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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-06-15 City Schools Liaison Committee Summary MinutesPage 1 of 5 Regular Meeting June 15, 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 Julie Lythcott-Haims, Chair Pat Burt, Council Member Chantal Cotton-Gaines, Deputy City Manager Palo Alto Unified School District Representatives Todd Collins, Board Member Shounak Dharap, Board Member Don Austin, Superintendent CALL TO ORDER Chair Julie Lythcott-Haims called the meeting to order at 8:30 A.M. Roll was taken. REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS A. Public Comments 1. Ken Horowitz wondered why Palo Alto could not get Cubberley completed. He felt the responsibility fell with both the City and the School District and hoped it could move forward in the next couple years. He suggested there should be someone from the City Staff who really understands Cubberley and all the expenses associated with it in charge of the project. He also felt there should be an auditor looking at all the related expenses to find out what the City is giving to the School District. B. Approval of Minutes MOTION: Board Member Collins moved, seconded by Council Member Burt, to approve minutes from the April 20, 2023, meeting. MOTION PASSED: 4-0 City/School Liaison Committee Summary Meeting Minutes SUMMARY MINUTES Page 2 of 5 (Sp.) City School Liaison Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 6/15/2023 C. City and District Reports Don Austin, Superintendent, stated the last meeting of the year would be the following Tuesday and there would be final approval on the PAUSD Promise. The state testing results will be reviewed before the first meeting of the new year, which is the third week of August. He was especially interested in improvements in reading results. The budget will also be approved the last week of the year. There was a late addition for 12 employees to help with student behavior, and there has been discussion around additional staffing in the area of special ed. The administrative level was fully staffed, and there were only a few vacancies left heading into next year. Board Member Shounak Dharap added that the reading scores mentioned were literacy scores in which the students exceeded the benchmark set by the Board in all subjects. All board members were excited to see that progress as a continuing step on the journey to addressing literacy. Regarding mental health, there were ad hoc committees for mental health and for dual enrollment to identify and implement resources needed internally. Board Member Todd Collins explained the Every Student Reads initiative with a focus on having every student at grade level and reading by third grade, which is an important milestone. This has been the top priority, and he felt Superintendant Austin had done an exceptional job of pushing it through the organization. When this initiative started, Palo Alto was in the bottom 5% of all school districts in California for third-grade achievement for low-income Latino students, so it was hopeful to see progress on this. Chair Lythcott-Haims congratulated the District on this achievement. She was interested in sitting down to talk about the process of being able to narrow focus onto one particular priority. She asked Superintendant Austin to speak further on the PAUSD Promise. Superintendant Austin stated everything cannot be a top priority and there will never be more than five priority goals. Mental health will remain a top priority. This year innovation was added as a goal, and there are plans for partnerships with Stanford around sustainability. Work with equity and excellence, early literacy, and serving and celebrating others need to remain priorities. This was year three of the PAUSD Promise, and four of the five topics have remained the same each year, which speaks to stability. The thought that every year there has to be a new idea dilutes the efforts. Board Member Collins added that priority areas should be bigger problems that take several years to focus on. Deputy City Manager Chantal Cotton-Gaines noted that the Municipal Services Center Open House, an opportunity to interact with City Staff and see the operations at play, will take place SUMMARY MINUTES Page 3 of 5 (Sp.) City School Liaison Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 6/15/2023 Saturday, July 15, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. She encouraged everyone to check it out. She noted the budget adoption was coming up on Monday. Council Member Burt acknowledged the budget wrapping up and stated there were a few final decisions the Council needed to make on Tier 2 items. He stated the budget was strong and that some services were able to be restored and some new initiatives added. Not all authorized positions have been able to be filled yet. One notable area was that the teen center has not had staffing to enable regular hours since the cut in 2020. A big part of the problem has been inability to hire the people to fill that. One suggestion brought up by Council was to use classified employees from the District. The LifeMoves transitional housing project was just approved, which includes a sizable portion for unhoused families. Those families will be able to attend any schools they have been attending, but the most adjacent school will be Palo Verde. A concern was whether these residents will have access to permanent housing in Palo Alto at transition, and the Charities Housing Project on El Camino correlates to the transitional housing because it will provide extremely low and very low income housing once it is built. Affordable housing is a Council priority that has been carried over the last couple years, and there are now essentially five affordable housing projects in the pipeline. He noted that on a per capita basis, Palo Alto has the highest proportion of deed-restricted affordable housing of any city in the county. Council Member Burt also noted the summer concert series and 3rd Thursdays on California Avenue as fun events with activities for youth. Additional renter protections limiting deposit sizes and offering greater protections on just-cause eviction were recently adopted. He spoke about funding for additional fencing with Caltrain. The Council just adopted the 3-year work plan of goals and key actions, which is a very aggressive program designed to take the City to the 80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030. In looking at how to get citizenry embracing a non-mandatory program like the heat pump water heater program, he felt students demanding this of their parents and grandparents was one of the most effective and underutilized methods. He wanted to collaborate with the District on this. There was recent a study session on the extension of the animal shelter, and he stated it looked like the City would continue to work through refinements to keep the current nonprofit on board. Chair Lythcott-Haims stated there was a closed session of the City Council scheduled in August regarding Cubberley. She noted the Palo Alto Student Climate Coalition, who speak regularly about climate at council meetings, was a shining example of youth in the City and what they can achieve. She stated she recently met with another group of students, the Gunn Gay Straight Alliance, and spoke about some of their plans. At the recent council meeting, there was a report from the Independent Police Auditor, and the RIPA data is now available on the police department website. Board Member Collins stated that one of the biggest issues with Stanford is they are not a tax- paying entity and use City and School District services, so money is an important part of those ongoing conversations. He stated sharing experience and views with the City can only be to the SUMMARY MINUTES Page 4 of 5 (Sp.) City School Liaison Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 6/15/2023 benefit of both bodies. He also wanted to be clear that the School District did not take a position regarding rail crossing alternatives. Council Member Burt believed that both parties would benefit from more engagement from the District in this regard. There was further discussion on this. D. City and Schools Collaborations Discussion – Update from Todd Collins Board Member Collins gave history and background of the collaborations between the City and School District, starting with the Preschool PACCC in the 1970s to things like Safe Routes to School and Project Safety Net. He discussed the idea of the collaboration being between "partners" or "neighbors" and the nuances of each term, believing that the reality was more a combination of the two. He concluded that the way to offer better services was a single structure for coordinating activities versus an ad hoc structure, with central discussions about sharing costs/funding and lowering costs by sharing assets and expenses. He explained several types of relationship models, the attributes of each, and some examples: ad hoc, master agreement, collective impact, and joint venture. He believed the master agreement was the one to be considered and gave the reasons for this. He described the example of Beverly Hills and explained the major elements of that agreement. Board Member Dharap felt it made sense to put in this work because otherwise things would remain the same: every year or two when the committee membership rotates, there will be a discussion about joint issues or where balls have been dropped and a commitment to work together better. He stated that was fine, but something like this would be much cleaner and more comprehensive. He liked the Beverly Hills model and asked if their governance was made up of political bodies or staff. Board Member Collins stated the negotiation included both staff and elected officials, and maybe outside stakeholders. Board Member Dharap was interested talking more about this. Council Member Burt agreed with exploring some form of master agreement now that things are more normalized after COVID disruptions and the committee is more philosophically aligned. He thought both organizations had overlapping missions of serving youth and families in the community, with different focus areas and priorities. He was really interested in moving forward with some form of master agreement in an ongoing way and stated it was decades overdue. He stated the City and District had done a lot of this type of thing to deal with enrollment decline, though it was never formalized and went by the wayside. He felt putting it together in a more enduring, structured way was a great concept. There was discussion on how to proceed with this item, which will be set as the primary agenda item for the August meeting. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 5 of 5 (Sp.) City School Liaison Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 6/15/2023 Public Comments: 1. Lee Pfab, Palo Alto Community Child Care, stated that the relationship between PACCC and the City and School District has evolved over the years and continues to need to evolve to meet the needs of early childhood education and afterschool programming in Palo Alto. She noted there will be more need for childcare and accessible childcare for the new families moving into Palo Alto through the housing element and the partnerships of low-income and below-market housing in Palo Alto. She looked forward to conversations around how to serve these new families. E. Committee Meeting Frequency Chair Lythcott-Haims tabled this topic until a later date. F. Future Business There was nothing further added. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 9:55 A.M.