City Council — June 23, 2026

I call tonight's meeting for June 23rd, 2026 of the City of Fillmore and the Fillmore Unified School District to order. Board Member Rankin will lead us

in the pledge. Ready? Begin.

and then Sean Morris is not here today.

Thank you.

if you have AP classes in environmental science or biology to partner with our conservancy to try to get some real life learning skills going with the older students. The younger students would be more of an interpretive experience for those students. As far as the grant It's a wildfire resilience grant. It's under Prop 4, it's due July 7th. I am the grant writer and so there's not a lot of time but it would be complementary to your, I think it's the FireWise Communities Grant that there's a 14 acre grant that you'll have along the bike paths. It would complement that, it would not be duplicating that.

Collaborate. It would be removing probably 30 or 40 acres of the very dense a Rondo that you see in the river, a little bit east of the bridge and a little bit west of the bridge. The exact number will be based on what if we get the grants is competitive grant. And how much you know we can get at the time with labor costs and everything when we bid it out at that time. So I ballpark 30 or 40 acres, could be a little more could be a little bit less depending on circumstances at the time when we are When we can get the grant, but support from the city of Fillmore would be critical. Support from the Fillmore Unified School District would also be very welcome to show a community based effort to try to improve that river system and then there's ongoing maintenance that our conservancy can help with but there wouldn't need to be maybe some collaboration volunteers for the long term management of the resprouts and the restoration so thank you.

How much are you applying for in the grant?

I'm going to ask for $950,000. So it's go big or go home. Is it currently open

to the public?

So at present, because of some bureaucratic difficulties the property is actually owned by CDFW, California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Because of some problems, oddly enough with installing the restrooms because of the high water table that they're seeing right now. They don't want to open up the trails to the general public however we're still open to doing guided tours with our employees there hence the school programs and things like that So we foresee, hopefully in the next six months to maybe a year to have those new restroom facilities put in at which point CDFW says they'll give us permission to open it up to the full public.

Moving on to item number six, public comments. I do have one member of the public who would like to speak, Sterling Wolte. Good evening.

Spoke to the Planning Commission last week, brought it up. Wanted to come and address you guys as well. We've been having issues for the past couple weeks with the post office. There has been an unsubstantiated claim of a loose dog on the street And they have basically stopped our mail and held our mail, and are going against Postal Code 631. And are trying to move us to a community mailbox. Yet they have not established good location for the box at hand that doesn't impede public traffic flow as on sidewalks. And basically they've been very uncooperative in our issue.

Still working through post office as far as moving up the chain with our issue, but wanted to bring it to your guys' attention as well. Basically for 50 years our neighborhood has had no issues with mail being delivered to people's houses, to the existing mailboxes and all of a sudden we are now experiencing no mail delivery.

I'm sorry, this is on Arnell Road.

Baldwin Lane.

Baldwin

Lane. B-A-L-D-E-N. Any other questions?

Just a real quick question. So you said at the beginning this was due to

a dog

in the neighborhood?

Yes Basically an unsubstantiated claim. As far as our end goes, the mailman claims a dog got out and chased him but there was no report or animal control call at the time so part of our issue is then our mailman let potentially per their words a quote-unquote dangerous dog then roam the neighborhood where he could have gotten any other kids or any other issues So basically, they just went oh no there's a dog. We're not going to deliver you guys mail

anymore.

Thank you so much. And I have one more speaker Brian Schumacher

Good evening. My name is Brian Schumacher. I am here tonight on behalf of Autism Society of Ventura County. Good evening to all of you. I'm speaking on behalf of our advocacy committee, which reviews city council and school board agendas Every week to ensure that people with disabilities are considered in decisions that affect their lives. Tonight we're here to express our strong support and appreciation for this joint session between the City of Fillmore and the School District of Fillmore as well.

Joint public meetings like this are not common, and they reflect leadership coordination and a shared commitment to the community When city and school district leaders come together in a unified public setting, it sends a powerful message that supporting students families in the broader community is a shared responsibility. Collaboration between municipal and educational leadership strengthens trust improves communication and creates opportunities for more thoughtful coordinated solutions especially for families who navigate multiple public systems We want to acknowledge the effort it takes to organize a joint session and commend both bodies for modeling partnership, transparency and shared leadership.

We look forward to seeing how this collaboration continues to strengthen and serve the Fillmore community. Finally we appreciate the opportunity to give our support this evening and stand ready as a resource for both the city and the school district We welcome future partnership and offer our committee's decades of combined lived experience, working and advocating within education and civic systems in service of all residents of Fillmore. And we can always be reached at advocacyatautismventura.org.

Thank you for your leadership and for the opportunity to speak tonight.

Thank you Brian. Okay now

Good evening. Before I begin, I would just like to thank district staff who are here with all of us this evening. We have our Director of Special Education Miss Katrina Tafoya, Director of Human Resources Todd Shefferly Our preschool director, Mrs. Lorena Ramos and we have our student board representative Ms. Olivia Navas. So thank you staff for being here this evening. We're really excited Dr. Isaac Wong Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services and I are going to share an overview of some district highlights That can serve as talking points to council members and I know we utilize these talking points as school board members in staff when we're out and about in the community. There's many times that we might be at the Little League fields, the ball fields, the parks Vaughn, Super A or a grocery store.

And community members may approach us and say what do you know about the Fillmore School? So again tonight we're going to provide you with some talking points regarding our wonderful school district so I will begin.

Okay next slide maybe a click Okay, maybe some. Looks like I have the first one. Looks like you can scroll down.

All right, so let's go ahead and start with some district demographics. We have about 3,600 students in Fillmore Unified and we're one of the few districts in Ventura County that is actually experiencing stable enrollment. You may read the paper watch the news talking a lot about declining enrollment across our state. We are steady enrollment, we are seeing some families moving out of town. Primarily what we're seeing is out-of-county Kern County area and out of state but what we're also finding is that the new development we are having families move into town and primarily we're seeing a new students At the elementary level. So because of that offset, we believe that's contributing to stable enrollment. About 80% of our students qualify for free or reduced lunch in our community.

So there's a lot of resources that pour in and are designed to support our students. It's important to note and please communicate that all students regardless of socioeconomic status receive free breakfast And lunch, and those students who are enrolled in our after school program also receive or that they are part of a supper program each and every day. About 16% of our students qualify for special education services around the county you probably see anywhere between 14 and 17%.

We offer a variety of classes and programs for students on an IEP. We prioritize inclusion and believe that students who have an IEP have the right to learn alongside their general education peers. So we offer co-teaching opportunities in our middle school and high school, push in opportunities and learning center models at our elementary school. This year we are very proud. We opened up three new autism classes at our elementary school, Mountain Vista that are specifically designed to serve the needs of our students with autism And we also offer an extensive needs program for students with moderate to severe disabilities from elementary all the way to post-secondary. So, we continue to educate kids in the city of Fillmore. We do not bust them out of our town up to the age of 22 and that's a functional skills program so we're really Proud about that.

English learners, students who are coming into our school district whose primary language is a language other than English, about 20%. And over the past six years we're seeing that number decline. Maybe about six, seven years ago we were up into about 24%, 25% so about a quarter of our students We are seeing less students come into our schools from other countries.

The majority of our students are long-term English learners, meaning that they have been with us for over six years, have been within our school system. So just to give you some additional context before I turn it over to Dr. Wong, when you look at that 3663 we have about a thousand students at Fillmore High School so it's the perfect size high school not too small not too large where we really get to know every single student and that's unique one of the reasons why advocate for moving into a small town and investing in our educational system.

We have about 815 students at our middle school, so we're seeing that number tick up a bit. Again, seeing more families come back to Fillmore Middle School and as far as our elementary schools, Piru is our smallest elementary school at about 260-265 students. That fluctuates a bit with Rio Vista up into about 550. So we have the range there, nice little schools.

And again I always share it's one of the reasons why we choose to move to town stay in town is to educate our kids in a small educational environment. So at this time, I'll turn it over to Dr. Wong to talk a little bit about academic programs.

Thank you Superintendent Shefferly. Before I begin, I want to highlight these three words that I hope will resonate through my portion of the presentation. The first is investment. Second, opportunity. And the third word I want to leave you with is legacy. Investment, opportunity and legacy. When we think about school systems, we think about educational institutions, academic pieces.

But I want to reframe that and yes, I'm here to highlight our academic piece but I want to talk about this as an investment. We are investing in our own community. We're investing in providing opportunities for our children because our children are our legacy When we pass, our children are what remains. The values that we hold. The education that we instill.

They're the torchbearers that bring things forward in our next generations and subsequent generations beyond that. And I wanted to talk about that before I began. So when we look at Fillmore Unified School District... What are the opportunities? What are the investments? What's the legacy that we provide to our community? And I'll start with our youngest learners.

Fillmore Unified provides a preschool program for students as young as 2.9 years of age up to four years of age and, as mentioned, Director Lorena Ramos of our Child Care Department is here this evening. We've expanded our opportunities for our community. We just recently opened up a new Preschool Program Center at San Cayetano Elementary School. As you take a look we have five locations one at Mount Vista, one at Piru, Sespe and Sierra High School Not only that, when we take a look at our youngest learners.

Yes I'm here to talk about academics but we also want to look at the whole child with our youngest learners What are we doing to provide socialization opportunities for them so they can learn ways to interact with their peers? And how do we do that at a young early age, which is so critical because it sets the foundation for subsequent success in future years.

Additionally, we want to develop school readiness so that they're prepared for the academic rigor necessary when they get into kindergarten first grade and up into high school and beyond For those that are listening in our community and those here in the audience as well, we do have space available and we are open for enrollment for the 26-27 school year. So please contact Director Ramos.

And if you're wondering, my child may not be potty trained. Don't worry, we've got that covered for you. So if your child is still working on toileting supports, give us a call. Take a look at our childcare facilities, take a look at our preschool facilities and we're more than welcome to work with you on that. Did you know, Superintendent Shefferly, that there are great things happening in Fillmore Unified School District?

There are several firsts. Did you know that Fillmore High School was given the California Distinguished School Honor in 2024? Very first for our district. Did you know that Fillmore High School received the AP Honor Roll Silver Award as well as the AP Access Award in 2025? Where 51% of seniors took at least one AP exam during the high school year, 32% of seniors scored a three or higher on at least one AP exam and get this.

13% of our seniors took five AP exams in 2025. That's impressive, we think about five AP exams. In addition when we take a look at another first did you know Superintendent Shefferly? I'm sure you did, you're the superintendent. You know everything about our district that Sierra High School was just awarded the model continuation school For providing positive practices and providing necessary supports to our students and opportunities as well.

And did you know that our four elementary schools, and just recently I heard last week This is brand new news to our school board members that Piru School was added on as a Promising Practices School. So now all four of our elementary schools have been identified as promising practices schools for evidence of improving student achievement and a commitment to the PLC process.

Success in our district, and I'll go even beyond that success in our community does not happen in a vacuum. It doesn't happen in isolation. And you'll see the quote there where it lies in the nature of collaboration. In the strength of believing that together, administrators, faculty students and even the community can accomplish great things. And as alluded to by one of the speakers earlier this evening, what's going on this evening with that collaboration between our city and our school district resonates.

So how we work together to bring positive outcomes to an opportunities to our students and once again our legacy in how we invest collaboratively as a community. When I take a look at this Fillmore High School class of 2026, this is the college acceptances. You take a look at those accepted to the UC system, CSU system and private out-of-state as well. How are we providing opportunities so that our students can succeed?

Did you know that the class of 2025 only 43% of students took at least one college course and this upcoming year for 2026 we're looking about 52%. An increase of 9%. In 2025, 21% of our students took at least four college courses. And this year we're looking about 32%, an increase of 11%. When I think about myself and think about legacies and opportunities, I want my child to have opportunities that I did not have.

As I'm sure that you and also members of our community and the parents out there want what's better for their children than what they've experienced and So our goal is to continue to forge pathways for our students. And in addition, we're looking at expanding opportunities with the Ventura County Community College District to see if there are ways that we can formalize ways to bring an early college program to our high school as well so that students have opportunity to take college level courses on our high school campus which reduces financial burdens to our families so that their students can graduate through college in a much quicker pace.

Did you know, Fillmore High School Alumni Association has given out over $80,000 in scholarships each year to our students who attend Fillmore High School. One individual I want to highlight here is Edgar who's going to Cal Poly Pomona as a civil engineer. This is just one individual that highlights the great work that we've done as a school district and as a community.

Did you know that as a community along with other community organizations, we've given out total scholarships of over $363,000. And one thing that I wanted to highlight about this community pride with other civic organizations within our community is that it's not lost on our children. In November Superintendent Shefferly held a student summit And we asked our students from Fillmore Middle School, Sierra High School and Fillmore High School one thing that resonated with them.

And what they talked about was the need to give back to our community, that civic pride. These are the type of individuals that we are raising here in Fillmore. Those that have that core value within them To want to give back to their own community and that resonates at such an early age. I know for myself, that probably didn't click until I was like 25 or so right?

And so what does that say about us as a community in our system? And what great things that we're doing to reset that path in that journey forward for our children. College career and life ready We have seven pathways here in Fillmore Unified School District. Agricultural mechanics, agri-science, automotive services, IT networking and security, robotics, video production and studio arts. Those three are on the next slide.

And these set our learners up for careers such as agricultural engineering, welding, fabrication, plumbing, electricians, food safety inspectors, horticulturists Smog emission inspectors, diesel engine specialists, cyber security analysts, video production or filmmakers as well and so forth. And so we'll continue as a district to articulate pathways between our middle schools and our high schools as well to ensure that our students are college career and life ready.

And so, as I conclude my last slide before I hand this off to Superintendent Schaeferle. I know that those who were born in this community, raised in this community have that deep sense of pride of what Fillmore brings and how Fillmore is given teaching every one of you. I can't say that because I'm not from Fillmore but I hear that from each of you that have been born and raised in Fillmore And I know that those that have moved here from outside, have talked about the reasons why they were attracted to Fillmore.

It was a sense of evenings like this evening where the sun is still up. That they know that they can have their child out there on the street and just ride their bike knowing that they're safe. To know that they are in a close knit community where they can just ring the doorbell and say hey, borrow a cup of sugar? And not have to worry about any ramifications.

And so when I talk about this, and I think about Fillmore Unified School District, I go back to how we as a community invest, provide opportunities and leave a legacy. And so I'm going to leave us with this call to action because we take a look at all the seven college career pathways right here. We have members of our own community that are specialists, that are art directors, that are software developers or engineers here in Fillmore and as we continue to develop pathways and opportunities for our students as a school district we're looking for those that will be guest speakers To our students, those that will provide internships as industry partners.

And so as a call to action I'm asking those that are listening into this board meeting or city council meeting to invest. Invest in our district, provide opportunities to our students and leave For our children and beyond. And JFK said this quote, and I have to say it right? Ask not what your country can do for you in this case, it's our city. Ask what you can do for your country and what you can do fulfill more unified. And with that, I'll pass it off to Superintendent Shefferly.

Thank you Dr. Wang. And you need to know when you move into town, you become part of an adopted family of film or so. All right, behind every great district is an amazing team. So just a little bit about our staff. We have about 565 employees you can see here 308 classified 225 certificated 30 classified and certificated management. We offer competitive salaries over the past five years. We've given all employee groups, over five years a 20% raise. We also offer full family benefits with a fully covered insurance plan zero out of pocket. So we invest in our employees, we value our employees and we're hiring.

So reach out to our website, to our human resources department. Also very important we have a 94% retention rate for our certificated staff that's our teachers or counselors and so that says a lot when you're retaining 94%. It's a great district where we value and really take care of one another Not only do we support the academic needs of our student like Dr. Wong mentioned, we also think of the whole child and we have continually invested and continue to increase the investment in social and emotional supports for our staff.

You can see here we have 15 counselors across our district. Every school has at least one dedicated counselor. Fillmore Middle School has 3.5 counselors, one full-time licensed social worker. Fillmore High School has 3. 5 counselors, one college and career counselor and one full time licensed social worker as well in each of our elementary schools have a counselor We have some counselors that support adult school as well as our community schools initiative. We have two licensed social workers, you can see five psychologists, three board certified behavior analysts, three registered behavior technicians, two registered nurses and one LVN, all three of those folks are high school graduates.

So they come back and they work for a wonderful school district Next, I want to talk about strategic goal for high quality facilities. We have a saying in our district that we maintain facilities, we build facilities that are worthy of our students and that's just not a saying. We take that to heart and so our most visual project is the new Fillmore High School athletic complex that is now in construction. I will always take the opportunity To thank the community members of Fillmore and Piru for passing Measure G, general application bond. So it's a 43,000 square foot facility that is scheduled to be completed in February of 2027.

So next school year, drive on by. It's amazing and we're making great progress on that. You can see here this photo is already a little outdated last week they poured the concrete slab at the area right adjacent to the main building. You can see here, I went by today and they are closing the roof. So you can see the steel that went in up on the top of the roof. The front part is the foyer.

And this is a rendering of the completed project. You can see it's beautiful. It ties in beautifully to Fillmore High School. There is an emergency lane that goes all the way around the building. And so again, we're looking forward Completion, February 2027. We are relocating the Hall of Fame so as you walk into our new athletic facility there will be a Hall of Fame foyer with all of our trophies and accolades.

A brand new weight room with roll up garage like doors and if you've ever been in a weight room with high school kids Fresh breeze, natural air is great. So we're gonna roll those things up and get some nice circulation in our weight room. Next, what you see here is the main part of the building, the gymnasium. It's actually a three full court gymnasium when the bleachers are redacted it's three separate courts on the top that you can see retractable walls that actually come down that will allow for three different courts with these walls for practice and then We can get those on up, pull the bleachers out and have a great game. It does and will have HVAC so it'll be a pretty large building that will be comfortable during these summer and winter months.

And that's not the only thing we're doing. We're really investing throughout the entire district here you could see this is the new playground at San Cayetano School, which we funded out of preschool funds. We also renovated the SESPI preschool. We put in the 200-meter all weather track at Rio Vista. If you went to school at San Cayetano or Piru back in the day, you probably remember how hot that cafeteria was.

Now both of those multipurpose rooms have HVAC. We've added multiple shade structures across the district at San Cayetano Mountain Vista, Piru, Fillmore High looks absolutely beautiful. You can see Sierra High School from the street there and we have a library renovation that was completed at Fillmore High School. We are revising the Career Center which should be done at the end of July ready to open by the beginning of the school year We've bought new classroom furniture at a couple of our schools, redesigned the office at Fillmore Middle School.

Right now you can see the crane and you can see some air conditioning units beginning to go up on top of the middle school gym which is fantastic if you've been in that gym. You know HVAC is needed. As well as right now, under construction is new shade structures on both sides of the pavilion at Fillmore Middle School. We've been trying to go grass in those areas for Lucy probably 32 years now when we opened up that school years ago and so we're putting some turf cement and shade structures for the kids. And we are repainting Fillmore Middle School this summer, so those projects will be completed. We think we're going to finish the HVAC about October but we're doing a lot of the invasive work right now.

And here's a picture of the library renovation. You can see very similar to the weight room, you see the roll-up doors on the far end of the picture here where we can bring the outside in and create a collegiate atmosphere where kids can hang out and study and socialize with the doors open there. And you can see a new little seating area which I hear the kids are frequenting very often And talked a little bit about these are summer projects. Again, the HVAC some ADA improvements to the parking lot and it has begun and we will start the painting of Fillmore Middle School you can see a rendering of an approximate color scheme. The pillars will be a little lighter on the bottom but it's going to give it a nice earthy Tone look that I think will enhance the look from that gray blue, more of a natural look in there.

So we're really excited about that. And I'll end with a quote by one of my favorites, Margaret Wheatley. There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about and you know having grown up in this community as well we care about our kids and we take care of one another so with that We thank you for allowing a joint meeting and for allowing the school district to share a little bit about what we're so proud of in Fillmore Unified.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Superintendent Shefferly. So great to hear all the wonderful things you guys are doing over in the district that just warms my heart knowing my grandkids are in good hands. Thank you.

I just want to make a comment. As a Fillmore High School alumni of 2006, it was amazing to hear all the achievements that you have and I think Dr. Wong said it and you said it perfectly, pride. So just seeing all the upgrades, seeing all the achievements that the school has made since I graduated to now is just beautiful to hear. I think one thing too that I want to add is the relationship that the faculty makes with the students. I see Todd Shefferly over there. My guy and a wonderful relationship that I had through the school. And I think that really makes a huge difference with those who are at risk or those who need a little bit of a push, that relationship that they build so fantastic. I'm just excited to see all the projects complete and just look around and see, I know San Gitano was a school that I went to in elementary.

I lived on the street and so beautiful thank you.

Thank you. Well said Council Member Rodriguez. Council Member Villasenor?

Yes, I just want to thank you Superintendent Schifferle and Dr. Wong for your incredible presentation this was really well done and it's really going to provide our community a really good look at what where the school district is so much success that you've had and continue to have and all the work that you put into it and the community also in funding all of these great advancements academically through the athletic facilities and the grounds they're just they're beautiful I just wanted to add as well that I was speaking to a niece of mine who is just a recent graduate this month, and a nephew who's a sophomore. And they couldn't stop talking about what great relationships they had with their counselors in middle school, with their teachers in middle school, with their favorite high school teachers, with the after-school projects.

I was, you know, and I'm asking, I'm probing about my own family. And it was just so heartening to hear from them individuals as anecdotally and then to hear and have it be just meshed so well with everything that you're presenting. So kudos to you. Thank you for caring about our community. And thank you for those three words. I said I'm not sure how I'm going to do a talking points with everything that Dr. Wong talked about. I wanted to stand up and applaud.

But the investment opportunity and legacy, those are the words I will stay with me. And I will make sure that I do share and I do talk about the district. Thank you

Well, I'm probably the only one up here in the diocese that did not grow up and attend schools here in Fillmore. But I have to tell you this is so impressive. The accomplishments that the school district has made just in the last recent years when I first moved here, I didn't see a whole lot of activity going on but the strides that you've accomplished it just astonishes me.

And again kudos to the voters who approved the bond measure. It's amazing to me, and I cannot wait to be able to tour the facilities once they're finished and completed. And just congratulations to you, Superintendent Chevrolet, and the rest of your staff. This has been amazing. Thank you for your hard work.

Thank you guys. Oh, so one last I mean my fellow council members have said a ton which I also agree with and I think you know we here in the city we've seen a little bit of growth you know where the bridges project and so forth. And, you know, I just, I would definitely encourage any new members of the community to come to our schools And check them out because there is so much to be had when you have your kids coming to a local community school.

As was said by the other council members, the relationships you build are so critical to children. One of my nephews grew up, let's say went to a different school district where the number one thing he said that he missed was that he was just a number. He had no relationship because the high school was so big, he couldn't form those relationships with the teachers and with the counselors. And I will tell you from personal experience as well as my children as well as myself That is what Fillmore brings to the table, is your kid is not just a number. Your kid is known by their first name. They know who they are. People know who the family is in this community and you can't put a price on that.

And so many kids benefit from those relationships that are formed early on, from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade. So definitely kudos to everything you guys are doing and it makes us a great community.

There we go. I just be remiss, as council members you know the success is the team and it's... We're so fortunate to have such an amazing superintendent, our assistant superintendent of education Dr. Wong but all of our staff and superintendent kind of went through and walked through the makeup of our staff but specifically our teachers It dawned on me, Superintendent, it would be an interesting statistic to kind of add to our presentations that we do. What percent of our teachers, what percent of our staff are graduates of Fillmore High School?

Councilmember Brogy, a hard time. I've known her for quite a while in Rotary but you know, I give her a hard time and she's a transplant. And the fact that I say that, and Fillmore has changed a lot but it's true that a big chunk of just the board members were alumni at Fillmore and that plays a huge role in that dedication I always say in staff there's things, the educational side and do you have those talents to do the job? But then teaching the heart. You can't teach dedication and heart. You've got to have that passion. And we're so fortunate All of our staff is just so passionate about what they do.