Friday night our discussions began with the System budget. The discussions were centered on some changes to the proposed budget due to some estimations that were not quite accurate. One of the big changes was the amount proposed for technology. The original proposed amount was about $117 million but is now proposed at just over $88 million. The reason for the reduction in the amount proposed had to do with the spreading out of the Technology II plan over a period of time. Community colleges need to upgrade some basic infrastructure before it starts adding this new technology and the $117 million was not a feasible figure.

We then went on to talk about some of the propositions on the November ballot. Some of the key propositions discussed were Proposition 38, the School Vouchers initiative, and Proposition 39, which would change the required the 2/3rds vote to a 55% Vote for Local School Bonds. Proposition 39 is very important for CCC because it would make it more attainable for a district to pass a local bond measure. It was recommended that we take a position of opposition to Prop 38 and support Prop 39. If anyone would like more information on either of these propositions I could email or fax the information I have.

We had a brief discussion on some of the bills on the Governor’s desk. We were informed that SB1347 was signed. The bill allows a second student member to sit on the Board of Governor’s. It also allows CalSACC (California Student Association of Community Colleges) To submit a list of 3 students for the Governor to select from. There were compromises for this bill on the way to the Governor and one was that this second student member would be non-voting until their second term. Currently there is one student who is a voting member as soon as they are appointed the board.

SB 338, which is a bill that would have provided CSU, UC’s and CCC’s to inform both the student populations and the community of the intent to discontinue any intercollegiate athletic programs. The Governor vetoed this bill.

Saturday morning we discussed the funding formula for CCC (California Community College) system. The funding formula discussion was pretty extensive and many topics were discussed to include equalization and the complexity of the formula and how it needs to be simplified. Briefly equalization is a plan to make sure that a community college student anywhere in the state of California would receive the same quality education no matter what Community College they attended. The equalization goal is to increase funding to schools with low dollars per FTES to be equitable to schools with high dollars per FTES. This would be done without taking anything away from the schools with the higher dollar amount per FTES.

Almost every year our system requests funds for this but it seems that the term "equalization" is not taken too well in Sacramento and we usually do not get equalization funding. If anyone can come up with something to call equalization without using equity or equal let me know. Equalization and the funding formula are complex issues and if anyone has a particular interest in these topics let me know and I will try my best to explain.

The second topic we discussed was the Role of the Student Trustee. This was a topic I brought to the board and we discussed this for the same amount of time as the funding formula. The board ultimately endorsed the second perspective of the league's paper "The Role of the Student Trustees: Two Perspectives." The paper is on the web site at www.angelfire.com/ca6/studenttrustees. I think that practically everyone on the board believed that the Student Trustee should be treated as a trustee who brings a student perspective. That paper will be changed to reflect the endorsement of the CCCT board. As soon as this is in print I will be sure to get everyone a copy and up date the web site.

The final topic discussed was achieving the diversity commitment. The board adopted a policy paper on this topic. The policy Paper is titled California Community College Trustees Achieving the Diversity Commitment. The policy basically addresses the need for diversity in all aspects of Community Colleges. Most colleges have a diversity policy but the paper is to be used as a guideline to augment the current policies or be a guideline for schools developing such a policy. I will be putting this and other league policies on the web site for all to have access to.

The CCCSAA (California Community College Student Advisor Association) annual Leadership Conference is September 29^th – October 1^st. I will be attending, but only briefly because I have much going on in my district that weekend. I am also going to be attending the ACCT (Association of Community College Trustees) convention in Nashville Tennessee on the 18^th –21^st of October. Also in October is the CalSACC (California Student Association of Community Colleges) fall conference on the 27^th –29^th of October.

I am trying to schedule meeting times at both the CalSACC conference (northern CA) in October and the League Conference (Southern CA) in November. I will update everyone of the times for these meetings before the conferences. If you are planning on attending please let everyone else know by signing the communications page on the web site. These meetings will be very important for us to be able to discuss the issues we are facing which are described in the next section of this email.

I wanted to run something by all of you to see what your opinions are and to get feedback for possible action. There has been talk from several people that maybe we as Student Trustees should form our own caucus group. The Caucus could meet at the already scheduled league conferences and would be a more formal way for us to address the issues that we are facing. After extensive discussion with some other Student Trustees I think this is something that could be very positive but I would like to know what all of you think.

Please e-mail me or respond by using the web site so everyone can benefit from the responses. Right now I am going to schedule a meeting at the CalSACC Fall conference and this could be the focus of our discussion. I would also like some feedback on what all of you feel are issues that effect all of us collectively. Maybe the selection process for Student Trustees or why some multi-campus districts are starting to have more than one Student Trustee and others aren’t are some of the issues we could address. I basically am trying to find out what your concerns are at this time.