call this meeting to order. We will adjourn to closed session. Any public
comments on closed session? No public comments. Okay then we will recess to
closed session. All right it's 6 0 8 and I'm calling meeting to session. Pleasure to leave you.
indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Hey 5.2, roll call.
Right there.
Here, here, here.
Heidi Hernandez, Eddie, Eddie, President.
And I'm Windley Johnson, I'm here.
5.3, report out from closed session, three items regarding GC number 54956.
6.9 existing litigation special education compromise and general release
agreement OAH case number 2025110861. In closed session the board took action to
approve the compromise and general release agreement for OAH case number
The roll call vote was unanimous regarding GC number 54956.9, existing litigation special
education compromise and general release agreement, one case in closed session the board took
action to approve the compromise and general release agreement for one special education
case. The roll call vote was as follows, four ayes, and one abstention. And regarding GC number
54957, employee discipline dismissal release employee number 3446, in closed session the
board considered employee discipline dismissal or release. The board took action to approve the
temporal release of employee number three four four six the roll call vote
was unanimous okay five point four approval of agenda changes to the agenda
approval of the agenda as presented I'll second the motion and second
I move for approval of the consent calendar.
I second.
All right, the motion in a second.
All those in favor?
I oppose.
Abstentions?
Motion carries.
Item seven, public comments?
No public comments.
Very good.
Item eight.
We have public comments.
Public comments. Very good. Item 8. We have WCTA.
Good evening. Just a couple things to tap on. I saw the agenda so one of the things I was going to talk about I think will be addressed later in the agenda but WCTA sent out a survey on recent calendar
negotiations to members they were given a week to vote on it and that closed last
week and I'm sure we're gonna show that information later on the agenda and then
the negotiating team will start to survey members here in the next in the
coming weeks to kind of look at things that we want to address in the spring
negotiation sessions and the rest of the teachers are getting ready for
professional development that will be happening in the next couple weeks and I
I think that's, we talk about a lot of it,
it's a great time for the staff to come together
and have those opportunities to have conversations
with their colleagues that they might not get to have
in a busy school day when people are kind of coming
and passing and at lunchtime people want to just focus
on eating lunch and catching up with one another.
So having those professional conversations
and a professional development coming up
is something that everybody's looking forward to.
Thank you.
CSEA.
Hi everyone.
I am Carlos Vintas, Vice President of CSEA Chapter 202,
and I'm here to report that we are in the middle
of the sixth STEM process for the larger union
for the proposed calendar for the 2026-2027 school year.
We are also finishing an assembly of our negotiating team
for the upcoming round of negotiations
with the district and WCCA.
And at this moment, that is all that we have to report.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Every time you wear it, I want it to.
Item nine report from superintendent.
I just have a couple of things to report this evening
as we get ready to step into February.
So this week we are celebrating the great kindness challenge
across the district and so this is kindness week.
Our schools will be engaging in all kinds of activities,
encouraging our staff and students to be kind to each other
and to seek opportunities to thank and show gratitude
to each other and to our community.
We, next month, will also be celebrating Black History Month
and so later we'll talk a little bit about that
with the resolution that we're bringing forward.
Next week, which is the first week in February,
just a shout out to our Education Foundation, WCEF.
It's Turn Up the Heat, the Turn Up the Heat campaign,
begins next week, invite all of you to wear red on Wednesday
with all of us, and just a great opportunity
to thank our community for their level of engagement
in participating in the support that they give us
through the Education Foundation.
So many programs, electives, and additional classes,
our elementary specialists, all are
made possible due to the support that we get
through our Education Foundation.
And finally, as Michael said, on February 12,
all staff, CSEA and CTA, as well as ACID,
will participate in the Day of Learning.
It's our professional development day,
our second professional development day
across the district.
And we have some great plans ready for our teachers.
Our elementary teachers will be taking
a look at a new version of Bridges Math,
updated version so they'll get some training on on that program. In the
afternoon they'll do some site work around their CAPS network that they have
been doing and at the middle school the same will happen in the CAPS network
which is our alignment to standards and in the network that the teachers were
doing have been doing for the past three years will continue and then our
And our CSEA team has a new leadership team for CSEA.
And so from 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock,
they will be meeting and meet their new board
and have a collective CSEA lunch together.
And then from 1 o'clock, we'll have a fair, like a CSEA fair.
And so our payroll department or business department
will be there to answer questions for them.
and our wellness team will be on-site.
And we've done that in the past,
had like our own kind of fair for our CSCA employees
and they love that.
And so we're looking forward to that
and deepen in plans right now of getting that prepared
and ready for a great day of learning.
Last thing I do wanna just point out
is next Sunday, February 1st,
is Indian Valley's cultural heritage festival,
which is an amazing event, if you've been in the past,
Indian Valley just does a fantastic job celebrating
their cultures across their school.
And it's just a wonderful, full afternoon.
So please join us if you're at home.
Item 10.1, the partial tax survey results.
Good evening.
Tonight, I've asked Tim from a funeral survey and Charles
Seath to co-present the results of the partial tax
survey that happened in the beginning of the year. At the end of this presentation we will
be asking the Board for direction on whether or not we should place a resolution at our
next upcoming Board meeting to include partial tax on the ballot. So that will be something
new to ask. And to say that this was some cause because True Note is based out of San
Diego, I wouldn't play them out here. They're going to be presenting the results online
by Zoom, so I'm ready to go.
It will be on that TV right here.
Hi Tim, can you hear us?
Can you hear me?
I can.
So, are we at the item or are we?
I think I could hear anything before that.
Yes, you're on Tim, we're pulling up the presentation
as we speak, just wait a minute.
Okay, so you're gonna run it from your side
or do you want me to run it from my side?
Or from our side.
We can do it here.
They're going to run it from there, Tim.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
I may just need to have you...
Okay.
I can see the screen.
All right.
Sounds good.
All right.
I'll just do a brief introduction.
Charles Heath from Team Civics.
At your last meeting on January 12th, we had a chance to talk about the various options
and timelines for potentially putting a parcel tax measure on the ballot in 2026.
At that time, Tim was just in the process of beginning his survey, and we have the results
net back now, and he's done some analysis.
So what we'll do tonight is allow
Tim to walk you through the data in some detail,
and feel free to ask him questions as we go.
And then he's going to offer some conclusions and findings
from the data, and then I'll come back and kind of talk
about what that looks like in terms of next steps.
So the floor is yours, Charles.
Great.
So we're going to go on to the first methodology slide.
Before we jump into the results and start
talking more detail about those, I
want to take a step here just talk about the methodology study or how we went
about conducting the research. When you're doing a revenue measure feasibility
study like this, the first question you kind of want to ask yourself is what
election is this measure going to be on? Different elections have different
turnouts and as you expand and shrink turnout you'll get a somewhat different
profile to the participating electorate. In this case there were two potential
election dates in 2026 that were possibilities for your measure. The
the larger November 2026 election
that's gonna be happening later this year.
And then nested within that election,
you also have the June primary, right?
So the turnout for November is gonna be larger,
but nested in sort of like layers in an onion
would be this likely June voter universe.
Voters who are not only gonna participate in November,
they're gonna participate in June.
We structured our sample to be able to look at both
of those potential election environments.
Once we'd identified individuals that are likely
to participate in one or both of those elections,
we use a process called stratified and clustered
random sampling.
I can get into details of that if you like,
but suffice to say that what this process does
is it assures that at the end of our data collection process
we have a sample of voters for this survey that
is representative of that larger likely November universe
and matches it on all the dimensions that we know
tend to drive how voters behave on tax measures.
So the balance in our sample by age and partisanship,
household party type, as well as the distribution of voters
within your district.
The balance on our sample matches the balance
in that likely voter universe.
And that's really the key to making sure
this research is reliable.
Once we pulled our sample, we reached out to voters
using three different recruiting methods,
email, text, telephone, everything's pin protected.
So that only those folks that we randomly sampled
and divided take the survey could do so
and they could complete the survey one time only.
We used, they had the option of participating
either by telephone or online, whichever was their preference.
We'd contract to do about 400 completed interviews.
And we're walking back in the door with 633.
We had a better than anticipated response to the survey at a higher response rate.
And so we're just passing those additional interviews onto the district.
One of the nice things about having that larger sample size
is that it gives us a smaller margin of error due to sampling in this case.
And that is plus or minus 3.9% at the 95% confidence level.
So what that means is we can be 95% confident
that the results we'll talk about tonight
are within 3.9% of what we would have found
had we spoken with all of your likely builders.
Next slide please.
So this would be the importance of issues slide.
So we'd like to start out our bond measure
feasibility studies with what we call
the importance of issues.
And for each of the issues we see there
on the left side of the slide,
We simply ask voters to tell us how important is this issue to you.
Is it extremely important, very important, so important, not all important?
Great warm-up question just kind of gets folks into the groove of taking the survey
and makes good on that promise that this was going to be a survey about local issues.
But it's also an opportunity for us to understand how education as a topic and
stacks up against some of these other issues that also compete for tax dollars.
And in particular, we pay close attention to how the issue of maintaining
the quality of education in local public schools.
stacks up against this issue of preventing local tax increases.
Rough rule of thumb, surprisingly predictive.
The higher up in this list and the more importance
that voters place on maintaining the quality of education
in local public schools relative to the issue of preventing
local tax increases, the better position
you are to move forward with parcel tax for education,
for example.
So you see here in your community,
maintaining quality of education in local public schools
was, in fact, the number one issue.
At 93% of respondents rate that as either extremely
very important followed by maintaining local streets and roads and protecting the environment on down.
If you go all the way to the bottom of this list you'll see preventing local tax increases
checking in at 47 percent. So there is a gap here of between the 93 percent who rated in
maintaining the quality of education local public schools as extremely very important
and the same percentage who uh rated preventing local tax increases in that way there's a gap
here of 46 percent. That is on the high side of what we normally see. The last
election cycle, you know, we do this for a lot of school districts around the
state. Typical gap in most communities if you go statewide is more like 23%, 24%,
right? So you, what this tells us is relative to most communities, your voters
place more emphasis on maintaining the quality of education in local public
schools and are less tax rate sensitive than most.
OK.
So next slide, please.
And this is the one titled initial ballot test.
So after that warm up question on the importance of issues,
we get right down to business with what
we call the initial ballot test.
And the idea here is before we get any deeper
into this discussion with a respondent,
we start talking more details about possible tax rates that
could be associated with this measure, how you would propose
to spend the funds if we're successful,
as well as presenting arguments pro and con
related to the proposal.
We want to present to respondents a mock-up
of what we think that 75-word ballot statement
could look like and get their reaction.
The initial ballot test has a really good gauge
of where your voters are at on the natural
with respect to this proposal
because they haven't seen or heard anything
about this measure beyond what you see here
in this 75-word ballot statement.
You'll note that in the initial ballot test
as well as a couple other ballot tests
I'll be sharing with you later in this presentation
that this parcel tax was set at a rate of $164 per parcel
for a period of nine years.
And so that is the balance we tested on the next slide.
You see the results.
So you could see that at the initial ballot test,
we had 72% of voters tell us
that they would support this proposal.
You had 20% opposed.
You had about 8% who were not sure
or preferred not to answer the question.
So in the state of California for a school parcel tax
to be successful, you need two-thirds support.
So at the initial ballot test,
we're sitting about five points north
of that two-thirds threshold that's required for passage.
On the next slide, I mentioned that we had
looked at both the November, 2026 and June, 2026 electrics.
And oftentimes when we're doing this,
what you find is as you shrink turnout,
You tend to get a somewhat older, more tax-adverse voter overall.
And sometimes in some communities what that leads to is lower support in these lower turnout environments.
So you might see a difference in support, a significant difference between June and November universes.
We don't actually see that here.
As you can see on the slide, the likely November universe, that's all the voters we surveyed, supported this at 72 percent.
When we filter down and we just look
at the likely June voters, the support levels
are very similar at 71% of the initial ballot test.
Tim, can I ask you a question about the number
of participants here?
You said that the total sample is 633.
What's the difference in the sample sizes
between November and June?
Yeah, I'm gonna pull that up right now.
One second, please.
Did I lose you on my share screen?
No.
Okay, you're still there?
Okay, great.
So in terms of your overall likely November voters,
we have 30,968 likely November.
And then as a percentage, your June electorate
was checking in about 76% of those.
So I don't have the exact number here,
but I can do a rough math and get you close.
We've got 0.76 times 30,000.
So you're looking at about 22,800.
I guess my question was, you said you had,
this poll was for a sample of 633 individuals.
Right, so roughly three quarters of the range
are going to be, yeah.
So the neat thing about having that larger sample size
is under, if we got 633 and it's 0.76,
we still have over four and almost 500, 480 individuals
who are in the smaller likely to universe.
That's great, thank you.
Okay, so after the initial ballot test,
we get into on the next slide,
the tax threshold section of the poll.
And naturally support for these types of measures
can depend on the price tag, right?
The higher the price tag, all of the things being equal,
the lower the level of support.
One of the goals of the survey was to make it really clear
just in case they somehow missed it out of the 75 words
that parcel taxes mean taxes, right?
And we wanted to test how tax rate sensitive
your voters were to this proposal
when you kind of focus their attention on the price tag.
So we do that by testing three different tax rates here.
164, which was the high number
that was built into that 75 word ballot statement.
$124 per year and $98 per year.
And the way this works is we'll first roll out
the $164 per year and say that if they knew that
their household would pay that amount per year for each property
that they own in the district.
Would they vote yes or no?
If they're anything but a definitely yes at 164, we go to 124.
Same exercise, anything but a definitely yes at 124, we go to 98.
That's called a Dutch auction where you start high and you go low.
It doesn't work the other way around.
Once you offer something for $98, no one's going to pay 124, right?
We find that the Dutch auction is the best way to figure out
where they're willing to jump in because they don't know what number's coming next
or if there is a number coming next.
What you see is when you kind of put the blinders on folks
and you focus their attention on the price tag,
we do see a bit of drop-off in support.
This is always the case, right?
When you think about a parcel tax measure,
it's a bundle of things,
it's all the things you're gonna do.
A price tag is part of that bundle.
When you kind of put the blinders on folks,
you focus them on the price tag,
it tends to have a bit of a chilling effect.
At the $164 per year, support check in at 64%,
we get a bit of a bump at 124 to 66%.
And then we bump about five points
once we get into the two digits, right?
So when we go from a triple digit number
to a two digit number at 98,
we get another little bump there.
So after the tax retinal section,
we take a little sidestep in the next slide
and ask them just about the quality of education
provided in the district.
Would they say it's excellent, good, fair, poor,
or very poor?
We ask this question really for two reasons.
One is we tend to find that the better job voters think
you're doing in your primary mission of educating students,
the more likely they are to support
these types of measures.
They see you as a good investment
because you've done a good job with the resources
you already have.
We also ask it because we want to see what percentage
of voters aren't sure.
They don't know enough about you.
They're disconnected enough from the district
that they can't answer this basic question of how
how is the quality of education provided in the district?
What you see is among those with an opinion,
it's decidedly favorable, right?
We have 65, 67% of folks say that, you know,
the quality of education provided in the district
is either excellent or good,
compared to just less than 5% that say poor or very poor.
So among those who know the district, these are good numbers.
You do, though, see that you've got about 18%
who say not sure, right?
They, these are oftentimes people who,
if you moved into the district after they had kids
or they don't have kids in the district yet
and they don't have any experience with you.
And so sometimes one of the important things
as you move forward is, you know,
we want to kind of fill in that gray area for some voters
with some, you know, good news information
about the quality of your district
and all the good things that go along there
before you get to that point
of kind of talking about facilities and bonds.
So after that quick sidestep, we jump into what we call
the Programs and Services section of the survey.
And the goal here is really twofold.
One is we're now gonna start to educate respondents more
about what this measure would accomplish.
Up until this point, they've only seen
that 75-word ballot statement,
and maybe 55 of those words are devoted
to describing how the funds could be spent.
Here, we get to unpack it into all these potential uses,
and in that way, they're getting a better idea
about what this proposal is about.
The other thing it allows us to do is understand
of all the ways you can spend the money,
how do voters feel about those ways,
and which of these rise to the top of the list
in terms of their priorities.
I can tell you that, again, I get to do this type of work
for a lot of districts around the state.
It is not all that often when everything you test
in your program and services item
has better than eight out of 10 voters say
that they would favor spending some of the money
on that item.
So, and a lot of these items in here
have either two thirds or higher percentage of voters
saying they strongly favor spending some of the money
on that item.
So very strong positive reaction to what you're proposing
to do with the funds.
That said, at the top of the list,
you can see there are three things at the top here
that really kind of stand out in terms of intensity, right?
We have over 70% of folks say they strongly favor
spending money on that item.
And that is STEM-related programs,
reading, writing, and language arts programs,
and the tracking and training of highly qualified teachers.
three are a little stronger than the rest. The reality is though you could have a
expenditure plan that you know dealt with all of these things here and then
they're all going to be quite popular. Now if you as a board on the next slide
start to decide to move forward with a measure there's going to be an election
cycle. During that election cycle there will be a lot of discussion and debate
about this proposal in the community. You're going to have proponents of this
measure go out and talk to their neighbors and friends and about all the
reasons why this is needed why you should vote yes you might also have
opposition right some folks stand up so it is a terrible idea and we shouldn't be
doing it and here's why for this survey to be a reliable gauge of the feasibility
of a parcel tax measure we need to simulate that discussion debate in the
space of the survey so we have a good understanding not only where are your
voters out on the natural which was that initial ballot test but what happens to
their support for this proposal once they've heard arguments of favor as well
arguments against. So we start by testing a series of positive arguments
shown here on the slide and the nature of the question is supporters of the
measure say blank insert a positive argument do you think this is a very
convincing somewhat convincing or not all convincing reason to support the
measure. What we tend to find is that voters who are sort of favor you know
they have a favorable opinion about a proposal to begin with they tend to be
predisposed to sort of accept and absorb positive arguments.
And because we have such a high initial level of support
for your proposal, that translates, in turn,
to a lot of receptiveness to these positive arguments
from your voters.
Everything we tested had better than 75% of voters
say that they would find the argument
to be at least a somewhat convincing reason
to support the measure.
That said, you can see there are some things that
kind of jump out at the very top of the list
is related to teacher compensation, right?
Competition for high quality teachers
has become a big challenge
for school districts in the Bay Area.
We want to attract and retain high quality teachers,
we need to pay them a competitive salary, right?
The number two is really this appeal related
about how investing in schools is also
sort of investing in the quality of life in the community
and also protecting the value of your homes.
Although it's not at the top of the list,
there are a couple things lower down
that from an intensity standpoint that dark green bar jump out all the money
raised by the measure stays local right to support your students it can't be
taken away by the federal government state government or be used for
administrator salaries and also the 59% down low it's like said it's maybe you
know maybe was that about eight down it on the list but it has the highest
overall intensity at 59% and that was an argument that funding your schools
received from local sources hasn't increased in 20 years and yet the cost
for providing high quality of education is double, right? If we want to have high
quality schools, we need to support this measure. So lots of really good positive
arguments that get traction with your voters. So now at this point in the
survey, voters have now heard more about your proposal than they did initially at
that initial ballot test. On the one hand, we focused their attention on the price
tag, right? We talked about the different tax rates. We saw that that had a bit of
the chill effect in terms of support. But we also had a chance to come back,
explain in more detail how the funds could be spent and convey positive
arguments. We've yet to get to the negatives. So we circled to what we call
the interim ballot test, where we present that same 75-word ballot statement. Say
now that you've heard a bit more where you stand. What we're seeing here is a lot
of stability at this point, right? We're down about one point from where we
started, and overall we're sitting at 71 percent, which is about four points north
of the two-thirds threshold required for passage.
And then we get to the negatives.
The idea behind the negatives is
I'm gonna put my opponent hat on.
I'm gonna pepper respondents
with a series of negative arguments.
The types of negative arguments we'd expect to hear
from someone who's a critic of this measure.
Because it's important for us to know,
should you get opposition?
Should they be vocal and get their message out?
How might that ultimately impact
voter support for your proposal?
So you can see here we test a series of negative arguments.
And they're all designed to be kind of hard-hitting negative arguments.
Some of them get traction, you know, but the ones at the top of the list,
the one at the top of the list is really kind of hitting on affordability and cost of living.
Everyone's sensitive to that right now.
And, you know, we have an argument that says global residents
and businesses have been hit hard by inflation, high interest rates, cost of living increases.
You know, people are struggling.
That was not a good time to be raising taxes.
You're going to hear that during this election cycle, right?
So you see some of these negatives get traction.
The real question, though, is what happens afterwards.
And that is on the next slide, final ballot test.
What you see is the negatives cool us down a couple
of points, but not a lot.
I can tell you that in the sort of range of impact
that negative arguments can have,
cooling you down two points is about as low as you can expect.
I have worked on measures where everything is going great
until you hit the negatives, and then the floor drops out.
and you lose double digits in support based on the negatives.
So it's nice to see that the negatives,
although they got traction at the end of the day,
they only carved off about two points of support.
So we landed the final ballot test at 69%.
So that is about two points north
of that two-thirds threshold that's required for passage.
At each one of these ballot tests,
I wanna emphasize that that was at that $164 rate.
So we're testing the high rate at each of these ballot tests.
And this is how it played out by June and November.
We do start to see a little bit of difference
between these two.
November's checking in at 69%.
June is checking in at 67%.
So next slide is the final ballot test at the lower rate.
As I mentioned throughout the survey at the ballot test,
we were asking about $164 per year.
At the final ballot test, if a respondent
was a no or not sure at that point. We also stepped it down and asked them
about the $98 rate at that point, right? If they wouldn't support at the 164 or
unsure, where would they be if the rate were lower at $98? And you can see here
the white slice here, that is the 69% of voters who would support the measure at
$164. If you drop the rate, you pick up about 5% of additional yes vote at the
a $90 rate, so you'd be sitting at around 74%.
I will point out that that's a soft yes.
Four of the five points are probably yeses.
But when you're talking about two-thirds measures,
they're a challenge.
You tend to be counting on every percent you could get.
So on the next slide begins my final two slides,
sort of wrapping up.
So what does all this mean?
I'm going to circle back to the main overarching sort
of motivation for why did we do this research which is to answer that basic
question of is it feasible? Meaning if you as a board were to choose to place a
measure on a ballot in 2026, it doesn't have a reasonable chance of success. This is what I
call a qualified yes. It's a yes but, right? Yes, I think you've got a feasible
measure here, but it's going to require some adjustments and some robust
reach and engagement. So why the yes part? Well that's everything we see under the
positive signs here. We saw that your voters maintain the quality of
education local schools as the most important issue based in the community
and we saw that very large gap between the importance they signed to that issue
and the importance they signed to you know preventing local tax increases. That
combo translated into solid support on the natural for this parcel tax. When
they just saw the initial 75-word ballot statement, we had 72 percent support,
It's about five points north of that two-thirds threshold that's required for passage.
All the programs and services we tested were wildly popular.
You had positive arguments that resonate, and importantly, all the ballot tests at each
point in the poll that we tested, all of those are at or above the two-thirds threshold,
even after opposition arguments.
So when we see, those are the pieces that we want to see in place for a measure to be
feasible.
said, there are some challenges that we need to keep in mind that come out of a
poll or when you step back from the poll and just think about what the 2026
election cycle is going to look like, you need to keep some things in mind. The
first challenge is always the biggest challenge in some ways when it comes to
partial taxes and that is that two-thirds threshold, right. School bonds
get to pass at 55%, partial taxes go at two-thirds. That is a 12-point gap that
is in politics, a very large gap.
And so it's just the high bar that we have to clear
creates some challenges.
And what we tend to find is for measures that pass at 2-3,
when you win these measures, you tend not
to win them by a ton.
You tend to win them by a few points.
So every 2-3 measure I've ever been involved with
is a bit of a nail-biter.
Because as confident as you feel, it's just 2-3.
It's hard to get.
Think about our politics today.
It's hard to get two-thirds of people to agree on anything.
And so that's the biggest challenge.
We did see a bit of tax rate sensitivity.
Once we focused their attention on the tax rate,
we saw some significant cooling.
And only the $98 rate were we above the 2-thirds
when the conversation started to turn around the money.
We saw a bit of a effectiveness
to potential opposition arguments.
Not a ton, as we saw,
but when you're operating the 2-thirds world,
every point counts.
And then the last challenge is really the fact that
here we are today towards the end of January,
and election day is either in June or November,
depending on what you decide to do.
A lot can happen between now and then, right?
A lot of different shoes can drop,
and so I mark these unknowns,
whether it's trajectory, economy, tariffs, inflation,
not because we're not living with that now,
because we are, right?
To some extent, these things are baked into the results,
but we don't know what's gonna happen
in the next six to nine months.
And so my point in raising those things
is that not that they create insurmountable
sort of level of adversity that would necessarily
derail your proposal, but that what you want to do
is put a proposal on the ballot that
can withstand some adversity, right?
It can withstand some of these headlines.
You don't want to put a measure on the ballot
where you're crossing your fingers
and just hoping that everything goes your way.
Because odds are pretty good not everything's
going to go your way.
And the moment you get a little headwind,
all of a sudden, you're not at the level you need to be.
So that's why I raised these challenges.
So on this last slide, which is observations and recommendations.
So we see that you've got a measure that I think
is viable with some adjustments.
And that's great, but it's important to keep in mind
that a survey like this is a snapshot in time, right?
It's not a crystal ball.
And what I mean by that is it's not
looking forward to election day and saying,
going to get 69% or 72% on election day.
What it tells you is where your voters are today, right?
We have a really good read on that.
Tells us how they tend to respond
to the types of information that we expect
that they will encounter during the election cycle, right?
But ultimately, what happens on election day
isn't dictated by what your poll says today,
it's dictated by everything that happens
from this point forward.
So it's kind of a reminder that we gotta make
smart decisions about the measure that you put
in front of your voters for their decision.
and you want to make sure that it's kind of well aligned
with the type of measure that they're interested in supporting.
And you've got to put the work in, in terms of communication,
both from a district side and, ultimately,
an independent campaign side.
So in terms of recommendations, I've got a couple here.
The first is on the tax rate.
That's probably the most important and difficult
decision you're going to have to make as a board,
is where to price this, right?
Obviously, the higher the tax rate,
the more revenue you get to do all the things
that you wanna be able to do with this measure,
but the higher the tax rate,
the greater the risk that you don't hit two thirds
on election day and you come home empty handed, right?
Based on timing here,
if you're thinking about going in June
based on the cost sensitivity that we saw on this poll,
wanting to put a measure on the ballot
that gives us a little bit of buffer
against some of this adversity,
I really recommend the $98 rate.
Stay below the two thirds,
I mean, stay below the triple digit number,
stay in that $98 range, that's gonna give you some buffer
that may become important during the election cycle.
The other priorities I would just say is,
the other recommendation I have is to make sure
that the things that voters told you
were at the top of the list in terms of their priorities
are well represented in your expenditure plan.
So that's STEM programs, reading, writing, language arts,
tracking, retaining highly qualified teachers,
safe, clean schools, manual class sizes,
and advanced academic programs.
Those are the things that your voters indicated
were kind of their priorities,
and the measures should reflect that.
And then finally, I know Charles is gonna say
a lot more about this in terms of his next couple slides,
but it's gonna be really important that you as a district
go out and raise awareness about your needs
and start to build some consensus
around a specific proposal.
And then ultimately there would need to be
a privately funded independent campaign
that could kind of shepherd this measure
through the election cycle using private dollars, right?
and they can advocate on behalf of the folks with those $5.
That is the end of my polling slides.
I know Charles has a couple slides coming up behind mine
that talk about sort of next steps of process.
But I'm happy to answer any questions about polling now,
or once Charles is finished, we can cover it together.
We'll cover any polling questions now,
or should we just keep going?
Why don't you keep going, and then we
can take questions afterwards.
OK, sounds good.
We can go to the next slide there.
So all in all, I think we've got a strong proposal here.
As Tim mentioned, I think that the one key decision
is that tax rate and how do we manage that tax rate
sensitivity.
Not surprising.
I mean, in districts where we're doing similar research all
over the state, we're seeing very similar tax rate
sensitivity.
The economy and the pessimism, generally,
is really kind of dampening support for higher rates
at the moment.
I think the other key decision we need to think about
is the timing of the election.
you saw in the polling that there are very marginal
differences between the support we see among the June
and November electrics.
That isn't always the case.
Sometimes we will see an eight, 10% point difference,
and then, well, the answer's easy.
Here, I think, because the survey doesn't reveal
differences in support, just as the demographics
change between those two groups,
you have to think about what other external factors
come with those elections, right?
So as we look at the opportunity to place a measure
on the June ballot, one big advantage there
is you get the revenue from this net.
this is a new tax, a new revenue source,
you get the revenue a whole year earlier, right?
So if we pass it in June, the revenue starts flowing
to the district in the 26-27 fiscal year.
If we wait until November,
it's the subsequent fiscal year, right?
So just based on your budget needs,
that's a consideration to think about.
And then we also have to just look at the election
environment and the political environment, right?
Typically, and I think that this is what is taking shape
in the June election, is that in the primaries,
you have fewer competing issues on the ballot, right?
You just don't have the long list of statewide issues
that could kind of cause distractions and cross-currents
in terms of the issues that are raised.
You have fewer local candidates that are on the ballot.
You get a little bit more attention from the voter,
and I also know regionally,
there's definitely talk of a number of different taxes
that could be coming to the ballot in November.
I don't see directly competing local measures here in June.
We'll see, they all face the same deadlines we do,
but I think there's likely to be less competition
on the June ballot from other measures.
The other factor to think about,
and this really isn't a district consideration
as much as it is, you know, once this goes to the ballot,
then the campaign committee has to think about a strategy,
is that sometimes those lower turnout June elections
offer some strategic opportunities for campaigns,
because if you can mobilize your supporters,
you can sort of influence the election,
not just through persuasive messaging,
but also who you get to the polls, right?
And so without changing anybody's mind,
you can build support just by getting your base of support
out to vote.
So on balance, I think there are probably more advantages
associated with June than with November.
The other concern that November introduces for me
is that Tim went through all the uncertainties related
to the economy and the political environment
and everything else.
I'm not confident that the passage of time
makes those issues better.
And in fact, it could make them worse.
And so do we kind of bet on the short-term certainty
versus the long-term uncertainty?
It's anybody's guess in this day and age,
But the general trends don't seem overwhelmingly
positive to me anyway.
So if we do want to think about moving forward
with a measure for the June ballot,
the timeline is quick.
As we talked about at your last meeting,
we've completed your feasibility assessment
presenting those results tonight.
The next step in the process would be
to quickly develop an awareness building effort.
That's district funded informational communication
to tell your story about what your budget need is
And while you're thinking about this measure,
the polling gives us really good guidance
in terms of the messaging we would wanna focus on there,
the types of programs that are high priority
for your voters.
And then while we're doing that,
we would also be working on developing the measure,
working with your legal counsel,
so we have a resolution to bring back to you
because March 6th is that deadline to qualify
for the Jane ballot.
So that's gonna be coming up pretty quickly here
in a little over a month.
Just for comparison's sake,
that same deadline for the November ballot is August 7th.
So that would be the timeline available to us then.
And if we can just go to the last slide here,
just to go into a little more depth
about what that next steps process would look like.
I mentioned the parcel tax resolution,
that would be one of the next steps,
the development of the informational effort.
We would also wanna look at some outreach
to key stakeholders, both internal district stakeholders,
but also external business community,
folks like that to make sure they're aware of this
and have had an opportunity for input.
I know you have a February 23rd board meeting.
That's the date we would target to bring back
that resolution for consideration.
And if you were to adopt that,
we would announce that action to the community
so they know what they would be asked to vote on
in the June election.
And then by the March 4th and March 6th deadlines,
that's when we need to deliver the documentation
both to the County Office of Education
and the County Elections Office.
And then of course, we transitioned
from the district planning effort,
that independent campaign for no public resources,
including staff time, facilities,
and other resources can be used as part of that process.
So you need to have an entity there
that's ready to take on that effort
and some leaders that will help spearhead that.
So those are our sort of thoughts and recommendations
and both of us are available for questions.
If I can start, I had a question, Tim,
on this slide 15, with the final ballot test,
you said that the white represents yes at $164,
and then the probably yes were those
at a maybe lower amount?
With the-
Yes.
So with the probably no, that 6%,
Did you also ask them for a lower amount?
And they're saying probably no to any amount?
We tested in the poll the 164, I think it was 124 and 98.
At the final ballot test and the interim ballot test,
the initial ballot test, it was always 164.
If at the final ballot test, they were no or not sure,
I mean, they were a yes, right?
We asked them about the 98, right?
So if you look at the pie, the white section
is the 69% of voters who were yes at 164.
If you're yes at 164, we can assume you're a yes at 98,
so we don't ask you.
It's the rest of that pie, the 31%
that we ask the question about 98.
And when you ask about 98, about 1%
go, oh, they switched to a from a no
or not sure to a definitely yes.
4% switched from a no or not sure to a probably yes, right?
And then you've got 6% who are probably no,
14% still definitely no,
and about 5% who are not sure.
Okay.
Yeah, that clears it up.
Heidi?
I have to say, I kind of came in here really
wanting to maximize this opportunity for the district,
but definitely feeling like,
but also feeling the kind of psychological weight of 90
of not going into a triple digit number
is really, really irritating to me.
But I think it's probably the right thing to do.
I guess if I have a question, it's really for staff
in terms of does that accrual of an annual
one and a half million get us what we need it to get us
in order to feel like we can continue to sustainably
and responsibly provide the education
that our students and families deserve.
I mean, that's a big thing.
And I just said, by the way,
let me ratchet it down a little bit,
but to say that is it adequate enough for now?
Because I could definitely see the nine year strategy
people who are not me or sitting at this table and saying let's make it
permanent and let's maybe raise it a little bit along the way and maybe
that's just the kind of where we're at politically and those are a lot of my
jumbled thoughts friends but I think we need to move forward I'm really glad
that you provided more context for June only if only because it validates my
policies I think that's all probably right I think I don't think we know what
next week is gonna look like much less June but November feels like a whole
other planet away right and I don't think it makes sense to be in what will
be an incredibly volatile return forget other ballot measures but forget other
tax measures which is always a challenge but but I just think volatility of
in November is not something to trifle if we don't have to.
Great.
Did we do any research about escalation clauses or anything?
Yeah, that was in the ballot question.
And if we want to go back to the early slide that
has the ballot question on it, included in there
is the phrase with annual adjustments.
And so that's the language that allows
us to include a cost of living adjustment.
That's how the measure would actually be structured.
When we bring the resolution back, we can talk about how we might want to structure that.
Most commonly, it's a fixed annual factor, so 3% a year is very common.
It tends to kind of track with normal inflation.
Sorry, it's the next slide after this one.
Yeah, number 4, I think it is.
There we go.
There it is.
Brilliant.
So down in that bottom paragraph, you can see there where we have the tax rate with senior
exemptions annual adjustments.
That's what allows for the cost of living adjustment.
I don't know Tim if you want to comment on it doesn't seem like that stamping
support here but any other takeaways? No and we actually tested a negative on it
which was the inflation adjustment built into measure means that the tax rate
will increase automatically each year without voter approval so we went at it
in a way that maybe a critic might go after the cost of living adjustment and
you know you see that that argument got a bit of traction but at the end of the
day on the final ballot test we're still right north of two-thirds. Can I ask
about the other piece of this the nine years is that something to do with the
legislation like is that is there a reason for the nine years? No I mean you
can you can set the duration of a parcel tax at any duration you want and as you
know because you have one you can also make it in perpetuity. I think that you
know if one of our goals here is to try to maximize the tax rate making it
in perpetuity at the same time.
That's being aggressive on every front.
So I wouldn't recommend that here.
And what we tend to find is that up to nine years
is about the period of time that voters are comfortable with.
Once you get a 10 years plus, it sounds
to start like a really long time.
And so now you're losing the value
of having that opportunity to reassess it.
Yeah, it's a single digit, double digit thing.
Yeah.
I said it at $9.99.
And yours does sound like a long time.
So there's just something different about it.
And the flip side of that is, you know, you do four or five, six years.
Sure, voters are going to prefer that, but you're going to be back on the ballot in a
couple of years, right?
Because you're going to be up against that expiration.
Right.
And you don't have planning stability.
That's very interesting to see the data.
I echo Heidi's wondering in the amount that we really need to do the work that the students
deserve and the staff that deserve, as well.
but also being realistic in what the data is telling us.
So it's a balance.
But I also wonder how much, if we do go for June
and we do go for the 124,
let's just say we go for the 124,
we could pull another lever by just really getting out there
beating the pavement and it's gonna be on us
to really rally that and do that.
But it's spring, and May is crazy, and ah.
So I think in general, though, we
tend to be very conservative when it comes to financials,
which I definitely appreciate.
I'm looking at this, and Marie, because I always
appreciate that.
So it does seem as though it makes
sense to be conservative because we'd rather get it than raise it, right?
Because that would be devastating. But I do also appreciate it's
frustrating because, you know, it's needed and it's deserved. So, I think...
We're so low compared to our neighbor districts.
Yes, yes, yes.
You're so local.
Yes, yes, yes.
So I think it's looking at the date, looking at the amount,
and then looking at the effort that's going to be to get there.
And what do we have in the coffers
is all of that, so to speak.
So what I think.
I'm not sure that we do.
I mean to the extent that there is or was a committee
that has any residual funds,
I think part of that conversation,
once it leaves our room, will be exactly that.
The parcel tax will be more expensive to raise funds for
and in some ways more challenging
than raising funds to support bond measures.
So it is a different,
I guess that to say, I'm going to talk myself into the place I don't want to be, which
is to say that we shouldn't try to push too hard on the dollars because we're going to
have to push so hard across a couple of other dimensions that we don't have to for bonds
while we're also trying to hit that other 11 percent.
And 98, the difference between 98 and 124.
It's about $250,000 a year in revenue.
That's the difference.
So that's the risk calculation, right, is it worth 250 grand a year.
Well, but the percentage point, I mean, it's not a huge percentage.
You're talking about one, two percentage is what you found with it?
Between 98 and 124 is, no, it's actually about five percentage points when we test the tax
rates individually.
Yeah, it's a five percentage point difference and that's, you know.
It's not as close as you want it to be. It's not as close to feeling good, I think, unfortunately.
Because I really wanted that middle ground, too, when like...
I thought the numbers were a little bit tighter, but maybe that would be for...
It's on slide 7, if you have that.
I mean, I don't have the community to rally, but I also don't want to burden that as well, right?
But it is, again, the end.
No.
There's different lovers.
A lot of your thoughts, I'm just kind of thinking on it.
Yeah.
A lot of the same thoughts.
For me, I think June just definitely I'm biased towards June as being more successful just
generally, for school districts to cut through the noise,
other competing measures and other things that are going on
and then that additional factor of this year
of the general uncertainty and so much happening.
So that's like the easy choice to have.
The other things are more difficult, definitely.
Like one way, I would love to see stronger support
124 because that seems like the compromise number but unfortunately it
doesn't seem like there's that big of a difference between 124 and 164 so we
have to go below the three digits in order to get support that feels like it's
secure that it can withstand whatever wins are gonna...
We tonight would just decide on it we're going to move forward we don't have to
decide on them on tonight. This is not an action item. We would appreciate as much
direction as you can give us because we need to go ahead a resolution and start
developing some messaging and the more detail we have the more we can push that forward.
Yeah, I definitely absorbed the message of the final, no, not quite the final slide,
the slide 16, you know that we are going to have to work hard.
Robust outreach and engagement are going to be key to having a successful campaign, and
And so we gotta start talking about it earlier rather than later.
I think I agree with June too, that makes sense in terms of timing from this year.
I think that just the dollar amount, I wonder how 100 would do, but it seems like you have
to get to 100.
99 would do better.
Like if you're gonna crack 100, just ask for 140.
So 99.
I think that, you know, from my read of the data, 98 is not even a shoe in, right?
We're far from that point.
Taxes never are.
Right.
So I feel like if we, sure we might all want 124, obviously we'd love 164, but 98 is sort
of where we really should be and that's more the data seems to be telling us to go.
I came into this thinking 124 a lot of times. I think this is a time that's better to be safe
than sorry which is not the place that I like to be sitting to be honest.
To be a little further out somewhere else pushing feeling like I'm pushing forward and not feeling
feeling like I'm treading water.
I don't think we're there.
I think that's also a little hyperbolic,
but I do think that any small psychological advantage
we can have, and we are both one of the lowest tax districts
kind of in the area, and we're not even really asking
for that much more.
And nine years, please.
And because everybody's talking about inflation,
really the escalator as like a cola
isn't really a like crazy thing.
It feels like in alignment with who we are as a district
in terms of the stewardship that I think
this board has provided before any of us were on here
and hopefully we'll continue to provide long after we're gone
and I think those are strong arguments.
As you start to flush out program priorities,
I am a little bit worried that Safe Plain Schools
starts to sound like what we just got bond dollars for.
And in terms of the hierarchy of arguments,
think that manageable class sizes
probably sits wildly above that,
both from a parent and a teacher
and staff and community perspective.
Part of what I think lends to the sense
that our community has that our programs are very strong
is because when I talk to friends about the class sizes,
they're a little bit flabbergasted.
And we'd still like to see them like maintain.
So I do think that those continue to be stronger arguments,
maybe than some of the safe, clean schools
feels very, just feels too much like facilities
when we're still in the middle of building bonds.
So I would maybe, you know, to the extent
that there's other direction that we can provide,
like lowering that or eliminating it
in favor of those class sizes,
the high quality teachers, and the strong academics.
I think those are, I think those kind of,
what we've seen from the community and where we have,
and where this sits very much in alignment,
I think with our strategic plan is really
that focus on core academics that you guys
aren't required to say for.
But if you were, you would hear a lot more about them today.
So I think those probably are the strongest arguments.
But I don't think any of that happens without our people.
So making sure that teachers and class sizes
are really front and center in terms
of that hiring, which I actually, yeah,
the retaining high quality teachers.
Those are really, really important.
Here's my summary that I have from what you said,
which is the June ballot, $98,
and the three points that seem to stick out
in what's been shared is a focus on academics
maintaining quality programs,
attract and retain quality teachers,
and maintaining that lower class size that we have.
I think that is a pretty consistent message.
It also aligns with, I think,
a lot of our kind of messaging right now,
our dashboards never look better than it has right now.
There's a lot of momentum right now
in terms of what's happening in our schools
for instruction from an instruction perspective.
And so does that summarize kind of what you're thinking
in those few points?
And then to Heidi's point, like maybe class size
and teachers, higher on that list as people read it,
Because that's what's going to resonate with the voter as they read it.
I just teed up those three items.
Yeah, I think that was your big ticket items.
That's right.
Yeah.
That's exactly what we need.
Yeah.
It's hard to be conservative financially.
Because to your point, it's not quite what we need.
And, of course, any campaign takes a lot of effort and time
for a lot of people.
so to work hard and to get something that isn't quite what you were hoping for is tough, but I
just think this year it's so there's so much uncertainty in. Of course, I have to say also
I mean that 98 dollars will more than double what you're receiving from partial tax revenues
currently. That's not a small achievement. Yeah, that's nothing to snooze at. Well,
Delaney used to need to say half a loaf is better than no loaf.
I think in terms of you asking us
the question about quality programs,
I think that if you think about what our narrative is
in terms of what we've been sharing,
a lot of what we said about our current parcel tax
that we have in place is that everything that we want to do,
it's getting harder to do with the fact
that it used to pay for 20 teachers, now it pays for 13.
So when we go out and we talk to the people who
are going to be our leaders on the front line that
take over this campaign, that is a very natural narrative
for them, because we've been talking about that
for such a long period of time, that I think it will be
natural for them to understand why it is that you all took
this course of action, and the other thing that I think
is really important that should make you all feel,
I think, very good about the decision, is that yes,
our neighbors have higher, higher parcel tax,
or are asking for more than we are,
but we often say our community looks very different.
Our community looks very different.
So when we go out and we say to many of our families
an additional $98, while that may seem like,
wow, I wish we could ask for 124,
I think most people would say for $100
or less than $100, I get to contribute
to my community in this way.
I mean, if we think about the listening tours
that we've been on about people feeling
that sense of belonging,
we are offering a lot of our families the opportunity
to truly feel that sense of belonging
because we're also listening
to what kinds of circumstances they live in.
And so there will be a lot of people
that will stretch their means to help us
because we didn't try to take advantage of them.
And so I think that's really important
that you made the decision that you did
thinking about our community
instead of trying to compare us.
Because you don't do that to us often when we bring you data,
you say to us, we know our community, right?
And so if we know our community, I
think you're making the right decision for Walnut Creek.
And so I think we should build it.
One other thing I'll add is that I mentioned
that doubling the revenue, that's
a major accomplishment.
I think maybe your biggest challenge
has been stuck at $82 for 20 years.
This gets you off of that, right?
If you can build in a cost of building adjustment going
forward, you're going to make up that $26
Differential over the life of this tax and now it will start at a new base when the next group renews this
So that's a big achievement as well. You're just you're changing the base fundamentally
You need the direction you've given us and we'll come back on the 23rd with the
Resolution that captures all of that and then in the meantime, we'll work with the district to begin that informational outreach effort
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you very much have a wonderful
evening okay item number two Mr. Morales and I are here to give the LCAP mid-year update and as our
first slide shows this is an accountability piece it's something that all districts are required
to do we are here to make sure we're letting you know all the metrics that we put in the LCAP
where we are right now with those things and then where we are with expenditures.
So check in like we said we're gonna do these things where are we where's where
are we with things. Our next slide we just anytime we talk LCAP we also will
go on to the next slide sorry. Just love that we have alignment with our
And then on the next slide, Vince is going to tell you a little bit about that.
Okay, so budget overview.
Yeah, the budget, as you recall the supplemental dollars that we've generated from our underplagating students.
It's not a, a, a categorical resource that is blended in with our unrestricted funds and if you don't call it out, no one will know how much is in it.
So we are required to call out how much of our revenue is being generated by those students.
So when we adopted the budget in May,
we projected $43.4 million in total LCFI funds.
Now that's based on projections, but now we
have actual students.
We have full natural change and not
that much, because our projections were not off.
So we see a little bit of increase
from 43.6 in January.
Our supplemental dollars are also
adjusted based on the actual number of DPP students
that we have in the current year.
So you see slight adjustment.
It's still about 1.8 million dollars.
But this document just calls out the supplement of dollars
that you will be able to see in your financial state reporting.
Thank you.
And so on the next slide, just saying
that it is very normal and natural
that with our metrics, some metrics will be complete.
Some are in progress, and some are unknown.
And it's really similar on the next slide,
thinking about expenditures and implementation.
Always so proud that in the Walnut Creek School District,
really, we don't put anything in our LCAP
that we are not starting.
I feel very fortunate with the conditions
that we have in place that we're really able
to very intentionally, thoughtfully put things
in the LCAP that we actually can accomplish.
And on the next slide, you'll see goal one,
academic excellence and global competencies
Just picked out a few of the key metrics
to show you where we're at.
And then attached to this board item
is the actual LCAP mid-year update with all of the data
included.
And so I just want to say that looking
at where we are with CAS, we are looking
at three years in our LCAP.
So we have a baseline.
And then what you see is year one, which
was last year, year two is going to be our mid-year.
And that is final, because year three in the LCAP
will use the data that we get in the spring.
So it's lagging, right?
And I was never a fan of that.
I really wanted to always have the most current data,
but the county really wants us to go in this direction.
So they are our approvers, so we do follow.
We're not the only ones who are rigorous here Jim, thank you.
But the good news is that all of these numbers, all of them here for CAS, for ELA, and Math,
all are improvement from our baseline, so we should all feel really good about that.
You know, I'm always looking at those student groups, and we've had a lot of attention,
our multilingual learners, our English learners.
And in ELA, as you would imagine,
that's really one of our biggest areas of need.
And so happy that we have a lot of things in place
to watch that number increase.
And then on the next slide,
you'll see some of the local assessments
that we have in place that help guide us in this area.
And so, proficient reading level
and third through fifth grade.
The most current data we had was the end of the first trimester, looking at 79 percent.
And our goal at the end of three years is to be at 75 percent meeting or exceeding.
And so, you know, we're meeting goals.
Same thing with our map for sixth through eighth grade in English language arts.
Our goal is to be at 80 percent.
You can see at the end of the first year, we were at 79 percent.
And then September, we did a beginning of the year look.
And so you can't really compare a beginning of the year to our goal is what will be at
the end of the year.
But it is a nice number to see that 88% were meeting the goal there at proficiency.
New this year is our DPLs assessment.
And so all of our families of kindergarten through second grade students, February 6th,
will get their report to show how their students are doing
there.
And then on February 9, we'll be doing a parent webinar
to kind of walk them through those student reports.
The only data we have right now is our September beginning
of the year that we only gave to first and second grade
students.
Happy that we made the decision this year
at the beginning of this new assessment,
not to give that to kindergarten students who we were just
meeting in our classrooms.
And so we had 69% meeting, and our goal is 75
at the end of the year.
And that's with the kindergarten students in there as well.
We do the math diagnostic testing project.
And we decided to focus on fractions.
And the data, all of it, has improved
from the baseline there.
And then on the next slide, a few more metrics,
looking at our LPAC, Summit of Assessment.
you can see that we're getting slight declines there.
Our goal is to be at the end of three years, 60%.
So as you know, that's an area of focus for us.
Our English learner reclassification is really looking good.
That's definitely an increase from our baseline.
And then our long-term English learners
were slowly decreasing the number there.
Our goal is to get to 5%, and we're currently at 7%.
And so then the next slide just shows you the actions
and expenditures.
We've really streamlined the things that are in our LCAP.
And so in this area, our amazing instructional coach program,
our MTSS program that allows us to have reading intervention
support at the elementary sites.
This year, we added a 0.5 program specialist.
That's been a great addition.
And then our ELD teachers and personalized software
for our English learners.
So those are items that those supplemental dollars
are supporting.
So that's goal one.
Goal two, looking at our metrics here,
emotional wellness, equity and belonging,
one of, on the next slide please.
A really important metric here is our attendance rate
and just so happy to see that improving.
And so as of December, we were at 96%.
So that's just so great.
And our three-year goal is to be at 96%.
And then chronic absenteeism, still higher than we'd like,
but you can definitely see that's an improvement as well.
Where we wanna be at the end of our three-year LCAP cycle
is at 10%, and so across the district we're meeting that goal.
But you can see our English learners,
socio-economically disadvantaged,
and students with disabilities,
we've got some work to do if we want to meet that goal.
On the next slide, you'll see the actions
that support this goal.
We've been working with the National Equity Project.
We're in our third year of that partnership,
and they really helped us with listening
and really thinking about all the things
that we have in place for our multilingual learners,
and I think it's been really rewarding to watch.
the new ideas that have come,
and I'm looking forward to this LPAC cycle
that we're just about to get into,
and I'm really hoping,
because all of the work that we've been doing
to have boot camps and to reach out to families
and really let everyone know,
and for our middle school L-Tel students to set goals,
I'm really hoping that pays off
in our LPAC summative scores.
And then our equity restorative practices liaisons
have been a great group to work with this year,
and they made our social emotional learning survey
that we're giving out district-wide
to our elementary students
to check on their connectiveness with school.
And then of course, our comprehensive wellness program
continues to be so strong because of the staff
that we're able to fund there.
The next slide.
Goal three, family and community connection.
We rely on our youth truth survey to really help us here.
And we're in that window, so families should be watching
for that to come out this month.
And I'm really gonna put our principals,
really put out there because they're a very competitive group.
Hey, what prize do we need to put out there?
Because last year we saw our participation rate drop.
And so like, what can we do to get more families
to answer that survey?
One thing we did is we tried to shorten it a little bit.
We took some of the questions out,
So we're hoping that if we can say it's a little shorter survey,
we can get more of our families giving that survey.
If he tends to give that survey, if you've got a lot of responses.
OK.
And so then on the next slide just shows you
those actions and expenditures are the Youth Truth Survey
and then Parent Square, which has been wildly successful.
When I'm looking at our dashboard, we're like 99% not
life. We are 99.9% effectively communicating with all of our families so it's really clean data and
really really exciting and we'll be pushing that Youth Truth Survey out through Parent Square and
maybe we'll get more people to respond as well. And so that brings me to the end.
just thank thank you to you all for leading us in this important work and for the staff
for all the hard work that they do for our families for our students just tons of
of appreciations as we're striving for excellence.
That's all I have.
Okay, moving on to item, or section 11, item 11.1,
the Steve Jones.
Oh, Steve Jones.
Good evening, I'm the five items tonight.
Steve, should we tell them in advance
what you were doing this afternoon?
I'm cliff notin' it.
That's for you guys.
He was coming down, he was coming down the hallway
and he announced to everybody all the way down the hallway,
I'll be doing the Cliff Note version tonight
because everyone has seen these items
multiple times from multiple schools.
So we're done anytime I'm up here.
So I'm going to go through five different items
as quickly as possible so that we make sure
at least you know what we're looking to have approved
and it will sound familiar to other projects
that we've been talking about the last few years.
So the first off is our Buena Vista,
Least Back Construction Services Award.
back in December, BHM Construction,
went out for bid for phase two construction at Buena Vista.
Reminded me that phase two is going to be
the interior modernization at Buena Vista.
They came back with total cost for phase two
being the amount of $9,873,794.
So tonight that's recommended to the board
to approve the phase two gross maximum price with BHM
For the final contract amount of $9,873,794.
Okay, this is not an action item.
I move approval of phase two gross maximum price
with BHMLLC with a final contract amount of $9,873,
$9,873,794.
Second.
Motion and a second.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Opposed?
Motion to approve phase 2 for its maximum price GMP with BHLC with a final contract amount of
nine million eight hundred seventy three dollars seven
seven hundred ninety four
access
zero cents
eleven point two
Yeah, one point two. This is going to be our
Approval of our inspector of record for the Merwood upcoming modernization projects
Back in December
Greystone West issued RFP to new era school inspections for project inspection services for the Merwood
Modernization project on December 5th new era of school inspections provide a proposal in the amount of
$104,000 it is
in review to
It's within the range for the project inspections at that site. So tonight we look for the board
Recommended approval four hundred four thousand dollars to new era school inspections for the Merwood project
You said $140,000.
Yes.
I'll second.
Thank you.
I'm a motion and a second.
All those in favor?
All right.
Opposition, abstention, motion to obtain, excuse me,
to approve to contract with New Era School Inspections
for Project Inspection Service at Merwood Elementary School
in the amount of $104,000 per pass.
Next item 11.3.
Murwood School's Least Back Construction Services Award.
Back in March, 2024, the board approved
the schematic design and budget
construction contingency costs totaling $19.1 million.
Construction costs for both phase one and two
of this project directed at 18.8 total.
This is for both phases of the Murwood modernization.
This is inclusive of the modular construction
as well as the added construction for a new play structure
and the allowance for escalation prices
that are deemed to come for 2027.
In terms of awarding contract to BHM
for construction services for both phase one and two
at Merwood, the total for BHM would come to the amount
of $15,325,588, which is recommended tonight.
board approve this not to exceed amount of fifteen million three hundred twenty
five thousand five hundred eighty eight dollars to BHM construction. I'll move
approval to award construction services for the Merwood Elementary School
project to BHM LLC and the amount of fifteen million three hundred twenty
five thousand five hundred eighty eight dollars. I'll second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed?
mentioned. Motion carries. Motion to award construction services for the Merwood
Elementary School Project to BHMLC and they mount not to exceed $15,325,588.00 carries. 11.4.
The Wall Heights Library modular building previously was awarded, we approved the
awarded a contract to American Modular Systems, AMS, for the design engineering of the modular
library and building and it has been since been approved by DSA and we are now looking to award
the contract to AMS for the next phase of construction which means the fabrication
installation of the modular building. DSA approval was obtained December 29,
2025. The cost for fabrication installation is $1,229,070. It's recommended tonight the
board approve this amount to AMS for the fabrication installation of the Walnut Heights modular building.
I'd like to move approval to award a contract to American Modular System, Inc. for the Walnut Heights Elementary School Modular Building Project
in the amount of $1,299,070 with the funds to come from Measure J.
I'll second.
Okay I have a motion and second. All those in favor. Opposed.
Extension. Motion to award a contract to American Modular Systems Inc. for the
Walnut Heights Elementary School Modular Building Project in the amount of one
million two hundred twenty nine thousand seventy dollars. Carries. Okay last at
least eleven point five. Okay now as that modular building is being built is
fabricated in the factory there is an implant inspection that is necessary to
be done to be met with DSA approval along the way of its fabrication on
January 13th based on West issued an RFP to North American technical services
for the implant inspections of that modular building the North American
technical services provider proposal in the amount of $7,950 for
For implant inspection services tonight, it is recommended the board approve the amount
of $7,950 to North American Technical Services for the implant inspections of that building.
This is an action item.
How will we approve of the North American Technical Services for the contract, excuse
me, move approval for the contract with North American Technical Services, for implant inspection
Services at Walnut Heights Elementary School in the amount of seven thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars with the funds coming from measure J
all second
I have a motion and a second all those in favor
opposed
abstention
motion to
Contract with North American technical services for implant inspection service at Walnut Heights Elementary School in the amount of seven thousand
that $950 to come from Measure J is approved.
Thank you.
11.6.
All right, so tonight I'm presenting
the proposed 2026-27 calendar.
I wanna talk a little bit about the key direction
that was given to the negotiating committee,
talk a little bit about how this calendar
addressed the things that came up in the parent survey
and also the directives that were given at that point.
before I get started I just want to take a moment to thank the three units that came together. We
met twice. We started on very opposite sides of some different issues and then we came back
together and we do believe that we've created a calendar that we think is a good compromise
between the interests of our staff and the interests of our community and so I'd briefly
like to summarize some of those points and then tell you how it is that we met some of those items.
So just as a reminder, these were the key themes that emerged from our fall break survey.
Number one was we were particularly interested in the continuity of instruction. We talked a little
bit about how there was times of instruction and then a break and then times of instruction
and then a little bit break. So the negotiating teams took that at the forefront of what they
were looking at. We also wanted to look at our alignment with alkalanes and whenever possible,
see that for our families that share students, that we were creating as many days that aligned
with them. We also talked about ways that we can improve communications related to
the decisions that were made on our calendars. And lastly talk a little bit
about for those days that we're missing if we have any drop-in child care options
that we might have. I'll start by saying that we did begin kind of looking at the
overall idea of having the school year condensed into 10 months instead of 11
months and so we had a number of people that were interested in that. The survey
data kind of came back on multiple sides. I just want to mention that the
primary reason that we decided to go into June is actually for the fiscal
impact that it had to some of our employees when we moved from 10 paychecks
to 11. It caused kind of a big hardship on our employees. They were having to do
redo their tax withholding. It had a significant impact on our CSEA
employees who contribute to the state assistance program, so we had to change
there withholding. So given all the experiences that we had making that
change from 10 to 11 months, the negotiating team felt that it was
important that we not go back now to 10 months. And so we did talk as a group
about making that commitment to stay within that 11 month window. And so when
we talked about not coming back in June for one day but coming back for at least
two days that was where we came up with the number of days that we would embed
into the middle of the school. So first let me talk a little bit about how we
met the continuity of instruction. We did talk a lot about the placement of
parent-teacher conferences and we decided that one and a half weeks of a
disruption is better than having it spread out through different times. So if
you look at the calendar you'll see that the parent-teacher conferences for both
the elementaries and the middle are at the same time. Elementaries have two extra
days on the Thursday Friday. Everybody has them on the Monday Tuesday. We come
back for a regular day and then we had the PD day on a Thursday followed by
Monday and Friday at a Monday which was considered the fall break. So that was a
way that we were able to honor the opinions of some of our staff members who
did feel like they needed a break during that time period. It did minimize
the disruption to learning because you have a big chunk of instructional time
before and a big chunk of instructional time after and then that Monday aligns
with oculonies. So you'll see that we were actually able to only get three
days within the whole calendar that didn't totally align with oculonies. One
of the ways we made up those three days though was by putting the PD day on that
Thursday. So if you recall this year the PD day is another random time in the
fall where parents were trying to find child care and we lumped them all
together so you're really only finding that child care for that one and a half
week period. We also were able to look in the spring and we were able to align our
Professional Development Day with Akalani's Professional Development Day. So
everybody has that Monday off. We did add an additional day to President State
Weekend, although that Thursday is now a non-student non-workday. Parents we
believe were already kind of used to that because that's when the
Professional Development Day was it was on that Thursday. And then we talked a
little bit about the alignment with Akalani's. One thing I'll say about that
is that we did have some discussions at the table about wanting to do the
following year's calendar and so there was an interest in trying to see how it
is that we can communicate whatever it is these decisions were made to our
community in a better way and everybody at the table thought that it was a great
idea for us to do the following year's calendar at that point and we were all
sitting together. Apalani's had not done their calendar yet so we did feel like
we wanted to give them a chance to submit their calendar so that we could
that are aligned with some of their days.
But we have spoken with our unions
and they are interested in coming back very soon
in the spring to be able to do the 27-28 calendar.
So I think that that will meet the communication
and planning issues.
And then the last thing is that we talked about
is that the days that we've aligned are days
that we are committed to being able to make sure
that our childcare partners are open.
We think that the days that we picked
are not gonna be particularly difficult
for us to explore some additional childcare options
people that utilize drop-in services and so we think that this calendar is a
good compromise that needs the needs of both our staff and our community members
and so tonight I'm asking for your approval on this calendar.
Everyone's turning into an auctioneer up here. I just want to commend your
efforts. This calendar looks amazing. I do feel that you all have put in so much
effort and thought into making sure that someone is happy with some of the
concessions that were made. It addresses a lot of the issues that were raised that
came out in the surveys and I really appreciate that. You guys took back the
information and listen to everyone.
Yeah, just thank you. It's hard. I mean grab your pitchforks for calendars and
schedules. Yeah, it does seem like a compromise. A lot of a lot of
compromising. I appreciate that it's coming together and giving input.
And I had noticed that the spring breaks align with more of our neighboring
districts which might be good for our staff and some of our families that
rattled last evening in the districts. I thought that was great.
Alright folks, this is the action I am sorry. It looks different now I'm starting to understand.
I will move approval of the proposed Walnut Creek School District
2026-2027 instructional calendar as proven.
I'll second.
Okay, I have a motion and a second. All those in favor?
I'm in favor.
of the proposed extensions.
Motion to approve the proposed
Walnut Creek School District 2026-2027 instruction calendar.
Mary, please.
11.7.
11.7 and we're with Resolution 2526-14
in celebration of Black African American History Month
for the month of February.
And I bring it forward to recognize the contributions
of our black and African American community.
And really, I just wanna call out most significantly
our local community who serve our schools
in very robust ways.
There are so many heroes
that I think our students learn about in our schools
from historical individuals
that have brought forward our community.
But we have so many people here in our community
also to celebrate.
And to be honest with you, as I'm sitting here
and not going to call out names, but all of their faces
just resonate with me.
And so I think this is really an opportunity for us
to recognize the contributions of our black African-American
community, both on a global level as well as a local level.
And so I bring this resolution forward for you tonight
to celebrate these contributions that our local community,
as well as the global community, I think.
I move approval of resolution 252614
in support of Black African-American History Month.
Call second.
I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Opposed?
Abstention motion to approve resolution 25-26-14
in support of Black African-American History Month carries.
Thank you.
11.8.
And finally, this is just a wonderful week
that I personally love as well.
This week is kindness week.
There's a national movement, of course,
that we see people celebrating.
but across our district to see all that is done
to generate kindness and compassion
and to really think about each other in a way
on a local level again and walk our schools
and just see the outburst of kindness
is just a absolutely joyful experience.
And I think you all know how much I appreciate.
Everybody knows that this is a big week for me
because I think it just, there's not really a better lesson
that we can teach our students
and that we can celebrate right now at this time
than to celebrate kindness.
And so this is a proclamation that our district this week
gets to celebrate the kindness and compassion
that we know is important and really gives our community
sense of belonging that I think is so important to all of us. So I bring
forward this proclamation for you tonight. I move approval of resolution 25-26-15
Kindness Week Proclamation. I'll second. I'll have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I oppose the extension motion to approve
resolution 25-26-15 Kindness Week Proclamation varies thank you item 12
reports from governing board members I wanted to report that I visited
Merwood on 14th of January this month and was very pleased to be able to see a
a fifth grade English language arts lesson to look at the Wellness Center
and a third grade math lesson. I'm very excited to see all the good work that's happening here.
I don't have anything to report.
I attended the Budget Roadshow workshop with Marie and then
Michael and Christine, in Sacramento, on January 20th, that was a very enjoyable trip, a lot of information that hurt a little bit.
It was very informative. And then Marie and I had a call on the 22nd in preparation for this meeting.
not official board duty but I attended a WCEF slash Las Lomas event where they
kind of showed us the different classrooms that were supported or funded
by WCEF so I think that was great if we did kind of do something similar at WCEI
Okay, that would be amazing. We are on item 13, future agenda items, anything... 14 pertinent dates. I believe we have a change, but it's not, oh, it's not here yet. April meeting, right? Okay, right.
And then we are adjourning to closed session. So at 750. Thank you.