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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-04-20 City Schools Liaison Committee Summary MinutesPage 1 of 6 Regular Meeting April 20, 2023 The City-School Liaison Committee of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Community Meeting Room at 8:30 A.M. Present: City of Palo Alto Representatives Pat Burt, Council Member Julie Lythcott-Haims, Chair Ed Shikada, City Manager Chantal Cotton Gaines, Deputy City Manager Palo Alto Unified School District Representatives Todd Collins, Board Member Lana Conaway, Assistant Superintendent Absent: Shounak Dharap, Board Member CALL TO ORDER Chair Julie Lythcott-Haims called the meeting to order at 8:37 A.M. REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS A. Public Comments Ken Horowitz thanked the school board for the letter presented regarding Cubberley. He stated the City Manager mentioned at the recent City Council meeting that the Council will take up discussion of Cubberley on May 22 or beyond. B. Approval of Minutes MOTION: Council Member Burt moved, seconded by Board Member Collins, to approve minutes from the March 20, 2023, meeting. MOTION PASSED: 3-0, Dharap absent Board Member Todd Collins noted that there is no requirement or custom for other city committees to approve the minutes and suggested dispensing with this requirement in order to help minutes get posted faster. City/School Liaison Committee Summary Meeting Minutes SUMMARY MINUTES Page 2 of 6 (Sp.) City School Liaison Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 4/20/2023 Chair Julie Lythcott-Haims stated she had previously requested more substantive minutes than the recitation of the agenda items and that is in the information packet. She agreed that getting the minutes to the public in a more timely fashion was of interest to all and would ask Staff for guidance. C. Sharing Your “Why” for This Work Chair Julie Lythcott-Haims felt there was value in leaders talking about the "why" or what animates and interests each of the members of the committee in their work. She stated it helps develop more understanding and trust. She felt the School District and City had much in common yet a history of sometimes not getting along and was interested in finding areas of common interest and common vision. She felt this was the beginning of a new era of the City- School District relationship and gave some examples of this. Within the spirit of cooperation and achieving mutually desirable ends, she asked the committee members to share their "why" for the work. Council Member Pat Burt believed the School District and City had, in recent decades, lost some of the close collaboration that had developed when the School District was in severely declining enrollment in the late 70s through early 90s. The City had done a number of measures to support the School District over that period of time with a lot of initiatives like leasing lands, picking up crossing guards, and myriad services. The District and City share a common purposes of serving youth and families in the community, each with a different focus but with important overlaps. He stated he has been interested in working together on a strategic approach to looking at different initiatives and programs and how to collaborate more closely. He stated relationships are often built outside of meetings. He was grateful how the District has come forward with being deliberate and collaborative with the City and felt the Board deserved credit for taking such a positive approach toward collaborations. Chair Lythcott-Haims asked Council Member Burt to share more about why he has chosen to participate in public service. Council Member Burt stated both of his parents were teachers and his mother was deeply involved in political activism, so he has always believed the role of public service and public policy was a meaningful calling and a way to serve each other effectively. He noted there is also an incredible network of community volunteers in the City and that this committee is very important but the ways in which people contribute to the community are very broad and valuable. City Manager Ed Shikada noted that being fond of solving puzzles in childhood led to civil engineering school with then a focus on transportation. He concluded the greatest puzzles to solve are social ones, which led him to city management. He noted that every day there are opportunities for greater collaboration across individuals, organizations, institutions, sectors. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 3 of 6 (Sp.) City School Liaison Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 4/20/2023 One might see a great distinction between city and school district, but there are tremendous opportunities for collaboration. Assistant Superintendent Lana Conaway stated that, when in school, she realized the impact education and the adults within the system can have in, positive and negative ways, on how individuals feel about themselves and what they believe they can accomplish. She related an incident that occurred when she was one of the few students of color in the advanced program at her school, leading her to build her career around ensuring that every kid had the same opportunities and access, with the lens of intentionally breaking down barriers to learning and opportunities. Deputy City Manager Chantal Cotton Gaines stated her mother worked for a nonprofit and instilled the need to help others and give back. She stated when she graduated high school, she did not have a job but had 10,000 more volunteer hours than the next closest student. She has done many programs and tried to create opportunities for students coming from communities that are not expected to produce scholars. She believes the systems we create have a big impact on the outcomes people experience. Chair Lythcott-Haims stated she has always rooted for the underdog, in part because her father was a physician and her mother was a schoolteacher, both devoted to bringing opportunity for a better life to others. She stated she has similar experiences as others that gave her a lot of compassion for any human who was not deemed to be within the box society has decided is the right box. She wants to use the vast resources of intellect, innovation, problem-solving capacity, heart, and hope to make sure everybody makes it. Board Member Todd Collins stated he ran for school board to make the school district be more effective in achieving its goals. He added that he did not find the characterization of the relationship between the District and City helpful and hoped for a good working relationship, urging colleagues not to promote a narrative critical of the school board. Chair Lythcott-Haims took the suggestion to heart and felt there was a spirit of greater cooperation on both sides. She appreciated the sensitivity as it impacts the way the groups work together. She felt there was a lot of commonality between the committee members' answers to the "why" question. D. City and District Reports Board Member Todd Collins had little to report. There had been one school board meeting since the last committee meeting, with nothing on the agenda of note to this committee. Assistant Superintendent Lana Conaway added it is the time of year for planning for next year and trying to figure out the closest priorities in terms investing time. There were some slight revisions to the PAUSD Promise, combining Healthy Attendance with the SWIFT equity plan and SUMMARY MINUTES Page 4 of 6 (Sp.) City School Liaison Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 4/20/2023 adding Innovation and Agility. The District has also started to look at the five goals identified in the SWIFT plan to tweak a few goals to identify inequities and how to engage community partners to better address those needs. The focus on mental health has been expanded to include staff and to remove limits of when students can access care. Deputy City Manager Chantal Cotton Gaines stated an item related to Cubberley will be brought to City Council soon, tentatively May 15. She acknowledged and was appreciative of the board action related to full-time city employees' students being able to attend PAUSD schools. She noted there are still more steps to accomplish before that opportunity is available. Council Member Pat Burt added there was a recent study session on a program that sends vans with crisis intervention specialists for intoxicated, disoriented, or mentally ill community members as an alternative to law enforcement response. There was also strong discussion on the 2023 Work Plan with a particular focus on the elements Staff is pursuing aligned with Council priorities. Within Public Health, there has been a particular callout for the last two years of focusing on how to help address the needs of youth who had their mental health stressed through the two years of the pandemic. He stated that area is still a struggle regarding initiatives to further that objective. There was adoption of the changes to utility rates. As one of the biggest utility consumers in the city, the School District has a vested interest in that. Chair Lythcott-Haims added that the Palo Alto Youth Council put on a health fair at Mitchell Park last weekend and are doing an Earth Day effort tomorrow. The kids in the city know how imperative it is to mitigate the change underway and ensure the planet is livable. When looking for linkage between the City and the District, the leadership efforts of the kids are something to be proud of. E. City and Schools Collaborations Discussion (continued from March 16, 2023) Chair Julie Lythcott-Haims stated some documents were pulled together for reference, including the purpose statement behind this committee and a document created several years ago listing myriad ways the City and District might collaborate or the topics that might overlap. She opened conversation up to colleagues regarding what is possible, hard things to collaborate on, ways to collaborate more effectively, etc. Council Member Pat Burt clarified that the document was meant to discuss areas in which there was existing collaboration and as a framework to look at those things more comprehensively, potentially leading to ways to strengthen or more clearly define goals or look for gaps that might become more apparent. He felt the opportunity to break through on Cubberley was the most substantive thing going on right now but there were a lot of things ongoing, various negotiations and collaborations from field space to issues around middle school athletics and partnering programs, potential future issues of school sites needing crossing guards. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 5 of 6 (Sp.) City School Liaison Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 4/20/2023 City Manager Ed Shikada stated it was a good characterization that there were a number of touch points between staffs on projects that either agency is taking on. One issue is how planning for growth and housing affects district needs and vice versa. He suggested revisiting this topic during the next round of the City's housing element. Board Member Todd Collins felt there was and has been much collaboration between the City and District on a wide range of issues and a strong relationship between the staff. He felt the more relevant issue for the policymaking bodies was making sure there was a framework that feels fair and appropriately shared between the bodies. There are some models about how cities and school districts arrange their affairs with regular negotiation on the full set of issues, which helps things from getting out of balance in one area or another and creates a regular forum for discussing the totality of the issues. He felt it would be useful for this group to move toward some kind of framework in which those issues were regularly discussed. Assistant Superintendent Lana Conaway discussed a resource called the Collaboration Framework for addressing community capacity and formulating collaborative groups to address issues at various levels across the community. She agreed having a framework and a discussion would be a great way to home in on what to accomplish and would make the discussions and decisions of this committee more meaningful and connected to the community. Thinking about areas to potentially partner on, she felt a lot of the things threading through all of the partnerships were grounded in social justice, resource justice, and environmental justice. She suggested identifying an area to focus attention as a theme and branch out to address those concerns across the community so that everyone has equal access and opportunity, not just marginalized groups but the entire community. Chair Lythcott-Haims invited Board Member Collins to share his ideas for this framework at a future meeting. She also felt the collaboration framework suggested by Assistant Superintendent Conaway was an intriguing way to frame themes to jointly agree on. She felt kids' mental health was important. There are some ways to legislate improving mental health for kids, but she thought it was more about how kids are treated, talked about, and engaged. She felt it was important to commit to an interest in what it feels like to be a child in Palo Alto and then also to listen and act upon it. She stated she would think more about this and bring forward a proposal or concept to discuss if there is any interest. Council Member Burt noted there is already a framework intended to be the body spanning all the issues related to youth mental health in the community, Project Safety Net. He stated it was designed for broad community collaboration and wanted to be careful about creating new entities. Chair Lythcott-Haims stated she was not trying to create something new and agreed that Project Safety Net should be the home. She stated she was asking what could be done as part of that conversation to help spur a new conversation about these issues in the current moment. She stated the question of what it means to be a child in Palo Alto includes mental health as a component but is overall a bigger question. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 6 of 6 (Sp.) City School Liaison Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 4/20/2023 Board Member Collins stated the District tries to do everything they think is important to help create a successful environment for students but was more selective toward getting heavily involved in initiatives outside their scope. He stated the District is happy to participate in initiatives the City or others lead where there is a useful role to play but also has a lot to work on. Council Member Burt wanted to look at the issues with an open mind as opposed to the mindset that the District has done an incredible amount in this area and must have covered everything that is relevant. He felt some of what is relevant has less clear demarcation of lanes. He stated Project Safety Net had definitions of youth mental health and youth wellbeing to look more broadly at how to have youth voice in the community and a broader, healthy environment for youth. There are both opportunities and lessons from things that were done in the past that may have lapsed because the focus went into new valid areas. He felt there should be a discussion focused on that subject. Public Comments 1. Ken Horowitz was supportive of this committee and hoped it would stay intact. He stated enrollment is a big issue for the school board and that a lot is going to depend upon housing, so there is a lot of collaboration that is going to go on between the housing element and school board. F. Future Business No action taken. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 10:02 a.m.