January 2026 Meeting of the Board of Trustees

January Board Meeting Recording

the States of America and to the Republic for which it stands 1 nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all can I get a motion to approve the agenda all those in favor passes um report on any closed session items right you have been closed session the board approves our Personnel list and that included for certificated a 0.5 temporary new hire for classified we had 1 new hire 1 promotional a motion by Bernie and seconded by Andy the Personnel is passed on a 30 vote and then also in closed session we had a student expulsion so the board accepted the administration's recommendation of explosion of student number 228547 on a motion by Bernie a second by Mark and on a 30 V and also in closed session we talked about some legal matters and we did a mid-year check-in on the superintendent's uh goals so 34 students presentation um public comments we have 1 public comment sorry uh evening our board members I see there was a few uh not there if you would convey my uh gratitude for the opportunity I just wanted and thought it was appropriate that I come and you know on my face so there was a face to the name and just to let you know that it's an honor and I'm very humbled by uh your decision to have me on and and this critical time in the high school for that matter program there I I know I knew the challenges when uh uh Mrs Fairbanks explained to me and I I want you to rest assured that I got excited because that's exactly what my experience where I feel I'm made for I like being needed and I like being able to have someone utilize all that experience because a situation like that is really going to call for every little trick in the book that I have and so I'm excited and honored and humbled and uh I uh like I said Thank you thank you very much uh the the first I guess 4 days now um it's been uh great break each day has gotten better and this uh Administration has been more than supportive you got a great administrator there or Administration and I cats off to your HR person and of course who made it all possible for me so if you convey that to the other board members that's all I have to say and you have my deep gratitude for this opportunity thank you we've been saying the same right back to you we have deep gratitude for somebody who's got the experience in classroom management skill set to come in and such a challenging situation and just hit the ground with your feet right it's very nice thank you thank you you're welcome all right so we'll move on to the reports so you the president we have a certified staff good evening happy the 2026 uh thank you toot for getting us through this very trying week on so many bubbles oh my God how many Mondays can you have uh so for those of you that aren't aware um we came back to a campus that had funding so we had uh moves of 1 day and then they moved the next day Tuesday Peach and these power went out from the lost the internet Wednesday I believe was Locust egg there was only a small showing of locust uh in the in the ochre Basin Thursday I don't know what's happened because I've been running around doing damage people but other than that thank you thank you thank you I'm proud to be here um I received a packet today um I will freely admit I have not done as much research as I probably should have but it literally was in my box that I came by and I talked to Brian about a topic um but 1 of the figures is 2.2 2.2 million and I'm going to uh hand out these wires uh I showed Brian I showed Charlotte um this is of programs supported by not only CTA but also uh Alberta's school boards Association uh sure I'll just keep them coming um so prop uh prop 30 which is 1 of the school funding uh components is getting ready to expire prop 55 extension is to extend that tax it is not a new tax it is an extension the 2.2 million dollars is the potential impact do you send the Unified School District giraffe number is we bring in 20 million 20 25 to 30 okay this will have a dramatic impact on everything we do everything from infrastructure to salaries to curriculum Etc as I mentioned uh and I did not was not able to get who at the SCBA State School Board Association said that the that they should actually be the 1 that is the spearheading this but CTA has taken taken the Reigns um I have a petitions they are petitions to get it onto the ballot for uh I this is the November election um we have to continue to support this this is not impacting the vast majority of our residents as I said it's not any new taxes it is really continuing uh prop 30 and that Prosperity tax is affecting people that have a 700 uh 000 income or above for joint violent so please please let me take a look at this I have petitions as I said I don't think it's necessarily appropriate for me to have people sign this but I will have them feel free to find me um of course with all petitions uh it depends on the county so Mr Beth would be signing a different 1 uh Mr shark who lives in Mariposa Press On Us in Madera uh the other thing I want to say is a reminder like you know some of you is already RSVP um for the school board dinner thank you for reading helping to get this information out um I'm a little uh I know I've mentioned this before but we all need reminders particularly uh coming out of the hectic uh season and once again I appreciate that I work here um you are well aware of the turmoil that's happening uh down in Madera Unified School District um they're having a significant challenge between uh the bargaining units as well as uh the administration uh 1 of the meetings I just attended we have a new uh primary contact person Lisa Eloy if you've been my contact person uh retired at the end of the year um I just met with the new gentleman same as earlier Gonzalez um and he was asking me about the our uh our district and I said I I truly blessed I sit down with the superintendent I sit down with the HR Director about every weeks I have just about every board member's phone number in my phone there's not this higher there is a hierarchy but not like in larger districts uh if I remember correctly trust me unifying is bargaining team is or their whole team is like 135 people now that's not who's in the room necessarily for bargaining but it's really hard to be jerks when you have to go to an event with board members and administration and teachers etc etc I'm blessed to be here I'm blessed of have my career here to ever go out on strike as a high school student I did however go out on strike supporting those teachers so thank you for your time appreciate it thank you um Okay so administrative staff you here in the way I see appropriate and that would be the order that I wrote for me unless you guys had something planned not this time I was going to go first anyways exactly thank you Chris good evening good evening I haven't seen you guys since so um I'll make it quick couple of things here I've written down the first 1 is I want to thank Dr boury um for facilitating a graduate profile presentation in our staff meeting this past Wednesday so it's definitely enjoyed that and so that was very interesting so thank you Dr boring for of facilitating that we had uh on the attendance front and enrollment we had 2 new families move in to verbal this week the family from North Fork and I found this impressive so that's good news on that front uh for the school year today in the beginning of the first day of school um until this uh end of December our tenants was 95 24% daily attendance last year it was 9 982.2 at the same time NWA testing will take place this month uh between January 13th and January 17th and that's for all of our K through 8 students are get a person so we'll do we'll do that this month and I was already scheduled in on our master schedule and then additionally my third through 8 uh great teachers will be administering 1 um fieb beforehand and so I will have 2 data points and look at so we're going to take that data and February and then look at that in our in our PLC team meetings um and I think that's it any questions for me I questions just popped in my head when you get a new family who comes in um what is there a a fixed process for introducing them to the district or do you just kind of wing it um members available or or do you have a regimen for how you get them acquainted with the schools need the parents as they're kind of a process for that I never thought about it to let you is it just particular to our site so for instance yeah it's really under our site and so um it's Christmas Scott is our register the office so she's the point person for that but it can be anybody in the office so she does the intake on that and then I get involved with I mean if they're in the office and I'm there I'll come out the office and reduce myself and then I like to get a tour of the school so 1 of us if I'm not available either Kristen Scott or I think this cardigan or 1 of our staff members give the the family A a lay of the land kind of you know because they're just they're new right and um give an introduction to their teachers and stuff so that's that's how we do at the site and see resources in a schedules uh lunch schedules um are they you know bus are they going over the bus here's our here's our our map of our bus drop off um somebody shows them around yeah if you don't just say that's your classroom good luck okay I just curious I know is the bathroom never thought about that yeah middle school middle school student you know their classes are down below alright and so yeah that's how we do it so thank you yeah you're welcome all right distance from the house and my voice is I think this time um all right so welcome back uh we are um inside the welcome back all of our families for the 20th of the 25th back to school year um Sada wanted me to present that we have um been able to recruit over 280 days of um attendance based on independent study which is amazing so she's in a lot of work pushing out um almost to the point of exhaustion and frustration and annoyance to families and teachers and whatnot but obviously it's working to be able to improve a lot of attendance um ours is not quite at River Gold percentage but we're up from last year or as um Jay said we're gonna do NWA assessments next week primary teacher will also be doing DS for the primary kids I'm excited to say that we are expanding our tutoring program after school we have a an agreement with vision pathways Vision Academy Vision Academy Vision Pathways and um we've been able to serve this year 8 students 4 second graders and 4 fourth graders and we're now going to expand that to 4 first graders so we're able to bring not another um retired teacher who also has a sub on our campus so she's going to start working with them I believe not next week but the week after try to help bridge those gaps for reading uh enrollment is up I was excited to see that a woman is up from last year um even a couple of kiddos is what we need that's exciting on Monday we held our monthly title 6 meeting that all of you are invited to attend anytime you want um we did have a change of um leadership we now have Katrina James and now going to be the share of our title 6 committee she also works for uh chick Chauncey uh proper and they're working on I believe Oriana Walker is moving over into the education position which is going to be really exciting so that we can partner with her and really provide some starts for Native American students um later in the month we're meeting Dr born and I and um Kirk from the county are going to work on identifying some more needs that we have with our Indian students and how we can better support them next week I believe is staff alone so miss um Miss bodin's taken to 7th and 8th graders to potentially um competition would be really exciting because we haven't done that I don't believe for a while uh next week we are starting homework club so I've got 3 teachers uh Miss Booth Miss bougie and Mr Bennett are going to start homework club so from 2:30 to 4:00 on Mondays Tuesdays and Thursdays any 3rd through 8th grader that needs support and homework um reading are going to be able to have that for free of charge so you can just show up um they can then go to boys and club or my club or get picked up if need be Miss Penny um our counselor shared with staff yesterday and our staff meeting that we had had over 180 visits to the Zenon which is um Brooke came and visited I believe yesterday and didn't leave till lunchtime walked him through he's still there walking through the Zen then watching through the community resource center and um Miss Bodin happened to have kids so he walked in there I had to go to an IEP and 1 of his aides came to me later on and said um that guy that you dropped off just left and it was like 1:00 so loved it hung out with a couple of our special friends uh there's a picture of him on uh Facebook as well and some assignments that and so that was really exciting um 1 of the most exciting things about Zen Den as well average time a kid is in there is 5 minutes so 1 of the biggest concerns that staff had last year were was well kids are going to want to go there never going to want to leave that obviously is not been the case so that space has been utilized multiple times from our County kids all the way to our eighth graders uh penny is starting her next round of groups with some of our um kind of not at risk some really needy um whether it's self-regulation or Mean Girls or all of those things from the gamut from first grade to eighth grade she's being with kids throughout the week which I think she has about 70 kids last year or last semester which is what I'm saying I love that for you any questions yes sir you said that Dre d r a testing period what's Dre and reading assessment directing results all I do is a Dr B what it is is it's a reading assessment it's a reading assessment so NWA is the is the assessment that we picked for the district the whole district is using it with my littles we also need to kind of drill down on exactly where they are in Reading what grades are those Littles are going to be my first and second and maybe third depending upon where they scored the beginning school year gotcha okay Family Resource Center done a lot of movement in there people using that um we did our I don't know if you saw Facebook but our leadership class did a video on it so that was kind of exciting um as of right now it's kind of stayed still we've had some families and some kids go in and it's going to it's going to become 1 of those things that's going to be there's going to be a lot of people going through that so as of right now after our ribbon cutting which is really exciting and the uh article that we had in the Mariposa Gazette was awesome um so I I have a feeling that's going to be something that's going to be utilized quite a bit and I in fact um ran into 1 of the carers at wuma and she and her um spouse who works actually here in the district um Julie Greenwood and I can't remember her wife's name is they want to come she wants to come and see both the Zen den and the Family Resource Center because they're not utilizing their space like that it so she wants to come and kind of figure out how we're doing it and kind of attempt to emulate that so that's kind of exciting okay um 1 more question for you um the dashboard results were spectacular but I noticed the 1 the 1 group uh Native American still looking for opportunities to to get some improvement it are any of the things you just said and presented uh services that will help them in dashboard objectives yes they can so absolutely so the after school tutoring will help in terms of homework um can increase of attendance I believe we're going to work on how we can have kids earn some um earn some attendance credit back like if you have a Saturday school you can earn attendance so I've got to figure out legality whether we can do that um and in addition to that the title 6 committee and once we get Oriana Walker there as a um kind of a go between between us that that will also help with suspensions because we can use some creative ways of when kids make bad choices how are we going to fix it you know how are we going to make sure it doesn't happen again okay um I've been able to reach out to them for a couple of our kiddos to get them some supports we have all of that is Matt Greene so that can be all of it so with the the after school to remove my first graders top of my head I don't know if any of them are American Indian or not um I have to look at whether second and fourth grade are as well but we are looking at with the um kind of the the direct instruction that's taking place in class the title 6 teen committee and those sorts of things and then working with uh Kirk from Kirk Donuts from the county will come up with a bigger a better plan as to what time okay thank you okay thank you can I go back up there no I totally forgot that's probably that's called the Tony Miser not miserable we have a name for that Tony Miser exemption of this tiny my 4th grade teacher was able to secure a thousand dollar private donation um to start a robotics club which starts Monday and that's for middle school students uh she currently does Lego Club and that's for through K through 5 and so yeah she was able to secure that so she's going to be able to buy some robotics kids um and so we she always felt there was a big need there that's kind of future uh we feel and so it gave our middle school kids something a little bit more advanced in Legos and so we had a private person to look forward to the community and they had no idea thousand dollars to to fund that to give you that call and so and that's a program she knows after school so just want to mention that um so I wonder if there's a chance for some connection there robotics competition maybe a chance for them okay thank you okay tell you somebody um my name is academic I'm just trying to have a working building and things like that so um it was quite the thing back to school Randy um has loved me um so we've got these are situated so I hope that they were able to make some quick fixes for us so that has been good but you know as soon as the kids didn't have internet they wanted to go home because how can they verify the internet um so we we are really just gearing back up into our second semester kids are going um we're already giving in for some of the seniors and Barbie had their senior speeches for the community boards I cannot believe we are there they had that I believe yesterday they had in so just so yeah so tell him yep so um so you know it's going to be here before you know it on them already getting some announcements out on seniors on colleges or I got 1 who got into an aviation School in Utah another 1 was going into the military um another 1 he's already signed uh to play sports so really excited uh for their seniors and I'm not quite ready for and yet um we already gearing up for next year that's really the Moto I'm in right now working on the master schedule trying to tweak it before um you know they'll be going out for the bedroom updates and meeting with the eighth graders and all website uh we're planning our day which is January 28th with them coming here um and having the tour and we um they're saying um so that's what we've been really working on there's been a lot of that that's what's been happening around here and these are still trekking along um with the classrooms and the kids don't know if Lucas has said this in his because I did not get to go over his speech today with them um or what's in his presentation but I'm sure you saw the tennis um team and their Awards they were presented uh down at the county was supervisor meeting um we got a nice flag for them here um that was sent up to us um from 1 of our Congressman the assembly um so yeah great to have ended they're not out yet uh they'll pick up there um but but we have new staff we have Julie up here now um as our attendance clerk replacing Montana out so we're just looking around do you know what happened with the power I wasn't clear I mean I we had a basketball game last night and I saw that there were 2 as a power surge or something when it came back on and blew a couple of Lights in the gym so it was let's consider Brown out we had multiple legs with low voltage just here or was it in the surrounding area just here just here okay 70% of the high school the work was taken down due to too many surges going on continuously so for Network stability and saving servers it was taken down we were able to get River Gold of course called back up in 20 minutes due to a generator it was like stranger things in here yeah be a need for an insurance claim does it do any damage there is going to be a claim within you already talked to our rep as soon as we get all the data we've had some hacks and we had you know so information together and then officers each week and a huge shout out to Nathan and his team trying to run around and turn everything off we had to make an announcement to turn everything off but nothing was working so we couldn't so we were like literally having to run around and like tell everyone like nothing worked so um as of right now none of our Network equipment was damaged due to this and we acted quickly enough yes so that was good thank you um before we go into a question I have you on the backup power do you have uh is that to cover the entire site or just specific equipment and is it uh manual generator or automatic cut over uh we do not have an automatic cut over here we have a portable a uh inverter generator and it is not powerful enough to currently feed the entire campus it is only for the server room and the problem is that when we're having power issues our UPS's last about 30 to 30 minutes to an depending on what's pulled off of them so we have backup power at every switch for about half an hour to an hour it is been looked at and I believe in the facilities matter of the plan to go over that so gotcha is are the UPS is under maintenance yes half hour is not very long No 1 is not real quick couple questions for you do you mind um if I ask is state center doing a good job for you and helping your seniors uh plan for maybe state center futures can I connect with you can I connect with Jessica to we have diligent and really trying with them they are not an easy partner the guy that we work with is very nice and trying to be accommodating but there's some other things going on with their onions fighting 18 we might be making connections with Merced and maybe College because they have a better right now are you talking about for dual enrollment okay yeah they do a like then registering our kids like that's not a problem and I'm coming to register for after they do a whole thing that's fine it's just the dual enrollment and getting that off the ground has been very frustrating is it too late to salvage it's not on our end the problem is half the time they don't even know what's on their end and it continually changes because it's beyond the guy that I talked to so because I think there's some meaning preferences on I think what I've heard around the state like dual enrollment is that felt and tell me you might have more here is that our teachers are taking their jobs because they're teaching the classes so them approving our teachers has been nothing short of I don't have the 2 that I gave them last year still are not a part hoping I have Jolene approved for the class that's supposed to start next week it'll still is not like it's very it's very frustrating so what's going on yes but to your point about Helping Seniors that's positive that they're well getting kids in you know president City comes and a lot of people come and do that but it's been Rocky and it's been tough to to um get the dual enrollment partnership going so that's not necessarily seniors right there's some seniors but right um so yeah so any any help that we could get there much appreciated sure of our seniors so you get signed up for we get priority enrollment for Madera Community College so they're already expensive they all set up 1 of them already obviously you have other plans but we're like hey back up its free just in case so they already do have that okay and I did not mention for graduates Kathy just sent it to me I think I have 5 or 6 graduates for adult head uh this semester and I have 5 between Evergreen and aani um this semester of last semester or last semester so I already have that many graduates that have happened and probably a few more that'll happen even before the end of the school year any other question for you Jessica is if you have uh if faculty have couldn't backup plans for when power goes out from the internet's not available to a lesson plan to keep kids engaged um I mean it might be a little harder for certain teachers require certain electronic devices to work that are plugged into Power um but you know Danielle can't do a whole lot if there are no cooking I mean it's plugged into electricity um but yes some of them did they usually pivot and they play they do something else they at least it was a nice day and some of them could go outside those classrooms down there didn't look that bad like they still had like light and they were fine the buildings that are the older ones this is where we were having a lot of the issues issues they didn't have internet but they did have they have light like we had to turn the lights off because they were just pulsating so and all that direct the octane bulb these is where they were having the signs building so um they just hit it and they but it's also really hard with the kids because when you do that kind of distraction it just kind of hold on to our new backup lights work in the bathroom well there's some positive news so I have a question sorry that I'm back telling here and sorry this is already been covered but so they certify our teachers to be able to teach college credit classes so that they can have those credits done ahead of time to be able to attend and they're imposing this because they feel that it's taking that's what my understanding is what their Union is are they aware that kid has College credited classes done before leaving high schools more likely to continue on and taking more classes at that college than the ones that are going in I can't speak for them I think they're just thinking about what they're feeling as a loss of of Physicians for their Department as all I can think is thinking about um although they have opportunities to bring teachers in that never happens if I ever have and I did have to bring a teacher in to fit it on me what happened with math it's an online teacher does it feel very forward thinking or so what what can we do to better have some better communication with them or long-term goals the hard part is I work with the college and they they want it but it's it's somewhere in their teachers so Jolene had to go interview yesterday I still don't have if she's cleared to teach she has she qualified on paper I don't they have not given me those decision um we're not the pioneers of this right this exists already in another District know that's why it's so frustrating so they the um counselors went to a conference uh um at UC Merced where we've got a connection um back in November and saying that you seem they met them or said City College and they were telling you about how easy it because you don't have to have these paper signed every time it's like a pass through it's it's not this whole mou it's just I just have a process that really works and it seems to be very clear so if I can't get that to become a working relationship and we are considering going and working okay with you if I say that to people I mean I don't sugarcoat things in my conversations Andy say they they pretty much knows that okay um but and he I think he sympathetic but a lot of its out of his control with what happens with the Union so I you know we already have a relationship we we've had kids doing dual enrollment here in that same class it's just yeah these are things that are and it's bigger than just you somebody that's bigger than just the oers campus right for the community college but this is a good case study and a good example of how those make their way Downstream and how they impact kids in rural areas who have some of the biggest needs for these services and so I'm happy to help to help with any messaging around that as well I know Jessica would be willing to do that as well it's a good way to show like um the reality of what some of these bigger issues the impact that it has on kids who are trying to actually get into these the same system yeah so if you can send some frustration on our part but we also understand that like the Sims doesn't uh Jessica or Darren you know or Brian issue what are the ones that you know where the topic is I have a standing meeting with her and try to wring something coordinate this Brian and see if we can get the same thing these obstacles cleared out the okay thank you thank you thank you thank you all right students representative reports we have a video good evening folks my name is Lucas from goldrick yhsa industry president uh once again I apologize for not being in-person attendance I am in another basketball game as we speak but with that let's get straight into it starting off with Evergreen uh once again ever students and staff are starting the year off strong and anticipation of a district artificial intelligence policy Evergreen students are prioritizing responsible digital citizenship and healthy technology habits as students learn to navigate a with a focus on critical thinking they're taking ownership of their learning in a tech for environment Evergreen Senior Maddie towns said is in the Press She was recently featured on the Foothills under 30 podcasts where she shared the Journey of launching her own business style edit by empty based on her original project my closet box Evergreen is proud to support students who show perseverance creativity and a strong sense of community core school is off and running with boy soccer and girls basketball beginning this week the school wrapped up the final week before break with a 12 Days of Christmas performance by staff this was a huge hit with students also 673 was purchased by a Community member with proceeds benefiting course quote Elementary School the pentathlon team led by Miss booth and Miss Bodin has been working hard preparing for their upcoming event and Madera junior high students are also looking forward to the FBI day later this month at Yosemite High School also CES has had over 180 students earned perfect attendance during the 2 week challenge and is planning new attendance incentives for the upcoming months moving on to River Gold congratulations and a huge shout out to the boys basketball team on winning the sports tournament in December this Friday River Road will kick off girls as well in boys soccer Seasons next Friday fingers crossed will be the first mass field trip since January 2024 with over 100 students signed up to Ski and Snowboard River Gold continues to to offer after school Lego Club and theater club for students to participate in and enjoy moving on last but not least you high school why has had a eventful start to the year with um some student experiencing a change of scenery in their classrooms due to recent rainstorms that caused a few issues on campus even with those challenges students and staff are staying positive and doing things the badger way boys basketball took a tough loss to Fireball last night and girls soccer had a close match against CBC 2 nights ago ultimately leading to a close loss the wrestling team recently hosted a multi School match which was very successful attendance at athletic events has increased thanks in part to the ASP teams daily Sandwich Board announcements promoting upcoming events teachers continue to receive positive feedback for keeping students engaged and on task huge shout out to the teachers also new clubs have started recently including Bible study every Monday and Dungeons and Dragons club that meets monthly looking ahead future Badger days approaching in late January and ASB is looking forward to hosting eighth grade students from across the mountain area and showing them why yusei High School is the right choice thank you so much hope you guys have a great rest of the board meeting and goodbye but what is a 67 so have you heard the kids do 67 yes okay that's what it was so my Junior High teacher made so all the schools decorate a tree for oakers right yeah he made a 3D digital whatever model of of 67 for the topper that became the theme of the tree so somebody I get a phone call on vacation somebody driving through town see it calls the school wants to buy it and called didn't try to find who owns the tree and whatnot didn't like just have somebody to go buy and take it and I'm like okay so the guy that drove by and took it and called the school and dropped off and check and then I had like 2 or 3 people call me what happened to a retreat like well somebody bought it somebody thought somebody stole our course so in the 20s I've been in the school district I have never ever had a tree purchase off off the tree there over here well apparently I need to do a 67 tree at the thing make more than my but it was it was literally it was all student decorated and whatnot but how tall was the chair it was not it was like 52 also like we have that kind of success maybe if we do go forward with Bond we made it to 7 Bond prop 67 there you go yeah so that it wasn't okay uh superintendent I don't know how you call us follow Lucas or conversations about 67 happy New Year everybody it's 2026 uh I did want to share that Jennifer Brooks and their apologies for not being able to attend tonight's meeting they both had um higher commitments to the higher realized that would for sure be here Bernie and I were actually just talking I think it's the first time we've had a meeting with only 3 board members has something before but we do have a quorum so business goes on to think the 3 of you for being here I also just wanted um thank Randy thank you Nathan thank you Jessica for dealing with the facility issues as we returned from break I mean I watched them I walk out there with them and just phenomenal I mean getting the elements up in 20 minutes was like I called with principals and said here we go guys like 20 minutes later it was all functioning again um but you know Randy and his team really getting people to move in a plan worked out I know you guys met over the break and figured that all out Nathan was very quick to go protect all expensive equipment and make sure that I got shut down and just just it was it was a phenomenal display of just quick action quick decision making and quick execution when things needed to happen and Jessica did a great job of communicating out to our staff and I think you guys all that work and he's got back to normal pretty quick and we're still in different places but it was a good job making sure that learning was not disrupted as much as it could um excited to have our our kids back know you know Mr Marquez left but he wanted to make a point to come and introduce himself and he's genuinely excited about this opportunity and this challenge in front of him to bring stability to the math class so Mr Johnson our vice principal talked that class for the last 3 weeks and thankful what he did just to bring um stability and to get grades under control and really set the stage and have the kids ready for a new teacher to come in and we believe strongly and Mr Marquez I think he's going to do a great job 20 plus years of experience um and we feel like you know somehow we're fortunate to have him and he feels fortunate to be here so looking forward to a way he's going to have to have to offer um as we've discussed before uh the boards is considering will consider a potential facilities bond for the November ballot and so uh just in a public way just want to announce that we'll be conducting a community survey we really want to assess the community sentiment about how they would feel for a bond this data will then come before the board in a public way or we don't ever want to and we'll get to find out like you know from a community survey how do they feel about it potential blind and that will help the board make an informed data-driven decision around what to do in terms of pursuing a bond or not and you heard here are some of these facilities thing and it's like daily we have things um you know we've got to do something and this is 1 approach that that we can take so kudos to the board for moving forward on this and getting Data before we actually jump in and make that decision but that survey will be going out um at the end of this in the January could be getting phone calls and text messages text messages and all these things to get as much input um as we can so thank you Charlotte for leading that process as well with with our people um also wanted to share you know at the last board meeting Charlotte shared that we're going to need to make about 425,000 um in budget cuts that's not something Charlotte wants to do or something that Charlotte decides to do but something that she gets to report on um as as she as she does the budget and those cuts are for next year so we're working diligently as a team to figure out how to do that and so hopefully have the least amount of impact on kids and on and on learning and uh we'll be in a position very soon to bring some recommendations to the board but unfortunately you know these these things mean you make cuts and that's sometimes people that sometimes programs and it's just the reality when we talk in negotiations about you know giving increased and all that we want to do that but this is what falls out of the back end sometimes and just it's just reality and we can find a way to do that you to work together to be able to um to do it all and we will in better news we just closed out the first attendance reporting period of the Year known as P1 and our attendance across the district is up by 3% that's significant um compared to the same time last year um P 1 to P 1 from 1 year uh to the next and that's critical because as you know our enrollments down by about 34 students right now those sounds like we got a few more so um that's good but the the improved attendance can mitigate some of the enrollment laws sometimes not entirely and sometimes up to the same degree to actually Break Even but it really does help but it's really critical that um we you know continue these strategies continue to get kids in school because really funding is driven by P2 which is April which is April right which goes which goes end of April is where our cut off is so so it's critical that we keep kids in school and shout out to our principals and all of our staff just for you know making this a priority and making sure that kids are here and for attendance but for learning you need to be here to hold on and I think 1 of our principles mentioned independent study and that's important because when kids are gone we can still give them work and they can still practice skills so if they're still learning while they're out um in return We recover attendance but also students are learning and actually still doing work even though they're they're absent in a way from school and then lastly we had a chance to tour the my club team Center just across the street here from the from the high school really nice facility is geared towards being a place where high school students can go they can be together they can engage in fun activities and it really started generating some ideas around how the high school and this teen center can partner and you know give kids a place to be and and you know keep keep them out of trouble and something to do that's really fun so just looking forward to what that partnership mean in the in the future thankful to Jan and her team and all of our team who uh walked down the road to go to go and check it out it was a really really good business that's a little more uh board members I think it's Mark uh yeah well trying to be brief um thank you everybody glad we're back and I'll start with a new calendar year a new semester and thank you for all your efforts and a lot of positive news obviously they're always challenges and they're infrastructure challenges sounds like you're at the high school and so well done Randy and Jessica and everybody else over coming at Nathan thank you for all that um and um appreciation to Administration to uh my son says he he really regrets missing 3 board meetings he feels that it's just coincidence that that happened because this game was kind of a late scheduled game that happened to be on a Thursday Norm normally the games at this time of year would not be on a Thursday but um so he even told his coach that he didn't think he was going to be able to go tonight's game and I he said well he told me I said no you got to go to the game and he of course that means nothing to him that I said that so I said well I'll ask Mr Beck if what you should do and of course Brian said no go to your game and then hearing that he decided he needed to go to the game um and then spring his ankle last night so the karma for even thinking about not going to the game and and again after referring to it when he was given that report he had his foot in a bucket of ice and um I but he wanted me to convey that he regrets that he hasn't been here in person and I'm sorry it's just because Sports scheduled he intends to be back uh next month so uh thanks everyone for all your hard work and that's all I've got and it yes I Echo your appreciation of everyone I want Nathan thank you for protecting expensive equipment brown outs are really hard on electronics uh thank taking steps to fix all of that uh Randy for all of your efforts to you know ship things around on quick and short and zero and Jessica for all of your efforts to keep things moving along at the high school with despite all the challenges um Anthony thank you for the upcoming uh invite I will definitely be taking you up on that um Jessica for the good report on the testing and Jay for for your reference as well both of you for attendance uh The crucial aspect of attendance as it relates to even though we're down on enrollment but we have unintended is an interesting dynamic uh 1 410 is well for our funding uh and also appreciate that hearing all these reports there's a there's a constant focus on it's a it's fascinating to see it having 40 year career and education seeing this District so focused on culture academic excellence progress encouragement we talked about the superintendent's midyear um progress report tonight and I feel and I Echo I think the board sentiment that we are very fortunate to have a superintendent who we feel is extraordinary and well-rounded and focused on on the details but at the same time has a good big picture focus on on everything and culture and moving everyone along and encouraging and it's it's a it's a wonderful combination to see I just felt um needed to say something because I don't know that you get a lot of kudos for you're making things worn this well isn't because it's just running good because you have great team because you're a great leader who's doing the right things and maybe part of the right things is having the right people but it's also encouraging them to operate cohesively collaboratively with within that that administrative team to achieve those results and I think we're we're accomplishing some extraordinary things in this District thank you thank you um well Happy New Year to everyone so um as we start 2026 um principles I read um your weekly reports and it's just it was really good to see all your messages out and there there's always this consistent theme throughout it and I like that kind of centered in first thing we see on there is focused around our culture and why we're there and all those things and it's just um it's just 1 of those things that I continue to see throughout presentations through um communication in the um reflected in the attitudes and the um the amount of effort that's given from our staff so I appreciate that that focus on that and um I'll just mirror everything that everyone said about all the chaos the Apparently sued with all of that and everybody stepping up and taking over and doing what needs to be done in those situations so appreciate all of that um so thank you look forward to a great next semester and a new year and um just appreciate the effort that everybody puts in doing amazing work and like everyone says it's just this um this feeling of just like progress and movement and good things coming so thank you everyone for that and with that that uh normal business so we have the consent agenda so I need a motion to percent agenda second any discussion all right all those in favor motion passes 2 number 6 discussion items so the camera Project based 1 update yes so before I start I just want to say thank you Randy and Charlotte and get mentors helping me be good leaders so I do appreciate your time with me making sure I'm doing a good job well appreciate it so this is just an update on our progress uh before we were expected to have it done by December 31st we need an extension you just agreed upon with the consent agenda no cost of District there's just things in the button up to make sure that things are done right we Randy and I walked today just to check everything for a pre-check so things are looking good for the most part there will be some small fixes so Phase 1 where we're at so current status we're we're almost there um with cameras there's small challenging areas some of these areas are between cafeteria and the gym that they still need to finalize at high school and then course schools in their multi-purpose room cafeteria area those are the harder areas the ADN state which is the later part of the project so these percentages are pretty high river goal is 100% complete we walked in today there's small changes in fixes but otherwise the cameras are all online our guests system has been it's been working pretty well staff has gotten some minor training on how it's working and it's it's been doing really well for at least people walking around campus we kind of know who they are and they're very clearly labeled the patches now so that's good for per se and students to see this is just an overview of river gold you can see at the bottom of each camera there's a label those haven't been changed yet um we started with the process and then we reached out to active net who is our uh safety people and they they wanted to be involved in the name of cameras so we're saving that for them um so River Gold Course gold and this is some of the high school the high school is a very very large campus as you know so there's quite a few cameras you can see inside the gym in the cafeteria those are 360 fish eyes they see all the way around they did a really good job a lot of the cameras turned out really really good and seeing this is Phase 1 we located areas where we could see Improvement in camera coverage we got the majority of what we thought we would need but there's room for improvement um guest system screen has been like I said pretty pretty good staff has been pretty uh acceptable to how how its functions it's not too difficult it's really easy for somebody to come in and I don't know if you've seen those tablets but check in that way um the background checks this has been working pretty good it automatically alerts um the correct people if something is red flag we haven't had very many issues a lot of false positives and those things which is good you know the system is working um the person of interesting is pretty good on the back end nobody's had to use it but um it automatically creates a good staff members so the registers don't even need to see it it just if there's an issue the administrator can see it there for them the ability to see where people go it's kind of a no-brainer if you've got people on campus you kind of want to know where they're going especially if they're going in no go to themes up outside the areas it's really nice to know um I'm just showing off some features I chose myself tried to avoid anyone else in the public this is just some of the facial recognition I created myself as a person of interest and anywhere I went on the campus it's going to attract me it's going to combine Clips show you all the cameras and I'm I'm seen in and just it's just Clarity visibility knowing what's going on um some of the features that are really cool is the object person zones it's doing a lot of AI analytics on the back end a lot of processing power but you can click and it'll scan the entire environment and say these are all the objects that aren't typically some cars people see your engine and I walk in all the district office and it's it's highlighted us and it's showing us as a object to importance and then it's just there are so many things to delineate what you're looking at so I chose bikinis photo I'm always around on a bike it's 1 of the perks that is uh happened that since having heart issue um I've been blessed by Justified that she says I can come around on a bike uh but it's really really all I had to do is search bike and there's a clip all week going around campus while I'm doing stuff I threw a thumbs up just for fun but you can get 3 deep safety vests if there's people working on campus you're like all right where's the construction guys they're going to take you best you can look at that they're wearing hard hats you can do any of that there's just so many features to find people and then questions this is my favorite picture it's my favorite too it's great the amount of wildlife that is on our campus especially 3 in the morning is amazing raccoon raccoons so we're gonna so the area that might be humor the most is not quite up between the cafeteria and the gym with all the break-ins and the snack s*** break-ins and equipment should break-ins at this point there's no approach to those locations where we wouldn't see somebody from on camera like the clarity of knowing between those locations is in Phase 1 it should be up by the end of next week the clarity is seen things in action it is important to us and Snack Shack like you said that's an important area the camera should be coming on tonight for that 1 so they're they're here working tonight they've been working on Gates and and their time finishing those out there working on cameras are you gonna practice crawling through 1 of those connection Windows to see what kind of view of crawling to see if I can sneak onto campus well thank you Nathan for all your hard work on that a couple questions if you don't mind um a lot of the functionality amazing using the AI the facial recognition the license plate Person of Interest all of those things are very cool um I've been in systems work for a long long time and I know that they uh can be by people who don't understand um there are there are moral and legal and ethical reasons why you don't abuse surveillance systems what can you tell me about our policies for ensuring student privacy and that we don't abuse such system capabilities for generalized uh student surveillance okay so got so I was going to have some questions related to like the security behind it and policy uh what I'd say is there are General surveillance and operation are maintained as just normal District records so they maintain that way um however if footage was seen as they or they needed to investigate something if any student was involved in that it would instantly become part of Student Records so it's protected by A Perfect Coppa and we have to comply to those so when those things happen we archived videos and there is a process in place where archive work to be shared they have to consent to saying I understand that this is externally shared outside our administrators are are current approved people who can access the platform and so there's an consent essentially where they say I understand what I'm doing when I'm sharing this so if there's a shareable link that we're going to go out it would automatically be a violation if they they've consented to it they've said this what they're doing is legal and correct otherwise it's housed and it's secured file storage is on the can which is encrypted by bota and then when it gets uploaded to the cloud it's encrypted by for cloud by their security standards so um all of our accounts that have access to the system are 2-factor required and their Google accounts so um there's a lot of barriers to entry to get into it and then the staff that have access to it are aware that like hey this is these are important files that you can't just willy-nilly look at stuff and share stuff it's not it's not something to be done that way it's public it's Student Records for a sense um another thing is the guest system is what I'm going to explain that you staff that check people in don't see any of the backend Town checks or anything like that that data is protected so the if you were to access that it would create a log which is all audible so um any action that's done in the system is Audible and um 1 of the things that I made sure to sure like that is as people get on board in a position to get brought in the group policy for those roles never accidentally gain access to something that they should so that's all been put in place that's wonderful um the other question I was going to ask you but you've answered already is about the the combination of the guest system with the camera system and how uh what technical safeguards you put in place to ensure that audit logging is enabled and in fact if you have somebody who does do a an unauthorized access of a some say a video clip they have no reason to be doing that is is there something that had are there alerts that would go out to to let you know that the system has been accessed and here's the clip that was downloaded so you can ensure in an auditing capacity that those were legitimate movies accesses yes so at this point the miniature is the the last time policy was changed with cameras was 2023 so it's on there which end up potentially to evaluate what current policy is and if things need to adopt due to technology changes but yes any action that would be taken would be assumed under the justification of administrative for district purpose and if that was ever found out normal disciplinary action would have to go through HR in relation to abuse of a system like this just like any other issue program if you use it in a manner that's not intended for and District policies that it needs to go through policy procedures so the last thing I would say Nathan is that I've seen abuse be used as a double-edged sword sometimes people really do access video surveillance system unit um unauthorized Manner and for non-legitimate that's that's clearly got to be dealt with but I've also seen situations where somebody in uh for example Your Capacity be accused of looking at something and with the policy should be there to protect you as well right and and that audit logging capacity so you have a a clean track record and you're above reproach in terms of people suspecting what what is he looking at what what is the district uh what are they watching for if you were to audit the logs right now you can see a lot of me in there and a lot of me in there to making sure we've had up and down time on cameras checking to make sure that all is still good those things my hope is as these projects are finalized and completed that I'm almost never in there unless there's I'll get notification alert saying hey the cameras down then I will go check but as of right now you see a lot of me in there um essentially my hope is that my presence in there goes down and as staff members need them they will use them but they will not just use them let me know your s o sro's have a um a th access they do not that has not been um approved or decided upon fully in a capacity and I don't I don't know that there will be a decision anytime soon with that well I through the through the active agreement the whole Madera County Sheriff's Office um entered into an M Universe in terms of that but it would also handle this like any other student record it was Nathan referred to earlier like if we had a request for student record we would handle it that way but they don't have they do not have access on a daily basis like we do um in an emergency situation they would have access through through active day their portal is directed so inactive situation we're going to occur they log into that portal that portal gives them temporary access and then at any point we can revoke that temporary access to set up for another event if if those things are to happen and that's logged guys I assume yeah great thank you good update okay next is a public oh yeah so there's the first reading and as a first reading there's only 1 on there and this is with respect to immigration and this um is actually part of assembly Bill 49 which requires every District to update policy with certain requirements by March 1st 2026 so a first this month a second reading next month and approval would have us meet that deadline but we threw the policy if you have questions or concerns about the policy with immigration that's been updated to meet current law and guidance just let us know questions comments concerns right now hearing so we've got um public hearing on extended school year waiver so we will uh this is a public hearing so we will gather in that will give a little um this is a public hearing for a general waiver with CDE excuse me um for extended school year from extended school year is for students with moderate to extensive support needs so sure we have about 17 students that attended this is a very small percentage um it has gone through an approval with stack approval both Union unions and um also this uh flavor is considered to streamline and tighten our alignment with um mix sauce they run their extensive support needs summer school program the exact same time um and for same time of days so the waiver is 15 days long 6 hours a day instead of 20 days at 4 hours which is actually 90 hours instead of 80 hours for our students um this helps our students not have to do as many Transitions and keep the continuity of the school day in place um after July 4th we see a lot of attendance declined so this also will help with that uh and also um staff um interest in doing esy uh will probably be heightened because it'll allow on the brake and um a little bit less time for them to work so so um the change in schedule or expecting any backlash or negative feedback from any community members on the change schedule um we also had a School site council meeting and we had parents that came and they uh were in favor of it and actually some of the parents were student um exhaust um families parents so they were it was 1 of them actually said oh I'm so proud of you I haven't done this before so uh this is a Wonder waiver it has to be reapplied for every year questions so this is a public hearing so is there anybody from the public that has any comments to make so we will gamble out of public hearing um and then we'll move on to action items which the first was consideration of the waiver to change the schedule instead of the year okay so anything to add I am just speaking approval for the esy waiver for a summer of 2026 okay so I need a motion to approve so moved second all right discussion all those in favor motion passes okay action I in a state be consideration of adoption of revised board policy 5141.5 mental health and waiver of second reading Brian yeah so again normal protocols we would bring a policy to the board 1 month for consideration a second month for adoption we're actually asking that we do um both months work in this 1 month and way of the second reading the reasoning is um this would be a brand new policy it's actually required as part of Senate Bill 153 that requires districts to have um a mental health um policy with certain requirements in it by January 3rd 31st 2026 so that's why we're asking the board to do this in 1 because to meet this deadline we would have to do something in order to to not meet the deadline but basically this policy um just requires that their staff training around mental health especially for any staff that works with students in great 212 all certificated staff and 40% of classified staff in grade 7 through 12 which we have that in place um for for that kind of training it also involves um protocol on how to access Mental Health Services either in-house with our district or utilizing outside um agencies and it also outlines referral protocols to make sure that um everyone's aware on how we help students access Mental Health Services um again within our district or outside the district and so we basically adopted csba model policy that complies with um with this law and just asking the board to again wave a second reading approved this with 1 reading you've seen in advance with with respect to the board packet you've had a chance to read it um and if you have any questions I'm happy to answer those otherwise I would pass up the board adopt this policy bring us into compliance and that we move forward with our mil Health Services for students so motion approved motion to approve waiver of second week reading and Adoption of revised board policy 5141.5 second discussion all those in favor say I okay HC approval of school accountability report card so I can run around this time over here so I'm asking California Education Code 35256 8 that the governing board of each School District must annually issue a school account value report card which is for each School in the district and make the reports public starts providing information about the overall performance of schools including demographics student testing data teacher qualifications textbook sufficiency and school um please you've got an opportunity to review all the SS for all our schools and I'm asking for approval motion to approve I'll make that motion to approve second any questions for Dr Gordy or discussion items I I just have a quick question just a clarification I when I was reading some of the stats socioeconomically disadvantaged 66.4% is that is that figure we use for a duplicated or is that a different so unduplicated is a duplicate is a mix of things but is that 3 categories right okay sorry but that would be that would be the standard the in other words is the measuring stick the same in this report card is what feeds into that there's not a different criteria for that okay I was just curious and then we've got a bin at that rate last couple of years about 66% been hovering a little bit like 63 to 66 over the last few years and now year-over-year the single year and the 3 year very close and it was about 66% at this last lcff and just to follow up how how are we getting that data it comes through um a household income form that they complete it comes through a direct certification for for students who are on um snap map those type of things there's a direct search that comes in so there's a couple of different ways Foster youth that are identified um so a couple of different ways that that they get that because I know remember that I recall that that was a issue at 1 Point especially when we got the um free meals for all kids when we you didn't have to apply so we lost that source of information it used to come through the national school lunch program application so sometimes people wouldn't want to fill those out um I think we've done a little bit better in the sights have done a great job at following up with that median household income form it's a lot more simple to complete um and then the direct s obviously like the if there fill it out anyway they're only counted once okay so do you feel like we're getting we're getting good reporting of that that that number is pretty much where we really are or is it still under what they're reporting self-report starting from from the families because we had I don't remember what the percentage was very high percentage of getting those forms back even and then we have all the other supplemental items that come in so I think it's a much more accurate representation than probably 6 years ago part of the registration process we incorporated it into processes that I mean people are comfortable across this so we feel like this reporting is all those in favor now you're free okay informational items yeah just the regular reports we have enrollment um down 34 compared to last year but as we mentioned 3% good the kids who are here are attending at a higher rate things would be good work of our principles of our staff um and I can discipline as well um you know again doing a phenomenal job there we got 37 fewer incidents some resulting in suspension this year and it's resulted in 114 less days missed of school due to suspension compared to the same time last year all right we have a 12 for closed session number 2 we are okay so closing items next Board of trustee meeting is that we 5555 here and that's going to be here at the board yes okay so um last time was it Germany so a motion to adjourn move to adjourn second all in favor