AUSD/City Council Subcommittee Meeting
Draft Minutes
3/14/22
Start - 4:00 pm
Via - Zoom (recorded)
1 Call to Order/General Introduction
Jennifer Williams, AUSD Board of Education, President
Heather Little, AUSD Board of Education, Trustee and Chair of the Meeting John Knox White, Council Member
Tony Daysog, Council Member
Present:
Jennifer Williams, President, Board of Education (AUSD) Heather Little, Trustee, Board of Education (AUSD) (entered meeting at 4:10pm)
John Knox White, Council Member, (City)
Tony Daysog, Council Member, (City)
Gerry Beaudin, Assistant City Manager, (City)
Pasquale Scuderi, Superintendent (AUSD)
Shariq Khan, Assistant Superintendent, Business Services (AUSD) Areli Vazquez, Assistant Engineer, Transportation Department (City) Lisa Foster, Senior Transportation Coordinator, (City) Police Chief Joshi, (City)
Amy Wooldridge, Recreation and Parks Director (City)
Andrew Thomas, Transportation Director (City)
Jodi McCarthy, Coordinator of Student Services (AUSD) Fire Chief Luby, (City)
Kerri Lonergan, Senior Executive Assistant (AUSD)
2 Minutes
A. Motion to approve minutes of January 19, 2022 Meeting:
Tony Dasog moves/John Knox White seconds
Vote: Jennifer Williams: Yes
Heather Little: Yes
John Knox White: Yes
Tony Daysog: Yes
Approval of Minutes passes 4-0
3 Oral Communication Non-Agenda (Public Comment) There were no public comments under this agenda item.
4 City/Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) Issues
4-A: Alameda CARE Team – Program Overview (City)
Fire Chief Luby gave the Subcommittee information on the CARE program. He explained who is part of the team and what services the CARE team provides, which include:
o Jodi McCarthy, Coordinator of Student Services for AUSD asked if there were any holds placed from the five calls that came from AUSD schools.
Ms. McCarthy thanked J. Del Bono and Schwartz for spending time at AUSD schools to explain how the team was going to interact with schools. o Fire Chief Luby thanked the team who worked on this, and he admitted that they failed to invite AUSD in at the beginning of the effort to get the CARE Team up and running.
o Subcommittee Members thanked the Fire Chief Luby for this impressive work.
o Subcommittee Members stated this work is impacting staff as well. 4-B: School District Bond Measure:
Possible City Support
Pools
Pasquale Scuderi, Superintendent of AUSD gave the Subcommittee information on the ballot measure that the Board of Education voted to put on the ballot in June 2022.
Shariq Khan, Assistant Superintendent, Business Services for AUSD gave the Subcommittee information on which projects the potential bond would fund.
Projects include: third building at Alameda High School, the 500 Wing at Encinal High School, along with an additional gymnasium for the school for more P.E space along with the refurbishment of the existing gymnasium, full modernization for Wood and Lincoln Middle Schools. The full modernization will make the buildings at these two middle schools look fairly similar to the way Encinal High School looks now, and the refurbishment of a building at Otis Elementary School.
Both high schools will get updates to their performing arts spaces. Another large project in this bond, if it passes, would be the partial cost of a new swimming pool at Alameda High School.
Amy Wooldridge, City of Alameda, gave the Subcommittee information about the City’s desire to support the rebuild of Emma Hood Swim Center. The City is still in discussions about whether or not a City-owned Aquatic Center would be best placed at the current Emma Hood location. Ms. Wooldridge stated there are not enough pools in the City.
City Council Member Knox White stated there is money, if matched, to build a new pool at the Emma Hood Swim Center. Council Member Knox White stated that matching state funds would take approximately 10 years to come to fruition. City Council Member Daysog stated he was really happy to see the way the Board listed their priorities on the projects for the potential bond. Council Member Daysog stated he hoped residents of Alameda could get behind this Bond measure.
School Board President Jennifer Williams asked when the discussion of funding at the City level was going to come to a City Council meeting. Staff stated they did not have a firm date yet, but it would most likely come to City Council for a discussion during the next round of budget talks.
School Board Vice President Heather Little stated officials are all hearing from community members about the need for a new pool in Alameda. Board Member Little stated right now Emma Hood is broken once again and students are sharing one pool which makes team practices run very late, with students getting home at 10pm and later. Board Member Little also stated it does not feel very equitable to have a huge aquatic center located at the Alameda High School site.
Board Member Little stated she would much rather have the location for a new aquatic center focused at a different City-owned location which would make it more equitable for all families.
City Council Member Knox White stated one location could be the Jean Sweeney Park site. Council Member Knox White stated there are times when calls for equity make things challenging for everyone, with everyone needing to drive, which in itself raises equity issues. Council Member Knox White stated the current Alameda High location was a site that was explored due to it being accessible by public transit and having the parking garage. City Council Member Daysog asked if there are two discussions going on – one that would be the need for the City to contribute $7.5 million to the Emma Hood Pool and one that would be a discussion around a new aquatic complex that would be City owned. Board President Jennifer Williams stated that is correct.
4-C: Traffic Safety Project(s) Update
Lisa Foster and Areli Vazquez from the Transportation Department of the City of Alameda will come back to the next City/School Subcommittee meeting to present. Subcommittee members discussed putting this agenda item at the top of the agenda for the next meeting.
4-D: School District COVID Protocols: Masking/Unmasking
Superintendent Scuderi gave information to the Subcommittee about the new masking mandate that started today. The new mandate calls for masks to be strongly recommended by not required indoors and outdoors at Alameda’s schools. Superintendent Scuderi stated this new mandate is impacting students and families in very different ways. There are families who have students who are deaf and hard of hearing and for these families the option to remove their masks is incredibly helpful for their communication needs. Superintendent Scuderi stated there are also families who have members who are immunocompromised so they are electing to keep their masks on.
5: New Business:
There was no new business discussed.
6: Adjournment:
The meeting was adjourned by Heather Little at 4:59 pm (Zoom meeting was recorded to the cloud)
Respectively Submitted,
Kerri Lonergan
Senior Executive Assistant
Alameda Unified School District