Summary of the Board of Education Meeting on June 17, 2020

Virtual Meeting

The June 17, 2020 meeting of the Board of Education began with the following announcements out of Closed Session

  • The Board hired Amy Balmanno as Manager II/ Principal I at Rata High School 
  • The Board took action on one workers’ compensation claim

Next, Superintendent Nelson provided a brief report to the Board of Education including:

  • Superintendent thanked the entire Fiscal and Budget teams for guiding us though a very tough budget process this year. The work that they had to be done behind the scenes to bring us to our budget adoption las week should not be overlooked or understated. He daily work of our budget analysts along with the rest of the teams are of the highest quality. Your dedication and perseverance do not go unnoticed – thank you for all you do!
  • Next, the Superintendent shared that last week our A4 Summer Literacy program got started with 735 students – a large enrollment jump from the previous two years! This year offers five-week distance learning model for kindergarten through fourth grade students via Google Classrooms and other virtual platforms. The goal is to accelerate reading for African American and all Fresno Unified students who are below reading level to proficiency and beyond. I want to congratulate the team on the continued success of this program. In its first year our students experienced an average of 4.9 months of reading growth in just 5 weeks. Thank you, Wendy, and the whole A4 team for your great work!
  • Superintendent Nelson stated that Summer Academies started on June 9th and Summer Camps started on June 15th. I am thrilled to note that we have over 18,000 students participating in our Summer Academies.  This enrollment is on par to help them get ready for upcoming with what we normally have enrolled in summer school and in time where many school districts within our state reduced or eliminated summer programs, it is great to see what we have been able to maintain and even expanded our offerings for our students to help them get ready for the  upcoming school year. Our Summer Camps don’t require registration, but we know our summers camps webpage had over 500 unique visitors on its first day alone! Head over to fresnounified.org and click the main slide that says Virtual Summer Camps for more info.
  • Superintendent announce that our teams have partnered with Valley PBS to provide even more learning opportunities this summer! Starting June 22nd through August 14 Valley PBS in partnership with Fresno Unified will present “Local Learning”. This program is designed to build literacy skills in students K-3 and support getting our children ready to begin the new school year. The week of June 22nd the program “Local Learning” will run from 8:00 am to 9:00 am with hopes to expand in the following weeks. Four Fresno Unified teachers, Joe Dawson, Isabel Mayoral, Lisa Nix and Carlanda Williams will be reaching out to students throughout Fresno County to bring the lesson to them. Thank you to the Instructional teams for making this happen!
  • Superintendent Nelson shared that we are grateful to hear from some of our colleagues and community members tonight about the interest and need to have robust ethnic studies courses in all our schools. We are eager to bring alongside us in the work we have started with supporting sites who are expanding course offering in the upcoming school year. We have had school add ethnic studies over the past couple of years and have more schools adding for the 2020-2021 school year. There has been much work started on our journey to getting all schools to offer ethnic studies and eventually make it to graduation requirement.
  • Next, Superintendent remind parents that our COVID-19 Call Center is now available to take your calls regarding your feedback on our district’s new vision, mission and goals to be adopted this Fall. As you may recall, we had plans to do deep community outreach to ensure student, parent and staff voice in the development of the new vision, mission and goals and we have had to pivot as may of those in-person activities were cancelled due to COVID-19. We’ve been able to hold virtual staff focus groups, and we are currently holding virtual student focus groups through our summer learning programs and have opened our call center to conduct live one-on-one phone survey with parents to gain your feedback as well. The survey takes about 5-15 minutes and you can call us (559) 457-3395 between 8 am and 5pm on weekdays to share your feedback. We have live operators available to facilitate your survey in English, Spanish or Hmong.
  • Last, Superintendent Nelson announce that we had to switch providers to provide translation for our website as Microsoft recently retired their translation buttons for websites. The buttons to translate are now at the bottom of each webpage on our website – one button says Spanish and one button says Hmong. These translations are hosted by Google Translate and while that is usually quite accurate for Spanish, we know it can be less accurate for Hmong. Our teams are working diligently for a better solution and we will keep you updated as we find even better solutions.  

Next, the Board of Education took the following action on the below consent agenda items:

  • Approved Personnel List
  • Adopted Resolution 19-43 Authorizing Inter-Fund Loans for Cash Flow Purposes
  • Approved Minutes from Prior Meeting
  • Approved Annual Agreements for the 2020/21 School Year – Primary Report
  • Approved Annual Agreements for the 2020/21 School Year – Supplemental Report
  • Approved Legal Services Agreements for 2020/21
  • Approved Agreement with CORE for Shared Administrator Services and the Accompanying Employment Agreement Between Fresno Unified School District and Michelle Steagall, Associate Superintendent for School Leadership
  • Approved Grant Application to the Federal Department of Education – 2020 Teacher Quality Partnership Grant
  • Approved JE Young Application for the Dashboard Alternative School Status
  • Approved Memorandum of Understanding with Endeavor Charter School
  • Approved Memorandum of Understanding with Morris E. Dailey Elementary Charter School
  • Approved Modified Salary Placements and Revised Benefits and Risk Management Job Descriptions for the Benefits Eligibility Assistant, Workers’ Compensation Technician, and Disability Retirement Technician Positions
  • Approved Positions and adopted Job Descriptions for Mentor Program Facilitator I and Mentor Program Facilitator II
  • Approved Use of Individual Piggyback Contracts in 2020/21
  • Approved Award of Bid 20-06 Schedule A and B, Fresh Produce
  • Approved Award of Bid 20-46, Vinland Elementary School Parking Lot Expansion and Site Access Improvements
  • Approved Award of Bid 20-50, Hoover High School Interim Modular Classroom Infrastructure
  • Approved Award of Bid 20-53, Burroughs, King, and Powers-Ginsburg Elementary Schools HVAC Installation
  • Approved Award of Request for Qualifications 20-35, Investigation Services
  • Approved Proposed Revisions for Board Policies
  • BP 1250 Visitors/Outsiders
  • BP 1312.3 Uniform Complaint Procedures (UCP)
  • BP 5141.52 Suicide Prevention
  • BP 5144.1 Suspension and Expulsion/Due Process
  • (NEW) BP 6120 Multi-Tiered System of Support
  • (NEW) BP 6142.91 Reading/Language Arts Instruction
  • (NEW) BP 6157 Distance Learning
  • Ratified Amendment No. 4 to the Agreement with Envision Pharmaceutical Services, LLC
  • Ratified Purchase Orders from April 1, 2020 through April 30, 2020 – Primary Report
  • Ratified Purchase Orders from April 1, 2020 through April 30, 2020 – Supplemental Report

Next, the Board of Education discussed the below conference/discussion agenda item:

  • Presented and Discussed Reopening of Schools High Level Plan
  • Conducted Public Hearing and adopted Resolution 19-41 Authorizing the Increase of Level I School Facility (Development) Fees on Residential and Commercial/Industrial Construction Projects
  • Received Resolution 19-44, Authorizing the Issuance and Sale of General Obligation Bonds, Election of 2016, Series C, in the Aggregate Principal Amount of Not to Exceed $90,000,000, and Authorizing the Execution and Delivery of Documents and Actions in Connection Therewith
  • Received Resolution 19-45, Authorizing the Issuance and Sale of 2020 Refunding General Obligation Bonds to Refund Outstanding General Obligation Bonds, Election of 2010, Series D, and Outstanding 2012 General Obligation Refunding Bonds, and Approving Related Documents and Actions
  • Received Resolution 19-46, Authorizing Execution and Delivery of Amendments to Site Lease and Facility Lease Agreements with Central Valley Support Services Joint Powers Agency Relating to the Central Kitchen Facility, Approving the Issuance of Refunding Lease Revenue Bonds by the Agency, and Approving Preliminary Official Statement and Related Documents and Actions
  • Received Resolution 19-47, Authorizing Debt Service Estimate to be Provided to the County of Fresno Respecting Unsold General Obligation Bonds of the Fresno Unified School District Relating to the Measure X and Measure M Authorizations for 2020/21
  • Received Resolution 19-48, Making a Determination to Submit a Waiver Request to the California State Board of Education with Respect to Certain Provisions of the California Education Code Relating to the Issuance of General Obligation Bonds, and Approving Related Documents and Actions

​The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Education will be a teleconference meeting on Wednesday, August 12, 2020. Complete minutes and agendas are available online at https://go.fresnou.org/board

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