001by 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 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 community 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-way street sdd should be partnering with religious communities rather than attacking them in a free Nation it is is not the proper role of the state to subvert religion
002undermine parents and corrupt our children parents should be deciding what is age appropriate for their children not the ACLU not plan per and not the state thank [Applause] you Colleen cusac I'm the parent of a junior in the San San Diego UniFi School District I'm also a criminal defense attorney and an educator and curriculum designer s uni fors San Diego Unified School District's Board of Education needs to continue to stand with students to protect the 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
003of sexual orientations not all of which he'll ascribe to and that others are normal and okay I want him 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 a successful 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
004son asked me 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 good 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
005it Prov 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 and want the best for their children I just want to remind the board that not all families are the traditional nuclear family 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 much hello my name is Amanda I'm here on behalf of the American civil liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial counties which supports comprehensive sexual educa health education all sex education
006including 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 healthy 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
007teach compliant instru ruction which it has done 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 has been proven to be a Ive in reducing negative sex sexual 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 postpartum nursing we hear
008a 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 subjects sexual 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
009that when I went to that birthday party as a nine-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 avoc kids for youth curriculum it has cartoon pictures of children masturbating when child advocate and teacher Judy Fernandez saw the book for the first time she said but 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
010for 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 you okay Judith newfeld Fernandez Claire Douglas Carrie Rudolph Crystal Slusher Tracy proven Claire Douglas brex 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 president 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
011curricula 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 of and this district is based on the national sexuality education standards aligned with the California healthy youth act and meets all 16 criteria of the Exemplar Mar sexual health education as set forth by the federal Centers for Disease Control and prevention since its release 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 UniFi school district have the right to the most up-to-date science-based health information and the current sexual
012health 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 in 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
013there 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 Alli Gardens as well as a parent of a Marvin student and a Lewis student um I 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 and when I saw this curriculum and I was taught I needed to teach this 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
014we 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 real world um this leads to respect for others and creates less bullying teasing and name calling it is not too much too soon information is 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 curriculum 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
015our 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 W 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 Sexual 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
016and 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 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 point 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
017eliminate 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 curriculum that you've already approved and not to bow to the pressure of any of these unfounded concerns don't let the efforts of misinformed deter you from providing this education hi uh my name is BR shock I'm also a parent uh of a student at San dieo Unified District I want to start by saying thank
018you to the board I know you have 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 cultural perspective Etc uh so I I'm here to be for the um the curriculum I'm here uh in support of the curriculum and in support of understanding each other um I also want to um 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
019else 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 Lamere I am co-leader of the reproductive Justice group at the first unarian 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
020so 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 empowering them to respect themselves to respect others and again to make healthy decisions so I applaud your efforts in this area thank you thank you okay uh Derek burner nazrin nabii John Moore summer Boger and Mr Brooks is there any preferred order that 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
021years only 30% sent past 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 jumps 70% in 2014 to 328 cases according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune March 28th 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 where
022well we are well on the way to making pedophilia 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 sumerra 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 led me down a road 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 those kids that I
023care 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 agenda on that they're giving to our children this is not about incl inclusivity this is about teaching our 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
024their homework is to go to sex et.org sex sexetc.org has article 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 name 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 is perfect for all we do however think it is important for all children to receive the
025teachings 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 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 that 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 have however have concerns about the district's Communications to parents in regards to this curriculum which we've already brought to
026the superintendent's attention within our Board of 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 third I was concerned that may 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 bis and I'm
027here in support of a comprehensive 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 youths share erronous secondhand information it is important to 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
028perversion 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 deviant deviance and Rebellion against the Lord's word against Holy Scripture let me ask the school board uh 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 supporter of that curriculum let me ask the board let me ask the board if they are aware that Planned Parenthood has been
029responsible 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 Payne thank 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 um well this particular image where they keep bringing up the the Julie melons so there is we provided um let me start
030this last year two years ago we conducted focus groups with our students sixth grade 8th 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' like to find information online that's the easiest way we can access information so we reached out to districts reputable districts 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 you with short about 50
031short 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 1/2 minutes and the main premise is sometimes young adults might find intentionally um or not intentionally on accident online pornography which we know is definitely something that our kids May encounter in 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
032trusted adult if they do find anything on the internet that disturbs them these videos were created with input from 13 to 14 year olds and the exaggerated images in the videos do 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 going to be actually there's a way to select just the videos that align with our curriculum such as um puberty 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 of relationships and to
033please 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 they went off the recommended website they clicked on websites from websites and so what happened sorry we will be respectful and listen to the speakers what happens in that case is 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 with 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
034disclaimer 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 search for pornography in our district they would not be given pornography we have to go do it at homeor 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
035not 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 who 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
036can 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 people 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 this I 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 to taking their children out of this lesson siser um thank
037you 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 presentation tonight um I want 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
038uh apologize uh on behalf of the district for any parents that did not receive clear communication of what what's going on um and Dr whiter 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 right 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 uh blocked um and I really appreciate the fact that the staff and the school
039district 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 she 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
040has already taken down thank you thank you Vice [Applause] Dr yes well we already made the two amendments to the motion 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 there you know we talk about age appropriate but 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 is 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
041Health experts parents and everybody coming together to really get the best information to students so 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 health of our students and I know we're talking about a couple of uh pages of the slide and just want to just reiterate appreciation for the staff in terms of the 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
042leaving anything out and not hiding our heads in the sand thank you thank you Dr thank you John Dr mcor so yeah I also want to thank the staff for very comprehensive and well presented report I do want to recognize as well the speakers who gave public comments and recognize them uh for um their willing us to stand up and share their beliefs opinions and uh recommendations uh and about this topic which is um 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 services that emphasize 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
043is 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 U which probably needs to be continued and and and I think we have a a a framework and and a process for for dealing with some of the issues that were raised here and I'll mention those um in a moment 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
044Wellness we have district and school Wellness councils that were structured to review the current program make plans and develop future programs and I think they're in a position to deal with some of the many issues that were brought forth here and 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 is not going 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
045from 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 for 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
046to 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 doing 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
047and 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 country 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
048relates 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 our 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 has 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
049and uh we're proud proud of your work and we thank you for your for your presentation for your work up until this point yeah yeah Dr whiter f 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 the commitment from the superintendent to double down so that parents will get this information yeah I 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
050know 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 that 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 cuz 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
051has 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 we're 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're not sending it to the kids via the kids the parents are getting the direct commun 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 curriculum 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
052move 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 and uh superintendent would you like to present the item thank you and I have another team coming up to present this item as we transition [Music] come on up oh I didn't know where they went Cheryl hiin and Stan angan Cheryl hiin our executive director of secondary schools and Stan angen our executive director of family and Community engagement me wait okay now go okay thank you for joining me up here tonight we're going to present this item about addressing tolerance through the development of our comprehensive School counseling and guidance plan to make sure that it's clear our approaches in our district happening at a
053systemic level as a backbone of the way that we're teaching tolerance and giving students access to the knowledge and resources that they need to make sure each and every student in our district understands safe and exclusive inclusive environments so Cheryl's going to begin the presentation St at the end and then I'll going have some final comments as well good evening this spring the counseling and guidance Department led by Noemi Vias and Franny Del Carman began the exciting work around the development of the comprehensive school guidance plan this is a tk12 plan okay this is a tk12 plan that works to provide a counseling framework of best practices to ensure High academic social and emotional outcomes for each and every student in our system this plan is currently being developed in collaboration with Central Insight Counseling
054teams to address student goals in the areas of academic career and life Readiness at each grade level uhoh um so you would there we go so you would see a slide showing how the counseling backbone there will be uh goals at each of the grade levels moving them through transitional kindergarten to 12th grade next slide okay and then at each grade level imagine if a parent was to receive each year um from their school some type of indicator as to whether or not the metrics around College ready career ready and life ready that were um embedded in that particular grade level were met and that there were tiers one two and three um an example of this might be College ready that they were reading at grade level uh career ready that they had done
055a job shadow or participated in a student speaker or a a guest speaker and life ready perhaps that they had good attendance or that they had um participated in a club with a certain um uh Focus you know what you have more luck with this so as part of the ongoing development of this plan the department was tasked with ensuring that our tk12 efforts provided Clarity to the approaches and beliefs that were in line with our priority of creating the conditions for tolerance in our diverse system it was our belief that creating the conditions for tolerance were best situated in our life Readiness goal in the area of student leadership which on the next slide you'll see the four you'll see the four components uh Stan might have to get up stand up no you'll
056see the four components of Life Readiness and we thought that uh the teaching of Tolerance living across our system could really be powerful in the student leadership component when we look for examples of where student leadership and the teaching of Tolerance were working symbiotically we saw some of the best examples in the places where sites chose to partner with the Anti-Defamation League through their no place for hate and a world of difference programs both programs have had a presence in San Diego for over a decade both through prior board approval and and engagement with several tk12 sites when we look closely at the goals and learning outcomes of these programs next slide uh we felt that they were closely aligned with the vision and mission of our district one more slide so some of their
057goals are to create a respectful inclusive and safe learning environment in community to build understanding of the value and benefits of diversity to improve Intergroup relations to eradicate race ISM and all forms of bigotry and to encourage personal responsibility in the promotion of justice and equity and then some of their learning goals I won't read through each one of them but these give some really specific outcomes that we would be working around um one of them that I'll just lift is to increase young people's empathy self-esteem critical thinking and problem solving abilities so each of these would fit very nicely if we were doing some measurement around the um effects of of this particular program um through our surveys our check surveys and other and other measurements um when we look closely at the goals
058and learning outcomes of course we saw that they were aligned and while the no hate for no place for hate program is the umbrella program what we were especially excited about in rolling this out was the a world of difference program which is the program that would support the training of 30 students at each of the cluster sites to be trained as peer leaders who could work in partnership with our other student site leaders including our student Equity ambassadors our ASB presidents and the leaders of some of our student clubs because this work is going to be implemented systemwide we have proposed a 7-year rollout plan that includes two to three clusters each year yeah go back one please note that this does not mean that tolerance will not be addressed before the cluster has
059had its roll out this is as this is a plan that is M multifaceted and will be implementing a variety of supports from a a variety of directions one example of this is that the intervention counselors and children youth and transition resource teachers will be actively engaged in supporting our high priority schools with academic career and life Readiness in the context of foster homeless military and Refugee youth at the same time the Anti-Defamation Le is collaborating with us on the cluster rollouts in preparing to request approval from you to move forward with this work we also wanted to make the following recommendations in order to ensure that the work of counseling and of the counseling and guidance office moves forward in an environment where each student can have his or her needs met regardless of
060the reasons for the intolerance he or she may face so some of the recommendations that we um were hoping to make tonight is that we'd like to address bullying consistently and fairly for all students regardless of race or religion we'd like to ensure that all religious holidays are placed on our calendar if we place one we place them all we'd like to ensure that all of our district efforts pay attention to the lens of race and culture through our work with the national Equity project rather than assigned staff to work with specific religious groups we'd like to ensure that instructional materials follow State Standards which requires the discussion of the broader context of world religions and these materials should be the only tools staff are provided in regards to World cultures we'd like to advocate
061for all youth as we serve but not in the context of religion or culture and we'd like to support staff in the development of any type of school club and not say specifically it has to be in the in the facet of culture or religion finally Stan is going to share proposed next steps for how stakehold engagement would be organized to support this work uh thank you Cheryl I'm excited to continue sharing with you and our community how we as a district are moving towards an integrated approach to supporting our students on initiatives across departments um which not only strengthen our services but ensure that we are collectively accelerating student outcomes um as you've so eloquently shared counseling and guidance will lead the internal during the day supports for our students as it as it
062pertains to tolerance um but the work doesn't stop there right uh and so this fall the family community engagement team will open the school year by opening the office of of Youth and Family advocacy the office will lead a diversity conversation and discussion group that will ensure the voices of students and community members are highlighted and heard uh as we plan to name it the Intercultural relations Community Council uh it is grounded in our second Equity lover which is community school Partnerships and the equity lover ensures that families schools and Community organizations and engage connect and use Partnerships to design and take action on outcomes that benefit our children um the new community council will serve as a resource as well as um Foster the district uh as we col as we collectively understand the
063cultural and diverse needs of our student populations and their families which ensures the representation of the intersectionality of our students identities uh and example of that is um as we were speaking um of students uh we may have an a a student who is African who's also a refugee who has a primary language other than English and so that student has more than just one identity they and and it and we are really looking at our students um from a very um differentiated lens and ensuring that we aren't just labeling them one thing and giving them a one siiz fits all uh support uh we want to ensure that we are meaningfully engaging our community and appropriately and intentionally providing the right support and service for our children um Audrey Lord speaks of the complexities
064of intersectionality by sharing that there's no such thing as a single issue because we do not live single issue lives this community council will be an essential group in better understanding our students gender race identity sexuality and beliefs this will be the first time we San Diego unified will look at our students Beyond only one group but rather Embrace and acknowledge them and their needs their strength and their Intercultural identities as children so we are really excited about the launch of this Intercultural relations Community Council as it will provide data um information that will help us drive and better support our students in how we are providing services to meet their needs thank you very much s Cheryl great we've got several public speakers but did we want to have a motion I moveed to
065approve this recommendation second second second okay okay we've got a lot of public speakers so we're going to limit it to a minute a piece uh Andrea sagian alif tinny Linda Williams Trisha Gallagher girson Tammy Gillies Lindsay burningham what hanif uh Moab Andrea Guerrero uh Maan asan aan uh Aaron suroto grai and F nawabi please come forward go ahead hi my name is Andrea Ean and I have two children enrolled in the district I also taught special education for 5 years and have my Master's Degree in Social and emotional disorders where I developed programs designed creatively to meet unique needs I stand here today in support of developing a curriculum involving the anti-bullying and Muslim advocacy with the understanding that it requires the same creativity my main purpose for being here is to listen I
066wanted to learn what the district's plans are to address these issues and I was happy to hear some of the things that I learned tonight I support this sort of initiative because I want my children to go to school and have open honest discussions about differing worldviews and Lifestyles I want them to understand different cultures I want them to have resources and experiences to help them navigate through our Multicultural Community um I do know that there is zero funding or direct staff applied to this program and I was just would like to know what the board's plans are on how to implement thank you thank you hello ILY I am mother of two children in Maryland Middle School um thank you for the opportunity to speak and thank you for your tireless effort to continue
067to provide um uh inclusive U and quality education for all our children in our in our County i' like to applaud by um begin with by applauding uh the productive uh approach to bring in training and programming to combat divisive and hurtful rhetoric that CES down from our Administration in the White House to some of our families and our schools in our County as a Muslim American and a minority I believe that this is an important step forward to level all the playing field for our students who are more vulnerable than others in our current climate we must show that we are here to protect all our children and they and provide them with a safe and comfortable learning environment let me also add that this is one step forward however it falls short to
068actually address the issue in the immediate immediate future first of all thank you thank [Applause] you hello uh superintendent and board good to see you again Linda Williams and um after 40 years teaching K through 6 I am passionate of course about protecting all students students and it has been quite an interesting and busy year uh since in July of 2016 the board first unanimous unanimously passed the resolution to support addressing islamophobia and the bullying of Muslim Students we have worked with care we have a large community group of uh dozens of retired Educators Interfaith Intercultural group that has been working together tirelessly on this and I am eager to hear how the April 4th resolution will be working into the July 25th resolution and in the interest of clarity and transparency and communication I
069want to thank superintendent Martin for taking the time to meet with us briefly this morning in your very busy schedule and I liked what you said Stan about the community engagement looking forward to being engaged thank you [Applause] my name is Trisha Gallagher gertson although I understand that the revised plan to address bullying and Muslim Students may have been curtailed due to a lawsuit I believe the plan proposed today although somewhat vague is wholly inadequate the about face turning your backs to the special needs of a targeted population is akin to saying all lives matter to Black lives matter Advocates as thoughtful people who understand statistics know Muslim Students need special support now with the current state and National hate filled environment toward people of the Muslim faith although there may not be many cases
070of hate in this District towards Muslim Students today given statistical probability without action we will learn of these incidents at an alarming rate soon if you turn your back on Muslim Students now with a seven-year Ro at extending your work with the Anti-Defamation League how many students will be negatively affected by your negligence if you move forward with no mention of islamophobia in our school district as this current plan seems to do how will you explain this Retreat to the children and their families who will surely come to harm this is on your conscience I ask that you create a plan that focuses on religious intolerance and is based in the current state of national statistics related to Muslim bullying thank [Applause] you good evening hi I am Tammy Gillies I am the regional director
071of the Anti-Defamation League in San Diego since our founding in 1913 the ADL has had one mission to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure Justice and fair treatment for all that and is the most important part of our mission statement when one Community is unsafe we are all unsafe we have been as the ADL in San Diego here for 40 years serving this community ADL believes that education is key in confronting and eliminating hate got to cut this to a minute okay our programs have been created in collaboration with and have been evaluated by Columbia University upen Claremont and Yale among others since their Inception our programs have reached over 65 million people adults and children just last year 1.6 million students of every race religion ethnicity sexual orientation and culture
072took part in adl's no place for hate program we believe that San Diego unified is a no place for hate place thank you thank you goad if I called your name please come forward uh Lindsay burningham anif Andrea yep go ahead hello there my name is f naabi and I'm a part of Care San Diego and sit on the trustee advisory Council for the San Diego Community College District I just want to reaffirm my support of this current resolution in addition uh I would like it mentioning islamophobia I think that's very important and the fact that it's being left out it's very concerning for me I think we should mention that in the resolution and also uh work with organizations that are specifically dealing with that cultural group uh because they're the best organization to
073work with because that's from their cultural group and they know the ins and outs and the struggles of that cultural group thank you very much thank [Applause] you good evening I'm Andrea GTO executive director of Alliance San Diego and we are working to build a San Diego where everyone can achieve their full potential in environment of Harmony safety equality and justice your resolution is a step towards that uh but I want to Echo others in saying that it must be more than a general and a global approach to addressing issues of hate and intolerance when we know that in this climate we have a specific problem of islamophobia in our communities and that needs to be addressed in specific ways it needs to be done so with the stakeholders in those communities and it needs
074to be staffed appropriately with individuals from the district who have cultural competence uh so please keep that in mind as you're hiring out your team uh it is not enough to have a global approach you must have a specific approach if you're going to address the issues and the problems that were presented to you by care which has done an outstanding job in elevating some of these issues they are a key stakeholder in this process please consider them as your [Applause] partner good evening school board members and um community members my name is mishgan afan and I um myself and I'm a product of San Diego City Schools um one of my first classes in uclid elementary school involved um learning about diverse communities and diverse people here in San Diego County and I was
075only in the second grade um that that has a huge impact on what I have experienced and growing up in this community I've seen the changes that have happened and now with this Administration I believe that it's imperative for the school board to continue their dialogue with carand Diego and urge you to please continue this dialogue and working with uh Car San Diego to be able to Enlighten and uh administer and uh find Pathways towards understanding in a very difficult time for many families many of them refugees many of them Muslim Americans and most of them um most of all they're in our community here in San San Diego so please uh I urge you to continue this conversation and this dialogue and and um stay true to your word thank you hi my name
076is Ain surot grai um first of all I want to take thank you for taking the step forward as the granddaughter of Japanese Americans who were in prison during World War II I think it's important that we address a lot of the rhetoric that's coming down um that being said I think it is very important to make certain that we are naming specific pieces that are happening right specifically islamophobia um and that we're doing this in curriculum when I was in seventh grade you you know I was very fortunate the middle school that I went to the teacher actually brought in someone from the Muslim Community to talk to us and explain about Islam and from that experience I was able to see that the folk you know the woman who was there was just
077like my family and so 4 years later when the attacks happened during 9/11 there was a lot of rhetoric that we heard right and so there was a lot of things that someone who's in 11th grade could hear and and and possibly think and be able to judge but for me the that stood out the most was the woman who came to my class in seventh grade from the Muslim Community who explained what Islam was and that's what helped me so I think it's imperative that you continue to work with stakeholders in the Muslim Community including Car San Diego Lindsay Bingham San Diego Education Association um San Diego Educators stand with you in affirming our values of Peace tolerance and respect for multiple perspec Ives that is why a bargaining proposal was passed to all
078of you article 27 non-discrimination that expands Beyond protecting staff our proposal expands to include the district providing training PD resources for educators to succeed in ensuring that all students are protected from harassment and discrimination all students parents community members and staff deserve to be protected but sometimes that requires us to draw attention to specific groups who are experiencing increased level such as our Muslim Students I encourage you to look at this resolution in combination with what was passed in April and not as a replacement for it in doing so you are providing the educational support that our Educators students and communities need thank you [Applause] you my name is hanif moabi Council and American Islamic relations San Diego office I'm the executive director um love to work further with the district to move forward in
079a positive way we have always said that we want to protect everyone's rights every single student deserves to have the right space to learn regardless of who they are what their religion is we have never come out saying that it should be only one group but I think also we should realize that it might be a mistake not to focus on groups that are targeted much more than than the rest so that being said we expect the uh District to publicly acknowledge and recognize the work that we have done for over a decade with the school district and also we expect the district uh to recommit to working with us and all the other responsible parties to serve all students thank you very much okay atenna Mohammad Mohammad bayasi i s right Kevin iraniha Amir
080Nash Isam lichi John mechno Ken berer go ahead hi my name is AA mohamd I'm a social worker here in San Diego I also went to school here um in San Diego city of San Diego growing up um I just wanted to say that you know growing up I think that it would have been really great to have a little bit more uh knowledge about Islam for the teachers and the students for example during Ramadan if you wouldn't eat the teachers would be asking left and right why aren't you eating if the teachers don't understand what's going on how can the students um as a Muslim American I support continued collaboration between Car San Diego and the San Diego Unified School District as they are trusted resource for information the more we educate and Enlighten
081people on different religions the less people are going to fear and have hate for any religion thank you thank [Applause] you hi my name is Ken berer and I just want to come here and urge the board to approve uh E2 on today's agenda I think it's really important to have a safe learning environment for all students um I've grown up in San Diego County um all my life and I don't even have children yet but I think it's really important to start this effort now so in the future my kids will go into a better school environment um I encourage the board to work with care as they have um a lot of experience on this and um as there's no fiscal impact on this plan um I think it's a great idea to
082approve it um it can only improve the learning environment of students in San Diego um thank you thank you [Applause] hello uh thank you for taking the time to listen to me uh my name is am Nash I just want to say that uh as a Muslim American I want to uh implore the school board to continue working with care uh just to work for in specifics for anti-bullying uh personally for me when I was in seventh grade after the attacks um I came back home or I was spending a day commemorating uh an event and I was running the Muslim skull clap went to school and I had a a Dean told me not to wear the skull cap they took me inside and tell me this it was a dean kind of stuck
083with me that a a higher representative of a school is the one telling me not to wear the skull cap so if uh starts from the top if the people from the top understand that Muslims have things that uh caters to them and specifically the need to work on then more education and special work care who understands our community and understands our religion if they continue working with these organizations they'll be able to support the youth and prevent us from being BL so you know it work together thank thank [Applause] you Hi H hello my name is Muhammad bayasi I'm a Muslim American born and raised in San Diego I graduated in 2011 with Jeffrey Barrera we're both yeah your son and so um I hope he enjoyed Stanford and um I I went to
084Northern Arizona yeah and um with the so I don't want to say back in my day but back in my day it's a long time ago was a while back Muslim hate crimes were not up 600% and so um I believe Car San Diego is uh is is uh the most appropriate organization to uh help address the islamophobia problem and U and and especially with 600% increase and I hope as an alumni of the San die unifight School District I hope that it's maintain it stays to be a a safe place for people to learn of all uh religions colors ethnicities and uh I don't think it a plan that doesn't even mention islamophobia is is appropriate so I do hope that um that uh that the right decision is made thank you thank you
085very much hi my name is John mishna I'm with nonviolence connections and um I'm just really appreciative of the work that you guys do of all these beautiful initiatives that you have in this particular piece here um I do agree with what a lot of the speakers have said about how care is a wonderful representative of the specific needs of Islamic students kind of like uh ADL is and I'd love them to be part of the the plan um I know we have a lot of problems with uh buling for a lot of students um Muslims Jews uh Latinos and um time is of the essence let us know how we can work with you to U meet this challenge that we have and I appreciate you for the work that you do thank you
086thank you hi my name is Kevin iraniha I'm a Muslim American also a Community member and also I'm an educator here in the San Diego District um and I wanted to urge you guys to continue your collaboration with care they're really properly um addressing the needs of the Muslim Americans uh concerning islamophobia and bullying uh especially even for somebody like my sister who continues to go to the school district and she wears the hijab and from time to time you might hear stories where people have said certain racist remarks to her or have even tried to pull off her hijab so we hope that you guys continue your collaboration efforts and addressing islamophobia thank you thank you good evening everyone peace be upon you my name is Isam lagi I a Community member Muslim Community
087member here in San Diego also an immigrant and as a parent of a a kids born here and being an immigrant I do understand the the danger of islamophobia I'm a big uh supporter and I have a lot of respect for the ADL as a matter of fact you and I wrote the same golf cart at one of the ADL dinners uh so uh but I do understand also the concern that you know for example if if someone is in a is in a operation room and has a brain tumor you know you have a brain surgeon and and a heart surgeon you're not going to kick out the brain surgeon and just keep the heart surgeon so you know whatever you guys end up deciding I do feel that care San Diego has you
088know brought up the issue to the surface has the solution in hand and I highly recommend and and hope that you guys will will acknowledge that and and make Care San Diego uh part of the solution because we do need a solution for that and and the proof is actually in the room people calling us terrorists as we're presenting thank you thank you okay Gillan Mohammad megahed Gabriela conas misi liogo kilan Steve slum Carol Kim Joan little let's come forward did just begin right away yes please go ahead okay my name is jayen Muhammad mad I was born Muslim in Egypt and was raised Muslim in San Diego I attended Canyon VI Elementary Mesa ver middle school and graduated Kum law from Mount Carmel High School at the age of 17 I graduated Kum L
089from Arizona State University graduated from Barrett's Honors College at the age of 21 and at the age of 23 I had the privilege to graduate from Thomas Jefferson School of Law while studying abroad in Europe as Justice SC Scalia as my professor through Penn State now I operate my own family law and business formation practice in downtown San Diego for over two years I'm also the co-chair of the lawyers Club San Diego commun Outreach committee where I volunteer my time at least two times a year at Central Elementary this Academic Year I'm charged with the duty to coordinate the volunteers at C Elementary on my spare time I drive an hour to volunteer at the restraining order clinic in Vista and serve a court ort and special advocate for children for foster children through the
090practice of Law and charity work I serve the lgbtq community immigrants and refugees including Muslim women and men I pose no threat to society and many colleagues do not know that I'm Muslim they only know that I'm Muslim once they see my middle name or see me in public with my mom who proudly wears the head scarf it is important to dispel islamophobia within San Diego it starts with our children education system in San Diego thank you good evening my name Gabriela contas Mr llu San Diego High School uh parent teacher student Association president and I'm here to U basically speak on behalf of the youth in transition and uh directly relate that to the counseling um let me see what it says addressing tolerance through the comprehensive School counseling and guidance plan uh we
091want these students to be visible for everybody for the administr ation for students Educators and uh we want to provide them with a safe place uh for uh learning we have 2400 students total 20% of them are under duing transition so that would be hundreds of students that do not have a parent or uh a guardian to speak on their behalf so that's why I encourage you to uh include in all these plans that you have just like you have included Crawford and Huber San Diego High School please on behalf of our of my students I really want you to follow up on that I of I don't know if you would recall this but we were on the news recently um uh unfortunately not Shing a good light on our school please please address
092uh our needs thank you thank [Applause] you good evening board members my name is Carol Kim I'm the parent of two children in the district I'm a member of a multi-generational Christian family and I am here to stand up against islamophobia I have spent nearly two decades working in education many of those years specifically conducting research and providing training on the intangibles that create successful schools and positive strong outcomes in our students and I can state that unequivocally that things like School climate and culture are a critical component of what makes any school Community successful I think you understand this and I'm going to say that whenever anyone is targeted with bullying especially for reasons such as Faith culture race social economic background or sexual or gender orientation or otherwise it impacts everyone in the
093school not just the victim everyone is impacted so that also means that we have to be willing to name and address the specific types of targeting especially those with increased occurrences such as islamophobia um every child every young person who steps onto one of our campuses deserves a safe space to learn and I know that you will support this thank you thank you my name is Joan little I'm a resident of the city of San Diego and I come to you to commend you for moving forward on this um tolerance program and anti-bullying program uh I also would like to urge you to make sure that you involve an important stakeholder Care As you move forward I've been very impressed with what they've done in the community we do know that islamophobia is really On
094The Rise given the times in which we live so please continue to involve them as much as you can as you move forward thank you well my name is Steve slokum I'm retired engineer um I spent five years living in in the Muslim World um just north of Afghanistan I raised my three children there for the five years that we were there they attended schools um where they were the only white faces um I was there as a Christian Missionary and we were treated with the utmost respect there was no bullying there was no christianophobia American phobia we were treated with honor and respect there and so I'm here to represent the Muslim Community here um that we um do something about the the clear and obvious gross misrepresentation of Islam that we see all
095over our media with education with actual facts by people who know those facts um and so that we can extend to the children that are coming here the same um honor and respect that was extended to my children while I was in the the Muslim world thank you thank you hi my name is Kian Colin and I was born and raised in Iraq to have a Muslim and Jewish Family um I am also a gender fluid person and I was uh bullied for that in back in school in Iraq uh I was an A+ student when I first enrolled and uh after being bullied over and over again I ended up failing and dropped out of school um by the time going through I got clinically depressed and I ended up attempting a suicide in
096the past I got a second chance and I got my GED and I went back to college and today I'm in chemical engineering school at you of side uh I just want to tell you today that uh not every child get a second chance and they are worth it to fight for you don't know who which one of them will be the next Einstein which one of them will be the next senator in the United States Congress fight for them they are worthy to go all the way to the Supreme Court if you have to and if you are being sued by the altright you must be doing something right thank you so much okay thank you board members we've got a motion in a second any comments or questions Dr mccy good thank you
097so this item is not about one group of students it's about tolerance for all students all students and staff members deserve to be protected from ignorance intolerance bigotry and racism however there comes a time when some groups are threatened more than others and from time to time there is a need for a teaching moment for us to focus on a particular group or situation that doesn't mean any one group is better different or otherwise uh special it means that at this particular time there is a challenge that needs to be addressed there is a moment that needs to be emphasized there is an opportunity to develop better understanding the agenda item recommends tolerance for for all through collaborative consultation with all Community groups in the development and implementation of comprehensive School counseling and guidance we
098are emphasizing the establishment of safe places for children to learn by developing cultural competencies e ethnic education restorative practices multiple languages and Civic learning I support the proposed resolution because it supports the establishment of schools culture and instructional climate that stands up for all students and works with all religious ethnic and cultural groups the plan is comprehensive and inclusive and will address academic and life Readiness skills including leadership social and emotional Community involvement and Civic engagement and address issues of Tolerance thank you Dr mcor uh anybody want to go Dr uh vice president Biser uh thank you president Barrera um you know we've been uh dealing and addressing the issue of bullying in San Diego unified for many years um when I first got on the board uh we had a partnership a pilot program
099with the Anti-Defamation League no place for hate in just a couple of schools and as we were looking for partners in the community to try to address ever growing concerns with LGBT bullying and any other kind of bullying that was uh preventing kids from having safe learning environments we began expanding that pilot program and increasing every year after year more and more schools that were're uh partnered with adl's program no place for hate um so I'm thrilled that we're going forward with even a new chapter in such a partnership so that we can continue to not only uh create more uh hate free zone schools but also to create a component where we're actually helping to develop student leaders so that the students can then lead and guide other additional uh anti-bullying programs in their
100schools and the Clusters across the district um I support this resolution because I believe that it codifies this board's commitment and my commitment uh to making sure that all students are safe several speakers tonight did point out some very obvious facts that they that we do have from time to time very targeted groups of students that are bullied at much higher rates than other students for example LGBT students Jewish students as we see anti-Semitism is rising Muslim students African-American students Latino students immigrant children and so we have an obligation individual Civic and moral to make sure that we're doing everything in our power to partner with all Community stakeholders and members parents teachers staff and nonprofit organizations especially care care was an organization that brought this uh to our attention they are a conduit by
101which parents and students can get a voice I know many many years ago um you know when the center for American Islamic relations uh started working with parents in our schools to try to help them understand that if they're undergoing problems if their children are coming home uh after being bullied at school that we need to work together to try to solve that problem and I want to thank care and all the people in the Muslim Community in San Diego for your Partnership of over 12 years and I look forward to the community council where other community members and partners can help us to address this ongoing problem and find solutions that we can all work towards um I believe one person had mentioned that there was no staff or funding associated with this resolution
102but that's not true because as we had heard from our staff we already have many staff members that are dedicated exclusively uh to addressing the issues and the concerns regarding bullying in our schools um so I I specifically want to thank uh my good friend Linda Williams for coming down uh tonight thank you very much thank you vice president visor Dr Evans yes well as as Mr Biser said this real the the overarching issue here was is an anti-bulling approach in April when we passed the resolution we were talking about a specific group that was being targeted at that point we all know that on the national scene that there are leaders who have you know vilified a certain group and that's what's happening we we through the years we change from time to time
103what is the scapegoat what is the group that's being discriminated against uh previously as Mr Biser mentioned we've done a lot of work uh with the LGBT community we we focused in terms of academic achievement and African-American males and many times when we call out specific groups people say well what about everybody what about everybody yes we do want to make sure that everybody has a safe place but we have to call out you know the specific problems that exist and I agree that this committee which is going to be comprised of persons of all faiths and cultures and backgrounds can all work together but again they're not going to just do it in a a a generalized way they're going to focus on what are the specific issues today that need to be addressed
104and one of the issues that very clearly needs to be addressed today is the discrimination and harassment and vilification of of the Muslim Community uh in our community and one other thing I want to point out as as the staff gave the uh the presentation is I really appreciate the fact that the the focus is on working with student leaders because I know when we started talking about LGBT bullying and we were coming up with District ideas about it we found out that students at certain high schools were already doing the work themselves and talking about it and I think if we're just forming a partnership with the students that's what's going to have the biggest effect the peers are going to be uh be teaching each other about tolerance and acceptance and and and
105working with each other so that's what I think is a really very good approach and when we talk about staff and funding we have you know many student leaders uh who will do it on an unpaid basis but as part of their contribution to making a good school Community thanks for mentioning that because I made a note about the um the groups I go back to Knox and the uh restorative justice groups there and seeing the students operate and now you're talking about folding this in um ultimately you talked also about having all of it come together so how do you envision this I mean what do you see because as uh Dr Evans pointed out now this is an issue but futuristically I mean how do you see issues as they come up training
106and keeping students a breast of what's going on in order to have them facilitates so I think Stan can address how he's going to deal with some of this in the Roundtable but one of the things that we were talking about was I was provided with data um some checks data the California healthy kids survey data the calls that come in to unified and so the there were several Trends in this data that were um for me as a district leader looking at all the schools side by side and noticing that there isn't one direction that some of this is going in but it's very unique by school and cluster um I think that compiling this data and looking at it very deeply and bringing it to this Roundtable so that these discussions about are
107we improving um where are we seeing what type of issue and how are we intervening this is going to become very important and I know when we spoke to the Anti-Defamation League the word survey sometimes it's like oh no not another survey but we were talking about how do we use the existing surveys that we have that are that are getting at certain pieces of information to test our work with the Anti-Defamation leag so this data especially the Cal California healthy kids survey it was not shocking to me to see that smaller environments had more powerful student agency and they didn't they felt like they could take on the world and then the some of the larger environments it was very interesting looking at this and I think we have to pay very close attention
108to this does it get at all the data points that we need to look at no and I think we're going to have to get strategic about how we look um and track some of that outside of these two pieces of data and so um building on that um the community is a data source they understand the the conflicts or the issues that arise on a daily basis within their own homes within their own neighborhoods and so bringing those Community organization Partners into that inter uh cultural um relations Community Council um allows us the space to present our data and really get to having them also understand give us information about why the the students are struggling so we're not just saying kids are struggling and they're failing or they're uh um not coming to
109school uh we're pin pinpointing and identifying the exact reasons because we're engaging the community and having us under better understand what the reasons are and so um in a collective effort as we deploy our services and supports internally we would also look at what the community organizations and or parents and or families can also do in conjunction with the work we do so that it is an aligned systematic approach to supporting students and as we look at that data on a consistent basis um we would be able to see growth over time and so we should be able to see improvements of um if it's the bullying um potentially through our early Warning Systems be able to identify that the bullying has decreased within a specific Community around a specific issue and or conflict because
110of the um specific uh and intentional way that we went around supporting that school so rather than saying we're going to now lift one large blanketed bullying um initiative where differentiating the supports that would provide the right um uh Avenue uh for ensuring our students are successful yeah I think superintendent Martin and Cheryl and Stan as well that um part of what we need to address tonight is when we passed our resolution in April which was actually um uh signing off on the on a plan uh that we had asked for months prior to that um and the reason that we had asked for a plan months prior to that is as vice president Biser said because we had people from the community including our own students coming forward to us and saying that they
111were experiencing bullying that they were not feeling safe that they were not feeling welcomed in their own schools uh just as we have had many other groups of students over many years uh come forward uh with similar uh uh experiences in this case we were talking about Muslim Students and Muslim Students were talking about um an experience that increasingly with the rhetoric as Dr Evans uh mentioned they were seeing uh across the country uh that the environment was becoming um more and more hostile and the experience of Muslim Students um was something that we couldn't ignore and we recognized that uh that What Muslim Students were experiencing at this point in our in in in time in our community was not new uh I talked about uh growing up in elcone in the 70s and
112the 80s and seeing what Muslim Students uh were dealing with after the Iranian hostage crisis it's very real and the experience that we were hearing from our Muslim Students today um were in some ways different but in some ways hearkened back to some really dark periods uh in the history of this community and so we moved forward uh with a plan to try to address issues that our students and our communities uh were were bringing forward to us we did it in a way that's consistent with the approach that this dist has been taking for many years uh as vice president Biser talked about our partnership with uh the Anti-Defamation League is more than a decade uh uh old our partnership with Community organizations including the Council of Islamic uh American Islamic relations uh has
113existed for many years as it has with many other uh committed Community organizations that are uh that are concerned about the well-being of our young people what it wasn't was the way that some people were choosing to portray it this was not about promoting a religion never was this was certainly not about promoting Sharia law as we heard some people uh choose to uh to mischaracterize our approach and in fact the more that we heard that kind of characterization of a program that was consistent uh with providing support and teaching tolerance to all students from all backgrounds and all experiences being mischaracterized in that way you're Lawless simply as these comments would suggest simply uh clarified the experience that our Muslim Students are going through every day obey the law if we were going to
114hear that as a school board we knew that our kids were hearing a lot worse and so because of that kind of rhetoric and because of the mischaracterization of a policy that has always been about all kids but has also always been about recognizing that when certain groups of kids need a special level of support that this District has always been there and will always be there for those kids and you can and you can and you can shout and you can express hate and you can do everything that you choose to do but when we know that our students deal with that we're going to step up as a unified Community to protect our [Music] students and so to clarify to clarify I support this policy I support this resolution this recommendation coming forward
115from the superintendent because it expresses the values that this district has held dear for many many years it expresses the values of this community you're going to be haul in front of a court you're going to in Fr and therefore for the court battle move forward as a unified community in support of all of our students including our Muslim Students we are against is islamophobia we are for tolerance and we support this policy as an expression of those values thank [Applause] youe okay we are going to now move forward with item E3 this is I'd like to say thank you to and Mr Anin for pres I'd like to move item E3 okay second a second got a motion in oh I'm sorry this is the opening of a public hearing and we do have
116two speakers on this item uh Francine Maxwell and Tamara Hurley you have three minutes a piece I'm not Tamar go ahead okay I don't see Francine wow three minutes I can't remember the last time I had three minutes hard to follow that up sometimes I watch you guys and I'm just totally inspired um with the expanding partnership between the San die Community College District and San unified I appreciate the expansion of that program but more needs to be done with respect to ensure that the community college courses that are being offered in the San unified campuses actually transfer for credit to for your colleges and universities I'm going to change glasses here ah from what I've been told articulation agreements for this joint program have been secured from the University of California California State University
117Systems but not every student in San unified will attend the California state public college or university in fed low-income students may find in particular that some private schools are actually more affordable than their scholarship because they scholarship programs that weave fees that the UC programs do not and yet even California colleges and universi that have articulation agreements for transfer students from San Diego San Diego community colleges don't necessarily have articulation agreements for The Identical courses for students who take these courses while in high school or that are offered on the sany Unified High school campuses the case in point is the University of Southern California which is the largest private university in the state and with 19,000 undergraduates larger than two of the uc's and 14 of the CSUS we have been struggling personally for
118over a month from my daughter to receive credit for the four community college math courses she took on script Ranch High School campus with professors from Mesa college and myar college USC has an articulation agreement for transfer students for all of San Diego Community College District colleges including Mesa and myar and these four courses are eroded credit for these particular four courses as transfer students however USC will not award my daughter credit for these courses because they were taught on a high school campus and not open to other enrolled community college students ironically she opted to take the hit in her GPA to take these unweighted Community College math classes in L of the AP Calculus because they would have advanced her further in the math sequence but now she's being told she must repeat
119the courses at USC she is not alone at least three other students from San unified who tend attend USC did not receive credit for the community college classes they took during this through this partnership agreement I've also heard from another parent about the struggles they have gone through so that her child could get credit at SDSU for the community college courses in child development that were taken at script Ranch High so while you work on the front end to develop more Community College course offerings for students more work needs to be done on the back end to ensure that these courses will actually give college credit to the students who take them so that others don't suffer the same fate or we should be more public about how these courses will only transfer to the
120Comm from the community colleges the uc's and the CSU so the students and their parents can make informed choices um I'd like to sh thank Cheryl if she's still here um Cheryl hiin Franny Del Carman and genev Clark for their ongoing efforts to help my daughter to obtain credit for the college courses she took and one additional note this pram this program is not without some cost only the first two community college transcripts are free additional transcripts cost $5 each for students thank you thank you Tamara okay did we get a motion we do okay second that concludes our public hearing please vote oh I'm sorry go ahead sh just want to keep the issue of equity yes lengthy discussions about equity and my community y thank you okay please vote okay can we get
121a motion to adopt the board consent agenda so moved please vote okay item Mo item G2 item G2 yep and second okay no speakers please vote okay item G3 review of our District's practices pertaining to public record storage and production uh with recommendations to improve transparency cost efficiency and security I move approval of this item okay do we have a second uh a second okay superintendent Martin do you want to present the a thank you president barera on June 27th this board requested that we come back with a report on our process for responding to public records requests including the recommendations to decrease the processing time and other means by which the public is able to obtain public information and the records uh and the recommendations to increase transparency what you have in this item
122is a full report that's responsive to what you asked us to bring back today and I'm going to ask general counsel Donovan to put forth what we're asking you to take action on this evening thank you superintendent Martin uh as as superintendent Martin stated this is the report that you asked for in January sorry in June 27th what you will find on pages 23 and 24 our our recommendations for approval of uh board policy 1340a which will affirm the board's recognition of the public rights to public records uh administrative policy 3580 which affirms the districts uh belief in transparency and Associated uh with each of those is Administrative regul a which defines public records sets out the legal timelines by which we're required to retain those records to direct staff on how they should be
123retained thank you Miss Donovan we have uh three public speakers uh line Burley Kelly Davis and Lindsay burningham and we'll give you three minutes a piece go ahead hi my name is Kelly Davis I'm the advocacy chair for the San Diego chapter of the Society of professional journalists and while we appreciate the board's vote last month to delay implementing new email retention rules uh pending the review of The District's Public Records policies uh we still have concerns with some of the recommendations before you today uh one of those recommendations is to retain emails for a year uh as I pointed out in my comments uh to the board last month other large school districts in California retain emails for two years in the interest of transparency this includes Los Angeles Unified Long Beach Unified Fresno
124and Elk Grove um in the staff report says that elk grov doesn't have an email retention policy but uh I had personally contacted uh the district prior to last month's board meeting and they told me that they in fact retain emails for 2 years um I've also heard concerns from some reporters that um they've submitted public records request that can take up to a year um for them waiting for responsive documents so the issue they bring up as uh what will happen to emails that are responsive but you've got this this lengthy you know large public records request that that might take close to a year um if an email scheduled to be deleted um you know what happens to it um we're also concerned with the recommendation that employees be responsible for purging emails
125that aren't public records this opens the door for important information to be deleted if employees don't have proper training on what constitutes a public record so we we urge the board to recommend that staff consult with outside public records experts uh on this topic thank you thank [Applause] you good evening my name is Lorraine Burley and I'm here speaking um as a voice of scripts Ranch um I'm speaking against item G3 um I believe the board should not authorize this staff recommendation to implement the policy to remove email after one year um my uh understanding is that the educational code requires that even the least significant disposable records be retained for at least 3 years and that the board should not authorize staff to um remove and uh I I think changing the email retention
126policy from the proposed one year to three years is a motion that you should consider um at a later date um I don't think you're doing a presentation today but in your slides on slide 15 you state that the volume of record requests continues to increase and you you you gave the two past years and if you ask yourself why does this keep increasing well the record requests keep increasing because the public sees little openness and no transparency what what what were the record requests from 5 years ago or 10 years ago and my guess would be would be around 100 or 50 does anybody know that number and now clearly they're up to like 250 to 300 a year and then the other slide slide 16 which says complex requests have caused delays and
127you give an example of computer servers the computer server crashing which has nothing to do with denied or delayed record requests which occurred 14 months ago from the voice of scripts Ranch and bad troubled some record requests which caused a computers to to crash it it really has to do with the volume of the requests increasing and this again is due to the no openness and no transparency and the lack of confidence in the district leadership that the the public has so I I request that the board should not authorize this policy to remove emails after one year now I did send you folks a letter did you receive the letter the States the actual educational Pol the Ed Ed code which states that the um least significant disposable records be retained for 3 years
128and uh so if you move forward I I maintain that you're disregarding the educational code thank you for your time thank you lindsy burningham scea um very brief um I want to thank the district for putting a pause to this back in June um when questions were raised from multiple stakeholders The District staff took the time to answer our questions um and create a plan to move forward um I'm confident that this plan has been created and that this will allow these changes to be made with the appropriate background information with the appropriate directions for staff as well as the appropriate amount of time to do this appropriately so that we ensure that what needs to be kept is kept and and all the junk that's sitting there is not taking space so thank you
129for doing that thank you thank you okay we have a motion in a second questions or comments yeah first of all um a question for um Miss Donovan I mean we we have here the number of days that various agencies you know saved the emails 60 days 90 days there are some others mentioned that were for longer periods of time there was also mention of the Ed code in terms of Records being retained for 3 years and and I'm not sure if pertains to emails I know there are different types of Records but if you could kind of clarify that for us the administrative reg regulations before you set forth the Education Code that was referenced by the speaker and reflects exactly what is in the Education Code uh what we are asking in directing
130is that records not be retained on District email servers and individual accounts which is not a secure place to maintain emails and that we purge our servers of things that are considered not records and if you'll take a look at pages uh seven and eight you'll see definitions by the department of General Services as well as L USD explaining what is not a record interpersonal Communications drafts things of that nature are not considered records by law and so uh the recommendation is to expect staff and explain to staff how and why they must save in their own files where we can find them easily and we don't get barraged with requests that we have to go through 30,00 ,000 emails or 60,000 emails or 6,000 emails that are really not even records okay well we
131we put this item on the agenda because there was a concern and and and we wanted to address the whole issue of transparency in general and one of the things I wrote about was that the first the first step of transparency is being able to go to a school and find you know get questions answered there about what's going on we have a quality assurance office there another way of gathering information uh board members are able to make requests to the superintendent about things we want information on and those requests are generally at the behest of constituents who are contacting us and we we therefore have a process to do that um the other way we can participate in transparency is through the media in terms of making oursel available to the various members of
132the media in terms of explaining And discussing uh what's going on because I see the the public records request is sort of the final stage I mean in terms of if the the information cannot be gotten from all the the things I just mentioned that that's the um that's the that's the point where we go um it seems to me with with the um uh looking at how emails are retained in various groups and I understand that email doesn't necessarily contact constitute a record but one year seems fairly generous based on what's what's happening around the the the county and around the state uh there's so many types of requis I we could you know if we had a recording of every every single phone call there may be all kinds of things um so
133I guess I would like to add a couple of things uh to the motion first of all we have uh there's been a criticism of the district not being responsive to public records requests and yet we see here information about something like 6 million uh emails being in there uh that makes it very burdensome to to be uh responsive to the request when we have so much extra stuff in there that doesn't really pertain to public records that has to be gone on gone through so a couple of things that I would like to add are first of all if we could have a report in six months in terms of what's what's happening with public records requests taking the the date of this um this uh I believe we have a motion on the
134floor wouldn't this be an additional motion um further information I made okay so then would your motion be to adopt the recommendation by staff and then a carry-on motion add-on motion to then uh direct the staff to come back with more information later no okay let me explain it is to accept sta recommendation I'm just asking that in 6 months we have a status report on what's happening with public records okay my My Hope Is that they will be more facilitated and and happen happening in a in a faster manner based on on the changes that we're making and the other part that I would like to ask and I'm not specifying how to do this but that this this that all of the employees get information on how to store public records because it's
135been pointed out that having an email is not a secure means of restoring public records they need to transfer those specific public records to files so to to do this I'm just saying we we adopt the staff uh recommendation we just have a status report in 6 months and then there'll be information to employees of what to do in terms of transferring emails to public records uh I believe you seconded it is that amendable to you no Shar oh Sharon excuse me is that amenable to you Dr Dr wer P do you accept that okay okay sorry I can restart we did it okay okay I I have a couple questions first of all um Kelly Davis with the Society of professional journalists had mentioned that a variety of school districts have a 2-year retention
136policy she specifically cited LAUSD in Long Beach and then the next speaker had mentioned that Ed code requires that all things be retained for 3 years does that mean that La Unified School District in Long Beach are um violating California state Ed code no as I explained the administrative regulations in AR 358a contain what are required to be saved and it is 3 years but LAUSD also has very clear instructions on what is not considered a record um and there are many things that are not considered in records that are simply parked which is why we have 576 million emails on our servers right so so basically what you're saying is La Unified School District and Long Beach School District are not violating California Ed code not in my opinion okay thank you okay no
137further questions or comments please vote great okay can we get a motion to adopt item G4 this the adoption of the csb board policies so moved second please vote okay um can we get a motion to uh approve item H3 while this is the public hearing ising Sor uh Mr Biser did not vote oh I'm sorry well I didn't register okay okay we've moved on to item H3 I move this item thank you I already moved it I Mr visor moved it we've got a second are there any public speakers well we we had to go back after okay please [Applause] vote okay item H4 this is an update on our uh drinking water so moved second do you have a second and superintendent Martin thank you president BR I'm going to ask Drew Roland
138to come up to present this item it's our drinking water update and the follow-up plan that the board asked us to come back with it's to adopt our new districtwide Action level for lead and drinking water and the development of our remediation plan so that we can meet the new standard and establish the ongoing water sampling program and Drew will walk us through this presentation that was requested by our board is it yeah goe thank you uh good evening um as superintendent mentioned um in late April we had presented our initial plan on water sample testing uh water testing for lead and our drinking water provided some initial results that meeting you asked us to come back with more detail and to look particularly at the uh samples that were in that range of 5
139to 15 parts of per billion 15 parts per Bill billion being the state established Action level but we wanted to see those samples in between um so we'd like to provide a quick status update on where we got with the city testing and then talk about that follow on plan and I got to click click performing great thank you um so just very quickly again the city testing is completed they took 960 samples for us um we had a total of 57 samples that were over five parts per billion with only four of those exceeding the Action level um you've heard it many times but I I think it we can't say it enough that the city was a tremendous part partner in carrying this out uh they responded quickly and we're very professional in
140this testing process as you oh sorry that's okay now it's going too fast it w work for the other um with the support of the the county health and other providers we also you know we did have one test that was high at Bernie high school or Bernie Elementary School that was above the allowable limit and with with that we did followon blood leing level testing of students with no results exceeding uh the blood level uh levels um guess one other it's been add distri team working through this safety po Communications legal nursing and wellness so we've all been working together to move this uh project along and then we are in the midst of continued district testing the requirement for the city was the only test K12 school locations we internally have picked up
141uh other areas such as Standalone Child Development Centers uh administrative sites that weren't covered by the city's testing we will wrap all of that up there's just a few stragglers that we will not get to until September when students are back in the school but we will very shortly finish up and then have uh a representative sampling of every District site completed and just in in summary again 960 samples taken 94% of those samples were non- detect uh then you see the slices of pie with that very narrow um yellow wedge that were actually the four or 4% of the samples that were actually exceeding the 15 parts per billion of the state um requirement uh again just looking at it a little differently if you can stay there for just one second key thing
142to realize here is 155 of the 193 sites that were sampled of the five samples conducted by the city had no detected levels of lead in them um and then you can see where we had 28 schools with one six schools that had two samples that were again in that range uh so we have 38 um School sites that have some level of Le in the testing performed by the city again just slicing and dcing with uh the type of school that encountered these test results so when we look at uh basically the the board tasking to staff and when we looked at where do we go from here um we're proposing a plan that no drinking water Outlet will have a lead content above five parts per billion across the district um as we
143all know Le is a Bad Thing plenty of people the state water board EPA uh Center for Disease Control all acknowledge that there is no safe level we're moving our The District close to that level uh 5 PBB again one3 of the established level of 15 parts per billion it's in line with where we are with our current sampling as you will recollect the state sampling to the city the minimum detection level that they establish in that sampling process was that same five um we have supportive infrastructure both in the water provided by the city and the in the uh um and the Distribution Systems as well as our own District Plumbing that allow us to get to this five part per billion goal across the district and then interestingly five parts per billion of
144lead content is the food drug administration's uh requirement for bottle drinking water so again we thought there was good consistency and Alignment there how do we get there if we want to go to that plan uh we laid out these five steps obviously follow through on what the city has done already then we see it as testing the remaining water Outlets across the district remediating those uh and I can get into a little more detail further on here maintain our flushing protocol until we're through this work and then there will be some followup and continued future work with us with the process in total we're talking about about 7,200 water Outlets across the district we be honest we don't know absolutely certainly how many but uh it's in right in that range that's uh drinking
145fountains uh uh water faucets used in kitchens for food preparation so if you look at it and say the city has tested about a th of those we would have another 6200 100 or so to go um again from the city testing we have 57 water outlets at 38 schools we're remediating and are are nearly done with those that were over 15 uh parts per billion and we want to get all of those down below five parts per billion when we talk about remediation it's um the work either repairing filtering removing from service and then when we go through on a School site we want to try to walk away leaving the entire or will walk away leaving the entire campus not just that single outlet or that single one that had a high test
146but the entire campus in good shape and Below five parts per billion um again picking up the testing of the remaining water outlets at the district we would follow the same state protocol that's established and that the city uh followed that's taking a one liter first draw first use of the morning uh s from the uh from the drinking Outlet during normal school operations if you recollect the state uh testing requirement wouldn't test let us test on a Monday morning for example school had to happen the day before with our testing um so we'd follow the same protocols there's a minimum of 6 hours of testing where the water needs to be stagnant in line in the line before we take our test we believe that are testing with the city we are probably closer
147to 10 or 12 hours of water in line before the test just because we tagged the uh the outlet out the afternoon and evening before and then tested early the next morning so we got somewhere in that range and then again sample will will be taken by District staff but handled by a certified lab that will do the testing um again it's in the neighborhood of 7200 Outlets across the district um let me see one of the discussion points we did run this plan by Cal heard and we've been having a dialogue with them um one of the discussion points with them is a concern for having a longer stagnation period um in their mind a child May drink from the water fountain on Friday goes away School sits empty all weekend and then the
148student comes back on Monday and again uses the water fountain so in their mind could you have a longer stagnation period um again we we we've talked with them and and I think where we've left it and you'll see it further in here is we do have a longer stagnation than the 6 hours required by the state and then we have a a plan in our our flushing that will address some of that Monday to or Friday to Monday concept as well but we want to try to replicate replicate The Real World experience as best we can in our testing test it then remediate it um if we follow the same uh pattern that we saw with the city test testing um we had 5.9% of our samples exceeding um the five parts per billion
149again following that through we would expect to encounter another 360 is uh Outlets that would give us a result over five parts per billion U we want to follow along as we have testing close closely followed with remediation remediation methods uh are again the idea of plumbing repair replacing the fixture replacing the plumbing that is our preferred method there is some talk of use of filters the our hesitancy with filters are that it generates a recurring cost we would like to go in fix it right one time and be done so that is some of the discussion that's happened again just more discussion on um re remediation methods um I would say again filtering is a uh is a concept we actually are using in uh at Bernie Elementary in some of the rooms and
150I what I would recommend is let the mechanics and the planners figure out the best course to remediate in the case of Bernie Elementary it would be very intrusive to get to the valve and the plumbing that we believe are causing the problems in some of the older classroom buildings we'd be tearing into walls tearing out cab Tre so when we look at that we say in this instance filtering is a better method to get us to where we want to be but uh we we have the idea of plumbing repair installing filters and then even the idea of potentially consolidating taking some drinking fountains offline and replacing it with for example one bottle filling station in a more uh with a filter but in a uh more central location for example we believe that's
151probably a better application at a high school and middle school not so much at an element school but again that's all kind of in our toolkit to resolve these things as I mentioned flushing protocol right now we have a daily flushing protocol when school's in session uh one minute each water Outlet um obviously that's a burden that's a takes an effort uh takes time waste water we want to get out from underneath that we know that that's an only should be an interim measure uh as we work through our followon testing we want to be able ble to release the School site be confident that we've tested everywhere at the school site and remediate where it need be so that we view the School site as being under that five parts per billion throughout and
152then we would relieve the School site of that daily flushing as I mentioned some of our discussion with Cal perg is that we would still consider a and plan a Monday morning first day of the week flushing that does get that longer term um water stagnation out of the system so excuse me the schools that were no lead were no significant lead was found are they still doing the flushing cuz I had a principal ask me about that night yes uh yes they are or we expect that they are and the the reason behind that is we've only tested up to five uh outlets on the campus and we really don't know what's going on with the others and and and the lead contamination can be rather uh unique and specific to the the outlet
153the fixture the plumbing leading up to it so that's why they're flushing until all of the outlets have been checked is that correct that would be our intent yes okay and then again what we've oven into our plan is that a a Monday morning A Tuesday morning after Memorial Day or or whatever that the that there is a flushing going into that and we do want to make sure that we're putting out to our uh custodial staff you know for example coming back from summer break that we do a very good effort to make sure we've done that flushing with the start of the school year future steps um once we get our way through this we obviously want to make sure it's working as planned so we want to do some just quality assurance
154testing initial thought is that we'd s sample somewhere on the order of 2% of our Outlets each year if we find indications that things aren't going where we expected them to be uh we would uh look at increasing that testing level um and then one of the other discussions with Cal perg was our third bullet there revisit this entire processing concept till later than 2020 and look for options to take that number even uh that threshold even lower potentially to one part per billion that's really where Cal perg would like to be um but that is a that is a much larger effort than than where we are right now next one please here's our basic approach and timeline that we would uh carry this out conduct the testing and Remediation with existing staff re
155rep re prioritizing our work because we are using within existing staff we have some of our safety team that'll actually do be doing the sampling and our maintenance staff of planners and plumbers that would be doing the remediation work so just to plant that seed with you we believe this process would take us 3 to 5 years probably closer to the 5year mark uh but again that that is where we are with it uh um if you picture that bar graph we would basically work right uh the right Edge to the left hit those schools with the the highest number of samples positive samples and work to the left I think that's it for that one I feel like we did a very good job with our communication and transparency through this testing process and
156our intent would be to continue this we had notification processes when uh a school encountered 15 part Pavilion sample we would basically have that same process in place as we were working through five par proping samples and then again um we got pretty good at at quickly posting the sample uh test results on on the website so we would continue that just so the information is out there and available cost impact um this slide kind of captures all of what we believe the estimated effort will be to perform this work the again as I mentioned we expect to do the work with in-house staff we expect to do the remediation work from within our maintenance budget uh the thing that you will see the item that you will see within the board report is the
157$200,000 for the laboratory cost the analysis of the water samples we believe that's the estimate to perform these uh tests of approximately 60200 water Outlets um roughly spread out over five years or so we're talking $40 to $50,000 per year for the next few years to get through it U but I know there's a little confusion on this when I just kind of clarify the the new money in the process is is for the laboratory analysis of the water um I guess one thing I don't believe I touched on is our intent is with the 57 um Outlets that were identified in the city testing they will either be be offline and supported by a bottled water drinking station or remediated on the first day of school is Our intention is where we're we're getting
158to thank you we have uh thank you drew we have one public speaker Amy reading you have three minutes Amy uh good evening I'm Amy reading I'm the chair of the Cy neighborhood schools and more importantly tonight I'm a member of the Fletcher Elementary Birdland community where a low level of low levels of lead were detected in the drinking water I did always tell my children not to drink out of those fountains now I'm right um I wanted to thank the district for its diligence its honesty and its willingness to reach out to those in the know to formulate good policy and procedures to ensure a safe drinking supply for students and in the case of Fletcher Elementary a joint use Park the entire Birdland community your plan addresses both short-term and long-term issues it
159recognizes the need for Equity among our schools every student deserves drinking water with undetectable levels of lead I hope to report to the Fletcher Community tonight a vote for undetectable levels of lead at all Sites I look forward to seeing the specific plan for Fletcher Elementary and perhaps the Fletcher PTA will take up the district on its offer to come share the importance of water safety the short-term plan for Fletcher Elementary and the district's plan for ongoing monitoring and upgrades we look forward to developing our partnership with the district office on this issue thank you thank you thank you okay go ahead Dr W I hope that we can get um periodic reports over the years as you move forward absolutely I'm assuming we passed it yeah I'd like to it doesn't have to be
160you know P report but at least keep us informed certainly thank you uh yeah just a couple questions you had said that ongoing uh lab water testing costs would be about $200,000 a year about 40 I'm sorry about $40,000 a year or or a couple hundred, thousand over several years isn't it the responsibility of the water uh Authority a agency to pay for lab for water testing expenses no uh the city has met their obligation basically in in this process in the five samples per site okay so state law says that they only have to sample five sites per School correct okay in their water permit through the state Water Resources okay so the state water board um says that uh you know the cities that give schools water only have to test five water
161sources at every school yes okay and but but your plan is to go and test all the other sources correct correct all the other outlets okay and how long did you want to do that to take that your plan between 3 and 5 years to get through that okay is there any way we can do it faster well I think I think part of it if you look at it I mean this was a fairly significant effort with the city and the support that they provided to get through a thousand samples you know this uh fall or this spring right and and and it's still kind of working through even to do this in 3 years you're talking of doubling that amount of effort and again we're talking about with inhouse resources to do that
162who had frankly had full-time jobs before this okay is there any way that we could ask the city with their resources if they could help us accomplish this goal in some way shape or form an expedited uh timetable we can we can always ask I can I can tell you the city is is looking they talking about reimbursement from the state for the work they did for us right um they have mentioned that the effort in supporting us was about a half a million dollars for them to do yeah and we we really appreciate your work uh getting that partnership with the city and and Expediting testing you know so many schools so fast it's just incredible work and I really appreciate you for that um you had mentioned that there were also some um
163uh you know uh concerns about the stagnation period of 48 hours and things like that that were brought up and could you explain a little bit more about this the the proposal by Cal perk to have a 48 hour stagnation period what do they mean they want this to leave the water in the pipes for 48 hours or what what sure so we we've had a dialogue with Cal perg about this plan and and it's it's an ongoing dialogue uh we actually still shared some fine tuning on this today that we expect a response from them tomorrow on oh good so we've had an ongoing dialogue they really had U when you boil it all down they had three key issues one they would really like to see that goal or OBC objective be at
164one part per billion um so that was one thing two was the stagnation I'll come back to that in just a moment and three was the idea that we said we would follow the State Testing protocol as established just as the city did one of the things the State Testing protocol allows you to do is you get a test that has a result above the Action level you can hold off and go excuse me go through a a resampling and a confirmation testing and basically get two out of three before you say you have a problem that's allowed in the regulation we didn't do that with the city and we don't intend to do that now so we were we're very much align to age with calper yeah so stagnation the longer the water sits
165stagnant in the pipe the more lead is going to leech into the water I mean that's just a basic fact it's just the corrosion activity and all that so um I think not speaking for calper but what we heard from them was was you know the state the state um requirement was to the city was test five water Outlets test the five most frequently used don't even test them on a Monday because you didn't have school the day before in Cal PG's belief you're testing best case scenario what they believe should be happening is test worst case scenario yeah so worst case scenario in their mind would be something like a more seldomly used water fountain one that hasn't been or like we would encounter hasn't been used been used since Friday and now here
166we are on Monday right so that's where they are what we um I think there are some difficulties and and part of what I explained to the the representative from calberg there would be some difficulties in carrying that out if you said let that drinking fountain sit for two days before I come back you know from the time no one uses it uh tag it out and then come back two days later and test it that's hard to control that that's hard to say someone hasn't walked by and and played with the fountain and run the water and then we're no better off because part of the process uh activating a valve securing you can't turn the water fountain off you know beneath the the cabinet or whatever and then come back and turn on
167test it because then you've already blown the test so you have to have the test the water fountain available on so what we do is go to the school site after dismissal tag that water fountain out and then come back the next morning before the school bell rings before someone's had a chance to use it and take that test so we're getting more time than the six hours required by the state but probably not as much time as Cal perg would ideally like to see so you're going above state law mandate um and and we're trying to you know find a compromise corre there and then the other part of that compromise was if we were to flush a drinking fountain on Monday mornings when we come back in once a week and do that
168as our plan going forward then we really kind of we've nipped that Peak period we've nipped that Friday to Monday discussion so then really it's only ever going to be one night stagnation period anyway sure so that's our our thought of getting to that okay um I I would really like to thank superintendent cdy Martin because this is a perfect example of when the board wants to do something and votes - to ask the superintendant and staff to come back with a plan to go and do something and the plan that has come back has come back timely thorough thoroughly and is absolutely responsive in meeting the the the intention of the board I believe in in the motion that I made and I really appreciate you and thank you Cindy um for doing this
169thank you one question we met with a bunch of legislators from the state and they were promising the moon at that time but are we getting any money back from them mean there there is um within this there was a a Statewide grant for some Leed remediation work we are looking at that it it's the guidance uh on that Grant only came out probably a month ago uh and we are trying to catch up with some of our remediation work and apply for that Grant uh it was I believe 9 a half million dollar Statewide so it's not a lot of money um but we will we we have haven't made the submission yet but we know we have to and we are working towards that the state's good at making commitments and we're good
170at carrying them out um I just drew is there any portion of our bond program that can help pay for these costs or does it have to be borne by the maintenance the ongoing maintenance Bud we um it's it's a little bit of a mixed bag yeah uh there's actually some amount of bond funding for maintenance repairs within the maintenance budget yeah and so where we have uh the scale of the project aligns with that we would use that so it is a little bit of a mixed bag I think Lee would tell you we can't for example uh replace filters B it's not something like that but uh but there are you know these are today they have been relatively minor one offs that we've been chasing yeah okay um do we have a
171motion I'm sorry Dr M I did I didn't want to pile on and add on because others have already made the point but thank you and your your uh your your your team for everything you've you've done to get on this issue and get on it quickly and to resolve it um and then I'm I'm wondering you the've um we've had the the lead paint uh we went through asbestos and now we're dealing with lead and the water can you look ahead and see what might coming I'm not sure we want to have that discussion right now yeah course but thanks for being proa sure thank you and do we have a motion to we do in a second all right please vote thank you thank you drew thank you superintendent Martin okay Drew I
172also wanted to recognize that our director of government relations Kai Jackson is in the audience so he listened very carefully to your question about the state and he's working with he was at that meeting with all the elected officials and the promises so thanks for being here for this item tonight too Kai item H5 our 201819 instructional calendar recommendation superintendent thank you president barer this item H5 is the approval of the 1819 instructional year calendar the recommendation that I'm bringing forward this evening is to continue with a pre- Labor Day start in 2018 which will be the third consecutive year of beginning the week before Labor Day and beginning the year before Labor Day this recommendation is for one year only it's for the 201819 school year and the recommendation is on today's agenda to
173ensure that the one-year lead time is provided to parents staff and Community to be able to prepare for the 1819 school year I want to mention that the instructional calendar committee did provide me with its recommendation for reverting to a post Labor Day start in 1819 and I have thoroughly reviewed their recommendation the issues and the impacts to the district that the calendar committee deliberated on as a group and with their respective stakeholders in the revised process that we put together this year the topics that they discussed thoroughly and brought to their stakeholders are outlined in the agenda item and I've also taken into account the instruction C calendars committee's vote was extremely close the committee consisted of 32 voting members comprised of half parents and students and half staff which was a change from
174previous years based on feedback that I had received previously this committee's recommendation to revert to post Labor Day start in 1819 came from a vote of 26 of those 32 voting members with nearly a split vote of 14 to revert to post Labor Day and 12 to continue with pre-labor Day start six members of the committee were not present for the vote and they had established at the beginning that all needed to be present for the vote I do truly value the hard work that this committee put in the time that they took away from their families and from their work to be able to participate in the process that was used to develop the recommendations it was a difficult decision to for me to not go with the committee's recommendation I did not take
175this decision lightly while we continue to have schools on year round schedule the options for for Fall start dates are extremely limited as I presented in the attachment to this item all public school districts are going to begin prior to Labor Day in 2017 and it's expected that this will continue in 2018 with a start date in the last week of August San Diego UniFi continues to be one of the latest start districts in the county as my recommendation for the year ahead for 1819 okay thank you superintendent Martin we've got um several public speakers uh allow two minutes each Heather worms Derek burner Sabrina hanlin Lindsay burningham Tamara Hurley hi hi my name is Heather worms and I'm one of two cluster Congress Representatives serving on the calendar committee this year I represent all
17616 clusters in San Diego unified I was hopeful because the district addressed previous concerns regarding the makeup of the calendar committee and the lack of parent teacher and student Representatives uh people that make up by far the largest stakeholder group in response to the concerns the district set up a process that was collaborative and mostly transparent for more than eight months volunteers representing all stakeholder groups worked countless hours meeting researching analyzing data pulling stakeholders and collecting information at the end of the April three months ago this group voted and arrived at a recommendation of a post- Labor Day start date regardless of the vote numbers the majority did vote for post Labor Day uh on July 7th superintendent Martin Ford um put forward and submitted a proposal that differed from the calendar committee recommendation many
177calendar committee members were extremely upset this weekend to find out that this proposal was put forward without any communication from calendar committee leadership though I do appreciate the personal phone call yesterday evening from Cindy Martin explaining her reasoning I'm still really disappointed that the leadership didn't reach out and only did after several of us sent emails to the board questioning the proposal the calendar committee did what it was asked yet the recommendation is not being put forward my statement tonight is not more about the process than the actual start date San Diego unified already has some big public relations issues which became glaringly obvious with its major budget crisis this is a chance for you to show your constituents you are supporting the process in place and listening you will continue to lose credibility if
178you do not I urge you to vote against the proposal and to go with the committee's recommendation thank you Sabrina handland per President um I too am disappointed uh with the process and the outcome we worked hard um as you were saying it was our free time or what free time little free time we usually have uh anyway um I appreciate actually today receiving an email from um Melissa via Dr Michael asking what our you know what was what was our reasoning for our choices and how did we choose and and you know I told him there there there was multiple reasons but my group's biggest issues were the fact that when we presented the data that was given to them it seemed that CIF and um um AP courses we're driving everything and that's
179a very small percentage of student enrollment people that play sports and or are in an AP class at one grade level out of 12 um plus the fact that we still have schools that are on year round calendars with parents with multiple students in different grade levels it it's just you know causes Havoc I I realize they all start at the same time but you've got the short window in the summertime when they have together um but looking at that and if you do approve this I noticed that there are not um and my members primarily run off of the student calendar our work year runs to a student calendar year there's only 192 work days paid right now on this calendar I implore you respectfully and ask you to add the extra one day
180to make the 193 that we are currently Furlow at at the beginning of the school year so that my members have the opportunity to come in read IEPs meet teachers get some professional development do the safety cours workk that's required of them by October 1st and utilize that one day because you're going to have to pay them for a day to come in and work utilize that one day to to get things accomplished at the start of the year not at the end of the year cleaning thank you hello camera Hurley you've seen me before um I'm very disappointed in how this process was handled after the C calendar committee's last meeting in April I was planning to come down to the board meeting and say this was a good model on which to build
181District committees it wasn't perfect but it had better stakeholder representation than other District commit committees we used factual information and data analysis to drive our decisions and we formed consensus when we didn't entirely agree and while most reps made an attempt to reach out to their stakeholders my reservation was that not all reps did so that could have been in part because we were specifically told that it was up to us to do the stakeholder Outreach that the district would not help in the case of cluster rep some principes were willing to forward the survey were unwilling to forward the survey because it was not officially sanctioned by the district although we asked several times that face help us to provide Outreach still I thought this committee was a process that we could be used
182as a model however the actions of the past 12 weeks have indicated that this District once again doesn't really respect its committees it committee reps the stakeholders they represent and the time and effort they EXP SP that decisions are made executively superintendent Martin did not take the time to meet with the committee reps to discuss her reasons for rejecting the recommendation she didn't even bother to tell us at all we found out from the agenda post on bardocks and despite assurances that she would reach out to us personally I did not receive an email or a call as it turned out this committee is a model after all a model of how this District routinely makes decisions executively that stakeholder engagement not just with parents but with students and employees as well is not genuine
183but just empty reassurances and a box to check off you've heard the same from your elcap planning team you've heard it from your District advisory chairs the list goes on to reiterate my Angelo's words that superintendent Martin quoted recently people will forget what you said people forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel the district calendar committee and the stakeholders they represent feel disrespected my Angelou also said what you're supposed to do when you don't like the thing that is to change it clearly we peons have no power so I ask you as the board trustees to respect your stakeholders and change how this District makes its decisions there D Derek burner San Diego uh Council PTA um I was not on the the committee this year we did
184have two Representatives um I will say we spent our money from our nonprofit to survey our members we didn't get a huge response but we did have a few 100 responses 69% uh did vote for a post- Labor Day start um I never thought a calendar would be so controversial in this District um the the members um our members on this committee were deeply disappointed that they were not consulted before this decision were made was made and one person said wow this truly proves that Sano UniFi doesn't care about parent engagement I hope that's not true I believe that's not true uh superintendent Martin I I'm sure it wasn't easy but I think this sends a message that is going to be very hard to correct thank you Lindsay burningham s DEA um my comments
185are very similar to Derek's um we did survey our members I again was not on the committee um I had four appointees that were part of the committee who um were also divided I've been honest for those I've talked to half of them were in favor of pre half of them were in favor of post I've shared personally I personally think that the pre- Labor Day start is what's Best But my personal opinion isn't what matters in this situation we surveyed our members and we had over 1,400 members respond to our survey um 59% um voted in favor of a post Labor Day 49% voted in favor of a pre-labor day um in this situation you're going to please 50% of the people and you're going to upset another 50% um whatever calendar you choose
186whether it's pre whether it's post it's very divided people have their own reasons um people also get stuck in what they've always done um growing up in San Diego growing up here I've always started after Labor Day you had your last vacation her ra 3-day week and you started after Labor Day and people get stuck in that and they go to that and a lot of the comments that we heard throughout the last two years from parents from teachers were about wanting their vacation um so whatever their reasons were that's what the votes were um that's um the committee took hours upon hours to deliberate um and my concern here again is not what's good or bad but the picture this is painting and what we've heard from our members on the committee what we've
187heard from some of the parents tonight that this really was just a check in the box to say we've consulted we've talked with our stakeholder groups um I know it's been explained to me is not that but that's what it's showing um I've share the same concern when it came to the lcap that it was a check in the box and not true meaningful engagement so My Hope Is that we don't continue to go back and forth that we're able to find a calendar a calendar that works I think we also need to put the uh priority on transitioning everybody to a common calendar um because that will make all of this a whole lot easier and give us a lot more flexibility thank you okay we have a recommendation from the superintendent do we
188have a motion to support the recommendation I move to support the recommendation okay and do we have a second seconds Dr White hor pan seconds uh board comments questions vice president visor um I think that um I think this is a difficult decision um given that there's so many folks that feel one way or the other uh looking at the calendar committee's recommendation to have a post Labor Day start um and and then I also uh think that it's not just about 14: 12 but it's also about you know um the proportionality of the representation on the calendar committee for example there's thousands of thousands of teachers that were represented by four people and of those teachers that were ped uh Lindsay just shared uh a vast majority of them 59% um supported the post
189Labor Day and then we heard from the president of the San Diego unified Council of PT that they pulled uh parents involved in the PTA organizations across the district and a a a even larger majority 69% of parents involved in the PTA uh systems and different schools support a a post Labor Day uh start and so I think that you know that that starts sending a message and a signal and then one of the things that I started thinking about and deliberating about whether or not you know which one is better um is I was interested in data um but to the extent that I could ask for data and look at it and evaluate to make a decision is something that the calendar committee did to a far greater extent um and so uh
190at this point in time I I understand the that there are pros and cons to both sides uh but at this point in time I I'm going to have to come down and and support uh the calendar committee I'm going to have to come down and support the parents and I'm going to have to come down and support the teachers so I'm going to oppose this uh this recommendation and if it does fail I would uh would would entertain a motion uh to adopt the committee that uh was recommended by the community uh any other comments sure this is definitely a difficult one I know I talked to a uh someone from a school district in Virginia and this wasn't about calendar it was about start times and they decided to have a they had
191a district ride U conversation for a whole year about you know the pros and cons and different ways of doing it and at the end of the year it was just pretty evenly split and so they ended up sticking with the status quo in this case it's almost a little difficult to say what the status quo is because we did move for a couple of years to the early start time and back we had the the late start time we we've been very inconsistent in that and I think that that is one of the the big problems because one of the things that happened when we switched back and forth was people said we want a late start time but then at the end of the school year people were very upset about how late
192they were getting out of school because obviously what people would like is some people would be a late start and an early end so so so it it you know because you have to kind of look at at both ends and uh I I realized you know there have been some some uh sample polling I know at one point when we were doing it one year there was an there was an online survey and it came up with certain numbers but you know these these things are not completely scientific either and so it's sort of like well I understand people are feeling why are we doing this survey if we're not going to follow the results of the survey or why are we having this committee if we're not going to going to follow the
193the results of the committee but uh I I think my my position at this point I I don't have a a personal idea about absolutely what is the uh the best time to start I know that some people would like to have a much earlier start time in August I mean moving it back even a couple of weeks earlier than that I think this is sort of a uh a compromise between the two in terms of post Labor Day and early Labor day but to me at this point I think what the the district needs is is consistency I think people will get used to an early start time and it won't continue to be an issue if we do it one week before Labor Day so that's that's why I'm reporting this I think
194we just need that consistency instead of going back and forth and ultimately we have to make the decision here if it were if it had come out you know over I realized there was a majority on these votes but if it had come out overwhelmingly on one side of the other then I would certainly support it but it's pretty split it was my understanding that uh you surveyed the people who were not there and it came up fairly balanced uh Welcome to the ta president who said that he didn't know that calendar could be so controversial in the state of Virginia they dictate I gather the start time I mean start date for all the schools after Labor Day or whatever I mean that's what the last word I heard about that so it's a
195big deal uh I happen to have spent 10 years at uh cast at Us San maros uh on faculty there and uh it was always an issue for me um because the children the students young adults um big kids big kids they um it was desirable for them to start early and so this was San Diego UniFi was the only one that was draging if you will and the data are born out on that survey that uh most of the schools are starting now earlier in in uh August or or they're starting before Labor date so I'm a little bit biased and tend to lean that way personally and I'll just acknowledge my bias right so please bear with me uh the uh as with many board agenda items that involve highly emotional issues varied
196positions and multiple and complex ramification this issue required research Outreach and communication whether superintendent staff parents stakeholders advisory committees councils and bargaining unit I received a number of emails text messages phone calls and had conversations well the findings as has already been mentioned there it was split closely split in many situations and leaned heavily in some or others so across our committees or councils or stakeholders and bargaining units had uh close calls even within their within their groups um the teachers recommended a a late start and the principes and our administrative unit recommended an early start High School coaches and High School principles respond with a strong support for an early start classified units were split with some favoring early others favoring late others okay either way our DAC the CAC the PTA recommended a
197late start three of the four clusters in my area recommended a late start with one cluster not taken a position but one of its four high schools recommended an early start the Calendar to committee recommended a late start so the the reasons given in the email responses that I received from our stakeholders committees and bargaining units uh were very similar to The Reason stated here uh tonight my concern is more about acknowledging a process that is authentic and meaningful fact-based and fair promotes trust and understanding and results in recommendations that are most beneficial to everyone concerned while I understand the reasons for a pre-labor Day School start and the positive impact an early start will have for secondary students the athletic program sat and AB testing that aligns San Diego Unified School District with the
198other districts in the San Diego County as well as La unified I want to acknowledge the dedication commitment and sincere effort on the part of the members of our various committees councils bargain units in dealing with this issue specifically I want to acknowledge the effort of the calendar committee and the much improved process that was followed and the restructuring of its membership to better ensure representation from multiple stakeholders we are a district that is focused on building Collective capacity meaningful stakeholder input improved credibility and authentic Community engagement requiring a significant commitment of committee members their time their expertise and their emotional energy I want to make sure that we acknowledge the work our committees are tasked to perform and while we know they are providing recommendations that are advisory I want to ensure that the
199committee process is supported and honored we make better decisions when our communities and stakeholders are involved and and our committees are are involved and committees on which they serve are celebrated and the recommend a they make are respected with these recommendations when these recommendations are not accepted it is imperative that there is feedback and a conversation with our stakeholders and committees to explain the difference as suggested in one reply from uh chair of a stakeholder group the committee process has vastly improved since I served on it kudos to the district and for the drastic improvement as chair I always knew and respected my role as advisory having the bo uh having the board or superintendent push a different recommendation always went down smoother when the superintendent my district counterpart and board members Let Me Down
200Easy with a recognition of the committee work words of respect and kindness and an Express an expressed desire to continue building a partnership I do want to acknowledge the superintendent and the staff uh for an improved process and my vote tonight is more about an advocacy for an improved process that supports truthfulness fairness trust and understanding increased credibility and quality recommendations than it is about this particular action and for this reason like Lindsay I personally believe that a pre-labor day start would be best however as a board member at this time who is frequent who has frequently stated my support for Community engagement and meaningful stakeholder participation in the decision-making process I will be voting no okay well there's clear consensus on the board too two and a half welcome to my world superintendent Could
201you um articulate your reasons for the recommendation yes um as I said in my opening comments there's every single issue that the committee looked at from Air Conditioning to testing to um the impacts to the school campus and being consistent there were a list of issues and I looked at every single one of them but ultimately stability now going into the third year of doing this so our families and our communities and teachers and actually wider Community the Community College Partners can count on what our start date is going to be and to stay consistent for for 3 years running is important instead of flip-flopping back and forth that was a major decision as well as it's not just a high school issue but specifically the issue of at at the high school level some
202of our students were giving the through the promise scholarship we're giving them scholarships to go to Community College and starting at this time allows them to start the Community College on time instead of starting two weeks later the start date of Community College would be before our students actually get out of school with the later start date as well it was also part of my decision making okay well so I mean this sounds like a process that was done extremely well I've got to say and you know what the process revealed is that um when people with good intentions uh you know throw themselves into uh trying to figure something out that's complicated um that what comes out are mixed opinions and I think I think that's where we're at now and I again if
203there was I I agree with Dr Evans if the process had produced clear consensus I think it would have probably you know been easy for both the superintendent and the board to uh go along with the outcome of that process but what It produced was the reality that people are split in in this District so I'm going to support the superintendent's recommendation as well so please vote okay all right item H6 this is uh our proposal for selection of joint occupancy I'll move item age six have a second second and we've got one speaker uh Lorraine Burley Miss Bley uh good evening again I know it's getting late um I'm speaking in support of agenda item H6 it's kind of nice to be speaking in support um this is great work you we have the
204Linda Vista Town Council involved and engaged during the project evaluation process so good job really good job but I have to ask you what about the scrips Mesa joint occupancy Apartment project when will you consider redoing this process especially after the recent scripts Ranch at testing debacle our district impacted our children and still continues now to promote This Apartment project proposal that will impact our neighborhoods and the general public with the proposed Apartment project and remember there's three strikes you can consider against this proposal you need 20 to $50 million in prop snz Bond money which is repair our school bond money to relocate and disrupt one charter school the innovation Academy you state that you'll make $34 million in net income but this is an unknown income there are no initial or ongoing expenses
205included with this number and I really did appreciate in your recommendation that you specifically state in the fiscal impact that money that is guaranteed and money that is not guaranteed so you were very upfront about the fiscal impact as well with the Linda Vista joint occupancy project and going back to the scripts Ranch clearly scripts Ranch is very upset about this project there was no community group that supported this out of five different Community groups none of them voted to support and you know it really promotes a very negative relationship with the community so you know like the Linda vist Council the scripts Ranch civic association would like to help you create a better project you know Bob IL CO's email address please email set up a meeting and we can start to make a
206better project that will work for everybody of course we know you you can't satisfy 100% so maybe we could satisfy 20% that would be better than minimal percent that you have now so I really implore you to please try to work with scripts Ranch for our teachers students and our neighborhoods thank you very much thank you we have a motion in a second please vote um just second please remind me what what is current what what district function is currently at the r Center re C he's going to get up to talk about that I'm just currently right now I can't remember most of the um most of the uh staff that are there are food service and there's our um couple RC there's some insurance uh functions there as well but primarily food service
207and this this proposal actually accommodates the staff as well okay thanks okay no further questions please vote okay okay can we get a motion on uh The Epiphany Prep charter school revision to their Charter oh we skipped did I skip H7 I'm sorry n this our information report on the Sita development item H7 and action and an action yep superintendent thank you president B Lee dgro is going to come up but this item was is H7 correct it's a pro proof of concept preschool through fifth grade elementary school that will um go to the go growing needs that we see in Mission Valley and tonight's item specifically it's an informational report on the proposed School within sevita and the site the facilities and the instructional program and Mr Mr do did you want to say
208anything about this one tonight so I'll be really brief and just uh acknowledge the work of uh Kimmy lonf felt Julie Martell Maria Nichols and the academic team as long as well as real estate facilities legal services and um um and in planning the newest school this is uh the idea here is to this item is to um approve an addendum to the SEL project eir for a 500 student pre K to fifth grade school in Mission Valley sevita development um it also approves the draft purchase and sale agreement with the Cory Falls LLC for the properties to construct a school this is going to be the proof of concept school um do you want me to go through the presentation or should we just I don't know how long you you want I think
209we're okay yeah what's that I think we've seen it that uh it's it's a proof of concept um Elementary School very in ative U indoor outdoor Collaborative Learning spaces um and um to to support the Next Generation learning environment great it's in alignment with our cluster development plan that Dr Martell was working on as well in terms of programs and steam and Pathways and this is actually very exciting project as we go forward on it and looking forward to the development and the work that Dr Martell was doing around collaborating with facilities planning and construction and the instructional team so that we're not working in isol but we're actually building programs instructionally that match the vision and the pathways that are so desirable to our students and families bring uh bring students into our district
210as we have if no motion has been made I move for approval or has there already been a motion I move for approval okay action action it's an action we have a second second and Dr mccy please vote okay okay now can we get a motion on item H9 I move H9 second any oh one speaker uh Michelle Anderson okay I already voted okay good evening hi good evening good late evening Michelle Anderson with the California Charter Schools Association good building support it we support it thank you all right good comments thank you all right we have a motion to second please vote okay passes 5 z uh and came all the way up here for nothing thank you she was so prepared for all your questions do we have I bet you do we
211have a motion on item h10 this is to pres our U approve our yep Dr writer pay approval Dr mccy second if no questions or discussion we do have one speaker just question uh Kathleen Doty is Kathleen here okay okay please vote okay and uh we pulled item i28 uh from the consent agenda Sabrina was that you that was me must be sorry for keeping but I'm hoping that this is a mistake um with our budget problems of $124 million you laid off all my Avid employees but here we are going to hire out Avid employees so I'm I'm a little confused I didn't think that you guys were allowed to replace employees that had been laid off with contracted employees am I misunderstanding something we have can somebody speak to the item I need
212you to say a little bit more about okay so we laid off all the Avid employees that were employed um effective June 30th there are no more Avid employees employed with the district but we're signing an agreement for teach and tutor to provide Avid tutors which are what our Avid assistance did for the same schools that we're laid off from so I'm hoping it's a mistake and maybe I don't know I think I have somebody that's prepared to speak about that is that correct Mia Mia this funds are coming from a Department of Defense grant funding it's a three-year grant that was issued um to support Avid structures and Avid programs because they are moving towards um Avid schoolwide and it's supporting the Avid tutorials within the programs at farb De Porta and at Sarah
213high school okay I I guess the question from so the question would be is we have other people funded through Grant programs that are employees okay let me look into it a little bit further then I don't have the direct answer right I'll move to continue I'll move to continue the item not I'm not sure if I need um Chief of Staff or somebody Rec I don't know if pulling it tonight allows us to go forward with the AVID program next year so I need to get confirmation on that okay I I mean I I made some inquiries I didn't notice this until late this afternoon so I did try to get some information before I came tonight but I figured I needed to say something so that if this is a violation of our
214contract we don't have to play that game Jessica Michelle Labor Relations is looking into it we heard you talk about it today at 3:30 there's no issue yeah okay yeah I tried to do something yeah and and this point we're just not sure that the work in the contract has anything to do with what the par employees used to do that's what we're looking into right now okay okay but it sounds like we can't take action on this I just don't know the impact of not taking action tonight and being able to offer Avid to all of our schools next year I don't know the timing of that yeah as an avid teacher uh Avid tutors are Avid tutors right yeah that's that was my they do the same job right and I looked up
215the assistance position for the district and seemed very much in tune with what I was reading in the contract for that what they're offering you guys and I don't think it would eliminate Avid because I know my great niece is at Korea and has Avid there but no Avid you if they don't take action tonight can you still I thought I heard earlier today that if they don't then you can't provide Avid next year provide Avid tutorials but we weren't scheduled to launch the tutorials until mid September so we do have some time to pull it and we can discuss it we can look next board meeting is not till September 12th so I just don't want to delay your ability to implement the AVID program which is essential in our district while we look
216into this issue I move that we table the item for future consideration absolutely okay we've got a motion in a second can we vote on Mr motion thank you okay and with that we are adjourned no no further non agenda Tes no okay thanks you're disappointed still e e