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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-12-15 City Schools Liaison Committee Summary MinutesPage | 1 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes /BIG CREEK ELEMENTARY Chair DuBois called the meeting to order at 8:05 A.M. in the Community Meeting Room, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California. 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 PAUSD Cathy Mak, District Chief Business Officer Present: DuBois, Wolbach, Baten Caswell Absent: Godfrey Oral Communications Chair DuBois: We do have one speaker on Oral Communications, Ken Horowitz. Ken Horowitz: Hi. I'm Ken Horowitz. I live on Homer. I know you're going to be looking at things to discuss in 2017. There's a couple of things. I've addressed the City Council, and I've also addressed the School Board about it. I'm sure you know when I say it's about bicycles and school safety. It's winter now; it gets dark early. I live around here; I see the students riding from Churchill down Bryant, our bike pathway. I just wanted to read from the California Vehicle Code about bicycle safety. A front lamp emitting a white light should be visible from 300 feet. A front lamp, a rear red reflector visible from a distance of 500 feet, and white or yellow reflector on each pedal or on the bicycle shoes or ankles visible from a distance of 200 feet. This is from the California Vehicle Code. You all know; you all live around here. You know what it's like. I see so many kids that—I don't know how their parents let them ride the bicycles without these things. I think you've got a consultant about it. I've addressed this before, as I said. I've kind of been told that we really don't have any enforcement. We don't have the people to enforce it. The other issue that I think you could use to address this particular issue is the Project Safety Net dollars. The City's committing over $1 million to Project Safety Net. I drive by Churchill all the time, and I see these cars sitting there all the time. I just feel like when you start looking at the dollars for Project Safety Net, City/School Liaison Committee December 15, 2016 Transcript Page | 2 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes maybe you should also divert some of those dollars to enforcing the bicycle safety. Maybe just going by the schools and examining the bicycles that are parked in front of Palo Alto High School (Paly) and Gunn High School, look and see if they have a light on the front. You don't have to ticket them. You could just give them a little warning or send a note home to their parents, whatever. The safety of their kids is the most important thing that we do. I just want to enforce it. Also, part of the California Vehicle Code is you're supposed to stop at stop signs. They think Bryant is a freeway. They just ride right through stop signs. You can't put cops on each corner. If a kid gets killed on a bicycle, what a tragedy. To ignore the problem—I was thinking about this. We just had the warehouse fire, called the Ghost Ship. Everybody knew that that warehouse was in bad shape, but nobody did anything about it. As a City and a School Liaison Committee, please find someone who's a champion for bike safety for our kids. It's not just enough to give a lecture to the kids and tell them about safety. You've got to enforce it. I hope somebody will enforce some of the bike laws. As I said, I'd hate to see one of our kids get killed on a bicycle. There's near accidents every day. Also, we have a lot of drivers here who are older. We have an older population. They don't see as well. The kids wearing black and no lights, whatever. Thank you so much for your time. Chair DuBois: Thank you. Agenda Items 1. Approval of Minutes - November 17, 2016. Chair DuBois: The next item on the Agenda is just approval of Minutes. Board Member Baten Caswell: Do you want a Motion? Chair DuBois: Sure. Board Member Baten Caswell: I'd like to ask if the first sentence after Vice President Godfrey—the first clause is necessary, if we need to keep that in. Chair DuBois: We can strike it. Board Member Baten Caswell: I move we accept the minutes with the recommendation I just made. Chair DuBois: Second. Board Member Baten Caswell: Cory. Page | 3 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes MOTION: Board Member Baten Caswell moved, seconded by Chair DuBois for the City School Liaison Committee to approve the minutes from November 17, 2016 with the deletion of the first line under Item 1. Chair DuBois: All in favor. Moving on. MOTION PASSED: 3-0 Godfrey absent 2. Discussion and Review of Enrollment Report. Chair DuBois: Item Number 2, discussion and review of the Enrollment Report. Cathy. Cathy Mak, District Chief Business Officer: We have from our Enrollment Analyst an updated enrollment projection. They do this update every year around this time, after receiving the actual 11th day enrollment. They provided two projections, moderate and conservative. Both of the projections forecast significant decline in enrollment. This is change in the trends compared to the prior years. Chair DuBois: Can I ask real quick how the demographer—have you used this company in the past? Ms. Mak: DecisionInsite is company we use to do the projection. They've been doing our projection for about five years now. Prior to that, we used … Ms. Mak: You guys are still using (inaudible)? Khashayar Alaee, City Manager’s Office: I don't know, but I can check. Board Member Baten Caswell: I think I was told at the last meeting where we talked about something with this that you were. You may be using someone else as well. I don't know. Ms. Mak: This is the only company we use to do projection now. For this projection or this presentation, the focus is just for the next five years. When it gets that far out, the numbers are not too reliable. Total K-12 enrollment, the projection projects for the moderate projection, the blue line, a decline of a total of 682 students over the next five years, which is about six percent. Out 10 years, a decline of almost 2,000 students or 16 percent. Let's go to the elementary chart. Elementary is the level that we'll see the most decline as we've seen in past years. This trend just continues the decline from the trend that we've seen in the past 3-4 years. For elementary, total decline is estimated to be 786 students or roughly 16 percent. Also, they're projecting a decline in kindergarten enrollment as Page | 4 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes well. Their methodology is based on historical trend. We now have like five years of declining enrollment in kindergarten, so that's why they're projecting the trend to continue. For the next year, they're projecting a decline of 162 students which includes a decrease of 25 kindergarteners. We also looked at—if we can go to the slide that shows the clusters. We also looked at the population trend by cluster. As you can see from this chart, the demographer projects the decline in all clusters. The top line represents the population trend in the south. The middle line is the west cluster, and then the bottom line is the north. You can see significant declines projected or continued in the south and in the north. The west, they're still projecting a decline, but the decline is a little bit milder because there are new housing projects in the west cluster, specifically the two housing projects built by Stanford and also new projects along Page Mill and also Maybell Avenue. Chair DuBois: Does the Report give any reason why there's such a steep decrease in the south? Board Member Baten Caswell: We had a discussion about this. Chair DuBois: Was that part of the discussion? Board Member Baten Caswell: They make their projections off of data that they have, that show trend lines. Ms. Mak: Right, trend lines and also … Board Member Baten Caswell: This trend line data, there wasn't a specific thing that happened, that they used for their projection. It wasn't like … Chair DuBois: These three factors contributed to this. Board Member Baten Caswell: They used trend numbers and said, "Based on the trends that we've had …" There was nothing like all the people in the south part of town moved out of town. There wasn't a specific thing. Ms. Mak: They don't have specific information. If you look at the actual numbers in the south, the numbers started to drop starting in 2013 and then continue for three more years. Based on the historical trend, that's what they're … Board Member Baten Caswell: If you go back even a couple more years, the kindergarten numbers started to drop. I think it was six years ago. Kindergarten numbers are our biggest driver of what the total numbers are going to look like over time and what the trends are going to look like. Page | 5 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Chair DuBois: 2009-2010, when was the big recession? I'm starting to think what factors, because that's quite a turn in curve there. Ms. Mak: Interestingly, when we have recession, we see enrollment go … Board Member Baten Caswell: People pull out of private schools. This was not in the Report, but I do have a report on Santa Clara County's drop in birth rates, that I think I shared with you guys a couple of months ago. There's some similar information about San Mateo County. The number of children in the area has dropped. Chair DuBois: Usually with demographic curves, they're fairly smooth. That's quite a peak. It just turned on one year. I'm curious. Mr. Alaee: The trend could also be nation—I think it's nationwide. Board Member Baten Caswell: It's nationwide, and it's California-wide. People of Cory's generation are pushing off their kids, and there's less of them than there are in my generation. Ms. Mak: Regarding elementary, Melissa mentioned the kindergarten enrollment is key. We're starting Priority 1 registration second week in January. It runs through mid-February. By the end of February, we should have a pretty good idea what kindergarten will look like for next year. Then, we have more confidence in the enrollment projection for next year. Moving on to middle schools. Middle school enrollment has been growing for the past three years. The projection is the enrollment will start to stay flat for a couple of years and then will start to decline as the smaller classes from the elementary level moves. Board Member Baten Caswell: We had a bubble of very big classes in elementary school. Now, they have moved through middle schools, and they just are hitting the high school right now. Ms. Mak: Next year. For middle schools, the projection over the next five years is a decline of 13 percent or 383 students. The high schools, starting next year they'll be picking up the growth from the middle schools. Big, significant increases there over the next three years. Next year's increase is 189 students, 2018 160, 2019 139 students. Over the next five years, they'll have the increase of a total of 490 students or 13 percent. Both schools do have the capacity for the growth. At Gunn, our plan is to bring in a few portables to accommodate the enrollment growth. Board Member Baten Caswell: At the same time that this is going on, we have a major expansion of the student services through the wellness center Page | 6 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes with some classrooms. It's not just for those extra portables; they're helping with that as well. Ms. Mak: As far as projection on new housing development, there are about a dozen new developments that have been approved by the City, that's included in the demographer's report. Those projects will be completed in the next five years. Also in the projection, we also included a total of 490 units that are projected, new housing units, after that. It's roughly about 70 units each year starting from 2020 to 2026. From these units, the student generation from these units are a total of 710 students, 370 students from the units approved by the City, and then another 340 students from the speculated projects. In terms of student generation rates, it's not listed on the slide. Based on the projects that were completed from 2011 to 2015, the rates are 0.82 for single-family homes, 0.68 for townhomes, and 0.5 for condos. Those are the rates that are used in the projection. Obviously … Chair DuBois: I'm sorry. Were those rates in here? Ms. Mak: They're not in the slides. Council Member Wolbach: Could I ask you to (inaudible) this one more time? I'm sorry. Ms. Mak: Sure, 0.82 for single-family homes, 0.68 for townhomes, and 0.5 for condos. Council Member Wolbach: Are apartments and condos similar? Ms. Mak: Yes. They're calling it multifamily homes. Those are apartments and condos. Council Member Wolbach: Thanks. Board Member Baten Caswell: Cory, we have some history on this over time. It's not just thin air. We have a lot of history on this over time actually. Ms. Mak: You're aware of the two biggest projects that are being built by Stanford. The first project is the Mayfield Place, which is now complete. They're in the process of taking applications for the renters. They anticipate to have occupancy by the end of March. The second project is University Terrace on California Avenue. It totals 180 units. The first batch of homes will be available in May for the next school year. There are a total of 19 homes in their first batch of homes. Page | 7 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: The number of students is highly based on what they gave us, because they have some information … Ms. Mak: No. Board Member Baten Caswell: This is based on our projections? Ms. Mak: We don't have the (inaudible) information. Board Member Baten Caswell: They had told us at some point that they would give us … Ms. Mak: They did, but … Board Member Baten Caswell: We didn't use it. Ms. Mak: No, we did not get it. Board Member Baten Caswell: We could probably get more exact, but we've been working off of our history. Chair DuBois: … Go ahead. Board Member Baten Caswell: I'm sorry. I thought that the number of students was based on Stanford telling us based on their survey of the people buying homes, but it's not. It's based on our formula. Ms. Mak: It's based on those student generation rates that we use in the Report. Chair DuBois: I'm sorry. Where were those zoned? Where did you guys decide those kids would go? Ms. Mak: Nixon. Nixon, Terman and Gunn. Chair DuBois: Is Escondido full? Board Member Baten Caswell: We did some analysis on it, and it seemed to make the most sense for the amount of space we had. It looks like it's going to be fine at Nixon. Ms. Mak: With that project, the impact next year is minimal. Their timeline is the rest of the homes will be available through third quarter of 2018. It definitely would impact the '18-'19 school year. The last slide is a very important piece of information. That pertains to the City's Comprehensive Plan (Comp Plan) Update. We've learned that now the Housing Element— Page | 8 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes you're up to six different planning scenarios. The highest assumption is 6,000 new housing units. We're watching the progress very closely. Board Member Baten Caswell: We have a question about this. We need some discussion about whether the 600 is capacity, whether you could have—I'm sorry, 2,720 to 6,000 capacity that would be available because it's been zoned or whatever you could have housing there or is this committed housing? Chair DuBois: The City doesn't build housing. We just … Board Member Baten Caswell: This is exactly—I brought this up at the Board meeting. I just wanted to clarify with people because there was some believe that if the number 6,000 is there, then 6,000 homes would be filled with people. Council Member Wolbach: Should we be using our microphones? Mr. Alaee: No, you shouldn't. I was going to tell you. Board Member Baten Caswell: That doesn't mean we don't plan for it, but we just need to understand what that number is. Council Member Wolbach: A couple of other things. There's a little bit of apples to oranges comparison here. Our Comprehensive Plan is looking at the next 15 years or so; whereas, your projections here are for five years. Ms. Mak: Actually, the projection is 10 years, but we don't tend to rely on their numbers that far out. Board Member Baten Caswell: The real thing that we have to worry about is 20 years of student enrollment growth going up every year. Even if you just look at the last 10 years, even though we have a steep decline, enrollment's up seven percent over the last 10 years. We did a building program that expanded capacity, but we need to pay attention to this. We need to make sure that our facilities are not just well used but they're planned in the right places. That's why it's important. Number one, if this is—if the maximum 6,000 units you have here is available to build on rather than actual buildable, we still need to think about where that would be and how that would impact us if it did happen. Chair DuBois: These charts start in 2013. When you look at longer trends, do you see cycles of kids and then older people and then kids? Page | 9 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: If you look at the big picture demographic information for the country and for the state, at least for the next 10 years they're expecting declining child populations. That's as far out as we can go. Chair DuBois: I'm just saying just naturally … Board Member Baten Caswell: Things go up and down. You get natural cycles. Chair DuBois: You're (inaudible) and then new people move in. Board Member Baten Caswell: Once Cory's generation starts having kids, that's going to impact things. I'm sorry, Cory, I don't mean to pick on you. Once the younger generation that's in their 20s and 30s starts having kids, we'll start seeing that impact. Chair DuBois: Given the Comp Plan scenarios, you guys did a moderate and a conservative. Was there any discussion of doing a liberal forecast? Board Member Baten Caswell: The definition of moderate and conservative by DI isn't the one you would normally think it is. We talked about it a little bit. Ms. Mak: Actually in this projection, they did not have information regarding the Comp Plan units. Typically they finish their projection in late October or early November. We found out these numbers can—first of all, these numbers impact enrollments in the long run, not in the immediate next five years. We need to point it out in our Report so that people don't rely too much on the demographer's projection. Board Member Baten Caswell: Let's be ... In the nine years I've been on the Board, every year the demographer's projection is off. We can't use it to rely on. Council Member Wolbach: They're not an oracle. Board Member Baten Caswell: If they were, there would be a lot better planning going on across the country. Chair DuBois: Does it tend to be off in one direction or the other or does it switch back and forth? Board Member Baten Caswell: It just depended. When we were growing very fast, they were under. When we started to slow down, they were over. Page | 10 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Chair DuBois: They really just began projecting the past as the future, so they're slow to react to actual changes. Board Member Baten Caswell: I don't know if they'd say that. I think if you looked at the numbers, that's probably consistent. Ms. Mak: That's logical. If you look at the methodology, it's based on trend data. When you have a change in the plan, they don't shift all of a sudden, shift that dramatically, because they still have the old data that shows the other direction. Board Member Baten Caswell: There were a couple of reasons we moved to a different demographer a few years ago. One of the reasons was this particular demographer—it doesn't show in this report—has a model for going into detail by neighborhoods. When we were growing like crazy and we were trying to figure out where to put new capacity, that was really, really important to us. It's a little less important to us right now because we have capacity. Chair DuBois: Last year I remember the story line was the north was shrinking faster than the south. Is that no longer true? Board Member: No, that's true. Ms. Mak: That's true. I want to say if you look at the big picture, they have projected that trend correctly. Board Member Baten Caswell: That is one of the reasons we went with them, to look at the neighborhood growth and trends. One of the things we also talked about at this meeting Tuesday was where we have capacity. Chair DuBois: Oregon Expressway or large streets have been dividing lines. There's no thought that you would have to transport people from south to north schools? Board Member Baten Caswell: Just to match this, we have 26 classrooms at the elementary level that are available to be used as primary classrooms. Of course, our teachers and principals—when they have a school with empty classrooms, they're not going to leave them empty. They're using them as maker spaces and science spaces and art rooms. It's fabulous. We do have that capacity at the elementary level, and it's spread out across the District. Council Member Wolbach: How many students would that be? Page | 11 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: Twenty-six students going from 22 to 24 depending on what—actually now 19 to 24 depending on what level classrooms. What we don't have is that capacity at the middle school right now. Remember what you just read. Remember the bubble's been going through the middle schools. It's still there. The bubble hasn't completely pulled out of the middle schools. It'll pull out in the next couple of years. We won't probably have a lot of empty classrooms at the middle schools because we're taking care of the tightness at the middle school with portables. Council Member Wolbach: I'm sorry, I didn't catch the numbers. How many classrooms do you have that are capacity? Board Member Baten Caswell: There are 26 elementary classrooms. Council Member Wolbach: How many students per classroom average or where does it range from? Ms. Mak: If you do 22 … Council Member Wolbach: Twenty-two students per classroom? Ms. Mak: That's more than a school there. Board Member Baten Caswell: Yeah, there's more than a school available. Ms. Mak: Twenty-six times 22 … Board Member Baten Caswell: Our classrooms are different depending on what grade level they are, in terms of where we try to manage them to. At the high school level, we built out our high schools to be able to handle, I think, 2,300 students per school. Something right close to that. We're not up to that yet, but we will get up to that or close to that. We're not going to get up to that. Close to that, and then it will start going down after that. We don't see a reason to further expand high school capacity except on a temporary basis for right now. Chair DuBois: Some of those elementary schools, there's talk about classroom size. Is there pressure to lower the size? Do those numbers include removing portables as well to increase the open space? (crosstalk) portables. Board Member Baten Caswell: That was another conversation we had later in the meeting. We have $60 million remaining in our bond fund for expansion and upgrading of facilities. The Board had designated that for the Page | 12 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes elementary schools. There's some number of elementary schools that haven't been touched yet. We're going to go into four of them and expand the multipurpose rooms, because the capacity at the school of the multipurpose rooms does not match how many kids are at the schools right now. They're really old and decrepit and whatever. Hoover, who hasn't been touched since 19—when was it built basically? It basically has only had maintenance done on it. There's been no upgrading to it. We're going to go in and do a major project at Hoover, which will add some classrooms. The main thing is to bring the whole site up to current standards. It will give us some better use of space on the site. At least, the plans we saw gave it better use of space in the site and better traffic. Chair DuBois: Have you been removing—over time they kind of expanded over their capacity with trailers and things. Board Member Baten Caswell: At Duveneck, we pulled out all those portables except for the afterschool care portables. Fairmeadow, I think we've pulled out all the portables except for the afterschool care. Those are the only ones that we've left in. Hoover, we need to keep those portables in while we do the construction so that we can keep kids onsite while we're doing construction. We have occasionally in the past closed a site down to do construction, but that's not our plan for Hoover. Yes, as we can get rid of portables, we have been doing that. Sometimes there's reason to leave them, because of construction that we're doing. Council Member Wolbach: Can I ask also—in addition to Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan Update, what about the other jurisdictions that are covered by Palo Alto Unified especially Stanford with their new General Use Pelan (crosstalk)? Board Member Baten Caswell: We've been talking to them very actively over the last few years about which of their programs are actually going to generate students and which are just going to be students at Stanford rather than families. That's an active conversation. That's what these projections are based on. We do have a small portion of unincorporated Portola Valley. We have not, as far as I know, had any conversations about that. I don't believe there's building going on in that area. Council Member Wolbach: Los Altos Hills? Board Member Baten Caswell: Have we had conversations with Los Altos Hills about their Comprehensive Plan? No. I guess we probably need to. There doesn't seem to be a big push over there. Page | 13 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: In terms of our Volunteer Transfer Program (VTP) kids, the kids that come over from East Palo Alto, that's an agreement about a number of students coming into kindergarten and first grade each year. There's a lot of them. We're not the only district that those students go into. It's across San Mateo. Lower San Mateo County, there are a bunch of districts that take students as well. There was some conversation, because it seems like our number of students in the VTP program has dropped a little—we don't know the reason for that—whether it would make sense to take more students or not. That's very preliminary discussions. Chair DuBois: They're trying to build a school. Aren't they out of space in East Palo Alto (EPA)? Board Member Baten Caswell: That's a more complicated discussion. If you're a student in EPA, you have a bunch of public options. You can go into the lottery for the VTP program, go into your neighborhood schools which is Ravenswood, and there are a number of charter schools as well. I can't give you more than that. Chair DuBois: Thank you. Do you have any more questions, Cory? Council Member Wolbach: Yeah. Board Member Baten Caswell: I do have one more thing to say about the— the investment we're going to make in the MP rooms will allow those rooms to be better community assets and those sites to be better community assets. An example that was put forward was how we had a City meeting at El Carmelo in the MP room the other night. Were you there? Mr. Alaee: I think it was Escondido. Board Member Baten Caswell: I thought it was El Carmelo. Maybe it was Escondido. Maybe you're right. Mr. Alaee: Last night we had one at Barron Park. Board Member Baten Caswell: Barron Park. Those … Mr. Alaee: The staff's been great. They were great. We just thank you. Board Member Baten Caswell: We're happy to help. Those facilities are really not up to speed. Even if you're trying to use even AV stuff, they don't really have the infrastructure. They certainly don't have the space. There's a lot of issues that need to be upgraded. Mr. Alaee: We were just happy that they weren't the little child chairs. Page | 14 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Council Member Wolbach: I actually have a couple of other questions. One is how much does it cost to build an elementary school? Ms. Mak: Wasn’t there an estimate of $25 million plus? Board Member Baten Caswell: Yeah. Actually building a fresh, brand new one from scratch is less than … Council Member Wolbach: Assuming you had land. Board Member Baten Caswell: Yeah. It's less than renovating. Renovating Hoover is going to be about $22 million. Basically people are staying in it while you're building, and you're trying to use as much as what you have as you can. If you have a flat piece of land or even not so flat and start from scratch, it's going to be a lot less and a lot quicker. Council Member Wolbach: Interesting. Board Member Baten Caswell: Something that was brought up is although, we've gone to two stories at a number of schools, our architect and building group is not sure that that really is giving us as much as we thought we were going to get out of it. Now, I have neighbors at Duveneck, and they love the two-story building. In terms of our planning, we thought we were going to get a lot more open space by having that. It's not clear we get that. Council Member Wolbach: Another question is kind of related. It's a question of how this relates to your budget in general. If student enrollment increases, do you get any additional funding from the State or does it just mean you have the same amount of money for more students? Board Member Baten Caswell: Yes. Council Member Wolbach: The latter? Board Member Baten Caswell: Yes. Council Member Wolbach: Just wanted to make sure …. Board Member Baten Caswell: Expenses have gone up for us across the board too. Council Member Wolbach: Per student? Board Member Baten Caswell: Yeah, in general. Pension expenses obviously, medical benefits, just costs go up. I think the last time we were Page | 15 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes here we had a discussion about don't developer fees give us a great boost. They don't because of the laws around that. Council Member Wolbach: I think that's it for my questions. Thanks. Board Member Baten Caswell: We would love to give you a tour of our new facility. It's like …. Council Member Wolbach: Sounds great. Chair DuBois: Thank you, Cathy. NO ACTION TAKEN Mr. Alaee: Here's a handout for the next (inaudible) pass to Cory. 3. Discussion About 2017 Committee Topics and Schedule of Items. Chair DuBois: Discussion about 2017 topics. Khashayar Alaee, City Manager’s Office: If I may just kick it off. What I've handed out is a historical list of all the items discussed in 2014, '15 and '16, a two-sided document. Just a nice transition from the Slide that's up to this topic. Our Planning Director and City Manager are recommending that we add a standing item to this Agenda every month for 2017 about updates to the Comprehensive Plan. It seems that there could be a potential scheduling conflict issue with the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) liaison to the Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC). They were thinking that they'd just come here and update the … Chair DuBois: Every month seems like a lot. Mr. Alaee: They would just have it as a standing item …. Board Member Baten Caswell: Only if there was something to report would they come. Mr. Alaee: Yeah. Board Member Baten Caswell: I think that would be really helpful. Mr. Alaee: As opposed to you guys having a liaison to the Committee. It's totally up to … Page | 16 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: Having been a liaison myself at one point to a (inaudible), it's a very long meeting for what we're able to take out. If it could be summarized, that would probably be helpful. Mr. Alaee: Does that sound good to you guys? Board Member Baten Caswell: I can bring it back to the Board, but I'm sure people would be happy with it. Mr. Alaee: Let us know. From there, I think the goal was we can make some recommendations to the new Chair. Next year it's going to go to the School District, and the meetings will be at the School District. Nothing is set in stone that the new Committee would have to take your recommendations. Board Member Baten Caswell: I'm one member of the new Committee. Who's our other person? Is it Jennifer? It's Ken, Ken Dauber. Chair DuBois: One thing we didn't touch on this year that probably would be useful is property tax updates, which happened I think in the previous two years. Board Member Baten Caswell: I think it would be good to make sure that we get a report from your demographer as well. It seems like if we're going to have an Enrollment Report and talk about our demographer's projection, if we're not using the same demographer—we used to six years ago use the same. I don't think we ever thought about maybe we should have a conversation to make sure that we're at least considering the same things. Chair DuBois: We touched on it in the Comp Plan Update, but we could be more explicit about the sources behind that. Board Member Baten Caswell: It would be great if somebody who worked with your demographer or the demographer themselves was part of that conversation. Probably just someone who worked with the demographer. Mr. Alaee: … department. Council Member Wolbach: I'll agree with that. When was the last time we talked about—I'm trying to remember if we talked about this year shared use of playing fields, City playing fields, school playing fields and how we share and coordinate that. I don't think we discussed that this year. Chair DuBois: …we did. Board Member Baten Caswell: We discussed it very peripherally. Page | 17 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Chair DuBois: We had the middle school athletics discussion. Council Member Wolbach: Which is kind of related but a little bit different …. Board Member Baten Caswell: I think we should put it on the proposed, because there may be nothing to talk about but in case there is. Council Member Wolbach: I would actually say playing field and playground space. Where the middle school athletic program was a programmatic discussion, this would be a facility discussion. Board Member Baten Caswell: We actually have an agreement tied to the playing fields. We actually have an Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of some sort. Mr. Alaee: We do. Council Member Wolbach: A review of that (crosstalk). Board Member Baten Caswell: I don't think we have anything on playgrounds. Mr. Alaee: We don't have anything for the playgrounds. Board Member Baten Caswell: I don't think we do. I'm not sure if that would make sense to do, but we could talk about them at the same meeting. Council Member Wolbach: It kind of makes sense to talk about both of them, the differences between the two. Board Member Baten Caswell: I think our speaker today, talking about bikes and school safety. We have the City/School Traffic Safety Committee. They always come in late. I feel like they don't want to report until later in the fall. In fact, when we need to have a conversation is before school starts so that we can plan for stuff that might be different. For example, if we're tearing apart things at Hoover, which I don't think we're doing in the fall but let's just say we were, that would create some traffic safety issues. It's good to plan that ahead of time. It feels like every August we have an emergency conversation based on traffic safety. Council Member Wolbach: I agree. Let's do it earlier. Chair DuBois: We talked about it in August of this year, September of last year. Page | 18 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: Remember in August they said they weren't really ready. Maybe there needs to be two different things. One is their full report that could be latter, but one earlier. Do we have any issues that we need to address? Here's our construction plan for the—and your construction plan as well. I will share with you. I have a student that rides his bike to Paly. The impact that the street construction has had on every route to Paly from our neighborhood has been really, really big. Maybe there should have been conversations ahead of time to help the kids get ready for that. Chair DuBois: This is all the pipeline …. Board Member Baten Caswell: It's not just that it's blocked off every street going over from our neighborhood to Paly, which is basically Crescent Park and Community Center. It's also no one seems to have any sense of when it will be over, so the kids can't really plan. Chair DuBois: It's going to be up to the Chair. What was the other one I was thinking of? Project Safety Net. We're starting to have budget issues with the 24/7 guards. I think we need to talk about that. Board Member Baten Caswell: We are too, because we're doing budget cuts. I think prioritizing things would make sense. Chair DuBois: We always have Project Safety Net (PSN) on the Agenda. Maybe it's not called Project Safety Net, and that's a different topic. It's really funding and need on the tracks 24/7. Board Member Baten Caswell: Maybe collaborative funding, priorities, something like that. Council Member Wolbach: We did have like an update on PSN. Chair DuBois: That's what I'm saying. I think an update on PSN is different; we should keep that. Separate from that, there's this funding discussion. Board Member Baten Caswell: Usually PSN we're talking about the program part rather than the funding part. I think we need to talk about our joint Cubberley Master Plan, what's happening there. Chair DuBois: That's one it'd be great if there were things happening, if it came multiple times. Board Member Baten Caswell: That's a good point. Page | 19 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Council Member Wolbach: That's another question. Maybe we should pick a couple of things where we say these are things that over the course of the year we want to move back on multiple times. Traffic safety, Comprehensive Plan, Cubberley. Maybe do, even if it's brief, an update quarterly or a standing or update item. Something along those lines. Board Member Baten Caswell: I can't think of something (inaudible) nothing. Chair DuBois: This is a great list. Board Member Baten Caswell: It's helpful to have the history. Can you make sure we have this at the first meeting, the history? Mr. Alaee: Yes. We'll have this, and then we'll advance the items you've mentioned. Chair DuBois: We need to review … Cathy Mak, District Chief Business Officer: Is our first meeting in February then? Board Member Baten Caswell: Is that what we did this year? Mr. Alaee: Yeah. Typically every year it's been February because the City, the Mayor select … Board Member Baten Caswell: You have your turnover. Mr. Alaee: In January. It takes a little bit of time to designate the liaisons to all the various regional bodies and (crosstalk). Board Member Baten Caswell: I think that might actually be good for us too, because we're having our planning meeting at the end of January, Board planning meeting. Chair DuBois: Is that your retreat? Board Member Baten Caswell: Yeah. That's our happy retreat. Chair DuBois: A fresh retreat at the start of the year. Board Member Baten Caswell: We also have one in the summer (inaudible). Chair DuBois: Thank you. We'll move onto the last item. NO ACTION TAKEN Page | 20 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes 4. Review of Recent City Council/PAUSD Board Meetings. Chair DuBois: City Council and Board meeting updates. You want to start? Board Member Baten Caswell: Sure. One of the things that was on a recent agenda was a Resolution really framed to protect our students particularly who their immigration status might not be secure. It was particularly in response to some other cities and school districts putting something in place to protect families and students against registries and being forced to be put into a registry. This was proposed by Terry and I. When we brought it to the Board—I did try to connect with City Council on what you were doing, but it seemed different. When we brought this in our Board meeting, there was some feedback from the community that they'd like us to make sure we're protecting people who, maybe because of race, religion, color, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, these other things, could possibly be in a registry as well. We didn't want to dilute the power of making sure that students with different immigration status were safe. I proposed some additional language. I brought the draft because it's not final. We're going to be voting on it in January. There were some suggestions made in addition to my suggestions which were to make sure that we change or adjust our Board policy and administrator regulations related to these topics and make sure that they're aligned, so that we don't have a misalignment. There was some question about whether we could actually call the School District a sanctuary. The language we used is that Palo Alto Unified School District be considered sanctuaries for students to the fullest extent allowed by law. Out attorneys did look at this, and they didn't see that as a problem, but we did have some discussion about whether we could use the word sanctuary, whether it's a term that has a very specific definition or whether it has a more broad definition. I'm going to give this to you. This is our draft, though. Let's see. What else did we talk about? We talked about the enrollment. In addition to the MP rooms, we're going to be rebuilding the pool at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School (JLS). I don't think this is going to create traffic issues because it's going to be done during the summer. I think you should know about that. We have just approved new benefits for our employees for the next year. The reason we share this with you is they had voted to have only HMOs, because the cost was so big. The cost differential was so big. This year, they're paying something like $300- and something a month for their benefits. It would have gone up into the 600s if we kept a PPO program. What we're doing is providing the choice of Kaiser, which we've already had or had for the last remember-able past, and Sutter. Sutter, I think, is the first year that they're offering this. Chair DuBois: (crosstalk) Page | 21 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: Sutter includes not just Palo Alto Medica Foundation (PAMF); it includes all the Sutter hospitals. For example, Sequoia is a full hospital; it's part of the Sutter system. It is an HMO. Chair DuBois: You guys at the Board level vote on benefits? Board Member Baten Caswell: It's part of our negotiation with the union. Chair DuBois: Interesting. Board Member Baten Caswell: I'm sharing this with you because I'm sure it's going to—it seems really … Chair DuBois: We don't (inaudible). Board Member Baten Caswell: It's a different thing. We're having discussion about the calendar again. Hopefully it won't be as extended as it's been. Chair DuBois: (crosstalk) coming back. I'm just kidding. Board Member Baten Caswell: It could change our end dates. Probably not going to change our start date, but it could change our end date. That would have some traffic implications, so we need to keep making sure that communication goes back and forth. It would probably then, if it did, have an impact on the Enjoy! catalog classes. There are other things, Cathy, that we've talked about, that I haven't covered? I think those are the things that are relevant to you. Khashayar Alaee, City Manager’s Office: When will you know that? Board Member Baten Caswell: That's a really good question since we're negotiating it. I don't know how long that's going to take. If it's different, it'll be like a week. It won't be like a month. It'll only have to do with whether we decide to take some longer vacations in the middle. Mr. Alaee: If you could keep us in the loop so we're (crosstalk). Board Member Baten Caswell: This is a negotiated item, so the Board doesn't … Chair DuBois: Is it seriously a ski week coming back or just a few days here and there? Board Member Baten Caswell: No. Some other things which we're still in negotiation about. We'll leave it at that. Page | 22 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Mr. Alaee: Would it impact this summer or future summers? Board Member Baten Caswell: Future summers. Mr. Alaee: Future summers, so not this summer. Board Member Baten Caswell: We're still going to end—our calendar this year is done. We're going to end the day we end. Mr. Alaee: Then it's fine. Board Member Baten Caswell: We're going to start somewhere very close to where we started this year. That's not going to be a major issue. Mr. Alaee: Thank you. Board Member Baten Caswell: You know what it could impact, though? You're not really involved with Palo Alto Community Child Care’s (PACCC's) schedule. It could impact when PACCC provides camps, childcare on non- school days. Council Member Wolbach: A couple of things on the City side. I'll mention a couple of things, and we have many others (inaudible) these. We did have a couple of Colleagues' Memos this Monday that might be interesting. One more light, one more somber. Approved funding to help support the donkeys over at Bol Park, and that's enjoyed by a lot of students. We also did pass the resolution on a diverse, supportive, inclusive, protective community. Sounds like you guys have already had a chance to see that. Board Member Baten Caswell: Let me ask you a question about that. Originally, I was hoping that we could either do something together or support each other's resolution. I got yours so late, the language, that it wasn't possible. Chair DuBois: We could still support each other's, though, in terms of press releases (crosstalk). Board Member Baten Caswell: I think supporting each other's is a good idea. I hope you could maybe bring that back for some conversation. We're all in the same community. Chair DuBois: When you say bring it back, couldn't we just have the Communications Director mention yours and ours together, and you guys can do the same? Page | 23 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: Sure, unless there's an issue. We're going to probably use the word sanctuary. If that's going to be an issue … Council Member Wolbach: I think we're looking at this as a way to start an ongoing conversation. At least personally, my hope is that … James Keene, City Manager: Is the room good? Happy Holidays. Tom, you're still here from last night? Chair DuBois: Yeah, I haven't left. Board Member Baten Caswell: Happy Holidays. Council Member Wolbach: There are a number of more specific policy actions that, I think, we'll be discussing over the next coming months, that tie into the conceptual approach that the resolution really provides. Our resolution was intentionally not very prescriptive on policy. Kind of a way to start the conversation about what policies we could implement …referred it to Policy … Chair DuBois: …Committee. Board Member Baten Caswell: It would be great if we found out where you're going before you announced it at a Council meeting. Chair DuBois: It'll probably take longer. It sounds like yours may be done before. Board Member Baten Caswell: Maybe, but maybe you have another thing you're thinking about, and we could talk about whether there's something in it that we should be aware of. Chair DuBois: It's kind of related. We talked about it at Policy and Services last night. There was another memo that Cory did on surveillance technology and recording of personal information. I don't know if you guys have policies around that. It kind of plays into that a little bit. Board Member Baten Caswell: Are you talking about surveillance cameras or something different from that? Chair DuBois: Everything, all kinds of technology, social media monitoring … Board Member Baten Caswell: Do we have a Board policy on that? Cathy, do you remember? Cathy Mak, District Chief Business Officer: Board policy on … Page | 24 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: Surveillance and our policies around that. Chair DuBois: Social media. Council Member Wolbach: It's privacy in general. Board Member Baten Caswell: We do have a privacy policy that's pretty clear at Code and law. It says we can't give out any information basically. Council Member Wolbach: One way to break down the topic is to talk about acquisition, dissemination and retention. What do you collect is one question. Who you share it with internally or externally and prevent public access, keep it safe including which employees can access it and under what conditions, do you log them, etc. That's all dissemination. Do you share with other organizations, for instance, …. Board Member Baten Caswell: There's a lot of law around this for when you're dealing with minors. What I didn't share, because I didn't think it was relevant—maybe I should have—is we passed a Board policy around doing research. We're going to have an animal and subjects research review committee, but that will include what data is allowed to be collected and what can be disseminated. Again, we're really constrained by law on this. Council Member Wolbach: Which is probably good because it keeps you out of trouble practically. Then, third parties, again the retention, how long do you keep records. Board Member Baten Caswell: We do have policy on how long we keep records. Council Member Wolbach: I think we could—this question of how we coordinate between the City and the School District on especially if there are any undocumented residents, undocumented students or others who might be subject to a potential registry, that might be a topic for future meeting discussions between us. I'm definitely open to coordination. Board Member Baten Caswell: Here's a suggestion. Sharing what we do and how we're restricted by law, what our policies are, I'm very comfortable having that conversation. I'm very uncomfortable with where you started to go. Maybe it's just because I don't understand where you started to go. Coordinating that information sounds scary to me. Council Member Wolbach: I meant coordinating on—the first thing you were suggesting on the resolution on a protective, inclusive community, making sure that we have open communication between Staff and also maybe at Page | 25 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes these meetings in future to say, "We're working on this Resolution. It's coming up." In this case, it was one that was put together fast because we wanted to get it out quickly. It was something—I think I had brought it up towards the end of our last meeting here. I think we were looking to do something like this. I think we can definitely compare what you guys have passed and what we've passed and compare notes. Board Member Baten Caswell: That'd be great. Council Member Wolbach: We also had a lot of—again our discussion about demographics and housing—in the last month discussions about the Land Use Element of our Comprehensive Plan. We also this week had a discussion about impact fees to fund our affordable housing fund. Also, some newer, tougher measures about tobacco sale and restricting uses in multifamily housing. A couple of things. Board Member Baten Caswell: Do you restrict vaping as part of tobacco or you don't? Council Member Wolbach: … the same. Chair DuBois: Going back to the donkey one, just to be clear that was a serious one. It's starting a fundraising. There's a lot of kids involved. I don't know if the—it'd be great if the schools got involved. I think they're going to do a naming contest at Barron Park Elementary for the new donkey. If there's a way to get out word to parents to help contribute to vet bills and the feeding and leasing that land. Board Member Baten Caswell: The best way to do that is to go to the head of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) Council and have them talk about it at those meetings so that all the PTAs are involved. That's Audrey Gold. Chair DuBois: Ken (inaudible) on the Steering Committee, I think, of the donkey fundraising. Board Member Baten Caswell: He's the liaison to the PTA Council. You get a twofer. Chair DuBois: He's probably on top of it. Board Member Baten Caswell: I would imagine that that communication— we're not going to be able to ask people to give money from the School District. The PTA can do that. Page | 26 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Chair DuBois: Just so you're aware. I think it's a great community program. It's very popular with kids. The other thing is we did have our Town Halls. Not surprising, I think every one I've been to there's a lot of focus on traffic and a lot of questions about traffic. Thank you again for letting us use your MP rooms. I haven't really heard about the Barron Park meeting. Were you there? Council Member Wolbach: That was …. Mr. Alaee: That was last night. Chair DuBois: Last night. Council Member Wolbach: Any word on that? Mr. Alaee: We had about 28 folks there. Very intimate conversation. Items ranged across various different issues, but traffic, housing. A real focus on what's going on with Avenidas and La Comida, and there was some feedback about how some of the senior services need to be moved more towards southern Palo Alto and Cal. Ave. area. Interesting you bring up the JLS pool. They were talking about how we need another public pool in southern Palo Alto. That came up. Shuttles. Board Member Baten Caswell: We're not building a new one. We're just renovating the …1950s. Mr. Alaee: I know, I know. Transportation, shuttles, shuttle services for seniors. Those are some of the general topics. Board Member Baten Caswell: I think balancing services across town is a pretty big issue. Chair DuBois: There's the Eichler pool. There's the Y. There's several pools on this side. I don't know if it happens every year when the school pools are open to the public in the summer. Mr. Alaee: We generally rent one. It's either been Gunn or JLS. I think recently it's been JLS. I think we like the JLS pool because of its proximity to Mitchell Park Library and Community Center. We kind of have that hub there where our full-time staff can be near part-time staff that are at the pool. Board Member Baten Caswell: I think you'll like it much more when it's not a 1950s pool. Mr. Alaee: We will. Page | 27 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: There were two things I didn't bring up that I'm just realizing maybe I should have. Is it okay if I (inaudible)? One is that we had a discussion. We're going to reinvest in our wireless infrastructure, which we reinvest in that every 5-7 years apparently. We had some feedback from the community asking if we can look at some lower power options. There's a concern with a small group of people—I don't know. I shouldn't say small group. There's some folks who are concerned that the radiation coming off of wireless could have some negative impact on kids. What would we do to protect against that? There are some cities and some school districts that have done some things. There's a gentleman that came in from … Ms. Mak: Los Altos. Board Member Baten Caswell: … Los Altos who had some very specific ideas on how to reduce the power generation coming out and still have the capacity that you need to do the work you need to do. That may come to you as well, so I just thought I'd bring that up. The other is the Paly sports boosters is doing a fun run. I think it's March 24th. It's not March 24th; it's a day or two on either side. Chair DuBois: I've been working on that too. Board Member Baten Caswell: You're working on that? Chair DuBois: Yeah. One of the guys organizing that was looking for help with the police to get the route going. I got involved in that conversation …. Board Member Baten Caswell: I'm bringing it up because they're concerned that the route is going on some roads, which happens when you're having a run. It would be also really cool if some of you guys ran in it. Are you a runner? Chair DuBois: Eric's a runner too. The City Manager and Rob de Geus said they were on top of it, and they were going to help prepare the routes. They'd be talking to the police. I think there's only a couple …. Board Member Baten Caswell: The City Manager's a runner too. Right? Chair DuBois: Yep. You mentioned wireless. We did get an information report, which we don't discuss at Council—it just comes to us—on the latest in broadband plans. Google's laid off a lot of their team, and they put a lot of their plans on hold. We were basically waiting for Google to solve our problem. Page | 28 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Board Member Baten Caswell: Now you work there, so you can do that. Chair DuBois: In January, I think, it's going to come back to Council. We have a pool of money, and we need to decide if we're going to do anything in terms of fiber to the home or not. On the wireless side, I hope you guys are looking at the facts of that. We've had people with cell towers. Again, all the science I've seen is …. Board Member Baten Caswell: One of the things that we are doing independent of that is putting more routers with better, slightly lower power in every classroom rather than a couple around campus. That gives us other benefits as well. Chair DuBois: Probably better …. Council Member Wolbach: Actually one other thing that might be important to you guys is our discussion about improving the sustainability of our natural gas portfolio and our natural gas. There might be an increase in fees and the rates for natural gas as we try to move towards a more carbon neutral gas portfolio, especially paying for offsets and things like that. That was a discussion that we had on the 5th. I think you guys are customers (inaudible) you guys are hearing about that. Board Member Baten Caswell: This is actually interesting. If I went back two years, we were having discussions on how can we use more natural gas because it's so cheap. Our building people need to be made aware of this as well, because they're making tradeoff decisions. Council Member Wolbach: I think one of the reasons why natural gas has been so cheap is that it hasn't included the externalized costs of carbon emissions. Chair DuBois: It's a pretty clear goal. We're moving off gas, and gas prices are going to go up as there are fewer customers to the gas utility. It's a longer-term thing, but I would not—I think that's a pretty solid policy right now. Board Member Baten Caswell: We definitely should make sure that the building group knows about this. Ms. Mak: What do you estimate the percentage? Council Member Wolbach: I think we're looking at 4-10 cents per therm, somewhere in that range of rate impact. Page | 29 December 15, 2016 City School Liaison Minutes Chair DuBois: I don’t remember what the percentage was. Board Member Baten Caswell: What percentage is that on what a therm is right now? Council Member Wolbach: I can't remember the percentage. Per therm, we're looking at a 4-10 cent rate impact, I believe. Mr. Alaee: I'll have our Utilities folks follow up. Board Member Baten Caswell: Thank you. Chair DuBois: Thank you guys for a good year. Board Member Baten Caswell: Thank you for being a good Chair. NO ACTION TAKEN Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 9:11 A.M.