to our country so the best thing that we can do is to initiate a simple survey and ask our the community do you want your children going back to blended because this is never going to end and all we need all we have to do is

just watch carefully once this thing gets really crazy this virus then we'll know and i'm telling you that's when you see people dying in your neighborhood but in the meantime you know you can't be loosening tightening loosening tightening it no no that's that's totally outrageous i like to read you a let a comment from a parent she wanted me to read read it so you add

respect and voter readers i'm writing again on behalf of so many families and children that are suffering with the schools being closed i cannot fathom how this continues to go on as on a daily basis children are becoming more and more depressed unmotivated and suicidal what is it going to take to open our schools a suicide multiple suicides

horrific child abuse case that has gone unnoticed for months and months because a child was not in school or had no way out can our district find courageous and boldness to please move forward our kids lives are at stake here and they're losing hope the more that this goes on you know i'm begging you all to find the

courage and strength to do what is right for our children they deserve a chance to go back and we have the freedom to choose to send them back it's not right that this freedom has been stripped away from all these families we must try for our children enough is enough they deserve so much better i don't believe that families can hang

in there very much longer and you know dr infeldt of of all the many years that i've been on this board everything is genuine so so the last thing that i'm doing is politicizing because it is getting serious because like i said dr ninfield you could see it tightening loosening tightening and listening to the point that our rights are getting restricted

restricted research and then before you know it everybody has no savings businesses are under and then our kids are going to suffer so that's what i want to say so thank you mr naught okay um yeah uh those emails that we just received tonight um i would agree with them i had visited campuses and attend and watched our special ed

classes um i uh marathon one school i met leia and so thank you our members are doing i think our best jobs uh making sure that our children are safe in the classrooms um and i did watch uh even more so now that our special classes really need our support the teachers i i tell you that um they couldn't let

their eyes go two or three seconds away from the kids and sort all the aids and maybe the kids were more energetic because they're so happy that they're in school now but um yeah i i saw them uh really working very very hard so i like to make sure that they have all the support that we could have

it might even take a little more manpower or woman power in that classrooms see if we could be flexible and support our special teachers and aides i think it's crucial that we have to make sure that it's foolproof and it's a safe environment that the kids could learn and and teachers and aides could teach um so i'd like to thank all the special

teachers and and the aides that giving 110 and and i had watched that last week i'd like to thank chino hills high end team where i share the concern with our with them about parents wanting their children getting involved with their spirit cheer and as a one group and they're doing their best to prepare for that so hopefully that will go well uh i'd

like to thank country springs uh admin and also a teacher's work they have a program called all-star program on their diamond club when the kids do well with their work they would actually visit the children's homes and and give them congratulations and and at this point that was the best way to reach out to kids and and have them involved in school and

and matters whether it's psychological or emotional they're doing their best to provide that service so thank you um mike garcia he's been working with our kids for a very long time for many years uh he's still in the hospital but i had spoke to him uh this afternoon he's about to be released so i thank for that but

um tough time like this we still have to find thanksgiving we still have families in tech we still have our schools and our teachers and our secretaries our warehouse people are driving uh delivering goods to schools we're still functioning and and i hope that uh all this preparation will pay off when we would open up to school so

thank you for the parents and students and our teachers and our staffs for um being here with us we'll go on and and still make sure that our children will be successful thank you okay thank you mrs garnier yes good evening um i want to start my comments with a question for dr enfield we've received and i've had many

conversations with teachers and parents in regards to having our special ed kids back on campus and ensuring that our our staff and teachers are fully supported throughout the day can you share with the community that as we transition our special ed students to a different schedule post thanksgiving what staff supports will be in place to help our teachers

yeah so we went and we've looked at all the the classrooms and and there are some classrooms where when they return full time that there is not a second adult in the classroom for the whole day and so we'll look at taking care of that issue dr park and anna's ingles roots have both looked at that and they'll be addressing

that issue to ensure that we have that especially during the time of of cobit we want to ensure that we have adults in the support there uh as part of that process great thank you um and my next question is unfortunately this third wave of covid is is taking a quite dramatic turn very quickly do we have a contingency plan in place

if we are not able to have first focusing on our students still on campus but then also um if our staff is unable to be on campus if the case rates rise dramatically well i think the the question is if we have to pivot to uh distance learning we're able to do that overnight that's why you know the kids still have

their chromebooks we still uh made sure that they maintain the chromebooks they have all their hot spots or anything that they need with that piece so if i have to uh put a classroom out for 14 days that they can pivot instantly into the distance learning so all those things are continuously in place the other thing uh well you brought this up is

on our website and i will advertise it we have a dashboard for for the district and it's a dashboard that's based on the state protocol because i know i keep getting questions and we put something out to the community a letter that talks about what's the protocol for closing the school and when you look at it the the protocol

is if you have five percent or more a positivity rate in a 14 a moving 14 day period then we would be in contact with the county health department and look at closing that school and then if we were to close five or five percent of our schools in a 14-day period the same thing would look at closing the district and so

we're using those protocols that are being used in the in in all the school districts in california that have opened and and the good thing is i was on a conference with a number of superintendents earlier today uh a number of them from the orange county who are using that same dashboard for their schools and they're seeing the

the same uh effect of a high positivity rate going on over there great thank you for that information um so for a couple community updates um just a couple things from the chino valley chamber of commerce we're actually having our small business month where we're featuring uh members of the chamber and trying to promote our local magazine

so um you know if you are thinking about buying things for thanksgiving or the holiday season i just want to endorse shopping with our local businesses and shopping with our chamber businesses i know the chamber is going to be rolling out a holiday guide and really trying to spotlight businesses that provide things locally and i think that's just a great way to

support our friends and neighbors who have businesses here in the chino valley the chamber is also going to be launching after the christmas break an entrepreneur program for our cvusd students last year we had a pitch competition which was very successful we had students submit some great ideas and compete for for grant monies and support this year

we are also going to be adding at the chamber a entrepreneurship boot camp so a multi-week program for students to learn uh you know how do you generate a business idea how do you market a business business finance all the things that they would need to know to build a business plan and we will also have our pitch competition

and fingers crossed and by the time we have it we will you know be back able to be back together in person um i'd like to take a moment to thank miss hernandez um she's not with us here this evening but i would like to thank miss hernandez for her years of service on the board um you know it's no small task to to

serve an elected office or a community position and so i appreciate miss hernandez's dedication to the school district and the students uh with her time on the board and with that i just want to wish everybody a happy and safe thanksgiving i have a good evening okay thank you dr infield do you have any additional comments uh yeah i first uh i want to reiterate

what miss gandhi said i want to recognize uh and thank mrs hernandez for her years of service eight years of serving on on the school board and it is not an easy position there are a lot of difficult decisions that have to be made over the years and i i am thankful for her commitment her commitment to our students her

commitment to her staff and her commitment to our community and i know in this position it's a position that takes um all of you away from your families and so i know she had to have a number of sacrifices of serving on the board uh that you miss out on a number of family events as part of this position and

again i want to thank her for those years of service and i want to wish her and her family the best but secondly i want to thank all the special education teachers our instructional assistants our office staffs at the schools the support staffs our new ground supervisors our bus drivers our nutrition services administrations our health technicians our nurses our psychologists

all of our our support staff and special education to provide services especially the last couple of weeks of getting us to a start we started a very safe start i believe we did with everything in place and continue with that and we would not be able to pull that off if it wasn't for all the staff members who came

together to ensure that we would have all the safety materials and supplies that we need to be able to open the school and to do that effectively and again i want to thank all of them for for their service there and then the last part i want to wish everybody a happy thanks a happy and safe thanksgiving thank you

okay you know normally earlier in the meeting i would have presented miss hernandez with all kinds of things resolutions and plaques and everything else and although she's not with us this evening i did want to take a moment to acknowledge her tremendous contributions to this board for the past eight years she has stood firm in her beliefs

championed causes she felt strongly about and always put the well-being of our students first i truly believe that within her every child in this district had a voice so again on behalf of myself my colleagues on the board in the district as a whole thank you miss hernandez for your dedicated years of service i do truly wish you the best i would

also like to take a moment to wish my board colleagues cabinet and everyone a safe and wonderful thanksgiving holiday with that i will now adjourn the regular meeting of the board of education at 6 43