In February, two FUSD board meetings took place on the 8th and 22nd. In these board meetings, the district approved contracts, filled vacancies, allocated funds, and passed a “Declaration of Need for Fully Qualified Educators.”
Funding for non-public schools, which are private schools certified by the California Department of Education to provide for those with special education needs, increased. The new budget for funding non-public schools is now $13,800,247.00, with $7,903,634.00 going towards encumbrances (like mortgages) and $4,431,035.00 towards expenditures, for a total current balance of $1,465,578.00.
Additionally, an agreement to implement a new GPS system for district school buses was passed. Since the previous supplier of the district’s GPS systems terminated the contract at the end of 2022, the district signed a new agreement with a company called Samsara. The system delivers real-time student and driver safety information, such as emergency warnings, real-time data for electric buses, tracking light signals, and the ability for the district to track after-hours and weekend field trips.
Several contracts worth over $25,360 with different companies were also approved by the board during the Feb. 8th meeting. One was with the company TK Elevator, which provided elevator maintenance to 20 schools in the FUSD for the last 10 years. However, it was discovered that this contract was never actually approved by the board, so a final decision was made to finalize the confirmation. Other contracts include two with Vista Environmental Consulting, Inc. worth $43,512.00 and $32,067.00, established to modernize both Centerville and Hopkins middle schools respectively.
Furthermore, vacancies throughout the district were filled, including coaching and positions in a new advisory committee. Four coaching vacancies were appointed for elementary basketball at Niles and Mission Valley, freshman basketball at Kennedy, and JV Soccer at Washington. An advisory committee was created as a requirement from the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which provides the state budgeting to California districts, and Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), a document made by each district to foster student outcomes. Rosina Dodd, a community member and Pengxuan Chen, a parent, filled the two openings. Meanwhile, one position in the Facilities Advisory Committee (FAC), created to counter declining enrollment, was filled by Arun Ramani, a community member.
The Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant, made to fill in educational gaps for students, support students’ academic learning and social and emotional well-being and address barriers to student learning was passed as well. The estimated price point of this grant is $20,633,027, of which $62,649.40 was given to Lexia Learning Systems LLC, an online English resource, to initiate official training of staff who will implement Lexia systems in classrooms. Funding granted by the Measure E general obligation bond initiative, which was voted for by Fremont residents to fund the modernization of FUSD schools, was also approved for certain schools. Bookshelves and more furniture were acquired for Centerville Middle School from the companies Ross McDonald and One Workplace by allocating a total of $41,329 and $34,962 to each business respectively. An additional $48,136 was paid to modernize infrastructure at both Centerville and $174,165 was spent towards furniture at Thornton Middle Schools.
A “Declaration of Need for Fully Qualified Educators,” submitted to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, was also approved and adopted during the Feb. 22nd meeting.The district created this declaration to ensure that areas in need will be able to permit emergency teacher credentials when in lack of fully licensed educators. Efforts will still be made to find fully credentialed teachers, but this is a precautionary measure.
On December 14, 2022, the board authorized the district to enter an agreement with the company Colbi Technologies for the online tool Quality Bidders, which allows the district to choose the best contractors for California public agency projects more easily. However, this agreement was missing some important add-on services that would help the district distinguish between and pick contractors. The board amended their original agreement to accommodate buying the add-on services used with the previous company, Vanir, for $177,750.00.
The next board meetings will be on March 8th and March 22nd.
