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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-02-25 City Schools Liaison Committee Summary MinutesPage 1 of 5 Special Meeting February 25, 2025 Present: City of Palo Alto Representatives Greer Stone, Council Member (Chair) George Lu, Council Member Chantal Gaines, Deputy City Manager, Staff Liaison Palo Alto Unified School District Representatives Shana Segal, Board President Alison Kamhi, Board Member Don Austin, Superintendent, Palo Alto Unified School District Absent: None Call to Order Deputy City Manager Chantal Cotton Gaines called the meeting to order on this date in virtual teleconference at 7:04 p.m. The City Clerk called roll and declared there as a quorum. A. Selection of Chair Deputy City Manager Chantal Cotton Gaines explained that nomination opportunities were limited. MOTION: Council Member Lu nominated Council Member Stone, who was a product of Palo Alto schools, a champion for youth mental health, and a public school teacher. Council Member Stone accepted the nomination and thanked Council Member Lu for the nomination. City/School Liaison Committee Special Meeting SUMMARY MINUTES Page 2 of 5 (Sp.) City School Liaison Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 2/25/2025 Board President Segal seconded the nomination. MOTION PASSED: 4-0 Chair Stone thanked everyone. He appreciated the nomination and the vote of confidence. He looked forward to the Committee working with the City and the School District. Open Forum/Public Communications There were no requests to speak. Minutes Approval: B. Approval of Minutes for September 19, 2024, City/School Liaison Committee Meeting. Deputy City Manager Chantal Cotton Gaines explained that the minutes would be presented at the next meeting and shared ahead of time. C. City and District Reports Deputy City Manager Chantal Cotton Gaines stated that City and Board representatives would share updates and happenings at City Council and the Board and staff would share additional announcements. Board President Segal announced that the final Early Childhood Education Committee meeting would be February 26. They had had maybe five meetings, which were about two hours in length. They had representation from PAC, TK teachers, PreSchool Family, and parents. They wanted to ensure they were serving all students and looking for opportunities with TK, Young Fives, and Greendell School, and maybe looking at more partnerships with PAC. Recommendations would come out of the final meeting. The recommendations would then be presented to the Board, and the Board would take action or no action. The Chair of the Committee was Lana Conway. Board Member Kamhi voiced that she had been at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Escondido and the new construction that opened in one of the elementary schools. She discussed it being a wonderful event. There had SUMMARY MINUTES Page 3 of 5 (Sp.) City School Liaison Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 2/25/2025 been community events to celebrate Black History Month, and some Black History Month bike rides were scheduled for Saturday. Council Member Lu announced that Council recently approved 55 units of housing intended for PAUSD teachers and staff. They would have the right of first refusal, and all housing would essentially be deed restricted, affordable, and essentially below market rate. Last week Council had a visioning session for Cubberley and its plans to build a community center there. There would be a series of community meetings. The next one was to be March 19, at 6 p.m., and all schools and stakeholders were welcome to attend. The scope of this Committee as it related to Cubberley was somewhat unclear for Council purposes. On March 10, Council would approve its work plans and its committees’ work plans. There would be a Cubberley Ad Hoc Committee, which he believed would consist of Council Members Stone, Lythcott-Haims, and Reckdahl. The tentative plan was that Cubberley-related issues would not go through this body but instead through the ad hoc, and Council would approve or modify the plan on March 10. He welcomed thoughts from school partners related to that. Council was making progress on the SS4A and the Bike and Ped plans. He thought there were still multiple opportunities for folks to comment. He thought the Palo Alto PD Traffic Enforcement recently got to full staffing and potentially could help with SRTS-type issues. He believed that about a month ago the City updated its Suicide Prevention Policy. He suspected that it might be an area where the School Board and the Committee could work together. Deputy City Manager Chantal Cotton Gaines confirmed that Council Member Reckdahl on Cubberley. Chair Stone voiced that last night at the Mid-Year Budget Hearing Council basically directed staff to explore adding three new full-time firefighters at Fire Station 4. On Thursday, February 27, at 5:30 p.m., the HRC and the City would host a Know Your Rights event at Mitchell Park Community Center. He stated it would be a good opportunity for undocumented immigrants to understand their legal rights. He encouraged the community to attend. Superintendent Don Austin commented that they regularly met with City staff in addition to additional outreach done over time. He expressed that quite a bit of time was spent on construction- and utilities-related topics. They were doing a better job being proactive instead of reactive. The District appreciated working with City staff. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 4 of 5 (Sp.) City School Liaison Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 2/25/2025 Deputy City Manager Cotton Gaines remarked that they appreciated working with Superintendent Austin. Having the relationship helped deal with issues. Registration would officially open this Friday for summer camps ran by the City. They had highlighted a new pilot program called DigiForm where families could choose some camps earlier, which was more of a lottery system. For those who had not filled out a DigiForm, the rest of the camps would be available starting Friday, February 28. The Mayor’s press and community briefing would be Thursday, February 27, from 5 to 6 p.m., at the Rinconada Library Embarcadero Room. Th Mayor would provide an update on the progress of Council and community priorities. It would be an open forum. D. Future Business Board President Segal was interested in finding ways to partner, so she reached out to Jessica Spicer to see if there were any programs she could look into to help build a stronger sense of belonging or offer more partnerships. She informed her about Challenge Team, and information could be found at challengeteam.org. Yesterday she had a Zoom meeting with Gay Krause who started Challenge Team. She listed some of the agencies that worked with them of which there about 100 nonprofits and organizations. She thought it could be explored. The next meeting would be March 13, at 7:30 a.m. She would be happy to attend the meeting if folks were interested. All meetings were open to the public. Chair Stone felt that would be a great program and opportunity to look into. Board Member Kamhi was excited to work on some of the bike safety and pedestrian issues. She wanted to dive deeper to discuss how to keep the community safer. Chair Stone thought having feedback from the School District on that plan would be beneficial for Council. Deputy City Manager Chantal Cotton Gaines indicated that a good starting place for that conversation may be to have the SRTS Team do a presentation to this Committee to talk about annual statistics. She believed they wanted to attend the March meeting. Once she knew the date, coordination could be done with staff. Chair Stone wanted the Committee to jointly tackle the issue of youth mental health and wellbeing. He spoke of attending the U.S. Mayors SUMMARY MINUTES Page 5 of 5 (Sp.) City School Liaison Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 2/25/2025 Conference in Washington, D.C., and the then Secretary of Education presenting, who spoke of a need for closer collaboration between school districts and cities on this issue. He asked the Committee if they had a preference when it came to using first names or titles in these Committee meetings. The Committee decided to use first names. Council Member Lu asked what committee a possible project for a teen center off Bryant would land and if it would be a relevant issue for this Committee to discuss this year. Community Services Director Kristen O’Kane answered that they recently met with the architect to look at the space and put a design together, which would include dedicated space for teens. She did not have the schedule, but the construction and design were being handled by Public Works. She needed to discuss with Deputy City Manager Cotton Gaines or Chair Stone where this might fit in with this Committee. They wanted the center to be designed by teens. She would report back to the Committee. Future Meetings and Agendas Deputy City Manager Chantal Cotton Gaines noted that the Committee had typically met on the third Thursday of each month at 8:30 a.m. She asked if there should be a day-of-month-type cadence or if the Committee wanted to set each date. Discussion ensued and the Committee decided to schedule for the first Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m. If there was a light agenda, the meeting would not occur until the next month. Deputy City Manager Cotton-Gains commented that they wanted to schedule the update from the SRTS Team, so she could discuss that with staff. She added that the Finance Committee had meetings the first Tuesday of each month, so the City/School Liaison Committee would probably meet in the Council chamber. She was not aware of any streaming issues as the meetings were recorded to YouTube. Chair Stoned declared that the next meeting would be on April 1, at 7 p.m. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting was adjourned at 7:34 p.m.