At its regular meeting this week, the Cloverdale Unified School District (CUSD) Board of Trustees will be viewing a handful of presentations, including an update about the 2020-21 school reopening plan, as well as discussing classroom capacity limits, approving the sale of general obligation bonds and revising the district’s declaration of need for fully qualified educators. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. and is viewable via Zoom.
To view the full meeting agenda, click here.
Presentations
The board of trustees will be viewing a presentation on the district’s Measure H projects. The businesses involved with the district projects give an update at nearly every board meeting. Most recent updates include the wrapping up of the work being done on Cloverdale High School’s football field. Looking forward, the next projects being done with Measure H funds include an additional classroom at Jefferson Elementary and a new multi-use room at Washington School.
The board will also be viewing a presentation from the CARE Foundation, a nonprofit that supports Cloverdale schools.
School Reopening Plan
The board will also be receiving an update regarding the district’s 2020-21 school reopening plan, as well as an update on where the county sits in its COVID statistics.
At its last meeting, district trustees decided to reevaluate distance learning at the beginning of November for a possible pre-winter vacation start to hybrid learning. At that meeting, Superintendent Betha MacClain also noted that the district was going to try creating small learning cohorts of specific groups of students.
While the district is eager to get students back to the classroom, the county’s COVID statistics are rising, making it less likely that districts in the county will be given the green light to reopen for hybrid learning — counties must be in Tier 2, or the “red tier” of the state’s virus tracking to open beyond distance learning.
Nearby districts, such as Healdsburg Unified, have decided to reevaluate their reopening plans in December for a possible January start to hybrid learning. Windsor Unified is reevaluating at the end of October, though the Windsor Unified School District said a return to partial in-person learning is unlikely before the end of the year.
Classroom Capacity Limits
According to the district’s agenda packet, establishing a limit to classroom size helps establish guidelines for granting and denying interdistrict transfers.
“The district has established classroom capacities prior to making determinations regarding space and approval or denial. While cost exceeding the income brought in by a student has been found by the Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”) to not be a legitimate basis for denying an interdistrict permit if this disproportionately impacts a protected class, such as students with disabilities, a lack of space for the student has been accepted by OCR as non-discriminatory and permissible reason for a denial,” reads the board’s agenda item. “In the case of special day classes, resource programs, and other special programs, it is particularly helpful to have capacities established, so that a district’s denial of an incoming interdistrict transfer due to lack of capacity is supported by a concrete determination based on reality.”
Per the resolution up for approval, the district may be deemed full for interdistrict transfers when the classes reach 90% of total capacity. AP classes are deemed full for the purpose of interdistrict transfers once the class has 15 students. Resource specialist programs are deemed full when caseloads are higher than 20:1.
Bond Sales
Lastly, the board will be considering the approval of a resolution that authorizes the issuance and sale of general obligation bonds based on the 2018 passing of Measure H. The bonds issued in this round must not exceed $15 million. If approved, this round of bond issuances is “round B,” with one additional round allowed before the $46 million Measure H reaches its cap.
Need for Educators
In June, the board issued a declaration of a need for fully qualified educators. Since then, however, the need has increased.
The declaration of need is required to obtain any type of emergency teaching credential, limited assignment permit of any other type of emergency document. According to the agenda item, the district is requested to increase the number of possible emergency and limited assignment permits for CLAD/English Learner Authorization, Single Subject and Resource Specialist/Special Education positions.
According to paperwork from the district to the state, the district needs approximately two multiple subject educators, five single-subject educators and three special education educators.
