Special Joint City Council and WCCUSD Board Meeting April 3, 2012

0:00:05I need to start here thank you oh okay thank you all for coming we anticipate a very nice and informative meeting tonight I'd like to call the special joint El Cerrito city council West Contra Costa Unified School District Board of Education meeting to order this is Tuesday April 3rd 2012.

0:00:40if I could ask the city clerk to conduct a formal roll call please councilmember Abelson here board member Cronenberg present councilmember venicini here board member Medrano here councilmember Chang here board member Meriweather here councilmember Lyman board member Ramsey present I'm sorry

0:01:05president Ramsey and president mayor Jones here and councilmember our board member Thurmond here yeah thank you uh I'd like to ask council member Chang to lead us in the pledge one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all teachers well thank you and thank you again for

0:01:37coming this is a formal meeting it's been noticed under the brown Act for both agencies so uh will conduct it in that way so I'd like to just start with a few comments I'd like to welcome the board for coming tonight I was President Ramsey's idea that maybe we could get together and

0:01:58just share ideas and have some presentations by both the city and the school district as it pertains to our relationship together so again thank you very much and I'd like to formally thank the school board and the staff their staff and president Ramsey for their

0:02:16latest accomplishment which was after all these years paying off the state debt getting the state off our back and probably more uh on a day-to-day course also getting the oversight person uh retired I guess would be a good word for that so thank you very much for coming and

0:02:39I'll have uh remarks by President Ramsey uh welcome and I want to thank everybody for being here tonight it's always always really really exciting to be able to engage in this kind of dialogue and conversation with other local elected officials I'm an El Cerrito resident and take great pride in

0:02:59being able to have this here tonight we look forward to a real robust discussion education is obviously a priority for everyone especially in this community and we're working really hard and we want to be able to continue to have the conversation and hear from our residents

0:03:16as well as our council members because sometimes we are in a silo and we don't always hear what other folks are hearing and we want to make sure that we get feedback from each of you and we listen and be able to be able to prioritize and identify things that are of utmost important to

0:03:34us here in the city of El Cerrito so we're excited this is the second meeting that we had we had one with the city of San Pablo and it was very productive and so I look forward to a very productive and really engaging conversation tonight because I can tell you that coming out

0:03:50of this will be stronger and better and working collaboratively I think that will make the schools as good as we want them to be so thank you very much and I look forward I'll turn it back over to you mayor thank you we do have the next agenda item so I'd like to ask

0:04:07the city clerk to introduce that item please yes we have a number of speakers tonight and the speakers are a lot of three minutes each there's a timer and a lighting system up here if you'd like to follow it um it'll turn yellow when you have one minute to sum up and the first

0:04:22speaker is Linda Frank oh um yeah I was kind of putting the guy wouldn't go first but anyway I'm here um to speak about the writer coach connection program and um I am a writer coach volunteer I'm a parent at the Oswego High School graduate and also a current student in El Cerrito

0:04:56High and we now have writer coach at El Cerrito High and at Portola Middle School um but um I'm also a homeowner in El Cerrito and um I'm actually I kind of wish I wasn't first because other people are going to speak um to how much of an impact this program has made in the district I mean

0:05:17it's it's an amazing program and you know statistically speaking we see the improvements and um basically I was hoping they would go first to tell you that so that I could say that while El Cerrito is a wonderful Community I love living here but our schools are suffering and I think we all

0:05:37know that and everyone knows that the quality of the school district really impacts the value of homes in the community um as I said writer coach has been an over has that has had an overwhelmingly positive impact in the schools and it has so many positive attributes

0:05:56um it what it does is it brings volunteer community members into the schools and they work one-on-one with students on writing assignments and it actually it builds Community outside of the school also because I'll be on the street and a student who I've worked

0:06:12with comes over and says hi and it's just it's such a good feeling you know it really sort of builds a greater community statistically speaking it's a great return on investment for a relatively small amount of money all the students in a particular grade get individualized

0:06:28attention and um we all know that student engagement leads to improved learning outcomes which leads to better test scores which leads to better property values unfortunately that's the way it works so anyway um I think we are here tonight to ask for the city to consider funding the writer

0:06:49coach program and also the school district to fund the ryderco's program at El Cerrito High and Portola and it's basically a win-win situation for all for the city you know it will raise our property values the school district you have better student engagement it's a great program

0:07:04thank you next speaker please next speaker Gene Womack hi my name is Gene Womack I'm a resident of Richmond I'm a writing coach at Portola Middle School in El Cerrito where I coach seventh graders the program is sponsored by writer coach connection which provides volunteer

0:07:39writer coaches to nine secondary schools in this area also we get a lot of support from the writing coach connection site supervisor Kathleen Hallam I don't think she's here tonight though I have a teaching credential in art and in introductory English which means

0:07:56English through the 9th grade I have a master's degree in creativity and arts education from San Francisco State University and I have substituted all over San Francisco for more than four years while learning how to be a teacher between 2000 and 2005.

0:08:15in my younger life I published a small neighborhood newspaper called Point Counterpoint the writing coach supervisor has asked me to be their permanent writing coach substitute and I enthusiastically agreed she asked me to come to this meeting and tell you my impressions of this

0:08:35wonderful program I have to tell you right off the bat that we do not create our own assignments we are there to assist the regular teacher the regular teacher is the one who creates the assignments and writes the lesson plan we help the students carry out that

0:08:56assignment um the students are going to have to write essays for any tests they take the star exam high school exit exam or going into college so it's very important to understand the assignment as it's given so that's one of the things that we help the students

0:09:18do is take a look at the assignment and zero in on the assignment for example a recent writing assignment was to ask the kids to write about what they would take with them to a deserted island and it was a deserted island not a desert island so we have to point that out to the kids

0:09:41that didn't understand it and it took me a minute to catch on too um we are given a two-part form to fill out while we are assisting them with their writing they get one copy and one copy goes in the notebook to the teacher so um this program is well documented

0:10:02um it has a part at the top to tell what the strength of the student's writing is and it has another part where we can give them suggestions on how they can improve their writing um I guess that's about all I have time to for but I I have enjoyed my uh my ability I have enjoyed the ability to

0:10:29sit with one student and work with one student we uh sit in teams of uh coach and student and there's about oh 10 or 15 teams there in each classroom thanks a lot thank you very much next speaker please Al Miller good evening members of the school board and city council I can't tell you how

0:11:03nice it is to see you all sitting here in our council chambers I would like to thank you for holding the joint meeting primarily because the school district and the city shares many many concerns and they seem to grow as the tighter the budgets get and seeing you here together listening and

0:11:21discussing and working them together is very encouraging to those of us that make choices on who we vote to continue sitting in those chairs I also want to voice a very strong opinion at continuing the school resource officers at El Cerrito High School in Portola is extremely important

0:11:41not only for the steady and influence on the campus environment and the incredible reduction in anxiety and tension on campus but also for too many of our students it's the first time they have an opportunity to interact positively with a police officer rather than someone to avoid and to hide and to

0:12:02run from learning that police officers might not necessarily be your friends but you can always go to them for help and for safety is a very important lesson that some of these kids are learning because the sros are on campus I'm also looking forward to learning how

0:12:21various members of our community who used to have basically open access to the athletic fields and facilities at the Old El Cerrito High School including the Billie Jean King memorial tennis courts will be allowed to use the new facilities and even the old track prior

0:12:43to the time phase two construction begins I know the city staff and the District staff are working on the shared things for baseball on this field or softball Etc in the after-school Recreation programs when I'm talking about community members like those of us that live within stone's throw distance

0:13:03to these facilities would like to get back into being able to use them as part of our physical fitness program thank you very much thank you next speaker is Janet duckhart is this is the front mic on maybe you could come to the front mic if you'd like thank you

0:13:33I'll be very brief good evening my name is Janet ducart and I am a resident of El Cerrito I live on Rockaway Avenue at 7345 and I've lived here for many years I'm also the director of a senior center here in in El Cerrito St John's this is a senior center like three

0:13:55others that are supported by the school district and the West Contra Costa Adult Ed these four schools are are sakuric high that's at the open house Christ Lutheran Senior Center St John's Senior Center and the open house respite program and together those four centers work

0:14:23with more than 225 adults on a regular basis and provide a very strong program for them but our members are very uneasy about the future of the adult schools and so our members and their adult family members are very concerned about the continuance of the programs for

0:14:51older adults and they would like to be well informed about the district's plan for these programs before it's time to vote on the parcel tax I appreciate the opportunity to talk this evening thank you thank you thanks Robert manzamore Robert manzamore council members and directors uh good

0:15:29evening my name is Bob menzimer I'm the executive director of the aforementioned writer coach connection program you have heard and will hear some more from some of my colleagues the details of this program what I wanted to do was tell you the story of the Miracles of El

0:15:46Cerrito we've been running this program for 10 years in nine or ten schools and three other school districts two years ago when members of the El Cerrito Community started banging on my door and say we need this program at El Cerrito High and I shook my head and I said man I would love to do that

0:16:06but I've been talking with members of the School District staff for three years about this and they don't have the funding and I don't have the resources in our small organization to do this we can't do this and they wouldn't go away so the first miracle of El Cerrito was

0:16:22last year when we began coaching every English language development level three and four student at El Cerrito High the second miracle happened at the end of that school year when those same pesties community members started banging on my door and said we want more

0:16:39we want to coach every ninth grade student at El Cerrito High next year plus the eld-3 and four students we coached this year and I shook my ad and I said man there's nothing I'd like more but we don't have the resources to do this and they wouldn't go away so the second Miracle of El Cerrito

0:17:00started this year when we began coaching more than 400 El Cerrito High students making El Cerrito High suddenly the largest among our schools that we serve the third miracle happened when Matt Burnham the principal over at Portola Middle School said we want you over here

0:17:18and I said oh man I shook my head and I gave him the story and he refused to listen found some funding and the third miracle happened this spring when we launched a pilot program at Portola Middle School serving every student in a seventh grade class and an English

0:17:34language development class with writer coach connection the fear is that the string of Miracles is in danger because of budget constraints the schools won't have the same level of funding to pay for this program for next year and that's what we're looking at we have two needs we need money to fill

0:17:53that budget Gap and volunteers to train as writer coaches and my request is whether or not it's possible to leverage the resources and the commitment of members of the city of El Cerrito and its commitment to members of the community to help keep this miracle going for next year

0:18:12thanks thank you next speaker please Todd Groves ah greetings folks I'll make this short and sweet we need help we've got uh 160 of your friends and neighbors are there lifting every day to keep these kids afloat working as hard as they can building connections you see it in their

0:18:45eyes we're treated like rock stars by teenagers that's that's a miracle in itself as Bob alluded to earlier we're not asking for one lump sum from any one body we think this is in the interest of the city of El Cerrito West Contra Costa unified and the City of Richmond I think we should each pitch in

0:19:05reach out to community organizations knit it all together let's make it happen let's find the people let's find the money this is this is we're so so far from where we started this is amazing we're almost in two years we've gone to the largest program this is a testament to this

0:19:20community and it's well to see these children succeed so let's see that this continues thank you thank you Maureen Dixon good evening thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening my name is Maureen Dixon I'm an El Cerrito resident I live equidistant between

0:19:44portal middle school and El Cerrito High School I'm also the site coordinator and a volunteer and a writing coach at El Cerrito High which I've been doing for two years and I'm also here in support of the program what I would like to share with you all this evening is some of the

0:20:00um data that we have from the teachers at El Cerrito High last spring after our first semester of coaching they gave us an appreciation party and revealed some of the data that they had collected on student performance and so this is from English one Advanced teacher Eric Jepson

0:20:18who says the regular appearance of writer coaches helped my classes complete five times as many large writing assignments compared to the previous year the average grade on writing assignments Rose by five percent in those Advanced English classes two of the English one teachers Miss

0:20:36Jennifer Dreyfus and Molly McGrath say with the aid of the coaches my completion rate for essays increased to almost 100 percent and Miss McGrath's English one class 13 percent more students scored A's and B's on their writing when a piece of work or a similar assignment is introduced in class

0:20:56reaffirmed with writer coaches and then later tested students make huge Leaps and Bounds towards improving their writing and critical thinking skills and again for Miss McGrath the problem solution essays this semester were by far the most interesting batch of essays

0:21:13I've ever read and from Kenny Khan who is the English writing development teacher and one of the greatest advocates for the writer coach connection program he teaches English language development at which students don't have an English language speaking parent at home to help them

0:21:28with their homework and he says 85 percent of my students who were achieving decent apps went up one whole grade level largely due to their work with the writing coaches I personally have worked with students at all three of these levels and seen the glow in their eyes and the pride and

0:21:46the confidence that they gain when they realize that they can write they can complete their assignments and I think that the um it's a great tribute to this program and the way it's set up to see the accomplishment in these young people's eyes this benefits both our

0:22:01young people our schools and our community thank you very much thank you hi there I'm here to speak about the parcel tax my name is Karen shebeck I'm a parent of two kids at El Cerrito High my kids started in the district in 2000.

0:22:28since that time I've paid less tax to the state of California thanks to things like Arnold's brilliant campaign promise to cut the vehicle license fee I've paid less taxes to the federal government thanks to w and with less taxes comes less services for our students

0:22:45I think it was 2004 that I voted for the original parcel tax after it was announced that the district would be cutting Sports and libraries that tax was passed renewed and will now expire shortly it is the exclusive source of funds for our school libraries in addition it provides for reduced

0:23:04class sizes in elementary school and has helped fund core academics and sports measure K will cover part of that 40 million dollars our students have lost in federal and state funding in the past five years the biggest benefit in my mind it will preserve Elementary class sizes and will

0:23:23reduce middle and high school class sizes to manageable levels despite cuts and trims by our school board our API scores have been steadily increasing and one highlight since the parcel tax was enacted the percentage of our kids in the district who've gone on to two and four year colleges has gone

0:23:43from 45 percent to 82 percent hey that's almost an Albany statistic our local tax goes to our local schools benefiting our students our oversight has confirmed that parcel tax funds have been used as promised our senior citizens maintain their exemption in the new tax the

0:24:04community needs to provide our schools with funds the state can to can't take away please support the measure and most importantly vote Yes on K on June 5th thank you Kathy Weinstein good evening I'm a 70-year resident of El Cerrito have a home here was brought up here

0:24:31went through the schools here I was the second class through Portola of course I'm an alumni from El Cerrito High School I'm on the archiving committee there and I worked in the school district having retired three years ago I'm still active at El Cerrito High helping wherever I can when I can

0:24:52um I'm concerned about a lot of different things and I'm just going to be very brief about some of these things I'm concerned about keeping our school resource officers I've worked in the student services I see how they work with the students and how the students

0:25:08appreciate them which I think is very very important I used to work with the school police at the middle school where I was and they too were very well respected by the students so it's important that we keep these kind of programs going especially with what's going on in the economy in the

0:25:31United States and especially our community I'm happy to hear and I know this is going to sound strange that there will still be an exemption on the parcel tax for seniors some of us we've given for so many years but there comes a time in our life especially when

0:25:52we're retired and we are alone my husband's been gone for almost 20 years now um my finances are different and I've I still give in other ways to the schools but I'm glad to hear that there will still be the exemption for those of us that who really need it because I do have a lot of friends that

0:26:11still being retired and such are still paying it um I'm concerned about the writing coaches program I know that it's brought up at all the Richmond Educators meetings and they're always getting people to volunteer to be a part of that I know teachers who have come to me and

0:26:31said how important it is for our students to have these extra little things there for our students so whatever we can do to keep these things going they are very necessary as well as the senior programs for those of us who are in our senior years in our real senior years not the 12th grade

0:26:52um we have given for so many years in this community in a variety of ways and it is so important that we have the opportunity to take part in programs to keep us going and being a part of our community for many people they don't get out and socialize and this is what keeps them going and so

0:27:15I request that we keep these things going thank you thank you Jill bleckinger good evening to the city council and the board members of the school district Mr Ramsey my name is Jewel blackinger and I am here on behalf of the programs for senior citizens I retired in 2007 prior to that I was

0:27:56owner of blickinger's pro tennis shop just across the street for 34 years needless to say it took me a while to figure out what to do after retiring this is what happens to seniors sometimes but I am proud and happy to say that I found 55 and over classes to attend

0:28:23I am known at the Christ Lutheran church program in the Senior Citizen Center there I take German and I'm in a class for current events because it's important to keep up I sing and oftentimes I do German leader and it's important for me to be able to express myself

0:28:49in those songs in the language so that's why I take the German classes there under the silver you got who is wonderful teacher would you stand up Sylvia hmm [Applause] so I just want to say it is so important for us to continue growing and expanding our minds I do

0:29:18volunteer work and I have for many years I worked with my husband who is a tennis pro and the after school programs for kids to keep them off the street give them something fun to do something to hit and not each other so they hit tennis balls I also work with the Story Bridge

0:29:37program in schools go in as a as an elder and have these kids interview us and it's marvelous they want to know what senior citizen have to offer they want to know what's in our minds what our experiences were and I'm just so happy to be able to share that because we are valuable

0:30:02we are now at our best and it would be a shame to have that go to waste now I know most of you here can relate to that there are some you're too young to get they're not there yet but they will be if they're fortunate enough to get there so I'm hoping that you will think on this because we are as

0:30:23I said valuable and vital citizens and we vote so I want to thank you again for the opportunity to speak before you and I know you'll do the right thing thank you thank you by the way I appreciate the reminder that the best years are ahead I I'm looking forward to that

0:30:46okay next speaker please all right my last speaker slip is Florence Brown I think the previous speaker just took my thunder away from me anyway my name is Florence Brown and I'm live on Del Monte in El Cerrito and I'm here to Hope beg pray demand that you keep on with the older uh

0:31:21School Adult Ed classes the class that this lady was just talking about were in it together and I will be 90 in August and I'm not the oldest one there and we're alive and well we're happy to be there and for many of us it's the only place we have to go we may have a lonely

0:31:44weekend because many of the husbands are gone but uh we look forward to Monday and I hope that you will be able to see as you I was here last year I spoke on the same subject so I'm doing it again and I hope you will listen again because we have about 200 with the there are

0:32:07three groups and we have about 200 in the Christ Lutheran where we go uh there is always at least 30 people there and we enjoy each other's company and in my case for example I take a class in Spanish on on Monday there at the church and then on Tuesday I work volunteer at

0:32:31uh San Pablo at Dover School teaching English to Hispanic kids so I like to think I'm still with it whatever that means okay then thank you very much please please consider us [Applause] okay anybody else would like to speak before we go on seeing none uh could you introduce the

0:33:00next item please foreign overview of West Contra Costa Unified School District measure K tax proposals thank you very much I'm Bruce harder I'm the superintendent and greetings to the city council and to the Board of Education today I'd like to give a brief overview of our proposal

0:33:37for measure K Karen chibak has done a great job of it already and so I'll hit some of the highlights that uh that's a reinforce her points major K is going to bring funding to us that the state can't take away to support our core subjects to attract and retain the best teachers

0:33:51and to main our maintain our class size reductions in our schools uh just a few background facts about the school district we're about half Latino now about 21 African-American 13 white 12 Asian and six percent Filipino in our district and we have huge language diversity clearly

0:34:10Spanish is a is the largest most predominant language but we have lots and lots of other languages we have about 80 languages that our children bring to us in our schools today the economic crisis has been really devastating on our kids uh we're up uh 10 over the last five years or up to 68

0:34:27a little more than 68 percent of our students are eligible for federally subsidized meals now in West Contra Costa but our tenances May remain strong we're right at the cusp of 95 percent as we've grown over the last few years our kids come to school and that's a good

0:34:42thing for us as Karen mentioned our academic performance has gone up maybe not as steeply as we'd like but it's still certainly moving in in the in the right direction uh one fact I think that really shows the growth that we've made over the last six years is the percent

0:34:57of our seniors who are meeting the uccsu admission requirements have gone from 16 in 2006 to 46 percent in 2011. uh students to to meet that requirement have to take 15 college preparatory classes and they have to get a c or better in all of them so any D that they might get will account against

0:35:16them and it will mean that they don't that they don't make that that challenge so that's a really remarkable uh Improvement in terms of the college-going culture and you can see it as as she mentioned uh about 80 percent of our students in class of 2011 or in two-year four-year in technical schools

0:35:33this year we have two separate budgets and it's hard for our voters to understand sometimes uh we have a Capital Construction budget that builds our schools and uh and really is what we call our bond program and then our operations which is really everything else it's our teachers our books our

0:35:49materials our supplies our custodians all our support staff all come out of that operations budget our Capital budgets done some incredible things our bond program over the last 10 years and I want to briefly walk through all the families here that we have we organize

0:36:02by High School families here's the deanza family and the projects that are done there including De Anza which is under construction now at Hercules alone is under construction the others have been have been completed by the by the bond program and the Kennedy family we're about to

0:36:16start on Coronado with a beautiful new school and King just opened this last year as well as the other schools that you see Pinole Valley we're under design here for uh a new Pinole Valley high school as well as the other projects we just opened Pinole middle uh the final

0:36:31stage of that this year and one more stage to go with the fields and then the Richmond family you can see that uh Dover is our most recent school to open but Helms opened just a few months before that and then finally in El Cerrito we have a a presentation tonight really about our

0:36:48bond program there and we'll go into some detail about all the advances in the El Cerrito family there so that's our that's our our bond program and we're actually very healthy there our voters have been very generous and we have a sufficient funding to take care

0:37:01of the projects that we'll talk about tonight particularly the ones for El Cerrito but it's in our operating budget where we really have a struggle all the things that cover the basic operating things like math and reading and social studies and Science and all of our uh

0:37:15music and Fine Arts programs it also covers our safety staff and uh we've had school resource officers in our schools for a number of years now and we've noticed a really big Improvement in in our school climate but there's but they're supported by District safety

0:37:31staff we've come now to have a standard around surveillance cameras which has made a huge difference that in our high schools as we've been able to implement them they're not in every high school yet but they will be and then simply building real systems is most important

0:37:42concerns this year for next um and as we mentioned earlier a state loan is going to be paid off April April 30th of this year it's a really big moment in West Contra Costa for those of folks who've been around for the last 22 years to see us struggle through that the

0:38:03payoff is a big deal but our budget has really been a mess and cutting 40 million dollars out over the last five years has been painful we've cut out uh any every kind of support that you can imagine and art music and and physical education we've made Cuts in uh professional development

0:38:21for our teachers Dropout prevention and our core programs and class size uh in every in every way that that you can think about um and that's about 14 and a half million of that of that 40 million is in all those program Cuts another 13.6 Millions come right out of our employees

0:38:39in terms of furlough days reduced work years and and their benefit caps that they've had to struggle with another seven million comes out of our class size Reduction Program so we've had increased class sizes at uh at our kindergarten and third grade levels and

0:38:53um maybe going up at other other levels next year as well and we've taken about 2.6 million out of District administration another 1.6 million in uh school closures and then one point 2 million in terms of reductions in our contracts and supplies we'd have a lot more there if the prices

0:39:11for electricity and everything else that we use hasn't gone up and while we've been making katsa all the things that we have to buy the the cost of those have gone up just a real quick look at the per pupil funding Across the Nation we're very sadly in the in the bottom uh the bottom

0:39:27of the bottom and across the country we're about three thousand dollars under the national average and and well below uh High spending States like like the state of New York but by golly we're going to come back and ask our voters to support us with major K this year

0:39:41because we believe that we can get through this funding crisis and still do great things for our kids and that's what everybody's out to do we've lost a lot in terms of support with our teachers and supported teachers in classrooms we've had closed schools we've had to reduce our specialized

0:39:56courses uh and that don't have as large of enrollments as they need to have and you can see that in this graph whereas after a number of years of increasing the number of students who are in advanced placement programs last year we had a fall off for the first time and

0:40:09that's just simply because we don't have enough teachers in enough sections in our high schools to be able to offer as many uh advanced placement programs as we had in the past we've also lost Workforce stability we've just a lot of folks move in and move out here and it's it's a very

0:40:23difficult time with the furloughs in the in the in the benefit caps for our employees fewer teachers of course means larger larger classes and all of them don't look this big but this is a real class and actually one of our high schools last fall we lost our elementary

0:40:37instrumental program which really makes it tough on the middle schools where they're having to start the instruments now but what we've done throughout the years is uh our parcel tax from 2004 that was renewed in 2008 we've kept all those things that we said we were going to do

0:40:52a primary purpose of that was to keep our library staffed and open and they have been we've been able to maintain the class size reductions that are parcel tax paid for and they're still in there to the tune of about 2 million out of that 9.6 million dollars that we get

0:41:06into the personal tax we've been able to maintain our college-going culture and that's a big reason that we have our counselors that we've been able to make such big improvements in the in the proportion of kids who are going off to college and the success that they're that they're

0:41:19having we've been able to maintain our our Athletics for boys and girls in 18 Sports uh due to the parcel tax and we're hoping to continue that and we've been able to keep our schools uh clean and appealing uh places to learn as a result of that and those are really the

0:41:35five main purposes of that parcel tax and that's what we're hoping to to get our voters to approve once again to renew it and extend it a bit but but major K is not going to fill this Grand Canyon of a deficit we've had to face we're looking at 40 million at four

0:41:51million dollars in additional Revenue to cut to cover a 40 million dollar hole let me say that again our parcel tax will bring us up four million dollars in additional Revenue to fill a 40 million dollar hole so it it's going to be something but it's not going to be

0:42:06anywhere near of what we need to have have but with our parcel tax with major K we can improve the core classes and particularly we're looking to our elementaries as well as our secondaries we can keep recruiting and maintaining the best quality teachers and other

0:42:21staff we can restore our Elementary music program with major k and we can keep on this college-going spirit that we've done so well with over the last few years with our not only with going on to college but also preparing for the workforce in our academies like all those that I have

0:42:39named up there and and several others the academies have been a great big success in in our school district it's one of the reasons why our our high school students are doing as well as well as they are and then just to continue to maintain the safe orderly and clean campuses that that we've had

0:42:54everything from major K will go to our local schools there's no overhead on this everything goes directly in into our schools and our school programs and just in quick summary it helps us to retain our quality teachers by improving our class sizes restoring our Arts and

0:43:08Music preparing our students for college in the workplace funding core academics and providing funding that the state can take away and providing local funding in our neighborhood and neighborhood schools and as I've noted earlier where there is still a senior citizen exemption without

0:43:24with our personal tax so there you have it twenty nine thousand two hundred and fifteen reasons to support major K and I'm happy to answer questions thank you do we have questions here I would just like to ask you uh on the academies now that's not just a college

0:43:44uh program right it touches all segments of the uh uh the ideas in our academies our students can prepare to go directly into the workplace or they can go on to a a technical school a two-year program or go on to a four-year college and that's why with academies really cut across

0:44:02broadly across all students and and their interests and 22 academies this year in the district could you just briefly describe what the academy concept is the academy concept is really to take a technical core like maybe information technology or Law And Justice and then and then surround it

0:44:18with academic programs and bring students together who are interested in those areas to stay with those programs for three or even in some cases four years in in them and to stay with the same teachers over that time so it builds a sense of community around the

0:44:31technical program and the students get get to integrate into their core academics the things that they're learning in information technology or Law And Justice or in health as a way of promoting their learning we don't expect that all of them are going to go off to

0:44:44careers in those areas but what we know is it'll be better prepared for whatever career they go into by having their academics uh and you know intertwined and and uh and uh with with the with those technical programs thank you very much may I thank you Dr harder just a just a

0:45:02question for you to kind of get a sense of the scale of all the different numbers that you've spoken about um so the measure K would continue the the current parcel tax and then add a bit I think you mentioned about four million dollars per year um if it were were to be approved and can you give us

0:45:17a sense of is is that four million dollars um where would that improve things I guess I'm I'm trying to ask or is that just anticipated to fill a bit of the hole that you anticipate um running into once the budget is approved at the state level well a couple of things that we're

0:45:33really hoping to do to to make to make some improvement part of it is just that you know we've been getting the same parcel tax since 2004 and and everything's gone up in cost and it doesn't go as far as as far as it used to go and so part of that's just to take

0:45:45care of the increased costs but part of it also is to give us some relief around some of the things that States taken away you know we would love to to provide uh you know a better uh class size ratio in K3 than what we're what we're squaring up to look at for next

0:45:58year we'd love to get get some additional relief in our middle schools and high schools where our class sizes are very large as well there we're really looking to to provide support in terms of our our core academics one of the reasons that AP has fallen off is

0:46:15that we don't have enough sections we'd also like to be able to to make it more financially available for families who can't afford it as a part of what we do with with the parcel tax as well so those are some of some of the key areas that we're working on thank you that's

0:46:28helpful why I'm uh got my ARP card recently so I'm going to ask about the senior program and if that any of this parcel tax would go towards preserving the senior program thank you for that question because it is really important to us and into the board what we've been able to do is to

0:46:54maintain our senior program and and what we're planned for next year is to maintain the senior program at the same level that it's at this year all of our adult education right now is in our budget funded at the same level so there wouldn't be any addition to it but we're

0:47:07not looking to make any more Cuts in that area all right thank you Tommy Mr Thurman thank you Mr Mayor Dr Harter would you talk about um just some logistical aspects of the parcel tax for example this community else will be a community like many has been extremely generous in

0:47:26providing us support for the personal tax to have these programs could you talk about what it means for an individual in terms of an individual parcel on average what they might pay or if you have some fees broken down in terms of by month or by you know by day so they can think about

0:47:44what does that mean for me and um and most importantly when the election is so people know how soon this will be coming for their consideration thank you so much the the election is June 5th it's the primary election this year and uh what what we're looking to in terms of

0:48:00the addition there is on the average in El Cerrito it's about 40 or 41 dollars uh for the for the year it's about three dollars a month a little more than three dollars a month is what is what we're looking to add sorry just to clarify that one point is uh it's about forty dollars per parcel

0:48:18to add or it would it's currently X number of dollars and then it would be forty dollars but just just make sure we get it any differential what are we asking people to raise in terms of what they're already giving we're asking for about about 40 or 41 dollars per person

0:48:31more okay perfect thank you well thank you very much Dr Hart appreciate it next agenda item please presentation and discussion of matters of mutual interest to the city of El Cerrito and the West Contra Costa Unified School District Board of Education a update on

0:48:53the bond facilities program and if I could I'd like to introduce Mr Bill Fay and Mr magdie Abdallah who are here from our staff to talk about our our facilities Bond program I alluded to a little bit but I think it's really important for the Council on the board

0:49:07to see actually What's Happening Here in El Cerrito thank you good evening I'm going to have Mr Abdallah who was the engineering officer give an update of the program that uh um fabricates the city ready good evening mayor Jones members of the city council Mr Ramsey Dr horror member

0:49:44of the board it is uh thank you very much for the opportunities tonight to share with you um the status of the bond program that is in relation to the school size that's within the boundary of the city of El Cerrito uh by the end of this presentation you will be able to see how is it that the

0:50:06bond program have improved the quality of Education as well as qualified Life In the City by building uh state-of-the-art schools and first class sports facilities we're going to go to our Crown Jewel of the program down here at El Cerrito High School a little bit over 200 000 square feet of

0:50:30new Construction of the library the classroom buildings the theater and the multipurpose room also including the multi-use field about 140 000 square feet of the first ever all Synthetic Turf baseball field as well as the soccer field uh upcoming projects is the new stadium

0:51:06uh looking at uh 235 000 square feet of sports facility that is including about 15 000 square feet of uh uh support facilities uh locker rooms bathrooms uh concession stand uh bringing the total of uh the bond program contribution to the El Cerrito to about 155 145 million dollars

0:51:36we're gonna go from there down the street to Harding Elementary School about 55 square feet of new Construction and modernization building a A1 and building m uh this upcoming this summer a couple of projects at Harding uh the ventilation and envelope repairs uh projects and

0:51:57some water resurfacing projects that we've done out there already to bring in the total for Harding to about 22 million dollars uh from there we're going to go to Madera Elementary School looking at probably 40 000 square feet of new construction uh building C1 and C2 uh

0:52:17also last summer we added the sixth grade classrooms um to bring the contribution of the band program to this one side to about 13 million dollars from there we're going to go to uh another uh Crown Jewel of our program we're going to go down to Fairmont about 80 000 uh

0:52:37square feet of new construction it's a state of the art design that have won Leroy Green Design award it's an award established to enhance the educational program that is available to the California public school students at a budget of 42 million dollars this project is going to come up around the

0:53:01third quarter of 2017. from there we're going to go to Old Portland project that is out to bid currently at about a little bit over three million dollars cost uh staff has been working closely with Mr Han and staff and at one point during the discussion for the demo there was a

0:53:26request made to have a platform for a soccer field and as you see uh uh between the red line you need to go back to the other slide yeah you're saying this is going to be future play Fields yes sir okay at the top of the at the bottom at the bottom okay that's what I was trying to

0:53:50figure out excuse me Jen oh what I was wondering is I can't figure out this map I was wondering if there could be some point of reference so that we could right we that's why we wanted to slow it down because we didn't have the point of reference Mr Abdallah or Mr Faye I'll go

0:54:06ahead I'll let Miss Abelson finish if you look at the next slide Mr Ramsey you will see a cut through the hell and maybe they'll clarify the the red line is an existing great uh and the blue line is what we are going to provide to make sure we have the platform for the for the uh uh

0:54:30soccer fields down at the bottom of the hill get that clear not totally what is the what happens to the hill so to speak because right now there are a series of flat platforms uh for where the school is now and are you going to make that all a hill you're absolutely correct you're

0:54:53absolutely it's the red line is what you're exactly talking about right now that's the existing yes okay the blue line is what we the uh the areas that um are flat and change them into a slope you're right and I'm not understanding correct quite correctly because what I thought I heard

0:55:15you say is to make it into soccer fields but that would be kind of backwards to what I would think to make the one soccer field down at the bottom where the what looks like a cloud is but it's clouded yes uh that's something and how does removing the slope I'm not following that at all because it

0:55:37would seem to me kind of backwards I guess could you explain that well as you see as you've seen that slide the red line is going exactly like you said at two different uh too many different elevation too many different uh platforms and because of the soil condition and to be able to provide that

0:55:57flat platform at the bottom we went straight with the blue line that you see that is going to have some fill some cut out to provide the The Graduate slope that will that will be safe with that soil uh quality that exists on the side hmm so how would the um Hill that's you're

0:56:20creating uh then be used not at all or which about the slow part the yes no it would not be used at all for the long term or short term or what for the long term so you wouldn't ever try to it looks like there's a base path is that halfway through the slope halfway through the slope

0:56:45um it says aggregate base path yes so there will be a path yes yes so so I guess I'm confused a little bit which one of these red uh plateaus represents the asphalt that's there currently present the existing grade correct which one of the plateaus represents the

0:57:13asphalt that's out there currently the lower asphalt playing field that was covered with portable uh trailers it's not that is not part of this slide it's at the lowest level that's not depicted it's at the lowest level so it's not on this slide no it's not you'll see it in

0:57:31the next slide this that helps a little bit can you go back to the previous slide and again give us a point of reference on the previous slide because I wasn't sure where we were on the previous slide where Where is the where's the campus where is the asphalt lower asphalt area

0:57:51on this slide it's to the left hand side on the slide what it says temporary uh temporary campus so I guess which way is north got it okay thank you sure so so the so the area that is now where the site of um Portola the the I mean the active campus the the Temporaries

0:58:21that oh that is what that is okay where it says Portola Middle School team breaks okay and then um the what's now what was the old gem where is that it's up in the top at the top yes no it's where the cloud is right this future play field you know what I'm sorry I'll take it back it is where the

0:58:46cloud is right okay and then um the other levels are where there were various series of classrooms the top level being where the main building was got it okay and that'll all become a field no the lower clouded area at the bottom of the slide will become a field

0:59:11and what will the other part become would it would just be an empty field I mean I by field I meant are you going to plant something on it so to stabilize it yes what is there a landscape plan for the sloped area no well currently there's not we are keeping the current trees where it

0:59:37is and and there is no uh in that project that's out to bid now there is no any Landscaping to be done when we're done with the grading we'll go back and revisit stabilizing that site when will you look at doing some sort of landscaping plan when we're done with the Demolition

1:00:00so Council lady right now what we're looking to do is to take down the buildings and come back with a graded slope that doesn't have a real Landscaping plan so we're not creating a park with a different node so at this point the district is looking at just removing

1:00:24the buildings because of the potential in an earthquake that they would come down and at the bottom near the School site to create a flat play field that we could put to soccer fields on so it is it is not intended to be a park or any other recreational use while we will go back

1:00:51and look at a landscape plan to do some stabilization around the existing trees night night the thing I guess I'm concerned about is that the lack of landscaping will in fact create a hazard um because if there's nothing at all when it rains then there will be you know there will

1:01:13be mud and if it's a heavy rain like we just had very recently um where it was almost impossible to cross the street there was so much water that I would I would be very concerned about that area because it I believe is a slide Zone so the civil engineer that we hired to

1:01:33help us put together the plans is taken that into consideration with the gentle slope versus trying to create tiered surfaces that then beget a more extreme slope that the water can run down so we've taken that under consideration I guess what I'd like to hear you say is

1:01:53that you're going to put erosion control mix down after you've graded the site and that the erosion control mix the slope is taken into consideration that you'll have to mow it so that it's not a fire hazard in the late fall or in this late summer as long as I hear those

1:02:10words then we probably can move on we have an approved sweat plan to take care of exactly what you said for those who don't know what a swift plan is a storm water pollution prevention plan required by the regional water quality control board and it does address

1:02:26erosions uh council member your your concerns about erosion it's a legal matter they do have to actually do it so thank you for that clarification but if I could if I could ask about the programming will the whole area be fenced off or with the the fact that there is an aggregate base path

1:02:43identified halfway between uh navalir and the future soccer field is that intended for public use or what's the access program we don't intend to put a barrier to the open field and so people can use the open field as they please but it is not designated as a a recreation site

1:03:09so the kids can run up and down and do okay I may I think I think it may be important you're taking the building down but there are future plans are still to be decided there is not a plan to go forward once the demolition is down correct that is correct and the future

1:03:29um development of play Fields will be up the school district is not putting up play Fields correct it's just grading the site for future development by whoever and the city would take it from this is the discussion between us and Mr hanning's staff thank you appreciate it one further

1:03:55question um and I I somehow assume that this is going to be in whatever condition you um create it will be in that condition for some time um for one thing that the economy is not really active right now so I wouldn't expect a lot of building the immediate future so

1:04:14having said that my question is are you going to either leave the sidewalk or restore the sidewalk after you get done with the grading so that people who want to get from Ashbury area to the navalier area can in fact do so on the sidewalk it's now there yes we will okay thank you

1:04:39thank you appreciate it uh last but not least we are going down to the new Portland um a little bit over a hundred thousand square feet of new facilities uh it will have classroom building the multi-purpose room uh the the gem with a budget at a 60 million dollar and

1:05:12after removing relocating the California Children Service program will be able to put this project on the street coming up uh sometime in July last but not least um you will see the total for all the contribution from the bond program to um the sites that is within the boundary of

1:05:38the city of Cerritos at a little bit over 285 million dollars can I um share something because I I wanted to board to understand when CCS moves they move at the end of June right it will stop move down they will be moving by by August great any other questions so I would I'm

1:06:08still not clear what is the process for determining the subsequent use of the field I understand there's an interim where it's getting demolished we're they're prepping for a soccer play area but so what is the next what are the next steps well the long-range plans haven't

1:06:27been determined as you know um real estate prices are um depressed and at this time it doesn't make any sense to go and sail the land for um use for other people it's Zone to school we intend to hold the property to you know some economic thing makes sense um the play fields that we were

1:06:54developing at first we were just going to leave a site free of everything and City staff thought that this would be an opportunity to create some play Fields since the land will set vacant at some point when in the future we have uh entered into conversations with the

1:07:17city because I'm told that the current site where our temporary campus is is a desirable thing and you can aggregate city services on that site and then in terms of what we do with the other site will be dictated by you know the economics at hand during that time

1:07:39thank you that's helpful right any other I have one other question if I might um about I guess it's looking like I'm about all about Landscaping tonight but um I've noticed over on um Fairmont Avenue by Harding School it looks they're all these little Flags uh and I don't have a clue what that's

1:08:04about except that ever since the um Bond program construction project was done at Harding there have been a lot of weeds over there and it it looks pretty bad and I'm just wondering if there is a plan with a little Flags perhaps uh to actually change that and make it

1:08:29somehow have looked uh like it's something other than weeds I know because of our um resources in my maintenance and operation groups that what we have done is we have looked at a schedule to hit all of our campuses with the staff that we have but of course that we've had to

1:08:54elongate the periods of time for us to get there I am not familiar with the flags and if you would allow me to come up to speed on that and and contact you at a later date to give you an answer well as my memory serves me the plants that were put in as part of the bond program

1:09:21um never really took off so there's never really been a a you know anything over there that looks pleasing to the eye that looks like it's a um significant effort at doing landscaping and it it actually you know detracts from the whole project because it looks bad really and I'm just wondering if

1:09:50they're you know I was hoping that those flags were an indication they were going to actually finally take care of it because it's some it's been quite some time since that school was redone and yet the you know nothing has ever been done to um restore that's area to what it even previously looked

1:10:10like it and um you know it's our community we have to live with it absolutely so um I'll take that under advisement I know that on a priority standpoint the campus was built and we have some water intrusion issues that we are we have three projects that we're we're

1:10:34targeting the school for to take care of those first and then I'll be happy to address any landscape issues that are deficient thank you I haven't seen the schedule for those Harding projects what what what can you tell this Council when those will be bid out well today I

1:10:58actually had my summer project meeting and we have 50 different projects that we're doing over the summer and I did make sure that um this the project at Harding the three projects at Harding can start as soon as possible um in the summertime to take care of those issues and we'll be happy to

1:11:23give you a schedule that shows those details well thank you you've got you've got one of the rough jobs you not only put up the facilities you maintain them so we appreciate all the work that's being done on this 285 million dollars infused and in upgrading the community in the

1:11:43schools is a great improvement over uh just 10 or 15 years ago so thank you very much appreciate it thank you very much next agenda item next item 6B update on campus safety and school resource officer program foreign El Cerrito City Council Mr Ramsey and the West Contra Costa Unified School

1:12:19District board I'm Sylvia Moyer the police chief in El Cerrito and I am smart enough to introduce the talent of the El Cerrito Police Department to do this presentation I must call them by name but just the talent it's the entire police department apparently so since 2005 we have enjoyed

1:12:42a relationship between the police department and the schools and having sros the SRO program was intended to ensure that no students right to receive an education is Abridged by violence or disruption and tonight to present on the SRO program in El Cerrito our three SRO

1:13:04officers led by officer Jeffrey allbrant who's assigned to the high school officer jacala who's assigned to the high school and officer Clyde Chang who is assigned to Portola so please welcome them good evening thank you Chief Moyer and thank you city council for a few minutes of your time

1:13:26we'd like to take just a few minutes to uh talk about the rest of our SRO program at the high school and at the middle school since the beginning of the SRO program we've established and maintained a close partnership with the school administrators and with the staff and with the parents

1:13:44and uh this is in order to provide safety on the campus it's this working relationship that is vital to the security and safety within the schools I'd like to discuss just a few advantages to having a school resource officer on school campuses one of the most important functions of

1:14:10an SRO on a campus is the ability to act quickly during emergency situations we have the ability to immediately provide first aid or immediately be able to summon other police Personnel to the high schooler to the middle schools we don't have to wait on a third party since we have the

1:14:30communications directly in our hand school resource officers are constantly visible within the school environment which is a deterrent to criminal activity it also creates a feeling of security for the students and the staff go back to the yep thank you perfect

1:14:58the SRO program started in 2005.

1:15:02the amount of criminal reports taken within the first eight months exceeded the number of criminal cases reported during the prior three school years and so if you look at the first Blue Line there which is fights or physical altercations you can see in 2005 and this was a very short time frame

1:15:22that we had quite a number of altercations I would say about 60 60 of our time is spent counseling and establishing positive relationships with the students it's not uncommon for students to want to talk to us about school issues or even personal issues usually it's issues that are conflicts

1:15:51that involve either a student or multiple students on most occasions we have the ability to counsel and mediate issues and conflicts before they evolve into something more serious this trust and positive relationship with students can only be achieved by being involved

1:16:10being present and being a part of the school community and that needs to be done on a daily basis thank you oh thank you um yeah I just want to go ahead I just want to thank you and really appreciate your work I know that the School community in El Cerrito is real

1:16:36appreciative of all the work and I was actually on the board and voted for this in 2005 so I'm the one person to remember the conflict and the need to bring this program in I think it's been hugely successful so we're appreciative and I think it's important to recognize

1:16:51this by the board is a commitment this fund is outside of the parcel taxes out of our regular budget because we understand safety comes first so we fully funded throughout the school district not just El Cerrito but Richmond uh and Pinole and Hercules so we we have a a steadfast commitment to

1:17:13ensure that our campuses are places where kids can learn so we thank you and we appreciate all the conflict resolution as well that you do because we know you're not there just to punish kids you're there to council kids so see the value in that and I just wanted

1:17:27the viewing audience to know the SRO program is funded through the general fund not the partial time so even if there's some reference to it that more deals with the support services the site supervisors the things that we need to have to support the work that you do

1:17:43that is funded through the person so we're hoping that the site supervisors and those can continue with the support to give you the the tools you need to be able to ensure that you're as effective as possible so um we just appreciate your work and thanks for the presentation thank you

1:18:01thank you thank you could I have uh oh yes Mr Thurman oh thank you just wanted to extend an invitation to you to attend our Safety Committee as you have in the past it meets again on April the 18th at Helms Middle School at 6 p.m and we know that you all have a very rich tradition

1:18:18of providing school resource officers who can flip that switch from being case manager counselor to providing a law enforcement response when there's a level of intensity around safety so we've had you in our meetings but we would love it if you could send a representative to the next meeting we

1:18:33meet monthly and it's an opportunity for us to talk across all the communities that are served in this District about how to maintain the safety that you talked about tonight we look forward to seeing someone there thank you we want to follow up because there's one

1:18:46point of conversation that I think you can add is also making sure that the site surveillance systems are up in operational and connecting to me unfortunately as being the first out of the box we learn lessons and so we're able now to link with the city of San Pablo we're doing at the city of Panola

1:19:04the police departments in terms of site surveillance systems so hopefully you can work with our facilities team to give them what you need to be able to make sure you can monitor the site and address things that you see maybe the eyes don't see right away but as the

1:19:20systems and they're linked up with yours I think that can be a healthy as we talk about what we can do to in terms of mutual interest I think you working with Mr Faye and his department and as we're because we're robust in the bond program in a billion and a half dollars is a lot

1:19:36there and we're putting surveillance systems at Helms I don't know Mr Fair they come in in that portal or is that something that we need to to talk about it that's something I think the the schools and and your Chief and the department can start to talk about how

1:19:50we can put those systems and link them up with you that'd be great the system we have now is just amazing anyway having the eyes in the sky it's just adds to the safety of the school yeah but we're really amping it up Mr Phil you want to come up and talk about that a little bit because that's part of

1:20:07the safety surveillance systems I think we need to add that to the presentation and get a few comments and then identify who we can connect because we want to have them at those meetings yes our our surveillance plan is a part of all of the projects that are going

1:20:25out so that they wouldn't include the Portland project and at El Cerrito High School it was during the era of an analog system and it still works great as I hear but um in all the outgoing systems we are using a digital system that provides you greater Clarity when you're looking at a situation and

1:20:49of course since we don't have somebody sitting there looking at it at the screen what it does is it gathers this evidentiary video so you can go back identify how what where and why has happened and it it's turned out to be a great tool for law enforcement and for the site

1:21:12staff yeah because I I think it made a huge difference at Richmond High I know in terms of graffiti in terms of kids is even wanting to be truant and leaving campus we saw a reduction in that as well as fights on campus because obviously if you can identify people

1:21:29that are less likely to want to engage in provocative Behavior so I I like you guys the the different departments the Chief and you to talk about what systems that we can probably upgrade to El Cerrito High because I don't want to leave that on leave that behind one

1:21:46thing we've been consistent about is making sure that when we get to a standard we try to bring it throughout the district yes sir thank you Chief I was going to ask uh are you are you through for the evening or you say I'm through Mr Mayor can work as much as I want

1:22:06thank you for the compliment yeah no uh what I was going to ask you is you can if you could briefly um outline the type of training that the SRO officers go through it just isn't we take somebody off the street and assign them to a school what type of standards are there in place it's a

1:22:26great question because and it's a great time for us to talk about it because as officer jacala is ending his assignment at the school we opened up the process for all of our officers to apply to bsros the application process is it's going to be rigorous they apply the officers

1:22:45apply they go through an oral examination we look at them holistically in order to select the officer that has the maturity the desire to serve in that capacity understands their role as a caretaker and as a law enforcement officer and all of the other collaborative duties that are necessary

1:23:04and unique to a school and we choose an officer that has great communication skills and and recognizes the position is an autonomous position these the training that the officer goes through is the basic Academy they go through all of the training that a municipal police officer goes through

1:23:24but then we send them to a few specialized schools the school resource officer school and then our school resource officers are also active shooter instructors and what that means is that we have a Readiness to respond to an active shooter scenario we're hoping we never

1:23:43have to use their training but this year they are going to facilitate training for our entire agency so in the event of an active shooter at one of our schools people don't have to ask if El Cerrito is ready we will be ready and we will train as teams we will train as a

1:24:04department and we hope to train as a region to respond so that is just some of the training that our officers go through I could go on for a long time and I know out of respect for your time interviewing Publix time I keep it brief but I could go on for hours about the value of the sros to the

1:24:23schools to the students to the staff and to our community so that's a longer answer to a very short question sir you're smooth all right thank you very much I appreciate it oh yes Janet um I was just going to say that my daughter was three of the years that were on the

1:24:47chart and and also the one before and I I can't speak highly enough of I think the positive difference that it made having an Sr program she was there one year before the SR o program and um there's a was a tremendous amount of violence on campus it wasn't it was I didn't

1:25:10consider it safe to be in the hallways at times it was so bad uh with um invasions from other Schools running kids running down the hall and and stuff kids sent to the hospital that was before the SRO program and then what what I saw on the SRO program came is an increasing level of security and

1:25:35then comfort with the presence of the sros and I think what it meant was a better learning environment because if you're not safe you can't learn and I think this program has been outstanding at making that happen but one of the stories I like to think about as my

1:25:55daughter ended her four years at El Cerrito High was that I would see kids sitting on the police cars signing their yearbooks you know and that's because they had become totally comfortable with the presence of the officers and they realize that in fact the officers were

1:26:15there to protect them and they were their friends and I think this is the kind of community all of the students in our district deserve and I want to thank the school board for bringing us that kind of security that makes such a difference to to everyone in our school

1:26:34district and thank you thank you Miss Meriwether I um agree with Janet um the relationship that is built with students especially coming in the ninth grade and some you know leaving in the 12th grade I was wondering about the turnover rate how long are the offices

1:26:50usually there it depends because we select very talented officers to be sros they are also they get promoted quickly so it it depends typically a three two year minimum but our ideal would be four years so the same students could see them throughout their their education

1:27:14life at El Cerrito High or portable well thank you excuse me is Mr Greer on this career are you on this I'm introducing Wendell Greer who will speak about he will speak about the technology and then introduce our principles okay thank you Chief I'll be very brief I just want to

1:27:36give you one indication about the impact that the officers have done and keeping our schools safe we had a shelter in place in one of our high schools and El Cerrito was a visiting School the officer that time took the time out to ensure that his students there was the

1:27:53girls softball team were safe and ensured that each and every one of them got home even though they might have been a resident of El Cerrito Richmond or San Pablo they have always gone above and beyond they also respond to issues that we might have at the elementary

1:28:07schools so uh from that they're there at the football games back to school night proms anytime we've asked of them they have showed up to ensure that our kids are safe so with that I would like to bring up the two principles that we have the sites they're just going to give you

1:28:22about a minute each or so about their Reflections about how the safety has impacted instruction so uh we're going to go in order I guess so the first one they introduce themselves but we'll go from the prince of porla and El Cerrito good evening council members and board

1:28:41members thank you for the opportunity I've worked closely with the SRO at Portola now for three years a couple years as the vice principal now as the principal and uh it is a what we're doing is we're creating a safe Atmos for our students for Learning and it's uh

1:28:57it's through diligent investigations clear communication and direct supervision that we're able to provide this uh my relationship with officer Elder the former officer and now officer Chang has been positive and uh mutually supportive some of the ways we work together

1:29:14if a crime occurs on campus we work with our SRO to conduct investigations since he is trained to do investigations um I was able to work with our so SRO When developing the school safety plan for dealing with natural disasters fires and other emergencies that require a

1:29:31comprehensive safety plan management we've worked to council truant students and in some cases our SRO has made visits to families to encourage attendance at Portola our sros have done a lot to educate and counsel students on legal matters most of this is done on an

1:29:48individual basis and we try to teach students the fundamentals of appropriate behavior at school and in our community our sros are and I think this was talked about positive role models for our students without a doubt the most important relationships for our sros are

1:30:05the relationships that he has built with our students officer Chang has often found out at lunch surrounded by students who ask questions and seek his guidance and approval it is these informal interactions I think that go a long way to promoting crime and delinquency

1:30:21prevention the partnership between portal middle school and the school resource officer is one that has worked to create a setting that is safe and secure with a focus on prevention and early intervention this allows the educational staff at Portola to focus on providing our

1:30:36students with the best education possible thank you good evening board and Council thank you for having us I also want to recognize the executive director over the El Cerrito schools Miss Antoinette Henry Evans in the back she works closely with Matt and myself

1:30:57so from my own personal experience at the school site we cannot have strong academic programs without a safe learning environment and the sros are a key component to making that happen one of the things that has not been touched upon this evening is the grand scheme of events that take place at El

1:31:17Cerrito High School on a consistent basis El Cerrito High School has the biggest event happening in the town whether it be a football game or a basketball game and we take a number of resources from the city to ensure that this event is safe and so one of the key

1:31:33aspects of making sure that those events go off without a hitch is having the sros be that link with the city itself and and the police department because it's one thing to have police if we didn't have SRO show up to assist but they wouldn't know the students they

1:31:50wouldn't know the community they wouldn't know the intricacies of our our site and so officer Oliver and officer jakala have been key in ensuring that our events whether it be football games basketball games or any other evening activities are safe and enjoyable for

1:32:07our community members as well as all of our students and our visiting members from other schools so that has been an extreme effective approach for the sros I'd also just like to acknowledge that both of our sros are extremely diligent and effective at building positive

1:32:24relationships with our students the program doesn't work unless it's a proactive preventative approach as opposed to reactive our rsros make an effort to be out in the Halls during passing periods and during class time to make sure students aren't just hanging around and aren't in class and they're

1:32:42also out during lunch and after school and before school to make sure that we have the safest environment possible so that all of our students can be in an effective learning environment so I have nothing but positive things to say about the sros and I look forward to

1:32:55continuing the work that we are have been doing to maintain safe and supportive schools for our students thank you questions and great thanks a lot next item please item 6C overview of after school programs in El Cerrito good evening honorable school board and council members my name is Christopher

1:33:42Johns I am the acting director of the El Cerrito recreation department and with me is Liz Torio the educational services director for the school district thank you for the opportunity to come before you tonight to talk about this important partnership between our two

1:33:58organizations our after-school funding is funded by two sources the First Source is a state grant funding which is known as Aces after school education and safety this is commonly known it is a voter initiative it's commonly known as proposition 49 and this funding provides

1:34:24homework help academic intervention and enrichment activities for students also Aces funds Portola and Fairmont funding that funds the after school program at Harding is 21st century funds it's a competitive five-year Grant the purpose is to improve academic achievement Enrichment Services and

1:34:51family literacy and related educational development services mm-hmm briefly uh in El Cerrito weave the city has operated child care at all of the school district elementary schools for over 30 years we own the clubhouses that are located on District property they were fee based with no outside

1:35:14funding sources and they typically had 35 to 60 students at each School beginning in 2001 the city began partnering at Portola Middle School in their ace district-run aces program and we were contracted to provide the enrichment and sports services that you see here

1:35:37and this continued through the 2005-2006 school year beginning in 2006 Fairmont received an Asus Grant from the state of California and the city took on the role as being the lead Agency for the programs at Fairmont and Portola Middle School as well I'll also referred to as

1:35:59community-based organizations in the 2007-08 school year Castro and Harding received 21st century funds and so we expanded our oversight of the programs at all of the elementary and middle schools in El Cerrito here you can see um that the history of our of our

1:36:23funding um the first year we had a partial year program then we added Fairmont and you can see a little bit of fluctuation the amounts received from the school district mostly having to do with the principles funding retaining some funds and providing things such as academic intervention

1:36:42through their own teachers the community-based organizations are required to provide in-kind funding as part of the grant requirements and the city of El Cerrito does this mainly through the providing use of our facilities for these District programs as well as we

1:37:04participate in at least monthly meetings and trainings we also offer administrative oversight beyond the school directors and the estimated value of this is shown here mostly through what we would typically charge to rent our facilities uh 21st century grants Harding's Grant

1:37:29will sunset at the end of the school year however the district has applied for continued 21st century funding for Harding and CDE will announce online on April 10th the schools which will be awarded the grants beginning 2012 2013.

1:37:47um the district has also applied for a new 21st century grant for Fairmont because they have a very large wait list the city is allowed to charge fees called family fees under these grants and we do this on a sliding scale based off of a student's qualification for

1:38:09free or reduced lunch and what this allows us to do is have a smaller staff to student ratio the grants typically are 1 to 20 and we provide a 1 to 12 ratio we're also able to serve more students than what Grant funds alone can um provide as well as we're able to offer

1:38:30access to the various facilities located near the schools the after school structure consists of homework help curriculum boxes these are boxes that are per grade level and the teachers actually develop the curriculum for the grade levels academic intervention leap

1:38:51track which is a program that's required at all the elementary schools which is literacy intervention and teacher tutoring foreign the program structure there are different kinds of enrichment activities that are offered at all the after school programs in El Cerrito they consist of

1:39:09sports arts and crafts cooking band gardening foreign language sewing knitting dance and drama so we'll start looking at each of the schools and and some unique features of what we offer there this is the Portola Aces after school program we have 150 students that are actively

1:39:32enrolled with average daily attendance of 90 we're open from the time school ends until 6 PM every school day and we utilize a combination of district and City facilities for this program some unique features at Portola is that we partner with UC Berkeley for science

1:39:53programming there is a gender respect program from stand for families free of violence for boys at uh Portola we have teachers that volunteer with the Mesa program Sports and tutoring our art program is the only uh art program currently at Portola and after school funds also pay for the

1:40:17teacher for portola's award-winning jazz band and this photo here is is a picture of a special event that we run periodically throughout the year and we brought out a vendor called games to you which brings these hamster balls and a van full of video games and other fun

1:40:32Field Sports here you can see a joint concert of the Portola jazz band and down below the Madera Elementary School band which we run in partnership with the PTA at Madera moving on to Fairmont they also have an Asus Grant this is our largest program we have 120 students on average per day

1:40:57we're open from the time kindergarten ends until 6 pm and we utilize again a city and District facilities and here you can see a couple of our students at the senior center actually working on the community garden that we recently established there we work with the East Bay Center for the

1:41:20Performing Arts at Fairmont who provides free dance classes we work at the El Cerrito High School after school program whose students come over and augment our staff during the homework help time and because we have uh so many teachers willing to let us use their classrooms

1:41:35at Fairmont we're able to have small study groups such as one for reading comprehension we found a Harding and this is a picture from their Thanksgiving celebration we have about 113 students average daily we're open until 6 PM every school day and here again we do use the combination

1:41:58of our clubhouse on site as well as a multi-purpose room in the library uh program staff has been collaborating with the principal and teachers and parents and the best program development which is to bring a unified approach to discipline and awarding good behavior at

1:42:18the school throughout the school day and then into after school we've worked at the Cerise High School tutoring program which brings students not only from El Cerrito but from area high schools into augment our homework help time we have a graduate student who is

1:42:36working with a group of kids that are below basic and we also have a volunteer from UC Berkeley who is running a creative writing program once per week and here recently on Arbor Day a group of our students got together with the El Cerrito Garden Club and uh City Public

1:42:55Works staff and planted a tree at Harding and had a lesson on the proper ways to plant the tree and finally we do operate a program at Madera although it doesn't have a grant we have to work with the school to have enough facilities to house the need there there are over 100

1:43:17children enrolled it is fee based and should Harding's Grant not be renewed it is our plan to use this model at and so if you have any questions or comments we'd be happy to take them thank you thank you Mr Thurman thanks for the presentation can you speak to any

1:43:40um employment programs for high school students as I asked that I'm thinking about a student at El Cerrito High School right now who I know is employed after school by a local business person in El Cerrito he's earning he's learning and it gives structured activities for

1:43:55our older students or are there any such programs that are offered either for summer youth employment or related activities yeah we do offer employment opportunities in the summer and we offer community service and the volunteer types at the schools but because we

1:44:14operate under State Licensing guidelines all of our employees have to be 18 years or older but we do have opportunities is there a sort of a related partner program that you work with to help young people high school students get summer employment even if they're not in your department

1:44:35no we don't currently offer anything like that thank you can I ask the question I was curious how many uh High School youth are involved in the summer program would you estimate usually it varies um we do have some but I have to admit that lately that it's been less because our

1:45:04after school programs are so big now with over 100 we have in a lot of cases more staff than we need in the summer so we have opportunities and especially students that have specialized skills um but it definitely is less than it was in the past before the grant programs

1:45:31appreciate it's the evolution of the after-school program as someone who was a graduate at Castro Elementary School and got to do counselor and training back before there was rules about those things but I think we're really lucky to have such a great culture of collaboration between the

1:45:47city staff and and the schools and supporting of this and it's phenomenal to see all the growth and kind of introducing all the academic aspects that you know definitely new to to me and um and I think it's a tremendous resource so thanks to everyone and I should add our summer program does

1:46:08still have the counselor and training program and that serves anywhere from 10 to 20 students per week for our 10-week summer time you mentioned during your PowerPoint that uh the 21st century grant for Harding may or may not there's some question about whether or not would be

1:46:29renewed are there any other changes on the horizon in the next fiscal year that you foresee for the after school programs or for any of the programs you've been discussing um the district submitted a 21st century Grant which was worth about five million dollars there were 489 applications

1:46:49submitted to the California Department of Education that was worth about 400 million dollars worth of Grant application CDE only has 40 million dollars to distribute throughout the state thanks for the odds analysis there our two programs that have Asus funding Aces

1:47:09funding right now is part of the California Constitution so unless the voters um you know unless it's put before the voters we can expect that funding to be stable great as met with other cities and in other cities there's a a an idea called Community Schools and I think the

1:47:34Community Schools idea is not precise fit for El Cerrito but you've made it a fit because what we found our way to address the needs that we have in El Cerrito and I know when my kids were going through they certainly all needed after school care and this was long

1:47:51before any of this started in the 90s and the 80s for that matter uh and instead what you've developed I was trying to figure out the percentages of the kids in each school that are actually in these programs and it's it's a third to a half of or or more of the

1:48:06of the children who attend those schools so it's a very robust after school program that really supports the culture of both our community and the schools and I think it really does speak to how how we're creating our own model of community schools here in in El Cerrito

1:48:23and I'm really happy we've been able to do it I think it's it's a a major push in the fact that we've been able to bring our youth I mean I think what we have are the youths that are tutoring so we have and unfortunately they're not able to pay them but at least they're

1:48:37able to get their community service hours and I know students that are doing that and the opportunities they had a program there that a young lady who was in the ivy league connection developed when she was at Brown University so that one of the programs that you mentioned

1:48:50the Cerise project was was developed by a student who who came up with the idea and was supported in her work at Brown University to develop it so there are a lot of connections here and I just wanted to make it clear that there really are a lot of connections and I'm really

1:49:05delighted that the city is able to to work with us on this thank you thank you thank you very much and item 60 comments and questions from the city council and School Board okay is there any uh questions or closing comments yeah I'd like uh to ask the question about

1:49:33um I think one of our public speakers brought up the issue of access to school property um when the school is not using it and I was just curious what um if there's anybody from the school district that would like to sort of address that that question if Dr harder

1:49:51wants to come up and talk about that I I see Lewis freeze back there as well he works with maintenance and we we've met with the city and and we're committed to making sure that our our schools our our school property is is accessible to the community and we'll we'll continue to do

1:50:06that you know I think the question is he wants to know specifically what steps are we going to make so that the community will be alerted to the fact that those facilities can be utilized because I agree I mean building brand new tennis courts play Fields it's kind

1:50:20of ludicrous that now it's not accessible because I drive by and I see the locked up so what what what can you share with the city council tonight about when you can come back and let them know if there's a plan to make that possible we've talked with the city about about how we're about how we're

1:50:37going to do that the the real question is is uh you know how to provide the kind of security that that we need to keep these very expensive Fields uh usable and yet make them Community accessible so we don't have a real good answer for that tonight but we will come

1:50:53back with come back with you and give you a specific plan about how we're going to do that because I only think it's fair because I know in the city of Pinole they use Pinole middle in the community every that gym is open all weekend all day day all night I've seen

1:51:08it on Saturdays and Sundays I see truckloads of people coming in and out of that facility as well as the track and field that they're used so um and thank you Dr harder but councilmember Lyman we'll try to get you something within what what do you say next 30 days next year 60 days Dr so

1:51:26we'll try to get you some in the next month at least a status report and we'll share it with your city manager I appreciate that thank you I'd like to just comment on that before we go forward um I've attended several of the community meetings on the development of

1:51:39El Cerrito High School fields and the district has has made a commitment to try to keep those facilities open but they also said something that that is true and that is if the actions of others dictate that that puts these fields in in jeopardy you may have to see the locked

1:51:59facilities I mean it's not the desire of the district to lock the facilities it's a question of whether the community will respect them and I know you've had real good success in some areas and all areas but there have been situations where the fields have been abused and so we

1:52:21hope that that won't happen in El Cerrito but to be fair I I think the district is trying hard to keep them open but they also have to make sure that the fields aren't abused and just to tag on to this this issue I was on the Parks and Recreation Commission almost seven years ago now

1:52:38when we were first talking about joint use agreement and and I think there's a definite just to put it out there there's a huge need for recreational gym uses in El Cerrito we don't have a gym and we constantly hear from our community that that's a huge need a huge

1:52:57design desire and here's a great way to partner with the school you know actually quantify what is that what would that membership cost because I think in addition to our parcel I think people expect and want to pay for a gym fee maybe it can be in in you know in

1:53:13partnership with volunteer opportunities building credits and then on top of that um you know we have a system where our community members pay a deposit for a key to use the bathroom so maybe there's something where you know Agreements are set up and building upon that model of

1:53:30um you know Community agreement for being responsible users um without a total open field scenario but quantify that market because there's there's a niche to be filled and I think the school district could benefit from you know not only building you know community members in and just building

1:53:51Community period you can explore that that would be wonderful thank you um to follow up on this topic I'd just like to point out that the city itself has a number of facilities and ours are open to the public so I'm not quite sure why there's a concern that school

1:54:10facilities in the same city would be um somehow ruined by the public when the ones that we have opened already seem to do pretty well um so and also I think you know we need to be careful about the um the fee concept because I think our voters may think they already paid for

1:54:36things so we need to be sensitive to that because because in fact yes they have now that the actual usage that relate to things like having janitors are of course not they haven't already paid for that but um that um that's I don't know if we're at the end of that topic

1:54:52because if if we are I'd like to go on to another topic yeah I just wanted to the main concern is the Synthetic Turf that costs an awful lot of money not only to install but to replace and also um the accessibility of an open field to the main campus and the buildings there

1:55:11is somewhat of a concern if I might add to that though at Harding uh the community paid for most of the play equipment that's at Harding School I know because I was one of the parents who raised the money to install the equipment and then they came and put in fences so the community

1:55:33couldn't use it um and some of the money I believe I can't remember the bond measure actually required the open to the public when school was not in session and it hasn't been and so I think it's not just El Cerrito High School it's it's all the different um you know the play equipment at the

1:55:56different schools for example that was paid for with that um it was double A or I can't remember the name of the measure but um you know as we were told at the time it required that the public be allowed to use it and and um so all of the schools as far as I know are locked now the

1:56:19fields it's got so it's not just a Synthetic Turf issue it has to do with access to play equipment for small children um and um right you know last time I looked it wasn't open so that's correct my question was about all facilities not just the synthetic turf fields

1:56:40anything else I have another top oh can I just make one final comment on on this topic I wanted to Echo council member Chang's um sentiments I think there's a lot of folks in our on our age age cohort and above who are really interested in you know having access to

1:56:54gymnasiums and having a nearby location where we can go and have activities indoor uh indoor at night and potentially leak play and that's been something that's been brought up to me several times so the interest in the gymnasium is um you know and something that people are are are used to paying

1:57:11fees for league play and that sort of thing so that's something that's very typical um you know for gymnasium use the topic I wanted to bring up was adult education and one of the particular subgroups of that that I want to bring up is uh the seniors and I've had the opportunity a number of

1:57:39times to go and speak to the different senior groups in El Cerrito so I think I have a little bit of familiarity with them and one thing they've consistently told me across the board is how vital to their well-being those services are and I mean people will tell me I mean

1:57:58these are one day a week services that they get and people will say they wait all week for that and if that goes away they don't know what they're going to do it's it provides them much needed socialization and um I'm extremely worried and I think there are a lot of people who are

1:58:19extremely worried that those services are going to be taken away and this entire population is not going to have any place to go so I was I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about that in the budget it's in the so so is it funded next year I got to tell you something

1:58:37that's what I'm wanting to do no we're one of the few school districts in the state of California that does this so I'm really surprised that people constantly uh reminding us about what we have taken our kids you talk about the writer's coach connection we're not

1:58:53funding that because we're funding senior programs we're funding a lot for seniors because we know seniors have given back and given a lot we're one of the few districts in the state of California to fund senior programs and we did it even though we had cut you

1:59:09know another five million dollars out of our budget we did not touch not one dime the adult education budget this year there wasn't one single protest like we had years because they know we preserved the program so I'm very confident and comfortable saying that there should be no uh concern

1:59:26should be no doubt it's in the budget we did our second interim budget it was unanimously adopted and approved so I I'm just trying to remind people that the board has been uh more than uh helpful in making sure that we keep programs for seniors because seniors

1:59:44have done a lot for us but I I tell you it's in the face of other huge program cuts that we've been able to uh to do this but we've kept the funding fully and it's for free thanks for the context there's a lot of senior programs for ESL that are for free okay I'm talking about

2:00:05senior women they're seniors who take ESL programs I'm talking about the um the programs that are called senior programs well there's seniors programs for ESL there's senior programs for a lot of people they're free I'm talking about the the four programs we have in

2:00:20El Cerrito I guess all right they're not ESL programs all right well you just you didn't clarify that but now I understand okay uh and I think they are they are charged fees I believe yeah they are there's our church um that um there's a lot of um angst in in the community about that

2:00:39so it's so it's very refreshing to hear what you say what you're saying yeah thank you yeah well no I it's just for for a lot of us though and it's it's it's it's like we're constantly being hammered by it and it's like surprising to all of us because we are Vigilant and

2:00:58making sure that we keep it so I don't understand why there's just always this the sense that uh that that we're gonna take take it away and we've we've maintained it and we haven't reduced it because it's been reduced um it has had like for example I don't know that I'm an expert in telling you

2:01:19all the details but I can remember that there used to be it used to operate in the summer and it no longer does so that means that the seniors that are in that program that rely on that program for their uh socialization during the summer time don't get any so I think it's that sort of thing but

2:01:38what I want to say right now is thank you um you know for for not reducing it any further I know that these are very difficult times and that's why it's really important to pass things like major k um but I want to but thank you for um understanding the importance of that

2:02:00program to our senior population okay uh on a switch topics here I was looking I was remembering the the data that Dr harder showed us about the drop in AP classes let me explain one of the reasons for the drop uh Mr Ramsey and myself were on a special committee on high schools and a week ago

2:02:24we were at Pinole Valley High School speaking to the students or basically they spoke to us about what they needed at the high school and one of the questions we raise is why the drop in AP classes one of them is they they run between 85 and 88 dollars a piece so if

2:02:40you have a kid in high school who want to take wants to take one two or three AP classes that's a good chunk of change so what I recommended to them because students came to me and said I would have taken the AP test but my family simply didn't have the extra money

2:02:57because I was going to also going to take an AP English exam they didn't have the extra almost 200 bucks so I suggested to them until the police officers that were there and that we have some police officers still here you might consider and I'm sorry the principle of

2:03:12High School is not here it's gone is creating a bank probably through the Student Records or something where funds can be donated they can have a fundraiser A Bank of funds that the print only the principal can decide how to disperse it so if I come to him and say I can only come up

2:03:32with 50 bucks can I borrow 30 bucks from the bank so you can take the test and that's conversation States between the principal and the individual student those who want the students to take the exams of the taken the course because if they end up getting college credit if

2:03:47they pass it with a five four three when I was teaching at San Francisco as the AP coordinator for Spanish language and Spanish lit we did that we had special fundraisers throughout the year and it went to a special account that only the principal had access to it and

2:04:02I would recommend students and no one knew when you took the test that you were one of the ones who received uh basically a loan and keep that in mind because they can get in the present economy they can get very expensive uh I mean 85 multiply that times three

2:04:18times four one student said I'm going to be taking four exams where does your father work at Bank of America how are they going to pay for it so keep that in mind the possibility of creating a an account just for those students who are we have the aptitude and the skills to take and pass the APA

2:04:39exams it's very important thank you thank you thank you mayor um president Ramsey mentioned that the writer coach connection and we have this incredible group of folks here who have stayed the whole meeting and I've appreciated hearing their their stories about what

2:04:54they've done at our schools and I want to just kind of hear a bit from from the board um you know we have this group of volunteer addicts here who have built themselves up but in a very short period of time and are kind of reaching a number of students and clearly there the

2:05:09district is making so many trade-offs with regard to the funding they have available so I just like to kind of hear a bit more about what's level of resources the board has been able the district has been able to provide in the past what what is that getting us and

2:05:23you know in terms of the number of volunteer hours the number of students that are reached and I'm sure that this incredible group of volunteers is performing as Robert mentioned quote-unquote Miracles is you know not going to go not going to go down that they're coming up with some sort of plan

2:05:38to continue but I just kind of wanted to hear and this could take place at a later time if I need to talk to one of your staff members but I just wanted to hear you know what um what can be done to sort of make sure that we're not going to lose the momentum that's been

2:05:52created in a pretty short period of time in a pretty bad economy um what can we do to keep it going I'll let Dr Harter address that because he's he's working on the instructional program so well in fact what we're attempting to do and we've made a commitment to do is expand Rider coach

2:06:07connection to Richmond high for this coming year and we'd like to do all we can to make sure that it continues to be funded at El Cerrito and Portola in the past we've used uh some of our our our funds that are designated for English language Learners you heard that we we

2:06:21serve all our English language Learners that were levels three and four and that all comes comes out of that funding as well and then the sites have funding that comes from title one that they've used for um you know part of the writer coach connection as well so we're you know

2:06:36we're always trying to put together different pots of money to make it work and we'll continue to do that and and can you tell me what what's funded you know is it is it uh portions of Staff members time or are there materials or is it volunteer coordination what are

2:06:49the sorts of things that the resources are going towards Mr menzinger would have to answer that for you and he can probably give you a good breakdown exactly where those funds go it goes goes from us to the program to be able to provide the program uh at the schools

2:07:03Bob do you want to say anything about where the funds go sure thanks for the question the specific source of the funds for the program at each School comes from wherever the school administration can find those funding we were able to get into El Cerrito High for the first time

2:07:24after many conversations over several years about how the heck to do this by realizing that there were English language development funds available but not funding available to have us serve the mainstream classes quite yet so that's how we got into El Cerrito Ohio

2:07:39it was strictly English language development classes and that funding for the first year some of that funding was still available for the second year of the program which is this current year and Mr lawongo and his staff were able to access additional funding which

2:07:53helped us to expand the program to four almost 400 9th grade students at El Cerrito High as well the community was remarkable in contributing its own funding did its own fundraising to help fill out the budget and then I was able to write a couple of Grants to foundations that Focus their support on

2:08:15Contra Costa County and we applied that funding to the program as well that's how we filled out the whole budget to be able to cover all of the ninth graders at El Cerrito High this year and the English language development levels three and four as we did the previous

2:08:30year this year the piece of the funding that will come from the school to support the program is at best I think about half what was contributed last year and that's the piece of the funding that I'm trying to uh backfill I'll write grants again to the outside funders to the

2:08:50foundations that supported the program this year to contribute that will depend on the remarkable El Cerrito Community to do its fundraising work again so as Dr harder was saying it'll be a patchwork um program of funding that we'll try to put together again to keep the program

2:09:09going at El Cerrito High and at Portola as well at the same levels of years it is this year thank you very much sure to add on to that this this topic um is there anything in measure K that would potentially go towards augmenting and funding this I don't know I'll let Dr

2:09:29harder respond to that what you try not to do is you try not to spend your money until you get it and so all the specific purposes of what we'll have we'll have to look at overall once it's funded in terms of where where it where it could go up to this point in

2:09:43time the board is trying to extend the uh the things that we already have done in terms of uh libraries counselors class size reduction expanding that to the high school and then support for our advanced placement as well so that that's been the extent of the conversations up to this point in time

2:10:00yeah Dr Carter one other thing I want to is there any uh qia schools in El Cerrito no they're not okay Harding I thought it was Harding and what happened was that funded eliminating was no Harding will continue but the funding for Harding just barely covers the cost

2:10:16of class size reduction well I just want to know because I forgot to because we talked about it when we were in uh Richmond High and it prompted that they were losing their qei funding for the school but Harding is going to be retaining theirs and what is for the

2:10:32viewing audience they might not know what can you explain what it is it's a quality investment education uh program act and it goes back to a a deal that Governor Schwarzenegger made in order when he took away uh uh prop 98 funding and brought back specific funding that

2:10:47came that went for primarily for class size reduction at the elementary level and so at Harding we've been able to maintain the class sizes that we think are optimal which is at 20 for uh k-3 which we had not been able to do at our other schools and can you share with

2:11:02them how we're doing with test scores at the elementary school level for schools in El Cerrito and Kensington Alice reading Kensington are our strongest schools in the district with uh Kensington Monera but up there at the top over over 900 Harding over 800 for

2:11:16the first time and Fairmont was right there Fairmont yes yeah thank you all right Middle School in high school struggling trying to get there I'm glad you asked that we still have work to do and we feel like we have good leadership with Matt Burnham and David Luongo and I

2:11:36think that they're putting a team together and I think that the select committee that me and Mr Medrano sitting on high schools are going to be coming back with some recommendations around the achievement Gap what we need to do around safety and what we need to do around college

2:11:51readiness and so we've been hosting Regional meetings we're at pernoli back at El Cerrito and there were some very very useful information I'll even say it was disturbing what we saw for Black and Latino students in terms of achievement and where they were in behavior and test

2:12:08scores and I think now that we have the data we can come up with some strategies to address that at the high schools in the middle schools and so we believe that working collaboratively with all the different partners and meeting with you as a matter of fact I'm glad you shared that

2:12:24because tomorrow night at the board we're going to be talking about a math program for middle schools and so we're really targeting and focused on middle school math and that came out of some means actually I mean people were passionate we had people in El Cerrito

2:12:38media I was meeting people on New Year's Eve so so Horizon no seriously we had a big meeting at El Cerrito resident in El Cerrito families on New Year's Eve so there's a commitment and I want to thank Todd gross for getting me motivated in that and so out of his efforts we really

2:12:55started developing and the board had a retreat and we said we have to start making sure that we identify ways that we can address student achievement especially as they have the skills coming out of Elementary and they're losing at middle high school so we said

2:13:10let's focus on a core program of middle school math that we believe will help not just with math but literacy analysis and being able to be more thoughtful in dealing with reading comprehension so we're excited about rolling that out tomorrow night so I'm glad that that

2:13:26that question was asked so Janet about what we're going to do so we're really committed to try to bring this program to the middle school we also have the elementary schools that are improving each year they're going to start hitting them Middle School in the high schools

2:13:42so the the effort that you've made in the elementary schools will soon show up in the high schools so yeah I mean it looks pretty good you know Galen Murphy at Fairmont and we have Linda takamoto at uh at uh at Harding we have Cheryl cotton at Madera and we have Judy

2:14:01Sanders at the Kensington Hilltop School so we're really excited about the team of principals that we have working hard in bringing the level of achievement that hopefully we can help our flatland schools when they come in have everybody work together and really strengthen

2:14:19because we should we should have it El Cerrito has the demographics it has the profile we should be just as competitive as Albany and make it a place where kids can can really flourish in terms of acting because I have two kids you know my kids are at El Cerrito they're in

2:14:3719th and 11th grade so I just wanted to to I also acknowledge the linked learning academies I've just been so impressed with the just this opening now to invite the community to participate to bring their skills and internships and engaging just the fact that there is a

2:14:58program and there's identified you know themes of academies I mean it's just I'm so excited to continue to to refer people to these um to these programs and I got to experience at the the um we had a Luna women's Film Festival last Saturday and it was we packed the

2:15:19El Cerrito gym and it was a fundraiser for not only breast cancer awareness but also women's group and the LinkedIn that the media Academy and it's just these kinds of events and Partnerships are you know I'm so excited to see them accelerate and have a place to to send

2:15:37people to so thank you thank you anything else yeah one final comment I think that has not been shared is that the El Cerrito theater has been used tremendously by the community and so it is an example of when we're working in it because I tell you it was a fight for people to want to

2:15:58do that theater and we fought we got it and now it's like the Crown Jewel of the East Bay we also have college informational sessions so Dartmouth Princeton they've used the facility Cornell last year so we're seeing the use of that theater and it's being used a lot so I think that's been a huge

2:16:15amount of success with that and it's it's used constantly could I have uh for the benefit of the elsewhere audience Miss Cronenberg uh tell us which students from elsewhere are going to wear for the ivy league connection we can brag that's right El Cerrito once again leads

2:16:32the the pack and number of kids including Todd's daughter be a part of the ivy league connection this summer so we're excited about our Partnerships with brown Columbia Cornell Yale and uh say the names loud and clear so they can hear it on the television 14 14 students

2:16:49from El Cerrito magic of my iPad here and we won for the ivy league connection this year we won the top award from this California school boards Association for Innovation and programs so it's really in our seventh Year we're really excited about it and right and

2:17:09and I'd also just suggest for staff and because we have a new website for the city of El Cerrito there's a a section for schools that it I think these kinds of links to the ivy league connection to link learning academies to the writer coach connection it's you know for

2:17:27people who don't have kids yet who might want to get involved and and you know their first point of entry is through the city because the city as you saw is a is identified as a community-based organization obviously but you know lacking you know most of our efforts at

2:17:43Community efforts are coming and provided by the city rather than traditionally like Berkeley or Oakland where you have all these third-party groups I mean we are it and so I think logically lots of people come you know seeking opportunity through the city so I think you know having those links

2:18:00ready to go um hopefully we can look into that I can I can give you the list of the El Cerrito High students that are going so um the first program is at Brown University and our Brown students are at macroeconomics will be Emily Groves and Nick shebeck Mama's here

2:18:20the DNA program at ying and Wang is going to that and then we have a women in leadership program at Brown University and Madeleine Pine Molly rodosevic and Emily Kane all from El Cerrito High are going to that program at Brown then at Columbia University we have two

2:18:42students who are going to go to the Constitutional law program Lucas lochner Bravo and Adrian Ramsey and Cornell University we have three students who are going to the freedom and Justice program that's Eric Wilson Calvin Kwang and Alex wing and at Penn University University of

2:19:02Pennsylvania we have a students in the physics Academy this summer and this is a month-long program in Philadelphia and the two El Cerrito students are Clara langerker and Mariko white neck and then we have one student who's going to be in the University of Pennsylvania's social justice program

2:19:23also for a month and that's Chloe Alston all together it's 14 students from El Cerrito that will be going we [Applause] need things from Pinole Valley six from Hercules uh four from De Anza one from Richmond one from uh Kennedy and six from middle college so overall there are

2:19:4742 students and we are the only program in the United States the only School District that has partnered with our community be to be able to do this I have Albany parents Orinda parents asking if they can go and they can't hmm well that's good anything else well I'd like to thank you again for

2:20:07coming tonight uh we know you run one of the biggest districts in the state and it's not an easy task and we appreciate all the efforts I have a final comment just want to thank you all for having us here tonight really appreciate your staffs I want to thank your city manager

2:20:24Scott Hannan for putting his teams out there and really appreciating their departments and getting that report it was very good to hear from them and see what we can do I think that we should do this as often as we can because I think we have a lot in common and we have a

2:20:39lot that we can do and so as we move forward I just want to remind everybody that we do have an opportunity to continue to have the conversation we do hope the council will take up and consider an endorsement for measure k at some point in time we've always relied

2:20:56on El Cerrito El Cerrito voters in the community have always believed in the schools even those who don't have kids anymore they have believed in the schools and that's why I'm so committed to the seniors and the programs that they have because they've always given

2:21:08back so I just would tell everybody thanks for having us welcome and we appreciate the welcoming here and we look forward to seeing you in the future great so unless I hear a ejection from the majority we are adjourned we'll take a five minute break first session