Documenter: Ben Irizarry

Sanger USD Board Philosophy

Goals for the School District

The Scene

The Sanger Unified Board Meeting was called to order at 7:01 PM on January 26, 2021 by Board President, G. Brandon Vang. The board meeting was live-streamed on the Sanger Unified youtube channel and was available for all members of the public. At the start of the meeting, there were only 12 viewers on youtube, and the viewership fluctuated between 12-22 viewers throughout the duration of the board meeting. The meeting was staged in a mult-purpose school building with the board members, superintendent, and district administrators staged on the outer perimeter of the room. Youtube viewers had the opportunity to see this arrangement, as well as the participants speaking, and the presentations that were taking place. The board members, superintendent, and district administrators followed social distancing protocols and wore their masks throughout the meeting, removing them only when speaking into the microphones at their tables. G. Brandon Vang indicated that there were two board members absent from the meeting which included Board Member  Jesse Vasquez of Area 7 and Board Clerk Tammy Wolfe of Area 1. Additionally, Mr. Vang indicated that Board Clerk Tammy Wolfe would be taking a medical leave of absence from the board until March 1st, 2021. 

Board Meeting Agenda

Report out of Closed Session

  • C-1: Public Employee Discipline/Dismissal/Release (Gov Code Section 54957)

    •  On a vote of 5-0 ratified the release of a classified probationary employee

  • C-2: Conference with District Labor Negotiator (Gov Code Section 54957.6)

    • No Reportable Action

  • C-3: Conference with Legal Counsel-Antiticated Litigation (Significant exposure to litigation pursuant to subdivision (b) of Gov Code Section 54596.9)

    • No Reportable Action

Motion by trustee

  • Motion by Trustee Hernandez 

    • Second by Trustee Her to adopt agenda for 1/26/21

    • Motion 5-0, motion is adopted

  • Approval of minutes from Board Meeting Minutes from 1/12/21

    • Motion by Trustee Filipi

    • Second by Trustee Solario to approve minutes of the regular board meeting from Jan 12th, 2021

    • Motion is carried on a vote of 5-0

  • Approval of the minutes from Board Meeting from Nov 10th, 2020

    • Unfortunately, the sound cut out for viewers however, when the sound came back in board members agreed on the the Approval of board minutes on a vote of 5-0

    • Board President Vang indicated that the motion is carried

Student Representative report by Sanger High ASB President Mr. John Pena

  • Technical difficulties: No sound

  • Student Representative Pena indicated that the funeral services for Alison Chang will take place on January 31st, 2021 at United Funeral Home in Fresno, CA. Alison Chang, a Sanger Unified Senior, passed away in a car accident in Fresno California in December. 

  • Student Representative Pena also commented on a Senior Forum at Sanger High School in which Senior English teachers will select 20 students  to discuss and gather ideas from students regarding shirts, academic scholars and scholarship night. The event will take place on zoom on February 3rd, 2021 at 1:00PM.

  • Additionally, Student Representative Pena also notified the board of the African American Student Leadership Conference taking place with two Sanger High students serving on the committee that planned the conference taking place on February 2nd, 2021.

Recognition

  • California Foundation of Agriculture 

    • 2020 Outstanding Educator of the Year: Mrs. Christine Klistoff

  • Award winner wanted to thank Board Members for the opportunity and allowing Sanger Unified to think outside the box. Give students the opportunity to understand Agriculture and the career pathways available at an early age for elementary school students. The video that was shared highlighted Mrs. Klistoff’s achievements and were viewed by every president in every farm bureau in California. 

School Board Recognitions

  • Richard J. Duran: Recognized by Board President Vang for the 2019-2020  term as School Board Member at Sanger USD for his help, support, and dedication to the district. Board members and district administrators each took a moment to recognize Mr. Duran for his service to the community.

    • Mr. Duran stated that serving was an honor, forged many relationships, and all the people behind the scenes in the district that help make the district special.

  • Peter R. Flilpi: Thanked for his 20 years of dedication to the Sanger Unified community. Thank you for your leadership as a board president, for the last 7 months, you took the reign and led Sanger Unified through thick and thin. 

    • “It’s humbling, it has been a pleasure to serve the district, families, board, and staff… Have a great district and it’s made up of great people… Thank you for the opportunity to serve…”

Representative Comments

  • SUTA: Nothing to report at this time

  • CSEA #153: Nothing to report at this time

Board Communication

  • Trustee Filipi: “Pleased to join the rally at the High School last Friday to play. I was really impressed by John Pena, his speech was excellent and it was kept  in a positive manner. It was not a protest but a rally to allow the  sports to come back. Very proud of the students and John.”

  • Trustee Her: No Report

  • Trustee Hernandez: Thank all faculty, staff, administration, families and students for coming together and working during these trying times… I just want to say how much I appreciate all of you, you are very much appreciated”

  • Trustee Solario: Thank all our administrators, classified, suta, bus driver in doing such a wonderful job keeping our district running in these trying times. Sanger is really a family because everyone is working together to keep our district running and keeping it sage.  Thank you to everyone…

Superintendent/Administration Communication

  • Superintendent/Administration: Congratulate Dr. Alfredo Ponce, principal of Sanger Community Day School as they met the criteria and received accreditation for WASC due to the hard work of Dr. Ponce, Staff, and the programs established. 

  • Foundation for Sanger Schools:

    • Giving $21,500 in scholarships ranging anywhere from $1,000-$5,000

    • Mentioned earlier, next tuesday is Fresno County Superintendent of Schools African American Student Leadership Conference. This is the first time that Sanger High had students on the planning committee

      • Sanger USD Student Reps: Josiah Colement and Mikayla Amezcua Mitchell

Open Forum for Community Members

  • No comments during the open forum

Consent Agenda

  • Motion to Approve Consent Agenda and also to recognize donations in Agenda

    • Motion by Trustee Filipi

    • Second by Trustee Hernandez

    • On a 5-0 vote, the motion is carried

General District Update

  • Superintendent Jones: 

    • Letter sent out to community and staff with additional guidelines from the Fresno County Department of Public Health to bring on additional students to Sanger USD Schools campuses, 

    • The spirit behind the letter given to the Sanger USD district asked for delaying students from 7th-12th grade. The request that has been made several times was for school leaders to delay enrollment until the COVID case rate declines to at least 25/100,000. The information is updated by Fresno County weekly and made public on Tuesdays. The case rate for Tuesday, January 26th, 2021 was 58/100,000 and the previous week was 

    • Today updated from last week to this week: 74.9/100,000 and the previous week was at 74.9/100,000. Superintendent Jones indicated that the district would continue to monitor that information and move forward when the district gets near that goal post. During this update Trustee Filipi asked Superintendent Jones “How fast would we (district) be able to react…?” According to the superintendent once the case rates get down to 25/100,000 the district has a plan in place that will allow (pending transportation) to have students in schools by the following week pending the weekly update from the County Department of Public Health.

Health and Safety update

  • Total number of positive COVID Cases since March 2020 in Sanger USD

    • 254 Total Cases

      • 241 Closed Cases

      • 13 Active Cases

  • Over the last two weeks, 15 employee members have tested positive and 30 students have tested positive for COVID

    • 2 instances of employee to employee transmission

    • 1 instance of student to employee transmission

  • Percentages of positive cases from contact tracing

    • 927 employee contact traces

    • 11% were positive for employees

    • 2453 student contact traces 

    • 5.9% were positive for students

  • Mr. Stricker indicated that notification letters will continue to be sent out to sites if there is a positive case. Additionally, Mr. Stricker also expressed gratitude and thanks to families in their participation in that daily decision making and communicating the symptoms they may be having with Sanger USD.

FM3-Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates Public Opinion Research

  • The Sanger USD contracted FM3 to conduct public opinion research on the district’s response to the COVID and the School Reopening efforts by the school district. A portion of the school board meeting was dedicated to reviewing the quantitative data that was collected by FM3. In total, FM3 indicated that 610 interviews were conducted with Sanger Unified parents and guardians. FM3 was intentional in collecting data from a broad sample size representative of the district and included a number of factors such as schools, grade levels, numbers of children per family, and language preferences. The surveys were conducted between December 19th, 2020 and December 30th, 2020. The margin of sampling error was +/- 4.0% at the 95% confidence level. Some of the most valuable pieces of data include:  

  • Satisfaction with coronavirus response

    • District

      • Excellent 32%

      • Good 45%

      • Only Fair 13%

      • Poor 6%

      • Don’t know/no answer 4%

  • School

    • Excellent 42%

    • Good 44%

    • 14%

    • Poor 4%

    • Don’t know/no answer 3%

  • Overall Sanger Unified Parents/Guardians seem to be satisfied that the district has met its responsibilities during the pandemic. This is especially true for making sure that every student has access to the appropriate learning technology; communication with parents/guardians about  the district’s planning for instruction during the pandemic; the communication with parents/guardians  about their instructional options during the pandemic; ensuring every student has access to healthy good options during the school day; and creating a culture of safety to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. At the same time, the data revealed that parents/guardians seemed to be less satisfied with the physical education component of distance learning, and the arts and music component of the distance learning program. 

  • Satisfaction with the hybrid and distance learning option

    • Hybrid Learning

      • Very Well 41%

      • Somewhat well 43%

      • Not too well 10%

      • Not well at all 6%

    • Distance learning

      • Very well 49%

      • Somewhat well 44%

      • Not too well 3%

      • Not well at all 3%

  • The most common challenges that parent/guardians within Sanger Unified are facing include:

    • Children spending too much time on screens/devices

    • Difficulty keeping children interested in learning from home

    • Children having difficulty understanding assignment

    • Children’s motivation with learning on their own

    • Not enough instructional time with teachers

    • Spending too much time helping children stay on track

    • 40% of families indicate that lack of reliable child care is a challenge

    • It should be noted that technology challenges are less frequent, but are still faced by a sizable percentage of families.

 

  • Conclusions: Sanger Unified parents/guardians largely give the school district and their own children’s school positive ratings for their handling of the COVID pandemic

  • Parents and guardians are mostly please with the efforts to make sure that students have access to technology, ongoing communication, access to healthy good and a culture of safety

  • Elementary school parents/guardians overwhelmingly  say that the hybrid and distance learning approaching are working well

  • Communication is a key metric by which parents/guardians are judging the districts performance 

Graduation Rates/College-Career Indicator

  • CA Dashboard Indicators for 2020 will not be published by CDE

  • CDE public release data for

    • Grad Rade

    • College/Career Measures

  • Graduation Rate

    • Includes both the combined four and five year grade rate

    • 2017: All Students 92.2%

    • 2019: All Students 96.6%

    • 2020: All Students 95.6%

  • Three levels of college and careers measures report

    • Prepared

    • Approaching Prepared

    • Not Prepared

  • College/Career Measures Report

    • 2017: All Students 55%

    • 2019: 60.2%

    • 2020: 57.5%

Public Hearing in the Matter of the District’s Sunshine Proposal For Classified Bargaining Unit

  • Public hearing is closed

Public Hearing in the Matter of Making a Determination to Submit a Waiver Request to the California State Board of Education with

  • Public Hearing is closed

Resolution 20-21-24 Making a Determination to Submit a Waiver Request to the California State Board of Ed with respect to certain provisions of the Ed Code Relating to the issuance of General Obligations, Bonds, and Approving Related Documents and Actions

  • Mr. Chet outlined the steps needed by the district to complete the bonding capacity waiver which includes a public hearing for the bonding capacity waiver, adopting a bonding capacity waiver resolution, and adopting a refunding resolution.

  • On February 9th, 2021 the board can adopt the bond issuance resolution for Measure B (2018) and Measure C (2020). Assuming the approval of these documents, the district would be able to take advantage of the low interest rate environment and be able to lock in interest rates to provide saving to taxpayers in the refinancing effort. 

  • Mr. Chet went into the structure of general obligation bond programs, the funding needs of the school district and the financial constraints of the district. Additionally, Mr. Chet also reviewed the economic standing of the district including the district valuation in addition to  the interest rates for the bonds and the projected tax rates. The bonding capacity process would make it possible for the district to access the bonds from Measure B (2018) and Measure C (2020).

  • Motion to adopt Resolution 20-21-24

  • Trustee Filipi, Second by Trustee Solario

  • Motion is carried with a vote of 5-0

Resolution 20-21-025 of the Board of Trustees of the Sanger Unified School District Authorizing the Issuance and Sale of 2021 Refunding General Obligation Bonds in the Aggregate Principal Amount of Not to Exceed $36,000,000 for the Purpose of refinancing outstanding General Obligation Bonds, and Approving related Documents and Actions

  • Motion by Trustee Filipli, Second by Trustee Hernandez

  • Motion is carried with a vote of 5-0

First Reading of Proposed Revisions to Board Policy

  • Motioned by Trustee Hernandez, Second by Trustee Solario

  • Motion is carried with a 5-0 Vote

Second Reading of Proposed Revisions to Board Policy

  • Motion by Trustee Hernandez, Trustee Vang 

  • Motion is carried with a 5-0 vote

Meeting Adjourned at 9:21PM

Summary

  • General Update: Superintendent Jones made reference to a letter that was sent out to the Sanger Unified community  with additional guidelines from the Fresno County Department of Public Health that suggested that the district delay bring additional students to schools. Under the guidelines, the district will continue using distant learning as the primary mode of instruction until the case rate meets the 25/100,000 threshold. These numbers are updated weekly by the Fresno County Department of Public Health and are made public on Tuesday afternoons. When asked how quickly the district can act, Superintendent Jones stated that pending transportation, the district can have students physically in schools within one week. 

  • The FM3-Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates Public Opinion Research revealed that parents/guardians in the Sanger Unified School District are generally satisfied with the district’s response to the COVID pandemic. Parents/guardians are pleased with the district’s effort to ensure that all students have access to technology, access to healthy food, and access to a district culture that has promoted safety and well-being of students and staff. Additionally, the data revealed that parents/guardians have judged the district’s performance based on their ongoing communication with the community. 

  • The presentation related to Resolution 20-21-24 outlined the steps required by the district to complete the bonding capacity waiver process. This process would make it possible for the district to access the funding resources made available by Measure B (2018) and Measure C (2020). This presentation also made public the district economic standing, valuation, and projected tax rates. 

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