Charter Renewal and Board Vision and Strategic Goals

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The Wednesday, January 21, 2026, Santa Clara County Board of Education (SCCBOE) meeting will start at 5:00pm. Contemporaneous public comments may only be made in person in the San Jose Room of the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE). Community members can follow SCCBOE meetings at home by clinking on this link and scrolling down to the Watch Live heading. If you cannot attend in person, and have a comment that you would like the SCCBOE to consider in its decision making, please email all of us prior to the board meeting at SCCBOEMembers@sccoe.org. The entire agenda and supporting documentation for this coming week's meeting can be found here.

First up on the agenda, the SCCBOE will recognize SCCOE's Employee of the Month, Paula Leggett. Paula is a Supervisor of Administrative Services in the Integrated Data, Research, and Evaluation Department and has been with the SCCOE for 6 years. She is responsible for establishing office timelines and priorities, organizing fiscal operations and activities to meet departmental needs, providing technical information and assistance to administrators, and performing other related tasks. She was chosen for her steadfast work ethic and ability change course and tasks on a dime.

Next, the Board will hear Public Comments of Persons Desiring to Address the Board (for non-Agendized items), followed by Reports from SCCOE Bargaining Units (which include its teaching and staff unions, among others). For public comments, participants are given 2 minutes at most to address the Board, and the Board is not permitted to engage on the subject matter because it is not agendized.

Then, the Board will consider approving its Consent Action and Information Items. The consent part of an agenda generally includes non-controversial subject matters that can be approved all together if the Board all deems the items non-controversial and chooses not to pull any for discussion. For the SCCBOE, this part of the agenda typically includes minutes from the prior meeting, resolutions recognizing ethnic groups the county serves, specific educational initiatives, outside donations the county has received, disposition of surplus items, Head Start program reports, approval of board policy updates, and employee compensation increases over a certain threshold. This meeting's agenda includes resolutions recognizing Board of Education Recognition Recognition Month and Honoring Black History Month, along with requests to approve the School Accountability Report Cards of our Court, Community, and Special Education Schools and acceptance of specific donations. You can read more about all of them under agenda items 6 and 7.

The Board will next consider the Request for Renewal of the Voices College-Bound Language Academy at Morgan Hill Charter School. This is an action item and their charter petition, the SCCOE Staff Analysis, Draft Resolution, and VMH's presentation can all be found under agenda item 8A using the link provided above. The Charter School Department staff had some concerns, but recommends the VMH Charter be renewed for 5 years with the condition that and their network (VCBLA) enter into an MOU and/or an addendum to its current agreement with the SCCOE on or before March 15, 2026 (or mutually agreed upon later date) that addresses Staff’s concerns and updates agreement between SCCOE and VMH to be consistent with current law and SCCOE best practices, as well as any additional conditions identified by the SCCBOE.

Stephanie Gomez will then present Budget Revisions for the Month of December 2025. This is an action item and her supporting documentation can be found under agenda item 8B. The short of it is that during the month of December 2025, expenditure budgets were increased by $1,408,050; revenue was increased by $1,259,709; carryover was decreased by $83,990; and fund balance was decreased by $64,351.

Next, the Board will consider Adoption of Calendar for Regular County Board of Education Meetings for 2026. This is an action item and the updated calendar can be found in agenda item 8C. The Board approved most of the calendar at the December 2025 meeting, but there was some requests for changes made by different board members. This version is a result of those requests.

Then, the Board will consider the Adoption of its Board Vision and Strategic Goals. This is an action item and the governing team's created Board Vision and Strategic Goals can be found under agenda item 8D. Over 5 months, starting in July 2025, the Board along with the Superintendent, met to come up with a unified vision and strategic goals. In July 2025, the Board's focus was getting to know the new governance team (2 new trustees and a new superintendent) and each and every member's reasons for doing the work they do. It also started the work toward understanding at a high level our goals (Individually) for our work. In October 2025, the governance team focused on distilling all our individual goals into collective vision and goals. Finally, in December we finalized our collective vision and strategic goals for the Board and the Office of Education.

The Association of California County Boards of Education will next present to the Board. This is an information item and their presentation can be found under agenda Item 9A. The ACCBE is a new organization born of an older organization (CCBE) whose structure was changed drastically by the California School Boards Association (CSBA). The new ACCBE has been in existence for just over a year now, and the SCCBOE is a member of this organization that is meant to help county board members in all that they do.

Then, the Board will go into Closed Session to hear 2 interdistrict attendance appeals. It is important to note, the SCCBOE is an appellate body for local school district interdistrict transfer requests, charter school applications, and expulsion decisions. The process and criteria the Board must use is outlined in Board Policy 5117 found here. We will also discuss anticipated litigation and active litigation.

Please note, these are just the highlights of what is on the agenda for the 1/21/26 meeting. You can inform yourself about the rest of the agenda at the link provided above. As always, feel free to email me with any questions.