Special Meeting — June 22, 2024

good afternoon and welcome the special meeting of the governing board of education is called to order by myself Jennifer wezma serving as the board Clerk and assuming the responsibilities of the vacant board president at 300 p.m. on Saturday June 22nd 24 at the district office Conference Center rooms A through C are there any requests for changes to

the agenda I will take a motion and a second to approve the agenda as presented moved second moved by Mr Schwarz seconded by Mrs barklay Len would you call the RO barlay yes Schwarz yes WMA yes thank you Len we are now in Open session in attendance we have governing board members Mrs Allison barklay Mr Steven Schwarz myself Mrs Jennifer WMA

secretary to the board assistant superintendent Nicole deis Dr Gary Woods our superintendent and Mrs lenee an noar did I get that right executive assistant to the superintendent at this time I would like you to rise so that we can say the Pledge of Allegiance please put your right hand over your heart ready begin I pledge allegiance to

the flag of the United States of America and to to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all on to public comments for special board meetings public comments are restricted to only items listed on the special meeting agenda government code 54 9543 public comments are allowed up to a

maximum of three minutes per comment in the order received to a maximum of 30 minutes per item for comments on agenda items or non-agenda items for consent agenda item topics a limit of 3 minutes total will be allowed from one speaker unless the item has been placed on the published agenda in accordance with the brown act no action will be

taken no discussion will be made regarding Personnel issues in open session all public comments are an essential part of the board meeting and are carefully considered by the board are there any public comments there are three three minutes a piece sure all right we'd like to welcome our first speaker first up is Cole followed by Josh I'm going to have to tweak my

public comment a little bit because it's a special meeting so I wasn't totally prepared for that but that's okay um I do want to take this opportunity to thank Dr k for all that he's done and uh continued to endure to represent and uphold our community's expectations and values his sacrifice has never and will be never be in B uh

he will always have my full support and um that pleasantry aside uh in the last couple of months there have been some polarizing events with our district that are taking away from us moving forward that I know have been addressed or will be addressed one of which is California state superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Tony Thurman coming to

Tula to meet with the former tvsd superintendent and two active board members to undermine our community and what the majority of our parents and community members want to see happen with this board in our district not only is it unprofessional and inappropriate but it's very telling that this board continues to she's not speaking to the agenda item so I feel like this is well within

the subject matter jurisdiction of the board we're here to speak about the recall these were definitely events leading up to the recall in the resolution I don't believe we're here to speak about the recall we're here to speak about the special elction speak the rec Happ as best you can to the resolution thank you okay I'm asking

that when we have the next election that the community is respectful towards each other not just in the boardroom and not just the board members um I really want us to be able to find some common ground and again the respect aspect has been missing throughout this whole process and I would like moving forward that we can

just turn a new leaf and focus on the things that actually matter and that our community is concerned with especially the education portion that we've all been speaking on um I will happily make my statement at another meeting where I won't be able to give the comments that I feel the public does need to hear um and with that I

guess that's it thank you thank you Josh followed by Donna this recall was about governance was about our district the parents the voters demanding good governance one of the policies that got me off the couch and into these into this room into this put uh microphone is the policy where teachers have to to tell parents if their child

wants to go by a different name or different gender this policy is what led me to knock on doors for the recall I'd like to call a point of order and confer with the superintendent sure we will also ask you to keep to the resolution as we asked the previous speaker thank fa fair enough when you guys have a special election November

one of the agenda items I'd really like to see addressed is this policy to be rescinded and I'll tell you why when my oldest child said Dad I'm not really a she her we're going to have to call your time here because you're not directly addressing the resolution unless one more time you would like to go back to

that particular item I don't think I can thank you board thank you for your time hopefully we'll get to chat about this matter uh privately thank you you bet Donna so I'm not sure if this is going to pertain to the resolution either because I thought we were here about a recall and um but my comments do have to

do with the recall and the resolution as far as filling the seats and that's what compels my comments today because I'm concerned about this board's ability to govern with any efficiency or Prudence moving forward correct me if I'm wrong but I think your governing handbook talks and directs the board members to promote a team approach operating in a

um uh culture of trust and respect recognizing that each board member brings unique experiences values and beliefs to the table and that you all are to work together you're all to work together to provide the highest quality of Education to our students and I question the willingness of two of your board members barklay and Schwarz J my misgivings I'm going to

call another point of order as this is not directly related to the resolution so the resolution is about filling the board right is that is that the resolution and so if we're filling the board do we not need to have board members on here who can work together who don't go behind each other's backs it's not about candidates for the it's

about accepting that there will be an election so I think we're a little bit off topic okay well then um Mrs stump you can make your comments at a regular regularly scheduled meeting if you'd like or if you can finish pertaining to the resolution please carry on okay so parents just need to know then where they're going to

stand who are they going to stand with the state or they going to stand with board members who want to protect children and want to have um policies that are going to help with our students am I boring you Schwarz excuse me please it's Toad and call your time thank you if you're going to be respectful and and address

me it's Mr Schwarz thank you we did get all right we're going to go ahead and move on to the action item and the resolution itself I think there's additional comments that when oh did we miss someone oh there's one more comment I'm sorry who's Kelly Maxi good afternoon I wasn't planning to speak I don't have a prepared speech but

I wanted to take this opportunity to speak to this resolution because it's very important this has been a very difficult year for our community for our teachers for our parents and I think that um moving forward with vacancies and bringing people to the board it's important to remember what your job is your job is to communicate to

collaborate and to compromise we shouldn't be bringing in decisions um without first talking to our community and to our parents and to our students thank you again a point of order here because we've deviated from the resolution and it's my goal to be consistent okay so I would like to say the goal of the meeting right now is for

you to bring up the fact that we have two vacancies and my comment to you as a parent and a teacher in this community is to say you need need to do better when these new members come on to this board you need to learn to communicate collaborate and compromise and so do they Mrs Maxi we appreciate you being

here I hope that you hear it all right so we're going to move on to the one single action item we have on our agenda today it's resolution 2023-24 36 the ordering governing board member special vacancy election and consolidation I will take a motion and a second to adopt resolution 2023 2436 the ordering governing board member special vacancy election and

consolidation moved by Mr Schwarz do I have a second yes second seconded by Mrs barklay at this point I'd like to ask if there's post motion discussion um I the only thing I just want to say is I am really looking forward to moving things ahead with our board um in a spirit of cooperation and compromise as was stated that's the only

way that boards work is everyone working together not against each other and I am really excited hoping that we can get off on the right foot and move move the work of this District forward always putting students first I'd also like to read a statement and first of all let me thank those of you who are here in attendance today I'm

sorry if there was any confusion and you didn't get to speak fully just to clarify things for the public it's our duty as governing trustees to ratify the recall certification issued by the Riverside Office of Voters there has been some confusion we're not certifying it we are ratifying it I would also like to point out and I think it's important

to say as we passed this resolution that despite tremendous amount of money and time with heavy Union support Sacramento's involvement a press that didn't always give you balance even my colleagues choosing to participate in some of the recall activities Dr kosi did lose yes my colleagues as well my excuse me I would like to continue this is my statement directly related excuse

me Jen there's nothing on the agenda about public about board comments which I reserved and I said I have no comments so there is we're here for excuse I call the motion there's a motion and a second on the floor I call the motion to vote for it yes or no that's how parliamentary procedure we are here to sign this resolution as the

result of the activity and having said that I want to say I do believe our community expects something different and I am here to do that we do in signing this resolution together want to be number one committed to our students every single one re should receive an excellent education and we should be committed to providing oversight I am

giving you my word that this is where we will excuse me I'd like to call a point of order we're almost finished thank you we have a lot to live up to here in Tula and I am hopeful that we will move forward together doing things better join me I just want to give a shout out knowing Dr kroski put together with Mr

Evans a mission statement that I know we all worked on and we want to elevate experiences we want to elevate opportunities and we do want to elevate each other and that's my goal moving forward so again thank you for your patience today we will move forward as needed and at this point I'd like to go ahead and

take a motion with it's already Mo moved in seconded we just need to vote all right let's go ahead and call the vote Barkley yes Schwarz yes WMA yes yes motion adopted 30 the announcement of the next meeting the next regular Open Session business meeting of the governing board of education is scheduled for July 23rd 2024 move to adjourn this meeting is

adjourned today Saturday June 22nd 2024 at about 3:15 p.m. thank you for being here today what