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The Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees will be voting on Thursday to approve an updated job description for the district’s crossing guard position in light of the city scaling back on the amount of funding it provides for the program.
According to the staff report, the city will still fund 12 crossing guards through an outside vendor after it previously committed $500,000 of funding for the program during the 2025-26 school year. PUSD will commit to staff 10 additional crossing guard positions with district staff, according to the report.
“The crossing guards help support students and families cross busy intersections during the morning and afternoon on school days,” the June 12 staff report states. “Some of the areas are in close proximity to the school, and some are blocks away but heavily used by PUSD students and parents.”
For years, the city of Pleasanton has been managing and funding the deployment of crossing guards. However, as the city has been dealing with financial challenges and developing its two-year budget, talks about eliminating the crossing guard program escalated.
Ultimately, the City Council decided to maintain — at least for now — $500,000 of funding to pay for the program for the upcoming school year, which PUSD said would help pay for a dozen crossing guards. During the 2024-25 school year, the city paid for 22 crossing guards in total.
In response to that, the district identified 10 locations which require crossing guards and stated that it would be responsible for staffing those locations.
“The district and the city collaborated to coordinate the location of the crossing guards that will be staffed by the district and those that will be staffed by the city,” according to the staff report.
In light of the changes, the district has developed a job description for the crossing guard position, which will be an hourly and unrepresented position at the district. According to the staff report, the pay rate for the position is set at $20 per hour and it is estimated that the crossing guards will be needed for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon.
The board’s open-session meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Thursday (June 12). Read the full agenda here.
In other business:
* During the closed session portion of the meeting, the board will be continuing discussions regarding the appointment of a new superintendent after having canceled a special meeting last week where trustees were initially poised to review an employment contract for the district’s new top administrator.
However, according to Board Vice President Kelly Mokashi, the board will not be making any appointments during Thursday’s closed session portion of the meeting because, “the search is still in progress.”
“The board continues to work on behalf of the community to onboard a new Superintendent,” Mokashi said in a statement to the Weekly. “We appreciate the community’s patience and will communicate updates as we are able.”
Thursday’s closed-session discussion follows multiple deliberations and interviews during the month of May and an additional meeting earlier this month.
* As part of the consent calendar, the board will be looking to review a report on the district sale of Measure I1 and Measure I bonds.
According to the staff report, on May 22 PUSD sold its final installment of Measure I1, a $270 million general obligation bond that voters passed in 2016. The final installment of Measure I1 bonds was for the amount of $35 million.
The district also sold its second installment of Measure I, a $395 million general obligation bond, for $160 million, according to the report.
The staff report states that the Measure I1 bond “ultimately achieved a true interest cost of 3.72% (outperforming the good faith estimate of 3.82% provided to the Board in April) and a net repayment ratio … of 1.36 to 1, far below the legislative cap of 4 to 1.”
“Now fully sold, Measure I1’s projected tax rates are estimated to be approximately $10 lower than the voter-approved estimate of $49 per $100,000 of assessed valuation,” according to the district.
As for Measure I, the bond achieved a true interest cost of 4.63%, which was mostly in line with the good faith estimate of 4.58% that was provided to the board in April, and a net repayment ratio of 1.94 to 1.
* The board will be set to receive the proposed annual budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year during Thursday’s meeting.
Along with the Local Control Accountability Plan, which staff will also present during the meeting, the board is required to review the budget at a public hearing before approving both by the end of June.
According to the staff report, the district will be prepared to answer questions and receive input from the community before staff return to the dais on June 26 for final approval of the budget.
* District staff will be recommending that the board approve updated facility rates, which are necessary to implement due to “significant increases in operational costs over the years, including rising expenses for water, sewer, electricity, and general facility maintenance,” according to the staff report.
“Adjusting the rates will help ensure that the district can continue to maintain its facilities at a high standard while supporting community access in a sustainable and equitable way,” according to the report.
If approved, the new rates — which staff said are, in some cases, still lower than comparable school districts — will be effective July 1.
“Staff has updated the rates with current industry standards and the rates used by comparable school districts,” according to the staff report. “Moving forward, we plan to annually review the rates and make the necessary adjustments.”
* The Board of Trustees will be voting on approving a roughly $1.3 million increase to the budget for the Amador Valley High School campus renovation project — a marquee Measure I project that seeks to replace the school’s athletic and performing arts facilities with brand new ones.
According to the staff report, the current contract amount between the district and Blach Construction, QKA and Gensler for the project is a little over $85.15 million. The project is being funded by Measure I, developer fees and insurance money from the small gym fire that broke out last year.
The scope of work for the project includes demolishing the existing gym and theater, constructing those new facilities and other site improvements.
However, the district has also discovered that the kitchen and serving lines at Amador Valley are in need of modernization, which is why they are asking for money to be allocated to the design and construction of the project.
“The current kitchen is poorly configured and houses unused equipment such as a blast chiller,” according to the staff report. “The staff from Child Nutrition Services (CNS) have identified improvements to the kitchen and serving line that will enhance efficiency and modernize the space to allow for CNS to install new equipment and offer expanded menu options.”
* The board will also be discussing and possibly approving a change order to the design build agreement with Clark Sullivan Construction and JKAE Architects in the amount of just over $78,000 for the Measure I funded, Education Options Center project.
The current contract amount for the project — which consists of constructing a new campus, outdoor landscaped areas, a garden and a parking lot, as well as a new kitchen for Child Nutrition Services — is roughly $34.85 million. If approved, the new change order would bring up the total roughly $34.92 million and would help install the food service equipment.
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