July 25, 2017 Board of Education Regular Meeting Live Stream Pt. 1

001testimony uh just wanted to check let me uh our Bard officer Miss Ward is not here yet just outs just give us one minute long as I'm first that's all that matters Cheryl do we have other non-agenda [Music] okay okay we'll do uh two minutes a piece uh Francine Maxwell citizen Leticia Ramirez Ruiz yenia CA Sosa Erica SAS please come forward Francine Maxwell I'd like for the board to consider us to get ahead of next year's budget deficit that we know may be coming I'd like for the board to ask their one employee How could a special ed teacher be at Morris High School acting as a supervisor for the construction guys was there a post- and bid for that present was that for that position why is that person getting an extra time card

002we're going to find oursel in trouble again we know it but if we can better prepare this year then we would know what's coming so I'd like for us to already begin to have conversations and look at the summer how many extra time cards were given out for non-posting bid positions why is there specialed teachers acting as supervisors over construction that doesn't sound um correct to me as a taxpayer we want to be very smart with our money and we want to make sure that our money is landed where it needs to be on the ground in the classroom we're preparing for um a lot of homeless children and we want to get ahead with them for their programs to make sure that they have everything that they need we want to reach out to

003our partners we want to reach out to community so I'm asking the board to ask their one employee to make the staff send out lists put them in the newspaper of children's needs so that as a community we can go buy extra paper scissors we don't want the teachers to have to keep going in their budget but if we don't ask they will not come so I'd like for us to begin to go out and go to our partners and talk about the line paper the calculators the rulers and not just for the homeless kid but any kid that may need something we want to move away from the teachers always having to use their personal money and we want to go to um our partners our taxpayers and just ask them since you're shopping

004for your child shop for seven more that you might not know their names and this will help build a relationship build a camaraderie with the community schools because nobody is going to save them but us and so but if we don't know what they need if there's people that don't have children in school they don't know the needs we appreciate that Miss Maxwell and a superintendent if you could follow up on that suggestion yeah Tasha go ahead thank you yeah um this Behavior and the lack to provide services without negligence coverups inequality inequities and it appears at times unethical behaviors will require class action lawsuits and massive walkouts you knew 7 months before you informed parents about lead in the water you failed kids with High School AP testing you allow employees to harm kids

005with special needs in schools and then further traumatize the families by calling CPS on the parents that you switch employee schools without proper notification as agreed through your union contracts you push a clown budget with clown presentations not offered to clusters all over the district you left schools without safety plans you violated rights of employees and students you have become a rogue reg regime like Trump Pence and the gang of eight you set up you set us up with a 91.2% graduation rate but the colleges are upset that high schoolers entering College can't write an essay and read a college book you set up your police you set them up for failure put them in danger with the levels of of students versus police we saw some of that earlier this week the you hire

006friends of friends who are not highly qualified and give them six figure salaries you are setting Mr stto up for failure with all of this we're going to ask scripts Ranch the South Bay Schools elementary schools middle schools and high schools to come together for massive walkouts and class action lawsuits against this school district because you continue to do egregious behaviors and you continue to fail them and in order unless we hit your pockets like you continue to fail us you will continue to do the things that you do it's a egregious is wrong I don't know how you guys sleep at night but like I said we're rallying together we'll be at your homes you're going to be uncomfortable just like we are thank you okay citizen Laticia Ramirez Ruiz yenia C the Sosa

007Eric aias Maria tenery and Ashley Byer in loai parai is the legal term for the role of the teacher in the public classroom it is Latin for in lie of the parent or in place of the parent educators are to act in the best interest of the students as a parent would I have to say the teaching going on in Sandy unified is not the teaching that a reasonable person would find acceptable and I call on Educators to bravely speak up on behalf of students like The Brave teacher who refused to teach the sex ad curriculum stating it isn't scientific teachers please join in with parents and exposing this for what it is damaging the well-being of kids parents are in such a tight spot here in regard to opting their kid out from objectionable

008teachings at school opting out isn't a meaningful Choice here kids feel ostracized marginalized and shamed by their teachers and peers if they opt out one mom reluctantly let her child go to the sexed classes even though this mom was against the curriculum because she didn't want her daughter ostracized that eighth grade child reported being traumatized by the curriculum so what is a parent to do how many parents just go along because they don't know what else to do besides no kid can opt out of the toxic School culture that will result from continuing with this pornification of our youth masquerading a sex Health curriculum of the kids who are not opted out there are a lot of parents who don't do not even realize how pornographic the curriculum is this should be an optin curriculum

009and not an opt [Applause] out so there have been five closed sessions um evaluating the superintendent of San Diego Unified School District and yesterday I listened to a father talking about Cindy Martin having a discussion with him and she said I'm not very popular with parents right now that's an understatement she's not popular with staff she's not popular with a citizen she's not popular with students and she's not popular with parents now after five close sessions some of them running from 9:00 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon I think you finally figured out that you've got a superintendent that doesn't know what she's doing she didn't know what what she was doing when she started four years ago and she's been going through reorg charts and uh uh appointing friends right and left

010and she's still lost it's time for Cindy Martin to be pink slipped it's time to get some new leadership in this school [Applause] district hi Ashley Beaver here um I know that you guys have a tremendous task as public servants you've been given the responsibility and entrusted with our most vulnerable and beloved children parents naturally trust teachers they trust schools they trust people who are in charge of uh making decisions about instruction and policy that involve our kids in their daily lives it's imperative that your intention to do good does not end up doing anything any harm as you know our children are not miniature adults their brains especially the adolesence ones don't process like adult brains they assess um risk and reward a whole lot differently than we would um they're not there they're

011not miniature computers to take in data and a ton of information and then spit out all of the best choices there's so many complex issues that are children face and curriculum selection needs to be carefully and thoughtfully vetted to include what parents think are really important and that curriculum in the end does contribute to the overall health of our kids and not end up doing the opposite I often you know as an immigrant I often think of our Refugee families and are non-english speakers my mom was an she was a non-english speaker so anything that happened at school school was interpreted through me and I think about how wholeheartedly our diverse communities have in trusted you with our children we want all of our values and our cultural diversity respected we don't want to be

012told that experts know what's best for our kids and um understand better than what we do what's good for our kids please do everything in your power not to violate this trust thank you thank [Applause] you hi good evening my name is Karen daggi and I woke up yesterday morning knowing I would be here today and just wondering if you individually and as a collective group have stopped to think about maybe even Talk Amongst yourself about why why are there grand jury investigations into this board and why are these these special meetings that I've been hearing about I wonder if you've considered not simply you know validating and justifying your own behavior but really stopping and questioning what is everyone so upset about and are we doing it right or are we doing something wrong

013Our concern is is representing special interests and that that word it's so cliche but do you realize that the issues that are before the board this year are all surrounding smaller groups of people as opposed to the interest of the whole and that seems to be over and over again what the concerns are um so I wonder if you'd actually considered making some changes and we're asking you to represent all of your voters your constituents and doing the best for all of our kids because it's not just us there are quite a few issues that are here saying our the kids of San Diego aren't being represented for the the small smaller interests and we're here to balance that we're asking for you to find balance not just one side or the other but really

014to seek a balance um in all of these major decisions that are causing so much concern right now and so I'm asking just think about it individually and collectively as a group that you have the courage and wisdom to to change the pattern that's been going on so there isn't a need to get rid of you because I'm hearing so much about that and we'd rather have you just do it do your job and and you know let's move in the right direction thank you uh Lily Higman and Jeffrey Bennett hi Lily Hickman here so I'm here today because I am still very hopeful always hopeful um I still have hope that the board will have enough courage to accept the recommendation of the calendar committee Lily that's an agenda item theenda I know but

015I'm talking broader than that okay okay and I'm hoping that you will stand up and have courage to stand up for the community the students the teachers and the families and the employees um Cindy and I haven't connected um but I have heard from those who spoke with her her reason for voting against and this is not just the calendar but a bigger issue the reason that she's voting against the calendar committee's recommendation is basically because she can she uh spoke very pretty words to them she complimented them she boosted their ego but basically what she told them was you know I thought about it and I decided this way was better um so I have said all along I don't really care which way I really think you're I'm not yes you are let's

016um the uh but we we were tasked to do a job and we went out and did that job we asked our constituents and this could be for other things too could be for other non agenda public testimony is to speak to issues that are not on the agenda we will have the calendar item on the agenda and people are free to speak to that item when it comes up um but we ask that you canine your comments to issues that are not on the agenda later on um okay but I'm talking broader if you don't get that I don't know yeah I am W so Cindy you have always said that you wanted to run this uh district from the bottom up and not from the top down and wey and you're not accepting

017that okay thank you okay so board members please have the courage [Applause] hello this I'm Jeff Bennett um I've met most of you and I wanted to thank you guys um for some of the work you guys have made forward in community engagement um one of the things I'm excited about is to see that the joint use um project for Gage is moving forward um thank you um trusty Biser I know you've been working hard on that um another thing that was exciting for us is some of our Spanish imersion teachers were at risk um they were brought back and then it was under we weren't sure if they were going to be able to stay in our community at school and that was able to happen that they're going to be back at our

018school and that means a lot for our community and I wanted to thank you for those strides and I also want to thank uh you superintendent Martin for the conversation we had the other day you reaching out in regards to the calendar committee um and engaging on some of the concerns um that you knew would be coming when you didn't go with the with the direction of the um of the committee and one of the things that came out from that I I believe u in the ation and I want to encourage the whole board and um M Martin is to engage those troubling areas earlier in the process um when there's issues like hey I'm really concerned about this recommendation because make sure that that that that conversation happens with that recommending body so

019that we can work together to find a solution because that's the only way we're going to be moving forward and meeting everyone's needs um and I think that there's a more of that that needs to move forward as we as we move forward as a community so thank you for the work you've done and I encourage you to to push forward in uh as we move forward to improve where we've started thank you thank you Mr okay this completes the non-agenda public testimony for this portion of the meeting if we did not get to you in the first 30 minutes we will also hear non-agenda public testimony at the end of the meeting thank you for your comments and for taking time to address the board and the superintendent today we appreciate your input and

020please know that your perspectives help us to better serve our students parents and the Community I'd like to welcome everyone present today and those watching the broadcast and call the July 25th 2017 regular meeting to order with all board members present and please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance ready to begin I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay thank you if you wish to address the board on any of the agenda items before the board today and your name is not on the speaker list printed on blue paper located at both entrances to the auditorium and if you've not already submitted a request for public testimony form please complete the form and

021submit it to miss Ward our board action officer speakers on agenda items will be be called on to speak during the discussion of the agenda item once discussion begins on an item no additional public speaker request will be accepted by the board uh our bylaws uh uh uh limit agenda items to a maximum of 20 minutes per consent and or action item allowing for a maximum of 10 minutes per opposing Viewpoint public testimony speakers are limited to a maximum of 3 minutes per speaker and depending on the total number of speaker requests received by the board on an item the time may be reduced to two or 1 minute each the time limit for speakers on today's agenda items will be announced at each item okay can we get a motion to adopt move agenda

022second please vote okay and does any board member wish to pull an item from the consent agenda I'll move the superintendent's consent agenda okay second uh please vote you have one item a speaker on i28 oh I'm sorry we do have a speaker on I i28 uh do we want to sois amend I'll amend my motion to move all items except for i28 which will be considered at the end of the meeting okay can we have a vote on the amended motion okay okay Miss Donovan do we have any reportable actions to report out from closed session yes we have one uh the board voted 5 Z to approve a settlement in the matter of parent on behalf of student versus San Diego Unified School District oh case number 924 thank you and uh Miss

023Martin administrative assignments thank you president bar we have the management appointments tonight vice principal for Claremont High School Ethan Williams vice principal for Middle School Nina Dixon marucha vice principal for Hoover High Diane KY vice principal at Language Academy Hernan basa vice principal at Lincoln High School George Smith and the second vice principal at Lincoln High School Sam Koshi vice principal at Madison High School Khloe Medina vice principal at Sarah High School um Elizabeth Gonzalez Ward principal at East Village High School sorry Elizabeth Ward principal East Village High School Mitchell booze principal Emerson Elementary Elizabeth Gonzalez cronister principal at ha Elementary James Lee principal at Kimbro Elementary Steve alzando principal at Perry Elementary M michelene Morales program manager program monitoring Anna Day director financial planning monitoring and account accountability Tom lberto and chief business officer

024Greg ainger okay thank you superintendent and uh can you give us your information report yes all right so as District leaders as District leaders um we know that there are very many difficult decisions that we must make all the time and that's our job and many of those difficult items are on the agenda this evening far and away we know this year some of the toughest decisions that we had to make had to do with budget and our budgets um for the district I want to say that as a board youve showed tremendous leadership in working with District staff to shrink our structural deficit and to balance the budget that leadership is evident and where we are today I'm pleased to report to you tonight that the financial markets have noticed the fiscal restraint and

025actions taken this year by this board and have responded with enthusiasm in fact this month the district issued $195 million in Tax and Revenue anticipation notes to finance the district's general fund cash flow requirements during the 1718 fiscal year the retail order period generated 197 million in orders from 169 retail investors this extraordinary demand is what allowed the district to launch the institutional pricing two basis points lower than the level during the retail order period in the institutional order period the district was able to then generate an additional $300 million in orders from 11 institutional investors this additional demand allowed this District to repic our notes low lower once again to 86% that's the overall absolute lowest rate of all negotiated California note transactions in 2017 I know the language on that is technical but

026the results for our schools is very real as a result of your fiscal restraint and the smart budget solutions that we adopted together we've received the highest short-term note rating from standard and pores resulting in a savings of about a quarter of a percent in interest so for my last board report for the 16 17 school year I'm pleased to report that everyone's hard work has put our district on firm Financial footing for the future and I want to thank you for that thank you thank you super uh board information reports Dr mccy do you want to start so I attended the fifth grade U promotion uh with truste Sharon White her pay and we had an excellent ceremony uh with uh people uh with parents and students and outstanding students speakers who will be

027moving on to middle school and what a group of students they are very very proud of the accomplishments and and and and be able to be present and to accept what what school uh Hamilton Hamilton cor and then um I was also at a m a Madison cluster kickoff for 52 weeks of Science and had a chance to see what they're going to be doing similar to the um the program that we have in bario Logan where they successfully piloted a a 52 weeks of science for students in in in that area and we're picking it up and carrying it to uh to Madison um sort of on a personal note as well as a reminiscing note uh I attended my High School uh class reunion um this last weekend had a chance to reminisce

028and connect with my elementary middle school and high school friends and and it reminded me of the value and the importance of the connections that we make in in in our school years they are lifelong connections with lifelong friendships and um and we want to support and continue uh the quality schools that we have the meaningful uh experiences that we have that will that will have lifelong impact for the children that we are serving Dr Evans yes I just want to mirror the superintendent's remarks um that we are focused on academic Excellence for for all of our students and and also at the same time fiscal responsibility and I know that it's been a very difficult year budget wise but I want to commend the staff for keeping their eye on the ball in terms

029of all the academic goals that we've had during this year in spite of the budget difficulties and for the next year we're really we have as Vision 2020 a focus on quality schools in every neighborhood and we realize we have that goal because we realize that every school does every neighborhood does not have the quality school that they need and so we're going to place a special emphasis on that in the next year in particular schools and then just a brief note on the um 4th of July was a community celebration at uh in University City and it was it was heartening to see that even in the summertime the middle school band turned out to perform uh the band director who was actually already retired uh showed up with with the band and it

030was all the community came together and and I was happy to see that there were people had come up to me that had young families in the community and said they had moved into the neighborhood specifically because of the schools and and the connection with the neighborhood so this is a step we're making the right direction in terms of having qu schools in every neighborhood thank you vice president Biser I've been incredibly busy uh going back to July 4th a lot of community meetings and events uh in scrips Ranch as well as in Miram Mesa uh met with a lot of parents for a variety of reasons over the last couple of weeks um attended and participated in the San Diego LGBT pride festival and parade with uh hundreds of students and parents and teachers

031from San Diego Unified School District um um and I just also want to uh really appreciate everybody in the finance department and all the staff and the directors in every Le level of the school district for all the work that they have put in to try to ensure that we were able to balance our budget and still honor our commitment to class sizes to nursing and teacher ratios and to expanding music to now include 100% of our elementary schools uh thank you again to all the staff for all your hard work in this process thank you Dr whitear pan thank you for this opportunity a couple of things I wanted to comment on the uh CBO uh position and the fact that uh one of the major responsibilities of the board is a budget and

032I um wanted us to be sure to get someone in that position who can help us to Monitor and expand uh our duties in in that area uh I'm optimistic at this point in time that we can do this and that this will be a function and just letting the community know that I will continue to monitor as a board member what's going on in that Arena and um we will not allow our souls to get off track again like we have over the last few years but to stay on task with maintaining our budget I'm grateful I wonder if you know how much money we saved by getting such a low rate with our our bonds but I'm sure we save some monies that uh will be helpful but I'd like us to stay

033on track with our our budget and our our fiscal responsibilities and the only other thing I'd like to report on is the fact that in the Lincoln cluster um we're meeting tomorrow to continue planning on Thursday we have hopefully 100 people coming out we're going to be walking in the community before school starts um to engage the community find out where those students are and get them engaged in uh preparing for school and coming back to school prepared to learn thank you great thank you Dr whiter pay I I went on a um a side visit to uh Perkins Elementary School in bario Logan and uh principal Hernandez and his staff um they often have walking field trips where they want the students to take advantage of their proximity to things like the downtown library

034and the Children's Museum and uh a lot of um uh City resources uh that are uh again just a short walk from the school uh however when doing so the students are confronted with um the realities of homelessness in our uh in our city um it's it's very difficult at times for the students to actually get from school uh downtown and back back uh and the reality is that the homelessness issue in our city is very much uh the homelessness uh issue that we face in our schools Perkins uh students have gone from uh 4% of the students being homeless a few years ago to now approximately 30% of the students being homeless um some of the uh people that we talked to uh uh when we were walking from the school uh downtown were

035homeless themselves and pointing out that uh that they have students at the school at Perkins uh and so uh as a community uh and as a society we really need to pull together the uh School District with our leaders at the city level at the county level at the state level um we have a crisis in this community and it and it tangibly affects you know our students uh every day and so the um the walking toward Perkins I I thank principal Hernandez for taking leadership to uh bring attention to the issue uh I also thank principal Dave Downey at uh Wilson Middle School we had the Wilson promotion uh uh last week we're done and I just want to point out that thank you for can you finish your last I will we will

036be done I'll even confine it to agenda items the uh the uh the new principal at Hoover High School who's just going to be starting Jason Babino um was there and accepted the promoting students at Wilson and welcomed them to the Hoover campus so it was great to see that connection between middle uh Wilson middle and Hoover High School okay okay let's move on to item E1 and this is our uh Vision 2020 quality schools in every neighborhood lcap go 4 this is a focus on the district's Wellness initiative including our health education and Sexual Health curriculum and adoption of revisions to the district's wellness policy superintendent Martin thank you president Barrera I'll invite up Michelle Bell and her team to begin to present this item her large team and what I'll what I'll say

037about this item as they're Gathering um as I want everybody to know this you put did a tremendous job putting this report together and because of time constraints of a meeting you're not going to be able to show the whole report but I encourage the public and I know the board has done their due diligence in reading the full report because there are many aspects of this work that is deeply integrated and very important and meaningful to our students and it is a very inspirational report but it's also very Concrete in terms of deliverables and things that we're doing on behalf of our students and the and you will not in the time that you have be able to do it full Justice ice and I just think your work is impeccable and the um

038way that you promote wellness and give specific supports to our students around our school wellness program and the wellness centers and employee wellness and advocacy for wellness it's across the whole district and I think it's a model for the nation and I'm very proud of the work that you do and we want to hear um what you have to present with us tonight thank you very much we appreciate that thanks so while the the screens are coming up I just want to say um on behalf of our entire team within the district I'm Michelle Bell and I oversee nursing services for the district I apologize for my heness of voice but I've been interviewing for the last week and a half and I've been doing a lot of talking as director of wellness it's not

039because you're not well though corre I'm fine I'm perfectly fine I just this tired voice and this is Kate mcdevit she is the Department's Wellness supervisor and then behind us we have our some of our members of our Wellness committee as far as well as out in the audience so if they could just stand up the wellness committee that's in the audience because we want to be very mindful of your time I definitely appreciate their participation as well sorry do you have the screen sure oh well it's coming up I'll also talk about the Michelle the dedication of your staff I know many you and your staff are actually not even on calendar right now but you're so dedicated to this initiative and our policies here that I'm very appreciative that you're all here tonight

040um in force to present together as a team thanks that I mean we're definitely happy to be here so I'm just going to go off my my particular screens you guys have it in your your notebooks um we as a district acknowledge the strong relationship between student health and learning and we as a district understand that we have to put that passion forward for our students so besides my department there's a collective number of people people here tonight that are going to speak on behalf of what that wellness policy actually says and the initiative that we're putting forward on behalf of the students in our district so if we took take a look at the health and achievement there are specific indicators where we know that kids aren't coming to school on a regular basis

041for taking a look at asthma bullying uh oral health uh food insecurities mental health issues teen pregnancies and vision related issues those are our top focuses Within our department so how do we use that those resources within our department and our other departments to meet the needs of our students um how does that impact achievement it's it takes a look at the the uh performance of our students the test performance of our students the classroom behavior of our students and then the connectedness to our students and that's really a big piece of what the wellness policy is trying uh to look at as well as the initiative of what we're trying to do is bring that connectedness of our students really to our schools and create that quality School in every neighborhood um because we

042want to make sure that when our kids leave our doors they're as successful as they can be but it's not a one Department initiative this is an entire initiative that starts with you as the board and the superintendent and works our way down to the site level Personnel um when we look at our policy as a whole we're looking at the district policy and then the council at the the district level then we look at the site level and how are we going to roll that out we have 178 leads that the site principles have identified and they are the ones that at the site level are helping us with the implementation roll out we have the six wellness centers which we've kind of discussed uh before at the principal I mean at the superintendent

043updates um and then our employee wellness program which we'll have people here that are going to talk about that tonight and then just the whole advocacy for wellness with our district partners just oh sorry Sher um when you look at the components and I know this is a little hard to see but the policy actually consists of nine well actually truly it consists of 10 uh um subsets we wrote our policy and framework to combine two of them together so we're actually looking at nine the reasons why we're doing this is because it's evidence-based it's student centered and it helps us ultimately meet our legal requirements um the people that are here tonight with me are part of the team I'm just one member of the team um I help us all coordinate the services

044that we need to coordinate but I would like to go ahead and and start with each person that need that will be presenting take a minute one of the uh cameraman accidentally hit the emergency exit door bar what stationid [Applause] [Music] um h how it what have to do and you thought it wasn't going to be exciting tonight hello just talk really loud okay so we're what we're going to do is explain how the framework and each one of the Departments that are here tonight to to talk about the work that we're doing within the committee ultimately focuses really down to the site level be using my voice as I go through this talk about two components of [Music] thec can you hear me now and could you introduce yourself hi I'm Katrina mclanahan I

045teach adapted physical education I'm here to talk to you about two components of the wellness policy physical education and physical activity we recognize the link between healthy children and academic performance we acknowledge the challenges within this large Urban School District to address the health needs of our diverse student population through the wellness policy we have focused our resources within and outside the district to implement these positive changes for our students next slide I am the Lead Teacher for the adapted physical education department Becky Paradise the other adopted PE lead and Lyn Barnes Wallace the resource teacher for physical education for the district together we have been collaborating on this project for many years we recognize that obesity is a Health crisis across our nation and not confined to our [Applause] district that's for you but

046what can we do for our students the three of us focused on four areas we engage students to be part of the solution we focused on professional development we sought outside funding to support critical needs areas and we developed relationships and Partnerships with Community Partners these Maps were created by Kerney high school students we engaged Kerney High School GIS and medical pathway students to interpret data in this case body mass index and help identify areas of need basically we have our own Think Tank within our district with our cury students next slide in the areas of Partnerships there's a lot of information on this SL on these slides so I'm just going to highlight a little bit of it our partnership with the Sano County Office of Education enabled us to co-create the physical education

047Leadership Academy this is a year-long instruction to improve our fitness gram scores next Slide the partnership we have with the American Heart Association and the grant we received from Ron Roberts has enabled us to uh certify students in handson CPR in the fifth 7th and Ninth Grade we're really excited about this next Slide the partnership with the drowning prevention Foundation of San Diego the YMCA and Jamba Juice positively impacted over over 1,200 students in general and special education this helped provide free swimming lessons for our kids next slide we expanded our Partnerships with Special Olympics this year to increase inclusion for all students through multiple events actually this is the most events within our district with Special Olympics next Slide the next component is going to be about physical activity next slide our partnership with

048our KY High School GIS and medical pathway students helped us identify the areas of need to focus on those interventions because of this partnership our students won Top Awards in California they also presented their findings at Live Well San Diego Conference next slide this multifaceted partnership supported the IMPACT Program our grant from Target enabled us to positively impact over 2,000 students through increasing movement and physical activity during their school day next slide this is the longest standing partnership that we have had within the district to support physical activity through action-based learning action-based learning is developed on Research that supports the link between movement and academic performance we have provided over 10 years of professional development for District staff we as a district has rece we have received the national showcase award for action based learning

049and approximately over those 10 years over 30,000 students have been positively impacted next slide so as you can see in closing we are working collaboratively across many departments and discipline for the common good and health of all students we continue to need your support and guidance as we move forward if you have any questions or would like to obtain any other information please contact us but remember that every healthy step is a step in the right direction hi my name is Amy garfinkle and I'm the food core service member uh within food nutrition services within food nutrition services we strive to not only nourish students with healthy meals but also to empower students to make their own healthy food choices so this year we served about 22 million uh meals healthy meals to our students

050and that includes breakfast lunch snack and supper we stocked 338 salad bars in 182 schools every day with a selection of fresh fruits and vegetables we increase student accessibility to breakfast through Innovative programs like breakfast in the classroom in 68 schools and nutrition break in 13 schools and nutrition break is a like a second chance breakfast between first and second period in secondary schools we also purchased an abundance of seasonal local and organic fruits through our uh Harvest of the month program next slide we continued our California Thursdays program which offers students a completely California grown lunch each Thursday one example of a California sourced entree is our Mary's antibiotic free chicken drumstick which we cook from scratch next slide so next year we hope to implement more breakfast in the classroom and nutrition break

051programs and additional schools in order to further increase student accessibility we also hope to work with principles to implement recess before lunch in more schools and we intend to add more technology into our school kitchens which will allow us to cook more meat from scratch uh slicy uh freshly sliced whole vegetables make smoothies from scratch and take on other such scratch cooking Endeavors next slide we started our love food not waste program in September in conjunction with sdusd recycles and feeding San Diego and the goal is to recover and rescue food from our school kitchens that would otherwise go to the landfill state law AB 1826 requires schools to divert organic waste from the landfill by 2019 in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conserve landfill space to date we have rescued 112,000 lbs

052of food and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 65,000 we're excited to expand next year also about 25 schools participate in Cafe to compost turning leftover solid bar scraps into compost for their school Gardens next slide and now I'll talk about our Department's contributions to the health education component of the wellness policy next slide uh we incorporate nutrition education into our work as much as we can one example is in our Harvest of the month program where we have um in-house created virtual farm field trip videos that teachers can show in their classrooms to teach their students about the local farmers who grew their food uh we also had our fifth food cor service member this year me and I led Hands-On nutrition education and cooking lessons in elementary schools next slide we estimate that there

053are about 120 School Gardens throughout the district school Gardens are almost all volunteer run uh but we support them when we can so one of our support systems is Garden to Cafe we certify schools to serve their Garden grown produce on their school salad bars this year our participating schools harvested a total of 464 pounds of fresh produce for their cafeterias and we hope to certify more schools in the coming year thank you hello I'm Rachel Miller the resource teacher for the sexual health education program California Ed code has two new requirements or numerous new requirements closer to the mic please it's on ises this better all right okay I'm here hi I'm Rachel Miller in a resource teacher in the sexual health education program uh California Ed code in for sexual health education has

054new requirements now and these include two main objectives in all sexual health education K through 12 K through 12 that all sexual health education must affirm all different sexual orientations and promote sexuality as a normal part of human development as you can see from our diverse committee members we then set about selecting new curriculum that aligned with the new law as well as the district needs we reviewed many curricula selected the best one that we felt was good for our needs and the board approved this curriculum in July 2016 the curriculum is written by advocates for youth an organization that's considered a leader in the field in sexuality education in the United States advocates for youth has numerous Partnerships with the Centers for Disease Control and prevention to implement exemplary sexual health education in districts

055across the US they also wrote a curriculum rights respects responsibility or the 3 RS which is the curriculum that was adopted for our district and this curriculum is highly regard Ed implemented in hundreds of districts across the country including such large districts such as New York City and Boston and Denver public schools as well as numerous districts in California including Oceanside Sweetwater and Sacramento school districts we communicated this change to parents and Guardians via letters home from school sites School site curriculum preview events and a community Forum here at the Ed Center in February 2017 that included a curriculum preview a presentation a panel discussion and Q&A we also trained over 300 staff to implement the curriculum next slide please and the curriculum implementation this school year was very successful teacher feedback showed that the

056curriculum was well received by students and staff and also that students were highly engaged with the new 3 hours lessons 85% of teachers who responded to our survey found that the curriculum was age appropriate and in the other 15% numerous teachers claimed that the curriculum actually needed more information and that the students wanted more there's an easy defined tab on our program website that explains to people how they can excuse their child from the instruction it's very prominent on our program website the process that opt a child out of the instruction is very simple and straightforward they just provide a written note to their classroom teacher asking them their child to be excused from the instruction these instructions to opt a child out are also on a letter sent home to all students who might

057receive the instruction and again clearly displayed on our program website um my name is Howard teris I'm the district physician consultant and um I'm going to talk about uh the school health services provided by our nurses and those who they delegate to uh for one uh chronic diseases there are literally tens of thousands of kids with chronic diseases in this district and I'm um never ceased to be amazed at how well our nurses uh coordinate uh the management from everything as common as asthma to a very very extremely rare diseases and extremely disabling diseases that uh render children um very medically fragile and they they do a great job and it it's consistent year after year uh despite the complexity um the second thing on that slide is care coordination and despite the very high

058numbers that are recorded for care coordination I would like to see things structured differently so um they can actually be higher and I will go over that um for what I mean on the next slide um um the third thing on that slide was acute and Emergency Care back to the previous please um acute and Emergency Care um that is something that is provided by school and nurses inside offices as well as the people they delegate it to I believe that that um some of that uh can be delegated even more um and um next slide um Direct Services um some of them are mandated such as hearing and vision screens other ones such as the flu shots the school-based clinics and the dental screens are things that we provide to increase uh the number

059of children that are present in school and they're very targeted to um to families that need those Services the most um um and last on number five you'll see the um services that I think that um we're going to focus on over the next year um one is um to focus a lot on absences student absences are often attributed to illness um by drilling down to these absences um School nurses can uh better accommodate these children with all kinds of special uh needs in the school um Plus we can help parents um assess whether kids can actually come to school or not um despite uh recovering from certain illnesses and having different symptoms so we are working with United Way with attendance Works which is a California school Health Alliance uh with dollars from Kaiser

060and uh we are doing some chronic absenteeism pilots in about 26 schools um the second thing that we would like to see occur more is um the case management um regarding underachievement poor Behavior poor motivation and substance abuse we believe that many teachers see these problems in the school and they are not necessarily ever refer to the health system or even to the counselors um um part of it is doing more trauma informed care restorative justice and teaching uh staff how to use those um but a lot of it is making um a lot of teachers realize that a lot of the behaviors that they display may be result of health problems anything from sleep sleep to um emotional issues that are occurring in the home and that we have um a lot of Community

061Partners that we can um uh refer these kids to once um they are referred to us um in Health Services thank you Kate mcdevit Wellness supervisor I want to start this section on social emotional Wellness by acknowledging that our district has included social emotional Wellness as part of our comprehensive framework this is atypical of many of the districts across the country and I'm proud that our district sees the importance of mental health and social emotional well-being of our students and I'd like to really honor the work that our guidance counseling and guidance school police and Mental Health Services have done to support this work in our district Wellness Council and Beyond next slide uh today we want to especially um recognize the San Diego unified mindfulness initiative which has been a a great part of

062our Wellness uh work this year um through this initiative they have done comprehensive trainings for staff they have um brought the mindfulness programming to students throughout our district and we've been working closely with our departments uh internally and our Community Partners externally to really make the social emotional learning of our students a priority next slide good evening oh I got to get closer good evening my name is Andrea eaten I'm the maintenance planning senior coordinator at Po and I'm speaking about employee Wellness um at po four years ago we started a wellness committee as a goal of leveraging our existing benefits as District employees and utilizing our relationship with Viva schools today as a district we are a high utilizer of I'm sorry you can go the next slide we're a high utilizer of Viba

063Services Wellness services and we've created created an employee Wellness subcommittee of which I am the chair we've received recognition from the American Heart Association for our um Wellness employee Wellness activities and we've established extensive Community Partnerships with the goal um next slide of really enhancing our Wellness activities um with staff we're continuing to facilitate the formation of Wellness committees at all of our admin sites as well as increasing staff and Leadership engagement next slide um as part of our Wellness framework we acknowledge the very important role that family and communities play in this work next slide um we'd like to especially today recognize all of the Community Partners and family members who have been a part of our district Wellness Council as well as our School site Wellness committees um this list is so long

064that I would not be able to uh use our time wisely if I were to list all of them but we thank them um tremendously we're going to acknowledge two of our national Partners Alliance for healthier generation has been working with our school district for several years now and they have a cohort of 16 schools that have been receiving um special technical assistance to support Wellness within the school community and we are so proud that this year they were recognized two of our schools as the healthiest schools in America at the bronze level next slide um in addition uh we have had wonderful support from Kaiser Permanente through their thriving schools program and they have as you can see provided our schools with Grant funds um in the $50,000 this year for um several of

065our schools which are outlined here we thank them for that support and we we know that that is helping us to move this work forward um we also want to um just recognize that one of our School nurses at Rosa Parks Elementary this year was recognized as one of the honorable champ champions for thriving schools so a special congratulations to Martha badget Sanchez next slide as we look at our district Wellness initiative uh collectively this is truly the work of many many departments across our district as well as our community and our families and our Community Partners we're so grateful to the media for the coverage that they have provided of our school Wellness efforts um we have had the chance recently to present at the state and National level about our Wellness initiative and

066in one of those presentations a national partner said that San Diego unified is now a shining star for uh California and a national example of what Wellness can look like um so we're very proud of that and we're also very proud of our Kerney students for the two State Awards they recently won for the BMI project that was referenced earlier next slide as we um close out the year um our School site Wellness committees did provide end ofe reports and we're so pleased to see as you can see here that as a result of the school site Wellness efforts 93% have an increased awareness of District wellness policy 90% of the resources available and you can see there's truly a better understanding of the correlation between the health of our students and their academic and

067uh achievement next slide um as we think about the work that's been done this year um we want to thank all of our Community Partners um thank the School site Wellness coordinators at 178 School sites that helped us to do this work and the success that we've had next slide and as we look to the Future um we look to provide public update um we really would like to increase our family engagement and continue to provide opportunities for our community to work with us on this work next slide um we will be focusing on a couple of key areas for schoolside implementation i' just highlight here active academics will be a key strategy that we're working on as well as um healthy celebrations and mental health awareness next slide and I want to conclude by

068just saying that in the coming year we would like youth to be at the center of this work this is student centered work and we will be asking for youth Champions to come up to the Ambassador and help us to create a culture of change to support health and wellness thank you next slide wow really a terrific presentation thank you um yeah really we we have uh several public speakers that have signed up and so uh we'll allow two minutes each I'd like to make a motion um to approve this program and with a couple of comments that uh in the past there's been some objectional material through links that was not part of our sexual curriculum that that be that that be continue to be cleared up and when parents find that objectional material

069let us know and that's handled and and secondly uh in terms of when parents do not want their children to participate it's the parents decision not necessarily the children's that we respect that personal belief and and make an effort not to make uh them stigmatized in terms of doing that we do the same thing when we have pre lunch we have different cards and programs that don't differentiate the students so we need to find a way to make that as as little stigma stigmatized as as possible so with those two things I would like I'll second your motion make the motion great thank you let let me also just clarify that what the board is being asked to adopt tonight is actually only the resolutions to the current District wellness policy h770 including the conversion

070to csba format numbering for board policy 5030 policy does not include any specific references to Sexual Health curriculum however it does state that the district will provide health education curriculum that aligns to or surpasses the requirements of California Ed code and the guidelines of the national health education standards slides 24 and 25 talked about what we're doing but the action you're taking tonight um it includes those two slides but no action is being requested on Sexual Health curriculum just to clarify your it's just I'm still in the total sure I'm still adding those two coms okay okay um we'll allow for two minutes a piece for public speakers is Dr Weber here or a representative um from Dr Weber's office no okay Rebecca hook held uh Karen D JY Judy newfeld Fernandez Edward estada Colleen

071cusac Angelica Wilson Ben cartright Amanda Lee and Derby Pat Andale Rebecca go ahead good evening my name is Rebecca held and I'm here on behalf of the San Diego LGBT community center to speak in support of the district's implementation of the board approved rights respect and responsibility curriculum that aligns with the California healthy youth act we support the district's curriculum because we know it is medically accurate age appropriate unbiased inclusive and meets the needs and mandates of the California healthy youth act and we applaud San Diego Unified School District for having its comprehensive sexual education curriculum vetted by a team of experts we support the curriculum because research shows that providing age appropriate comprehensive sexual health education earlier is beneficial to youth in preventing unplanned pregnancies reducing STI rates delaying onset sexual activity and instilling

072heal healthy behaviors thank you for your leadership and commitment to ensuring San Diego students receive comprehensive medically accurate and inclusive sexual education thank you thank [Applause] you okay I'd like to to clarify that our group is not against sex ed we recognize state law requires that sex health is taught and that the district desires to help students develop healthy sexual attitudes and behaviors through curriculum selection and classroom instruction young people should be taught age appropriate and medically accurate facts they need to be equipped with proven tools to develop and maintain healthy relationships now and into the future however advocates for youth rights respect and responsibility curriculum Illustrated in page 111 before each of you this evening is not medically accurate nor is it age appropriate and it is not values free facts afy curriculum attempts

073to cover very complex sexual issues and does not take into consideration ad adolescent brain development or emotional development of our 11year olds it overloads sixth graders with mature information why not even handling the basics of puberty until the 8th grade curriculum it proposes that sexual behaviors like bathing together and mutual masturbation are important for 11year olds but it doesn't share the benefits of delaying sexual activity and it ignores the healthy youth acts legal requirement that abstinence must be a key component of the curriculum and here it's a minor Point these are huge issues kids are not are unnecessarily sexualized through graphic sexual content even porn and roleplay scenarios which make makes them and their teachers very uncomfortable we represent a majority of the culturally diverse families of this district and thousands of parents told us

074they were shocked when we discovered the content of this radical curriculum the law states that parents have the ultimate responsibility for imparting values to their children about sex not the schools this curriculum is unlawful because it's teaching values that are against what most parents in this District are teaching their kids and want their schools to be teaching their kids and teachers have told us they're afraid to speak out but they don't want to teach this either so all we're asking you is the best curriculum and work with us to find the best curriculum for our kids thank you very much thank [Applause] you I've brought um our petition today with nearly 2,000 signatures of parents and community members in support of suspending advocates for youth 3 R curriculum exposing our children to graphic sexual details

075like the curriculum does promotes misogyny and contributes to a sexually harassing culture on campuses it teaches our kids that they are essentially sex objects that there is a catalog of safer sexual activities for them to engage in consequence free an example of how this curriculum takes it too far is from one of the homework U websites real stories having a healthy hookup hookups make pretty popular choices for people our age sometimes we just want to have a good safe fund without the pressure and responsibility of serious long-term relationships and guess what that's fine normal and one done the right way healthy who thinks that this is good advice for middle school or high school students Common Sense tells us otherwise we need you guys to be with us on this we need you to partner

076with us in our responsibility of parenting our kids to be responsible community members we'd rather use our energies to work with you the recent Harvard study the talk talks about how young people are really struggling with healthy romantic relationships and says that this casual sex is overestimated and makes teens feel embarrassed and shamed and pressured to engage in sex prematurely that's why we reject the advocates for youth 3 RS curriculum we reject it because it is a hookup cultured misogynistic porn primer masquerading a sexual health there is a better way to handle this we know that our community is really diverse and we are willing to work on it together and respect for the district take another look locate and age appropriate curricul that respects our role as parents and better represents our shared Community

077Values thank you pornography of Public Health crisis how pornography fuels sex trafficking child exploitation and sexual violence your curriculum is peppered with the message to Children pornography is normal and okay even though it's illegal for children under 18 to view it it advocates for used premise is that students have sexual rights so they need access to all information the stated intent sounds so good to develop healthy attitudes about sexuality and reality afy is putting students In Harm's Way by promoting porn as normal and exposing kids to graphic content not suited for their stage of development porn addiction in a child's brain is so rapid it's more rapid neurologically than in an adults afi's message is not medically and scientifically accurate rather it is encouraging illegal miners porn use that is harmful our schools are the

078last place where porn should be normalized you may be familiar with Julie melons and my long miles long the cartoon that's part of this curriculum this is afy response to student question about pornography and the afy seert mentions no one's checking your age when you vew porn and the messy is clearly promotional check out the adult porn websites that pop up when you go to the Julie melons Channel you get hardcore adult to adult porn afy experts tell a 15-year-old girl that masturbating to porn is normal while she is underage the student is encouraged to use porn when it's illegal for children to be given porn or to use it why is this expert not alerting her to the medical medically scientifically proven fact that porn is is addictive and users need increasingly more graphic

079and often violent porn to reach climax this teen resource is a website for do-it-yourself sex toys for teenagers the partnered Edition they already covered um how to make your own vibrators at home because you can't go to a brick and mortar store and purchase them we're going to teach you how to make them with rubber bands and flipflops okay thank you we need you to stop this new drug in our school porn is as addictive as drugs thank you thank you the Supreme Court acknowledges that parents have the primary us your name please Dean BRS Dean BRS thank you parents have the primary responsibility to educate their children I'm counsel for the parents and with the national Center for Law policy parents have the primary responsibility to educate their children the California healthy youth act

080affirms this including the rights of parents to provide input into the sex head curriculum and opt out social science confirms that approximately 75% of this district and its families are religious they include Muslims Buddhists Hindus Mormons Jews Catholics Christians and others America's commitment to Religious Freedom requires respect and tolerance But the Sex program defames and undermines people of Faith by suggesting that religious beliefs about sex are unreliable and biased this false and bigoted presumption presented here is that secular resources like Planned Parenthood and advocates for youth are always good and accurate and while real Rel religious resources are always bad and inaccurate furthermore significant portions of this pornographic misogynistic sexually corrupting sex program directly conflict with sincerely held religious beliefs and practices or sexual ethics of these religious groups and these Faith groups in our

081community including but not limited to a a desire to teach abstinence education which the California healthy youth act actually requires and is undermined and actually attacked by this program tolerance is a 2-a street sdd should be partnering with religious communities rather than attacking them in a free Nation it is not the proper role of the state to divert religion undermine parents and corrupt our children parents should be deciding what is age appropriate for their children not the ACLU not plan par and not the state thank [Applause] you Colleen cusac I'm the parent of a junior in the San San Diego Unified School District I'm also a criminal defense attorney and an educator and curriculum designer San dieg uni San Diego Unified School District's Board of Education needs to continue to stand with students to protect

082the current comprehensive medically accurate inclusive sexual health education curriculum like any parent I only want the best for my son including the best education I want my son to understand and respect how his body and other bodies work and to have comprehensive reproductive Health knowledge I want him to respect all other people and to understand there are a variety of sexual orientations not all of which he'll ascribe to and that others are normal and okay I want them to honor human diversity and feel a sense of Pride and to grow up and have to have healthy relationships including healthy sexual relationships I do not want my son to ever feel shame for his body or about sex there is no reason for that it is my obligation as a parent to prepare my child for

083successful adulthood and I have done so while parents can of course supplement the understanding of the sexual health education that their children learn in school that should not be able to limit that understanding for all other students it is not too much too soon it is not enough and not early enough my son asked me about sex my son asked me about sex when he was in second grade and I told him truthfully how it how babies come into this world he had already talked to his friends at that point they had already told him that women lay eggs I have a friend whose son was bullied and outed for being gay in high school that led to his eventual suicide this is important for the well-being of all children thank you thank [Applause] you

084good evening my name is Derby pattingill I have two students in San Diego Unified School District I've spent quite a bit of time looking at the sexual health curriculum much in response to some of the concerns that some of the parents have brought up tonight I do not feel that the curriculum promotes pornography I do not feel it provoke it encourages sexual behavior I do believe it gives our students critical information that they need gives them tools to help them navigate the internet and work within social media responsibly I believe it promotes dialogue between families and I believe it promotes healthy relationships so now everybody speaking tonight I know that they love their children and want the best for their children just want to remind the board that not all families are the traditional nuclear

085family and not all students fit into nice neat little categories I thank you for accepting this curriculum it is inclusive and Progressive thank you very [Applause] much hello my name is Amanda Le I'm here on behalf of the American civil liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial counties which supports comprehensive sexual educ health education all sex education including sixth grade in sixth grade must align with and support the purposes of the California healthy youth act which include providing students with the Knowledge and Skills that they need to develop healthy attitudes concerning adolescent growth and development body image gender sexual orientation relationships marriage and family and ensuring that students understand that sexuality is a normal part of human development we have a responsibility to equip our young people with all the information they need to make

086healthy decisions that will impact their future and that includes quality comprehensive sex education consent body image bullying delaying sexual activity HIV education and sexual orientation are covered in this curriculum and are important conversations to have in our homes in our schools and this community the district has an obligation to students and to the law to adopt and teach compliant instruction which it has done right rights respect and responsibility has been reviewed by a committee of experts convened by the California adolescent Sexual Health work group and is compliant with the law and effective it's crucial to continue using the three Rs and make clear to our students and community that the district takes seriously its obligation to provide fact-based lgbtq inclusive sex sex education that complies with the law that encourages parent child communication and that

087has been proven to be effective in reducing negative sex sex ual Health outcomes we thank San Diego unified for its commitment to ensuring San Diego's students receive the support and information they need and which the law [Applause] requires hi I'm Angie Sano I'm a registered nurse I've worked for 27 years and I'm in a postpartum nursing we hear a lot about bullying it can happen anywhere that there's an imbalance of power strong on weak the height of bullying is molestation of a child by an adult that is important to consider because you will hear the term sexual rights the term sexual rights and this curriculum advocates for youth go hand inand that term comes from the sexual philosophy of a man named Kinsey look up Kinsey reports he illegally used children for his research subject

088sexual experiments were conducted on children by pedophiles children as young as 2 months old as a researcher pedophile and Bully keny's philosophy was not that children had the right to be protected from powerful adults no the philosophy he promoted is that children have the right to be sexual well isn't that convenient for a pedophile let me tell you that when I went to that birthday party as a 9-year-old I didn't want to have I wasn't interested in sexual rights I was interested in being protected by healthy adults healthy Society healthy laws and a healthy government from a pedophile and Bully who was molesting girls for his pleasure so where do we see this philosophy in this curriculum take the book perfectly normal It's Perfectly Normal look at it it's a supplemental book for advocates for

089youth curriculum it has pictures of children masturbating when child advocate and teacher Judy Fernandez saw the book for the first time she said what that's what a predator would use to desensitize a child to begin having sex with them I submit to you that this government sponsored curriculum opens the way for bullies to pray on children for their own pleasure we must stand against Bad government whenever it shows up thank you we can and must work together for to find something better for our community please let's work together thank you thank [Applause] you okay Judith newfeld Fernandez Claire Douglas Carrie Rudolph Crystal Slusher Tracy provin Claire Douglas bre sco Karen Lamere go ahead if I called your name just please come forward hi I'm Carrie rudol I'm here to read you a letter from the

090president of advocates for youth uh Dear Mr Barrera and Miss Martin I am pleased to submit this letter in support for your sexual health education program and its benefits to the students of the San Diego Unified School District and their families we are a national nonprofit with over 35 years of experience supporting schools training teachers and creating curricula and resources in support of comprehensive sexual Ed health education our rights respect responsibility the three Rs a k through 12 sexuality education curriculum from which 30 lessons have been adapted and adopted for the use and this district is based on the the national sexuality education standards aligned with the California healthy youth act and meets all 16 criteria of the Exemplar sexual health education as set forth by the federal Centers for Disease Control and prevention since

091its released in 2016 over 50 school districts have begun using the three Arts curriculum including New York City New York Denver Colorado Boston Massachusetts Washington DC Philadelphia Pennsylvania and Portland Oregon just to name a few the students in San Diego univ school district have the right to the most up-to-date science-based health information and the current sexual health education program provides students with this information we cannot protect young people by keeping them in the dark we want our children to make healthy decisions form healthy relationships and have healthy Futures then we need to provide sexual health information or education that's factual begins when they are young and covers the information and skill they need to know as they grow older public health research clearly demonstrates the positive impact of sexual health education including in including increases

092in student academic success delay and onset of sexual activity reduction in the number of sexual partners and increases in the use of effective contraception in including condoms when students do have sex California leads the country in providing students with sexual health education that young people need to safeguard their health and protect their lives to reverse I there thank you care [Applause] I get nervous doing this hi my name is Tracy provin and I am a sixth grade math and science teacher at Lewis Middle School in La Gardens as well as a parent of a Marvin student and a Lewis student um I'm speaking in favor of this sexual health education program I used to teach seventh grade science 10 years ago 10 for 10 years in kah Valley Union School District from 1994 to 2004

093and when I saw this curriculum and I was taught I needed to teach us um I was thrilled with it and the inclusiv inclusiveness of it unlike the previous curriculum I used to teach um being able to explain the difference between gender identity gender expression sexual attraction orientation is necessary in today's world um as teachers we explain these topics in a scientific and informal way we are not teaching porn or anything else they think we're teaching we're teachers and um we are not encouraging kids to be gay or straight or trans or whatever but we're giving them the knowledge to understand these terms when they hear these terms in the world world um this leads to respect for others and creates less bullying teasing and name calling it is not too much too soon information

094is power and and 10 days informative um scientific knowledge as a person with life experience of close friends who are transgender gay as well as an educator I believe that this Cur culum will move towards a more inclusive and accepting society that will reduce shame and mental illness for lgbtq kids and youth with our youth when our youth are healthy which this is teaching as healthy choices and abstinence it does teach abstinence as a key by the way those people who don't think that it does um our youth our future Generations will leave successful and healthy lives thank you thank you good evening my name is Crystal Slusher I'm here today as a parent of an entering ninth grader I've seen the news coverage and the previous board meeting footage regarding the advocates for youth

095Sexual Health curriculum I've also read every lesson in this curriculum and I would like to know off hand how many people in this room have but I have read it thoroughly um and I can say that as a parent I'm excited for my child to participate in these high school lessons I fully support this curriculum and I find the themes of honest communication healthy relationships and overall respect that are woven throughout the lessons to be extremely important I know that those who oppose this curriculum are organized motivated and very very loud they're also very mistaken arguments I've heard especially today um against the curriculum most of them are based on Incorrect and misleading assumptions I can assure you that Kinsey pornography hookups and misogyny are simply not a part of the curriculum I want to

096point out that websites that may be referenced in small portion in a limited capacity in one particular lesson are not a part of the curriculum itself that's one small portion of a website that's used for one particular reason the whole entire website not a part of the curriculum a thorough reading of the lessons should eliminate any doubt as to the appropriateness of the curriculum I know it can be difficult to stand strong in the face of opposition but I'm here to remind you that your responsibility is to all of our students students who deserve access to factual medically accurate evidence informed instruction so they'll be able to be properly equipped to make healthy informed choices throughout their lives finally I'm here to encourage you all to have the strength and integrity to stand by the

097curriculum that you've already approved and not to bow to the pressure of any of these unfounded concerns don't let the efforts of met informed deter you from providing this education hi uh my name is BR shock I'm also a parent uh of a student at San Diego Unified District I want to start by saying thank you to the board I know you have to to weigh a lot of different um competing interests in the in the uh community and so I I salute you for uh for that job um I want to start off also by um addressing the nature of understanding um it is one of Humanity's core drives to understand the world around them uh from a scientific perspective a cultural perspective Etc uh so I I'm here to be for the U

098the curriculum I'm here uh in support of the curriculum and in support of understanding each other um I also want to suggest that um exaggerated disingenuous exaggerations should not drive your decision here today um there is this sense of us and them and um I believe that we are all the same nobody is better than anybody else that when you dehumanize another then you are on a very very horrible path um that that is that is not Humane that is not part of our our shared Humanity so um I encourage you to to take those to heart to take those ideas to heart to um stick with your original Vote for This curriculum and um that's all I have thank you thank you [Applause] hi my name is Karen lamp here I am co-leader of

099the reproductive Justice group at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego um I am here to support your courage in um providing comprehensive and age appropriate um information to help ensure the reproductive health of our students I am the mother of a successful well-informed self-aware 22-year-old who is the product of the San Diego City school system so I want to thank you for that as an aside um so much has been said that I agree with that I'll keep my remark short I believe information is power information is empowering and by providing again age appropriate medically accurate information we're empowering our children to make healthy decisions they we're empowering them to respect them eles to respect others and again to make healthy decisions so I applaud your efforts in this area thank you thank

100you okay Derek burner nazine nabiis John Moore summer Boger and Mr Brooks is there any preferred order no please just go ahead my name is John Moore I'm a retired businessman engineer and resident of the city of San Diego San Diego Unified High School students failed the high school exit exam at a rate of 70% for several years only 30% passed as of 2015 what proof shows that public schools are better at teaching sex ed than they are at preparing students for the high school exit exam at one at what point does a graphic depiction of various sexual acts uh cross from instruction to pornography at what point does instruction become promotion and approval of sexual acts among children sexual allegations against teachers from molesting students in California jumped 70% in 2014 to 328 cases

101according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune March 28 2015 California statistics show teacher abuse allegations have doubled in less than 10 years in the same article Terry Abbott a former US Department of Education Chief of Staff blamed a culture in schools where no one sees a teacher having sex with an older teen as a crime we are well we are well on the way to making pedoph filia the next sexual preference to be normalized in California public schools and if you couldn't guess I am opposed to the curriculum thank [Applause] you hi I'm Sumer Boger and I have two children in your District um I'm here to tell you why I oppose I spent many hours countless hours looking at this curriculum um I'm really concerned I uh looked at the three Rs and it

102led me down a row that I was not happy with California law does not require sexuality education local school boards decide you guys have the power over what our children are seeing I'm not here to talk to you about my kids I know I can opt out I'm here to talk to you about all of those kids that I care about I care about all of those children annual National Reports say that California is getting a c minus for their curriculum and how is teaching children to um to be busy thinking about sexual orientation and sexual relationships at an early age helping them with their learning I think that's a really bad mistake also the Kinsey Institute do you know about Kinsey Institute that is the science and the evidence that they are basing this

103agenda on that they're giving to our children this is not about inclusivity this is about teaching our children children Hedonism anything goes whatever you like inclusive accept it all it's sexual immorality and that leads down a road to heartbreak broken relationships bad families lack of Education hardships being dependent on the state for um funding this is a big problem their homework is to go to sex eta.org SE sex aedra org has articles like trans guys get their periods too and coming out as gender queers look at where you are sending these children it is not acceptable take those off of the list of of places that they should be going to for homework on the internet that's ridiculous um keep sex head inside biology 101 please and stop pushing sexuality education [Applause] good evening my

104name is Derk burner president of the San Diego unified Council of ptas our executive board did vote to support the district's updated Sexual Health curriculum we know that this topic is going to be emotional for many and there's never going to be a curriculum that it's perfect for all we do however think it is important for all children to receive the teachings that they need to be well informed on their bodies the changes that they're going through and how to properly protect themselves both physically and emotionally we applaud that this curriculum is comprehensive ensive and inclusive to all children without this curriculum kids are going to learn things on the fifth grade playground much of which will be incorrect information let's remember that not all children have involved parents like ones that have spoken tonight

105that are going to teach them if it's not taught at school where are they going to get it and yes not all sixth graders are the same some may not be ready and they those parents can opt them out our executive board does however have concerns about the district's community ation to parents in regards to this curriculum which we've already brought to the superintendent's attention within our board a very involved parents there were some that didn't get any communication from their child's school about this curriculum and the ability to opt out that needs to be addressed and updated before the curriculum started next year on a personal note I want to mention I had a sixth grade daughter that uh had this curriculum last year and when I looked at it thoroughly I was concerned

106that m she may not be ready cuz she was very young for her grade I was shocked at her maturity level on this matter and surprised how well she was able to process it kids sometimes are more mature than us parents want to believe thank you very much for your time thank [Applause] you good evening my name is Nazar Biz and I'm here in support of a comprehensive of sexual health education in our curriculum as of today the organization advocates for Youth and their sexual health education program can provide the best way to teach students about their rights how to respect themselves and others and how to respond responsibly in a given situation fortunately I personally learned a lot from my comprehensive SE sexual education as most use share erronous secondhand information it is important

107to be educ educated correctly thank you thank you good evening I'm Mr Brooks here on behalf of radio Pastor Ernie Sanders program and broadcast what's right what's left what is the purpose of sex the purpose of sex is to procreate in order to procreate for human beings you must have a man and a woman to create a baby anything beyond that is a perversion of natur natural law and a perversion of God's law in this Christian Nation which was founded under the eth ethic of Matthew 7:12 effectively codified as do unto others as you wish done unto you the the principles of the American founding uh did not contemplate the extent to which our society has descended into deviance deviance and Rebellion against the Lord's word against Holy Scripture let me ask the school board

108uh are they aware that the curriculum that is produced by afy and the book that's contained in that called It's Perfectly Normal contain images that are clearly pornographic let me ask the members are they aware that Planned Parenthood is a strong support of that curriculum let me ask the board let me ask the board if they are aware that Planned Parenthood has been responsible for the deaths of 50 million unborn Americans that is not Liberty that is not freedom in this country this agenda is an Abomination now finally let me ask the board members by a show of hands who among you would consider yourselves cultural marxists or social Democrats thank you very much thank [Applause] you okay we have a uh Motion in a second board members questions or comments uh Dr whiter pay

109thank you yeah exactly I understand that uh there was some terrible links on the um the website that have been corrected Rachel would you like to speak to that hi thank you um I believe are you referring to this particular images well this particular image where they keep bringing up the the Julie melons so there is we provided um let me start this last year two years ago we conducted focus groups with our students sixth grade 8ighth grade and high school students who receiving sex education asking them where do they get their information about sexuality and what kind of information do they want primarily they all said we Google it and they all said we'd like to find information online that's the easiest way we can access information so we reached out to districts reputable

110districts with reputable sex education programs across the country to find out which websites for sexuality information they provide to students and we created a list and we vetted them and we have them on our student support website one of these was a um it's called I'm blanking but anyway it's a it's a website um by advocates for youth with short about 50 short videos on puberty reproduction sexual orientation healthy relationships gender identity that school districts across the country offer to their students and also teachers to show to students one of those short videos is called porn Fact or Fiction it's 2 and a half minutes and the main premise is sometimes young adults might find intentionally um or not intentionally an accident online pornography which we know is definitely something that our kids May encounter

111in this world today and the message is these are not these do not portray realistic relationships these are exaggerated images they do not represent intimate relationships in real life and that there are messages in pornography that can be harmful when someone approaches a real life sexual or intimate relationship and the main message of the video is to talk to a parent or other trusted adult if they do find anything on the internet that does disturbs them these videos were created with input from 13 to 14 year olds and the exaggerated images in the videos du they're illustrating the exaggerated images that people might find in pornography we because of the controversy that this one particular video had and not all the others on puberty reproduction we've taken the video link down for now and we're

112going to be actually there's a way to select just the videos that align with our curriculum such as um Liberty sexual orientation reproduction but I do want to say that I do believe that the the point of the video is being very much taken out of context the point of the video is that online pornography is not a realistic representation on relationships and to please talk to parents and trusted adults if and when they are discovered I believe that some of the other websites they are talking about they went to recommended websites for sexuality information and typed in the search function or clicked the went off the recommended website they clicked on websites from websites and so what happened I'm sorry we will be respectful and listen to the speakers what happens in that case

113is they will come across websites that we did not recommend or websites that are maybe displayed on on this side because of a search that someone did are not the ones that we recommended we're actually working this is happening across the state and the country because people have such um access to online information that we're working with the California Department of Education on a disclaimer for the websites we recommend saying that these are the websites we recommend and if you go off these websites we we can't guarantee that you might not find something disturbing that these really are the websites that we recommend and we recommend you stay on the websites how I mean do we have filters on our are there any filters absolutely and so if someone searched for pornography in our district

114District they would not be given pornography have to go do it at home homework we remove that homework for now until we can come up with a disclaimer and um make sure that we revet the websites but when we went through them all the first time we did not find any pornography we do want to make sure we vet them again so that homework is not a homework for now it's still a really wonderful website that again is provides accurate information for youth on sexuality that districts across the country do recommend for kids so we will revet them making sure we have an eye on the concerns that have been expressed today the uh the last time when this presentation came up uh I was walking the next morning and um one of my neighbors

115who has no children who was a community college teacher uh started berating me about it going up and down and so I I shared that I I did find that and I I understood all of that was off it's not a link anymore that it's no longer a part of our our program I understand that young people now at home or wherever they are they can uh access uh some of this information but I really am uncomfortable if we are not making it very clear to parents upfront and getting the message out and to hear the PTA um parent talk about the fact that we had some communication problem there so that parents know I mean all parents know that if they are uncomfortable with this they can um they don't have to participate in

116this I think it really is incumbent upon the district to really ensure that parents if they want their children exposed to it then they they can allow that but it shouldn't be that they didn't get the letter or didn't get the information and don't know what's going on uh and not have access access to taking their children out of this lesson mror um thank you president Barrera uh thank you to all the staff for all your work with Wellness again uh keeping our children healthy is uh very very important and it it has there are many facets to it um the the Sexual Health and Welfare of the students is just one small part of all the work that you guys are doing and I really appreciate the full comprehensive uh presentation tonight um I

117want to applaud Dr John Lee evans's motion where he not only moved staff recommendation to move forward with the wellness policies but he also pointed out and highlighted a couple of things that I think are important and I want to thank him for that first of all uh reiterating that we support a parents right to opt out and um I definitely uh would like to uh apologize uh on behalf of the district for any parents that did not receive clear communication of what's going on um and Dr Dr wher Payne also uh pointed that out I think rightfully so that we need to make sure that we redouble our efforts to communicate with all the parents ahead of time especially going into the next uh school year cycle um so that parents do have that

118right to opt out and we support that um second of all um I do uh think it's very important that we continue to be vigilant and make sure that the curriculum is age appropriate and that any links that go to anything that is not appropriate uh needs to be taken down blocked um and I really appreciate the fact that the staff and the school district has responded quickly and promptly to take down any links or websites that are not appropriate uh whether they be homework or in classroom work um to that extent um I I do want to Echo some remarks of an individual that spoke tonight uh that said she taught this curriculum and uh I'd like to quote her uh she said uh in this curriculum it does not teach pornography she said

119she taught the curriculum she says this is not teaching kids to do anything that's inappropriate because it's teaching kids about abstinence it's teaching kids about honest communication it's teaching kids about healthy relationships and there's I would really encourage anybody in the community that's interested to take a look at the curriculum and not just to take a look at a link that the school district has already taken down thank you thank you [Applause] Vice yes well we already made the two amendments to the emotion but I also just want to say that as a psychologist I know that kids of all ages crave and seek out this information and and they are going to get all this information one way or another our point is to present it in a in a healthy manner uh because

120there you know we talk about age appropriate but that this this has changed radically in in the digital age as far as what is age appropriate because children are exposed to so much more content at such an earlier age that's beyond the control of teachers beyond the control of parents in terms of what's available so this is really an important point to have experts Health experts parents and everybody coming together to really get the best information to students so that they're not misled by by false information and and other bizarre information that that is out there so this is really a good contribution to the health of our students and I know we're talking about a couple of pages of the slide and just want to just reiterate appreciation for the staff in terms of

121the the overall Wellness looking at Chronic uh illnesses and how that contributes to our our absences and and the total social emotional health of our children uh the physical health of our children in terms of the Obesity epidemic that we have and and the connection between physical health mental health and academic development we're we're really committed to educating the whole child and that means not leaving anything out and not hiding our heads in the sand thank you thank you Dr thank you John Dr MC so yeah I also want to thank the staff for a very comprehensive and a well-presented report I do want to recognize as well the speakers who gave public comments and recognize them uh for um their willingness to stand up and share their beliefs opinions and uh recommendations uh and

122about this topic which is U which is very important to us and and it's important that we understand the issues involved and the Public's uh perception of those issues research is clear that a quality educational program includes Comprehensive Health Services that emphasize the the importance of safe schools healthy environments health education physical exercise counseling nursing Psychological Services that support health education and promotes Healthy Life Choices this is more tonight about a broad-based wellness curriculum and procedures we're putting in place uh than it is about a single topic or a subject uh which uhu which probably needs to be continued and and and we I think we have a a a framework and and a process for for dealing with some of the issues that we were raised here and I'll mention those um in a

123moment it's imperative that we support an educational program that acknowledges and supports the physical social emotional and mental health of all of our students a healthy student is better able to learn and providing broad-based Wellness services that support best practices and professionally and professionally certified and recommended curriculum that teaches sound in instructional practices is important and it's a major commitment of this District we have a district and school well we have district and school Wellness councils that were structured to review the current program make plans and develop future programs and think they're in a position to deal with some of the many issues that were brought forth here and I would encourage people to connect uh with the uh with their councils at school site or the district level so there's a conversation it's not

124going to stop here and people maybe walk away frustrated from here and people have more suggestions and comments it gives them a place where they can continue this important conversation in addition our face department has developed surveys that incorporate our healthy kids questionnaire and Al along with other questions that staff and stakeholders have and it's an opportunity to raise these important questions and issue feedback input from from our community so two ways in which we can continue the important point is that we are committed to Wellness and healthy schools to a sound educational program that develops our students uh so they better understand themselves and their Community to feel safe and to feel empowered we do support education of children in a broad um and and uh uh in a broad manner that'll prepare them

125for college career and Civic engagement thank you Dr mccy uh and I Echo all of the comments from um from the My Board colleagues um I'd like to thank everybody who came out and spoke to us tonight I'd like to um we always thank uh people who come and bring issues to our attention um but I would especially like to thank people who go beyond bringing issues to our attention and partner with us uh to actually help us uh deliver the kind of education our kids deserve and I really want to commend uh the entire staff uh for your presentation it uh reflects a comprehensive you know understanding of um of Wellness education both for our students and I appreciate uh the presentation on our staff as well you know um the work that we're

126doing uh to try to promote uh wealth uh Wellness with our with our staff um what I heard tonight from uh each one of your presentations even though it's a broad range of issues was uh kind of a set of um uh guiding principles in the way that you go about your work um the first is you reach out to people in the community who have expertise and are committed to working with us uh to make this District work better and so the Community Partnerships in all of these different areas um that you were able to show us uh is is really uh uh deep and and uh exciting uh you then approach your work with a great deal of Integrity you do your research um you uh you know what's out there around the

127country in different areas and what the best practices are and then you work um with that information and with our Community Partners to tailor strategies that'll be effective for our kids and by doing so you're equipping our kids um with an an incredibly uh critical part of their education which is their physical social and emotional health and it's a it's a very clear understanding about how that relates to uh students academic success I think the purpose of an education of a young person is to equip that young person with an understanding of the world and an understanding of how we relate to each other uh that allows the Next Generation to move Beyond where this generation is and I think this work that you're doing is producing uh a generation of young people here in

128our own Community uh that are going to be able to move forward um and move Beyond some of the uh areas that have frankly uh caused uh problems for people individually in our society and have certainly created problems for the way people relate to each other so I think it's a it's it's a it's a deep and fundamental piece of a public education uh that you're leading and uh we're proud proud of your work and uh we thank you for your for your presentation for your work uh up until this point yeah yeah Dr whiter p i I want to commend the staff also on your work because I like the wellness and nursing and all of that and things that you're doing um but I still want to know whether or not I'm hearing

129the commitment from the superintendent to double down so that parents will get this information I just L are not there um because I mean I I just think that parents we need to make an extra step to ensure yes that we are not imposing our views about these issues on parents and that um that we've got to somehow or another ensure that parents who are definitely against it can know first of all what is going on and that they can then take necessary steps to deal with their children thank you Dr whiters pain for emphasizing that comment we too are concerned that any parent would not have received a letter um we did move the opt out link to a more prominent place on our website because we got feedback that people didn't know where

130that was so we moved that in addition the schools are required to send out the letter when they start the curriculum and it's done at different times during the year so you can't do a districtwide call out because it's all at different times however since schools are required to send the letter we were going we will add another checks and balance that the principes will verify that that letter has actually been sent home it's required to be sent when they start it so any school that any parent that didn't get it were not sure why that would have happened but we will add another check and balance in the future at principal certifying that the letter has been sent home and send that back to the leadership they not send it to the kids via

131the kids the parents are getting the direct to make sure the parents get the direct communication yeah there would be like a text message email blast Robo call home yeah and and there is a requirement for principes to host a cur review and an opt out meeting as well we have a motion in a second any further comment if not please vote thank you okay we will now move on to item E2 thank you to Michelle and your entire team for being here tonight I this item is addressing tolerance through the comprehensive School counseling and guidance plan uh superintendent would you like to present the item thank you and I have another team coming up to present this item