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Background

At an emergency meeting of the LCUSD Governing Board on Thursday, March 12, 2020, the Board voted to enact district-wide school facility closures effective on Friday, March 13, 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to exercise its Local Educational Agency responsibility to ensure the health and safety of its students, staff, and families by engaging exigent measures to flatten the coronavirus infection curve.  Subsequently, at meetings of the LCUSD Governing Board, staff has prepared presentations to update the LCUSD Community regarding its actions and services in response to the COVID-19 related school facility closures and distance learning throughout the district.

Since the last LCUSD Governing Board meeting, LCUSD’s Leadership Team has engaged in comprehensive planning for the reopening of its campuses for the 2020-2021 school year.  The Elementary and Secondary Reopening Review Committees have convened frequently to make recommendations regarding the reopening plans.

LCUSD presented 4 Town Hall forums on Thursday, July 9, 2020.  The Reopening Committees met on July 10, 2020 to assess and discuss stakeholder feedback regarding the Plan.  Governing Board members serve on the Reopening Committees and also participated with the Committee regarding individual and collective responses to the contents of the Town Hall presentations.  At its meeting on July 14, 2020, the Governing Board engaged in an extensive review and discussion of the existing Reopening Plan recommendations and directed staff to rework the plans, developing daily schedules and requirements for instructional delivery so that the Board could take action regarding a virtual or on-campus reopening for the 2020-2021 school year, and adopt the daily schedules and instructional requirements for distance learning as appropriate.

Current Considerations:

Although fully prepared to deliberate and vote regarding reopening the LCUSD 2020-2021 school year virtually or with on-campus instruction, the Governing Board’s decision was preempted by an announcement on Friday, July 17, by Governor Newsom requiring school districts in counties which are on the monitoring list for COVID-19 to open virtually.  The Governor released updated COVID-19 guidance for schools and school-based programs. He outlined five main points in his press conference: 1. School reopenings will be based on local county health data. Once a county is off the state monitoring list for 14 consecutive days, the school districts within that county may reopen if certain conditions are met. This includes mandatory masks for students in grades 3 and above, and recommended masks for grades 2 and below; physical distancing on campuses for students and staff; training for staff and families; cleaning measures; and health hygiene practices.

Additionally, per Governing Board Direction, progress continued last week with the LCUSD Elementary and Secondary Reopening Committees to bring to the Governing Board at its Special Meeting today recommended schedules for reopening virtually its elementary schools and LCHS 7-12.  The proposed elementary schedule is recommended for both the virtual opening and will transition seamlessly into the hybrid model when conditions are met which allow the elementary sites to reopen at 50% capacity.  The proposed LCHS 7-12 schedule is designed for the virtual reopening and has unique features to build SEL relationships between students and teachers/staff and foster campus connectedness both virtually and when the campus is able to be reopened to students in a limited capacity.  Developing a 50% hybrid schedule which will also continue to provide for families who elect a 100% virtual experience remains a task for LCUSD Administration along with the Secondary Reopening Committee.

Finally, the LCTA and LCUSD Bargaining Teams met extensively last week and agreed upon a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding Virtual Instruction Requirements.  District staff has the authority to bargain the MOU, but it is presented here for Governing Board review and so that the Governing Board may publicly share the virtual learning requirements.

Financial Implications

Background

It is important to continually review and update the district’s board policies in order to stay on top of changing state requirements and/or district needs.

Current Considerations

As part of this continual review, the district has the following policy revision for the Board’s consideration:            

BP 5141.52      Suicide Prevention : Students

These policy revisions reflect current law and educational best practices.

Financial Implications

There are no financial implications associated with the recommended Board Policy revisions.

Background

LCUSD uses various contracts negotiated by other districts for purchasing. One of these contracts is for the CA K12 Irvine ISD Technology Equip and Peripherals Agreement signed on 2019-12-19.  The current contract was negotiated by Irvine Unified  allows the District to purchase equipment such as computers  and other materials through vendors like CDW-G.

Current Considerations

In preparation for fall learning scenarios, teachers need access to improved technology, specifically laptops with web cams. Our current LCHS teachers have desktop computers without webcams. This contract will be used to purchase new laptops for teachers. These devices will assist with lesson delivery and creation. The existing computers can be used to refresh computer labs or other student spaces as needed.

Financial Implications

Public Contract Code (PCC) 20111 requires school district governing boards to competitively bid and award any contracts for goods and services involving an expenditure of more than $90,000.00 to the lowest responsible bidder.

Notwithstanding PCC 20111, PCC 20118 and Administrative Regulation 3311(g) state that without advertising for bids and upon a determination that it is in the best interest of the District, the Board may authorize District staff by contract, lease, requisition, or purchase order of another public corporation or agency, to lease data-processing equipment, or to purchase materials, supplies, equipment, automotive vehicles, tractors and other personal property for the District in the manner that the other public corporation or agency is authorized to make the leases or purchases from a vendor. Alternatively, if there is an existing contract between a public corporation or agency and a vendor for the lease or purchase of personal property, the District may authorize the lease or purchase of personal property directly to the vendor under the same terms that are available to the public corporation or agency under the contract.

Title I, Division 7, Chapter 5, Article I (Section 6500 et seq.) of the Government Code of the State of California authorizes joint exercise by two or more public agencies of any power common to them. Staff requests approval of the following resolution to provide authorization for the District to utilize Synnex Corporation Contract NCPA contract 01-97 and Intell-tech as an authorized reseller partner with SYNNEX Corporation to purchase network and infrastructure hardware related to essential district services, servers, and storage.

Financial Implications

The initial equipment purchase total will not exceed $314,097.47. Funds will come from Measure LCF.