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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-08-18 City Schools Liaison Committee Summary MinutesPage | 1 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes BIG CREEK ELEMENTARY Special Meeting August 18, 2016 The Special City School Liaison Committee meeting in the Community Meeting Room at this date at 8:02 A.M, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California. Present: City of Palo Alto Tom DuBois, Council Member, Committee Chair Cory Wolbach, Council Member Khashayar “Cash” Alaee, City Manager’s Office Palo Alto Unified School District Terry Godfrey, Vice President Melissa Baten Caswell, Board Member Cathy Mak, District Chief Business Officer Absent: Cory Wolbach, Council Member Oral Communications Chair DuBois: I don't think we have any Oral Communications. Agenda Items 1. Approval of Minutes - June 23, 2016. Chair DuBois: I guess we have Approval of Minutes. Does anybody move to approve the Minutes? Board Member Baten Caswell: I move that we approve the Minutes. Chair DuBois: I'll second that. Terry Godfrey, PAUSD Vice President: I wasn't here, so I can't really ... City/School Liaison Committee Draft Minutes Page | 2 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: Can we vote with two people or do we have to wait for Cory to get here? Vice President Godfrey: I can't tell you if they're right or wrong if I wasn't here. NO ACTION TAKEN At this time the Committee heard Agenda Item Number 4. 4. Update on Safe Routes to School. Penny Ellson: I submitted a card for Oral Communications. Chair DuBois: Was that for Oral? Ms. Ellson: (crosstalk) it's related to Safe Routes to School, so whenever you want to do it. Chair DuBois: I thought it was for Safe Routes. Ms. Ellson: It is, but I wasn't sure if you wanted me to do it at the front or wait. Chair DuBois: You can go ahead, Penny. Ms. Ellson: You're sure? Thank you. I'm Penny Ellson, and I work on the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) Council Traffic Safety Committee. I came to make a couple—first of all (inaudible) wonderful presentation, but also to make two requests. One is I wanted to make everybody here, especially the Board because you may not know, aware that the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) has presented some concepts for changes to bus service in Palo Alto that will have an impact on school-commuting children if it's implemented. They've presented three concepts; two of them eliminate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) bus line that serves Gunn High School and the VTA 35 that also has some implications for the City on paratransit for seniors, a separate issue. I am reaching out to the seniors in the community that support our efforts to retain those buses. The last time VTA did this, the Board was very supportive. They presented a letter. They came with us to San Jose. The School District presented a letter as well. The City's already done this. I just am here today to ask for your help and support as we advocate to retain that bus service. Board Member Baten Caswell: Do you have the City letter that we could have a copy of? Page | 3 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes Ms. Ellson: I didn't bring it today, but I'd be happy to provide that. The City has already sent it, and they've gotten a response from VTA. The second item I wanted to ask for your help with is a matter that I've talked to Dr. McGee about already, which is a matter of scheduling and bell time issues. I think I'm supposed to talk to Cathy Mak about that, but I want all of us to kind of be aware that there's a little disconnect between Central Office agreements around Environmental Impact Reports. When Terman was re-opened and when Gunn High School was expanded, the School District negotiated some mitigations, which included bell time staggering and bell time splits that are not presently being implemented. I don't want to go into the long details of that right at the moment. There seems to be a disconnect between these agreements. Principals at the school sites seem unaware of them. When they make schedule changes or when we make decisions about things like zero period and stuff like that, we've basically taken away tools that we used to use to split the bell time surges. From a traffic perspective, it's very important. I don't want to go into the long details of it. I am going to be reaching out to Cathy Mak and Ron Ellis, who I think are my first stops to work on this. I'd really like to get us moving on this before the end of this school year. By the beginning of next school year, I'd like us to have our bell time surges in better shape if we can. That's all. Thank you. Chair DuBois: Because we have visitors today, what if we move the discussion of recent meetings to the end. Cash had asked if we could do the update on Safe Routes to School first. If that's all right with you guys, we'll move the order around. Board Member Baten Caswell: That's perfect since I have to leave early. I'm sure Terry can handle my side. Chair DuBois: Let's do the update on Safe Routes to School. Sylvia Star-Lack, Transportation & System Manager: Thank you very much. Good morning. I'm Sylvia Star-Lack. I'm with the Planning Department in the Safe Routes to School Program. 2016 marks the ten year anniversary of our formal Safe Routes to School Program in Palo Alto. This presentation will cover the development of our program, the establishment of the partnership and the six E's framework through which we accomplish this work as well as next steps for the program. As you can see from this slide, biking and bike safety education have had a long history in Palo Alto. The article on the left describes a 1956 bike rodeo hosted by the Palo Alto Police Department. The photo on the right is a 1970s era picture of Palo Alto High School students waiting to cross Alma at Churchill. Vice President Godfrey: Not a helmet in the bunch. Page | 4 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes Ms. Star-Lack: No helmets, no helmets. It does look that way today but with helmets. Board Member Baten Caswell: Actually it looks way worse than it does today. The kids are in the middle of the street. Chair DuBois: (inaudible) Ms. Star-Lack: To give you an idea of how we came to have a Safe Routes to School Program, I've put together a very brief history highlighting key time points. Full disclosure, I gave this basic presentation to the City Council back in May, so you will have seen some of this before. The development of our modern Safe Routes to School Program was a response to dynamics set in motion in the '70s when the School District had to close 14 schools. At the same time, there were reductions in bus service that occurred due to school budget constraints. What that meant was longer school commutes for students and increased numbers of students crossing busier intersections, because they had fewer schools. In the late '70s, the School District and the City established the City/School Traffic Safety Committee to address student travel concerns because of the school closures and the lack of busing. The Committee recommended siting of additional adult crossing guards on routes where busing was no longer available. Between the '70s and the '90s due to the cuts in busing, a negative feedback loop was unfortunately set in motion where parents drove to school, creating less safe conditions. This lack of safety meant fewer parents were willing to allow their students to walk and bike, which led to more cars at schools and then less biking and on and on. By the early '90s, PTA members initiated a conversation about congestion and safety issues at schools. This led to some nascent partnership activity. The City and School District created task forces to engage in self-study, conducting engineering studies and parent surveys. These activities led to the establishment of a third grade bike education program to address how do we help our students bike. A more robust education program developed over time. In 2005, Staff and volunteers became aware of the national movement to improve rates of biking and walking or active transportation for school children. The national coalition had formed to increase opportunities for student walking and biking to school so that students could enjoy the benefits of active transportation including improved physical and mental health; safer, less crowded streets; increased independence; improved academic performance; and fewer greenhouse gas emissions. We know that students who bike and walk to school arrive to school ready to learn. The national coalition created a national consensus statement with a framework on how to address student travel to school. In 2006, the City, School District and PTA Council endorsed the national partnership consensus statement which is the Page | 5 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes date that we here in Palo Alto acknowledge as the beginning of our Safe Routes to School partnership. Even though we say that this is our ten year anniversary, this work has been happening in town for decades on some level. The partnership is a collaboration of three entities with a mission to reduce risk to students on their school commutes and to encourage more families to choose alternatives to driving solo more often. That's our three-legged stool. The City/School Traffic Safety Committee that had been created in the '70s became the task force for the Safe Routes to School Program. Representatives from these partners meet monthly during the school year to share information, solve problems and communicate about changes to the road network or campus access that affect student commutes. The partnership uses an approach to improving student travel. We educate students and parents on how to use our roads safely. We encourage through various means families to try walking, biking, carpooling or transit where possible. Our police enforce our traffic laws for both cyclists and drivers, while both the City and the School District engineer safer spaces for our students on their commutes. Our PTA aids City Staff in evaluating the program. We do this work with an equity approach, trying to serve all students and all their needs. I'm going to touch on each of the E's briefly. Regarding education, this is our slate of education offerings. Kindergarteners, first and second graders receive a pedestrian safety lesson each year. Third graders receive two classroom lessons that culminate in a very famous bicycle rodeo. I want to point out that the bike rodeo itself is a collaboration between the City Staff, School Staff, PTA volunteers, the police, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Stanford Injury Prevention and other partners. Our fifth and sixth graders receive a lesson reminding them to make safer choices when they're out on the roads as they're going to middle school. Families with middle schoolers can also sign up for our middle school bike skills class, which is offered every summer through a partnership with Wheel Kids Bicycle Club. Parents with younger children can enroll in our family biking workshops that are run by Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition or parents can opt for the parents only class entitled Bringing Up Bicyclists. Encouragement events are key to changing the culture on campus regarding walking, biking, carpooling and taking transit. At least twice a year and sometimes more often, PTA volunteers organize events to celebrate the use of alternative modes school- wide. I know that some Council Members and School Board Members have participated in these events, getting up early and greeting our students and families as they arrive on foot or by bike. Thank you for your support of our program. It's important for our parents to see your enthusiasm for these healthy choices. Other kinds of PTA-organized encouragement events include what you see here. Things like "how did you get to school" sticker charts which is up there on the right side. Some campuses host pancake breakfasts, bike blenders. They hand out stickers or they stamp hands. Sometimes Page | 6 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes these events are folded into green team events for Earth Day. A nice trend is at the middle schools. These events are increasingly organized by students themselves. An important encouragement effort is the creation of our Walk and Roll Maps for all schools in the District and the Monroe Park neighborhood. The maps show the best walking and biking routes, the estimated walking and biking times, the locations of crossing guards, traffic signals, all-way stops, and the location of bike parking on each campus. The maps convey the message that we are a community that supports walking and biking so much that we've done some of the work for parents to help them try out these modes. Developed alongside these maps were lists of projects that the City and School District could undertake to enhance student safety in route to school and on campus. I'll talk about those projects in a minute. Enforcement. We cannot do this work effectively without our police force who enforce the laws for drivers and cyclists. The police fund and oversee our adult crossing guards. Our Police Chief supports our program with a letter for parents every fall with safety tips for all road users. Also, the police run our juvenile traffic diversion program, which gives an opportunity for youth who have been cited in town to attend bicycle law traffic school in lieu of paying a fine, turning a citation into a teachable moment. Engineering our streets and campuses for student safety is another key piece of our work. Our engineers work collaboratively with parents, PTA volunteers, School Staff and School District Administration to build in safety measures and other considerations for students when coming to school. Often it is PTA volunteers who point out where improvements are needed. This slide highlights some of our recent and upcoming projects that will have significant benefits for students. The project lists developed during our Walk and Roll Map process have been fed into all of our roadway projects, so that student safety is integrated early into all that we do and build. Our Safe Routes Program reaches people of all cultures and backgrounds through walking and biking. Equity is addressed through our offerings for all including the free Bay Area Bike Mobile bike repair service, in-school bicycle education, helmet fitting and assistance, and Spanish translation of documents. This is our new helmet flyer that was just released as part of a collaboration between Santa Clara County Safe Routes to School providers. Our goal is to provide assistance in a way that folks aren't stigmatized. We're open to other ideas on how to do this. One equity activity we are excited by is the Gunn High School Bike Distribution Program that started without our knowledge or assistance. Chair DuBois: What is it? Board Member Baten Caswell: Those are the best ones, aren't they? Page | 7 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes Ms. Star-Lack: Those are the best, when we are not involved. That tells you it's a healthy bike culture in the community. Chair DuBois: What is that program? Ms. Star-Lack: They collect bicycles from wherever, from the Gunn High School community or wherever. Maybe from Palo Alto High School (Paly). Board Member Baten Caswell: You weren't here for that conversation. We probably don't want to say that. Ms. Star-Lack: There's a teacher on campus that runs this program where they collect them. They bring them to a bike shop in town for getting fixed. They redistribute them back out to families that need bikes. Board Member Baten Caswell: I was going to ask you actually when you showed the picture with the—is it okay to ask a question? Ms. Star-Lack: Yeah, yeah. Board Member Baten Caswell: The equity thing. I think the cost of the helmet could be a problem for some underserved families. I'm wondering if there are any programs to make that easier. Ms. Star-Lack: We are working with Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition. We actually pointed them to a grant funding program that, I believe, they will be applying for. We asked that they reserve some helmets for us. Board Member Baten Caswell: I'd heard that the Police Department ... Ms. Star-Lack: They do (crosstalk). Board Member Baten Caswell: ... try to give some out. Ms. Star-Lack: Yes. Board Member Baten Caswell: I'm not sure that they're targeting the kids where it's really an issue. Ms. Star-Lack: Right. One of our pushes this year will be to make contact with the principals. If they're noticing that students need helmets, they should let us know. We'll contact Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition to see if we can get some. Page | 8 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: I'm noticing kids driving over by bike, over the Newell Bridge, without helmets. Ms. Star-Lack: Okay. I will ... Board Member Baten Caswell: Someone can just hand them out at Newell Bridge. Ms. Star-Lack: How are we doing? Evaluation is the sixth E and an essential component of our program. This chart shows the number of parked bikes at Gunn and Paly for selected years between 1985 and 2015. The total number of high school students biking in 2001, which was a low point, was 300. That was 300 total high school students, public high school students in the City. Today that number is about 1,700 students, which represents 43 percent of all PAUSD high school students. These numbers are impressive, but they're particularly impressive when put into the national context of declining walking and biking rates for students. We have (inaudible) the national trend. Focusing on biking across all grades, we see the following results: first of all, 32 percent of all Palo Alto high school students bike to school, that's when you average over all of the segments; 43 percent of high school students bike; 50 percent of middle school students bike. While the 14 percent of elementary school students looks like a small number, the infographic on the bottom shows that over half of our elementary school families are doing something other than driving to school alone. Our program really does focus on all of those other modes of travel, not just biking, but the biking one is very easy for us to count. These statistics show the power of partnership and collaboration. No single entity could have produced these results on their own. Thousands of hours of volunteer and Staff time, volunteer time like that of Penny here, went into ... Ms. Ellson: I have not donated thousands of hours (crosstalk). Ms. Star-Lack: I think you have. Board Member Baten Caswell: Over all your years. Ms. Star-Lack: I think you have. It was a team effort that went into creating the environment that our students encounter today, and there is still more for us to do. Right now Safe Routes Staff have been helping with our summer Wheel Kids middle school bike skills class. We are also supporting back to school PTA events. I know you can't—I grayed out the photo. That is the picture from Jordan this week at their back to school event, their bike safety event. We are also scheduling the third grade bike rodeo and bike safety lessons. We are preparing for our first City/School Traffic Safety Committee Page | 9 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes meeting this year, which will be next week. We have recently partnered with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation pediatrics to develop handouts for parents on Safe Routes to School. When you go and they're talking about your child's activity level, they can say are you biking or walking to school, why or why not. They can reach out to us or whoever they need to reach out to, to get going on that. We'll be working with the School District on upgrading our data collection using online forms and expanding the data collection for all modes of travel through to the twelfth grade. We currently do not know how many students walk in high school or middle school. We have no way of knowing. We will try to collect that data this year for the first time. Board Member Baten Caswell: Because I live right next to the corridor going to Paly, there are a lot of kids that walk and take the shuttle. Ms. Star-Lack: We'll hopefully capture that. Board Member Baten Caswell: They may not walk all the way to school. Ms. Star-Lack: We're going to ask about all modes. Finally, the City is including policy language in its Comprehensive Plan Update process that recognizes and strengthens the City's Safe Routes to School Program, the City side of the Safe Routes to School Program. We know that the School District does not currently have a Safe Routes to School policy, and we look forward to helping the District update its policies to reflect our very successful partnership program. That's all I have. Thanks for your attention. I welcome your questions and comments. Board Member Baten Caswell: What is your hope around policy? Ms. Star-Lack: The California School Board Association actually has a boilerplate Safe Routes to School policy that fits under the District's ... Board Member Baten Caswell: So lucky you have a member of the Board Policy Committee here. Chair DuBois: Are there things that we're not doing that are in those policies? Ms. Star-Lack: The School District, I believe, has adopted a wellness policy. Under that policy, I think, can fit in a Safe Routes to School policy that the School Board Association has developed some boilerplate language. I've looked at that, and it doesn't exactly match what we have going on here, but we could do that. Right now, there is no policy that I know of on the school side that talks about what we do, what we've been doing for a decade. Page | 10 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: What would be the rule ... Vice President Godfrey: What would you do differently? Board Member Baten Caswell: ... that you'd want us to—we use our policies as rules basically. Are there some rules that we don't have that you wish we had? Ms. Star-Lack: Some of the things that Penny was talking about. Just kind of enshrining that collaboration happens when making changes to school campuses, consulting with folks before—changes where students enter a campus. Board Member Baten Caswell: I think this would be good actually. Some policy on when we make changes to campuses in egress or whatever and when the City makes changes to traffic patterns. I have noticed that this has been a challenge. I was at Jordan the first day of school. It was fabulous to see that the City was working on putting bike lanes in front of the school. It was painful to see that they were closed off on the first day of school, so that no students could ride their bike in the bike lane. It was kind of a traffic nightmare. I'm sure you know there was a traffic nightmare at Jordan on the first day of school. I know that there are members of the community—we might have one here—who were worried about the parking at Paly when we did construction. Maybe that would make sense if we had some policies around that. Vice President Godfrey: We could certainly (crosstalk). We have in the last year or so, the last couple of years, codified a Board Policy Review Committee (BPRC) meeting, Board policy (inaudible) so we have a lot of policies to review. We can get it into the hopper. Ms. Star-Lack: That'd be great. Ms. Ellson: I think, Sylvia, you did a great job mentioning the California boilerplate language. In addition, the School District already has some documents that we use for guidelines. There is a (inaudible) guidelines for development of campuses. We also have a Palo Alto Unified School District/City of Palo Alto Partnership Statement that has some good language in it that could be integrated into some policy stuff. A couple of things that I'd like to see addressed in there would be making sure that we talk to each other about any attendance boundary changes. Overflow across attendance boundaries has become a major problem from a traffic perspective, especially in the south and west clusters of neighborhoods. I think it would be very helpful to have a robust discussion soon about this business of schedule Page | 11 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes changes that impact traffic. A lack of adherence to agreement about management of bell time surges is really creating a problem. Board Member Baten Caswell: I think that you brought up a really good point. We don't have a Board policy about this, and there are other documents that are all over the place. We have a lot of new people. They may not have been part of making those things. If we could somehow bring it together, I would be loathe to use a boilerplate that talks about stuff that we don't care about. I would much rather just focus on what we care about. Ms. Ellson: I'm sort of thinking that we're going to bring all these things ... Vice President Godfrey: Mush them together, yeah. Ms. Ellson: ... together and perhaps that language would be helpful. They may have thought about some things that we have not, that we could be doing better. Vice President Godfrey: We can get it into the queue for our Board Policy Review Committee. Board Member Baten Caswell: That would be good. Every year I either come to this meeting or I see what happens. We always have communication mismatches every year on traffic safety stuff, which is why I wanted this earlier in the year rather than later. I know there are some people that wish this was going to be in October. Vice President Godfrey: I have a question about—when you talked about education, there was the middle school skills and this bike rodeo. There used to be some summer camps that were bicycle-based. Ms. Star-Lack: There still are. Vice President Godfrey: Do those still exist? Ms. Star-Lack: They're not run by the City. They're run by Wheel Kids Bicycle Club. Vice President Godfrey: My son did them years ago, and they were run by the City at that time, I believe. You go out, and you ride your bike around town. Literally, we would go to 7-11 and buy gum, and then you would go to this park and ride down Johnson Park with the cardboard. Just the fact of them being on their bikes essentially all day long and learning the City and getting ... Page | 12 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes Ms. Ellson: That's what Wheel Kids does now. Vice President Godfrey: Is that what they do now? Ms. Ellson: Yeah. They have really great destinations they take the kids to. Before they put the kids on the bikes, they do a lot of safety training (crosstalk). Vice President Godfrey: I might add that to your slide with either education or encouragement, because it was both. It was both sort of ... Ms. Star-Lack: Wheel Kids is a private entity, and they do their own summer camps for a week in town, which is great. You may see them. Vice President Godfrey: Does it show up in the Enjoy! catalog? Ms. Star-Lack: It does not. It should; it did not this summer. We are working with Enjoy! ... Vice President Godfrey: If it shows up in the Enjoy! catalog, we think the City does it. Ms. Ellson: (crosstalk) program is run by one of our PTA Traffic (crosstalk). Vice President Godfrey: Good. Board Member Baten Caswell: They go out of Addison, don't they? Ms. Star-Lack: Yes. Board Member Baten Caswell: To your point, you love it when you don't have to organize it yourself, and it just happens. There's, of course, the ones that just happen at school. There are probably other ones that happen in our community as a result of this. Ms. Star-Lack: I've heard of another one that happens towards Los Gatos. Somebody else is doing something from there. We do, however, with Wheel Kids partner with them on this middle school bike skills class, which is the one that has appeared in the Enjoy! catalog, which is the one-day, intensive, in- class and on-bike class that uses our approved curriculum. That's separate than what Wheel Kids normally does. There's two different programs that they run. Board Member Baten Caswell: The first day of school for the high schools, there was a pretty bad bike accident on Greenwood. I don't know if anyone Page | 13 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes was aware of that. It was an adult. There were ambulances. It was really bad. It was a roll through the stop sign. I know that there's a law being considered on the ballot to allow roll-through stop signs. I'm just wondering how we're going to be working with that if it goes through. I will tell you that I drive down Melville every morning. I basically pray at the intersections because I cannot see cars coming the other way and I know how many kids are riding on Melville. They're probably praying as well. I'm sure Melville's not the only one; it's just the one that I'm on all the time. I think our intersections are really tough because people park on the street, so you can't see. It's bad enough when you stop, and the cars don't realize there are bicycles. If our kids are rolling through stop signs, I'm worried about that. Ms. Star-Lack: With regard to visibility at corners, we do have our relatively new Palo Alto 311 service request tool. I don't know if you have downloaded the app onto your ... Board Member Baten Caswell: I heard about it yesterday. Maybe you could just tell everybody about it. Ms. Star-Lack: I like this. Vice President Godfrey: I have it. Ms. Star-Lack: I love this app. If you have any kind of tree trimming, vegetation trimming, "I think there needs to be a red curb at this corner because I can't see the students who are approaching," that's it. This app is great. Board Member Baten Caswell: There's a big gardening truck on the corner every morning when I drive down. That's something I could put in or not? Chair DuBois: (inaudible) curb. Ms. Star-Lack: Only if it's ... Vice President Godfrey: You could say it could be a red curb, right? Ms. Star-Lack: It could be a red curb in terms—yeah. If there is a visibility issue, we'll send somebody out. Board Member Baten Caswell: Or the RV that's parked there all the time. (crosstalk) happens on Melville. There are some places ... Ms. Star-Lack: You can report Code Enforcement infractions on that. You can report potholes. You could report street lights out. You could report other Page | 14 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes things that don't have to do with streets on there. A lot of City departments are using that now, because it just makes it a lot easier. Your complaint goes directly to the Staff person who can handle it. Ms. Ellson: (inaudible) email blast about the—an educational email blast on the 311 app the week before school started, which we sent out to parents (crosstalk). Board Member Baten Caswell: The PTA sent out to parents? Ms. Ellson: Yeah, the PTA sent it out and asked parents to (crosstalk). Board Member Baten Caswell: We should do some more information like that. On the rolling stop sign thing, have you guys talked about that? Ms. Star-Lack: We haven't talked about it. Board Member Baten Caswell: We can't control if it gets approved. It's on the ballot, the rolling stop thing? That's what I was told. Ms. Ellson: I don't think it's (crosstalk) ballot. Board Member Baten Caswell: I'm just wondering if you guys could look into it, because I'm worried about this. I think you will be too if it becomes law. Ms. Ellson: If it happens, we'll have to do some education, and we'll have to look at how other states have dealt with it. We wouldn't be the first state to do this. We'll look at what other schools and what other states have done, and we'll see what works. We're also not (crosstalk). Claudia Keith, Chief Communications Officer: The legislative coordinator can look at whatever's going on (inaudible) if it's a bill or if it's a (inaudible). Board Member Baten Caswell: I might not have all the information straight. Vice President Godfrey: I have a specific question about the roundabout that's at Stanford and Park. It has a stop sign as well right now. Does that stay? Ms. Star-Lack: It will come out. It's not completed yet. The striping has to go in. Vice President Godfrey: The new curb where the stop sign is, is new. That's just fancy new for a short period of time, until the ... Page | 15 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes Ms. Star-Lack: The striping is not in yet. When the striping is in, then the stop signs will come out. Chair DuBois: A couple of questions. On the walking side, has anybody looked into maybe—you know how your smartphone can track how many steps you take, maybe like a competition or a program for middle school and high schools students to track steps per day. A little competition. Board Member Baten Caswell: That'd be very good at the middle school level. I don't know if it's enough to get a high school (crosstalk). Chair DuBois: You could include Pokémon hunting; it won't know. For those that are still driving, what do we do for helping people find carpools? Do most of the PTAs have programs to connect people? Ms. Star-Lack: We have tried actually. We tried a few years ago to find a website that would do carpool matching. The issues around privacy and also the issues around students who don't have their year of driving yet and cannot, therefore, carpool with another student make it really difficult to do. Chair DuBois: It seemed more elementary. I know we have Scoop. I was thinking it's really parents who probably know each other, so it's probably more of a PTA thing. Ms. Star-Lack: The carpooling nut is a really hard nut to crack. We are looking at other school districts that are doing this well. Marin seems to have a way of doing this by designating neighborhood carpool coordinators, but that is a whole other volunteer challenge. Board Member Baten Caswell: Probably where our biggest challenges are, are Ohlone and Hoover and Spanish immersion. Ms. Star-Lack: We would start with those. Board Member Baten Caswell: A neighborhood coordinator might not quite do it. Ms. Star-Lack: I have spoken to the Ohlone principal about what they could potentially do to increase those connections among parents. You can't just say, "You live here, and you live here. You guys should carpool," without creating some kind of connection for them. Chair DuBois: I think Scoop has been growing phenomenally. They're a carpooling app. I wonder if we could talk to them about a kind of private community version where you could have the Ohlone Scoop version. Page | 16 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes Ms. Star-Lack: We can look into that. Board Member Baten Caswell: A lot of the schools—I don't know if all the elementary schools are, but a lot of the secondary schools are using (inaudible) as the platform not just for directory but also for some of the organized activities. I don't know if there's some way to connect in there. Chair DuBois: Anybody else have any comments or questions? Khashayar Alaee, City Manager’s Office: I just have a quick note to add. Usually when we do the Safe Routes to School update, our police department is here as well. They give an update on the first couple of days of school. They weren't able to attend today. They gave me a couple of bullet points to share with you all. The first one is that we have 20 vacancies in the police department. Board Member Baten Caswell: Is that true? Mr. Alaee: Yeah. If you know any good candidates, we're always hiring. Board Member Baten Caswell: Who live near here? Mr. Alaee: We do have eight recruits in the academy or going through the process. The true vacancies are about 12. Unfortunately, that vacancy puts a strain on the department, so the traffic team has been disbanded, and most of the officers are in regular patrol. With that said, they did staff folks on overtime for the first couple of days of school to help with the opening of school and biking to school and stuff. Certainly they're on demand. If Sylvia and her team or we receive requests from the School District to increase patrols to help with bike safety or pedestrian safety or just car issues, we'll ask the department to send officers down on overtime. Board Member Baten Caswell: The 311 app, that's not going to the police department. That's going to different people. Chair DuBois: It's to the entire City. Ms. Keith: (crosstalk) can solve the problem. Board Member Baten Caswell: I'm just thinking if we send a big blast about the 311 app and it pulls down the police department, is that ... Mr. Alaee: No, use 311. Please promote 311. We really want to push that out. Page | 17 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes Vice President Godfrey: It must go to some central place, and then it gets redirected. The central place isn't the police. Board Member Baten Caswell: I just don't want to create an unintended consequence. Mr. Alaee: No, no, no. It goes, as Claudia said ... Ms. Keith: it goes to the department. (crosstalk) Public Works, it goes right to that department. Ms. Star-Lack: The items that you might think go to the police or that do go to the police, it clearly says on there if this is an emergency, do not use this. Chair DuBois: Cash, the police officers that were assigned to certain schools, are they (crosstalk) off? Mr. Alaee: I don't think the shortages affect the school resource officers. It's just the traffic team. There's a motorcycle team that focuses specifically on traffic, so the motorcycles are out. Board Member Baten Caswell: The school resource officers are at the secondary schools, but there's also, I know, usually teams that are traffic teams at the schools. Those are not anymore? Mr. Alaee: That's correct. That's been put on hold until we fill the vacancies. (crosstalk) Board Member Baten Caswell: If we know that something's going on at a particular school, can we still make a request? Mr. Alaee: Yeah, just let us know in advance. Ms. Ellson: (inaudible) there was a problem reported on (inaudible) the police went out and did spot enforcement. Yes, they are doing that. Ms. Star-Lack: They have told me that they are committed to working on the school traffic safety during this lean time. Board Member Baten Caswell: I'm just curious about Jordan. When do the cones come down so the kids can be in the bike lanes? Ms. Star-Lack: The issue with Jordan is that the bollards that are going to be installed, that will protect the bicyclists from cars, are on backorder. Page | 18 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: Do we have any estimated time of arrival (ETA)? Ms. Star-Lack: I don't have that. We're hoping it will be soon, as in next week, but we don't have ... Board Member Baten Caswell: If it is really far out, because it's backordered, is there another plan? Ms. Star-Lack: We're starting to talk about using some other equipment temporarily if we can't get the bollards that we've ordered. Board Member Baten Caswell: I have just been told that the—I'm sure you've been over there. It's opening of school that's really the biggest problem. Ms. Star-Lack: It was our hope to have this all done before school started. Chair DuBois: Sylvia, thank you very much for the update. Ms. Star-Lack: Thank you very much. Board Member Baten Caswell: You've done such a good job with this whole committee. Please share with them that we really appreciate all the hard work. Ms. Star-Lack: Thank you. Vice President Godfrey: Ten years is even longer with (crosstalk) ten years worth of time and 25 years worth of work. Board Member Baten Caswell: Penny, how many years have you ... Ms. Ellson: I've been doing it 14 years. Cathy was doing it 12 years before me. Vice President Godfrey: It shows. Our kids think of us as a biking town. They go other places and people aren't biking; they think there's something wrong. That's what you want. NO ACTION TAKEN At this time the Committee heard Agenda Item Number 3. Page | 19 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes 3. Update on Project Safety Net and Centers for Disease Control’s Epidemiologic Assistance (Epi-Aids) Study. Chair DuBois: Let's move on to our next item, an update on Project Safety Net. Mary Gloner, Project Safety Net Executive Director: For a quick time check, do we still have the full time 20 minutes for updates and Q&A? Board Member Baton Caswell: I'm sorry. I'm going to need to leave in five minutes, but it's not because I don't care. Ms. Gloner: I think (crosstalk) something that's familiar. I want to thank the Council and the School Board Members for inviting Project Safety Net to give you an update as well as on the Epi-Aid. I also want to thank Cash for all his support in bringing me up to date about the purpose of this Committee and really trying to help focus on what would be useful to you all. I do want to acknowledge some really key people in our work here. As you know, Rob and Brenda helped coordinate the Epi-Aid activity, but also Brenda is our past Project Safety Net Chair, and then Co-Chair (inaudible). Now we do have Lissette [phonetic] who's also joined as a Co-Chair with her. Let's see. This PowerPoint presentation, Cash has so he can forward it to you in the future. I always like to start off with a quote. I always gravitate to Helen Keller. This is about partnership, so I thought this would be resonating to all of you. Alone we can do little; together we can do so much. You know this intrinsically. Just a reminder. It's to remind you what Project Safety Net is. I'm going to give an update on Project Safety Net, kind of pause for questions that you might have, and then we'll jump into Epi-Aid. It's to develop and implement an effective, comprehensive, community-based mental health plan for overall youth well-being in Palo Alto. I'm going to give a little bit more just organizational structure. Some of these individuals you probably know very well. This is our current leadership team, a good mix of School District as well as the City, but as well as our academia, healthcare providers and those who are providing direct services as well as community advocates. Also, I wanted to sort of highlight how we've been operationalizing some of the work. Really this year is sort of a rebuild or startup or continuation. These work groups, we see them as sort of a medium to help us do the work. When we complete the infrastructure work group committee, really building upon a lot of the partnership work already in the past, there will be very clear about the governance and what are the core standing committees, how leadership is appointed or selected or nominated to Project Safety Net. We have about six active working groups. The most active are the communications as well as infrastructure and Epi-Aid community survey. Page | 20 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes Then, we have some activity, the means restriction as well as youth voice, and then we're still in the build-up of crisis response coordination. Quickly, communications is really—as you can see with the members, we try to have various representation. Claudia, who's the City's Chief Communications Officer, serves on it along with Jorge Catana [phonetic] from PAUSD. It's because there's a lot of things. I'm going to be (inaudible) as really having Gunn and Paly student representatives. I'll share more how we're integrating that and why that's significant. Board Member Baton Caswell: I'm sorry. I know you showed a slide already. What's Mary's connection? What organization is she part of? Ms. Gloner: Mary Gloner? Board Member Baten Caswell: Yeah. Ms. Gloner: That's me. Board Member Baten Caswell: I'm sorry. Ms. Gloner: That's okay. Board Member Baten Caswell: We've met like six times. I didn't know your last name. I'm so sorry. Ms. Gloner: What you see in the middle are really the primary chairs from our leadership team, really wanting to take advantage of their leadership and their expertise. Then there's Staff liaison. Even though I may not be the key support person here, I'm pretty much (crosstalk). Board Member Baten Caswell: You're everything. Ms. Gloner: Yeah. These are really the core—between Tanya [phonetic] and myself, trying to make sure that we can keep the work groups moving as well as responsive. Crisis response coordination, we're really more in the formula phase about how do we work with the different entities to not tell them what to do but how can we facilitate better streamlining of how they coordinate their crisis activities. In infrastructure there's a lot of work with that. A lot of the members are representative of executive leadership, have a proven track record or history of dedicated use but also governance. Youth voice, I think would be—has been really active in different levels. I'll share that. Really their purpose is how to engage youth, not just simply as a token representative but really an active participant in the leaderships in educating the partners and so forth and really giving voice to activities. We've been Page | 21 August 18, 2016 City School Liaison Draft Minutes really active these past seven months. I highlighted the four key areas I think would be of interest to you. As I mentioned, youth engagement, what we've done. Some of you have seen it in the collaborative meetings, that we have actually youth voicing the work and educating the partners and really trying to move them in the sense that Project Safety Net is also their collaboration as well. It's kind of shifting that culture. As I mentioned, also trying to actively find ways to engage them in the Project Safety Net governance, not simply having a separate entity which will be important and just reporting, but actually helping define how youth representation and how can Project Safety Net help serve them. As some of you already know, at heart I'm a community health educator. One of our mantras is you start with the community first. Project Safety Net's primary community is the youth and their family. Collaborative meetings. From my understanding, the attendance and participation has increased somewhat. We average between 50 to 60. There's an influx of new members or partners, people who are interested in our work. My focus is to bring visibility about how Project Safety Net can be of value. Also, thanks to the generosity of the City of Palo Alto, we have a Project Safety Net Center. We just moved in at the end of June. There's a little picture. We're still in the beautification phase and getting some of the furniture together. It's a dedicated space where maybe small group meetings can occur. Eventually a place for youth to come and maybe engage. Board Member Baten Caswell left the meeting at 8:46 A.M. MEETING ADJOURNED DUE TO THE LACK OF A QUORUM 2. Review of Recent City Council/PAUSD Board Meetings. 5. Review Upcoming Calendar and Agendas . Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 8:46 A.M.