AUSD awarded Farm to School Grant
ATASCADERO — The Atascadero Unified School District (AUSD) Board of Trustees met for its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at 7 p.m. President Terri Switzer was not in attendance and treasurer Tracy Ellis-Weit was acting president at the meeting.
The minutes from the Sept. 3 trustee meeting passed unanimously.
Trustee Rebekah Koznek asked to pull Consent Agenda item 11.4 on Family Care and Medical Leave. She stated that her concern was that the words “she” and “her” were taken out of the new policy change, and she stated that she felt it was devaluing women. Feminine words were replaced with the employee. While trustee Denise McGrew-Kane asked Superintendant Tom Butler if the changes needed to be made and if the California School Boards Association (CSBA) gave explanations why the changes were being made.
“No, you don’t have to [make the changes]. It’s recommended that you keep this current to match any legal changes that are occurring in the state,” Butler said. “That’s why we bring these, and we update them based on that. CSBA does that as part of the service we have as a member of CSBA. There is deeper levels of background that can be provided from CSBA.”
The new policy changes in 11.4, including the language switches, were made to have the language be more gender-neutral, including when talking about pregnancy, which gave both Koznek and McGrew-Kane pause.
Trustee Matt Pennon stated that he believed Koznek and McGrew-Kane were bringing up gender and culture wars where there didn’t need to be any discussion on that front and backed the gender-neutral language.
When the Consent Agenda item was voted on, trustees Koznek, Corinne Kuhnle, and McGrew-Kane all voted no on passing 11.4, while trustees Ellis-Weit, Pennon, and Vy Pierce all voted yes. Due to the tie, the item will be brought back at a future meeting.
Pennon then pulled item 11.5, which included sub-items including education for homeless children and education for foster youth.
“So just in regards to the liaison for homeless youth and foster youth, who is that in our district, and how are they providing services throughout the district?,” asked Pennon.
“Every site has a foster and homeless liaison. So we hold annual meetings and trainings annually with those representatives put on by the county office,” answered Assistant Superintendant of Educational Services E.J. Rossi, who is part of a three-person team on the district level.
The Consent Agenda item passed unanimously.
Assistant Superintendant of Business Services Kendyl Darnell announced to the trustee board that the AUSD was the awarded recipient of the Farm to School Grant.
“We are excited to announce that we’ve been selected as recipients from the California Department of Food and Agriculture for the Farm to School Grant,” stated Darnell.
The grant application was written last year, and 499 schools applied for the grant, requesting over 129 million dollars in funding. In the end, only 195 projects were approved for a total of $52.8 million, including AUSD’s. The district’s projects are expected to start in January 2025.
“Our district will continue the work we’ve done in partnership with One Cool Earth to provide meaningful academic opportunities through garden-based education, connect every student with whole foods to encourage healthy eating, support agriculturally related vocational opportunities for students, and connect the food services department to the community through local procurement,” added Darnell.
She went on to say that the district has been successful in being the first district in the county to launch a grow crop farm for production that provides fresh produce to the cafeteria and provides vocational opportunities to students. They also work with local farmers to support the school farm. There are also many other educational elements for students throughout the AUSD due to having school farms on all campuses for all grade levels.
The next regularly scheduled AUSD Board of Trustees meeting will be on Tuesday, Oct. 1, at 7 p.m.
