The following is a recap of the Madera Unified board meeting, held on Tuesday, October 11th

MUSD to Host Community “Listening Session” on Oct. 18 Madera Unified will host a community “listening session” on Tuesday, Oct. 18, at 6 p.m. at the Jefferson Middle School cafeteria. The event is open to anyone in the community who wishes to attend.

The purpose of the listening session will be to establish another open line of communication with the community. The session at Jefferson will be the first of what will be monthly events all designed to allow community members to engage in conversations with MUSD staff.

The Oct. 18 listening session will open with MUSD superintendent Gustavo Balderas updating the community about pertinent district information. There will also be a discussion of Madera Unified’s budget followed by a question-and-answer session.

Translation services will be provided for those who need to utilize them.

Future listening sessions will be held Nov. 29 at MLK Middle School and Jan. 17 at Howard School. There is no listening session in December due to the winter break.

JBT Food Tech Presents Donation to MUSD

Members of the JBT Food Tech Corporation attended Tuesday night’s meeting to present a $12,000 donation to the Madera Unified School District to be used for high school scholarships and teacher mini-grants.

The funds donated by JBT come from their annual golf tournament, which this year was held Sept. 9. Pat Gordon, JBT’s manager of human resources who presented the check to the board, estimated his company’s scholarship golf tournament has been running for at least 10 years.

Applications for the teacher mini-grants should be distributed by the end of November.

Board Approves Contract to Assist with Certification of Construction Projects

The MUSD Board of Education gave their approval Tuesday night to enlist the help of Mangini Associates, Inc., to assist with the finalization of district construction projects that have not received official certification from the Division of State Architect (DSA).

Madera Unified has 36 projects that have not been closed out by the DSA, typically for extremely minor reasons. Associate superintendent Kelly Porterfield told the board that a lack of DSA certification does not mean a project was done improperly or is unsafe. There are a myriad of tests that need to be done on all aspects of a construction project before it’s certificated by the DSA. If just one test isn’t completed – say, if the documentation outlining the results of an anchor bolt load test isn’t turned over to the DSA – then the project will not receive the proper certification.

The projects all were from 1985-05, with the vast majority coming prior to 1999. No projects after 2005 are on the list requiring close-out because that year, MUSD adopted an internal policy to obtain DSA certification on every construction project.

Information and Reports

·         The Education Services report focused on District Accountability Reports (DAR), and walking the board through the DAR process through the school year.

·         The Business and Operations report related to a review of MUSD’s preliminary comments on the Environmental Impact Report/Statement for the Merced to Fresno section of the California high-speed rail project. The district is permitted to comment on the high-speed rail project’s impact on MUSD within the confines of its area of expertise. District administration and three members of the board will meet this week to finalize MUSD’s comments before they are turned into the state.

Next Board Meeting

The next MUSD board meeting is Tuesday, Oct. 25, in the District Office board room, located at 1902 Howard Road.

The closed session portion of the meeting begins at 5:30 p.m., and individuals wishing to speak on a topic on that agenda should arrive then. The public portion of the meeting gets underway at 7 p.m.

An agenda for this meeting will be posted on the MUSD website and at the District Office by the end of business on Friday, Oct. 21.