Special Board Meeting — September 6, 2022

Yes, you are unmuted now and you can start whenever you'd like.

Thank you very much. All right. I'd like to call this special board meeting to order September 6, 4 p.m. Actually, the exact time is 4 or 5 p.m. So we would like to have the Pledge of Allegiance. So if please stand where you are. If you're watching stand and address the flag somewhere. Right hand over your heart. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Technology doesn't work very well when we're all spread out on the Zoom like that. But anyway, thank you for that. Roll call. Let's see, Michelle Redler. Present. Patty Holian.

Present.

You're present on voice only. Jim O'Neill is present. Absent is Melissa Yellicantaro and Alex Vara. We do have a quorum with three people, so we will proceed with the meeting. Do we have any public participation? Anybody give us notice that they would like to address the board? OK, nobody did. We have no emails either. So we will continue to three human resources consent items. We have one item on the agenda to approve volunteers and overnight chaperones for the 2022 23 school year as listed in the appendix. So I will entertain a motion. Actually, I tell you what I would like to make the motion because I have to add one little thing. So I move that we approve the volunteer list as listed in the appendix and amend that with an additional point that we're going to set aside part of the policy that stipulates that you have to wait 60 days for a TB clearance. So that's the motion. Okay, now let's discuss it. Patty Holahan, second in depth. So yeah, go ahead, Michelle.

Of all the years that I volunteered in the schools, it was just an unspoken rule. I know it's in the policy. I just read it, but we didn't read it when we were volunteers. That you could volunteer for five times before that had to go through. And yes, we've always had to have a TB clearance. Um, I don't I didn't know about the 60 day, but we've always had to have one before we could volunteer after the fifth one. So are we gonna kind of fix that policy? Change it makes more sense.

Absolutely. That policy, I think, has generally been either unread or ignored for many years. I mean, even as a principal in the district, I wasn't following that policy. So I think it was more or less a a traditional thing. It just sort of happened. And also, since we have all these new safety protocols in place, I think the policy really needs to be taken back and reviewed. Because certainly, we don't want to compromise any of the safety towards our kids. And we've added so many layers now, so many more layers. Superintendent Arellano has added additional layers of safety, not only for staff and teachers, but for volunteers or any adult working in our schools. So yes, totally in agreement with you. We need to pull this policy and really rework it so it reflects what it is we want for our volunteers.

But I think the TB clearance still should be in there.

Well, I'm saying the 60-day wait period. It's in there that you have to wait 60 days to prove that you don't have TB. Well, that's old school. I think you get the scratch test, you know immediately if you have TB or not. I mean, three days, rather.

Three days, yeah.

Yeah. So it's just an outdated policy that no one's really questioned it because nobody's had to have a look at it. And then this year, we had some pushback from some parents, rightfully so, that want to volunteer in their kids' classroom. And so it made me look at it, certainly. And I went, what? Patty, any comments?

I just want to thank the volunteers for bringing this to our attention and to thank all those who are going to approve in about a minute or so, because without your help, we wouldn't be able to be as efficient. And our children wouldn't be able to give the attention that they get, especially those who are reading the reading. So thank you for the volunteers for stepping up again once again.

Well said. And to our teachers as well, they certainly appreciate the help with their students. So Superintendent Arellano?

Just a comment is, first of all, the board policies belong to the board. So at any given time, Michelle and Patty and Jim, you have the right to review your board policies and you have a right to call either committee time or workshop time to go through those. If you choose to do that in the future, whether it's one policy, 10 policies or a full review of all the policies, I would recommend having legal counsel involved because there are pieces of language that live in the board policy that are ed code driven, such as the TB exam. So yeah, at any given time, you guys have a right to review your policies. and make any changes that you see fit that you believe fall within the scope and vision of what you want our district to be. The things you don't have options to is to change anything that's edco-driven. But yeah, you guys should always feel comfortable knowing that you can review the policies. Now, what makes it hard is there's thousands of policies, right? It's not a It's not a half hour event or a half a day event. It's a pretty lengthy event if that's something you want to do. But as Jim said, many of those policies are now very, very antiquated. So the ones that get upgraded are the ones that come to us directly from the CSBA because there's been a change in case law or there's been a change in ed code. Then those get revised. But if there's anything that's board driven. A lot of those board driven policies are things that were created decades ago from previous boards and perhaps could be a little outdated now where we are. So I would invite the board kind of explore the idea of perhaps going through a full review of policies in the near future. Thanks, Jim.

Yeah, thank you. Totally agree. And it's something that we should put on the on the bucket list for sure. In the meantime, it's really great when somebody pushes back and doesn't just take something for granted and say, well, that's the policy. I encourage people if they're If they run across the policy or they're having to implement a policy that they think might be outdated or antiquated, we certainly want to hear about it. And so that was the case here. I think we don't look at this on a regular basis. It's not like we're sitting here watching the rules all the time, see if they're followed or not. And we do have a lot of new managers and a lot of new personnel. Hopefully they'll see things that put a fresh pair of eyes on things as they implement and respond to our policies in the district. So yes, indeed. That'll definitely be something we can move to. Any other discussion? OK. Well, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Chair votes aye. So approved. Any other comments from board members? Okay, well, this will be for future discussions. I'm sure we'll have a lot of great discussions come up with a much better way to protect our kids and serve our volunteers. So thank you very much for your time, everybody. Have a great afternoon. We'll see you later, Superintendent Arellano. And this meeting is now adjourned.

Bye, everyone. Thank you.

Thanks, Patty. Thank you, Michelle. Bye bye.