RUSD Board of Education — May 24, 2022

The board met on the day of the Uvalde school shooting, paused for a moment of silence and an appeal about why campus rules exist, then moved a $7.77 million stadium contract and five student expulsions through a meeting that ran well under an hour.

📄 On sourcing: no adopted minutes for this meeting are on file, and none are held anywhere in this archive. This recap is built from the published agenda and the meeting recording. A recording establishes what was said, never reliably who said it — the speaker labels on this transcript are automated, and most of them are automated voice matches rather than identifications. So this page describes what was said without naming who said it, and it reports no vote breakdown of any kind.

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🕯️ The evening opened with a school shooting

Before the Pledge of Allegiance, the meeting stopped for announcements about a school shooting in Texas earlier that day, a moment of silence, and a direct appeal to parents: the rules and policies the district has in place exist to protect children, and "when it comes to student safety, we will not take shortcuts" 1. The board was sitting at Clement Middle School, with a 5:30 p.m. closed session ahead of the 7:00 p.m. open session 2. Board comments at the end of the night came back to the shooting twice, with sympathy for "the families of Robb Elementary School" 3 and "special prayers to all the families involved in that school shooting in Uvalde, Texas" 4.

Nothing on the agenda answered it, and nothing on the agenda could have: the document was published on May 20, four days before the shooting 5. The closed session held before the open meeting did include a consultation with the superintendent on a "THREAT TO PUBLIC SERVICES OR FACILITIES" under Government Code section 54957, an item printed on that same pre-shooting agenda 2. No safety item, report or resolution was added once the open meeting began, and the board has a route for that: its own bylaw lets a member "take action directing staff to place a matter of business on a future agenda" 6.

What the record does show came later. At the July 12, 2022 meeting a speaker thanked the board for "your heightened awareness and collaboration with the Redlands Police Department immediately following the school shooting event in Texas", saying she had noticed an increased security presence across the district, including at graduation 7. On this night the only safety-adjacent business was a farewell: the staff report thanked two school resource officers finishing their assignments with the district 8.

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🧾 Two public hearings, one speaker between them

Both of the evening's public hearings opened and closed inside the meeting's first ten minutes.

The 2022-2023 Local Control and Accountability Plan hearing drew a single speaker 9, and what he said was not about the plan's spending. He opened by apologizing "to everyone for my tone and volume during the past year", described what a year of this fight had cost his family, and asked the board to "not inject our children behind our backs and do not allow mandatory injections in our district". He then alleged that the district had stripped comments out of its LCAP survey — six mentioning critical race theory, eight about masks, six about vaccines and two affirming conservative political values — attributing that account to a district administrator and calling the pattern proof of "RUSD's blatant bias" 10. Nobody on the dais answered, and the hearing was closed 11.

The 2022-23 annual budget hearing drew no public speakers at all. Staff used the slot to warn the board: "we are monitoring the governor's May revision state and local funding sources closely. There will be adjustments made to the budget before it is finalized." 12. The hearing closed a minute later 13.

Both documents were back three weeks on: the plan's federal ESSA addendum as item XII.c and the LCAP itself as item XII.d of the June 14 agenda 14, the annual proposed budget as item XII.f 15.

The mandatory-injection question returned too, in a form the speaker did not anticipate. The June 14 agenda listed a first reading of Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 5141.31, Immunizations Required for Enrollment 16. BP 5141.31 as it now stands says the superintendent "or designee may arrange for an authorized health care provider to administer immunizations at school to any student whose parent/guardian has consented in writing", and the policy manual dates its latest revision to July 12, 2022 17. At that July 12 meeting a speaker read the clause aloud and asked what its purpose was "if not to administer vaccines during school hours" 7.

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🎓 A student locked out of the student trustee seat

The night's sharpest piece of public comment came from an adult reading somebody else's words. A speaker who said he had sat on three cycles of the district's LCAP planning committee appeared on behalf of three high school students and read out an email from a Redlands High School junior 18.

The email said three students had worked with a board member on the student trustee concept since October 2021 and had been assured at a February meeting that the seat would be open to all incoming seniors. Instead, "once the application process was left to each school site, RHS reserved the application for students of their ASB and it was not publicized to all students". The ask was narrow: "an extension of the application deadline into June", plus "other open application guarantees that more students are considered for this position equally". The speaker added a request to meet with the superintendent or a designee, and framed the point as "representation matters" 18.

That complaint landed on a seat the board had only just revived, though its own bylaw had described it for decades: BB 9150 provides that "the Board shall include a student Board member selected in accordance with procedures approved by the Board", with a one-year term from July 1, a seat at the table and preferential votes recorded in the minutes — language on the books since 1995 19. Four weeks before this meeting the dais had announced that the student trustee concept "will be moving ahead" and told interested students to "watch in your announcements" because "your principals will be telling you how to get an application" 20, which is precisely the channel the email said that campus had not used. The recording carries no reply from the dais, and no item on the subject followed that night.

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🗣️ The other public comment

A parent of two district students used general community input for a broad attack on the district's pandemic decision-making, saying "Your only retort during mask mandate was you were told to", that no medical data or nutritional guidance had come with it, and that "You are enforcing mandates that do not make sense, which is ironic". She renewed a request she said she had been making for two months — "For the last two months, I've asked you to reinstate salad bars in our schools" — objected to elementary students being walked to district offices for Halloween candy, and read out rising cumulative totals she attributed to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, 26,225 in March against 30,561 in May 21. VAERS accepts reports from anyone, and the system's operators state plainly that "VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness" 22.

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🤝 Labor: the teachers' contract round opens

A speaker for the Redlands Teachers Association used community input for agendized items to present the association's initial proposal for successor negotiations, describing a relationship in which "there have been heated discussions, but we listen, we have real dialogue, and we make compromises" 23. Staff confirmed the procedural next step: "The public hearing on the association's initial proposal will be at the June 14, 2022 Board of Education meeting." 24.

The round widened from there. On June 14 the classified employees' association presented its own initial proposal, and the board's initial proposal to the teachers' association was presented the same night, with public hearings on both set for July 12 25.

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🏟️ The night's biggest money went through consent, unread

The largest financial action of the evening was never debated. Item XI.l, inside a twenty-item business services consent block, awarded RFP 10-22, Redlands East Valley High School Stadium Track & Field Improvements, to Ohno Construction for $7,774,000, funded by developer fees and redevelopment agency funds 26. The same block explained why that award existed at all: item XI.p withdrew the identical RFP from the initial apparent low bidder at $5,814,000, after "a mathematical error resulting in an erroneous bid submission, caused the said contractor to decline the acceptance of lowest bid" — roughly $2 million more for the district to pay. Alongside it sat $1,762,400 for the REV S-portable parking expansion, $592,600 for roofing at various sites, and payment transmittals of $1,386,900.16 27. The block was moved as item A, consent items B through U 28, and approved 31.

The withdrawn bid produced the only substantive board question of the night on business consent. A trustee asked about item P: "Did it go to the next bidder, or just curious, or did you have to send it out again to bid?" 29. The answer was that the contractor "just pulled themselves from all of the bidder lists and just reviewed the remaining" 30. That was the whole discussion.

Both projects trace to that consent vote 31, and both were built out and signed off within about eighteen months of it. A June 2023 agenda item records the parking work: "On May 24, 2022, the Board awarded Bid 14-22 to Roadway Engineering & Construction Corp., for the Redlands East Valley High School Parking Lot Expansion Project." Staff had verified completion as of May 30, 2023 33. A December 2023 item does the same for the stadium: "On May 24, 2022, the Board awarded Bid 10-22 to Ohno Construction", with completion verified as of December 4, 2023 32. The stadium took longer to open than to build: Community Forward Redlands reported in August 2025 that Redlands East Valley had celebrated the grand opening of Wildcat Stadium, the last comprehensive high school in the district to get its own track and field stadium, and that "Construction on the facility began in 2022 and was funded in part by Measure D, a bond approved by Redlands voters." 34.

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📜 A quiet first reading that stuck

Buried in the same consent block, item XI.r took a first reading of revised Administrative Regulation 3515.6, Criminal Background Checks for Contractors 27, and went through with the rest of the block 31. It is the rule requiring any outside entity whose workers may be around students to "certify to the district that each of its employees who may interact with students has a valid criminal records summary" and has no violent or serious felony conviction 35. The second reading was item XI.gg on the June 14 agenda 14, and the live policy manual dates AR 3515.6's most recent revision to June 14, 2022 — the process that started here finished three weeks later.

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⚖️ Five expulsions in one motion

Educational services action items A through E were five student discipline cases: one panel expulsion for a full calendar year, and four stipulated expulsions running through the remainder of the 2021-2022 year, two of them extending into the following fall, one with a suspended order, one paired with enrollment in Adult Education 36. All five were taken together — "I believe we can take an A through E together" 38 — with no discussion on the record, and approved 39. The agenda identifies each case by a student number only.

The educational services consent block just before it held two student travel items: sixty Redlands High School spirit leaders to a cheer and song camp at the University of Redlands, and four yearbook students to a Long Beach leadership camp 36. It drew the evening's one cheerful aside, "I'm happy to see that our spirit leaders are going to the U of R for camp" 37, and was approved 38.

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👥 Personnel: five appointments and a management reshuffle

Reporting out of closed session, the board announced five administrative appointments: a principal at Mission Elementary School, an assistant principal at Redlands East Valley High School, an assistant principal at Beatty Middle School, and two assistant principals at Cope Middle School. Four took effect July 1, 2022; one had an effective date still to be determined 43. Public employee appointment had been noticed as a closed session item 2. This page does not name the five appointees: the only record of who they are is an automated transcript.

The human resources consent block did quieter structural work, approved in a single motion 42. Effective July 1, a payroll manager title became Director I, Accounting and Payroll; a human resources manager title became Director I, Classified Personnel; and the Director I, Purchasing job description was revised 40. A coordinator post covering foster youth and student support services became Director II, Behavioral and Mental Health Services, an instructional technology directorship was re-levelled to Director III, Innovation, Technology, and Accountability, and the revised 2022-2023 management team salary schedule rode along in the same block 41. The single human resources action item, the revised 2022-2023 Declaration of Need for Fully Qualified Educators for the state credentialing commission 5, was approved on a motion of its own 43. It is the annual filing that lets a district staff classrooms on emergency permits when fully credentialed candidates cannot be found.

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📣 Committee reports, recognitions and trophies

Board committee reports were brief: a grand-opening ribbon cutting for the regional occupational program's new building on Indiana, followed by an awards evening with scholarships from $250 to $1,500 44; Redlands COMPACT certifications for four Redlands High School students and $500 scholarships funded by the Redlands Police Officers Association and the Redlands Professional Firefighters 45; Market Night returning twice a month between Orange Avenue and 7th Street, with the Sylvan Park water feature, a pump track and the park caretaker's house as commission priorities 46; and a SANDABS meeting given over to the state's May revise, its material forwarded to district business staff 47.

The staff report celebrated an AVID recognition evening, many of whose students were the first in their families headed to college, and a Seal of Biliteracy cohort grown from "maybe five, ten kids" a few years earlier to "almost 30 kids, 35 kids" crossing the stage, several of them in three languages. In-person recognitions postponed by the fall and winter COVID surge had finally been held the week before 8. Board comments added the Redlands Educational Partnership's evening of appreciation, with awards to four teachers and four classified employees, a new coffee shop at Redlands High School where special education students are learning retail work, and the year's fourth family and community engagement workshop, with about 33 participants 4, plus an EMS Day at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center attended by regional occupational program students from Colton 3.

The evening's one scheduled presentation 2 was the Redlands Bicycle Classic handing out School Duel trophies "to the top intermediate and the top elementary schools" for their students' participation — Cope Middle School and Judson and Brown Elementary, accepted by their principals 48. Community Forward Redlands has since explained what the contest measures: "The trophy goes to the school that has the highest number of student participants." As of March 2025, Judson and Brown had "held the top spot for eight consecutive years" 49.

Closing announcements covered a golf fundraiser for Redlands East Valley football, a Citrus Valley High School musical festival and a word of encouragement to staff with "approximately three more weeks left" in the year. That closing turn starts at 0:39:51 of a 42-minute recording and ends with "this meeting is adjourned" 50.