Board of Education — September 24, 2024

the regular meeting of the governing board of education is called to order by myself Jennifer WMA serving as the board Clerk and acting presiding officer at 4:10 p.m. on Tuesday September 24th 2024 at the district office Conference Center rooms A through C are there any requests for changes to the agenda yes item 22 on the consent agenda is not

a consent item it needs to be discussed okay so item 22 we can pull Allison how about you that was my same yeah so I'm good okay for me I am going to pull number one the governing board of minutes from August 27th and then I am pulling number two the Personnel list section A with the keeping of section B

through D on the consent list so one and two a one 2A and then 22 for you is is that all that's all I had okay and Mr Schwarz did you make a motion to approve the agenda now I will moved moved by Mr Schwarz second seconded by Mrs barklay all in favor say I I I I motion

adopted three in accordance with government code section 54957 7 the board will meet in closed session to consider the items listed in e the governing board welcomes public comments this is the time for closed session public comments any person wishing to provide a public comment to the board is required to attend the meeting speakers are limited to 3

minutes to a maximum total of 30 minutes per item for comments on the closed session agenda item do we have anyone here for Clos session public comments no all right we do not and we will now go into close session thank you for being here

I think I'll just start good evening everyone thank you for coming this is of course always our favorite part of our board meetings we have some wonderful recognitions um to present today so Mr Jimmy Evans why don't you take it from here all right welcome welcome good evening everyone we are always excited to um have our uh time to shine for some of

the amazing things that are going around in the district um but first up I want to cool we're going to invite up um the principal at Alamos Elementary she's going to tell us about a cool uh thing that happened on her site and that is Miss Jennifer answorth good evening it's a pleasure to speak on behalf of Alamos this evening

um so often hear about the bad things that are happening and the things that we cannot control um but it is my pleasure tonight to talk about an incident that happened during the third week of school in which these wonderful individuals Jason nesy Nicole Brer Penny Sergeant shaa Bellisario and Victoria solarzano um saved a little boy's life

he was a kindergartener he is a kindergartener he's 5 years old and it was during recess time and because our teachers on duty were actively supervising with their radios and being um just Vigilant in their supervision of our children um Mr ernesty a kindergarten teacher recognized that a a child was having difficulty breathing at the lunch tables went to him looked at

him and realized that he was choking he immediately called for backup on the radio gave his location it sent our health Office Team on their way in the meantime Jason um gave the little boy the himl green um him lick maneuver and um between him and two other teachers that were on duty Nicole brener and shaa Bellisario they also

came to Aid they also assisted with the heick and they were able to recover the item that had gotten stuck um in this little boy's throat he was able to recover and um the health by the time the health clerk got there and the health um R LVN he was on his road to recovery and breathing normally a little

shaken up a little nervous um but doing well and they of course took him to the health office and 911 was called just as precautionary and that little boy and his family um were he was there and made it obviously a full recovery parents were very appreciative but it was just a great reminder to our staff that even

when students are at recess time that it's so important to be well prepared to carry that radio to have your keys to know what to do in case of an emergency and it was thanks to these five um that we saved this little boy's life so on I'm honored to receive those certificates on their their behalf and

just a little side note they're not here tonight even though they were invited not once but twice um their response to me was it's part of our job you've already recognized us as a staff at a staff meeting we don't need any more Spotlight on us we are simply doing our job and that's the kind of people that I

applaud and enjoy working with so thank you all right and next up for another couple recognitions we have the amazing Miss Donna Leon come on up principal at [Applause] tbhs good evening all right hold on let me get this down where you know Jimmy's a little Jimmy's a little bit taller no all right can you hear me all right all

right so I am proud to recognize Matthew dit come on up here with me Matthew um as a congressional award gold medal okay now I feel really short thank you the Congressional award is congress's only charity it's established it was established in 1979 and the Congressional award was created to honor encourage and Inspire America's youth which they don't have to go very far

because this young man inspires us every day through the Congressional award Congress urges young people to challenge themselves and any interested motivated student ages 13 and a half to 23 years old May participate in the Congressional award by setting and achieving individually challenging goals in four program areas voluntary Public Service personal development uh physical fitness and Expedition and

exploration Matthew has earned the Congressional award gold medal we had him here last year when we put together the bronze and the silver so now he's gold we're done with Matthew after this he's doing amazing to earn the gold medal each participant must complete in at least 400 hours of voluntary Public Service which means sharing their time

and talent for the betterment and Community 200 hours of personal development which can include developing social and life skills 200 hours of physical fitness spent in any way that improves their health and quality of life and additionally they must spend at least five days and four nights exploring a new environmental culture so I want to tell you what Matthew did

specifically to earn this award he completed his service hours through a variety of activities he engaged in scouting related projects includ his his own Eagle project and I had the honor of being at his Eagle ceremony at Tula middle school as well as helping with other troop 148 Scouts Eagle projects flag retirements blood drives Trail cleanups and Staffing scouting programs

he also volunteered at Teka Valley High School through the school's ASB program he's all over our campus all the time he spent two summers volunteering for the summer reading program at Grace Melman library and volunteered at various community events alongside earning 20 scouting merit badges in completing multiple leadership trainings Matthew enhanced his personal growth by becoming a fully initiated member of the Catholic

church he fulfilled his physical fitness requirements through biking and hiking and canoeing to enhance his cardiovascular endurance and strength and he completed the Expedition requirement by attending the national Scout jambur in July of 2023 there he learned about the cultures of different states and engaged in challenging experience such as whitewater rafting the summer Apex experience and very stem

Fields gez Matthew You're such you know Matthew did not win the award he earned it this man exemplifies everything that we hold dear in heart not only at TMO Valley but in tvusd I present to you Matthew DT thank you Miss Leon and also thank you to the school school board for bring bringing me here for this recognition

I'd like to thank my parents incl my mom who's in attendance and my dad who unfortunately could not make it my congressional award adviser Mr seore my Scout leaders and and Mr Burlingham for for helping me along this journey to the Congressional award gold medal I look forward to continuing to grow as a leader and to to help serve tacul Valley

high school and the community of UL at large thank all right changing gears completely here I have the honor of introducing the CrossFit Games fifth in the world student Zoe come on over so Zoe is one amazing young lady so I want to talk about this was her first time going to the CrossFit Games and she ranked fifth in the world at these games

hers is truly a story of dedication inspiration and Community Support um this is a bonding activity that she started with her mom I was just asking mom while we were outside are you guys ever going to compete at the same level and Mom's like that's not going to happen right um so talking about this is is just it's amazing what the community has

done they did a fundraiser and they raised nearly $15,000 so that Zoe could attend this and um her main focus was originally gymnastic she was a level five gymnast but over the past four years she's played volleyball and then she took the last two years off for CrossFit she also dabbles in dance soccer and track and field and and

really all about that physical and mental toughness that CrossFit requires there's a lot to CrossFit but I was trying to get her to do something at school maybe put the teachers through a CrossFit but I'm thinking maybe you might want to put the executive cabinet through CrossFit I think that would be really really good when it comes to

balancing school training and personal time Zoe's no stranger to the struggle balancing is something that's that she does well trying to get her school work done early in the week to allow for some personal time and just be a high school student she's a junior this year Zoe draws her inspiration from Haley Adams an elite CrossFit athlete known for her

positivity positivity and work ethic Zoe's just is remarkably positive and she aims to bring her own Journey whether it's into the gym or her personal life she her goals are ambitious we were just talking about college goals outside and she knows that she wants to go to four year college she dreams of competing in the elite CrossFit Games after she um ages out of

the 16 to 17 Division I love her advice to others who want to compete at a high level realize that it might take time and you're always going to have something blocking it from going perfectly whether that be a coach or something personal just make sure you're always doing what you want to do and what's best for you you know it's it's

from their it's from their mouths right that we can learn so many things her story is one of hard work self-discovery and unrelenting pursuit of her goals as she continues to rise in the world of CrossFit tvusd especially tbhs will undoubtedly continue to Rally behind this exceptional athlete an student athlete because she's an amazing Golden Bear so I give you

SOA um I just want to say a simple thank you for Miss Leon and the school board for recognizing me and creating an amazing article and Publishing that so thank you very much all right so thank you for coming to recognition we're going to take just a five minute break and let people come on in for the open meeting so we'll give it

five minutes and then we'll get started thank you so much for being here tonight and congratulations to all of our our folks who are recognized this evening we're proud of good evening welcome to the regular Open session meeting of the Tula Valley Unified School Board School District Board of Education on September 24th 2024 at 5:42 p.m. the board has been inclosed

session since 4 o'clock in attendance we have Mrs Allison barklay Mr Steven Schwarz myself Mrs Jennifer WMA Dr Gary W Woods superintendent Mrs lene an noar executive assistant to the superintendent at this time I would like to welcome Clinton and Cooper Carrol from Abby ranki Elementary School to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance thank you for being here and come on up

ready begin I pledge of 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 hey guys I have a special award for you in a little goodie so meet me right over here here in the okay you ready all right as we get

started here I'm going to give it to Dr Woods for just a moment to welcome everyone thank you for coming we appreciate having all of you in attendance as I'm sure you can tell it's a challenge up here for us with three board members know that we're doing our best we're trying to practice Civility and we hope that you also practice

civility on your end thank you for listening all right well said we are going to move on with e1a I call for a motion and a second to approve the recommendation of the administrative hearing panel regarding the following student expulsion matter number one 992848 the waiver of suspended expulsion do I have a motion moved moved by Mr

Schwarz second seconded by Mrs barklay Len would you please call roll barklay yes Schwarz yes where's ma yes motion is adopted 30 thank you Len Clos session begin at 400 p.m. today the Board of Education took no action during Clos session next we're going to move on to our public comments the governing board welcomes public comments this is the

time for Open Session public comments they 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 will be allowed from each speaker unless the item has been placed on the

published agenda in accordance with the brown act there shall be no action taken no discussion will be made regarding Personnel issues in open session all public comments are an important part of the board meeting and are given careful consideration by the governing board are there any remaining public comments on any agendized items this evening and which items 13 General

okay so there's 13 General are there any others for later this evening consent okay two action info three consent two action for info and 13 for General yeah 13 for all right 14 okay so we have 14 I know we have a shorter agenda this evening which is great so I would like to propose that hear people out for 3

minutes I mean just to keep it within our 30 minutes I I would be fine with two but whatever you guys want to do I know we don't have student recognitions and we're going to miss them tonight we only have five action items uh I would like to advocate for three you have an opinion Steve I could go either way but if you

want to great Allison that's fine all right let's do three Len if you'd call the first speaker thank you first speaker is forgive me if I'm pronouncing this wrong Kima REI Salam followed by Sandra good evening everyone thank you so much for giving us this opportunity this is my first time little bit nervous but still I'll try to manage to convey what

is the purpose that which we came here so currently we are immigrants from India and uh we are facing an issue with legal status so we have a problem that is parents uh kids are linked to our state St is so once they turn to 21 they will have a problem uh in the sense they'll not be able to work on their own

they'll not be able to uh you know choose uh the subjects or the education which they wanted to because um I think you know how much uh costly here education is so it's like completely either they have to choose to leave this place completely and go to the motherland that is in India which they never uh uh got any experience to

read uh in the sense they were from the chood that is from school time they were here only so it's it it will be completely new for them and in fact for us it'll be fine but for them it'll be like something alens where they don't know what to do at that place so I would kindly request uh the board members

if you can help in any way to counsel the students or to convey this uh message to help mainly aged out kids because from the day one we are legally paying all the taxes and we are obeying all the um uh taxes and everything every rules and regulations that which um American government is having and we truly respect and we are enjoying and we

are happy here except uh with the kids uh you know upcoming uh education or career because we are not able to plan anything we we are just like struck to take any decision on what needs to be done uh either they have to take a separate Visa or it's it's bit complicated so if you can please um

understand our concern same uh with the same issue we have a group of people who have come here and all of us are struggling with the same issue if you can kindly look into this and help us with some counseling to the kids or um some way to convey this to the next level it'll be really helpful um I hope

uh you can help us in that way thank you thanks for the opportunity thank you thank femia hello my name is Sandra Stormer and I've lived in Tula 25 years not only has my son attended the schools but my granddaughter is personally attending now I'm new to the boardroom however I'm compelled to speak my voice on what I've

witnessed I am utterly shocked at the bulying aspect of intentional demeaning and disparaging statements intended to humiliate discredit discredit a fellow board member by a group when they go to the microphone showing kids how to be a bully this only hurts our children our families and our schools in our community there have been personal taxs being directed at Jen WMA with an agenda

to disrupt create chaos including personal misleading attacks directed only toward her Allison Barkley you posted on social media all the reasons why you were right to walk out of a meeting and censor Miss we you did not tell the truth it's maddening that you can get away with that not taking any accountability nor stepping back with perspective you

censored and took away a First Amendment right of a Board member Miss WMA was a whistleblower and you didn't like it you were completely blinded by your agenda and the union narrative you support this is about you trying to silence a peer member of a board because you she doesn't have the same narrative as you the people voted for Jen WMA to

the board and knew when she was duly elected what she stood for in her representation of those that voted for her you and the union narrative didn't like what the people voted for so tried to remove her from office in which you created the added burden and financial cost for the district she prevailed on the recall as demonstrated by the votes

received and yet contined to display unacceptable tactics being used to silence her voice you cannot silence me Jen WMA has a voice it's my voice and all the people in Tula who voted her as a board member it stopped the agenda to change Tula schools and take away our constitutional right to protect our children from the woke ideology being

pushed the group that supports you Allison in these meetings create chaos with examples excuse me chaos with examples of repetitive snapping clapping talking loudly when someone's speaking at the podium um uh they're doing your work and you're allowing it as a representative of the school board and a public expects better of you I heard that you're aspiring to

be a president next year a good leader would never extinguish the voice of a colleague even when challenged and I don't believe that you're qualified for such a position thank you thank you Jean feia Follow by verion good evening everyone my name is Gan fumia and I have a short comment um Mrs WMA at the last meeting you told the

audience this is not your meeting the recalled board president kosi said the same thing several times but that's not true Community par participation in Schoolboard decisions does not end at The Ballot Box the brown act in California makes boards like this one accountable to the public guaranteeing open meetings and public comment ments on board issues the brown act says quote

the people in delegating Authority do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know the people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments that they have created that's you trustees you are the instruments that we voters have

created the law allows and expects us not just to serve meetings but also to participate the law allows and expects us to comment to cheer to criticize the law also allows and expects you all to listen and give our points of view your full consideration this is not just your meeting it is our meeting too the community has a valid interest in making

sure our tax money is well spent and our children learn to be productive thoughtful citizens we have a valid interest in making sure that you're doing the job that we elected you to do we don't just observe we participate in these meetings please remember that thank you thank you Jean ver followed by Robert Tyler version's up first is there a

version yeah I'm sorry you're up first hello everyone uh my name is rashen and um I'm here to talk about the immigration status so my dad submitted the application for the green card in December 2014 hoping to receive it within a a reasonable time frame however it is now 20 24 and we are still waiting without a green card I do not have a

I don't have a Social Security number this one missing piece means I cannot illegally work making it nearly impossible for me to support my family financially the hurdles do not stop there as many students as as a student many colleges expect me to participate in internships getting real world act experiences to improve your chances to admission but without an SSN I cannot

participate in internships or even certain extracurricular activities the this not this not only affects my career but also puts me at a disadvantage compared to other students in the College admission process so I would like to finish off by asking for guidance regarding um me not being able to support my family financially and second I am considered a out of State student when

it comes to College admission so hopefully meaning that I would have to pay double the tuition even after staying here for more than 10 years so yeah that is that is it thank you thank you Robert Tyler followed by Steve Campos I'm Robert Tyler uh with uh advocates for Faith and freedom we are representing the school district uh in

defense uh in the action brought uh alling the policies as it relates to uh the uh critical race Theory as well as the parental notification policy um I I am here now instead of coming at a later time because I've got a birthday party to get to for my granddaughter so um I am uh I figured I'd come and just

address you during public comment briefly uh simply just to say uh first of all thank you uh superintendent Woods um you and your staff have been incredibly helpful uh we are in the process of going through uh Discovery and uh the uh super superintendent Woods has been uh great to work with and we'll be continuing through that process over

the coming months uh so far I just wanted to uh I think publicly uh it's important for you to understand that the the costs that the district have incurred so far are $4,063 total uh since this litigation began uh since the litigation began uh we defended uh against a preliminary injunction uh we prevailed at the Superior Court the uh the the plaintiffs

in the case sought to prevent both policies from uh coming into effect and uh we prevailed and uh the plaintiffs appealed that decision uh we are now in the court of appeal uh we just filed our our brief in the court of appeal and next uh will be a brief from the opposition and then uh there'll be oral

argument uh but it looks favorable at this point in time based upon the laws we've seen it um and I thought that it would be relevant as well so far the pro bono uh the value of the pro bono hours that we've put into it are a minimum of $163,000 $800 $163,000 820 that uh we have put into this case

to date um and all of that time and information is protected by the attorney client privilege and it's been submitted to the superintendent the district already um and uh so but the total I think is uh relevant I know that was a concern uh going forward in terms of how much cost you this type of litigation would be and uh frankly uh most of that

expense has been borne uh uh through our nonprofit organization uh to the tune of $3,000 and the districts only have uh come up with about $4,000 so so far uh it's been uh favorable and uh I'll be happy to come back to a Clos session in the future but now I uh run to a birthday party so thank you thank you Mr

Tyler Steve Campos followed by Christine Mossa greetings cabinet uh board members um thank you Bob for your services we appreciate it you've saved us a lot of money and I just want to remind people that the the suit that he's discussing or or talking about is that which was brought by tvea as well as public Council uh completely could have been

avoided but obviously this is the path that we find oursel in I want to thank the the Indian Community who came out today um it it breaks our heart to hear those stories I'm uh you know my parents were immigrants to this country and so for me it's extremely just it it hurts because I've been given the opportunity

uh for my parent sacrifice and then these parents have come out and they're doing everything legally that's one thing I think that wasn't mentioned and it's because of the the illegal process and stuff that is going on it backs them up and that's unfortunate because they don't qualify for some of the things that uh maybe someone from who's illegal

uh and coming throughs an illegal immigrant then they do not have access to that information and so um I will tell you this that um as a board member I'm just speaking now as from my board member seat that I will advocate for your families and make sure that when I go to Washington DC to advocate in April

that this will be be on my mind and I'll bring it to the attention of csba because it's something that we have to do if it's happening here in this community it's happening all over the place so you have uh my word on that that I'll go ahead and do that next I would like to invite um all the tvusd

middle schools to participate in our annual Veil Ranch cross country Invitational um usually we get low turnout from uh other schools and that's usually because of the cost of busing and it's our own event um you know so we've kind of not invited other schools but we'd love to see people come out because it's a great race and it it

kicks off the cross country season and if you're not aware of it we're probably one of the best program middle school programs in the country we fed into Great Oak and you all know what Great Oak has done with that cross country program so hopefully we can do that that I also want to give a shout out last

night I I happen to be having dinner at at BJ's and I met a couple people that are are dear to me and important and so I want to give a shout out to Linda zimmel and The Honorable Jeff zimmel uh for their contributions to the mock trials that are being held at CHS um you know it's interesting how you network

throughout things you know our boys played soccer together uh here in the valley and it was great to see them and share what was going on and I didn't realize that Jeff is now now a judge so um shout out to them for all that they do for our community um and last things I do want to uh mention because comment

was made these meetings are set up so that the board can handle their business meetings now everything was said true that that there's participation by the community in that but what is not allowed is disruption and when there's disruption they have every right to send people out to close the meeting off to the public if the public cannot behave

like adults and in too many times we've seen them act like children thank you very much have a good evening thank you Mr Campos Christine Masa followed by John Cobb hello board and executive staff always great to see your faces um it was great to see Dr Woods Mrs Barkley Mr Schwarz Mr R I think you were there as

well at the shappell tvhs game um we won't we won't talk about the score right Mrs Barkley um but it was also our Junior Puma Camp fundraiser for cheer uh dance had a camp as well and uh it was really great to see all our little Junior athletes out on the field um but first I you know we really like to say

I'm really happy that we have public comments so that we can legally express our first amendment rights in any way that we see fit it's a great country we live in as you can tell by the number of people who want to come here and just as others are free to express their comments and lies and false narratives

on social media we get to come here and speak as well So speaking on public comments I'm here to propose that the board adopt a policy to limit board comments similar to public comments to a total of three minutes that includes not abusing public comment section of the meeting to have three people be proxy for your individual public comment which

effectively gave a single speaker six to n minutes of public comments in violation of the meeting rules I mean if you're going to allow that violation for one speaker you have to allow it for everyone I'd love to talk to her six minutes I have lots to say but I see that Mrs WMA again abused public comments just a few minutes before me by

allowing a commenter to give a report out on District litigation rather than appropriately agendize it in information and reports so let's squal all that and let's keep board comments to their designated section and keep the agenda properly agendized and make the board comments a a maximum of three minutes thank you thank you Mrs Masa John Cobb followed by

upney good evening last week a 17-year-old student named Emily gold killed herself near Riverside when she jumped off an overpass and was hit by a car by all outward appearances it seemed that she was a happy and successful student she was a beautiful cheerleader who won a standing ovation after her performance on America's Got Talent I don't know what challenges Emily gold

was facing and maybe nobody does but I do know one thing if her parents had known the challenges that she was facing she would probably still be alive suicide is the number two leading cause of death for young people in the United States the suicide rate among students who identify as LGBT is especially horrific more than 40% of

minors who identify as transgender have considered suicide in the past 12 months and about 14% of students who identifies as LGBT have attempted suicide in the last year as a veteran I've lost far too many friends myself and after every suicide people say if only we had known we could have helped if only we had known what

they were facing no parent should ever be told that something was withheld from them that their their child died because a school or because people in Sacramento decided that they didn't deserve to know that their student was at high risk better communication prevents suicide parents and teachers need to work together to identify kids who are at high risk to prevent suicide we

cannot withhold we cannot be shy about sharing mental health concerns with parents who are in the best position to help their children and naturally understand the most about their background their medications and other challenges that they're facing according to a recent rasmon poll 84% of Californians California voters would support a law that required schools to notify parents of any major

change in a child's physical mental or emotional health or academic performance 84% yet it's unfortunate that Mr Schwarz and Mrs barlay have stood against these Common Sense parental notification policies in a recent video Mr Schwarz also assured parents their rights are protected under Ed code 51100 101 and 102 he left out however the parental right to know about certain serious

challenges that our kids are facing that right is not protected under the Ed code among others and that right is specifically taken away by ab1 1955 recently Mr Schwarz has personally been working closely with Tony Thurman and David Goldberg two radical leftists who are strong advocates for schools to keep secrets from parents specifically about high risk of suicide challenges

that they're facing let me be clear parents are the best advocates for their children parents know what's best for their kids parents care the most about their kids and parents are not the enemy thank you thank you Mr cob upne followed by Christopher bout I don't remember the policy top of my head but Ed code requires a specific

Suicide Prevention policy for every school district and we have one it has been in place and today's topic of comments for me is your post about Edgar alen Poe for the Pit and the Pendulum supposedly teaching Satanism it is very very concerning this text has a Exile level of 1310 that means it wasn't taught to like sixth graders or anything it's an

eth grade story my daughter also did the suspense chapter and they picked up a horror was uh let them play God was their thing how do I know I can go on canvas I can read everything that is there and every assignment every score is visible to the parents I forgot to bring the letter at the beginning of the

year I got a green piece of paper which says that there are going to be challenging texts for middle school students if you have any objections please reach out to the teacher it also has a little section about a nonprofit Library where it says these books have been donated by a nonprofit these might not be properly Ed if you do not want

your child reading these books or have access to this Library please let the teacher know that letter nowhere does it suggest like go reach out to a board member who with their limited comprehension skills should go create propaganda videos on social media and unnecessarily agitate people exposing students to challenging text develop critical thinking and broadens perspective and life is unpredictable

you can't foresee what challenges your children might face exposing them to diverse perspectives won't harm them in fact fact it might equip them to handle situations you've never experienced for example I read rard Kipling's poem If in the seventh grade my daughter got it as an assignment for advanced work in her third grade but it did help me during

covid-19 when the world was going crazy around us that poem really did bring solish like you know when you can keep your mind when all around you are losing theirs it did make quite a bit of sense at that time you consistently stir up controversy sowing seeds of division seemingly for attention rather than addressing genuine issues Your Role is

governance not management a concept you failed to grasp a policy for requesting alternative reading assignments has been placed in 2018 actually I think it's before that since 1996 it was revised in 2018 this topic has been continuously discussed at board meetings Dr valz gave a presentation again everybody was taught like you know what 13.2 131 12.2 what is the admin regulation how a

parent can request it we've gone over and over again you seem to be unable to comprehend this and you continue to insert yourself in these situations disrespecting the teachers professional judgments your latest propaganda posts about a classic story one has been read worldwide for over two centuries once again displays your incompetence and ignorance for all to see much like the

curriculum adoption thank you thank you up Christopher B followed by Ravi good evening staff board fellow uh community members my name is Christopher bout I'm a local parent local Community member for 25 years and um firstly I just want to say that whatever I say up here is constitutionally protected by the First Amendment no matter how much

you hate me no matter how offensive I may be it is still protected speech um I want to speak tonight a little bit about the egregious fiscal mismanagement or I should say the expenditures incurred by uh Miss barklay and Mr Schwarz um regarding the very overdue firing of uh superintendent mlay you horribly overstated those costs 50 to

$80,000 uh just trying to make it bigger than it actually is uh Miss Barkley you're you're senseless Brown act violation accusation that cost us 25,000 and also uh Barkley and Schwarz your antifa friends their threats cost us an extra 50,000 in security you also slapped a restraining order on a parent after you didn't like something that said Okay that was an

extra 25,000 that we did not have to incur um the recall expenses I don't have specific numbers on that other than it's approaching 200,000 and that may be wrong it may be in excess of 200,000 but you know what side note on on the recall Danny Gonzalez when he was selling his house now this speaks to kind of not

fiscally but your behavior when he was selling his house he had an open house a group of your friends your well-known friends your well-known supporters with Satan tattoos and all okay posed as Shoppers looking for for houses okay they entered his his his open house and was conducting some kind of weird Seance or something like that these are not my words this is on video

okay so they were calling down these evil spirits uh to curse his home now I'm thinking what kind of people do that I mean who does that I mean these are your friends and your supporters you did nothing to decry that action that is reprehensible behavior and I'm out of time thank you very much I just want to

I just want the public to know a little bit about your character and the fiscal Mis mismanagement and the expenses that you are responsible for thank you thank you Robi Kieran hi thanks to everyone here uh I'm Ravi maduri and I'm from India I'm working with qualcom here on H1B status okay and my kids are in H4 status that

uh they are both my kids are in uh grade of high school now 12th and 9th graders so the major problem what we are facing is right once the kids turn 21 they have to move from H4 to F1 to complete the studies if anything goes wrong just because of the decisions made by the um interviewer there so the studies will be

break in between apart from that when the kids grow off after 15 they tend to go for some small jobs for themselves to feel like how their friends are doing because my daughter has complained me that one of her friend was working in some parttime job over the summer holidays along with her summer school so when she threw a small party she felt

like she's earning I'm not earning anything the reason for that is she can't go for any not even a small job she can't earn she's not allowed to do legally so they it's creating some kind of mental trauma in them that what my friends can do I can do tomorrow once we go to The Bachelor undergraduates uh

they can do some Shing and kind of things but she can't do that because legally her visa status stops her so these kind of things we are trying to give them some knowledge on how they can handle them but we are completely not able to do that and we need some support from the school board to create some sessions for them to

understand these better and also take these matters to the next level where some kind of uh support can they can get like my wife can get a H4 as an EAD where she can work but it's their choice whether to work or not but the kids cannot get any EAD to work something so on these matters we really require some

support from the school board now this is a major problem for most of our immigrants or non-immigrants actually H1B is called as a non-immigrant Visa the thing is right we are working here with high skills working for bigger as doctors as well as some Techni technical um Engineers I work for the Qualcomm in the GPU team so we worked a lot we abide

by the rules and regulations of this country and we pay taxes every rule we are legally staying here so we need some support from the board as well as from the community and also there are some other instruments I don't want to raise them but thing is right we need support from the community as well along with

the board thank you so much thank you Karen followed by EML baram hello everyone my name is Kiran Cho and I work for the healthcare industry supporting uh all the Americans uh with my work so again here's the issue like I'm also an immigrant on H1B visa and my daughter goes into the chaffel high school uh she's in the sophomore sophomore year

and uh today she did not came because she has a tennis match against the tvsd and she's like a number one seated in double so she could not make here the point here is to make is like the again after certain years she'll be out of the status and it would be a big trauma for her as a for her also and for as a

family also so she has to go back to India and then apply for the Visa so we need a help from like tvsd everyone and the community so you can help us you know to take this word to your next level and you can make an arrangement for the students so they can do the internship also and they can study here

and work here also and secondly like for them this is their home because they they have left the country when they were like babies or one or two years so everything they know about the American culture so everything they're here itself so again going back it would be uh trauma definitely mentally physically for her and then again there would be a

parent we will be working here maybe and my kid would be in India so that would be a thing disgusting thing for us like you know as a family so requesting you all of you to you know help us uh you know guide them and to make their future bright so that they can be a bright student here they can work here and

serve America better so that's the thing which I have to put to you thank you thank Vasquez good evening everybody um I have two scenarios tonight I'd like i' like you to keep them separate and then I'm going to conclude um it what I'm going to talk about doesn't really pertain to anything board policy wise this is more

really for you uh Dr Woods so as most of you know I'm a math teacher or I was um primarily but I also have a uh social science credential and one year uh the principal came to me and said you're going to teach government email one class and I thought okay how am I going to make this interesting

to kids with uh besides teaching out of the book so what I came up with was students are going to journal they're going to watch MSNBC they're going to watch a little bit of CNN and they're going to watch a little bit of Fox News and they're going to take all of those perspectives and come to class on Friday

and uh talk and debate so I thought to myself s even though these kids are 17 or 18 years old maybe some of their parents don't want them watching Rachel mattow or Sean Hannity so what I did was I put something out to the parents and said this is what I'm going to do if you have any objections let me know and we'll

figure something out so that's one scenario number two the pit in the pendulum and I agree with one of the speakers up here students should be exposed to rigorous texts the video that was put out I'm not sure what the teacher was thinking because this is hearsay but that teacher knew that those images were disturbing um and if she knew

that why didn't she why didn't she put something out beforehand so I guess what I want to say is and I have said this over and over and over again even back with the angels in America scenario why aren't we posting on canva before these lessons are taught it is not that difficult to do Post especially in

English why are you laughing what what's so funny about what I'm saying it's canvas not canvas okay canvas okay some some people say canva and some say canvas you you know the difference so what I'm saying is this is going to Foster student engagement parent engagement teacher engagement and it's going to uh prevent some of the things that have taken place um when

parents are upset by some of the things that are are being taught give parents the opportunity to know what's going to be taught before it happens not during and not after and we're going to save ourselves a lot of issues and a lot of problems here thank you thank you last Speaker John [Music] Vasquez good evening board

um we're subject to The Men Who rule over us but conditionally children should obey their parents but what if a bad parent tells a child to be a prostitute and killed the neighbor is a child supposed to obey that parent no child obeys parent as long as parents tell them to do something that is moral and just you obey the government as long

as Government tells you to do something that is moral and just that lines up with the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and I am here to ask you to not comply with AB 1955 um so remember the pledge of allegiance that we participated in at the beginning of the meeting I'm going to read from the Declaration P when

in when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the Earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature is God entitled them a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they

should declare the causes which impel them to the separation we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed with their creator with certain un by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness that is to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just

powers from the consent of the Govern that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to Institute new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its power in such form as to them shall seem most like to affect their safety and

happiness providing age inappropriate materials in classroom and Library accepting and promoting mental health issues of gender identity keeping information from parents Etc we are not a monarchy a monarchy but a republic as we pledge to it is time for me to stand for my daughter nieces fellow citizens in the country and people I love when did we abandon reason for

madness to me please stand up for life liberty and justice the times call for it from what I understand also parents should know the things that are going on with the schools I hear and I'm going to check this out because I'm not a public speaker I don't really come here but I'm I'm bound to come here I'm

called to come here I hear there's Cat boxes now in restrooms TOA maybe in maretta I'm going to check into that but bottom line is I I think we should not complain comply with things that aren't moral and just and right and parents should be uh informed of what's going on here at the schools thank you thank

you all right we'll be moving on to the consent calendar and I know there are several people here to speak all matters listed on the consent calendar are considered routine and all will be enacted with one vote there is no discussion of consent calendar items unless members of the governing board or staff requests that specific items be

removed from the consent calendar for separate action before we discuss we do have three people here to present three people welcome Jean femia followed by Christine MSA good evening trustees Dr Woods everyone I'm concerned about this contract renewal with attorneys Epstein Becker and green the contract was signed in early 2023 by the previous board majority which felt that the five or six

attorney firms already under District contract were insufficient to provide them with legal advice boards change attorneys from time to time so that in itself is not surprising what is surprising are two things the cost of the main attorney and who the client is under this contract Mr brener the primary attorney charges what is described as a discounted rate of $620

per hour at the time the contract was signed the other District's attorneys charged about $350 to $400 an hour so this substantially higher hourly rate was surprising the second surprising thing is that the contract specifies the client as the school board not the school district but the school board it even says that its representation of the board may be

adverse to the board's quote affiliate that is the school district or any other entity or person the contract therefore puts the board in an adversarial relationship with the school district so let's be clear what that means it means that the board majority which took office in December 2022 had already decided by January less than a month later that the school district was

their adversary essentially their enemy and they hired an attorney to represent them against the district I ask you is that what we want do we want Schoolboard trustees who won't even try to work together with our District staff but consider them enemies we saw the result of that attitude over the last 2 years contempt for for our teachers and their expertise

firing an excellent superintendent without cause passing policies that either were not needed or were against state law and provoking lawsuits for its cost and especially for its pitting the board against the district I urge you not to renew this contract thank you thank you Christine Masa followed by upnet well like a very eloquent Gene femia I am also here to discuss item 22

the Epstein Becker and green contract and as you know clearly they were brought on more than a year ago as a special purpose Law Firm that deals primarily in employment law at the time and likely still now they're the single most expensive Law Firm that the district has and to date the public has seen no accretive value brought by this

firm other than them seeming to be Jen's personal lawyers when she's not getting her way or needing to quote seemingly irrelevant case law in one of her videos and although we don't see any Billings from this firm in 2425 we know they are pending as Mr brener has been present for at least three meetings that I've also been

at given the expenditures for the last two years and their bill rate they are effectively providing the least amount of work for the highest cost and that's not the best use of my taxpayer money given the cost of this firm and they're not providing commensurate value for the exorbitant cost I urge you to vote down the motion to renew their

contract and if you do choose to move forward with the contract I would request that you amend the motion to completely renegotiate the contract to reduce the bill rate as well as have only virtual participation to reduce travel time thank you thank you last speaker up Nate good evening I do not have a prepared speech I was too busy

fighting misinformation on social media this afternoon but I would suggest you do not renew the contract po Mr brener comes here says something and you totally ignore whatever he says it's happened during the curriculum he tells you the law which I already told you most of the stuff if you think it's not right it's probably not you don't need a lawyer to

tell you that if it is the law the lawyer is exactly going to tell you the same thing that it is the law so I would uh say please do not renew this contract spending so much money on just like getting somebody to tell us exactly what we know already and not listen to that person anyways is a complete waste of

taxpayer money thank you thank [Applause] you all right at this time we're going to go ahead and vote on the consent items that were not pulled so that will be number three through number 21 and actually for two the Personnel that does include B through D if I'm remembering correctly so 3 through 21 and then number two B through

D can do I have a motion on the floor you just a quick question can we pull it like that or do we just need to look at it in total do you do you know Dr Woods the Personnel well I'm assuming what's coming next are the items that are pulled so she's covering everything in between those items that

are yes so um correct 2 a and 22 that is correct right everything to approve those items okay so moved by Mr Schwarz I'll go ahead and second that is there any conversation no okay we're good Len if you could call roll barklay yes Schwarz yes WMA yes so that motion is adopted 30-0 now we will go on to

speaking about the pulled items let's go to item number one first which I personally pulled um I'm going to pull the governing board of minutes from August 27th uh they don't accurately reflect exactly what happened at the end of the meeting I know so many times with tracking the minutes we've got platforms and AI skills that put that together so

um we need to comb back through that and Dr Woods you and I can work on that and then we will bring it back to the table in October so that is item number one are you asking to table it the next meeting yes number one one I'm asking to table so we can work on that bring it

back okay okay moving on to item number two we yeah we can go ahead and take a vote so all in favor say I I think we need to move and seconded yeah of what's the motion the motion is to table item one to the next meeting yes second I would move that you move okay moved by Mr

Schwarz I'll second seconded by Mrs barklay all right let's go through roll call Len barklay yes Schwarz yes we yes motion adopted 30 all right moving on to number two this was the Personnel items listing section A I will say we had a great conversation earlier it was pretty extensive a lot of questions were asked uh I appreciated the time that was put

in for that so without going into further details we've lost life all right there we go okay so having said that um we had an excellent chance today to talk through some things so with this we are settled now do I have a motion to go ahead and pass section A on number two the personel listing moved moved by Mr

Schwarz second seconded by Mrs barklay Len would you please call roll barklay yes Schwarz yes WMA yes all right motion passes 30 on to number 22 the renewal of Epstein Becker and green agreement we have discussion yes so I had asked for this agenda item to come back and um there was a reason that it was on consent I

know you brought that up Mr Schwarz I did ask um Mrs lash about this item because all of the other contracts for attorneys were brought back at the same time all contracts are generally reviewed annually um and they're brought to con on consent so that was um the legal opinion that any contract we brought back should be done in the same

manner because that's been the practice of the district that's how we we handle um contract renewals and the reason that this would need to be renewed is because it's it's listed as temporary um and when there is no end date the legal definition of temporary is 12 months so um I did discuss that with Mrs lash I

got some legal counsel on that and um that's where we are it needs to be back um and needs to be reapproved Mr Schwarz do you have anything to add no okay so this particular contract is not up for Renewal or approval and therefore it doesn't have validity as an agendized item uh here's an example for us all if

you get married you make that decision there's the contract 20 years later you might go ahead and decide to renew your vows which is wonderful it's ceremonial doesn't change the fact of the contract or the marriage so with this right here it's important to understand that this contract was written differently uh it is internal lawfare at this point

to go ahead and move forward with spending the time on this the ethical choice in my feel in my estimation is really to be sure that we have a board fully constituted and seated before we make decisions with legal counsel but again this particular contract is different it's not up for approval it's not up for acceptance that decision has been made

so this is not valid it's not an agendized item and it's really not worth spending any more time on uh excuse me it's on the agenda so it is an agendized item and I move that we vote on it so I move that we vote on this renewal I would second that we have a we have a written legal opinion saying it

is a valid agendized item and I know we all three received that um and so it needs to be voted on and it's not the same as a marriage because last time I checked my marriage contract didn't use the word temporary um this is maybe that's a good thing maybe my husband would argue that but 32 years

later this was agendized it wasn't actionable based on the definition of the contract and How It Was Written it can only be terminated those are the only parameters that are valid and so what I'm going to do right now is call Mr brener up he is here Mr brener I am giving you the floor to discuss it that's not allowable

because I do have the ability to do that so and and I think Dr Woods can speak to this we did consult with legal please jump in here it's a conflict he's not on the agenda we haven't allowed any other exactly enti to make comments during contract correct we don't allow public com individuals to come and talk about

their contracts and it's a conflict interest and it is a conflict of interest excuse me I just finish I already moved and seconded the motion so lene it's up to you to call the role please this isn't actionable it's not renewable by virtue of the contract Mr brener as the presiding officer I would like you to comment on this it is

important that we're doing this lawfully and correctly it is important that we do it lawfully and correctly and it's it is not lawful to have something that is not on the agenda someone speak to that he is allowed to speak in public comment we also confirmed this with legal counsel we have never allowed someone whose contract is on the agenda to speak to it

unless it is unless that is agendized and it is not in this case Mr brener is it your understanding that this is not leg to have you go ahead and speak to anend that he would give legal counsel on this presiding officer has recognized me to speak the presiding officer has recognized him to speak and let me go

head and give just a little bit of background Mr Brunner if you don't mind so I want to give a brief summary because there was I'm sorry excuse me I have an additional no a point of order Jen this is the second time we have a parliamentary issue which you refuse to accept the the motion was made and

seconded it's time for a vote you could talk all you want but that's irrelevant it's time for the vote I mov the question and Allison seconded it so either we're going to run by parliamentary procedure or we're not you can't keep changing the rules because you don't like what's going on so lene would you please call Ro we are not

going to call the RO at this point is not actionable because it was defined differently than how the contract reads so as the presiding officer I'm going to go ahead you may excuse yourself do Mr Bruner I'm going to go ahead and have you address us please this information do you have someone who does not have a

conflict of interest with this contract to speak to it do you have another attorney who can weigh in this is clearly a conflict of interest if Mr brener is speaking about the renewal of his own contract if you have another legal opinion Bring It Forward is the one who wrote the contract you don't decide the parameters of how his contract reads or how it

doesn't corre Mr brener please speak and take the floor but this actionable item it's a conflict of interest for him to speak just a little bit just a little bit everybody relax the the presiding officer can recognize some thank you Mr solo a speaker itself doesn't have to be agendized you can recognize someone to speak and address an agendized item um

we should try to reduce the amount of attempts to silence people to speak especially ones that the presiding officer has recognized I would also just simply I would Mr could you speak just a little bit louder I I would simply suggest as as well that calls for the vote calling the question calling the previous question not be used to attempt to stop

and silence other trustees from speaking on any agendized item as stated very clearly in your governing handbook all trustees should have the opportunity to speak and present and discuss whether emotion's pending or not when an agendized item is is on on topic which which this one is I don't have a conflict with my contract um my contract

was not exclusively written by me it was negotiated with this board and with staff Superintendent mlay at the time and changes were made to the language the contract is not temporary the legal services engaged under it are temporary and special and the contract and engagement is ongoing it doesn't have any expiration it doesn't terminate in 12 months

it isn't subject to Renewal as the contract that the board agreed to and approved expressly states it is terminable at any time by the board that is the only legitimate action the board can take with regard to this contract which it can do at any time there's no effect to a renewal certainly you can renew it if you want but that isn't

necessary the contract is ongoing until ter at that's what the contract says and that's how it operates that is what's Happening Here let me address one other point that was made earlier the idea that there's a conflict between the board and the district that is simply not the case the board is the governing board of the district it is essentially legally the

district itself my client is the board that is the district I'm available to the board I'm available to superintendent Woods I'm available to any of the staff that superintendent Woods authorizes to consult with me just as any of the other boards counsel is I'm available to help the board I've offered to consult with at any time take

a call at any time from trustee Schwarz truste Barkley truste WMA all I'm here to do is to help advise the board on legal matters that it wishes to consult me on again at any time the board can can can terminate my contract it can do that um arguably whenever that is agendized that hasn't been agendized yet

so I wouldn't suggest you could do that now you could agree amongst the three of you to amend the motion uh that was agendized to terminate the contract and take that up that would be a legitimate action uh but renewal while you can certainly vote on that it has no legal effect uh or impact whatsoever because the contract doesn't expire it doesn't

require renewal uh so that's what I have to say on that I'm happy to answer any questions and um address any other issues Miss Miss WMA can miss lash add any comments based on her research on this contract would this be better spent during the legal informational item no I think it addresses this contract specific informational item is

not mine so that's I'm not I wasn't planning on presenting on that item um I think it might be helpful I I think where there's some confusion Len do you mind pulling up the contract and so when Mrs barlay called and asked about this specific engagement um if you'll go to the section that says I believe it's

scopa right there services to be provided so the agreed upon motion and board approved contract clearly states as noted we are being retained as temporary and special counsel and we will not be serving in a general Council role you may limit or expand the scope of our representation at any time provided that it is by Mutual consent

and agreed upon in writing so what council we've received is that there is a term and the term is temporary so um just because it doesn't have an expiration date doesn't mean there is no term it means that the term is temporary and so just like we agendized every other attorney firm we should have agendized Mr brener for the same term we

renew them annually that way we're not committing future board members potentially to and again yes you could take action to terminate a contract while it is active but based on this and the motion and action that the board took in January of 2020 23 we believe that the contract is expired and I would uh I appreciate those comments in

perspective and it helps to understand where this is coming from although I I do think the true motive here is to Simply deny my ability to provide advice to the to the board and to provide councel I mean that's basically what's going on there is no reasonable reading in my view that there is a term other than the engagement is ongoing and

open-ended temporary refers to the nature of legal services in particular so does being retained as special counsel saying that the term is over now or that there is a term or that the term is 12 months as trustee Barkley said earlier that's obviously imported and being made up uh the contract does not contain a an expiration it is ongoing

until terminated that's why it's that if you're going to interpret temporary to mean uh something temporal in terms of scope that is what what makes it temporary the board can terminated at any time if the board wanted a temporary Arrangement that was fixed for a duration of time we certainly could have put that in the agreement that's what

the board could have done that's not what our understanding was when we were retained that's not our understanding of this agreement and I don't think legally that would hold up candidly I think that's being imported now for the device of essentially getting rid of Epstein Becker green the board can do that at any time all it has to do is agendize

the termination of this agreement but I think it's a stretch to put it mildly legally speaking to say that this is an agreement that has a fixed or endpoint duration or a limited duration in time it's ongoing until the board terminates it which it can do at any time and as uh as Miss lash knows and the board knows

that's on the next page of the agreement explicitly that's right the other thing I want to point out just for the public to be transparent is a brief summary of why we brought you here so in 2022 the conservative majority had a crisis of confidence with Todd Atkinson of a alrr uh there were some issues that went

on Mr brener was brought on to provide objective and constitutional expertise outside of the educational establishment for the entirety of the board so he was brought to the Forefront of the discussion then he has not uh with me we have not had a lot of discussions in the last six to 10 months however in June when all of the attorneys and firms were

presented Mr Huff was actually extinguished the two of you chose to vote him out he was actually the board uh attorney counsel for the superintendent his contract was extinguished actually much to his surprise and when I spoke to Mr Fagan the other night who was now conferring with Gary Woods he was shocked as well that we let go of Mr Huff who is half

the price he does work within education and as a result of that being taken away when I had Full Faith and confidence with Mr Hoff I was left returning to Mr brener with some very important questions that needed to be answered though he is more expensive his advocacy for this board and that's the entire board not just me is not his bread and

butter he is not beholden to the administrative state or education so when he comes in he has that very constitutional unbiased perspective that cuts through things very effectively and so I have full faith and confidence in him considering what has gone down in the boardroom these last couple of meetings it was very important for me to be sure that we effectively worked

through through this addressed exactly what the contract says and doesn't say and it does not expire it is not up for Renewal this right here is in my justification and perspective political theater for people to continue to run a narrative in an election cycle so at this point it's been a waste of time I actually asked Dr Woods to pull it

knowing it wasn't valid and at this point this is where we sit so having said that uh Mr brener we can move on with the vote but as you've mentioned anything that we vote on tonight unless it's a a determination which wasn't agendized it does not change the nature of your contract correct I certainly agree with that I don't think a a uh essentially a

ceremonial vote on renewal would have any legal impact it certainly wouldn't terminate our engagement and the board and the superintendent would still be authorized under the board's bylaws to consult with me under our engagement those are the terms of the engagement and with the board president which is you as acting president and presiding officer or the superintendent's

Authority any other individual trustee could reach out to me for legal consultation as well so you can certainly take the vote I do think uh that the vote on on what I think is a superficial uh essentially advisor act not an actual real action item legally speaking does need to be taken because a motion has been made and

seconded on this agendized item I just don't think it has any effect and as I mentioned you could I believe agree uh all three of you if you do to amend the motion to terminate the contract and vote on that that vote if it was approved would be legally effective and would terminate our agreement and engagement as of the moment of the vote

so that could be done that item could also be brought back uh on as an agendized item of course at any future meeting that the board wishes and of course in the board's con current configuration when making a decision as significant as terminating the services and availability of legal council it might be prudent and better advised to

do that when you're a fully constituted five member board but that's just my personal persp that be an ethical decision to make in terms of the fact that we will go through an election we will have a fully come the discussion that we're getting into his opinion now on his own contract which once again is completely a conflict so I think you you

could probably have a seat now Mr brener um I just want to address a couple of items that we've had that you've brought up here first of all um just as you had issues trust issues with ainson Anderson um I had those the same issues as well with Huff I was not aware that contract was even going to be on the agenda until

I got it on Friday so it um it was important to me that we moved on from him and I don't have a problem with that we have six other firms six other firms we have contracts with he told me you gave him a hug at csba he was actually shocked Huff Huff oh yeah no I like him

as a human I I like almost everyone as a human pretty much everyone but you know I disagreed with him on quite a few things and was disappointed on on some of the advice he gave so but that doesn't make me not like him as a human um but back to what we're discussing here is that we have six other law firms

with dozens of of attorneys there and all of their fees start with a three not a six and so I don't understand why it would be necessary to keep someone with a temporary contract as explained by Mrs lash and confirmed by legal councel that is not this person who's up for up for um renewal they have confirmed this is a

valid action that this is a temporary contract and on top of that you have been using him as general counsel you just said that in your comments that is in the contract he is not to be used as general counsel right there I've also as as let me finish right here as well as Mr Brer himself introduced himself as

general counsel which is also a violation of his contract so I think we need to vote on this contract as presented as is legally the responsible thing to do the fiduciary we have fiduciary responsibility in this district and why are we spending $600 on an attorney when we have six other firms with dozens of attorneys you could speak with any one of them any one

of them can give you a perspective and that is just fine but right now we have a motion on the floor and we need to vote and in in addition just to just to address the point about um not closing off discussion I think everyone's forgetting that that motion was originally used on me exactly by the former board majority

to shut me up in a discussion so I just find it ironic and disingenuous when now table turned you know I guess that was our practice then not our practice now that we could End discussion whenever someone felt like it when I didn't get a word in edgewise on actually a super Shady contract and nobody cared what I

had to say then so I went back and watched that special meeting I actually didn't have a commentary as well Steve Schwarz read a statement for about four minutes that explained his Viewpoint and you two have voted in tandem for nearly everything that was a different kind of meeting where discussion was had now would I have pres as president done the

same thing I I don't know I'm not going to speak to that that wasn't my decision but the dissenting view point was represented for almost four minutes it was not Apples to Apples it was because Joe knew the information that I was going to share and he did not want it shared you you could go back Dr Koski is

no longer here well I'm need to continue to debate that that's just a fact of the matter that is a where it goes from here but at this point the only actionable way do this is if excuse me please the only actionable way to do this is if it's amended and this is a vote to terminate the contract otherwise there

is no movement with this yes go Mr to take the uh Dr Woods can I uh refer to you and you investigated this issue can you tell us what our legal counsel our legal councel General legal counsel told us about this whether or not this um motion was valid or invalid he said it met all the legal requirements what's

important is you have to conduct the business in the public obviously I can advise you that any decision you make tonight may be challenged for sure that's fine no problem well and there won't be a decision unless it's actually amended and the motion comes in terms of the parameters of the contract so Mr brener even just said that we had to

vote on it he just said that that's right I'm not denying that so if you vote to renew it will we can go that direction it's not valid if we want to vote to terminate and one of you wants to amend that we can do it that way that's your opinion that it's not valid I have legal opinion that it is valid so

I guess they'll decide it we can only do what we believe is right and I believe this is right you believe that's right so fine take the vote and then we'll let the legal exactly people work it out yep Mr Bruner do you have any comment in terms I would like to bring you back one more time again he's here and we're

paying for him so we might as well hear from him what does that look like behind the scen I don't I don't as I've said I do not think that that a vote to renew a contract that doesn't require need or necessitate renewal would have any legal effect the contract and my engagement by the board remains in

place until the board terminates the contract which it can do at any time under the explicit terms of the contract it's noteworthy that a motion to renew was agendized rather than a motion to terminate in light of the express uh uh language of the agreement that the board approved uh by by vote um superintendent Woods uh is correct and

careful to say that he was advised that the agendized item met all legal requirements that's to agendize it um whether there would be any legal effect of a renewal of a contract that doesn't require that is an entirely separate matter which superintendent Woods was correct not to get into I've already spoken to that I have never ever

introduced myself as the general counsel to the board I have always provided special councel to the board as it's been requested and in terms of my fees and my rate it's again a little bit of um language play I would suggest and only ref ing to the rate I am quite independent I am much more independent that your other law firms who rely

almost exclusively as a firm or in their practice teams on District work they're very that tends to all lawyers have a duty of advocacy and ethical responsibilities but when lawyers doctors any other profession is beholden to a specific set of clients or a specific industry it can impact the relationship this is extremely inapo that why retain contract

I'm being interrup it's extrem he just did he's selling himself to this board it's extremely inappropriate and AUP finish oh my gosh take the vote Jen the rate is what is what constantly is referred to um my rate is significantly discounted as noted but right here on this board's agenda you have a a summary synopsis in the board materials that anyone can look

at online on the agenda of the legal fees you have paid to your law firms over the last several years all the way back to 20192020 you have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars not just to one Law Firm but to at least two or three every one of those years not for the bo for me you have paid $20,000

30,000 last year that's um that's really where this is at that's why I am special counsel I am not general counsel believe me if I was there'd be a lot more on those ledgers and I'm still general counsel or not General Council but special councel until you terminate the contract and you know if board members want the contract terminated if you want

to extinguish my services agendize that have the vote in the discussion and do it as often as you would like with all due respect and and I appreciate your sharing what you did with us uh according to our superintendent and according to what you said we could take the vote it might not have legal effect but since the item is agendized it's

been moved and seconded we're going to take a vote and if it finds that it has no legal effect then that be the case and if it does then that be the case but I think we want to move on and I appreciate appreciate your comments all due respect to you and your education but we're going to move on and take the

vote right now thank you C I certainly agree that the motion is pending and when you're ready the vote should be taken Mr Brer thank you for your clarification and just for the record I want to State ethically what would behoove us all is to allow a newly constituted board to be seated for discussions like this so let's move on

and go through the motions remind me who moved it I did okay so this was moved by me and Mr Schwarz it was seconded by Mrs barklay L would you please call the role barklay no shorts we're not because the motion is to renew the contract correct I am voting no where's M I am an abstain this is not

actionable the motion on the floor fails you can't abstain have to vot one way or the other the reasons for exion turn your microphone on Steve interest cont invol Mr brener back back please to the floor what I read is an abstention is actually a no could you clarify uh generally an abstention should be reserved for conflicts uh interested

board member issues and the like uh abstentions are not fa favored but uh an exstension from a point of conscience uh conscience uh certainly can be done you have the right to abstain no one can force you to vote or Force you not to abstain great thank you for the clarification I will continue abstaining the motion remains on the floor I guess

unanswered at this point there is no majority on this particular item so the motion does not carry just for clarification so the contract is not renewed the motion is not actionable in that term it is not up for any more discussion at this point is there anything further Mr Brer we need to add to the conversation we're good all right

let's go ahead and move on moving on we're going to move on we're going to move on all right we're going to go to action items I believe we have public comment have okay so we have one for number one the public hearing come on down ml baram okay so I guess he is not here not outside not here okay

I call for a motion and a second to conduct a public hearing regarding resolution number 2024-25 sl15 and certification of sufficiency of textbooks and instructional materials compliance for fiscal year 2024 2025 do I have a motion moved moved by Mr Schwarz I will go ahead and second it Len would you please call roll barklay yes Schwarz yes

WMA yes motion adopted 30 we will now move on to conduct the public hearing too late oh he's here is it too late okay we've moved on to the public hearing so I'm sorry we called for you yes can speak perfect you're going to comment during the public hearing don't go anywhere we don't usually have someone comment during this but thank

you for clarification all right that's heing Works yes all right could I could I have some silence please thank you this is the time and place designated for the public hearing to review and consider resolution number 2024-25 sl15 and certification of sufficiency of textbooks and instructional materials compliance for fiscal year 2024 2025 I declare the hearing now open at

710 p.m. staff is there any discussion needed all right is there anyone who wishes to comment on resolution number 2024 sl25 sl15 and certific ation of sufficiency of textbooks and instructional materials compliance for fiscal year 2024-25 a total of 30 minutes is provided so members of the public can address the board speakers are limited to 3 minutes all right if so please state

your name prior to making your comments okay we have one so we have one I'm sorry sorry for the angst I thought you wanted to speak prior so come on down we welcome you thank you for being here sorry about that um Emil baram here um I'm glad that we uh we've gone through the legal process here and that

we have sufficiency um as opposed to last year when we had some difficulty um Mrs barklay you may censor me I cannot believe what you did to me as a community member okay laughing and collaborating with the audience that just goes to show that you don't value Community by laughing at somebody who's up trying to be solution oriented Mr

baram I know goodbye you need to discuss the item see you later thank you okay can I just ask Dr valz uh you're you're the one who put the motion is everything okay we have what we need yes thank you Mr Schwarz we have everything we need um and we are required by Edco to have this actually approved by the board I know

thank you all right so I'm assuming there are no more comments if there are no more comments I will declare that this public hearing is closed public hearing end time 7:12 thank you Mr Schwarz you're welcome okay moving on to number two resolution number 2024-25 sl15 and certification of sufficiency of textbooks and instructional materials compliance for the fiscal year 2024

2025 I call for a motion in a second to adopt resolution number 2024-25 for15 and certification of sufficiency of textbooks and instructional materials compliance fiscal year 2024 d225 moved moved by Mr Schwarz second seconded by Mrs barklay Len please call roll barklay yes Schwarz yes where's M yes motion adopted 30 thank you Len all right so we're moving on number

three the board assignment for the 2024 d225 school year I call for a motion and second to approve this board assignment for the 2024 d225 school year I will move I'll second it I just want to check with Mr RS say who put it on the agenda that everything is up to date yeah these are all in accordance with Ed code and

CTC that allows these board authorization so good recommendation is approved second all right any other conversation questions we're good all right Len would you please call roll barklay yes Schwarz yes where isma yes motion adopted 30 thank you Len all right next we're moving on to the resolution 2024-25 sl16 the proclamation of national immigrants day I call for a motion and a second to

adopt resolution 20 24-25 sl16 the proclamation National immigrants day did we we had a comment so we have two speakers so before we vote let's go ahead and have our speakers come forward thank you for being here first up is Christine Masa followed by upate hello again board and staff um I'm here to support the resolution to

recognize National immigrants day I mean obviously if you're not indigenous you're either the descendant of an immigrant or you're an immigrant and I'm a second generation American myself my uh grandparents all came over from Italy my father even has uh his father's papers from Ellis Island something we're proud of and I know my uh mother-in-law has all their family documents framed

it's really heartwarming to see whenever you go to her house um my heart was breaking when I heard the speakers in public comment um I'm a recruiter work in HR I see Visa issues all the time with people who just want to come here and contribute right there's so many fallacies about immigrants people who say they're here to freeload or they're

here to commit crime I don't know any immigrants who are here to do any of those things they just want to come here to have a better life to support their families Thea legal means that are instr mountable in our government today when people say our immigration system is broken it's not because of the number of people who want to enter our country or

at the border it's because we make it so darn hard for them to legally stay and contribute that's what we have to fix we need to recognize the contributions of our immigrant Community they're the reason our country is great all our cultural coming cultures coming together should be celebrated especially during Hispanic Heritage Month right while immigrants may be discussed in Social

States curriculum having the district recognize this holiday can perpetuate more opportunities to commemorate say language s PE right you name it please adopt the recognition of national immigrants day thank you thank you Mrs Masa upney so we heard quite a few people uh talk about their immigration my journey was quite different uh I came here because I got married and I had to go

through like a really long process even then to go through uh and get my Visa it's a year-long process everybody's favorite joke was just walk across the border nobody cares why do you have to wait for a year and so that process starts like a year before you're even uh this was I wasn't even married and then

you basically fill out a lot of paperwork you have to get a police report from get all your papers your degrees certificates whatever it is get everything in order prove that you're actually marrying for marrying not for immigration you have to give proof for that then you come you have one interview then you have another interview and uh so first you have an

interview in the country of residents then you have an interview two years after you're married where they'll go over are you still married and you're actually living together and uh then you get first you get your temporary green card then you get your permanent green card then after five years of being married then you can actually apply for

your citizenship the citizenship uh uh process process requires you to fill out there's a lot of paperworks and thousands of dollars just to go through that process just to become a citizen and uh it is a very uh so every immigrant I'm sure has a different background my grandmother was born in Uganda my husband's Grandparents were born in Burma it used to be all the

British Empire at that time so they were all over the place and my one of my grandfathers was a very smalltime farmer whose mother saw that the son has like you know a lot of potential and she should invest in education rather than she this lady worked day and night because the brothers are like oh why do

you want to educate he's going to move away and who's going to look after the buffalos and but she saw the potential he was the first person to be educated in the family and to just to honor his mother he did like you know uh push for education of girls because he said like you know when you educate uh a girl

you're basically educating the entire generation she will make sure that the entire generation gets educated so everybody's background is different like you know a lot of trauma the immigrants do come with a lot of trauma they some of them have escaped horrific circumstances and I hear a lot of like you know I'm really glad people talk talked about like you know how we should

honor immigrants and stuff but I see the same people come up here and like you know beat down on diversity like you know we shouldn't have diverse perspectives what is diversity it is a very simple thing my daughter started kindergarten and I went to volunteer in her class and I said oh you know Mrs Keller dolal is a very hard name to

pronounce they can call me Mrs D and she's like why they can say po Pokemon names just fine they can say your last name so that is all diversity is there is nothing Sinister going on anywhere and thank you for putting this on thank you all right before we go through the motions I know Mr Schwarz you brought

this to the table would you like to discuss I saw this uh someone sent it to me and I was surprised by who authored it originally uh not someone who I AG who I see as well never mind it's it's irrelevant uh we're all children of immigrants unless you're a Native American my uh grandfather on my father's side came here as a young man

my father and all his siblings were born here uh none of us know anything about Austria where he came from except I visited there and it's a beautiful country uh my mother and all her siblings came here from Poland to escape some of them never got out some of them wound up dying in the Holocaust and I

really think it's critical that we all recognize that 99% of us and it might even be a higher percentage are immigrants or children of immigrants and that we recognize the contributions of the different uh groups who have come here some of them were treated really poorly uh I know when the railroads were built across America the Chinese did a

tremendous amount of work and they were just treated absolutely horribly so it's really important to me that we recognize the contributions of all our ancestors and that we honor their culture their language and that we um commit to treating everyone the way we want to be treated and that to me is my tenant of Life The Golden Rule treat everyone the

way you want to be treated thank you barklay I just Echo what Mr Schwarz said I was really happy to see you put this on the agenda um I think that we can all do better um honoring our immigrants learning more um coming from a place of understanding and listening um I think is really key you know I

had um I was answering some questions this week and and someone asked you know what what do you do to represent the diverse populations of the district and I thought oh well you know for over 30 years that's been my life's work is working with people from all sorts of backgrounds and kids and families but then I really started thinking about

what do I do what what do I do what do we do as a district so I reached out to a couple of people from some different um communities and said what do you think what could I do better what could our district do better and they were so generous and gracious and got back to me and gave me a whole list of things I

could do better I'm like this is fantastic so I was reaching out to um to Dr valz today to get some more information I got some information about some community events coming up and you know this just kind of flowed right into into this um this resolution that I think you know even though we might think we're doing doing well

I'm sure we can all do better and this is a great reminder um you know to honor our immigrants and to really come from a place of understanding as has been said multiple times we're we're all immigrants unless you are indigenous and um so I think that this will this will serve as a great reminder and appreciate

you for putting on Mr Schwarz so the first thing I want to do is thank members of the Indian Community for being here tonight thank you you we welcome you and I think we grow more golden as a district as we reach out to different facets in the community we want to hear you we want to see you and

I know it can be intimidating to come in so thank you I really appreciate you being here perhaps there's more tvusd can do perhaps we can contact darl isa's office and see what we can do in terms of that so we'll be in touch but just know we value you being here in this country I think Mr Schwarz and Mrs

barklay are correct here in California we are so blessed to be in a Melting Pot we've got diversity in culture ethnicity tradition Faith it's one reason why food we've got it all here in California we're so fortunate and I love that my children have grown up with so many different friends from different communities as I delved into looking at this

resolution I did some study this weekend on um the founding fathers and immigrants and it's interesting I wanted to share this most of the founding fathers were of English ancestry they had family routes that extended through the British Isles including Scotland Wales and Ireland people who came to this country after the Declaration of Independence from England are considered immigrants

to the United States Europeans who lived prior to 1776 in the English colonies along the Atlantic coast that became the 13 original states are usually referred to as colonists what I loved to read is that the founding fathers definitely favored immigration they were hoping that the new country would serve as a place for refugees as well as it should seven of

the 39 signers of the Constitution were immigrants including Alexander Hamilton and James Wilson they were also colonists of England who came here to fight for natural rights and self-government promised to them when they set up colonies so as I read through this loved it I do have a couple things to consider that I would like to bring in addition

to what we have here um whereas our nation celebration of immigrants day is a moving reminder that that America is unique among the Nations we are the sons and daughters of every land across the face of the Earth yet we are an indivisible nation and I would like to add as our pledge Echoes under God one nation under God indivisible with

liberty and justice for all it's a phrase that we start every meeting with and I think that's important so that's one for you to think about and then skipping down a couple paragraphs whereas immigrants have always brought great gifts to their new home on these Shores the gifts of heartiness and heart of intellect and hope over two years ago

I would like to put immigrants and colonists were among the framers of the Constitution for these United States I feel like as you look at history in being inclusive and representing the fact of all that we are as Americans today that's something that stood out to me as well so those are my two proposals for consideration um what say

you yeah that's fine okay so we are an indivisible nation under God We'll add that um Allison Mrs barklay anything you'd like to add my main hesitation with the word word colonist is that it's just come to have a different meaning and I don't know if that is really what we want to have added um you know when you Google

it and I I hear what you're saying Jen you know like the original meaning and and that we use that term you know when we're talking about us history but I think it's come to mean something different when you Google it does say um colonis is the exploitation of people and resources by a foreign group so I

don't know that um adding that term even though I understand from an educational standpoint what you're saying I feel like it just it might have a negative connotation just because the way that that it's currently looked at and it's unfortunate that connotation actually comes from tenants of critical race Theory the oligarchy the patriarchy the colonist they've actually hijack those

terms and it's unfortunate because colonists did represent those very people that we mentioned they came from English colonies they became the 13 original states that's technically and educationally who they were and it's too bad that today we've decided to take that smear it and make it something that it's not and honestly I hope that we all can look at this and

recognize all the groups of people and that was my hope tonight so I don't know Mr Schwarz if you want to comment on that I'm not going to hold it up because I don't feel like arguing this point is I wouldn't I mean personally I wouldn't take it that far I don't think that term has anything to do whatsoever with CRT I

think terms change over time what we might have said K as kids have a different meaning now and that's just kind of overtime words words change swear swear words you said mean something that doesn't mean I'm sorry could we change it from colonists to settlers that's a good question how about Founders or settlers where can I ask can I ask Steve um was

this um where the resolution originally came from what like where you found this the wording of uh it was originally posted by the governor of California who decided that we should celebrate immigrants so I just copied it from that that Governor's uh Governor NS no Governor Reagan governor Reagan okay just I didn't want to go there I didn't

want to go there Buton excuse me go ahead you see I didn't want to go there and I purposely didn't mention the person's name but you decided to turn it into a political thing and it's not a political thing it's just an honest question thing no I know that's great it was just an hon I don't want any changes

I wanted its original form so either we vote for it or against it in its original form I don't want any changes just just to clarify so we've landed now at a place of frustration and not wanting to put under God and neither do we want to be inclusive and put immigrants and col I'm not frustrated at

all I know exactly what I wrote I'm not frustrated but you're resending the under God aspect we didn't vote to put them in you suggested that we put them in and I I don't agree with that I want it just the way I wrote it so we could vote for or did the way I copied it from

Governor Reagan I put it on the agenda because he originated this originated yes were these his words or was it an ad adaptation no I think this he said this is the original one that was used I sent it to lenee and those are the original words correct lene that's correct the only thing that was changed is like the

137th anniversary instead of the one you sent said like 101st or something thank you well thank you for sharing about the fact that this did originate with Reagan he had quite the faith and actually in working with the Pope helped down bring down communism so I appreciate you sharing that and if you don't want to collaborate on that that's okay let's go

ahead and um move to make the motion would you like to move moved all right moved by Mr Schwarz second seconded by Mrs barklay and Len would you please call roll barklay yes Schwarz yes we Ma and I will say yes to this it's more important to me that you know as our Melting Pot we appreciate everything that you are I

appreciate this country all that we add together so thank you the motion is adopted [Applause] 30-0 all right so now we are going to move into the next section information and Report s and on the docket we have that very simple topic of legal expenditures five speakers so thank you for being here we're g to go ahead and

get started with that first first up is Jean femia followed by Christine Masa hello again I didn't talk at all at the last meeting so you know I'm making up for lost time you've all had a chance to review the legal expenditure tables attached to this information item and they show a progression of increasing expenses that I find a little concerning the items I'm

especially interested in are the legal expenses incurred by the board and the superintendent these are legal fees not for facilities or safety not for human resources or negotiations not for parents who are seeking the best for their special ed students these are are just for the school board and the superintendent so for the school Year's fall of 2019 to Summer of 2022 the

percentage of board and superintendent legal fees ran 5 to 9% of the total legal expenses in the 2022 to 23 year that percentage jumped to 14% And in 2023 24 it was 27 % of all legal fees that is a huge change and I can't help but think that the previous board majority's view of District staff as

adversaries fueled that change not a single student benefited from these expenses I urge the current trustees and everyone who is running for Schoolboard to commit to reducing legal expenses starting now we have too many important things to do to waste money on attorneys thank you thank you Jean Christine Masa followed by David Sola hello again want to start by saying

Mrs lash you're a boss all the information that you've added on the contracts and and the Gathering of the legal expenditures and it was fascinating to look at the five-year view I like data so like the eloquent Mrs beia I did some analysis um obviously since the new board took power the expenses grew first year by nearly $100,000 then ballooned

by almost $500,000 the First full year of the new board and when you look at one Lem in particular and you know of note Mr brener Compares fees you have to look at the individual line items not how much you're spending with a special purpose law fir that we use for other things the total of expenses spent on

board items went from zero the beginning of analysis to 45,000 which is you know covid time so you imagine there's some unique circumstances there and when it went back down the next year to about $35,000 and then the year the new board takes over so they're for about a half a year it goes back up to 40K and then the full year of the

conservative board majority it balloons to $150,000 it's more than a 300% increase since covid just for board items and more than the last prior four years combined why why do that happen and that doesn't even include whatever billing we've acred with Advocates of faith and freedom which we now know because of the earlier public comment is upwards of

$160,000 so now we have more than 300,000 in legal costs the last full year of the conservative board majority a 600% increase and it must stop like why is Mr brener still here is he billing us for these hours I wish he had more of a social life had a birthday party to go to like the other

lawyer so this is exorbitant I'm working on trying to get $112,000 in funding for coaches at three high schools and our teams can't afford buses and we're paying lawyers all this money please stop the wasteful spending you don't have to consult lawyers the most expensive lawyers for everything Jen you have a very knowledgeable staff you can advise you with the years of

experience they have that you don't thank you thank you Mrs MSA David Sola Follow by you I can wait that's fine I've I don't charge $650 an hour so I am going to take a 5minute recess just so thank you thank you I'll be right return all right o I know that was a long break but it's not even 8:00 yet so

no don't be sorry we all needed our break all right we're gonna start in one minute so grab your seat and we'll get back to it with Mr Sola in just a minute you got a minute one minute all right welcome back Mr Sola come on up I'm sorry for leaving earlier just want to apologize no worries at all no worries

thank you thank you board members distinguished staff uh like I said I don't charge $650 an hour so just like all the people that are still here I'm here because I care and I don't know how many of you on the board or um I know that Mrs lash has some some kids in the district but uh I don't know how many of

you have kids or neighbors that have kids or grandkids in our in our schools but as a parent with children on cheer teams the school band and what seem to be a never- ending amount of other activities requiring fundraising I come to you with a legitimate concern as any parent in the district can attest to fundraising is the only

way these programs succeed and yet as I find myself volunteering for another fundraiser for another activity I can't help but wonder why we can't fund these programs better in our schools it's not just that though because I truly have no problem giving my time to my children and their friends so that they can enjoy every second of their childhood in these

programs what I don't understand is how the parents bear the burden of that fundraising and yet this board spent five times the amount of money on legal fees than it had in previous years so let me understand something we don't have money to fund our programs that allow our kids to be kids but we do have money to take our Crusades to the

state to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars it's rhetorical of course your focus is on your own agenda and not on the kids of course why should the previous board majority care about our kids when their previous board president wouldn't even enroll his own child in our district even while holding that same gavel that you bang so

violently even while making those decisions in a vacuum so I'm sure as much as it pains you to hear me say these words let's stop the performance stop trying to scare people and let's put our money where it should be with our children and not with some Law Firm that happens to completely agree with how one of you

think thank you upate followed by Steve Campos so people seem to think that I'm in love with my voice I'm not public speaking is not my favorite thing to do I did it a lot at school and I kind of like you know personal tragedy I kind of lived as a recluse for almost 20 years and this

is not the most fun activity to do but fundraising I'm going to come back to the same thing if you remember the first time I ever came up here was because of Transportation our current band ask initially it was $400 $500 everybody talks about inflation everything is getting expensive and uh the current ask is $800 per parent we talk about like

you know how great our schools are but a lot of the programs are supported by parents and fundraising and that is what that is what actually makes a district great involved parents and a lot of us spend a lot of time volunteer our time funds etc etc and then when money is wasted because everybody keeps telling me oh

you cost a district $75,000 I was like I never imagined somebody would go to go to court over stupid red cards I never ever imagined somebody would be that egoistic and stubborn and I never thought I would see the person signed a letter in October but continued with his own behavior so leaving no choice but to go to court and things like this I sat

in on a public hearing for a perb complaint changing contracts unilaterally everybody who's here they know there's a process to follow to change a contract do anything whenever there's an employment contract the hrd expenses that is like I have absolutely no idea is there like you know multiple harassment suits being filed what is happening uh the a per complaint I get

it I sat in on one of them the flag regulation one it was uh quite a bit of Comedy entertainment I uh put on my headphones while I was programming I was listening to it the judges expressions like what is going on I'm sure Bren Mr brener also feels it like every time he's here uh just right now I donated

some pencils to Margarita Middle School artist pencils $800 we are going to give almost the same amount for him for being here for what just so that he can back you up and prove you and stuff everything doesn't have to be like you know oh back in the day I I really yearn for the good old days where you know

somebody said something you're like okay and there wasn't no Google or now like you know oh I Googled it now I'm going to get a lawyer to back me up I am right it is way out of hand how I I have no idea there was one perb complaint that the district lost they're going to end up paying like I don't know they end up

ended up paying like $440,000 for negotiating a like changing a contract unilaterally and for what you could have just waited for the term the superintendent like they're like oh that didn't cost that much $362,000 you probably paid her down payment for her next she's going to be living in a different Vine country now thank you Steve Campos followed by oh no last

speaker Steve uh so initially uh the reason why I was I was requesting uh a point of order was because I'm I'm a little confused I thought that we were not allowed to publicly campaign and I don't know if t-shirts are are part of that because if that's the case and and I guess it's it's freefor all that we can

all wear who ever we support uh while the camera is on us and out to the public so that was just one thing I thought that was a form of campaigning um also another question um does the board require a three or unanimous vote without a fully constituted vote on any action item or any items that they are

voting for just want want clarification at some point doesn't have to be now you can do it during your board commentary uh and also the last thing according to Robert Rules of Order on an an item can only only be brought back for discussion or another vote if the trustee who is bringing it back voted on the prevailing

side it seems that sometimes board members come up here and they're bringing up issues and they did not vote on the prevailing side that being said that item cannot be put back forward so in the future and these are questions that I'm just asking you to go ahead and and figure out now in terms of the legal

expenses trusty Schwarz and barklay have created unnecessary expenses as previously stated as trustees they sign off on well they all of you um sign off on every action item therefore the attorneys are here to ensure that the Lea which is tvusd is conducting business legally and also defending the Lea in areas where there is illegal activity and that does happen um today's

costs for Mr brener were basic can be added to trusty Schwarz and Barclay's foolishness because it's these kind of things that continue to come up and he would necessarily need to be here if there would have been clarification as to what was going on earlier and so that you know their supporters always seem to want to blame you know the the former uh

conservative board or Dr K or whoever it is you know in this case now it's Jen but the reality is is they're the ones that are running a muck and coming up here and requiring things to be spent on um but yet they never want to take any responsibility for that yet they're the ones that are incurring those costs it

it's really shameful and it's an embarrassment and it is it's costly to the district I would hope that when they do their research like the brown act one that they would kind of look into it themselves save some money you know maybe ask somebody who has parliamentary uh understanding and that's not the case Orbach Henderson and huff just so you

guys know great legal firm letting them go is a huge mistake increasing legal fees are standard especially under the president especially uh under the current presidential Administration that has created incredible inflation Mr Brenner's Services would have never been sought had the former award-winning superintendent understood what her job was and didn't create so many issues within the district thank you and have a

good night thank you um since I added this item I'll just go ahead and get started um with the discussion um I appreciate U most of the comments that were that were made that were accurate um uh so this actually I believe that this summary that was provided to us was requested by Mrs WMA and when I received

it I thought it was important that it be put on the board agenda um as an information item because it has been requested numerous times I've received emails we've heard it here at the day at the podium many many times people asking about legal fees so I thought since we had this information it was very important to bring it um to the public

for the public to to see it and and to do what they will um I personally was I mean I I assumed that this is what we would see um a steady increase in legal fees I will say I was actually shocked at the level when you add it all together and I did some math myself um and I think what

needs to be noted here is that uh people who possibly have only paid attention to this board um since the board majority took over um may not be familiar with kind of the normal um routine of a board in other districts or prior prior to the situation in this District prior to covid kind of how boards operate and how

board meetings operate um I know a lot of people and other boards you know I know a lot of people in San Diego County because that's where I work and and school boards there and they're very um routine and mundane for the most part um legal council is rarely required at the border superintendent level um because most things that are discussed are

fairly routine usually legal council is required in these other areas that we see here like facilities uh HR special education those kinds of things those are those are kind of the routine things you normally see but when you look at our listing and you go back to 2019 and it's you know 40 46,000 44,000 34,000 that's like a routine amount of

money that would be needed just to kind of maintain um moving forward of a district um our district doesn't have any L did not have any large overarching issues we were a very viable employer we were a very sought-after District we're very well recognized well awarded um not without our failings obviously no district is perfect um definitely had areas of improvement um

that we were chipping away at facilities is one um testing scores is another um that we were moving you know slowly as as it is kind of a slow process to move a giant ship of a district in a certain direction however you see and the numbers don't lie um that when the board majority came on the

number skyrocketed and it is for a variety of reasons and you really have to look at not only the superintendent and board but also the hrd number and that was brought up and I don't know if if people recall but you know in the past in the normal course of any City or school district there are public records

requests on occasion however once things started looking a little bit suspicious to many people those skyrocketed and we had to hire a completely new full-time position to handle that because we were bombarded because of some of the things going on um at the board level um and you know the brown act violation has been brought up numerous times and I

will remind people I mean the details are not public because it was it was um in close session but there were options provided that would have cost zero um but that was not what was decided on so I just want to um I personally am interested in reducing these fees for whatever reason that we have had them in

the past um I have personally been involved for many many years fundraising headed up fundraising for my kids where every $50 Chipotle night donation was exciting and then when you look at these numbers it's kind of sickening to to a parent who's out there Hawking you know gift wrap and cookie dough and all the things to get these little tiny

donations so that their kid can get a bus to their next game so I really feel like it's important that all of us sitting up here really take that pledge that we need to move forward and move away from um this really kind of crazy use of attorneys it's it should be unnecessary we shouldn't have this much this many questions about what's

legal and what's not if we are following what we're required to do if we're following Ed code if we're following the direction that we are given as a public entity as a public District we shouldn't have this many issues under hrd or under superintendent or board um and that's what I'm hopeful for is that we can all kind of look at

this and realize where where we've been where we are now and what do we want for the future we want a different picture so that we don't see these kinds of numbers again I mean going from $497,000 to $1.2 said [Applause] uh I will second everything Allison said in just uh FYI I have never called an attorney if if I think something's

illegal I don't do it and I don't understand why uh the former board majority felt it was so necessary to constantly call attorneys to get opinions if you don't think something's legal then don't do it or ask somebody you don't have to call an attorney to find out if it's legal secondly um I want to correct something Mr Tyler said

when he was here he said he represents the board and no he does not represent me because I have a separate attorney from jpa who I don't have to pay for it's provided to us because I separated myself from that lawsuit and Allison also did the same so the only person Mr Tyler represents at this point is Mrs

WMA because he does not represent me or Allison um and a lot of this money that has been spent as Allison said is because of public records requests people calling HR all the time I keep getting emails I need every email you've ever sent to XYZ person and somebody at the district now has to go through that

and it's a crazy amount of money uh as one of our speakers said um when you do things like hold up cards and get sued and you lose there are legal fees involved so as far as I'm concerned I don't call lawyers I never do and I never will thank you a couple of important points it is true we should work as a

board to streamline legal expenses I will say when you look at the past maybe even pre-co things were different we are living in a different era it is true that districts will do different things with Council many times when you have Union endorsed trustees and everyone is of one mindset there might be some fewer issues so that may be

true one reason that I keep coming back to and looking at some of these fees is understand in the level of internal and external lawfare it is a real thing when people are requesting fo reports which that is their right it does indeed take time when people are running resistance with perhaps a board majority duly elected in the community

to do things differently there will be resistance I think one thing that helped me today is sitting in the office the business office and looking at some of the itemized lists of the legal fees and here's what I realized I don't know what Dr krosi did but there were a lot of things in that pile that were very helpful for me to

evaluate we don't have the ability to break it down tonight but there is a lot that goes on that people aren't aware of so it's a little nebulous tonight to look at the increase and be able to pinpoint with Precision where it went so I'm going to continue to look at some of those it is important and as we've

talked about tonight yes if there's an allegation of a brown act issue it could cost $25 $330,000 Mr Schwarz I know you mentioned that you don't reach out to the lawyers and I'm not going to say much about what I looked at today but I know that with filing against a citizen there being a restraining order and all the

things that went down I did see the fact that legal has to oversee some of that and it is part of doing business that ended up costing us 20 25,000 quite a bit of money it takes a board majority decision to actually issue a restraining order and I believe Mr Huff also EXC me it takes a court not a board we don't

issue restraining orders and if your life is threatened I certainly hope you will defend yourself against the person who defend who threatened your life so let's not talk about mrw personals okay Mr Schwarz go ahead there is a constitutional right to speech that swings always it should be that we each have the ability to speak and not censor one another I want to

give you an example because people were asking about the parental right policy and as I go through this this will probably help you understand some of the legal issues there were documents hidden from the board with the parental right policy in February of 2024 a Superior State judge ruled favorably on our parental right policy and the critical

race Theory resolution interestingly as a result someone on the inside filed a uniform complaint to the California Department of Education that is their right I won't be revealing names so from that point you then had the CDE come down and intimidate our superintendent who then received some legal counsel and decided to make the decision in a sense to fold and go ahead and send

all of our community a letter that nullified the parental rights policy the CDE a superintendent do not have the lawful ability to do that and that is important now I didn't have Mr Huff I brought in Mr brener Mr brener did have a differing opinion as Did Faith and freedom Dr Woods decided to go ahead and go with his

counsel then what we ex excuse me then what we had happen is the administrative State basically in a sense canceled the court decision and here we are my point is in bringing in someone like Mr Bruner who is a very small percentage of our legal costs it was important to get that perspective it was important for me to

share with the community which that was censored I think moving forward it's going to be important to ask for the itemized breakdown because it explains more of the story and I was asked to sign Mr Brenner's recent invoice but I haven't with others and as I sat and went through those it was very apparent to me I need to be asking those

questions when you have somebody like Mr brener providing outside advice it does make a difference because we have some great firms but when you're involved with hrd and negotiations and you're advising the board and you have the superintendent it behooves you to keep all of that moving in an establishment Direction Mr brener provides different constitutional perspective that is very

important but I will tell you so many of these extra costs that have come about are a result of doing things differently creating policy and wanting the community to understand that we're fighting for the things that we were elected to do there was an investment of time but if I could give you a snapshot of the last two years and you could see

the lawfare internally and externally you would have better better perspective in understanding it so many of our firms do hundreds of thousands of dollars and do good work I don't argue with that but the advice is different when you're not in every piece of the pie of what's going on and I have shared those things with Dr Woods and we have had conflicting

differing opinions and it has been frustrating at times but my goal is to be honest with this community and my hope is when we do have a fully constituted board we together can make it better so I'm definitely with you on that but what you need to know is because you're not seeing the splash of all the itemized items you're not seeing

the full picture and so I do feel like this was helpful tonight I do think Mr brener again has provided advocacy support I have full faith and trust and understanding he doesn't make his money with us so with that I don't know if the two of you have something further to add I don't want to close it unless you do

yeah um I would just like to reiterate that most of what you just said was untrue um no one's h ing things there is no conspiracy um and I am offended on behalf of the people who sit at this day that you would say things like that knowing it's untrue the CDE once again I think I've said this numerous times their

policy and Ed code Trump's any board policy that we make so bringing this up again to beat a dead horse and to throw people under the bus once again the role of the board is to provide oversight and one of the best ways to do that is to work in cooperation not in coordination but cooperation it doesn't

mean that we are going to rubber stamp everything that comes our way which I certainly don't um it I dig into it and get information before I make any decision uh nobody's paid me last time I heard uh to to make a vote a certain way um there's been accusations of that and I find that super offensive and it comes

from you as well as people in the public and I am offended by that that people would question my Integrity it's ridiculous anyone who knows me and same of these people who sit up here there is no conspiracy things that come down from the state are a mandate for a public school and these these attorney fees you

can try to spend any way you want and say oh if you could see what I see you'd know the truth the truth is we didn't have these until you were here exactly end of story thank you so the truth of it is I asked for can I speak yes you may go ahead thank you yes so apparently um some people

don't understand the hierarchy of laws in this country so we take the federal government the Congress the Senate they pass laws those Laws affect the state the state passes laws which affect communities or cities or municipalities so in terms of Education you have the superintendent of instruction whose name has been maligned here by people in this audience if you

don't like the people in the government vote for other people but once they're in power just like you and I and Allison we took an oath to obey the laws of the State of California and the US Constitution we may not like a law but we have to obey it so people coming up here and advocating that we break the

law is something that we cannot do so you have the superintendent of instruction you have Dr Gomez and the Riverside County Office of Education and then you have us and those two entities have power over us the legislature makes the laws and the Ed code and they are administered from the Department of Education through rcoe to us so anyone

who thinks that we could just do whatever we want we don't want to obey 1955 because we don't like it that's not how it works and I also resent being put in that that we're doing things in secret that we coordinate the only time I ever see Allison is when we're at a meeting we don't coordinate anything I

get a lot of input from the people who email me and talk to me and text me and they're pretty upset about wasting a million and a quarter dollars on legal fees and that had nothing to do with me so AB so ab1 1955 is not law it will be excuse me it's not law until January and

that's if there's not a stay or injunction Allison just because you say everything I am reiterating is not true doesn't make it so here's the bottom line when it came to the CDE discussion I asked very specifically to see the council the Dr Woods received from our firm I was denied when when the letter had already been mailed

out then we became privy to more documentation probably not because you requested it but because I did and if I had seen that prior a closed conversation would have looked a lot differently so when I say we weren't given all the information and I'm assuming that is all of us it is true and as a result we have gone down a

road that has been Lawless what needed to happen is if we were going to nullify policy it should have been a vote with the three of us in public the CDE and the superintendent don't nullify policy even the California Department of Ed know it they can make suggestions they can make administrative statements what they cannot do is take down elected

officials who have voted in a public session in regards to policy and as I studied and went through this information that is what I found so anybody who wonders whether or not it's optimal to have another attorney like Epstein Becker and green this is a prime example it is why I came forward with a letter to explain things to the public

it is why effectively I felt in a retaliatory sense cancelled which then disenfranchised the people in this community and I know you have defended it but at this point there is accountability in deciding to Snuff out what I had to share and in part it's because I feel like this didn't go down correctly and I will be transparent and

I will let the public know because it is important these legal fees yes indeed let's see if we can reduce them but why don't we all take some responsibility in recognizing the fact that it wasn't just about the conservative board members it was about the lawfare internally and externally we can all choose to step back and analyze it but I'm tired of

everything I'm saying you're refuting as a lie it is not and I feel like that is an easy way to censor debate to just say this person is not telling the truth and further I'm going to shut you down which is exactly what happened I have been shut down for two years Jen two years I've been shut down my opinion has

mattered 0% and now that we are on a little bit more equal footing the three of us then now tables are turned and we don't agree with you and because we don't agree with you now you call it censoring we were censored right and left for two years I have done my best to hear you out and

well it didn't happen it didn't happen and after every single meeting I would get emails saying I can't believe how you were shut down in that meeting and and that's just the truth so that equ making it right to walk out and to shut everything you know the reason I did that because I do still to this day do not believe we were

following proper procedure for the meeting you got your letter out there you did it on the agenda which shouldn't have been done that was an endr runaround something that you should not have done and all of your videos and your Instagram posts and your everything you did that people were sending me you got the word out you did it we went

another route no nobody was trying to censor you that meeting was done and that's my opinion and I I was not going to you said if anybody doesn't want to hear me leave I left and there we go so you're free to tell everyone you want you're free to tell anyone you want your opinion that's perfectly fine in this

setting some things we can say some things we can't in fact right now we probably should stop this discussion because we're not even talking about the agenda item and that's a rule of this meeting just like all works in the legal fees however so that's convenient I don't know what you're talking about people can stand up here and say

whatever they want within limits there are still limits it has to fall under our purview you can't stand up here and threaten people the first amendment is not absolute and it certainly isn't absolute in a school board meeting where we have rules and laws about what we can talk about and what we can't talk about just like we can't freely sit here and

tell people what we talked about in Clos session there's a rule about that even though you could say well it's my First Amendment right to say whatever I want to I can repeat myself what I said in close what I and say it now that's not true there's a rule about it no one is trying to censor you believe me you

you're in the queen seat you're the one telling us discussion is over or when to talk and when not to talk you're not being censored at all we're trying we are hearing each other out we sit here and bite our tongues and I think Dr Woods might have some opinions about what you just said about him too that

maybe we should let him share because it's unfair it's just unfair and you turn the tables and try to persecute the people who are trying to help you and I'm so tired of it and you know what I hope when we have a fully constituted board it will be fully constituted and moving us forward that's what I

hope it's not about persecution I have always done my best to be transparent and have conversations as they have happened I am not rubber stamping things I will not do things in a sense of expectation of what's been done in the past we're in a different era so at this point um I am going to have Mr brener take the floor

he is here we don't need any more discussion can we Mr Mr Bruner did a synopsis today briefly we do not need to move on this was an information item he's not on the agenda and we need to move forward Mr Brunner if I call on you as the presiding officer you do in fact have the ability to speak

correct as the presiding officer you can recognize someone to speak I recognized you all right I will be very brief um the discussion is important um and you've all acknowledged that this is an important discussion cost control being good stewards of of public monies in a 300 million plus dollar annual budget2 million 4425 I stand corrected um legal fees are

obviously an extremely small uh piece of that I do appreciate the frustration on all sides you you all come at this philosophically different um but that's part of what makes this country great it's part of what makes uh the process work and we all have to respect each other and and I think you know candidly you've done a pretty good job of that

tonight given some of the subject matter here and I hope I've lived up to that ideal as well I want to make two quick comments uh by way of Corrections the hierarchy of laws uh is very important principles of federalism and constitutionalism are important and that includes the separation of powers that means that that executive branch administrative agencies don't have the

power to declare what the Ed code means the Judiciary has that power agencies including the CDE doesn't have that power and when the CDE issues a corrective action notice on a complaint the the board has options it one option is to follow the corrective action another option is to seek reconsideration another option is to seek judicial intervention and as my

I don't know that all the options were brought to the board or any of them was certainly it's not my understanding that the board was given the opportunity as it should have and must have been to authorize any action on a CDE correct action requirement if I could correct you uh the superintendent called us all in and asked us what we thought about so

what you just said is incorrect okay if you're I i' I'd advise you not to disclose Clos session items if that's what you're doing not Clos I would just and I would just ask that I not I would just ask that I not be interrupted um I would never interrupt you uh it's just just polite um in terms of of

expenditures it's very important to see this information but you're right Mr Berner hold for one moment can I please have everyone quiet and respectful thank you what what the public should want what the voters should want what staff should want what the board should absolutely want is that the board and the district who operate in a legal enironment get the legal

advice it needs those gross categories show an increase in legal expenditures for advice to the board and to the superintendent but they also show a significant increase in advice to staff and the human resources department special education special education expenditures legally has been increasing every year since 2019 2020 from what we've seen the 479 100,000 aggregate number was

actually not that was the lowest number we saw but it was higher the year before and it was higher in years since the point is the board and the district and staff need to have adequate legal advice that's very important and that is not entirely something within the board the districts and the staff's control it is dependent in part on what

kind of legal challenges you receive what kind of resistance you receive and in part whether those efforts are in good faith or in bad Faith but many of the legal expenses presumably or if not all of them were appropriate here and cost control is important I'll make one last point and so everything that everyone has said here to me is exactly

at the bottom line exactly where you all should be and I would certainly hope the superintendent and staff would would would be on this on the same page cost control is important being good stewards of of public monies is critical and a major part of your function when it comes to legal advice I do feel you've got a good

stable of of lawyers they're very capable and um even if we have disagreements and in particular some disagreement over the way the CDE matter was handled I do think you've got very qualified Council across the board I do think there's a difference when it matters on a particular issue whether you have legal advice as a board member or a board from a from an

attorney who is very dependent on staff and the superintendent for substantial legal work sometimes you might have more trust in getting legal advice from a lawyer who doesn't who doesn't have for himself or herself hundreds of thousands of staff-directed legal work in his or her equation I don't have that I don't have that in my equation at all my advice is

solely and exclusively from the perspective objectively of the board and what's in the district's interest that's also the perspective that every other lawyer brings to your table I am confident in saying that but the reality is if they have to worry about whether the you know the the flow of work is going to continue from other quarters within the

district that can impact a Loy lawyers otherwise objective analysis and I'll close with that thank you thank you Mr berer the facts are I received a letter I shared it with each of you individually took your thoughts and perspectives the only majority I could deal with would be a 30 in any case one of you left I think out of the country

the next morning and was gone for 10 days there was no chance to bring the board back on a special assignment I had a mandate from CDE and our legal team the the the legal group I consulted with told me to send a letter very difficult decision for me because I was virtually alone and I respect each one of the

differences of opinions but I needed to take action and I took action in support of CDE the group that I believe governs what we do here [Music] today and if someday I'm found wrong great because I have an attorney that can come here today and speak as passionately about his advice to me as we've heard this this

evening but again I appreciate the conversation you can certainly think I've done something wrong I don't believe so and I stand behind my decision [Applause] 100% do we want to head into board comments at this time all right negotiations update Mr ARS sure I'll be very brief um start with TVA um during the month of September we

had a session with a evaluation subcommittee so this is a group that's been meeting to continue developing a new teacher evaluation form and we'll meet again on October 7th so this work will continue throughout the year and our hope is that we have a new evaluation form that we can pilot in place for the 2526 school year uh we're

scheduled to meet with the joint TVA TV USC ad hoc budget committee next week on October 2nd and we look forward to working with that group and discuss our annual budget cycle we meet with csca tomorrow for bargaining and that is my negotiations update thank you great thank you so much appreciate it all right on the board

comments me again um yes so just a few things I want to address really quickly there are no litter boxes in any bathrooms in any schools that is an urban legend and there certainly are not any here in Tula or in maretta um in addition I apologize Mr baram if you felt like I was giggling at you I should not have done that I was

distracted by someone in the audience and I was in no way of response to your comments and I do apologize for that and I will do better in the future um there is uh Ed code regarding notifications about suicide it is a very very serious topic um it is 51 41.52 and we do notify parents parents are notified of literally probably more

than they don't want to be notified of if their child has a tummy ache because they are hungry they might get a call so I feel very confident in our staff and our policies about notifying parents and if anyone has a personal question or issue with that I would really recommend you take that to your school site if you

need help navigating that we're always here to help you but the best way if you have any concern about any policy any assignment any any question at all I would start with your child's teacher and move to your principal people do not become teachers to get rich they become teachers because they care about kids so I would really

encourage you to to take that route because our teachers do care um I have always been very pleased um with all the CH all of the teachers my children have had and that I have met over my time here on the board um so those aside um I did get to go to the TV Shop game it was super fun and we

actually we pulled a little prank on Dr Woods so and I was promised by Jimmy that that video would be released so if you haven't seen it you need you need to see the little prank we pulled on Dr Woods but he was a he was an excellent sport so thank you for being a good sport and it was not my idea I just want

to be I want to remind you it was not my idea um anyway it was a really fun game um and uh I was out of town so I didn't have a lot of other activities um the last two weeks from our last meeting but I do have some upcoming um events that I will be attending and I'm very excited

I'm going to attend the deac meeting as I talked about I'm looking for a little few more ways to get involved in in um our diverse population so I'm going to I'm going to pop in on that tvhs homecoming is coming up I have four site visits I'll be have Battle of the burgers and I will be at girls

volleyball I'm going to girls volleyball I can't wait um and that's it for me thanks I got a lot of things but I'm not going to go through all of them first thing I want to do is congratulate uh four students at Great Oak High School Sienna young Jane Lee Jaden Lee and Nolan Ryan National Merit Scholars it's

a great um a great honor uh it's a lot of work to be a National Merit scholar and uh I just want to congratulate them and their families um I had uh attended the Excellence and Equity conference last week in Palm Springs uh we saw a lot of really good um a lot of good people talking about a

lot of good things uh one was our own Dr Anthony price and his wife gave a great um um presentation about bloom taxonomy and um how that is part of what we should be doing in school and along with um having children understand the relationship between what they feel how they feel and how they go about learning

what they learn um it could be really simple so for example some of the schools I visited when you look at the kids' desk there were three squares there's a red square square a yellow square and a green square and when the children sit down they point to the square if they point to the Red Square they didn't have a good day at home if

they point to the yellow Square it was okay and if they point to the green square they're okay and that can tune in the teacher to give that child a little extra attention and um I have to say I'm proud to be supported by our teachers and proud to be supported by the superintendent of Public Instruction that's a big deal he could

have probably not known me from Adam but in some way somehow he found out what I do on this board my experience as a teacher of 40 years how I've worked in this community how long I've been here I'm proud of his support and if I don't agree with something that happens in government there are Outlets to reach

but I will obey the law I will obey Ed code and I will follow the mandates that come from those places couple other things um I feel terribly about those people who came here to talk about their immigration situation I agree with uh doc uh Jen we need to get uh Congressman Isa involved since it's a federal issue

I know we have resources here at the school who can kind of guide them along I got all their information I passed them on to uh the cabinet and they will kind of guide those people along as to what they need to do to um get their uh stuff um taken care of I wanted to correct the person who

talked about what it cost to fire Dr mlay it was $325,000 because she was fired without cause and she also has a lawsuit against us for other expenses so it actually could go up I don't know about antifa friends I don't even know what that is all about I wish people when they came here to talk would talk about education issues and

not political issues same thing we talk about woke and antifa and I mean let's talk about our kids and education and let's focus on that let's stop focusing on politics you the election's coming up November 5th you can vote you can vote for whoever you like no one's going to stop you also there was a question about um how many

board members have to vote on something to make it a vote we got a few legal opinions about that some legal opinions said 3 0 some legal opinions said 21 they're just opinions we have not gotten a final decision a legal decision from an authority I'm talking about CDE or rcoe or the Secretary of State or Rob

Bon's office as what is the exact thing whether it's 3 or 21 and uh that's all I have to say thank you tonight I want to give a shout out to Mr Mendes at Bell Vista Middle School for graciously meeting with Dr Woods Jimmy Evans and I to explain more about their strategic plan to improve math scores and getting to students on time

he talked about music playing sweeping kids into their rooms and how they're trying to have fun with it but tell them get into the classroom study do what you need to do and I loved that he was very honest with us so thank you to Bella Vista at Summit Academy it's always wonderful to go there and talk to Keith

Moore who is just a visionary and it was fun to see the new locker room being built it was fun to walk the halls and see kids on the floor and drawing on tables and on the walls and it's just evident they use every aspect of their space for good things he also talked about the dream of a fourth phase and

when the board is fully constituted I'm hopeful he will come and talk about that I love so much about Summit so those of you who are out there in French Valley it is just oh it's an awesome thing this past Thursday I visited uh I guess last Thursday I visited Tula middle school and their First Watch Dogs meeting of

the year I don't think Danny Molina is here is he here I think he left but I just want to thank him because he was really an inspirational encouragement to our dads and I know that his wife was there his team was there it definitely takes a variety of people to make sure something like this gets off the ground

each and every year thank you to principal Mr Morton for hosting us also to the PE teacher Mrs cardinelli she's a rock star on that campus and she hosted it she's also going to be the parent coordinator and room host and if you're listening out there check into whether or not your school does have the Watch Dogs because it really is a neat program

where they're there to shake hands smile with our students be those extra eyes and ears that I think make us better so if you're a dad out there and wondering check into the school that you're that your students at we would love to have you jump on board so a little bit was said in terms of the recent video I shared on social

media um that had some questionable imagery and content from an English assignment um you know I do stand by that decision and I've discussed things with the family and the leadership from the school I do want you to know that I feel beholden to families and I want to be able to give them insight and perspective and to make sure that they

do know as parents you got to be watching the homework and the curriculum you do need to be talking to the teacher make sure that those open lines of communication are there protecting kids is always one of my top priorities it may not always be conventional it may not always be the favored approach but I do think outside the box and I can

guarantee you that I do that with the intention to represent truth a courage of conviction and to see us get better that's the point is what can we do to get better and make sure the offerings are as good as they can be for students at closing there are a couple of hard things that I do want to say and I say

it in humility we did have four solid legal opinions that did talk about a three and O being the way every single action item needs to be affirmatively passed through and those were major firms so I need you to know know that that was explored and that did come with some legal fees on the back end but it was clear it is a 3

and0 vote I'd also like to say Dr Woods I've appreciated you being here and what you've brought to the table I think there have been some great things that you've strategized with that you have envisioned for our different campuses I appreciate the work that you've done I fought for you to be here I will say that I am deeply

disappointed with some of the actions that I feel you've taken outside your realm of authority and I don't feel like I've gotten all of the honest questions answered but here's what people need to know this is what we do these these are the things as a board that we work through that we offer Grace to One Another We're not always going to agree

and that's okay we're in a season right before an election campaign and it does make it tough there's a lot at stake I know you want to be neutral I have have felt like there's some things going on that have been retaliatory but what I want you to know is that I want to continue working through all of these things for the good

of the community and I want to know no matter the differences we have the fact that perhaps you didn't take into account additional legal perspectives that I thought should have been that I'm going to speak to because it's the truth but I'm also going to tell you thank you for doing what you do thank you for visiting so many campuses thank you for

day in and day out trying to connect with people and creating relationships it's tough for somebody to come from the outside and come in and make inroads and differences and I value that and I understand that again I want to let people know I think we're in a different era we do need to be people of moral

courage we do I I I didn't sign up for the establishment and I don't say that all negatively but I always think through what I'm pursuing and not perfectly but to the best of my ability want to represent those families and I hope you do too and I think you do I think as we move past the election hopefully we'll have seats

that clearly Define things and what we stand for and what we're moving towards and that will be in the hands of the voters so we'll go forward with that thank you to all of you who are here tonight in the room listening and being a part of this we value you your commentary your dissenting opinion your different

perspective I value that I want you to know it so thank you for listening in I don't think 3 minutes would be enough time as an elected individual I think trustees do need to have a little bit more than that so with that God bless all of you and good night thank you Miss WMA my job is to

make sure the three of you are represented equally and I will continue to do that I don't retaliate secondly I want to recognize the co-curriculars the extracurriculars a lot has been said about that tonight ironically it was on my list to talk about today because when you want to know the health of a district go to some of those

co-curriculars I was floored when I went to Great Oak and saw those kids doing what they do in the stands I was floored when I went to tvhs and saw everybody in pink in support of of cancer I was floored when I go to sharel and see how beautifully dominant that football program is as a former college

football coach I respect and admire the work that it takes to build such a program but what Thrills me even more though and my mom asked me my 86-year-old mom is going to come and visit me next week and she said what do you want me to see and I said Mom I want to take you to a football

game because you'll understand more about Tula watching those football games and I can tell you over a week because it shows that we have parents that are supportive passionate teachers classified staff that are giving their all giving extra most of them are teaching a full day but they're staying back they're staying extra time to give the kids even more and our

parents I hear you it's expensive to keep these kids involved as much as we are transportation is incredibly expensive we understand that and the commitment it takes to get the kids to these events every single day is phenomenal but keep it up because that's the health of our district that says a lot about tula and I'm proud to be your

superintendent thank you Dr Woods so the announcement of the next meeting the next regular Open Session business meeting of the governing board of education is scheduled for October 29th 2024 with that the meeting is adjourned on September 24th 2024 at call it Mr Schwarz 9 852 852 thank you at 8:52 p.m. thank you and good night