The next meeting of the Windsor Unified School District Board of Trustees is all about the future — of the district, of the budget and of the way instruction will be offered.
Reopening schools
Superintendent Jeremy Decker will be providing an update on possible reopening of schools based on a recent announcement from Gov. Gavin Newsom proposing to encourage schools to resume in-person instruction as early as Feb. 16 for students in grades TK-2, and March 15 for students in grades 3-6, by providing incentive grants under the new “Safe Schools for All Plan”.
However, in his speech on Dec. 30, he stated that schools could apply for the grants if the average rate of infections in a county over a seven-day period were less than 28 cases per 100,000 residents. As of Jan. 18, Sonoma County’s rate was 41.4.
Governor’s budget update
In January of each year the governor provides the details of the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Chief Business Officer Lois Standring will provide a summary of the most important pieces of the governor’s proposed budget for 2021-22 and how it may affect Windsor Unified School District in the upcoming year.
Special education study
According to the board packet, “One of the most important challenges facing Windsor Unified School District is the creation of a long-term balanced budget and still be able to meet our goals of serving students and compensating employees fairly. Special Education expenditures represent a large portion of Windsor’s budget and since the associated revenues are far less than what is expended there is a significant impact to the district’s general fund. District staff believes that in order to create our best budget we must have an in-depth analysis of District Special Education expenditure to be able to understand how savings could be realized.”
Therefore, staff is bringing forward a proposal from Jackie Kirk Martinez of The A.B.L.E. Choice, Inc. for a study of the district’s programs The approach of this study is a combination of program details as well as the fiscal aspects.
By completing the study at this time, the district hopes to potentially use the results in planning both programs and the budget for next year. The cost for this study is $38,500 which will be paid for with carryover lottery funds that are not currently earmarked for any particular site.
Construction update
The district’s construction manager Eric Van Pelt will be offering his monthly update on the status of various projects around the district. In the spring of 2017, the district sold the first installment of bonds from Measure F which was passed by the voters in November 2016. A second series of bonds was sold in the fall of 2019 providing an additional $47,400,000 in funds for district construction projects.
Property purchase
Th final item is a resolution approving the purchase of the property at 488 Ginny Drive for $200,000. The land is adjacent to the parking lot of Windsor High School.
The Jan. 19 meeting of the Windsor Unified School District Board of Trustees starts with an open session before the Board Of Trustees recess to closed session, for public comment on closed session items at 5:30 p.m. Regular open session will start at 6 p.m. This meeting will be held via Zoom and streamed live to YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTC8qiAOAh8Qd77KSW7c8wA
To see the full agenda for the meeting, please go to
https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/windsorusd/Board.nsf/Public
Public comment should be sent to [email protected] by 4 p.m. on Tuesday on Jan. 19.
