Board of Education — January 27, 2026

call. Clerk Ayala Quintero. Present. Vice President Allahan. Present. Board Member Wilson. Here. Board Member Olson. Here. And I am here. Tonight for Empowering Positive Moments, we would like to highlight Oh, wait, we're doing the pledge first. I'm sorry. Tyler, Zachary, and Michael, would you please come up and lead us in the pledge?

Sorry, Aubrey. I forgot.

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. Thank you. In May of 2025, these outstanding students competed in the prestigious International Science and Engineering Fair in Columbus, Ohio. They were recognized for demonstrating innovation, research excellence, and real-world problem-solving skills. They earned a Fulbright scholarship to Arizona State University. Thank you for joining us tonight. Would you please share with us a little bit about your project and maybe what your future aspirations are? Thank you. We're so proud of you.

The box of sand to store and generate electricity to solve our world's energy crisis. And through that, we made it to the International World Science and Engineering Fair, which last year was in Columbus, Ohio. And while at this fair, we won some pretty major scholarships, each for Arizona State University, among some other prestigious awards. All right. Hello. So pretty much with our project, we were able to make it to the International Science and Engineering Fair, which meant that we were able to compete against, I believe it was over 60 different countries were participating. We got to meet with diplomats from all over the world. We got to meet with many kids our age, which was, I think, one of my favorite parts about the entire project, because you got to meet so many unique and brilliant minds. From people from all over the place. Some in California, like us. There was others all the way in places like England. whatever other countries. Brazil, yeah, there's a few in Brazil. Anyways, I thought it was really great though because we got to meet so many unique minds and it also helped to, I think, inspire us to want to work harder on our project and look forward more to the future because not only do we have the brilliant minds in our country, but we also have so many brilliant minds around the world. So I think that was definitely one of my favorite things about this project.

I think my favorite part of it was the amount of collaboration between all the different finalists from across the entire globe. I was expecting it to be very competitive, but everyone there just wants to work on their project, make the world better, and it wouldn't be there if it weren't for the help from our local community, especially people like Mr. Redoy, our advisor for the project, and Ms. Gammas, who helped us get ready for presentations. It was really a group effort between the three of us for the project and the community at large for getting us ready.

Thank you.

Can you really quickly, I know you're all at Redlands East Valley. What grades are you in right now?

I am currently a junior. I'm a senior.

I'm a senior as well. Okay, we have a medal of honor that we're going to present to you this evening. We are very proud of you for representing Redlands Unified School District and Redlands East Valley so well. Congratulations.

I don't know if any of you are going to take advantage of the scholarship. Is that a fair question or is it too early?

Do you guys want to say a few words? I can mention it. It depends if I get some other scholarships. So with the ASU scholarship, because we're out of state, the tuition is a little bit more. So the full ride only covers like part of it. So I'm going to obviously apply to ASU and I'll think about going or possibly just enrolling in the film program that they have in L.A., as just a part-time thing, maybe over the summer or when I'm back home, because I plan to go somewhere away from Redlands for college, whether it be one of the UCs or whether it be out of state. So I may go back and try out ASU in one of the future years, but it just depends on the pricing of everything. If I do get the price down even more, then I would potentially be interested in going to ASU.

Okay. Does anybody have any questions for these amazing kids? You are amazing. Thank you.

Okay, Tyler, Zachary, and Michael, if you could come up to the front. We're going to take a picture and give you your memory.

And one, two, three. And one, two, three. You can use that. That's all.

Do I have a motion to approve the agenda with flexibility? So moved. Second. Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Jeanette. Any discussion?

I'll call for the vote. Vice President Hollihan? Aye. President Rendler? Aye. Board Member Olson? Aye. Board Member Wilson? Aye. Motion carried, 5-0.

Do I have a motion to approve the minutes of January 13, 2026, board meeting? So moved. I'll second. Any discussion?

I'll call for the vote. Erica Ayala Quintero. Aye. Vice President Hollihan. Aye. President Rendler. Aye. Board Member Olson. Aye. Board Member Wilson. Aye. Motion carried, 5-0.

During closed session, the board unanimously approved the superintendent's recommendation to appoint Shannon Robin Nelson to the position of accounting and payroll manager, effective to be determined at step five of the management team's salary schedule. Shannon, are you here? Hi, welcome. Welcome. Who did you bring with you tonight? Well, welcome, and welcome to the Redlands family. Thank you. Would you like to come and say a few words?

Sure. Good evening. I just wanted to say thank you so much. I appreciate this opportunity, and I look forward to joining the Redlands team.

We're happy to have you.

Thank you.

Moving on to presentations. We have Idy Bailey presenting the audit report.

Good evening, everyone. Madam President, members of the board, thank you so much for having me today. My name is Laura Liz, and I'm the senior manager at I.D. Bailey in charge of the 2425 audit, and I'm here to present the 2425 audit results with you. So there are three main sections that we take a look at when we look at your audit. We look at your financial statements, we take a look at your federal programs, and we take a look at your state programs, all of which comprise an element of internal control. I just want to remind everyone that an audit is designed to provide reasonable assurance and not total assurance that your financial statements are free from material misstatement. With that said, I'm happy to announce that the district received an unmodified opinion, which is the cleanest, highest level of opinion that the district can receive. In terms of your bond audit, there are two audits that we perform. We take a look at your financial statements, just like the way we do for your district financials, and we look at what we call performance audits, which is where we check to see if your expenditures that you incur with the bond are in line with voter-approved projects. So for the financial audit, same with the district audit, the district received an unmodified opinion, which, again, is the highest, cleanest level of opinion that the report can receive. And then for the performance audit, we took a look at 91% of your expenditures for the bond, and we found that they were all in line with voter-approved projects. Are there any questions?

I don't have any. Does anybody have a question? Nope. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Aubrey, thank you for joining us tonight. Are you ready with the report?

Hello, it's nice to see everyone. I haven't been back in a while. We have a bit of a short report today. First of all, I think they've since left, but I want to congratulate my fellow REV students on their work at the International Science Fair. As a school, we are very proud of their work, and I know personally how much work they did put into that. With news, Academic Decathlon has just started the first of their events and will continue on to work on our exam this Saturday and our in-person competition on the 7th. Boys basketball is currently 5-0 in league after their recent victory against Beaumont and play the rival RHS tonight at 7. Varsity Cheer got second at their regional competition over winter break, and the team is looking forward to nationals in February. Tickets for the first ever multi-school Sadie Hawkins dance, which we are very excited for on February 6th at CV, are on sale now for $10 and come with a $5 food coupon. Sign ups for the blood drive on February 12th are now going on in the quad every day at lunch and every person who donates will get a $10 in and out voucher. And this week we have academic ceremonies going on to celebrate everyone who got a 3.5 or higher last semester. For eAcademy, Kindness Week is going on from January 26th through the 30th. They'll have spirit days, random acts of kindness, and activities at lunch. On February 4th, they have their ASB Homeroom Competition. They have their National School Counseling Week, February 2nd through the 6th. And a Nothing Bunk Cake fundraiser for ASB happening now until next Thursday, the 4th. Again, the Sadie Hawkins Dance. for all high schools on the 6th at CV. They have a Valentine's Day dance for grades 6 through 12 on the 12th of February at the Wildcat Cafe from 4 to 6 p.m. They have a 6th through 12th grade dodgeball night on March 12th at Rev and an astronomy night on March 19th from 6 to 8 p.m. And that is all I have for you this week.

Thank you so much. All right, we'll move on to association reports. Mr. Caperton, are you here? We'll start with RTA.

All right. Good evening, board members, Superintendent Cabral, cabinet members. Tonight's agenda contains the district's proposed budget cut reduction plan. In that plan are significant cuts to many programs that impact our students' lives. When we look at where the cuts are happening, they are primarily impacting our school sites. Cuts to librarians, nurses, PE teachers, paraprofessionals, health techs, and assistant principals, et cetera. I have many concerns about the nature of these cuts and the decisions that were made that led to the necessity. However, I specifically need to point out that the brunt of these cuts are not shared equally. Out of 135 positions recommended for elimination, only three impact central office administration. My current count shows 45 administrators or managers that currently work in the central office. Let's put this in perspective. The current proposal cuts 100% of academic case carriers, 100% of elementary PE teachers, 100% of elementary library paraprofessionals, 100% of teachers on assignment, 66% of our LVNs, and 45% of our site assistant principals. In contrast, the central office is only cutting just under 7% of their management staff. Over the last six years, the central office management staff has grown by 36%, and yet they can only cut 7%. This proposal prioritizes central office management to the detriment of the sites. Where is the equity in that decision? Where is the prioritization of our students? This growth in the central office is not minor. Reducing central office management staffing to 2019 levels would create enough savings to keep the ACC program, our librarians, or the elementary PE teachers. I would also remind the board that in 2019, we had more students than we did today. As board members, you have a fiduciary duty to the district. I understand that we will sometimes be at odds, as you must balance multiple interests with finite resources to maintain the district's overall financial health. However, when cuts are necessary, they must be laser-focused and designed to protect our core mission, educating the children of Redlands Unified. Cuts are never desired. Many fine people will have their lives impacted by these decisions. The district administration cannot and must not insulate itself from the impacts to the detriment of our sites. I encourage this board to be deliberate in your guidance and prioritize our students' education and safety. Thank you.

Do we have a representative from RESPA here tonight? Come on forward.

Good evening. My name is Maricela Gonzalez, and I'm here on behalf of the eBoard Safety Director. Good evening, board, cabinet, community members, and educators. Tonight these words are on behalf of Liz Brewster, the RESPA president. I stand before you today with a heart that is incredibly heavy. The decisions being made right now are not just numbers on a spreadsheet. They are people. They are educators who give their time, their energy, and their hearts to our students every single day. These layoffs will not only devastate the lives of dedicated employees, they will ripple directly into classrooms and school communities. Our students will feel this loss. They will lose trusted adults, stability, and the support system they rely on to feel safe and successful at school. To our educators, please know this. You are valued. You are seen. Your hard work and dedication often goes unspoken, but they matter more than you will ever know. You show up even when it's hard, even when resources are stretched thin, even when you feel unseen. To the board. I ask you to pause and truly reflect on the weight of this decision. Cutting people is not a solution. It is a short-term answer with long-term consequences. A zero percent offer paired with layoffs sends a painful message to those who hold our schools together. This is not just about budgets. This is about humanity, dignity, and our shared responsibility to students and staff. We are asking you to choose compassion, to seek better solutions, and to stand with educators who have always stood for this district. We are hurting, but we are united, and we will continue to speak up, stand together, and fight for where our educators and students deserve. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, Jenny Dyerly, are you here for REPA? No, Jenny is not here. Okay, so now we're moving on to public participation. Can we excuse our student trustee? Oh, yes, Aubrey, you are excused. Go do your homework. Thank you for coming. Community input for agendized items. The Board of Education values the perspectives and participation of our community members. Public comment provides an important opportunity for individuals to share their view on district matters. The Board encourages comments, feedback, and input from all voices in the community, including those who may have differing opinions and perspectives. The California Office of the Attorney General asked us to share that in their view, matters pertaining to specific identifiable students or any group of students should remain private to the extent possible. If you have a complaint about an employee or a student matter, please utilize the appropriate complaint procedure. Contact Dr. Rudy Wilson, Assistant Superintendent of Compliance, who can assist you with filing any such complaint. As a reminder, not all speech is free from consequence. And since this is a board meeting, a board's meeting in public, where minors may be present, we encourage all participants to conduct themselves in a civilized, non-threatening manner. Thank you for your cooperation and for contributing to a civil and student-focused discussion. Members of the public may address the board on matters within its jurisdiction by submitting a completed registration card to the clerk or designated staff member prior to the start of public comments on agenda items. When called, speakers may proceed to the podium, state their name and trustee area, and speak for the allotted time. The amount of time will be announced by the board president before the first speaker begins and will not exceed three minutes. How many speakers do we have tonight?

It's a total of 75 items that they're speaking on, but I don't know the number of speakers. It's 75. Okay. Okay.

So we'll have one minute per speaker tonight. And we call the first three speakers up.

Pat Molnar, Erica Grossman, and Christina Long.

I'm here yet again because I disapprove highly of what I see as incompetence and unfairness and dishonesty. Incompetence and unfairness, as Stephen said, the cuts are coming on the backs of our students who need it the most, not on the district staff who are making the financial decisions ultimately. Firing paras, eliminating the ACA. The very people who help the most vulnerable populations are getting screwed. Sorry I said it. District staff, people with expense accounts and three-digit incomes, people who have been moved from positions in some cases, why is that being allowed but students are being messed with? Do you support all kids? This is where the dishonesty comes in. No. You say bilingual programs, but let's get rid of flags. You say we support all programs. You are pruning with a chainsaw, and you cannot bring back this tree. Thank you. You're welcome, Erica.

I have four cards. Okay. Yeah, thank you, Area Chair Grossman. Our auditors warn that this district's finances carry serious risks, mistakes, fraud, and management overriding controls. When leaders can manipulate the numbers, liabilities get buried until they explode into crisis. How is that not irresponsible? RESD has a $70 million reserve fund. The governor just proposed $22 billion more for K-12 and community colleges. With responsible action, this district could avoid layoffs. Why not fix the financial mess you created? Those 135 staff members and students should not be the ones paying the price for your mismanagement. Last year, the district overspent by $5 million on a single outside agency providing special education aides. This year, you cut that amount in half. But when you eliminate $2.5 million worth of special education workforce, you still have to replace the labor. So you held a job fair, called it a success, and announced hiring of 70 new power professionals. Yet within a few weeks, 20 had already left. Some told me the job was nothing like what they expected for the pay being offered. You were just hiring para three positions last month, but now you're firing them? This entire situation clearly shows how poorly this district is being managed. The people who allow these problems to happen or who designed this layoff plan are part of the financial problem itself. Yet, they are not the ones facing layoffs. Their jobs are secure and highly paid. Let me say this plainly. What I hear from so many people working in this district, and what many believe to be true, is that this district has a pattern of promoting underperforming administrators into higher status, higher paid positions. But you're about to eliminate jobs held by people who support students every day. You're laying off counselors, nurses. They literally saved my kid's life. This is unacceptable. We're facing financial crisis that didn't happen overnight. Yet this board has spent its time on distractions that do nothing to help students or stabilize the district. Instead of focusing on fiscal oversight, you targeted books that were checked out only 80 times in 24 years and invited lawsuits over attempts to ban flags. And tonight, you want to discuss the forced outing of LGBTQ plus students? Are you serious? You are embarrassing. Your lack of integrity is evident. Wake up and do your job. You need to fix this management failures that caused this crisis. Do your job. Thank you, Erica. Thank you.

Hi, Christina, District 1. I believe I have two cards. Okay, welcome, Christina. Okay, great. Hi, my name is Christina. I live in District 1. I'm here to ask you, superintendents, superintendent and trustees, please reassess and revise the budget cuts that are proposed. Please provide solutions that prioritize our students and our school sites. I'm a taxpayer in this district. I care deeply about our budget. I believe a budget is a moral document that shows our community priorities and eliminating eight elementary counselors, six secondary counselors, eight academic case carriers, the entire academic case carrier program, four librarians. as well as assistant principals and nurses and so much more, will change the school landscape for students in their day-to-day life entirely. And I also want to say I speak to you as a former middle school counselor and college advisor. I've worked directly on school sites, and I've seen and I've felt the way that counselors and specialized academic case servicers and assistant principals, they really lay a groundwork in our schools. You know, this groundwork provides... Thank you, Christina, for that one. Okay, I have one more card, right? Okay. So the groundwork provides academic leadership, an extensive student support services network, crisis response, and necessary mental health care. We cannot do without these things. I do want to specifically acknowledge the Academic Case Carrier Program. As you may know, this extremely successful program was honored with the California School Board Association Golden Bell Award. I don't think we should be considering a cut. even considering or talking about this cut to such a successful program that has literally changed student lives. I think of school support systems like a web, and when you pull a piece of that web, it really impacts the entire foundation, not just in the school services themselves, but also in our school communities. Please reassess our solutions here with a goal to focus on our students. Thank you.

Thank you, Christina. Thank you.

Next we have Dominique McKay, Jessica Marone, and Maria Bruce.

We think the power went out. Just give us a second. Not all the power. Some of the power went out. Can anybody confirm if we're still on streaming?

The clock is off.

We're streaming now? Yeah. So the clock is off. We see a timer here. Can you see the timer there? No, not at all. Maybe we can use... It's working, so... We can give you maybe at like 15 seconds. You can just say 15 seconds. So the speaker knows...

It's coming back. It's resetting. Okay.

It's going back.

Alright, welcome.

Dominique, welcome. Hi, I'm speaking in support of agenda item 15C. My name is Dominique Mackey and my sister and I both attended Redlands East Valley High School. We are also both graduates of historically black colleges and universities because we were exposed early on in our academic careers. I'm a graduate of Bennett College and my sister, Howard University. There is power in seeing what you can be and achieve. Exposure to HBCU shores up academic success by turning possibility into something students can realistically plan for. This is a true investment into opportunities that reach far beyond the classroom. Ensuring scholars have access to this now paves the way for my fifth grader, who will one day enter her high school journey excited for the opportunity to attend the HBCU tour. Thank you. Thank you, Dominique.

Welcome, Jessica.

Good evening, board members, cabinet. My name is Jessica Moroney. I'm the lead nurse here at Redlands Unified. First of all, thank you, Superintendent Cabral and Assistant Superintendent Buckmiller for meeting with me last week to go over health services data. I'm happy to provide additional data for the board if necessary to help your decision tonight. But I'm here tonight to speak clearly about student safety. With current student staff numbers, I'm barely able to cover all of the district's needs safely. Currently, our district serves 53 students with diabetes, two of which we just received last week, 70 students requiring daily medication, 25 G-tube feeds, nine catheterizations every single day. These are not occasional needs. This is ongoing medical care. With the proposed cuts, it will be physically impossible to manage all of these care safely. We are one of the few districts that allow unlicensed personnel to administer insulin. In a clinical setting, for those of you who are not medical, that requires two RNs to verify. Here, even though it's by law, it requires more supervision that we won't be able to provide with these cuts. I would just really ask you to look forward another way.

Thank you, Jessica.

Welcome, Maria. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Maria Bruce, and I'm one of the RNs facing layoffs. I want to focus on the long-term impact staff layoffs would have on our students and the district rather than making an impulse decision over a slight budget overage. Cutting essential staff, nurses, counselors, instructional aides, and behavioral specialists may seem like a quick fix, but the consequences ripple far beyond immediate savings. Students lose access to the support that keeps them healthy, safe, and ready to learn. Classrooms become harder to manage, teachers are pulled away from instructions, and small challenges quickly escalate into larger problems. Think of it like this, removing firefighters from a city because there's only a few small fires last month. At first, it seems like a cost-saving measure, but the next emergency could quickly become catastrophic. That's exactly what happens when we cut staff students rely on. Today's savings create tomorrow's crises, requiring far more resources, time, and attention to fix. We can address this budget challenge together strategically and responsibly, protecting the students who depend on us while safeguarding the district's long-term health. Cutting staff now may seem like a quick solution, but it will cost far more in the future. Thank you. Sorry, I'm back. I guess I had two cards and I didn't know. So just to continue on with what I was speaking about before with diabetes, obviously insulin is the most dangerous thing. That's my main priority as far as coverage for the budget cuts. However, we also cover things like field trips, school events, dances. All of these things we will not be able to cover with the proposed budget cuts. especially taking away both health techs and school nurses. It cuts my department almost into a third, and it will leave half of the school districts with not a designated health person at each school to respond to emergencies and student needs. I urge the board to re-look at the proposed health cuts and work with cabinet to find ways not to put our students' medical safety and ultimately their lives at risk. Thanks.

Thank you, Jessica. Next is Gregory Abt, followed by Danielle Mackey and Allison Muse.

Welcome, Greg. Thank you. Good evening. I'd like to do a few shout-outs. First, shout-out to Jason Hill for single-handedly running Redlands USD into a fiscal nightmare. Twice. Shout-out to Juan Cabral. After Jason fiscally harmed Redlands USD and barely brought them back with over 135 SERPs two years ago, Juan promoted him and gave him a $60,000 raise. Last but not least is our Board of Education. Just so the audience is aware that the school board gave themselves a 300% increase in their stipend while 135 employees are being laid off. Now they will receive $24,000 a year for being on the school board, two meetings a month, more money than they pay over half of the paraprofessionals who work with your children. These people will collectively receive close to three-quarters of a million dollars while over 135 teachers, ESPs, and low-level administration will lose their jobs. Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value.

Thank you. Welcome, Daniela. Welcome. Hi, I'm Danielle Mackey. And my daughter just spoke, Dominique Mackey. Both my daughters attended Redlands School District, Redlands East Valley. And I want to say that as far as the black colleges university tour, That is essential. It's a gift that keeps on giving. Both my daughters went on the tour. Both of them attended HBCUs. Both of them are graduates. And it's something that exposure... that an avid counselor at Redlands High School suggested to both of my daughters. And I just want to say it was the best thing that ever happened. Like I said, it's a gift that keeps on giving. And they are better people, better human beings, because of the exposure they got.

Thank you, Danielle. Thank you, Danielle. Welcome, Allison.

Hi. Last week, my first grader ate a candy at school, and that was the day that her body decided to escalate what had been a longstanding mild allergy to a life-threatening one. When I got to the school, she was in the care of the health tech, and she was doing okay, but based on her escalating symptoms, I decided to take her to the ER. It's a good thing, because by the time we got to Redlands Community, she was agitated, beginning to swell, and complaining that her throat hurt. Within minutes of being admitted, her oxygen had dropped into the 80s, and it took meds to regain her airway. All of this, eating the candy to needing meds in order to breathe, took about 15 minutes. Don't calculate how fast I drove. The doctor told us that the next reaction will probably move even faster. Her life may depend on having a nurse or a health tech available at the moment that she experiences that allergic reaction in order to administer medication for her to still have a functioning airway by the time the ambulance can get on site to the school. Find the money elsewhere. My kid's life depends on it.

Thank you, Allison. Thank you.

Next is Ryan Shavrin. I'm not sure I'm saying the last name right. Ryan Shavrin, Austin, and Dale Broom.

Welcome, Ryan.

Good evening. 1,164 students in Redlands Unified are foster youth and or experience homelessness. They are served by eight ACC staff, many of whom are here this evening. The majority on this board. Hi, Candy. Support cutting these positions. If you think that the district has budget problems now, this will only make them worse. Without our ACC's, chronic absenteeism will increase, ADA revenue will drop, and the burden shifts to principals and counselors and nurses who you also are proposing to cut. Protecting girls can't just be a slogan on a t-shirt that you wear. It has to mean safe rides to schools, access to food and clothing, and real support for families in crisis. This is what our ACC's do. The Gospel of Matthew says, I was hungry and you fed me. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. Sounds like our ACC staff. The question for the board is simple. Will you stand for slogans or will you stand behind our...

Welcome, Dustin. Oh, Austin. I'm sorry. I wrote that wrong.

Hi. My name is Austin Eli. I'm a student at RHS, and I'm a member of the Heart Academy and AVID. I also have an academic case carrier, otherwise known as an ACC. I speak on behalf of several families who have an ACC when I say that they help and support us in so many ways. More specifically, my ACC has provided a safe way for me and my younger sister to get to school on time every day as students who do not have access to transportation at home. They make sure that I have my basic needs as a student met and I have a safe space to discuss things going on in my life. Cutting these services would mean losing my mentor, my main support system, and an amazing counselor. It would also mean additional stress of trying to find out how to get to school and other major resources that help foster youth and homeless families. The board needs to strongly consider their desire to end a tenure program that helps students like me every day, both mentally and academically. Thank you.

Thank you, Austin. Welcome, Dale.

Hi, Dale Broom, Area 1. I wanted to speak about the agenda item 22A regarding the policy proposal 5010. And what I wanted to bring up is the fact that public education is a trust that parents entrust with the government. That is why board members are often referred to as trustees. They are entrusted by the parents to ensure that these children receive a high-quality education. They expect honesty, transparency, excellent communication regarding everything that relates to their child's education and activities while at school and school activities. And that is precisely why the school board needs to adopt and pass a parental notification policy to ensure that parents are notified whenever there is a change to their students' records, including whether there's any gender transitioning that occurs in school. Parental notification is a prudent policy because it avoids potential lawsuits from parents who are concerned that their students are being transitioned in school. The federal courts have also repeatedly agreed in support of parental rights. Thank you.

Next, we have Joshua Hall with one card, Chris Claudes with one, and Peter Hall with one.

Welcome, Joshua.

I'd like to speak to 22A about parental notification. While I do endorse parental notification of a child's status regarding their gender identity and sexual orientation, mere notification is not enough. We need to stop teaching students to be gay or be trans and let them figure out what they are by the time they're adults. Thank you, Joshua.

Welcome, Chris.

My name is Chris Claudus. I am a resident of Redlands, a retired public school teacher, a school board member, and grandfather to four RUSD students. We are here today to oppose your effort to cut teaching and support staff because these are exactly the people who directly impact our students' learning experience. You should be focused on expanding the horizons of our student. You should be actively working to expose our students to a wide variety of opinions and perspectives. You are failing in this very basic task while pouring massive amounts of RUSD assets to create an entire network of censorship of ideas and banning of books that do not coincide with your white Christian nationalist agenda. These ill-considered actions will result in RUSD spending millions to defend the indefensible in court, despite the fact that you know full well that these censorship actions will be struck down at every judicial level. Thank you. Thank you, Chris.

Peter Hall.

Welcome, Peter. Peter Hall, Area 5. I'm also here to talk about 22A. Over the last year, we've seen members of the group together for Redwoods yell at the board for wanting to remove certain books and curriculum from the schools because they say doing so would limit children's education and education stifle their freedom of expression, limit their minds, etc.

Are you talking, I'm sorry, are you talking to...

Yes, this is related to that. Okay. So they want to increase access to information that is not relevant to children at all, but, and actually can be found outside the school quite easily, but they want to limit access to information that is relevant and can only be provided by the school district. These people are liars. They don't care about freedom of information. They want to control information.

Thank you, Peter. Donna Elliott with one card. Alexis, one card. And Kapina Kamakawoski with one card. Welcome, Donna.

Thank you. Good evening to all of you. I'm speaking on 18A, B. Just make it both of them. I have been a nurse for 33 years, and RUSD has been my longest standing job. Healthcare has been my passion, and working here has been very rewarding. I've been here 10 years, dedicated and loyal, under the leadership of very dedicated and loyal RNs. Now, I ask, where's your loyalty? to us. I work each and every day making sure the safety and the health care of each and every student is done. And I do it very well. And I just want to say when you think about the layoffs that you're doing, think about the children's lives. This woman spoke about her child's life being saved. Every day I go to work to save a life. Thank you. Thank you, Donna.

Alexis.

Welcome Alexis.

My name is Alexis. I live in Michelle Renler's area. I've been teaching for seven years and I'm a current Redlands unified teacher. I value the daily lives of our students. I'm looking for the riff. I was looking through the riff information sent out and all the positions being reduced are the ones that impact the daily lives of our students. I just don't get why the positions being cut are coming from the bottom, not the top. Doesn't the bottom have more daily interactions with students? Why not have a reduction force that includes more top positions being reduced? It saves more money and has a lower impact on students' daily lives. Support students, don't support the proposed RIF.

Thank you, Alexis. You're welcome. I'm sorry, I did not catch your name.

No worries. Kapena Kamaka Vivaoli, District 5. Kapena.

Nice to have you here.

Good evening, members of the Redlands Board of Education and Superintendent Cabral. I'm a Redlands High School graduate myself and a community member. So you guys gave a raise. I'm paraphrasing my three minutes into one. You guys gave a raise to yourselves December 9th and acted on January 1st. Great. If sacrifices are truly necessary, leadership should be modeled and shared responsibility before asking employees and students to bear the actions. Okay, the district stated that there's budget shortfalls. I'm not here to debate that. But, however, agenda item number 17, you guys are still improving step increases for your classified certificated employees. Why not freeze those for a year? That would help. Okay. Have you given furlough days to your management team, classified, certificated management team? Has that been issued out? Any of those things been dealt with? Many people are impacted by these proposed reductions are members of the community and graduates of our own schools. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, Amber Covarrubias with two items, Michael Pacer with four items, and Sue Heady with three items.

Welcome, Amber. Okay.

When looking at the letter for reduction of certificate of services, it's interesting that the district says that it's in the best interest of the district and the welfare of the schools and the pupils.

I don't understand as a parent how it's in the best interest of the pupils to want to lay off librarians and librarian paraprofessionals.

When my 19 year old attended Victoria Elementary when he was K to two, there wasn't a librarian, it was parent volunteers.

The library was not open. I had to go to Loma Linda Library and check out books. I had to go to my work site at Rialto Unified and check out books because their library was open.

Literacy is greatly affected when there is out access to books. Parents shouldn't have to wonder if they will have to go to a public library and provide books because their students don't have a scheduled library time. Or are you pretty much wanting to make sure our students are illiterate since you're already banning books? Perhaps it's easier to cut off at the source and just make the library less accessible. You need to be better at balancing a budget and cut from the top instead of the people in the trenches.

Thank you, Emma. Welcome, Michael.

I thought you had more items. Michael Paisner. Let's start with the audit. I direct your attention to the final governance letter, page two, significant risks. And I quote, "...management may override the district's controls in order to modify the financial records with the intent of manipulating the financial statements to overstate the district's financial performance or with the intent of concealing fraudulent transactions." In plain English, you have controls in place to assure financial records are accurate, but management has the ability to override those controls, and there's no mechanism in place to assure that isn't happening. Someone in management could be overriding controls, committing fraud, and you wouldn't know. If you think people are outraged about book bans, flag bans, what do you think the reaction will be if it turns out fraud is happening under your watch? This is the type of thing you should be focused on rather than posting about trans athletes or whatever you're wasting your time on. This is what you should be paying attention to. 18A. Over the past few years, the district took a risk. Programs were created or expanded using one-time money with the hope that recurring money would magically appear to sustain them. At the same time, the number of top-level central office positions have increased, job titles changed, resulting in higher salaries. Now it is clear that Gamble did not pay off. Enrollments declining and money has not magically appeared as you hoped. My complaint is what RTA described. How you intend to deal with this, only three central office coordinator positions are being eliminated. Most are positions directly affecting students from librarians to nurses, paraprofessionals, and award-winning ACC counselors. Fortunately, you have some runway to work with. You have sufficient reserves to last a few years while you figure out an approach that has a significant smaller impact on students. You could lease out unused land you own. You could acknowledge that closing an elementary school may be in your future. You could also save three... 18B, you could also save three, maybe even four staff positions for each high-level director position you eliminate. I urge you to take a hard look at the top-level management positions that have either been added or received increased compensation and think about whether a shrinking district really needs that many directors. Finally, 22A, parental notification. It is documented in FOIAed emails that Ms. Olson does not view children as human beings. I know that is a big statement, but in her words from September 7, 2023, quote, we own our children. If she views children as property and those are her words, that means she doesn't see them as human beings deserving their own rights and protections. She doesn't recognize that growing up is a process where students develop independence over time, and during that process, They may need and deserve to have privacy. California law recognizes that fact by giving students HIPAA privacy protection at the age of 12. My ask of you on this topic is simple. Treat students as people, not as property. Thank you.

Thank you, Michael. Welcome, Sue.

I'm a parent here in the RUSD. Dear board members, I think it's ironic that you would give admins well-deserved raises while taking away a significant amount of essential staff. Why give yourselves raises if you knew this was coming? It's just a really bad look. We need the school board to be creative and find solutions, save money elsewhere. It's ironic that there's an obesity crisis in this country, and so you want to take away all the elementary school PE teachers. Who are there to instill good habits? It's ironic that you are so concerned about the library collections in our schools, so you eliminate all of the library positions at elementary level who are there to manage them. And finally, it's ironic that you will eliminate counselor positions when we know there are real challenges in our school system for the kids who didn't do well during the pandemic. I have another minute here. But please, focus on the important stuff, like your petty culture wars of scapegoating a handful of trans students in the Redland School District for cheap political points and feeling powerful, targeting the most vulnerable among us. Thanks for pretending to listen to me. I have one more. 22a, forced outing. Please explain to me why you have to discuss forced outing again when it's clear that it is against the law. Also, with less counselors, who do you want the students to turn to? By trying to enforce forced outing, You make it clear that for the students who are questioning who they are, that their school is not a safe space. First we fire the people who work to help the students, then we make sure the students lose their confidentiality, the one thing that will help them speak up. But sure, let's make sure we feed our base with baseless claims of keeping our students safe, while every action attempt to do the exact opposite. The sooner Michelle Rendler realized we can't get to any common ground with school board member Olson and Wilson, the sooner we can get out of this nightmare and work for the common good. Thank you for pretending to listen to me. Thank you, Sue.

Thank you. Brandy. Brandy Bales with one item, Jeff Martinez with two, and Val Lee with one.

Welcome, Brandy. Hi, I'm Brandy, and I would like to remind you that you are taking jobs from those that have the most impact on students and from those that have dedicated their lives to helping students. If the district is facing a budget crisis, classrooms and school sites should not be the first place cuts are made. The board should look at reductions of the central office, furlough, the leadership whose poor management got us here. I want to address the forced outing item on tonight's agenda. This is a hurtful policy based in ignorance and tacky red hats. Not family or student support. Forced outing also violates California's AB 1955 and exposes the district to significant legal risk. The district has already spent over $1 million on legal fees, and continuing down this path will only cost us more.

Thank you, Brandi.

Welcome, Jeff. Thank you. Good evening. Jeff Martinez, Area 5. I'm a recently retired educator and the proud parent of three children who grew up in the Redlands Unified School District and now work in various roles within the district, including one as an ACC. I'm not speaking this evening for my own family, but instead for the many students and families who have been negatively impacted by the loss of the ACC program and multiple other reductions in support personnel and programs. I currently serve as the co-chair of the Rotary Club of Redlands Rising Stars program. The program recognizes RUSD students who not only have very good academic achievement, but have attained that academic success in the face of adversity in their academic and personal lives. More than 75% of the students recognized as rising stars are products of the ACC program. Many of those rising stars credit their academic case carrier for the support that led them to their success. I'll use my second connection. The decision-making process needs to ensure you consider all options and outcomes, including the unintended consequences down the road of those decisions. The decisions must prioritize student well-being and support. What's the plan? Please tell us you have a plan to provide the much-needed support to all students, especially those immediately impacted by the loss of the ACC program and the other support services, because to just let them go and not take care of that support is a tremendous mistake for this district and this community. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff.

Val Lee, Area 1.

Welcome back. And in support, I'm speaking here in support of 22A. I want to see parental notification. I want parents to know what's going on with their kids in school. There's no secrets held from us in this area. And other school districts have done this. Apparently they've... kind of met those legal hurdles that we've had to go through. I'm not exactly sure why we have seemed to stall on this issue. So I'd like to see that process continue to move forward, encourage you to do that. And in this life of fiscal budgetary crisis that we're in, the easiest method would be to opt in. Automatically, everybody's just opted in. If there's a parent that doesn't really care about getting their e-mails or snail mail, they can just delete it, just like we all do every day when we get our junk mail. So that's my recommendation to the board.

Thank you, Valerie. Next, we have Arjun Chopra, Cassandra Peterson, and Megan McLean, all with one item. Oh, Megan has two.

Welcome. How do you say your name?

Oh, no, you got it, Arjun. Yeah, Arjun.

Arjun.

Hello, yeah, like Argentina, drop the Tina.

Welcome.

For the pronunciation stuff. I've practiced that quite a bit in my life. Hello, everybody. I'm Arjun Chopra. I'm a Mentone resident writing to express my concerns about the upcoming teacher and staff firings. There's nothing covert about the current board's leveraging of culture war issues to disservice student learning outcomes and glut the heart of Redland's education system, its educators. What exactly is your end goal? Ban all books and eliminate all personnel who aren't in lockstep with this evangelized sense of what's appropriate? And how have you accomplished this? By taking the liberal notion of safe spaces and weaponizing it towards continually prohibiting literature? We had some community members mention their support of agenda item 15C. How does one explain to the HBCU they're visiting that their district banned Toni Morrison? What's next? Move toward contracting all teacher responsibilities to AI companies as the ultimate cost-saving measure? As a graduate student in UC Riverside's PhD English program, I'm working towards becoming a humanities educator in this world of illiterate idiocy you continue to perpetrate. The dream of becoming a contributor to the curiosity of young people has sustained me through decades of study, and you are the enemies of that dream, no matter what you may think otherwise. I'm astounded and appalled.

Welcome, Cassandra. Hi, my name is Cassandra Peterson. I would like to oppose the proposed cuts to school staff, specifically those that will directly impact students, i.e. all of them. Teachers, counselors, nurses, case carriers, librarians are needed in our schools. To follow through with your proposed cuts would further prove the incompetence of this board, which has been suggested many times this evening. I would like to echo the community's disappointment in your leadership and request that you use common sense, listen to your community, and do what is in the best interest of the students you are supposed to be representing. These layoffs are not in their best interest. Our students will suffer for this, and our whole community will suffer for this. Find another way. 22A is illegal, ignorant, and hateful. It is not in the best interest of our students. Again, takes away their autonomy and safety. Lastly, I would like to support item 15C. And when your constituents are speaking, I see you talking amongst yourselves, and I think it's so disrespectful. This is my first time here tonight. You need to listen. Pay attention. And just do what's right. Thank you.

Thank you, Cassandra. You're welcome, Megan.

Hi, I'm Megan, and I'm from District 5. And one of my kids has a learning disability. And through the years from COVID beyond, with the improvements of staff, he started off being seated next to helpful students that can kind of help him with his work. And he'd go pull it out for the interventions. and didn't improve as much as he did when he made it to middle school when he had an aide in his gen ed classroom for him and other students. And my kid, who could hardly read or write by second grade, got an A- in English in seventh grade. That was due not only to the teachers and the aides, but the librarian who staffed graphic novels and audio books for him to read so he could keep up with his classmates in his high school. Peer-to-peer support and collaborative learning can be beneficial for kids in a gen ed setting, but students should not be replacing paraprofessionals, which is what he needed. No software, no matter the amount of AI integration. I get one more, right? Is that two items? Thank you. No matter the amount of AI integration you allow or special education software you purchase to make yourself Look good for voters. Kid had given him the grade he rightfully earned with just some adult support from a trained professional. And I'm urging the board not to make the cuts to staff because obviously if you want grades to be good and test scores to be good, he's an example of what could happen. I'm so proud of him. Please look at the budget. Cut it from somewhere else. And regarding 22A and every other controversial negative news choice some people have made to make themselves look good to a small audience, stop it, fix this, and give us something good to talk about in this district. Thank you.

Thank you, Megan. Next, we have Rebecca Acosta with two cards, Valerie Tabor, and Joette Orman with two cards.

Welcome, Rebecca.

I wanted to first talk about the certificated layoffs. The district has decided to balance the budget on the back of student facing positions. Counselors at elementary and middle will be cut. All PE teachers in the elementary setting are set to be removed. Assistant principals for elementary and middle are also cut, which if you are paying attention is another hit to our youngest learners. Our district is currently deficient in our state inclusion indicators. and need the help of SIPP, who may I mention only step in when district numbers and inclusion are low or the district is doing a bad job at inclusion that their help is needed. Now, despite making commitment to inclusion, we are cutting almost all the TOAs who have been essential in inclusion and inclusive practices for students with disabilities. We can make up for our budget shortfalls in other ways. Redland currently has over $70 million in reserves at an estimate of 20% reserve rate for a district of this size when the state minimum is 3%. The district owns patches of land in the area and can lease those out for a steady stream of income or sell them for a large one-time payment. Our district also failed to apply for a state-level grant for dual immersion. My second one classified layoffs. RNs, health techs, and LVNs are being cut, which is a huge safety concern. My child has an advanced healthcare needs and relies on the Health Tech Daily and RN for case management and supervision. Many paraeducator positions will be cut, despite the district having a massive hiring event recently due to Redlands being deficient in staffing. We are going to be out of compliance in IEPs and staffing ratios. We are now letting go of all library techs that elementary's fought so hard for and several librarians, which is highly suspect given recent priorities of our district and their war on literacy. We are cutting positions from face, when issues of race equality and inclusion are constantly being challenged by political agendas of certain board members. I would like you to consider several other ways to balance the budget. We currently have four assistant superintendents, while a district of our size, on average, only has three. Administrative salaries are higher than average for the state, and several monetary perks are given to administrators, such as car and cash budgets. During COVID, with an influx of COVID funds, administration gave themselves raises, as well as created positions that were not maintainable. We all knew that

Rebecca, thank you very much.

Welcome, Valerie. Thank you. It is clear from LCAP feedback received so far and from commentary tonight that these cuts are not in alignment with what community needs or what we want for our schools. These proposed cuts will significantly impact learning support and engagement for all our students. But worse, these cuts show a willingness to place the burden of the district's poor financial stewardship on the backs of our most vulnerable students. At the same time, these cuts have the audacity to ask our teachers and office staff and other employees to add more work to their plates. Because the need for librarians, school nurses, counselors, and more will not go away. It will simply be forced back onto the plates of other teachers and staff who are already overworked and underpaid. In fact, with no headway on labor negotiations, you are actually asking staff to do more work for less pay. A rising tide lifts all boats. Supporting our most vulnerable students and ensuring our staff have what they need is how we support learning and engagement for all our students. Frankly, cutting these vital positions is unacceptable and demonstrates a lack of creativity and problem solving. Don't make our students our sacrifice.

Welcome to it.

Hello.

My name is Joette. I'm a resident of District 5. My daughter is at Kimberly, and I'm a product of the RUSD school system. I am asking you to vote against any policy that would require school staff to disclose a student's gender identity or sexual orientation to parents without the student's consent. This runs counter to the core values RedlandsUSD publicly affirms, student safety, trust, and whole child well-being. It is a well-documented fact that all children have safe homes. For some, school is the only place where they can ask questions or seek support without fear or judgment or harm. A forced outing policy removes professional discretion from counselors and educators, undermines trauma-informed practice, and sends a clear message to students. If you speak honestly, you risk being reported. This will not result in improved safety, academic success, or stronger families. It will silence students who need their voices strengthened instead of threatened. As a mental health professional, such a policy directly contradicts the HIPAA laws I am bound to uphold. Policies should be grounded in evidence. Moving on. I am deeply concerned about the proposed cuts to support staff and the real consequences that this will have on both students and teachers. Support staff are not extra. They are the people who keep classrooms functioning. When these positions are cut, the workload doesn't disappear. It shifts onto teachers and administrators who are already stretched beyond capacity and onto students who consequently lose essential academic, behavioral, and emotional support. I have been a nationally registered EMT for the past 20 years. I have seen firsthand and can attest that student health outcomes will be affected. Student lives could very realistically be lost because of this decision. The result is as predictable as it is undesirable. All students will suffer from unmet needs, more classroom disruption, less individualized attention, and burnt-out educators. Students who require extra support, those with learning differences, disabilities, trauma histories, or medical and mental health needs will be hit first and hardest. Please consider this. Thank you so much.

Next is Curtis Dyson with one card, Mark Laird with 14 items, and Joseph Cohen with two items.

Welcome, Curtis.

Good evening, superintendent, board members. My name is Curtis Dyson. I'm a resident of Area 1. I'm a parent of a Smiley Elementary School student, and I'm a parent of a Cope Middle School student. And the attacks on public education continue with the majority of this school board. Forced outing of students puts students in danger. It's very clear. The proposed positions to be eliminated are directly targeted at our students. I urge the board to reject these cuts and direct the superintendent to come back to the table with cuts that are not focused directly on our students and schools. If you do not interact with students every day at your daily work location, you should be at the front of the line for cuts, not the sites, not the kids, not the staff. In the future, please pay attention to the school district budget, because you don't. You do your petty culture war baloney. Our students deserve better.

Thank you, Curtis. Oh, I've missed you guys. It's been so long. Not really, though.

Excuse me. Excuse me. Hold on one second. Curtis, did you have two cards?

You still have time.

Would you like to take your time? You still have another minute. Don't let them cut you off. Take your time. All right. Welcome, Mark. All right, give me just a moment before you start my time so I can actually get to my agenda items. Thank you so much. I know it's been so long, though. I've missed you guys. I think some of you thought I wasn't going to show back up to these anymore. But actually, I just took the holiday season off. I hope you all had a great holiday. Happy New Year. All the things. Okay, I'm now to 13. There's a lot of pages in this big thing. Okay. Perfect, 13A. So I just want to talk a little bit about, let's talk about 13A, agreement with Belter Enterprise to improve crossing guards. Student safety is really important, right? I'm glad that you're providing us with crossing guards, but as you've seen, Student safety is on the line in many ways tonight. One, parental notification. Trans students should never be notified. It is under California law. Remember, I have notified you of this. If you'd like, you can go to the last meeting where I said this. Pull up the record. I reminded you of California law, which states that a student has the right in the state of California under the Student Success and Opportunity Act AB 1266 It ensures that trans and non-binary students are treated consistent with their gender identity at school, and that they may, without or with, with or without their parent or guardian support, yes, with or without their parent or guardian support, keep their gender identity confidential, and all educated professionals need to uphold it. So, what are we doing, y'all? Thank you. Okay, now before I start my time on the next one, let's see, is 13E, hmm. Okay. Thank you for your patience. All right. 13E. Oh, you know who uses restrooms? Trans people. Yeah. Trans people use restrooms. I'm glad that we are adding restrooms to Redlands Orange High School, right? I'm very glad for that. But one... Reminder, trans people use restrooms. Two, trans people are people. Three, trans people exist. And it is your job, and I know some of you think that you're on, like, God's mission or something. I remind you, it is, I live in Area 2. God is not paying your bills. It's me, Michelle, you are up for re-election, and I am looking to vote you out. I am knocking on every door to make sure that that happens. I am pissed. Because this board has made students unsafe. This board has gaslit me into thinking my own culture. Yes, that's right, Jeanette. You, who should be looking at me, Jeanette, you said that my flag was a sexual item. Yeah, the pride flag. Hi, took a cultural studies class. It's not. It's culture. Oh, but anyways, back to student safety. And restrooms. Oh, out of time. Oh, no. Next one. Let me find it. Oh, gee, OK. Melissa, I'm so proud of you, girl. I'm proud of you for becoming the clerk. I think that's what it is. Honestly, anything but Jeanette being the clerk is going to be great. What are you speaking on? What am I speaking on? I am speaking on, if you have read your own agenda, it is going to be 13G. And Mike, don't take from my time. Let me remind you of what 13G is. Designation of Melissa Ayala Quintero to certify and attest board actions as the clerk board of education, authorizing her on behalf of blah, blah, blah. It keeps going. It's talking about her being the clerk. Who was our last clerk, Michelle? It was Jeanette. Related. Stop trying to stop my time when I'm talking about related items. You didn't know about any of these other people. Yeah. Although it looked like you had something to say, because I'd like to hear it.

I was just asking what you were speaking about.

I was just asking you.

Thank you for clarifying. I appreciate it.

All right. Now, I'm so proud of you, girl. So proud. Thank you for everything that you've been doing. I know, I'm sorry that we all have to sit through these meetings, but one thing, and this is not you, girl, but one thing I did want to shed light on is that our board members on this board are presently making, let's see, well, the one that the board that I know, that I grew up with, they make about $400 a month, right? This God-given mission that y'all feel has given you the right to take my money has said, ooh, let's raise our rates $1,900, right? That ridiculous pay discrepancy, what are you doing? You say that you're doing more work. You created the work, right? You created the work, right? then you should be working for what you were paid when you signed up, and not cutting important positions. Now, let me find my next one. Michelle, do I need to remind you what 15C is, or are you okay? I haven't heard your answer yet, so I'm still waiting. Do you know what 15C is? Yeah? Okay, perfect. So 15C, woo! This is awesome. I am so happy that our Citrus Valley High School students got to go to such important universities. First of all, one thing that I really noticed is they probably had a lot of cultural experiences there. They really did. And one thing that I remember is we weren't supposed to celebrate culture here in Redlands. That's a bad thing, right? Didn't we pass a policy on not recognizing culture or flags or something? Regardless of our mission statement, I think we did do that, right? Okay, great. So I'm not crazy. But I do think it's great that we introduce our students to culture. That's also why I think it's great that we're adding DLI. But I really do wonder how you're going to make your DLI successful when every other DLI embraces culture. That's the key. Maybe we're going to spend a lot of money on something that's not going to be successful, and it's not the people who are working its fault. Maybe it's yours. Thought about that? Let me find. It's going to be a moment because I have to flip some pages. Anyways, Christmas is my favorite season. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. 17A. Perfect. Oh, yeah, this is what we're all here for, right? Yeah, I think this is what we're all here for. 17A, certificated personnel. Let's talk about our certificated personnel. Our counselors that save lives every day. How would I know? I worked alongside them. I was a wellness aide. Now I'm a library media technician. Wow, these cuts really are pointing in some directions here, aren't they? especially after our heated, contested meetings these last couple of months. It's quite funny that we are deciding to cut library media technicians, librarians, which that would be the certificated position, right? Our librarians are being cut. Our nurse that we heard from tonight, which honestly, you guys should be ashamed of yourself for making her come here after everything she goes through and working for all of these kids. You should be ashamed. Thank you. Disrespect to those of you that are responsible for this. Not to you, Patty. Not to you, Melissa. Thank you. But also remember that Patty is up for re-election this year. Please vote for her. She really needs it. And now let's talk about 17B. Mm-hmm, yeah. Hi, I'm a library media technician working at a high school. Mm-hmm. The other position you're cutting is the textbook clerk at the high school. I can tell you right now, and I had this conversation. It's embarrassing. I was reading a story time to my county class today, and I didn't bring up politics. They go, hey, you live in Redlands. Did you hear they're getting rid of all the library media technicians? Well, yes. Yes, I did. The person that you're looking to get rid of would be my coworker. The library media textbook clerk that saves you thousands of dollars a year ensures that you are able to meet your mandatory Williams Act compliance and providing your materials, ensuring that those materials are ready on the first day the student is enrolled. That's right. You have to get those materials out on the first day. No exceptions. And if you didn't know that, welcome to the Williams Act, okay? Welcome to education as well. You should be on that. It's really sad that I have to tell you about that. Anyways, see, the thing that I was talking about with her is that when I was having the story time, I said, well, and you know what's the really sad thing? The fact that if I was working on textbooks right now, we wouldn't be having this conversation. These lovely kids that come in every week for their county story time because these are adult special needs students. I read them picture books because that's the level they're at and it is the highlight of their week. They graduated from their program and they came back to say hi to me, right? That's the impact. The impact that you guys are having tonight, not even just in the library, and mental health, and every facet, physical health, hell, my God. You need to reflect before you make this decision. It is going to have damning consequences, and students will pay. And I thought we were all about protecting our students. Isn't that what it's all about? Or is that just a catchphrase? Or is that only for some of our students? Hmm? I'd like to hear on that. Well, while I find my next one, give me just a second. Okay, 18. Okay, 18A. Okay, reduction of kinds of certificates. So let's talk about how we are facing declining enrollment. I see that on here. Have you ever reflected on why that is? Because I can tell you as an educator, educators are fleeing this district. I have seen it myself. They've gone to your competitors, great educators, really wonderful educators. In fact, I am someone who considered at one point working in this district until I learned what it was all about. And guess what? I just had an employee evaluation today. Normally I dress in my Crocs and things. No, I dressed a little fancier. Yeah, I had an evaluation today. Full marks, perfect. I'm so sorry you're not going to hire me as your library media technician, but guess what? I didn't want the job anyway because of your policies. Right? And your declining enrollment's going to continue. That word's going to get out. Like I said, when you build your beautiful DLI program, and San Bernardino opens one up right next door that fully embraces culture, fully embraces the language, and accepts students for who they are, oh, that's not that much further of a drive. The people that are into that kind of a program will make it. All right. Now let's talk about 18B. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Reduction of classified positions. AKA my coworker, right? If I worked here. So textbook clerk. That's a pretty dang big job, my friends. I don't think you understand the volume of that job. How many students do we have at our high schools? How many textbooks is that? Oh, wait. They don't just take one class, do they? No. In fact, one class uses more than one required text and material, doesn't it? In fact, those students might require a trip to the library a lot more than you are thinking. Also, I'm wondering if you're laying off all these essential, in my opinion, these positions are pretty dang essential. I know that you don't think so. But if you're laying off all these essential people, How are you going to meet your Williams Act compliance when Williams comes through and you need to have every single classroom up to date with every single material? Who does that? Oh, wait. Our librarians and our library technicians. I wish you the best of luck. That's going to be very expensive for you. And I really, really am sad because that's going to come out of the students' pockets. Now, 18C... Oh, yeah, seniority. Let's talk about that. Yeah, I worked through a layoff. COVID. Worked at the Disneyland Resort, happiest place on earth, right? Yeah, they laid off 19 people from California Adventure Side, and they laid off 1,600 from Disneyland. You want to know why? Seniority, babe. That's why. This seniority, I'm going through the list of how many positions we're cutting. Oh, it is going to come for you guys. When those librarians get bumped and they bump all of our amazing brand new teachers, you are going to be losing the last five to six beautiful years worth of teachers. that we just gained because you're going to be losing so many of our new teachers to other districts when they get those pink slips because of your seniority. Yeah, that's right. Look through all those positions. Those are high seniority positions, my friends. They are not starter level. And so, ooh, not only do you lose the cheaper talent of our new employees, we also now have to deal with all the consequences of that, don't we? All right, now, let's see. I was on... I think I just did that one. Now I'm on D. Ooh, the student attendance calendar. Ooh, how do you think students are going to show up to school when they don't have their counselors that they check in with every day? When they don't have their library technician that they spend every day until about 5, 5.30 after school? Because reminder, high school students don't go to daycare, do they? No. They certainly don't. Most don't. Some of us might feel like putting our children in daycare because we feel like coddling them. But anyways, like I said, all these very important positions are getting cut. McKinney-Vento kids. Did you think about them? Our LGBTQ youth. Oh, I know you thought about them, but you just discarded that one real quick, didn't you? Yeah. Oh, we wouldn't want their flag up in the classroom. Oh, that's a sexual being right there. Watch out. I remember that. I still carry that, Jeanette. I literally still remember you saying that. Your words have impact. As an adult. So think about the students that come here. We just had a student volunteer tonight on your board. All right. Now, my not favorite one, actually. 22A, you are about to get legally screwed in every which way, and I hope that you are ready for it. Because I'm telling you right now, I know my California ed goes quite well, and I'd like some money. Not from my students, but if I have to keep my students safe by suing the district... It's not off the table. I live here. And I myself identify as LGBTQIA. And I'm feeling pretty discriminated against based on these policies that if they were enacted when I was a student, I would not be here. I would be dead. And guess what? I come from a supportive household. My mom's right there. Bless her. I came from a supportive household. And I felt that way. Let alone whatever you guys are doing in your households. Oh, I wish those children the best. Because God bless them. But anyways, you guys are literally going to get legally screwed by this. Look into it. Because there is no which way. Students deserve to have their gender identity to be kept confidential. Thanks.

Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Mark.

How many do I have? Two. Two. Okay. First off, I wanted to talk to you guys about...

Welcome, Joseph. Sorry.

Yeah, before we get started, I wanted to thank the president of the board for having me kicked out the last time I was here, because I was anti-Nazi. But anyway, we can start now. I just wanted... You guys should be ashamed of yourselves for even taking the stipend and then coming in here and saying... Let's cut staff. And the staff that you're cutting, who are you cutting? You're not cutting staff that are making thousands and thousands. You're cutting people who are making basic wages. All right? Minimum on hardly anything. And those are the people you're cutting out. And think of the job they do. Okay? I've taught special ed for 25 years in the extra staff necessary to do a good job there is unbelievable. But without those paraprofessionals, I wouldn't have been able to do my job successfully. I wouldn't have been able to help the kids that I was able to help. Think about it. I worked 30 years teaching children. Think how many children I impacted. Second thing I want to talk about is education. You people are really tripped out about sex, man. I don't know. Okay? Because the last time I was here, it was about banning books because some little girl did this or some guy from Nazi Germany came up and read some disgusting, foul thing out of the book, which probably was only there once, maybe twice in the entire book. But you guys, now you want to be able to tell if you think a kid's gay, you can call her parents? Yes. Have you ever worked on a campus where a 14-year-old boy walked out onto a running track and blew his brains up? And you guys are going to turn around and sneak that in. How are the parents going to accept that? How are they going to react? You've got to think about that. You can't just make judgments because you're important. Thank you.

Thank you, Joseph.

Next, we have Quinn Shea with two cards, Aricia Turner with one card, and Rain Mendoza with two cards.

Welcome, Quinn. Hello. First off, I'd like to start with... Thank you, Patty and Michelle, for always being there for the kids, for actually caring about the kids and not deciding, hey, let's just cut off all our teachers. I have a little brother who's in fifth grade. I recently told him about everything that's been going on because he's been wanting to come to one of these meetings for a while. grader wants to come to these meetings because of this board. A fifth grader would rather spend his time here fighting for what's right instead of being at home, being able to be a normal kid. How disappointing is that? Also, I have a friend who has a one-on-one aid. If he has her cut off, who knows what could happen? And as an autistic teenager myself, this is not right. I have two, by the way. Please restart my time. Thank you. As an autistic teenager, this impacts me very much. When I was nine, because of my bullying, because people didn't accept me for who I am, I almost killed myself. If it wasn't for the mental health professionals that you are attempting to get rid of. For goodness sakes, people. These people are saving lives day by day by day. And you want to be rid of them. What kind of logic is that? And if we're being honest, as someone mentioned before, it's not the higher paying teachers. No. It's the people like the one-on-ones, the counselors, the people who, as I mentioned, save lives daily and get paid barely nothing for it. Which is why I stand with the RTA. Do better. Do not fire these teachers. Vote no. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Ray? Arisa? Arisa Turner?

Welcome, Arisa. Thanks. My name is Orissa Owen. I'm a parent of a COPE student, and I'm in Trustee Area 1. And I just want to read something to you from your own budget. Deficit spending in 2022-23 is due to negotiated salary increases that were supported by a multi-year savings plan. The 2024-25 deficit spending is mainly due to unexpected legal settlements, higher than expected need of SCOOT, Inc. for SPED programs and other POs. You have 20% in reserves. How dare you people scare these people, terrify people that they're not going to have a job next year. 20% in reserves. You have at least one more year to get it together and figure out how to keep enough staff to keep this district worth being in. You don't even have other options. You know you do. You know you have a bunch of land that you can sell. We have declining enrollment. And I just want all of you to know, I chose to move here. I bought a house because of the school district, and I'm thinking about leaving because of this school district. Thank you, Arisa.

Welcome.

Hi. Okay. My name is Rain Mendoza. I am speaking on 18A and B. I have two cards. Hi. I am a paraeducator for special ed. I have worked in the district for... a couple of years now. Right now I'm long term at an elementary school. You've seen me at work in the classroom. I am opposed to cutting these positions of librarians, of counselors, of nurses, special ed paraeducators, and library educators, library paraprofessionals. The reason for this is, I don't know if you noticed while you were there, but we are doing the best we can, and we could still use more staffing. I work in two classrooms, actually, and the upper level class that I work in, we went to the library today. It was great. They love the library. The librarian reads to them. I think her job is at stake. Continuing on. I don't want to talk about politics. A lot of the school board meetings since I've been coming for the past couple of months are about political culture wars. I'm just here to teach students and make sure they grow up and have a good life. Okay, we only get one. Where you grow up matters. Who you grow up around with matters. The people you surround yourself with matters. We don't have very good literacy rates. We should invest in our education. We shouldn't be caring about, I don't know, pronouns, flags. Let's care about reading, about feeling safe, about being able to go to the nurse, being able to go to the counselors. Counselors are crying because of the mental health that students are facing. I was told that today. Our literacy rates have actually gone up at the particular school I'm working at. I think you know what to do. Thank you.

Do you have another card? Or just two? Did you have two?

I'm happy to speak more, but that's it.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

The last speaker is Michael Casadontite.

Welcome, Michael.

It's hard to think of things to say that haven't already been said. I'm a proud citizen of Redlands, a proud parent of two who attend two different schools in Redlands. I am an embarrassed citizen in Area 5. because of my representative, who apparently didn't read that before she decided to run for this board. The Redlands Unified School District is a unifying agent, not a divisive agent, a unifying agent. These cuts that you're making are extremely divisive. Look it up. Fascism was wrong. And it's still wrong.

Thank you, Michael.

All right, now we're going to move on to board committee reports. Does anybody have anything to report tonight?

No report from Choir Up as we meet next Wednesday.

My committee hasn't met.

Do you have anything to report tonight?

Just a quick reminder about the Compact Club dinner coming up on February 11th where the students get to participate in a dinner with people from the community and practice their social skills, interviewing skills, speaking skills, and it's a great way to help some of the kids in the community. If any adults would like to attend, just let me know.

Marissa? You have the date and time, so if somebody wanted to come and... I'm asking where is the time and place.

Well, you need to RSVP. I'm asking where is it. Where is it? Where is it going to be held? At the University of Redlands. Horton Center or Casa Loma Room?

Casa Loma Room, I believe. But when you RSVP, you can find that out.

Okay. Does it start at 6?

6.30. 6.30.

I can send you the flyer.

Yes, please. Thanks.

I still haven't received any information from the Cultural Arts Committee. Do you have a contact for me?

I can get that to you. They'll be meeting three times a year, so they've cut a lot of the times. No, that's fine.

It's our last meeting. I still haven't.

Okay. I will get that for you. Okay. Okay. All right. Do we have any board committee report? I mean, we already did that. I'm sorry. We're on to superintendents' reports. Mr. Carvalho.

Really simple. I didn't plan on doing this, but I thought it might be good. And I'm going to ask IT in the back, is there a way to get on to show our website on the screen? Can you do that from back there? I just want to bring everybody's attention to a tab that is titled Financial Transparency. They can hear me in the back, right? He's working on it. On our website, there is a tab under business that is titled financial transparency, and I just wanted to point that out because we are talking about a matter that is extremely serious and not positive, but what we want to do is Make sure that you have access to looking at everything that we're seeing with respect to our finances. Every document that has been presented to the board, not only this year but in past years, that you are able to access, analyze, look at, and then, more importantly, have questions answered uh... once you do review them and and and don't know the answer uh... you can reach out to our staff along with the financial documents on that page is my contract, for example, my employment contract, the employment contract of all of our cabinet members so that you are aware of our status, the collective bargaining agreements so that you can see how the contract language matches uh... some of our staffing ratios and some of our limitations as far as what we're allowed to do with respect to staffing uh... so if we're able to show you i wanted to show you really quick how easy it is to access it uh... but if we can't then all you gotta do is go on our web on our home page go to business services And there is a scroll-down menu, and one of the options is titled Financial Transparency. Click that, and it will take you to a website that has all the information that I just described. And I urge you to look through that and make sure that you get the answers to any of the questions that you have regarding any of the finances over the past several years. I don't want to spend too much time, but if we figure it out later, maybe we can go back to it. But I just wanted to point that out. That's all I have for my report.

If we can get that up, we'll come back to you. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Cabral. Now on to business services consent items. Mr. Hill, any changes or additions?

No changes or additions tonight.

I have a motion to approve ratify business services consent items as listed under 13A through 13I.

So moved.

Second.

I didn't.

Do I need to abstain from G?

All right. Any more discussion on any of this?

No.

Call for the vote.

Mr. Cayala-Quintero. Aye. Vice President Holohan. Aye. President Rendler. Aye. Board Member Olson. Aye. Board Member Wilson.

Aye.

Motion carried. FIBO.

Now on to Business Services Action Items. Mr. Hill, any changes or additions?

No changes or additions.

Thank you. Is there a motion to accept the 2024-25 Financial Audit Report as presented by I.D. Bailey, LLP?

I move. Second.

Thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Patty. Any discussion?

I just want to thank Kirtan and Mr. Hill and his staff for all the work done. For someone who works for a nonprofit and has to get audited, I know all the work that goes into that. So thank you to staff on that. All right, I'll call for the vote.

Board Member Ayala-Quintero? Aye. Vice President Hollihan? Aye. President Rendler? Aye. Board Member Olson? Aye. Board Member Wilson?

Aye.

Motion carried, 5-0.

Is there a motion to accept the 2024-25 Measure D General Obligation Bonds Financial and Performance Audit Report as presented by I.D. Bailey, LLP?

I'll move.

Second. Thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Candy. Any discussion? All right, I'll call for the vote.

Sir Cayala Quintero. Aye. Vice President Hollihan. Aye. President Rendler. Aye. Board Member Olson. Aye. Board Member Wilson. Aye. Motion carried. Five-0.

Now on to consent items under educational services. Mrs. Buckmiller, any changes or additions?

No changes or additions tonight. Thank you.

Is there a motion to approve educational services consent items as listed under 15A through 15E? So moved.

I would like to pull C and vote on that separately.

The Citrus Valley going to HBC. Okay. Anybody have any objection to that? Pulling it and doing it separate? So we're voting on 15A, B, D, and E. Correct. Do we have a second?

There was literally no look. I don't know why you're asking for one.

Do we have a second on that? No second.

I'm sorry, who's second?

Jeanette. I'm going to pull separately. Yeah, to vote separate on C. Not pull, I just vote separate. Vote separate. Okay. All right, any more discussion? No. All right, we'll call for the vote.

Sir Cayella Quintero? Aye. Vice President Hollihan? Aye. President Rundler? Aye. Board Member Olson?

Aye.

Board Member Wilson? Aye. Motion carried, 5-0.

All right, so now I need a motion to approve... Item listed under 15C.

So moved.

I will second.

Did you get that, Consuelo? So Patty moved, you second? Yes. Thank you.

All right. Any discussion on this? Can we finish this vote real quick? Any discussion on this one?

Yeah. Do you want to go first? I think it sounds like a great fun trip and I love the idea of it. I just, I don't think that $35,000, I think it could be spent more wisely and I think that LCAP funds, honestly, if we really wanted to show a marked improvement on graduation rates, which is what this is under the guise of, is increasing graduation rates for minorities, I think that we could do something along the lines of one-on-one tutoring I suggested maybe six months out from graduation or a year out from graduation. I would love spending that $35,000 on 101 tutoring for the kids who might be slipping by and who might not make it to the finish line. I would love something like that for those funds. And another major concern that I have regarding that is that... You know, we can't do this for every club. So what happens when the next club asks to go to a college tour? We're not going to be able to do that financially. And next year we won't be able to either. So I don't think it's fair to all of the kids. It's not a race issue. There's multiple races going on the... There's multiple races going on this tour. It's not just all black kids. There's mixed, there's white. This has nothing to do with discrimination against any race whatsoever. I have the idea that since we can't sustain it and we can't offer it to other clubs that may ask, I think that's a major problem because it'll be considered discriminatory. And also, $35,000 could go a long way in... tutoring or helping kids actually show some numbers in progress. Anybody else?

Well, I agree with those points, and I also wanted to point out we already had someone speak tonight who is excited for her younger child to be able to go when she becomes old enough, and it isn't sustainable, most likely, I mean, unless we have a windfall from someone. And I agree doing it for a club. I'd rather see the emphasis stay with AVID or programs within the district where all students who are interested would have a chance of going. It seems not very equitable the way it is. was in picking the students, not very inclusive when only 20 kids get to go. And I'm very sure many more would have loved to be able to go. And there are college tours, college fairs that bring colleges to us. Having the kids get even bused to a bigger fair to me, addresses more children, and then that $35,000 could, again, be used for helping some of the low achievers get the support they need to be able to actually get across the graduation stage.

Okay.

I have one question. Was this capped at $20,000 because of the funding? Yes. Okay.

How many students did we have to turn away, Mr. Cabral?

More than a handful, but... How did we pick the students that we... Students from each high school were invited. We had...

The seniors first?

I mean the juniors?

No, it was interest because HBCU trip, not everybody who is looking to go to universities has that as an interest to visit or to attend in graduates or as a grad. And we did have interest from all four high schools. Orangewood families decided not to participate. There were four families at RHS who were ready to participate, but in the end decided that their child was not going to go to HBCU and didn't want to take up a spot for other kids in the district.

how was it advertised to the different students?

Uh, this was generated, uh, through our day pack, which our parent group, um, our parent groups, uh, focused on, uh, our BSU clubs at each of the high schools.

Uh, so not everybody who's a member of BSU was, was, you know, was the only folks that were allowed to, uh, sign up, but the, um, uh,

the announcement of the trip, the invitation to participate went through the BSU clubs.

So I just want to clarify something. Our college trips, regardless of whether they're to HBCUs or the one that we do with AVID Up the Coast, these aren't an incentive to get children to graduate. It's really to push them to aspire to higher goals. Am I not correct?

It's both. It's an incentive or a motivation to graduate, but also we want kids graduating with a plan. And for some of our kids, that's going to be going to university, and so it's a motivator.

The majority of our students go to in-state schools, and, I mean, we do have some, but, I mean, a small portion of our kids go back east, right?

Yeah, we have kids that go to many schools, Arizona also, not just east. That is true.

Thank you. I think in the future what I would like to see is if we do have the funding for such a trip, the only way I can think of to make it fair and equitable and inclusive would be to have like a lottery where any student that is interested and has a valid interest could be put in the pot, so to speak, and have an opportunity or a chance to be able to go.

Our AVID kids already have that opportunity. I mean, you don't have to, you know, I mean, if there's interest, you just join AVID. I mean, that is advertised widely throughout the district at our middle school level, you know, as early as our middle school level, that that is the goal to be able to go on this overnight trip.

I think a lot, well, that's a much lesser trip than this one is. But a lot of students that are not high functioning in terms of their confidence and motivation, some of our groups that need that extra push, they're not going to be an avid student. and they shouldn't be not allowed to participate in viewing colleges just because they're not in a certain club or even in AVID.

I would respond that I'm a fan of as many kids as possible being exposed to college trips.

But we can't afford all of the kids who would want to go.

I would just, again, just say as much as possible I would support that.

I look at life experiences, and for me, some of our students have probably never even been on a plane. So that's a life experience to be able to go and see a trip, see another state, see somewhere to go. The experience that you gain doesn't outweigh how much it costs because you're going to gain so much more.

Okay, our job here is to educate the kids and not provide traveling and life experiences and world traveling opportunities. We need to educate them. We need to provide the resources to the kids who are failing and get them through to the finish line and spend our money on education.

No one's saying that these kids are failing, though. I mean, no one's saying these kids are failing, but I mean, what are we not doing if not helping these kids aspire to bigger, better things in their lives? I mean, I don't understand. It sounds great.

It sounds like a fun trip, but I think $35,000 of LCAP funds could be spent to directly target the kids who are slipping through the cracks, who might need it.

Yes, there are bigger conversations that we need to better manage our money. I mean, how much do we spend on our diligence system? About $20,000? And the majority of the board is still using paper. I love paper. I'll always use paper. I understand that. And I absolutely understand that. But at the same time, we spent a lot of money on a digital platform so we can go paperless to save money. And... We're still at the district's cost. We just got an increase in our stipend. If we're so adamant about saving money, why not do this out of pocket? If we want a paper copy, why not do it out of our own pockets? The whole point is that we modernize, we do what we can to make things better, and this is something that is going to make things better and improve. That is just my opinion. It doesn't mean you have to vote in that way. You voiced your opinion. I am voicing mine.

What does this equate to if we say we're not going to do this trip?

$35,000.

You could spend it on a one-on-one tutoring and get the graduation rate up to 99%. I mean, couldn't we?

This year? I mean, this year? Can it be done this year? Is it possible? That's what I'm saying.

Maybe if we would have known we had the $35,000 at the beginning of the year.

So how about this? Why is the audience so out of control? How about these children get to go on this trip, and we look at it again for, do we want to fund this again next year? Do we want to keep funding this?

Sorry, I apologize for interrupting. Can somebody give me the monetary value of the worth of this experience for these 20 students? Well, it's pretty priceless, probably.

Probably. I'm sure it's priceless. I have no doubt that it would be a wonderful experience. I love the idea of doing it. I just think those funds could be better used. And I also think setting a precedent is very dangerous. Like Jeanette mentioned, a speaker has already mentioned that they can't wait for their child to get through to be able to go on that tour. Who knows that we can't do that now? So another club will ask, and then, no, we can't do that. I'm sorry, we can't afford it the next year. So why do we start a precedent? Why start something that we know we can't sustain?

We can let them enjoy this year.

Do we have one more minute? Let's just bring it to a vote. Okay. All right. With no more discussion, we're going to call for the vote.

Point of order. Could you please remind the audience, I can't hear my fellow board members sometimes when they're speaking.

Yes, please, while we're having discussions up here, you don't need to interject your voice into our discussions. Thank you.

Sir Cayala Quintero?

Aye.

Vice President Hollihan? Aye. President Render? Aye. Board Member Olson? No. Board Member Wilson? No. Aye. Motion carried, with the ayes being Clerk Ayala Quintero, Vice President Hollihan, and President Rendler, the nays being Board Member Olson and Board Member Wilson.

All right, moving on to action items under... Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes. All right, we're going to go back to Superintendent Cabral. Thank you.

Really quick, stepping back so that we can have Mr. Hill's picture taken off the screen. This is our website, and this is the tab. You look at the tabs at the top. It says departments. If you press departments, you drop down to business services, and on the blue section, the third one down, it says financial transparency. Are you able to click it? This page comes up, and you can do this on your phone. You can do this wherever you're most comfortable seeing. But you see at the top of this page, there's several tabs. Those are the tabs that I'm talking about that will give you access to all of our documents. What's missing that we're still going to add is our board compensation and also Prop 28 that we will have up there. But this is an active website. I'm hoping that it becomes something that everybody can go to to get the most up-to-date information with respect to our finances. Thank you for letting me do that really quick.

Thank you, Superintendent Cabral.

Thanks, IT in the back, for getting it. Yeah, thank you.

Oh, we're going to wait for Patty for a second. You want to take a couple minute break? All right. You need to take a few minute break. Just three minutes. We will be back in three minutes. Okay, we're back in session. Is there a motion to approve educational service action items as listed at... As listed under 16A through 16F. Oh, I'm sorry, Mrs. Buckmiller, I did not ask you. No corrections. Thank you. Do we have a motion? I'll move. Second. Thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Patty. Any discussion on these?

This is educational through F? A through F. A through F, okay.

All right, we'll call for the vote. Clerk Ayala-Quintero? Aye. Vice President Hollihan?

Aye.

President Rendler? Aye. Board Member Olson? Aye. Board Member Wilson?

Aye.

Motion carried, 5-0.

Is there a motion to approve Board Policy 5131.8, Mobile Communication Devices? First reading.

I'll move approval.

A second.

Any discussion? I actually have some edits that I would like to make. Okay. So in going through it, I was looking at, there's a lot of language about, it says like, however, a student shall not be prohibited from possessing. I was wondering if we would take all that possession language out because, let's see, where else is it? It's in paragraph two, three, and four. It says students in grades TK to 8 may use smartphones or other mobile communication devices before school begins and after school day ends, which would include any other after school program on campus. Maybe it wasn't two. Sorry. Give me one quick second. Where did I say two? Okay. Well, there's language about them possessing it. We're not prohibiting them from actually possessing it. It's being turned on. So a student shall not be prohibited from possessing or using a mobile communication device under any of the following circumstances, implying that outside of those circumstances, they are not allowed to possess it. One, two, three, four, five. Oh, I see. Oh yeah, sorry, paragraph five, I read my notes wrong. Paragraph five, numbers two, three, and four. When a teacher administrator grants permission to the student to possess, at no point are they not allowed to possess it. So it should be changed to, however, students shall not be prohibited from using a mobile communication device under any of the following circumstances. So it would be stricken from... It's possessing out. Yeah, it's possessing. So it's in paragraph five in numbers two, three, and four. I did have another note on it. I... Let's see. I wasn't sure if we... would be open to the idea. So I understand why this is important and I don't, I'm not a fan of cell phone policies in general, but I understand the need for them. I don't agree with, you know, our kids having AirPods in their ears during class time. You know, I completely understand that and I know they can be absolutely harmful in conjunction with, you know, social media use. However, I do think that a lot of the pushback we're going to get, I mean, as a parent myself, is turning it off. When you turn it off, you lose location services to be able to make sure, especially for our kids that walk to school. You lose the ability to track them on Life 360. You lose the ability to make sure that some of our older kids aren't leaving campus in the middle of the day. It poses a safety risk, and If you're thinking in a really dark situation, should our students be caught, you know, I would hope this would never happen, but in an active shooter situation, a lot of kids hiding would have to turn their cell phones back on, and it would create an unsafe situation. So I'm asking this board to consider, instead of turning it off, if we ask our students to put it into airplane mode. Once you do that... It's not in here. I'm asking as an addition is us to amend it to not ask them to turn it off. And I apologize to teachers.

Does it say turn it off in here? It does.

It says devices shall be turned off and not visible during the school day. I'm asking if it can be changed to being set to airplane mode. because that still does allow background services to run. So location services would still remain on. You won't get notifications of texts, but for students who maybe need to see a nurse or take medication, have an alarm, those functions would still work.

I totally agree with you on that.

I'm not opposed to that.

I think it should be either on silence or airplane mode. Either one I would be fine with.

The functionality of turning it from airplane mode back to a functioning state, I mean, it's not noisy. It just causes an onslaught. It would be less time, especially for our students sometimes that have to walk after school. Maybe their plans have changed. Once they switch it back, their notifications are going to come in a lot faster. And for location services, they use satellites rather than the phone's cell network.

So also if they forget to turn it back on, they still have it on airplane mode, for example, when they're walking home or whatever.

And they're still able to be tracked. Right.

I like that idea. Yeah, just change the language, too, because that was a concern of mine, too. I don't like the idea of turning it off completely. In an emergency, it takes way too long to power the thing back up again.

So anywhere it says from possessing, take that out. Anywhere it says it in there. And put into airplane mode in the second paragraph.

Not a substitute for possessing, but for powering down. No, no, no.

I'm saying the two things. Oh, you're saying the two things. I see. The two changes.

Okay. Okay? I'm in agreement with that. Are you finished with your edits? So I had some edits, too. I think that we should say the mobile communication, like, for example, in the first sentence, it says smartphones and other mobile communication devices. A smartphone is qualified under a mobile communication device, so I think that's just redundant to say smartphone. I think we should get rid of that, and we should leave it with mobile communication devices. And I would add, and tablets. So everywhere here where it says mobile communication device, I would say, or tablets. Because the kids will just be doing their social media videos on their tablets. And they will be texting on their tablets.

So isn't that considered a mobile communication device?

No, it's not a cell phone. You can't call on it. You can call with, like, FaceTime, but it's not considered a communicating device like a phone. Can you please stop the audience from interrupting? We're having a discussion. It's not considered a mobile communication device. A tablet, you can communicate through it, but it's not a cell phone or a smartphone. It's a tablet. It's a different category. Okay. even though you can communicate on it.

I would say just add in tablet. I would like to leave mobile communication device in because... That's what I said.

I said mobile communication devices and tablets. I said take out smartphone because there's no need for that to say.

Oh, I would leave smartphones in because you don't know what...

Can we make it smartphones, tablets, or any other mobile communication device?

It's just mobile communication devices covers smartphones, flip phones, BlackBerrys.

You could get into Apple Watches, too.

Well, that's the other thing I have next to talk about. I just think it'd be easier. We don't have to list everything. We could just, the mobile communication devices takes care of smartphones, takes care of flip phones, any kind of phone. And then we could say on tablets because it's not a phone. I say communication devices.

Leave it at that.

Sure.

Mobile communication devices.

Well, that's what they've called it here is mobile communication devices. I'm just saying it. Okay. So, yeah, that's what they are. So it's a good term because it covers everything and then tablets. And then I was asking the ed services about the iWatches because iWatches is not either of the above. And what is their expectation? I don't know how you guys feel on that.

Well, it's a mobile communication device.

Yeah, so are you going to have them take off their watch and put it in their backpack?

Yeah, because they sit all day and talk on it. I mean, it's the same as... Okay.

Okay. I think it's on airplane mode. Yeah, if your phone is on airplane mode, your watch is. In the past, I have encouraged my children to not be on their phone, but to have their watch on them because if I say, you know, so-and-so is picking you up today, they'll see the notification and move on with their life. Not all watches have call technology outside of Bluetooth. They do rely on Bluetooth if they don't have independent devices cell phone coverage. So you have to pay extra for an iWatch to have cell phone coverage. But most rely on the Bluetooth. So once you go into airplane mode, the watch goes into airplane mode as well.

And texting doesn't work when it's in airplane mode. Okay. All right. So did we get those edits? Oh, yeah, more?

So I guess that'll be included. And then also down here, it was just a very – there was a couple – there was, like, one minor change in the – In the top paragraph, I would say on the second sentence from the very top, students' learning and well-being yet could be harmful. Because you're doing two opposite things. Instead of saying and, I think it should say yet could also be harmful. I thought that sounded much more... made more sense because you're saying it may be beneficial to students' learning and well-being, yet could be harmful and disruptive. I thought that sounded like it made more sense. And then down at the bottom, the second paragraph from the bottom, I just felt that we should change the mobile communication device to electronic device. So any electronic device, whatever that is, would cover everything.

I don't know that that would apply to our students who use it for communication in our SPED classes.

I'm talking about the part where we won't be held liable if it's lost, stolen, or damaged for any electronic device. That's all I'm talking about, that one part. Any electronic device they bring, we won't be held liable for it, regardless of whether it's a watch or a cell phone or a tablet. So then just put electronic.

Just put any device brought on campus.

I see why you're saying any electronic device. Right. Because that encompasses a lot of stuff.

It could be anything that they come with, yeah. Yeah, it could be anything.

It could be the iPad. It could be the watch. It could be.

Those are my suggestions.

I had a suggestion on that first paragraph too, and I didn't think of the word yet, but I thought that was kind of awkward, that first sentence, when it's serious enough and potentially harmful enough to the instructional program to have the policy. So I was thinking maybe it could say, and unfortunately can be harmful and disruptive to the learning program. So something there.

It says to student learning and well-being and could be harmful and disruptive of the instructional program in some circumstances.

Not being harmful to the student, it's to the instructional program.

Well, it's like we're saying it's great, but yet it's not great.

It's good for student learning and well-being, but sometimes... Maybe not learning, then maybe it may be beneficial to student safety and well-being. Well, do you like what I suggested?

But it's also sometimes beneficial to their learning. Some classes, some high school teachers use it for.

And I think, but that's where the, you know, when the provision for when a teacher or administrator grants permission to the student would come in.

It's just, you're talking about the grammar of the sentence, right? Because it's like beneficial and then it's not. So instead of saying and, I think it would be better to say yet could also be harmful. I think that, I mean, something like that. The semantics. Well, yeah, so that the sentence makes sense.

And at the same time could be harmful and disruptive of the instructional program.

I'm reading it that way. Yeah, I don't know.

And put while at the same time. If you don't like my suggestion, then change it to make sense however you like. But it needs to make sense.

Change and to while at the same time?

Well, my suggestion was change and to yet and then could and then add also be harmful. But if you wanted to do a different thing that makes sense, that's fine too.

Why don't we get the sentiment across?

It doesn't really matter as long as the sentence makes sense.

Can we work on that? It doesn't matter. I looked on the gist of it.

The gist is to make sense, that's all. Okay.

Okay.

I do have one more quick. This was not necessarily a recommendation, but can I ask where the TK to 8, 9 to 12 came from? One.

Patty, do you have an answer for that?

Yes, I do. Director Wagner had a committee that worked on this, and that's what the committee came up with.

I only ask just because some of our 7th and 8th graders, you know, I mean, they, again, walk. And my recommendation would be make it TK to 6 and then 7 to 12 just because I just feel some of our 7th and 8th graders have a little more responsibility. At our middle school, we kind of keep them a little, I hate the word, segregated. Yeah, I just it just felt like there's a different like a bridge between six and seven. And I feel like some of our seventh and eighth graders may be responsible phone users. It's not something I'm sticking to. It's just it seemed like eighth grade was a weird like age to like cut off.

I think that if you talk to the middle... Oh, I'm sorry.

Sorry about that. The motivation to include middle school together with elementary is that our current practice at the middle school especially is for phones not to be used.

And we've... Yeah, we did the pouches last year, for example, where we tried to just have them locked away all day. It is something that all of our administrators are being pretty consistent with at the middle schools. So I don't think it's anything that's going to be seamless to a middle schooler. In my talks, I've gone to every middle school except for COPE, which I'm scheduled to go in a couple weeks or next week. All of the kids collectively all say, yeah, we can't use them. And as you walk around campus, you can see that they're not using them.

And then with sixth being with middle school, it would be hard to have two different roles, I think.

Are those too many changes?

Can we go ahead and...

Okay, so we have the discussion and we'll call for the vote.

I'll make a motion.

Patty did already. Melissa. And Patty did and I did already. Okay.

Oh, as corrected. It needs to be done again, correct? Oh, as corrected. As corrected.

Oh, you're right.

So we're voting no to pass it, correct? Yes. On the first read. On the first read. Are we voting?

I thought we were voting. We're voting with corrections. With corrections. Oh, I see.

Got it.

So we'll call for the vote.

Clerk Ayala-Quintero? Aye. Vice President Hollihan?

Aye.

President Rendler? Aye. Board Member Olsen? Aye. Board Member Wilson? Aye. Motion carried, 5-0.

Okay. Is there a motion to approve revision of Board Policy 6179, Supplemental Instruction? This is the second read.

Move approval.

I'll second.

Patty, thank you. Melissa, any discussion?

Yes.

Nope, I'm good on this one. Okay. Any other discussion? Okay, we'll call for the vote.

Clerk Ayala-Quintero? Aye. Vice President Hollihan? Aye. President Render? Aye. Board Member Olson?

Aye.

Board Member Wilson?

Aye.

Motion carried, 5-0.

All right, moving on to human resources consent items. Mrs. Bruick, do you have any changes or additions? No changes or additions, thank you. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve human resources consent items as listed under 17A through 17C? So moved. Do we have a second? Second. All right. Any discussion?

Just to clarify, Superintendent Berwick, It's the resolutions, the ones that we are voting on. These are the 2526, correct? On A, B, and C, on 17, A, B, and C. So the coaches one are on C.

Coaches? Say again?

Yeah, other personnel. See, these are the coaches that we're voting on. So tennis coaches on that. Stipends. Stipends. Yeah, okay. And then A and B, to clarify, these are not the budget reductions, correct? Correct. That goes on the resolution, correct? The next item. That's what I thought. I just wanted to confirm. Thank you. All right.

Any discussion? All right, we'll call for the vote.

Mr. Cayala-Quintero? Aye. Vice President Hallahan? Aye. President Redler? Aye. Vice President Hallahan? I'm sorry. I said aye. Board Member Olson? Aye. Board Member Wilson? Aye. Motion carried, 5-0.

We're continuing on with Human Resources Action Items. Mrs. Brewer, any changes or additions?

No changes or additions.

Is there a motion to approve the adoption of resolution number 2025-26-14 for the reduction of particular kinds of certificated services, certificated layoffs? Do we have a motion? So moved. Second. Thank you, Candy. Any discussion?

I have a question that I wanted to pose to Jason regarding this. And some of it's based on comments from the public. I know this need to reduce expenditures is historically based in a sense. It hasn't just happened over the last year or two. So I was wondering if you could explain a little bit about how we got here and then also if you could verify what are our reserves because I kept hearing several things being said tonight.

Yeah, there's several factors that attribute to it, but the largest factor is COVID. So during COVID, districts across the state got a large sum of money, one-time monies, through federal government passed through the state. With that one-time money, the design was to provide more. more to students as they were coming back to school we along with lots of districts added more we added positions all over the district we added additional support services all on that one-time money and so over the last couple years you'll see see commitments that we've asked you to make and that was keeping some of those one-time monies longer until it was expended. As we saw this day coming, we provided a SERP two years ago in hope to reduce staff, and we did. That just wasn't enough. And so this is kind of the final round in order to kind of reduce staffing levels to a more normal that our budget can handle. When you look at reserves, there's two ways to look at it. What you're hearing out there, the 20%, is they're looking at the overall ending fund balance. Ending fund balance is made up of two components, unrestricted and restricted. Restricted monies are monies that come to us with a very specific purpose, and then we spend it on that same purpose. Unrestricted is what we generally refer to as general fund commonly, and that's money that we can spend in lots of different ways. When we calculate our reserve, we generally only look at unrestricted dollars. What we're hearing tonight a lot is the combined fund, including the restricted dollars.

Do you know how that works?

Well, you know, our restricted dollar, the number we're hearing a lot is that $73, $74 million. Fifty-five of that, 54 of that is restricted. So when you look at the remaining portion, you have a 3% reserve for uneconomic uncertainty and 3% towards routine restricted maintenance. And then the remaining is our functional budget.

So there's really not money to use in that?

When you look at the remaining amount projected, there's around $8 million that's free. But we have to plan that over the next couple years. Even with these proposed movements, we're still at a negative fund balance next year. We don't start to even out or return to a positive until the third year out. Without a reduction in our monies, that would lead to a greater negative balance next year, and with only a $7 million buffer, that would... turn us too far upside down.

So, yeah, taking some out of that is not a good idea.

It would require us to still reduce funds, just look at different spaces. Yeah. In which we are. I mean, we're looking at a lot of different places. These are just the positions. There are budgets that we're reducing across the board.

Sorry. I had a question because I heard earlier that just being on the board, I've heard since our superintendent came on board, he's done different things, especially in our central office, to reduce staff. and consolidate positions. We don't announce it because it just happens little by little. And I know he's done significant reductions in our district office over the last few years. But I heard that it just didn't sit right when I heard earlier that we have increased our central office by 36%. Am I right in believing that that was just because of Dr. Wilson's compliance department? Because we added a whole department?

Yes.

For the most part, compliance in general is not an expenditure that we planned on having to spend money on. Specifically, we were mandated to create the assistant superintendent of compliance position. What we did not anticipate is the number of cases that all work directly to help keep students safe. But present time, we have a total of seven staff in compliance. And when we speak of managers, we do have a handful of them are managers that are investigating compliance cases on a daily basis. And, of course, is heavily needed, but that does indicate that we have an entire division that we did not plan for. So when you speak of management increases, in that sense, yes. But we have decreased in ed services over the last year. We have decreased in HR. We've decreased in IT. We have central office management positions about, actually I did the count a little bit ago, we have 53 positions right now that, and we hear tonight a lot about three that are, so it's going to be 50 if reductions are approved. Those are positions that are from every division, but it also includes compliance positions. So if you reduce compliance, then that number would go down to 43. We do have a plan, or I shouldn't say a plan. We hope that we're able to help with that number in compliance. As an example, if anybody retires in management this coming semester at the end of the year, we are looking to replace with our current people so that we're able to reduce additionally as much as we can. So it's something that we're constantly looking at.

And you also went with managers instead of directors.

Yes.

So that's saved.

Yes, but overall, and I'm not... We need compliance, okay? They're working really hard. We have cases, and thankfully, 90% plus of our cases have... to do with investigating student-to-student situations and not student-to-staff or staff-to-student, however they are working every day, and we need them. So I'm not saying we're going to reduce seven. I'm saying that we're going to do our best that when we have a vacant position to try to see if we can reduce somehow without having to add, but to use our current people.

So I asked earlier, but I want to just make sure I ask for everyone watching and that wasn't around. When we added our compliance department and we saw the magnitude of the cases that we needed to be investigated, we didn't hire necessarily outside. We pulled from other departments. Is that right?

Correct. So when I say we reduced in-head services, for example, we did reduce technically those positions, but at least three of those positions switched over to compliance to support our compliance department.

We didn't hire and we didn't take on extra people.

We just reduced those positions because they just shifted over.

And we have not, for the time being, because we're not taking on, but we have not filled those empty positions. Sorry, Jason, can you guess how many empty or vacant positions you have in your department?

Managers or employees as well? Management. Right now there's three in business. There's three in ed services. So six.

And then HR. Do we have any?

We have one currently vacant, and we did not replace two positions at the end of the year.

And then on the funds that are specific, I can't remember the term you used. Restricted. Restricted. Do they have to be spent by the end of each school year? This depends.

A perfect example of restricted funds that everybody knows are ELOP. ELOP comes in specifically for the ELOP program and that's how it's used. So the funds come in and we use it for that. Another restricted fund is like the Prop 28 funds. They come in for a specific reason and we spend it on that reason. Some of them have deadlines, some of them don't. Most, I would say as a general rule, there's about a three-year expenditure on that year's funding. But like ELOP, we get new money every year, but you have three years to spend each pot of money. So there's times where they stack up and get large, like you would see now in that restricted fund balance. But we have timelines to spend that. As a general, we try to spend restricted funds first, and then we move towards general funds. Okay. One-time monies that come to us through the governor like if you look to the governor's budget He proposed some one-time funds to come to us that will come in as restricted With the May revised do you see any? change possible coming in May I Generally the May revised doesn't contain a lot of change where most change comes from is once the legislature weighs in for the final budget and Right now, the governor's budget is proposing fully funding COLA and then continuing to fund some of the one-time programs that the governor's, like ELOP, putting money back into some transportation, TK, and then there's some additional monies that he's proposing for one-time pot. But that's not guaranteed. It may change, right? I mean, right now you have the governor's budget, then you have the legislative analyst's office don't agree necessarily with the governor's budget. What they're waiting for is tax revenue to come in, right? Most of the money comes in California through tax revenue. But a lot of that's been postponed. For a couple years, it was postponed because of COVID. The wildfires this year has given an extension for tax deadlines. But a lot of our money in the state revenue comes in through personal income tax, and a lot of that personal income tax sits in those burn areas. And so they were all given extended time. So a lot of the governors releasing his budget is a guesstimate on what they hope to come in at some point. Could come in higher, could come in lower, could come in right on target. We just don't know that yet. So we'll see an updated number around May. And then you'll see a final kind of revision once the legislature weighs in. Because a lot of times the legislature has different ideas and different focuses than the governor. And so they have to get together and... come up with a plan of how to spend the money. And then we'll get that in at the end of June with the trailer bill in July, which kind of says how the money is going to come to us.

So I had a question. I was looking through the records and I saw that in 2021, we gave a 13 and 14% raises. What I found was it was on salaries, stipends and retroactive colas with the one-time COVID monies. And were you in favor of that?

Well, I think everybody was in favor of that. I knew that that would strain our budget. But at the time that we were having, we had a lot of general fund because schools weren't open. We had a lot of one-time monies. And so decisions were made to give a lot of that as a raise. Comfortably, if we had stayed around 8%, it would have probably kept us a little bit more in line.

Yeah, I personally, we knew at that time, I wasn't here, but I knew as a community member that enrollment was dropping and enrollment was projected to drop. So I just don't understand with all of the sexual abuse lawsuits, how that even flew. We have a fiduciary responsibility to not give outrageous rages. I mean, 13 and 14% is crazy. And we knew enrollment was declining. It was one-time money that runs out. I don't understand how that...

I can... I mean, I was new to the board, and I can probably speak to... I maybe didn't have the firmest grasp on, you know, what the one-time money thing meant. And I was taking the advice from our superintendent. This was a superintendent's recommendation. We aren't on the negotiating team. We just approve them. I will say that that probably was not the most fiscally responsible decision. However, at the time, we had our teachers doing above and beyond during a global pandemic. So it was... warranted and it was a thank you. I regret that we're in this position right now because I don't like any of this. I find it very difficult to look at these numbers and know that we would have to lose our academic case carriers or our counselors. OR OUR LIBRARIANS. NOT ONLY ARE THESE PEOPLE, YOU KNOW, VITAL TO OUR STUDENT SUCCESS. I MEAN, EVERYBODY IN THIS DISTRICT IS THIS. EVERYBODY THAT WORKS IN THIS DISTRICT IS IMPORTANT. THEY DON'T WORK IN EDUCATION TO GET RICH. I MEAN, YOU WORK IN EDUCATION BECAUSE YOU HAVE A PASSION FOR STUDENTS, AND IT DOESN'T MATTER If you are an SRO or a custodian or a para or someone like our superintendent, it doesn't matter. You've gotten into this for the right reason, and that's to help students. So I understand, you know, like some of our teachers become administrators, and they move their way up, and it's all... out of passion for our students. However, I have a very big issue. And I understand a lot of these numbers aren't necessarily all going to lose their jobs. I hope the community understands that. There's a difference between eliminating positions and eliminating people. And I'm hoping our superintendent can speak on that a little bit. But for me personally, I'm having a very hard time with some of these numbers. If there's a way we can come back And I want to clarify this. This does not mean that I don't acknowledge that these cuts need to be made. However, some of these, I'm hoping we can figure out a way to not lose as many. One of the ways I know we can, I mean, this... I'm having a very hard time with this, and I just, if we could, I spoke to, you know, Mr. Hill about this, and if we can raise our ADA 4.5%, these cuts wouldn't be necessary. 4.5%, that's not 100%. That's not getting all the way to 100%. That's only 98%. But I'm going to ask our superintendent, and I know those cuts have to come from somewhere, and it's not whether I like this list, I may not like the next list, but I'm asking if we can somehow try to reduce this.

I have a couple thoughts here. First of all, Jason, when you were talking about the unrestricted reserve, the amount in there, realistically, can any of that, Or should any of that be pulled out and used for part of this, realistically? You mean the unrestricted?

The general, the remaining, or are we talking about the restricted funds, the large amount?

You said there was some in the reserves, the unrestricted in reserves. There was like 20. Yeah.

Well, that's basically... The thing is, is we have to prepare out three years.

Yeah, but so really, we really can't...

If I pull it this year, then it's gone next year, right? It's an ongoing budget. And so right now, with a $17 million projected deficit this year, we still are showing a projected deficit next year before we see a turn in that third year. That is with a reduction in $15 million in expenditures, right? Yeah. So if we don't do that now, then... Yeah, it just gets pushed down the road. Ultimately, our goal is to get positive at some point in the three-year cycle.

I would like to say that...

I'm sorry, I wasn't done.

Oh, go ahead. I wasn't done either, but Melissa took over. I haven't started.

My other thing I wanted to talk about was the academic case carriers, because I love this program, academic case carriers. By cutting all these positions, we're not getting rid of the program. Is that correct? We're just shifting that work.

Theoretically, yes. The students would still be serviced. It would just look different.

Okay. Okay, because I don't want to see that program go away. We worked really, you know, the district worked really hard to build that up.

Understood. I want to go back to Ms. Olson's comment about our, during the pain, our faculty, our faculty worked incredibly hard to try and manage. I'm sure students were on campus. same time on Zoom, they had to learn how to do Zoom. They had to learn how to control the students while they were there. They worked extremely hard. Everyone did. So I don't have a problem that we paid them in what they did. A, I want to clarify that. B, I want to say I had been in this situation before in 2008 when we had a budget reduction process, and I spent a some time with Mr. Cabral and I mentioned that we had different levels starting from one all the way through six six being like we absolutely don't want to go there but if we do and we started at one and one of them was reaching out to our principals and asking them how can you reduce what can you do and there were some clever things that came out of our staff I think you looked at them some of them And if we can take a look at that, that would be great. I'm very concerned about our counselors, our AC carriers, our paras, our librarians, because they're the backbone of our students. They're the ones that give them support for everything. And right now, adults are going through a lot of mental issues and having just everyone in this world with mental, when it comes to mental issues. And I can't see that going backwards. We're here to move forward and go, and I would like to say that I would love to, first of all, I want to thank Cabinet and our supes, everyone who put anything, any time that they put into this to try and figure out how we can reduce and what we have to do, but I can't sit here and support something like this. It's impossible. It's going to take too many students away, too many jobs, and I just can't do that. I can't. So I would ask that Cabinet would go back and see what you can do to find other resources or find other places or another avenue that we can go to. But I'm not comfortable supporting something like this.

I had a thought about the library paraprofessionals. Maybe one thing would be to reduce their hours to only the hours that ELOP would be able to pay them, and that way we could keep them all, and they would get funded out of ELOP and not out of the general fund.

Those are options that we did consider. They're a little bit more complex because we would be taking positions and lowering hours, which takes a negotiation with the union. Just a couple of things because I wrote down a couple of questions. The unfortunate position that we are in is we have a necessity to reduce.

And when we look at all of our positions in the district, we shouldn't reduce any of them.

Our kids need every one of these positions that are on this list. And in fact, some could even argue we need more.

One plan that we had put in place prior to me getting here using COVID money with the staffing that Mr. Hill referenced, is we had backup positions called temporary positions where we've had folks in temporary spots because they were holding that spot for the position that we added. And so a lot of what we are asking is that this reduction would basically activate the plan that we set in place when we added the staff. Many of the certificated staff that hold credentials would go into one of those temporary spots. That's very bad for the temporary employee. However, a temporary employee is hired with that up front. They know when they take the position that it is a temporary position that is technically month-to-month and typically is annual. And that is just an indicator that we tried to have a plan. It just, we were hoping not to have to reduce. I will say attendance and declining enrollment is another factor as to why the SERP that we implemented a couple years ago didn't fully help us get to a point where we were on positive budget. We did collaborate, and I say that loosely because we did ask principals to let us know how they felt about these positions and what they recommended. But ultimately, Cabinet took all the information, and what you see in front of you is what Cabinet decided what we would recommend. And that was based off of trying to stay away from classrooms directly, where you talk about the classroom teacher, paraeducators, they're working with students inside of a classroom, which is not to say that all the positions that are working outside of the classroom and supporting students on a daily basis aren't needed. Of course, they are needed. If we do try to reduce this list in any way, at some point we're going to have to come back to the board for additional reductions because we have to get to a positive budget. And so I would say that you have in front of you lists that have been contemplated, thought about, researched. And if – and this is the last thing I'll point out – If we can keep some of these positions, then we still have the opportunity to do that. An approval of this list does not necessitate that, it's not automatic that everybody on all these positions, but it allows us the opportunity that if we need to, we can. The other side of it is, If we look at it from a perspective of positivity and enrollment flattens and or increases next year, attendance increases and we're able to have more money than we thought we were going to have, we would be able to bring people back, which would be a goal that we would want, that we would have. Anybody that ends up on a layoff list would have first rights. to come back to those positions, and they stay on that list for up to 39 months. And so if we have an opportunity to bring them back, which I hope is an outcome of all of this because our kids do need all of these positions.

I wanted to say something else, that I truly appreciate you, your work, and the cabinet's work on getting this list together and really working hard and diligently to avoid affecting the classroom as much as possible. Removing teachers from the classroom would have been devastating for our kids. We would have had to negotiate increasing classroom sizes, and that is not good for kids. Nobody wants that. The teachers don't want that. The parents don't want that. And I think that as painful as it is, it has to happen in some ways, and the list that you chose I think was well thought out. And I also am concerned a little bit about the nursing staff. I think that as long as you do due diligence in making sure that we're in safe ratios regarding the nurses, I don't want any kids, obviously their medication is a serious issue and diabetics and tube feedings and whatnot, if that can be done with the nurses. amount that's cut safely, then that's all right. I just hope that that's really looked at well. But I do appreciate the work that all of you guys did to come up with the list.

I wanted to comment also that I do believe the cabinet and managers have been very diligent and thoughtful in the days and hours and even months that I know you've been working on plans, a plan and then another plan. It's intense, and I definitely am concerned, too, about the cuts, the counselors, the paras, the librarians, the medical. I mean, all of it is very important. And I know the other reason why I feel okay with this as the worst-case scenario plan is I mean, there's still things up in the air where we may have a little bit more latitude. That I know we will never violate union agreements. We're not going to violate special ed IEPs and the medical services they need, the support services they need. um so i i just want to i guess let people know that those things will stay in place um so and i just i wish that one time money had never happened to be honest because a lot of the cuts that are being proposed were never positions prior to covid um

Michelle.

We're having a discussion. I'll have Jason explain some of those. But they weren't always in place. And so with that one-time money, I mean, even when you give raises, it's not just at that moment. Those raises, then the person gets their step increases and so forth, and it just causes an uphill battle to keep up with the costs. So it's a really difficult situation that the district is in, and I just wanted to remind everyone that we may come up with, based on the state budget and some other things, come up with areas where we don't have to cut as many on the list, so it's the worst-case scenario.

I'm going to add one more thing. You mentioned keeping everything out of the classroom as much as possible. By not having counselors mentally, the kids won't be able to do anything in the classroom because they won't be able to think. So they've got to think of everything, and it's going to directly hit the classroom one way or another if you look at it, and it's going to affect, as Ms. Olson said, our nurses, the students who need to get their medicine, the need to get that.

Well what are we, I've asked this before and I think you maybe have a tentative list of to put it on the positive side, what are we keeping?

I don't think there's anything positive about this.

We're not keep cutting every counselor, right? How many are we keeping?

I think there was nine.

We have counselors that we will still have elementary counselors, not as many, and they will have to split sites. As an example, we'll have counselors at the middle school, but one less.

The proposal is for high schools also to lose a counselor along with the ACC's. And so what you will have is you'll have less counseling staff, same amount of students, and the service is going to look different. Is it going to be less? Yes. It is going to be less than what we're offering right now. Is that not good for kids? No, it's not good for kids. I wouldn't. sit here and say that it's the best for kids by any means, but we will have counselors, we will have staff that can support our students. I agree that we are not going to be allowed to violate any contract ratios that we won't be able to do that, or any language in the contract that calls for teachers to have prep time, for example, is an example. We would still need to honor that, and we would have to figure that out. I will also say that it is sort of a maximum, which, you know, in the next coming months, if there's an ability to not reduce as many or we look at certain ratios and figure out that, you know, it's not going to be a good plan moving forward and we're going to have to keep more than we thought or less than we will, we still have that option. That's still an option.

So just to remind everyone, this is a possible list. This is like possible cuts, and we just have to let everybody know.

Correct.

The other- Possible. We did look at other programs. So when we look at classroom specific, the only way to really reduce classroom teachers specifically is to increase class sizes. which we wouldn't arbitrarily be able to do. We would need to negotiate that. That is not an easy negotiation, nor is it readily acceptable to increase class sizes even by one or two students. There are programs that exist at some of our sites that increase teachers. They're programs that we prioritize for academics, but they do require that we put more teachers on a campus for that program, as an example. We did contemplate reducing the program, and that would then help us reduce those teachers. That was not an option that we wanted to do because that was a direct impact on the classroom. Those are just examples of how we were trying to stay away from that type of impact. If we don't want to make these specific reductions, I would just reiterate that we have to make reductions. And we can look at every position all over again, and that's something that we can continue to do, but it's going to impact somebody. And that's unfortunate. And we met with a couple of groups Friday and yesterday to explain the process, all of our employee groups who may be impacted. And it made it very clear, you know, some of the things that Jason described, but also, you know, why we are where we are and not to have any question unanswered. If there is any kind of – because I told them don't trust – you don't have to trust us. I'm trying to show you where all the budget is, where all the paperwork is. If you have questions, if you want somebody else to look at it, I'm open to all of that. Accountability is needed. This is a serious matter, and we're going to have to reduce somewhere.

I think it's really important that we balance our budget and we do take the responsible move tonight to take care of the situation that was created by those before us.

I don't know that you can necessarily say that it was created by those before us. I mean, there's, excuse me, there was a lot of, I'm just, there's a lot of contributing factors. And yeah, maybe that, you know, like I said, I take responsibility. I take responsibility for a lot of this. Even if it wasn't my creation, just like our superintendent takes a lot of responsibility for things that he was not here for. Right. So I am doing the responsible thing by taking responsibility for it. However, but saying that it was created by, you know, those before us doesn't necessarily mean that it's true because there's a lot of factors declining birth rates, you know, an uptick in charter schools. Those are students that used to come here and no longer do private schools, homeschooling, you know, even our e-academy, while we haven't, online option I mean there are other places that parents are taking their kids to that are not public school and those kids don't always necessarily learn in this environment the best however to say that you know this is our doing isn't a fair statement

Well, the biggest contributing factor to the situation we're in right now is the 13% to 14% raises given in 2021 based on one-time monies. And that's just the reality of the situation. And now we have to do the responsible thing and balance the budget. So I am totally in support of getting us back to save that $15 million, and then we can hopefully add on, increase our ADA like you suggested, work on these other things, and then hopefully we can add on not have to utilize that entire list, but let's just do the right thing now and make sure that we can balance our budget and not go under financially.

I want to go on record. Just since I've been on this board in my 20th year, we've always had a positive certification. We have been fiscally sound. So for the record, we have always had a positive certification. And can you confirm that with me, Jason? Thank you.

That doesn't mean that decisions made in 2000...

I'm not saying it's decisions made. I'm making a statement for the record. It's just a statement. It catches up. It's a statement.

When the one-time money runs out, that's when it catches up, and now it's caught up to us.

And even though this is something I was going to mention later on... and getting our ADA up would stop these reductions. Let's approve the whole list, and then that way... But you can't say that that's the leading contributing factor. In San Bernardino County, our ADA has doubled between... Let's see, because I don't want to be incorrect here. Um... Let's see.

20... 2007.

Between 2000... Oh, no. 16... Between 2016 and 2024, the percentage of students who are chronically absent from school almost doubled. This is not, I want to be clear, this is not an only us problem. This is happening to districts. All over the state, all over the country. There is a decrease in funding because of students and there's a lot of contributing factors. But it's not just our problem. Luckily, this isn't as bad as other districts have it. But to say that that raise that was very well deserved is the reason we're in this position right now is not true. It's the leading factor.

It's a contributing factor.

The largest contributing factor. While you knew enrollment was declining and we had all these sexual abuse lawsuits coming through. I mean, it's okay. I'm just saying we have to deal with it now. We knew at the time it's been going on. No, we didn't. You didn't have a single sexual abuse lawsuit whatsoever.

Excuse me. Hold on. I'm sorry. She asked me. Those were in place while I joined the board. These were actively going on when I joined the board. These are not something I anticipated.

Yes. So they were in place. They were going on. So we anticipated having to settle. So we knew we'd have to settle. So they were ongoing. So thinking ahead, maybe we could have planned in case we have to settle some large lawsuits in case it ends up bad for us.

They weren't all in place, though. That's the thing. Like, you're trying to say that I knew this was coming, so I should have planned better, as if this was my responsibility.

Not yours alone. I'm just suggesting. I'm not saying this is solely on your shoulders, Melissa.

But please help me understand because should another one come up, am I going to blame you for that?

Should another one? No, I'm not saying the lawsuits are your fault. Absolutely not.

You're saying that I should have planned for them.

No, I'm saying we knew we had lawsuits. That's all I'm saying. I didn't know the number.

There was no way to know the number.

Even that we had one or two or three. I mean, like even that we had some, right? There are millions of dollars.

If I could just provide some levity to the conversation.

When the statute of limitations opened up, that's when it started hitting hard. And we came in and we have the JDA or JB, the insurance company that we are in. JP. So we pay a portion of that. We're not paying the full amount. And I don't know if you knew that or not. Yes. Okay, well, I'm just saying.

Just for some levity, okay? Just for some levity. Decisions that were made in 2001 were not made in- 21. Thank you.

21.

Maybe 2001, I don't know. It's the same process that we have here, okay? There's a recommendation that is made to the board after careful thought from cabinet, okay? And that is the same that we're doing here. There was careful thought in 2021. That was the recommendation at the time, and it went well for our staff, and it made us competitive, and it actually is why we're competitive now. The same thing is happening today. Cabinet is making a recommendation based off of what we feel. I, as a superintendent, am making a recommendation based off of what I believe can get us to a positive budget. I acknowledge that it is horrible and it is not good for our kids, but I also acknowledge that There is no choice. We need to reduce. And that's why I am making this recommendation right now.

So think of this as in your household. Sometimes you overspend. You go on a vacation you probably shouldn't have gone on. You do whatever and you have to pull back. And sometimes it's hard. You have to say, we're not doing this. We're not doing this anymore. We can't do this. We can't do this. You know, you can't go to that college you wanted to go to. You're going to have to go to community college or whatever. I mean, sometimes stuff like that happens. So it's hard. I don't want to lose all these people. These are all really good people. And it's the position. It's not the person. It's the position that we're possibly going to eliminate. So, all right. Do we have any more discussion on this? Yeah. Any more discussion? All right. And just to be clear, right now we're doing the certificated, the reduction for certificated right now.

Correct.

Yes. Okay. So, we'll call for the vote.

Board Member Ayala-Quintero?

No.

Vice President Hallahan? No. President Rendler? Yes. Board Member Olson? Yes. Board Member Wilson? Yes. Motion carried with the ayes being President Rendler, Board Member Olson, Board Member Wilson, and the nays being Vice President Hallahan and Clerk Ayala Quintero.

All right, do we have a motion to approve the adoption of resolution number 2025-26-15 for the reduction or elimination of classified positions as a result of lack of work and or lack of funds? So moved. Second. Andy, thank you. Jeanette? All right, do we have any discussion on classified positions?

I think we kind of did it all kind of go hand in hand on these positions.

And again, just like the other, this is not a cut and dry list, like automatically they're gone and this is done. We're going to go through.

I would just describe it as a maximum. It allows us the opportunity up to this point. However, we would still be evaluating to see where our ratios land. And part of the process would mean that in the end, we would bring to the board by March 10th a final list of reductions.

And you would make sure that academic case carrier

work could get done by somebody else and uh you can provide a plan the nursing staff could we would we would be able to produce what we a plan uh what we could moving forward yeah i think that it would look like yes okay same with like the nurses and how that would work for each site okay

I would like to say, too, that with regard to that, I want to stay involved and be committed to doing everything we can to come up with ideas or resources or anything that could help lessen the number of positions that need to be cut. I don't want this to be the end. I know this is the maximum.

We can be in constant communication as far as where we are with respect to the process and what we've been able to figure out.

As I look at the list, we're talking the family and community engagement liaison, 22 library paraprofessionals, special ed paraprofessionals, five, nine, healthcare technicians, nine, Special Education Behavior Assistant, three. And LVNs, two.

Any more discussion?

Yeah, the discussion, yes, I'll continue, is that I once again want to thank Cabinet for all their hard work. I appreciate it. I'm grateful to our staff and everyone who comes in and gives 150% every day. But I would hope that we could go back and go back to the drawing board and see what we can find out again, come up with something different.

I don't know how you can say you appreciate Cabinet and all the work they did. They worked really hard to come up with this list.

And I understand that because I've been here before. But I also understand the hard work that our other employees do as well. This is a hard job. This is a hard job. It is. And we make decisions based on those. Any more discussion?

All right. We'll call for the vote.

Vice President Hollihan? No. President Rendler?

Yes.

Board Member Olsen? Yes. Board Member Wilson? Yes. Motion carried with the ayes being President Rendler, Board Member Olsen, Board Member Wilson, and the nays being Vice President Hollihan and Clerk Ayala Quintero.

Okay, moving on. Is there a motion to approve resolution 2025-26-16 to adopt criteria for resolving ties in seniority related to certificated layoffs?

Who could best explain that really quick?

We have to make a motion first, then we can discuss.

Oh, sorry. A motion.

All right, do we have a second? I'll second. Okay, now we can discuss.

I can start it, and then Lisa can correct me if I say anything wrong, but what this allows is for us to have a process should there be an

any certificated staff that are tied or are like we're hired, same hire date. And so determining their seniority is usually done just by hire date. And sometimes we hire folks get paid the same day. And so they have the same exact seniority date. So then we use this criteria to determine who would be more senior than the other. And it starts there with the first number one. Like if they have that and the other one doesn't, then that makes them more senior. And then you just keep going down the line.

Ultimately, if they're equal all the way through, then there's a drawing to determine who's more senior.

Okay. Any more discussion? All right.

I'll call for the vote. No. Vice President Hallahan?

No.

President Redler?

Yes.

Board Member Olson? Yes. Board Member Wilson?

Yes.

Motion carried with the ayes being President Randler, Board Member Olson, and Board Member Wilson, and the nays being Vice President Hollihan and Clerk Ayala Quintero.

Is there a motion to approve student attendance calendar for the 2027-2028 school year, second and final read?

I'll move. Second.

Melissa, I think you can be. Any discussion? Okay. We'll call for the vote.

Erica Ayala-Quintero.

Aye.

Vice President Hollihan.

Aye.

President Rendler. Aye. Board Member Olson. Aye. Board Member Wilson.

Aye.

Motion carried, 5-0.

Moving on to public participation. Public comments are permitted upon the submission of a completed registration card. prior to the start of public participation. This is not a forum for debate. Policy concerns will be referred to the superintendent. When called, speakers may proceed to the podium, state their name and trustee area, and speak for the allotted time. The amount of time will be announced by the board president before the first speaker begins and will not exceed three minutes. How many speakers? Twelve. Twelve. All right, so three minutes per speaker.

Erica Grossman, Michael Paisner, and Dale Broom.

Welcome back, Erica.

You guys are unbelievable. Disappointing. This school board has failed to protect our district. Speaking of budget, you created this chaos now that requires increased security at meetings. You invited lawsuits. You wasted so much of our resources. Outing LGBTQ plus students is against the law. When you out students without permission, you put them at serious risk. I know an individual who committed suicide by being outed, and this is serious. Speaking of the law, Candy justified her 400% salary increase by claiming it was required by law. I don't oppose the race itself, but you cannot choose to follow the law only when it benefits you. You should be doing your job. Your job is to oversee district management, and that's what you are paid for. Janelle should stay awake during your meetings instead of using your energy-attacking member of the public on social media. You are being paid to manage our district. I'll say it again. Do your job.

Thank you, Erica. Welcome back, Michael. Thank you.

Mike Paisner, at the last meeting, you heard significant disinformation about Together for Redlands. And while I'm flattered that people would put so much time and energy into researching Together for Redlands, it's important to set the record straight. Together for Redlands is a nonpartisan grassroots organization that serves as a watchdog for the Redlands area by keeping residents informed on happenings such as this school board. Together for Redlands supports practical policies and actions that ensure Redlands remains a free, informed, and thriving community. People can stay informed by signing up for our emails on our website, together4redlands.com, or by following us on Instagram or Facebook, or by coming to our weekly coffees at Olive Avenue Market every Sunday, 1130. We now have thousands of followers because this board has passed un-American policies like banning books and banning flags that stifle free speech and restrict people's access to information. I never dreamed of becoming an activist, but your bigotry leaves me no choice and your incompetence makes it easy. People are so eager to stop you, they are beating a path to our door to find out how they can join us. As for concerns raised at the last meeting, our donor list is publicly available as required by law, and while many of our donors have expressed pride in being on our donor list, our critics are probably embarrassed that people from their households are also contributing. As for our status, Together for Redlands is both a nonprofit and a PAC, a nonprofit because we support the community with events like banned book events, food drives, and support for our unhoused neighbors. We're a PAC because we expose and publicize politicians going off the rails, as we often see at these meetings. For the record, neither Melissa nor Patty are members of Together for Redlands because candidates are strictly prohibited from coordinating with PACs. A concept Ms. Olson fails to comprehend resulting in her ongoing FPPC investigation 2024-01279. How's that going, by the way? You awake there? I know you won't answer, but we will keep asking the questions you don't want to address. Questions like, did Ms. Rendler really fail to censure Ms. Olson for discriminatory and violent social media posts? Was Ms. Rendler the board president when legal fees doubled the budget deficit balloon to $20 million, staff were offered 0% raises, and threatened with layoffs? And the most important question, does Ms. Wilson take a nap every meeting? The answer to these questions are yes, yes, and I'm pretty sure. And while I know you won't respond, people will see us asking and witness your awkward silence as you refuse to answer. And unlike our opposition, Together for Redlands welcomes scrutiny. Every time the Together for Redlands name is brought up, that means one more person will be asking, what's the story with Together for Redlands? And that's all the opening I need to show what a dumpster fire this board is.

Welcome, Dale.

Hi, Dale Broom, Area 1. And it recently came to our attention that another very sexually graphic book was recently placed in Redlands High School, entitled Gender Queer by Maya Kababi. And although this recounts the author's journey of adolescence to adulthood as she transitions from one gender to the other to finally a gender binary personality, simply put, this book has very sexually graphic images, not just text, sexually graphic images of uncovered, fully nude individuals having homosexual sex as well as oral sex. Now, I have no idea why a librarian would put this book in the library. This is inappropriate even for the high school level. So who is responsible? This investigation really needs to be done. Why was this done in direct defiance of a recently passed school board policy that allows sexually graphic books to be removed from our school libraries? So, I mean, this is just appalling that something like this would be placed in one of our libraries. And, you know, we keep hearing from our school board members, Patty and Melissa, to keep trusting the librarians. Well, when stuff like this happens, you have to ask yourself, can we really trust them? And more importantly, I think we have to ask ourselves, can we trust the American Librarian Association, which puts their seals and their recommendations on these books? These books, this is not just a brand new book that's been published. This has been published many years in the past. And it's been on the watch list for a lot of groups because of its sexually graphic material within it. And I would also like to make note, even though these aren't photographic images, they're cartoonish images, but they're very detailed. And the other thing about these is this book really has almost no literary value. If you actually look at the pages in the book, they only have like 20 to 40 words per page. This is for high school reading. I mean, this really has no literary value. It is simply designed to groom children and adolescents into a transgender lifestyle or a homosexual lifestyle. So I think that fortunately this book is going to be challenged, I'm sure. But in any event, we need to do an investigation to look into why was this book even allowed in a high school library. Thank you.

Thank you, Dale.

I'm so sorry. Joshua Hall, Peter Hall, and Rebecca Acosta.

I want to talk about the proliferation of GSAs, gay sexuality alliances, through schools from high school all the way to elementary school. These clubs are really just being used to facilitate as hookup sites for homosexual adults so that they can participate in sex with minors. They should not be allowed. I believe that we could put a stop to this today if we brought back enforcing common decency laws and banning men dressing up in women's clothing. We used to have laws that a man could go to jail for like six months to a year and pay like a couple thousand dollar fine and be registered as a sex offender, but they stopped enforcing those laws in the 60s and 80s in big cities. And small cities stopped enforcing them starting in the 90s, 2000s. We need to bring back common decency laws. A man should not be able to walk into a government building like city council or school board and address. They shouldn't be able to walk around in public and address either. Do that in your own house.

Thank you, Joshua.

So... Peter Hall, Area 5. So some of the things said during this meeting during agenda item public comment I found pretty alarming. A member of Together for Red Wings seriously suggested that 12-year-olds be allowed to keep their medical records secret from their parents. And why would any sane person want to allow that? Most mature adults find it difficult enough to navigate the healthcare industry to talk to doctors to find out which doctor is best for them to pick insurance plans, stuff like that. And Michael Paisner and other members of Together for Red Ones want to allow 12-year-olds to do this by themselves? That's ridiculous. Also, the idea that we're outing children who are already told teachers, staff, their friends, et cetera. It's common knowledge that they're already considering themselves to be homosexual or trans, and all this policy would do is require that the school notify their parents. This is common knowledge already. Notifying their parents is not forcibly outing them. That's ridiculous. Thank you, Peter.

I spent most of my energy writing my last...

Welcome back, Rebecca.

Thank you. I spent most of my energy on the last two speeches, but I just want to say that I don't think you have students' best interests at heart, that you're worried about financial solvency, or... any of our budget if you are going to do forced outings, book bans, and things that are notoriously illegal in the state of California. And you're just encouraging more lawsuits in which we're going to have to pay larger premiums than we already do, which we're probably paying about $8 million a year, right? for all the sexual abuse to have insurance in this district, $8 million that we could be using on other things. But we have to have that because basically, you guys want to keep doing this, this stupid shit all the time. It never ends. Each meeting, it's something new. And that's pretty much it. I'm just going off the cuff right now.

Thank you, Rebecca.

Next, we have Valerie Tabor, Mark Laird, and Rain Mendoza.

So now that you have passed the RIFs and it was a contentious decision, What are you going to do to make sure that we do not have to do the maximum? And maybe this is not something that we can achieve by the time that the rifts take place by March 10th. But I know multiple board members up there have existing relationships with many nonprofits, many organizations. places that provide services, you have close relationships with city council members. Are you being creative and partnering with other community partnerships to perhaps get some of the funding? And I don't know if this is possible. I didn't research this. This is just things that are coming up for me as I'm sitting here wrestling with these layoffs, potential layoffs. But we have a vested interest in making sure that our students and our community have mental health services. We have a vested interest in our communities having access to libraries and being well-read and well-informed and having high literacy rates. that is something that everyone in our community should be caring about and so is it possible to partner with city funding and get some of these positions funded even if it's just for the librarians that would still be something it would be something are you being creative as our representatives to find solutions to this i know the bore the cabinet is they are doing things even if they're not the cuts that i would make they are doing that hard work are you also doing some of this work and seeing what are the partnerships that you can be making with other people in our community. Because these positions are needed. And maybe traditional funding does not support that. Maybe traditional funding is just meant for strictly academics. But we know that students cannot engage in these learning environments without these supports. They are necessary. They're vital. So please, I'm asking you to figure out how To address that, please. I know a lot of you are up there and have a lot of relationships with people in higher up levels in the state. Do what you can please. And my last thing that I want to talk about up here is that I am very concerned. And I said an email to all of you about ice in our nation, in our communities. And I understand that we have a board policy. about having ICE officers on campus. But I want to know, in this current political climate, what are you doing to protect our community? Not just the students on campus, like you are required to do, but our community. Are you supporting safety for our families? CVHS just had, back in November, had a parent abducted by ICE right at drop off. What are you doing to help that?

Thank you.

Hello again. Before I start my time, I had a question for these awesome people up front on the floor with me. I realized earlier I wanted to speak on, but I did not sign up for. It was 13H. Don't worry, I'm not asking to speak on it now. But I was looking at that. Williams Act is actually very related to what we're talking about tonight, especially that settlement. I would like either a callback or I would like some follow-up information on that Williams Act settlement from December 31st, 2025. I did register. You can get my contact information. If not, I'm happy. I think... Patty, haven't I spoken with you before? Yes, I thought so. You've got me. Okay. Now, time. Well, that's stuff, guys. Let's just get into this. DLI was what I originally signed up to talk about. So I will get there because I'm a man of my word. But the first thing I want to talk about is how are we going to get kids to get to our DLI school if it's a school without a library? A working library. Don't tell me it has a physical classroom with books. A working library. A school with no working library teaching cultural immersion. And like I told you, I come. from a dual language immersion school. This is my area of expertise. I left to go on to higher education at the high school. But I have come from the very program that you are all looking to build. And Michelle, I see I have your attention right now. Because you're looking to make this successful. And I want it to be successful for you. But what I can tell you is if you don't make this dual language immersion program successful, Exactly what you three were up here talking about. Oh, that's going to be a waste of money and it's on you three. Because these two right here, I know that they want DLI to be just as successful as I want DLI to be successful. DLI is important. DLI is immersion. Immersion of culture. You've literally gotten rid of our library technicians, books, our culture. You cannot have immersive, dual language emergent education without that, can you? Especially considering . Also, that program was so successful in one of my districts that I worked for, that the lowest attended school in the district, other than like maybe one or two, it was one of the lowest attended schools, oh, it's now our highest attended school. Great job, right? Because that's what the program can do. But like I told you earlier, Parents don't want half-patootied DLI programs. They don't. I know parents that drove to my school that I worked at from Pasadena for our community, our culture on campus. from Pasadena hours, like literally over an hour to go to my school. And I would have too. Hey, I worked for the school that was my elementary school growing up. And guess what? I loved that DLI school more. And so I want this to be successful for you. But one, you need to change your board policies because still can't have cultural celebrations, can we? Or is that still tied up in litigation? You three passing things that you also need to take ownership of are illegal, irresponsible. And are costing us money. Also, how much does my board make? $400 a month. That's right. You guys gave yourself a $1,400 raise. For what? You accomplished way less than what I've seen many other boards do. Not without your effort, you two. Not without your effort. You three, pick it up. So much to do here. Anyways, I'm out of time. It was not a pleasure for you three. Bye. Thank you, Mark.

Welcome rain.

Okay, I'm ready. So my name is Rain. As you know, I work in one of our Redlands schools. I work in two classrooms. I'm a one-on-one for two different students. Other than that, I also help around with... very many other students considering we have 14 kids in the TKK first grade class and only one teacher and four paras. So, um, that's two to three per person. And some of these children need one on one support. Um, So it's not enough. I really hope that you find a way to not cut these important positions of paraeducators in special ed and general ed otherwise. I would also like to mention that for your staff directly hired by the school district, whenever they call in sick or cannot otherwise make it, Usually there is some trouble filling their spot. So if we have even just one person out, that's three kids per person, per staff member. It's really difficult for us. Second, these are people who are with these kids every day. They don't get paid enough, but they're there because they care. I know. they don't get paid a living wage because they will go to school sick. I don't think they should go to school sick. But I ask them, why are you at school? And they say, well, I don't get paid if I don't go. So I guess sick leave's not a thing? I don't know. I don't know what the situation is. But I'm just saying. These are important roles. Also, the nurses are important roles. I have been to the nurse accompanying students from various schools many times. Sometimes it's just a Band-Aid. Other times we need to worry, is it a concussion? Is it serious? Other times we need to worry, is this student at risk of suicide? That was a real thing. We had to refer to counselors, to the nurse. He was also in special ed. So I hope that you consider how important these positions are. I also mentioned about my distaste for politics and discriminatory motivated policies taking precedence over our actual education and well-being of our students. As you know, you are passing policies that are inviting lawsuits that will cost you money, that you do not need to pass, We have some options that were given to us from the public, such as using the land that the school district owns, maybe making cuts in the central office, partnering with your community. So I really hope that you consider this. Consider these messages and try your best. Thank you. Thank you, Rainn.

Quench, but I think. Gwen is gone. Douglas Hauser, gone. Tim Ormsby.

Hello. Welcome, Tim.

Welcome.

Oh, the superintendent's leaving during my speech? Ah, come on. I'm Tim Ormsby. I live in Trustee Area 2. I'll just say a couple of things. Number one, Maya Kobabe's name is pronounced Kobabe, not Kobabe for future reference if it comes up. Number two, it's a really, really interesting and insightful book. In my opinion, it has a huge amount of literary value. It's the first graphic novel I ever read. I really loved it. Definitely there could be disagreements about the content of it, but it's totally unfair to say that because it's a graphic novel and doesn't have a high word count. It doesn't have literary value. I mean, you could say the same thing about a poem, for instance. It's really, really a good book, in my opinion. Number three, I guess, this has been a depressing night for everyone. And I personally don't blame anyone for the votes they took tonight either way because it's a shit situation. And I think that everybody is doing what they can in light of it or what they see the right thing to be. What I hope is that you guys all put all your attention on the money problem and leave the other stuff to the side because it doesn't matter as much. And for the sake of the community, really try to work together. Like it's obvious to everyone that there's a lot of tension on the board and everybody understands why. You know, for the kids in the schools and for the community, if you could do your best to work together and not blame each other and like the past is the past, whatever happened, happened, and try to work together to whatever extent you can. That would be so inspiring. Thank you.

Thank you, Tim. Are we done? Is that it? That was our last speaker. Okay, all right. Okay, we're moving on to board comments. Who would like to start? Jeanette, would you like to start?

So I first of all wanted to thank definitely the cabinet and Juan and the managers for trying to right the ship, get it right so that we can have a thriving school district in the future. I know I mentioned it before, and it's been confirmed, but again, I will be very involved in any reconfigurations or community resources. For example, I took a lot of notes from the audience tonight on ideas that we could look into regarding some of these services and positions that might have to be cut. So... Thank you for your input and your ideas. And also want to thank the teachers. And, you know, Juan's met with a lot of the principals and vice principals and staff getting input and ideas, too. They're not doing this and coming up with the plan in a vacuum by themselves. So I appreciate that. And I know that it's been very, very difficult process. So, um, I just want to thank you all for that. And that's about it.

Okay. Candy.

I won't belabor this any longer than it needs to be. It's been a long night and we still have another thing on the agenda that might take a while. So I did want to commend Principal Cullen at Redlands High and Officer Casey because they have done an outstanding job at getting the bad behavior under control over at Redlands High. So I just wanted to give them a public shout-out because they're doing the hard work, and I hope that it spreads to the other schools and replicate the model that they're doing because I love it. And I appreciate people who take their job very seriously and try to get the bullying, the fights, the vaping, the drugs, all of that under control because our kids deserve a better environment. So thank you. Thank you.

So I do want to thank everybody for coming out to voice your perspective and your ideas. I don't take lightly the trust that you all have put into not only electing me to this seat, but the constant support I receive in it. That it means so much in such a difficult time in my tenure as a school board trustee. And as much as I love this job for the highs, I can't avoid the lows. I wouldn't be able to consider myself a person worthy of this seat if I don't really consider the weight of the decisions we make, the good and the unfortunate. And unfortunately, the fact of the matter is the money is less than what it used to be. While outgoing costs increase and money coming in decreases, you will inevitably find yourself in this position. Many factors contributed to it. I did get into this earlier, but the decline in birth rates, the increased cost of living, homeschooling, charters, private school, bullying... The increase to work-from-home positions leads families to switch to online courses, and the one that so many attribute this to is lawsuit settlements. I'm not going to ask you to have more kids or to switch to a learning environment that you feel is best for your child, but there's one way we can start to combat this, and it is the chronic absenteeism. And that, for this district and in California, means missing 10% of school days, which would be 18 days, which sounds like a lot of days. But yes, in San Bernardino County, we are actually at a higher rate than other districts or other counties in California. And it has doubled from 2016 to 2024. really did double, and it was at a high at 34.1%, I believe. And it has gone down. Post-pandemic, it has absolutely gone down, but it's still not enough. And there is a narrative out there, you know, like I am not opposed to taking a mental health day here and there because I do it, and I think they're absolutely vital. But I am going to ask the community to help us raise our ADA. I know our superintendent and our principals and our teachers are always professing to please make sure your kids are at school. And I have seen some fantastic programs and incentives happening at some of our sites. But it really does need to be a district-wide, I mean, all over the state, we need help. And sometimes, you know, those mental health days, they do come at the cost of others. You know, when we don't go to work, we lose money. And that money is something that our families depend on. And the same applies here. When a student doesn't come to school, the funding decreases for the support that they or even other students need. Our ADA right now sits at 93.5. If we can increase our ADA not to 100 but to 98, we would be able to get the money. 1% is about $2.7 million a year. So even a small increase helps. I'm not a stranger to, you know, when my middle child was youngest, I did get that really horrible letter from the district saying, you know, my kid missed too much school. It was not a very proud moment, you know, but, you know, that kid was just a little bit different than the others. But I mean it when I say, you know, probably my husband is the one that does this most. But, yeah, I bring my daughter to school as much as I can. We take a mental health day every once in a while, but... I'm not asking anyone to do anything that I'm not willing to do myself, and these cuts do affect my child as well. I did sit and research other ways to counter these cuts, which will always be avenues I pursue first, but even in looking to many areas, I did sit with our superintendent, asking if there was any other way, but none are going to have the immediate or the financial impact I hope for, and each comes at someone's cost. There is no way that it does not impact students. Our sole purpose here is students. Every one of our employees is vital in an educational setting, and my everyday goal is to improve the experience for our USD kids. I recognize the harm these seats can cause and only am here to help where and how I can. I mean, even though people don't believe it, I do applaud our superintendent and cabinet for having the difficult conversations and bringing forth and standing by the recommendations that are sure to leave not only them open to criticism, but us as well. And even though I was not supportive of it, it's not that I don't acknowledge that cuts need to be made. I was just trying to get them cut back a little bit. But I do appreciate that you and Camden have actually put yourselves in the middle of those conversations because I know how difficult they were. Just please understand that as you place your confidence in me, trust that I hold him accountable to high expectations to provide for our students and staff. And I know it's not a responsibility that he or they take lightly. At the time that I wrote this, I did not know how I was going to vote. Each decision comes with harm and unpleasantness. But at the end of the day, I hope you understood that I continue to do my best for RUSD. Thank you.

I want to thank everyone who came out today and those of you who are still here. I appreciate the support. We appreciate the support. And, you know, we'll keep moving because that's what we do. And we're RUSD. And I just want to thank the... Superintendent's Awards were last Tuesday, so those students who received awards, congratulations to them. Thank you.

Yes, and I'll just say thank you all for staying and thank you for being here. I want to thank everyone for the emails coming here and speaking about what you think about the cuts that need to be made and all the ideas that you have, because I'm sure we'll take those and really look at them. Some of them were very clever. I also want to thank... uh, the safety team for the video on the e-bikes. That was so cool. It was really good with the different, the e-bike and the e-motor, whatever. That was really cool. I don't know if anyone else had a chance to see that. and let's see. Um, uh, I went to really exciting things I've done the last, um, week and a half. I went to the more science fair where several students from high schools, middle schools, as well as kids from Bryn Mawr, um, explained their science projects. They ranged from how fast ice melts and with what materials they melt faster, how to stop mudslides after heavy rains if you have a hillside, and what you can do so that you don't get a mudslide. And the best was the heating up sand for energy use, which you saw the three students here at Empowering Positive Moments. Also, another one that I liked was the best method for boiling eggs so that they peel easier. which I might add I tried this weekend. The best method the student came up with was adding a teaspoon of baking soda instead of salt to your boiling water. And it worked. It was easy to peel. I'm going to do it again this weekend. sometime later this week and see if it still is the same. I was just really impressed with all the students and all their creative thinking and I congratulate all those participants who are moving forward to the next level of the science fair. Then this morning I attended the Geography Bee at Moore. Each of the middle schools held a Geography Bee and the top three students in each grade level have an opportunity to go to Carlsbad for the next level. And today at Moore it was great. They went through pretty much every question on the list, that's how close the kids were in the competition. Um, so they have three students that are going on to Carlsbad. So I wish them all, um, luck in their geography B. And I want to congratulate RHS, the blue team, uh, for winning the championships, um, in the San Bernardino County mock trial competition. Um, they beat Rialto. So yay. Um, and I think that's about all I have. Um, Yeah, I think that's all I have tonight. Thank you. Okay, Superintendent, Mr. Cabral.

Just a reminder, tomorrow we have our parent meetings for our DLI program. Zoom is, Patty, please remind me. And then the in-person meeting is at McKinley at 5 p.m. 5.30, if anybody can make it.

Patty's actually going to take the lead. I am attending the gala for PTA in, I think it's in Fontana, tomorrow evening. So Patty will be at the DLI meeting. I don't know if any of you are going to be able to make it, but it's in person at McKinley. Or you can Zoom in in the morning.

Yes. Yes, that's my understanding. I'll verify that. And then congrats. I had it on my notes too. RHS, I don't know how many years in a row, but our mock trial team, it was Team B won the championship again in mock trial. So congratulations to RHS. That's all I have.

All right, and the last thing on our agenda is discussion on Board Policy 5010, the Parent Notification Policy. Candy, would you like to start discussion since this was your idea to bring it up for discussion?

Yeah, I was wondering why you didn't attach the policy so that the public could see what policy we're talking about. I know we know what policy, but...

I think that's just for discussion, right?

You have a policy 5010 notification there, so it's referring to 5010. I know the public would like to have seen what policy it is we're talking about. At any rate, I think we should have attached it. But we have no excuse not to have a parent notification policy. I've mentioned before, on September 9 of 2024, the Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, issued a ruling in California versus Chino Valley Unified School District. In a case regarding the district's parental notification policy, the ruling held that the district's parental notification policy, which requires staff to notify parents about changes to their minor child's official or unofficial records, is constitutional. Because FERPA guarantees that parents have a right to their child's records, this is, again, in alignment with a parent's constitutional right. We are unique in that we have a stipulated judgment against us, but California law is the same for us as in any other district. If this policy is lawful for other districts, it is also lawful for us. And the fact that several school districts have this policy in place without being – I know that's what the hesitation is, is being sued about it. It's already gone through the courts and deemed to be constitutional. Several other districts have it in place. Chino still has it in place. They're not being sued for it because it's constitutional. And parents have a right to know if their records are being changed of their child, if any child is requesting a change in their records. And no, it's not an outing policy. It doesn't mean if a teacher sees a child that is using a different name that they were going to immediately go report it to the parent. That's not how it works. I think there's a lot of confusion regarding it. The situation arises when the child requests a change to their records. And then the notification is triggered to the parents that a change was made to the record. And it's up to the parent. If they don't want to know what that change is, then they can just disregard the notice. If they do, because they have a right, according to FERPA, they have a right to their child's records. They can ask the school, contact the school to see what those changes were. I think that it's not okay to keep secrets from parents, and that's why I want to proceed with this policy. It's completely lawful, and there's no reason not to.

Well, I would just like to say that I stand by what I've said before. I strongly believe that parents need to be informed of changes to their child's school record. like candy said we can do it legally we have the right wording and we should do it we could get sued for not informing parents for that matter if in my opinion anyway if um something happens to their child in it it's related to information we could have given them and we didn't i think that puts us at least ethically in a situation where we don't need to be in with simply telling them that their child requested to change records. And... Again, I do, I wish too the public would have had the policy because I think there's a lot of confusion and we had changed it some and the current status of the wording on it has been looked at and made sure it doesn't violate any current laws, so. I'm always for parent notification, parent involvement whenever possible. And there's also the provision, of course, if a staff member feels that it would cause harm, immediate harm to the child, that they would... then provide the support services as well as possibly file a child abuse report. So I just think it's in the best interests of families and family values and parents being able to intervene and provide love and support to their kids.

Well, I believe everything you're saying, and I do believe we need a parent notification policy. I believe everything you're saying. It was my understanding that that... the ruling that came down from the court, that there was a stay put on it.

That's a different lawsuit. That's a completely different lawsuit. It's not about that policy. That's about Mirabelli v. Olson and the case that the school was requiring the teacher to lie. That's a different case completely. If you go look at the case regarding this specific policy on September 9 of 2024 in the Superior Court, It was deemed lawful. That's why it's still in place. They're still using it, as well as like 10 other districts.

I might have looked at the wrong thing then when I was looking.

Escondido case with Judge Benitez. Yes, that went to the Ninth Circus, and they placed a stay on that. That's a different lawsuit. That is a lawsuit where the school tried to force the teacher to lie to the parent.

Okay, so I was looking at the wrong thing. It's a different thing. It's a different thing completely. So I'll have to go back and look at that. I'll have to go back and read that because I guess I read the wrong thing.

Just for clarification, so the last that we spoke about this, which was a few months ago, there were, like it started at one draft and then there were several drafts. That's one point of clarification because... I'm not sure if we're talking about the original draft or because I heard Jeanette also say that we need some changes.

Well, I had a request from the president, the original draft. I don't want a parent to have to opt in.

Part of the reason the copy wasn't attached is because the discussion piece would be to clarify how exactly the board would like to move forward.

Well, the one I requested should have been attached because that's what I requested to be placed on the agenda.

I'll take blame for that then because it wasn't an attachment that I thought needed to be on the agenda.

I thought there would be a discussion to clarify how we want to move forward because the challenge that we had, and you've mentioned it, whatever draft we left off on, the OEG does present a different challenge than other districts. And we had, at the time, just to kind of give everybody the context, we were awaiting for word from the OAG as to what their opinion was on our policy compared to our judgment. We have not gotten that from the OEG, but that's where we left off. The Mirabelli case, which was as recent as December 22nd or 23rd. 24th. brought it back up to the surface because that ruling came down and said that a teacher cannot be held accountable for giving information to parents if a district feels like they violated some policy. Immediately the next day, there was an appeal filed by the AG of California. And then in January, there was a stay put on that, which paused implementation of that. So barring that ruling, then we're back to where we were when we left off, which is, I think, why you started with respect to that lawsuit.

Yeah, because this is specifically about this policy.

So I would just say, bringing us all the way kind of full circle to where we left off, I'm just confirming that we had a draft that we had worked on as a board, and then we wanted the opinion of OEG as far as how it relates to our mandates. That is indifferent. We're still waiting.

They're not going to say it's unconstitutional because it's not. So I'm not going to wait all my life for the OHE to tell us that a policy, because they don't want us to pass it, but it's totally... Michelle, please. I can't even speak.

Please refrain from... Excuse me. Please refrain from... Yeah, she hears me.

uh... this policy is lawful there is at least ten school districts implementing this policy chino still has it they won their lawsuit they took some language out that targeted transgender students they remove that language and they left this language in this is intact it's constitutionally based and it's lawful then no one has been sued over this policy that i'm requesting to pass That's why we could wait until the cows come home for the OAG to give us their opinion about the policy, but it's lawful that they have nothing to say against it because you can't say it's unconstitutional. It's just notifying parents if there's a change in their child's records. That is your right, according to FERPA.

So the way we changed it, the edits that we made to it and the changes, that's been looked at? That has been looked at?

That has been looked at by this board, yes. Has it been reviewed by the OAG? To an extent, maybe, but they haven't responded to us as far as how it impacts specific language that they recommended.

Legal recommended. We changed some language on another one of our policies.

So this policy impacts that policy, and we wanted to hear an opinion from OEG how that is either going to violate or not violate, and that's where we have not heard back from them.

Can we ask again?

We kept asking, remember, before Christmas?

Can we ask again?

Can I get a word in? Because you guys have been carrying this entire conversation. I would like to know why we're going to go back to an original draft when we had... The one we worked on. ones that we worked on. However, in the same conversation that you, or in the same meeting where you're accusing me of foreseeing legal fees, how does this not tie into that?

What are you talking about? No one has been sued over this policy, Melissa. It's totally lawful.

Has Chino faced a 50-10 lawsuit?

First of all, I just explained it, Melissa. I just asked a question.

This already went through the court. It was a simple yes or no question.

They did go through the court. I just told you on September 9th of 2024. Exactly.

You said they won their lawsuit. So they did. They did win. They presented a 50-10 policy. And they won it for us. That does not mean that there is not going to be litigation with a future policy for this district.

Why would someone challenge the same thing in the same court?

Because you can sue anybody for anything, correct?

Because a parent doesn't have a right to know if their child's record is changed?

No, I'm not saying it. Okay, so I'm not saying that. What I'm wondering is, like you said, I need to foresee lawsuits, right? I need to see settlements. You're misrepresenting that 50-10 is not something that could be sued over. Excuse me. I am still talking. What I'm trying to understand is you're saying it has nothing to do with LGBTQ students when someone that is, I would say, a supporter of you stood up at our podium just this evening and said that it was a policy for outing. They did say. You can go back and listen to it. They did say it. I heard it, and I thought it was very...

So does that mean that I agree with everybody who might support me on everything?

No, but what I'm saying is there is some very different ideas of what this policy could be, and I'm worried that... Just records.

That's it. Just records. A change in records. That's it. That's all it is.

It's not just... Come on. That's all it is. Let's be honest.

That's all it is, Melissa. That's all it can be by law. Okay? By law.

Exactly.

And that's exactly what we would follow.

Because there have been changes and language change because it is not lawful. You've changed it and you've manipulated it to where it just... I didn't change it. It just rides outside the scope of legal.

I didn't change anything.

You don't know that we're not going to be, but that's the thing. We're about to lay off all these people and you're okay with the possibility of a lawsuit being brought forth because of this policy. Where can somebody please tell me where are we being accused of parents saying that we're not, we're hiding. That's the thing. The secrecy thing you keep like promoting. No one is keeping secrets. That is a very false misrepresentation of the people and the work that this district does.

Why is it such a big deal?

Why is it such a big deal?

Because you're giving people the impression that we're hiding things. First of all, we have a document in our system that specifically says don't tell the parents about a name change, okay? I showed it to Juan the other day. It's still on my website. You can go look at it, okay?

I have no interest in going to your website.

Well, then you won't learn something. It's on my website. Why can't you give it to us? It's a big deal.

He went to go try to find it, and he wasn't able to find it. If it's something that needs to be changed, because this is the first I'm hearing about it, if it's something that needs to be changed, like other policies that we've discussed, then we sit here and we reevaluate them.

It's not a board policy. You just said it was a policy. I didn't say it was a policy. It's a procedure, Melissa. You did not say procedure. You said we had a policy, and you showed it to Juan. Okay. Well, sorry, I misspoke. It's not a policy. Otherwise, I'd be here saying let's change our name change policy. It's a procedure through our district saying when a kid has a name change, do not inform the parents and do not document it. So we just don't need secrets, okay? There's no need for secrets. secrets in this district obviously that memo came from a reason because they don't want to involve parents in a name change okay the specific memo directs the staff to contact when a parent calls complaining about the name change that they didn't authorize that the staff is to tell the student to go speak to the parents so then why don't we have a conversation about that then Well, he couldn't find where it was in the handbook. We couldn't locate the original source of that.

I got it through a public records request. I don't know where it is.

If it's not an actively practiced procedure. How do you know? They all got the memo. How do you know that it's not being practiced like that? So we can just make up hypothetical things all over the place? So we should have a policy. If there's a change in your records, a parent should know.

I think it's basic. Let's draft policies for it. How about we draft a policy about how this board has really no governing entity?

I think I've said what I wanted to say.

How long has that notification been established in the district? Do you know?

The current policy, I'd have to look at the date. I don't know. Definitely more than my tenure here.

Okay. Well, I'd rather wait to see what OAG has to say.

How long do you want to wait, though? We've been waiting.

Till we know. Things move slow, things move fast.

Okay. Well, I thought we as a group had decided. It was the meeting I was sick, but I thought you had told me one or someone that the rest of you decided to wait until, I don't know, like December 13th or something. I don't think it was a date.

That was the implementation of the flag policy. Okay.

Any more discussion on this? Okay. All right. And anybody else have anything? Yeah, I need to go back and look at that other one. I need to go back. I asked Michelle what her thoughts were. I don't know what that.

I've told you since I became on this board I told you about this case on September 9 I've told you guys about this since 2024 I want to go look at that one again and then we'll talk about it but that's what I'm not understanding so this is an entirely new conversation because where we were is not where she wants to return to where she wants to go back to is the original so this is just going to start everything all over

The only thing I wanted to edit was the opt-in. I don't think a parent should have to opt-in to be notified about a change in their child's record. I think it should just be automatic.

You just asked the superintendent to go back to your originally submitted draft, not the one that we had worked on.

Yeah, that's what I just said. That's exactly what I just said.

But there were more changes than just the opt-in.

That's what I'm saying.

That's the only part that mattered to me about changing back. So any other little minor edits I don't care about. It was having to have a parent actually go opt-in to get notified if their child changes their record. I didn't like that part. I thought it should just be automatic. And if they want to opt-out, they can just disregard the notice.

And I thought one of the audience members made a good point. It would cost less to just have it be a standard notification.

I would have to look into it. I don't know exactly.

Could we... Everybody tasked with looking at the policy that we changed, look at the way we changed it. Does everybody have a copy of that?

Could you just send it out again so we make sure we're all looking at the same thing?

Yes, I can send that out again.

And then maybe send the way you'd like it to be, and then we can look at it. And if you could send me that or send that to everybody so we can all look at that.

No, because if we're going to revisit policy changes, we need to do this out here.

Well, I'm saying look at it at home, you know, on your time. And if you want it the way we ended up with, then that's fine. That's what we'll work on. And if you like the new way she just said, just to take that one thing out, we can figure that one out. And I still want to wait to the OAG. I would like to wait. So I would suggest if you could reach out and just ask.

Yeah, as you are aware, we have new legal support. I can talk to her and see that we get that message to OEG this week.

Okay. With that, we are done at 1025.