001okay it's going to be just a moment [Music] Omar that's probably me good [Music] cooko um those items are items B1 public employee performance evaluation B2 conference with labor negotiator uh B3 conference with legal counsel on existing litigation and B4 student expulsions do we have any public comment blue cards president Medina there is no public comment or blue cards seeing no blue cards we will now recess to close session we're now reconvening the March 27th uh 2024 uh meeting of the senator City Schools Board of Education going to ask everybody to please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and then please remain standing for our land acknowledgement I pledge allegiance to the flag the United States of America to The Republic which it stand one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all
002and now please remain standing for land acknowledgement by Vanessa wurn I acknowledge that Santa Rosa city schools is on the traditional territory and homelands of the Pomo people traditional territory and homelands of the Coast Miwok people and honor with gratitude the land itself and the people who have stewarded it throughout the generations this land acknowledgement calls us to commit to continuing to learn how to be better stewards of the land we inhabit by offering this land acknowledgement we affirm indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold Santa Rosa city schools more accountable to the needs of American Indian and Indigenous peoples thank you you all may now be seated did we now move on to item C3 report of actions taken in closed session there were no actions taken in closed session uh we will now
003move on to item B4 items considered in closed session for Action in open session we do have one item is there any motions from a board member yeah move to approve the recommendation for stipulated expulsion as amended by the board second moved by truste Sheffield seconded by trusty De La Cruz um any any discussion no we already have discussion vote trusty Sheffield I trusty De La Cruz I trusty MCN I trusty de la Tor I trusty Flores I president Medina I now we move on to item C5 statements of extension board members are there any statements of abstention seeing none we'll move on to item C6 adjustments to the agenda uh superintendent or board members are there any adjustments to the agenda see none we'll move on to item C7 special presentations for students of
004the month and certificated and classified staff I will go with uh Bridgeway first than hi I'm principal uh Donna kelia garabaldi and I am uh very proud to be side by side with my assistant principal Mark McLean as we um honor our student of the month David tro along with being a uh good student David is a mu Thai instructor at phase three is that correct yeah David has taken on a leadership role in our culinary program guiding other students through their cooking and even creating his own recipes he has become an extremely skilled cook in such a short amount of time and his passion for the class shows anytime you watch him in the kitchen below is a sampling of what uh some of David's teachers shared when asked to describe him this is
005from his culinary teacher Chef David is a true team player in the classroom always willing to help other students to be successful he's willing to give up his time to make the school environment a better place he finds the good in others and works well with teachers to make the classroom a fun place to be and an exciting learning environment David displays perseverance kindness and acceptance amongst rigorous school work and the student body overall great and genuine human being congratulations David and thank you for being such a positive representative of the Ridgeway student party should okay we're going to go a little out of order our um one of our staff members that we're honoring today is on her way so we're going to go if that's okay um to skip to the certificated and
006um it is a great pleasure of mine to recognize Heidi petretti as our certificated um staff member of the Year H not she's been an amazing person to work with watching her connection with students um helping them with their goals she's taken a huge leadership role with with our CTE program and has been a huge culture changer for Ridgeway um we can often see her in her office I'll go to go find her and there's always somebody on the couch in front of her desk either a staff member that she's helping or a teacher she's been an inspiration to all of us let you go ahead and summarize the rest um The Counselor position at a continuation school is challenging and dynamic and Heidi approaches each day consistently professionally and confidently more importantly she puts
007our students needs first and is an absolute pleasure to work with her positive attitude and perseverance through challenging times are inspiring she works closely with our students helping them reach their future academic and personal goals she advocates for strategies to better our school systems and our culture Heidi always has her door open to listen and support those who need it literally anybody Heidi pedretti works diligently to provide helpful College and Career Readiness opportunities and organize meaningful field trips for our students congratulations Heidi and thank you for being such a positive representative of Ridgeway yeah we can go to Maria and then come back so now we'll we'll move on to mariao and then we'll come back to Ridgeway princial Luke thank you all right thanks good evening president Medina uh superintendent tranell members of the
008board and cabinet and community and all the Pumas that came to um help celebrate and honor our um honores this evening um it is my pleasure I'm onique Luke president president principal of Maria kuo high school and it is my pleasure and honor to present senior Justin Sol um as student of the month Justin has consistently demonstrated the attributes of our graduate profile which uh the acronym is Puma he is a powerful producer a universal citizen a masterful communicator and an active learner unfortunately like many of the students in our class of 2024 Justin spent his freshman year on distance learning however during this time he worked hard on schoolwork and spent time with his family and his mandates were lifted Justin joying the golf team once we were back in full-time person inperson learning
009he hit the ground running he immediately got involved and looked for Advantage um took advantage of the many opportunities for student engagement leadership and the variety of courses offered at Maria CIO High School Justin has explored culinary arts he's been acquir student for the past three years in his sophomore in year he joined the School site Council and has been a school school site council member for the past three years I started there in 2122 um Justin ran for a sophomore class president and one and he ran for junior class president and one and then ran for student body president and one right um he has um he is truly a masterful communicator and he poses thoughtful critical questions and provides an impactful student perspective he's also an excellent peer coach for study spot which
010is an opportunity where students go for extra help from peer coaches um during our advocacy others see Justin as a leader which is evidenced by a few examples such as he is currently the captain of the golf team he ran for um and I already mentioned that he was the president he's a president of ASB any activity team or project that he participates in he's sure to bring a positive attitude a collaborative nature and a desire to hear multiple perspectives and a spirit of Excellence the MCHS student body voted Justin to be the most spirited Puma yes and he is Spirited you should see some of the outfits on Spirit day according to several of his teachers he's an amazingly awesome young man he finds time in his very busy schedule because he is truly
011busy to send notes to his teachers and saying that their class brought him out of a stressful mood he's appreciative engaged and loves to learn lastly I think it's important to highlight who he is outside of Campus he is the youngest of five children he has four sisters right man that four older sisters he's also an uncle a four is it three and one on the way four four one four four and one on the way um he is um involved with he's stays actively involved with his large family and in his church he balances extracurricular activities and family with Grace and compassion on occasion I've seen Justin display such sweet care for his mom after she's worked all day and then she comes on site to volunteer he makes sure that he has something
012to eat and just sometimes teenagers are like Mom you you know parent but no not Justin he's always so respectful and kind Justin plans to attend Brigham Young University in Provo Utah to study Finance he also has an interest in architecture and aspires to be a housing firm CFO and that doesn't surprise me um Justin your achievements and contributions both in and outside of school are remarkable you have set an exceptional example for your peers and your recognition as a Santa Rosa city school student of the month is a testament to your hard work dedication and outstanding character on behalf of the entire M cal high school Community I congratulate you on this well-deserved honor thank you for being such a positive representative of our school and we look forward to seeing the continued impact
013you will make as you embark on new Endeavors in the future should I give you a what all right so then next we will have our classified Employee of the Month Miss Anne James come on down please here thank you right so again it is an honor to present Maria Kio High School register Miss ANS James is the Santa Rosa city school's classified Employee of the Month Miss James consistently demonstrates the attributes of our graduate profile which I've already run through Puma but what sets her apart is not only her Proficiency in handling her job responsibilities but also her unwavering commitment to our community her ability to keep confidentiality and her amazing adaptability throughout her time at CIO High School Miss James has had the opportunity to work with five different principles and seven Vice
014principles she has seamlessly adapted to each change in leadership and consistently provided unwavering support her ability to connect with students families and staff is truly remarkable Miss James always goes above and beyond to ensure that everyone's needs are met whether it be assisting staff members at other schools helping parents with records or fulfilling alumni trans transcript request her trustworthy is a qual her trustworthiness is a quality that we greatly admire as she consistently maintains the utmost confidentiality when dealing with sensitive student records and personal information we asked our admin team asked our all of our support staff to take the Gallup like strength finders survey and Miss James was like yes and afterwards she was toally I'm one in a million or what some and she was so proud of that but her top five
015strengths were not surprisingly adaptability includer responsibility belief and a ranger and none of those are surprising in who she is as a person additionally it is worth mentioning that in times of emergencies Miss James has consistently proven herself to be an invaluable asset to our team no matter the situation she can be relied upon to swiftly respond and take charge her quick thinking coupled with her ability to remain calm Under Pressure allows her to provide prompt assistance whenever and wherever it is needed she is just pick up the radio and tell me where tell me where you want me to be and that's Miss James and as we all know last year had some challenges and she was just so calm in the moment in those challenging moments um she also has exceptional adaptability last
016year during a challenging period when a position needed immediate coverage she willingly stepped up and successfully handled not only her own duties but also that of another front office position for an entire year her ability to seamlessly juggle multiple roles demonstrates her remarkable organizational skills and commitment to ensuring that our operations run smoothly she has the ability to connect well with our students students have provided feedback stating that Miss James carefully is careful cares deeply about everyone and really listens to people and is always willing to help parent feedback is consistently positive regarding Miss Jeans and their interactions on the phone with her or even in person and they're always talking about how um how how um they were so appreciative of her being able to assist them with student enrollment and current issu current
017um curriculum issues we enjoy hearing about her interest outside of school is she's an avid farmer an animal lover we especially enjoy the dozens of eggs she shares with us from her chickens and her jams and vegetables and we especially appreciate the hugs as well in the morning sometimes the admin team right and on behalf of the entire Maria Kio High School Community again I congratulate you miss an Janes on a well-deserved honor thank you for being such a positive representative of our school two pictures okay all right and last but not least our certificated Employee of the Month Miss Jordan Henry English teacher at Maria CIO High School okay yes it is truly an honor to present Miss Jordan Henry as uh the Santa Rosa city schools and Maria Kio High School certificated employee
018of the month again she is an exemplary Puma she began her tenure at Maria CIO high school as a student teacher and then moved into now permanent teacher and she's been there for the past seven years um she is an exemplary educator and leader in our school Community she has the ability to actively engage with students in learning while having fun and earning their respect this all speaks volumes about her professionalism and engaging and being an engaging educator she has an infectious smile and a positive attitude um she consistently takes on additional duties to support our students and families she's a co-coordinator of our Puma peers program which means she comes to um school like a week or so early to train over 90 students on how to be um campus leaders Juniors and seniors
019and to welcome our freshmen this past year she with another colleague um organized not only the Freshman welcome but our um student orientation for the first three days of school where students were able to circulate through stations and um also meet teachers and just get all the supplies and support they needed to have just that good initial start to the school year and she stepped up to do that when it was also her first year to teach advanced placement courses she had a whole new teaching line she's just always willing to step up and take on and learn um on her feet uh what I hear from students about Miss um Henry is she is one of the best teachers I've ever had she understands students in their time management she's very encouraging and supportive
020she's always pushing students to grow as people and to grow academically as well she makes me want to work hard is what a student said she's one of the most welcoming teachers in history meaning in history their history and the energy she brings makes class so much better I always look forward to coming to class and I don't ever feel embarrassed to ask a question because I know she will answer with honesty I think she understands the idos idiosyncrasies of teenagers and is simultaneously tolerant and disciplinary she is the perfect balance between strict and understanding and her curriculum is both difficult and very very helpful and these again are all students voices she provides constructive criticism she doesn't sugarcoat things her blood honesty is enduring and really proves just how much she cares about her
021students Improvement which is one of the best qualities a teacher can have what I what I admire about Miss Henry and this is me speaking now is that she is often at the Forefront when it comes to incorporating new strategies such as the use of Street data and implementing culturally responsive ways of teaching her continuous efforts to improve her teaching practices are commendable and undeniably contribute to the holistic growth of our students Miss Henry's unwavering dedication passion and expertise maker and exemplary puma and last I I forgot to say this um she's also the chair of our student council not student council School site Council and she's just a master facilitator and knows how to deescalate things and just those little nuances sometimes you know when those questions come and you know wonderings and she's
022just really um awesome at being that facilitator and getting um agendas and things organized for our school school site Council meetings and then also I know at like 7:45 in the morning you can go to her classroom nice dim lights just an awesome welcome warm classroom and there are students in there and those are one of the um feedback or inputs that students said is that she always comes to school early that students have a warm place to be at the beginning of a school day and they know that she really truly cares about them so again the Puma Community is incredibly fortunate to have you as an integral part of our team on behalf of the entire Marie Creo High School Community I congratulate you on this well-deserved honor thank you for being such
023a positive representative of our school thank already got thank you all right so then we call up par thank you principal Luke um are we ready for rway good to go go ahead thank you okay I am excited and honored to recognize Bernice Flores kamacho as classified Employee of the Month um not to embarrass her but Bernice actually just came out of surgery and still she comes to say hi to the students because that's who she is and she's here because we're so proud to honor her she is one of our one of two of our family engagement facilitators she's been this was our second year with us Bernice always goes above and beyond to help students reach their goals she provides a safe and um a safe space for every student who comes into
024her office and makes and feel welcome She's Always a huge advocate for for the elel stud or English language Learners on our campus and always willing to support colleagues um when needed when she's not at school you can find her baking making security boards and oftentimes bringing them in to celebrate uh from staff and special occasions so when needed Bernice has taken on several tasks that weren't asked of her and always completes them with a smile on her face not only is Bernie extremely efficient and dedicated to her job as our family engagement facilitator she is also the unofficial head of our office decoration team our Ridgeway flyer beautification artist she fills in at our front desk answering calls and welcoming visitors when needed organized a winter clothing drive this year and assists every week
025on Wednesdays with the Redwood Empire food bank on our campus this is just an example of all the things that Bernice will do to help the school in any way that she can and we are extremely lucky to have her as part of our amazing team at Ridgeway it is with great honor and pride that we are able to present her with this award because there is no one that deserves this recognition more congratulations brunes and thank you for being such a positive representative of the Ridgeway family next um congratulations again we're going to move on to our school site parent organization update after that we'll take a brief moment if people want to um get up believe after that report so um we'll move on to Maria K High School good evening my name
026is Lisa Sullivan and I I'm in my second year at as the president of Mario kuo president Association and my 15th and final year as a parent at koreo I would like to take this time to opportunity to personally thank you say thank you to the Santa Rosa city schools for providing an envir to prepare my five children for continuing their education in college I'm happy to say that I have three children graduate from college one is finishing up her college junior year and my youngest Justin a senior at CIO is here with me tonight and will be attending college in the fall I always say it takes a village to raise a child and I am grateful to have Santa Rosa city schools in my village now on with my brief report on the
027parent Association happenings as you may know and as principal Luke has already mentioned MCHS focuses on one of The Graduate profile attributes each year which becomes the school years for the school's theme for the year the 20123 2024 is the year of the masterful communicators as a parent Association we have worked on being masterful communicators as we help parents be informed of our school activities through our monthly news newsletter this includes a report of the happenings of the school these include school calendar and schedule reminders College and Career updates health and safety updates as well as classroom information the newsletter also includes what the leadership classes have been doing to encourage participation and enthusiasm among the students in addition the newsletter includes updates from our following parent groups the Puma athletic boosters performing and Fine
028Arts Comm band boosters project grad and elac through our various groups we hope all parents feel representative represented and are engaged with our school community Through the donations of our parents the parent Association Works to fill the funding gaps and we are happy to help support several Key Programs on our campus including our advocacy advocacy tutoring Library databases science and Fine Arts supplies entry fees for national and local math EV EV and academic athletic and art Awards most recently we have provided computers for our leadership students as they sell tickets for school events as well as provide leadership students with supplies such as beads bandanas and snacks to provote to promote student involvement in schoolwide activities and provide a sense of community we also have been able to provide items to our resource specialist to
029make the restorative Center a welcoming place for student accessing support in addition we just currently were able to purchase additional supplies needed to install some Turf we got donated in our common grass and currently weed areas around campus without the support of our Puma Community none of these items would be available we continue to fundraise and we hope we will be able to meet our goals so we can continue to fund these various programs the parents at koreo have been active by participating in school orientation back to school night school dances as well as attending other supporting and Performing Arts events we appreciate your support of the completion of our Stadium which will help ensure safety of all our student athletes and provide Korea with Equitable athletic facilities we would also like to thank Eric
030Odin and his facilities crew for all they have done to make timely repairs on our campus especially involving safety issues we are grateful for the district continuing their commitment to Capital Improvements on its campus campuses despite the pending budget shortfall as these projects are paid for with the bond M money and it is my understanding it cannot be used for salaries we would also appreciate the use of bond money for covered seating for our students the student would enjoy places to sit during their lunches and break that provide protection from the rain and from the Sun supporting all of our extracurricular programs and faat Facilities is important to our families thank you for the opportunity to share with you what the cop parent association association is able to contribute to the enriching of our students
031High School experience thank you for your support thank you for your report and for the 15 years it's been my pleasure now we'll move on to uh marango for elac report EX um m repr s Mar GR Li interprete good evening members of the Santa Rosa City School District Board of Directors principles School staff and Families my name is Patricia arango I am the mother of twins they are in the ninth grade at Maria Kio although currently they are no longer identified as English Learners I am a representative and active member of Maria Kio elac which helps me to learn about the school system to support both my children and the multilingual families with whom I identify and share experiences my experience at M Cario has been excellent my children have adjusted well and I
032see great interest from the administrators to encourage and adequately inform about the role that elac has for family uh families of English Learners the first meeting scheduled by the school directors for multilingual families was on August 10th 2023 before the start of this school year where we had the opport to meet key staff members who support multilingual families as well as access to the Aries Parent Portal Student class schedules a through G requirements advanced placement and dual enrollment options for students to earn college credits before graduating high school something that I think is important to emphasize is that in each meeting the director mentions the importance of parent parents giving suggestions on the topics they want to be discussed in the following meetings since the parents voice is very important to her so far this
033school year we've had special guests those from the pre-university program Upward Bound at Sona State University likewise we received a visit from the representative of the 10,000 degrees organization who reported on the financial aid of available for students who are planning to attend a 4year community college or university program our last guest informed us about the summer program that the school district is currently offering the director did an analysis of the school's needs survey she placed great emphasis on the importance of these surveys being answered by all parents in order to resolve those needs we have also discussed topics such as the importance of raising parental awareness about School attendance it is important to highlight that Maria Kio follows the guidelines of the master plan for English Learners in addition to offering programs and services
034aimed at that group Maria Kio has created a LC committee committe committee attended by teachers support staff administrators and District Representatives this committee periodically analyzes data about our English Learners to better support them Maria Cario has newcomer classes academic language development classes Soul counselors two family engagement facilitators multilingual learner coordinator and support from the district multilingual services for my part I want want to thank on behalf of the families of the English learner students the director Monique Luke and the family facilitators lilar quo an eras for their dedication and support to our multilingual families thank you for your time and again thank you very much thank you thank you again miss s for your report so we'll take two minutes uh if people need to get up and and leave for for the guests that
035receed Awards or anything uh so we'll reconvene in about 2 minutes nice to see [Music] you e okay we're going to get started in about another 30 seconds if people want to start settling down okay we're going to get going again we're going to move on to the report section of our agenda uh we will start with item D1 a report from the California School Employees Association senat the 75 chapter uh president Mary Leman ah there you are good evening is yours good evening good evening president Medina governing board superintendent tranell cabinet members the teachers staff and Community here and everyone listening tonight congratulations to our students teachers and classified employees of the month especially at Ridgeway High School our classified employee Bernice Flores kamacho and at Maria Creo high school and James thank you
036for your service and contribution congratulations to our three new hired classified we have one promotion two rehires and goodbye to one resignation and one retirement with a combination of 14 years and four months experience and service to Santa Rosa city schools CCA represents over 600 classified employees working for Santa Rosa city schools our mission is to improve the lives of our members students and the community our core values are empowerment inclusivity respect transparency and Innovation we are on the front lines with our students and staff every day and stand ready to do our part to improve safety at our schools we keep the schools running so that teachers can teach considering some of the action and discussion items tonight I'd like to speak what is the new library strategic plan as we celebrate the resolution
037designating April as school library month what happens to the plan since we are releasing our library media teacher we support the communication strategic plan also it is long overdue and a concern of CCA members the district website is improving but it is still difficult to find staff locations and assignments we are concerned about the credit recovery and summer programming which is utilizing monies from categorical funds at a projected cost estimated $3 million consider instead of hiring summer school admin and office staff utilizing the current 12month admin and office staff as they are doing these jobs during the regular school year similar to other 12month employees supporting summer school programs such as HR payroll accounting custodians M technology CIS coordinator and other classified staff could this be a savings for summer school costs we we are
038working onou to deal with the impacts and effects of the layoffs ensuring that Duties are not transferred from certificated or classified supervisory positions to our classified bargaining unit members tonight the board is asked to consider approving approving action item F6 it's anou 2024-25 number two reached with srcs and csca chapter 75 regarding the student safety advisory job description if the board approves this action item it is agendized to be discussed and voted on our next chapter meeting thank you with courage and compassion thank you president Leeman we will now move on to item D2 our Senators Teachers Association report president kathern how there it is good evening president Medina superintendent Chanel members of the board members of the community my name is Katherine Howell I am the President of the San Roa Teachers Association representing
039about 900 teachers I I think I have to comment tonight on the disconnect that I'm seeing between the state of our district and the items on this agenda we're District in crisis but you wouldn't know that by looking at this agenda you can't tell that from here right we have we're in the middle of a financial crisis we have millions of dollars that need to be cut from our budget we've just cut dozens of positions certificated and classified we have declining enrollment and there's every possibility that in the near future we're going to have to close an elementary school but are we talking about any of those things we talking about consolidation no are we having conversations about how to streamline our priorities or programs or how we're going to do all the work we
040need to do with fewer teachers and fewer classified no instead we're putting our time our energy and resources into something nobody wants which is changing a school's name is that going to make our kids safer no it won't is it going to make better Achievers no more engaged in their school probably not they'll just feel a little bit alienated because their change their school changed its name in the middle of their careers so why are we putting our time and energy into that we're getting a report on extracurricular interventions tonight and Credit Recovery I'm hope that all of those kids in those programs are getting what they need but wouldn't we rather have a conversation about how we could help our students before they fail instead of our constant conversation about how we're helping them
041after they have failed we have anticipated larger class sizes next year we know it's coming we know that there's going to be multiple Elementary combo classes and we've lost all of our toses so how are our students going to continue to achieve what they need to achieve it's not going to be through Credit Recovery the board is celebrating School library month this month yay April but at the same time eliminating our only library media teacher in the district and cutting certific or classified staff which is already like distributed amongst our elementary schools in 0 tws and 0.8s which is pretty sad to begin with um but you know let's honor the space and not the people that work there I guess and we're still in a safety crisis right theou tonight thank you CSEA for
042figuring out a way to create student safety adviser position we hope it's a successful position we hope more people are going to apply because of the resulted higher pay we know that CSEA this was a hard bargain for you and we do absolutely appreciate it um but we really still have a long ways to go to build that culture of safety in the district SRTA is continuing to advocate for a district Safety Committee that will be proactive in violence prevention as well as site safety committees that will do real work rather than rubber stamp templates for plans that don't really work we're still looking for more information about alternative Ed for our students how is that going to fit into our safety plan is there any alternative Ed plan we know there's a committee meeting
043we also know that the alternative Ed director uh won't be with us next year right there's so many important issues that this board could be talking about and should be working on but instead we're creating this unneeded drama with the agenda item that nobody supports about changing school names let's stop dealing with the trivialities and start making this District better for our students and for our families and for our staff thank you we will now move on to item D3 the superintendent's report thank you president Medina uh members of the board those who are with us in person and online thank you for being with us today my comments are brief uh today marks day 134 for elementary schools and 133 for secondary schools we only have 46 more days of opportunity to positively support
044our students this school year we have started the launch of a new campaign P thanks to our public information officer and the work of some outside partners and consultant called the srcs hearts and Minds over the next several weeks we will be highlighting the voices of our students staff and parents via a uh video showcase our first one was sent out this week on the 25th we hope that you were able to enjoy that and please follow us on our District's Facebook and Instagram pages to watch the srcs hearts and Minds series um it's about a 7 minute video from this week and we look forward to you seeing the future videos where we're really able to Showcase um the beautiful people in our district I also want to give a shout out to our
045public information officer who received an award at a national uh well a California Conference for people who are in her field um on a project that she worked on for Elsie Allen High School and their graduates in the spring so kudos to her for that accomplishment um and the last is I want to remind our community that there is no school on April 1 and I'm not fulling thank you superintendent tranell um now it's item D4 board president report that's me um first I'd like to um just point out that the setting of the agenda that falls on me uh in collaboration with superintendent um there is a lot of things that this District's dealing with a lot of important things a financial crisis you know we're currently in the middle of negotiations we've got
046to figure out what happens out that there's a lot of work that's being done um that I see that our staff is working on in addressing a lot of these issues that we could and should be addressing items that are not ready to come to this forum yet but but there is a lot of work being done I I feel confident in that and and it's true there is many things that we need to get done um alternative head safety um all of those things um so I I just want to take responsibility for the setting of the agenda and Al also add that I don't think everything that's on the agenda is Trivial and not everything's things that other that people don't want but there are people things that some people don't want and
047we could agree to disagree on that aside from that I want to say that I was very proud and honored to be present yesterday at LC Allen for the first day of the nextg trades acem is their first full in-person session that's happening on one of our campuses which is for students that are interested into go in into the trades it was uh very powerful and engaging to be there see the students engaging and I hope that it's a collaboration that continues it's collaboration between the District delion High School foundation and the lime Foundation um so I'm looking forward to see student students continue to participate in that as as I was there I could hear the band in the background practicing getting ready for for the loan event this Thursday um where they're performing
048um as the they're hosting their youth perspectives event at wind High School hoping that there's a lot of our staff and students that are there to hear the perspectives of students um I'm also uh been asked to remind folks about the May 4th ccla Gala um to to support that that school um but I'll leave it at that and I'll move on to uh um open it up to D5 board member reports are there any board members that have reports uh trusty deor want take this moment to uh thank the community uh within our district and our city that have continued to make their voices known and have commented on various issues that they'd like to make sure um we have information on uh thank you for taking the time for sharing that information with
049us these uh comments have been read have been gone through I'm sure we'll hear some more tonight and I'm really looking forward to an opportunity to attend the maray Creo art show next week and some musical and Theatrical Productions they have coming up so um just really proud of this community and everything they're doing as we continue to persevere and uh look forward to contining to be a part of that as needed trustee Sheffield just a few things first of all I hope everyone had an enjoyable spring break and that folks have um returned back to campus students have returned back to campus well rested and ready for this final push to the end of the school year um let's see to report March 14th we had Partners in Education meeting um Also earlier this
050week I attended a CTE pathway design working group that was facilitated by CTE Foundation of Sonoma County um participants in this working group include srjc SSU um some health sector interests um and school districts like us we had um representation um from uh CT director cardoo um who is in the working group with me enjoy working with her um also um I just want to report that thanks to some FastTrack legislation signed by Governor Nome on Monday our high school seniors um filling out their State financial aid their FAFSA forms um this is the free application for federal student aid um students who are seeking State um financial aid now have an extension the extension is um now the deadline is May 2nd I know all this is news you know going out to all
051of our families I'm sure um but students who are attending four year um schools in the state of California the deadline is May 2nd and those who are attending community colleges it's September 2nd um that's it thank you trusty Sheffield any other board member reports trusty Theos um I want to thank all of the amazing musicians at Santa Rosa high school and Santa Rosa Middle who right before Spring Break um presented their spring music showcase it's really amazing to watch multiple schools come together to play music together um and to really celebrate what music does to bring people um into a larger community um I was also happy to attend the safety advisory Roundtable meeting earlier this week and continue working towards um making sure that we really integrate all concerns throughout the community into
052the ways in which we continue to address school safety issues um and then I think I just want to end by saying like it's really helpful for us to be able to hold complexity in our heads as human beings and to really grapple what it means to be part of a really heterogeneous diverse Community there is no one size fits-all there is never a no one wants anything there's always place for us to consider what it means to hold um complexity and Humanity in in us um and in our larger community so I'm just grateful for um all the folks to continue to show up to share multiple perspectives um and the ways in which we hold space respectfully and with a lot of love um for our community as a whole thanks thank you
053trust lus any other board member reports see none we will move on to item D6 safety report and I will be brief here uh as trusty DEA Cruz mentioned the safety advisory Roundtable or sart group met on Monday the 25th we reviewed feedback from our middle school and high school students staff and families that completed the survey sent out in December regarding police offic officers on campus for two weeks we are using this information as a base for considering how to further gather feedback and information including those who are on the margins our group will meet will meet two more times this school year and we will focus on the progress of our goals and what future steps look like for this group and for the work in the district thank you thank you superent
054trell um do we have a csba report none so we will now move on to item e comment on non-agenda items um let's see so this is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to the board on non-agenda items comments on items that are on the agenda will take place during those discussion items later on in the agenda um if you haven't submitted a blue card and want to comment please get one of the blue cards and submit it um so this is the public forum our youth are watching please be respectful and civil I do have have a few cards here so I will be calling three names at a time um if I call you um and you're not the first one start to line up and prepare one of the
055podiums to speak and you will have two minutes to speak first I have Susan Lamont followed by Michael toari I believe it is followed by Michael Carlin Goldberg yes this is on non- agenda items okay uh Susan Lamont trustee area 5 I'm here in support of the trustees Medina and DEA Cruz and against sro's in our school we are a violent culture our president has never seen a war he didn't like and rejects any negotiations our former president incites violence every time he opens his mouth Lieutenant Colonel Dave grman wrote a book on killing the psych ological cost of learning to kill in war in society about the defense department decision to change the way in which soldiers are trained to overcome their natural resistance to kill beginning with Vietnam bound soldiers Grossman now trains
056police to overcome that reluctance the defense department predicted and accepted greater violence on us streets as a result these more violence prone men came home home to our streets global capitalism is destroying the future for young people through deadend work and climate related destruction of life on Earth in somoma County much of the population runs stop signs and weaves recklessly in and out of traffic well above the speed limit with wanting disregard for the lives of others while their children watch from the back seat I live one house down from a corner with a stop sign almost no one passing through my residential neighborhood where children live and play stops at that sign and don't get me started on what passes for entertainment nowadays yet you all wonder why our students resort to violence school
057resource officers can't solve this problem if our huge number of law enforcement officers and prison cells could make us safe we'd be the safest country on Earth but we aren't only a complete change in the culture can do that look to yourselves and what you model even when you approach stop thank you Susan your time is up next I have Michael tiari I believe it is followed by Micah Carlin Goldberg followed by Margaret Boon Michael tone that's me okay hi there um Michael tone uh live in Santa Roosa and have grew up here went to school in our school system um just want to say that I'm really skeptical of the SRO pilot that's moving forward um I know that it was we made a decision it was you know really a strong Community outpouring
058to you know not have sro's during the time where we were protesting the murder of George Floyd and um we had not really see the kind of accountability that we wanted to see from our local police through that movement um there were a lot of violations against protesters uh as someone who has worked with unsheltered residents there's a lot of abuse of unsheltered residents by our police um what we've seen is uh basically we they don't really have oversight they have an auditor um I don't trust the audit processes I've never seen a complaint that wasn't thoroughly rejected um they looked into we looked into everything um and everything was great um sue us that's what I get usually so um I don't feel there's a lot of accountability there and I'm really hesitant to
059put officers on campuses with students um even if there is a story that they're trained to handle students and there is um you know they're not there to put kids within the caral system I just I don't have that kind of trust with the police I hope that we approach that with skepticism I try to maintain an open mind at all times but that is my opinion thank you thank you next I have Micah Carlin Goldberg followed by Margaret Boon followed by Madonna feather Cruz go ahead Micah uh good evening my name is Micah Carlin Goldberg I work at steelan elementary as a sixth grade teacher we have an insane budget crisis and as long as I've been a teacher which is well more than a decade now we have always asked that you make
060your Cuts as far from the students and as far from the classroom as you possibly can and every Administration in every District I've ever worked at has said yeah we'll do that and then they cut all the teachers the reduction in force of 19 Elementary School teachers and all 12 Elementary District funded tosas is going to have an immense negative impact on my students and on the students in this district steelan elementary currently has 464 students we are up six more than 60 students since before the pandemic we have the same FTE we have 30 31 or 32 in all of our upper grade classes including the combo our reading Specialists and Toes pull our most needed students out of the classroom and give them Elementary basic low-level English instruction and you are cutting them
061away from us we got four new students yesterday three of them don't speak any English and our toses are the people who take them on because I cannot give them phonics instruction with my sixth graders the rest of them there just isn't time in my day in the reductions in force you eliminated 5.3 District level administrators but two of those were only created in the last two or three years why are the cuts being happening right next to our students my school is losing six early career Educators or veterans who came from other districts specifically to work with our students because they were all Rift that is a third of our teaching staff got reduction in force notices that's a third of our staff that is getting turned over by you you need to do
062better thank you thank you Micah next next I have Margaret Boon followed by Madonna feather Cruz followed by Mattel pry I believe it is good evening I wanted to talk tonight about something super positive five and a half weeks ago the leaders of the different best buddies chapters from annal Montgomery Santa rosah High Elsie Allen pedal Lima and Windsor came together over Zoom to start to plan an inclusive prom for our special needs students at all secondary schools countywide in that time the students from these schools have booked the epicenter for three hours on a Saturday night raised 13,5 00 of the 15,000 we need created a social media account and multiple Flyers they've been on the radio in the paper and on TV they've also been collecting formal dresses and suits for kids to
063wear if they can't afford to buy one our best buddies leaders are amazing in less than a week and a half we'll be hosting a prom that is designed specifically for our kids with their sensory needs and minds and the epicenter has thrown in food the Arcade Bowling trampolines laser tag photo booth a DJ and more we could not have done this without the generous support of the Montgomery boosters and sah High Ed Foundation who each gave $2,500 the rest of the money has been donated to the community or raised by our kids through baked sales chili cook offs and more the Steve Jackson show Carrie Benfield at the Press Democrat KTVU and the epicenter have helped us raise awareness um but the real credit goes to the kids at each of these schools they've
064been out there working every day they're really exceptional and genuinely want to make the world a better place and are working to make that happen we'd love any members of the board or the district office to come see the amazing event they've pulled together April 6 from 5 to 8 thank you thank you and um just need to correct the list um I accidentally had dropped one of the cards here um I have Madonna forther Cruz then I have Adena Flores followed by m pastri can you hear me yes thank you uh good evening relatives my name is Madonna feather Cruz I'm Pomo in Lakota I'm here to share a update about how amazing the students I am working with on my Friday lunch teaching them fatherhood and motherhood is sacred a Napa uh which
065stands for Native American fatherhood and families Association at the mercy Basera Academy big picture School in Hillsburg um I really wish you guys would think about uh fing a school like Ridgeway High School which would be rather easy for the big picture organization to further that conversation you can contact Lauren Ln bpit learning.org um the kids that I volunteer with there uh you know they used to be continuation schools and when they're coming to school they're happy to come to school they're not uh bullying each other they're not treating each other with any harm it's like a a community like a family and I just feel that the other students at the public schools here in Santa Rosa should have that opportunity to feel safe and to come to school without any harm and as
066native students that I'm um working with I also invite the non-native students who may be Mexican latinx Chicana um just immigrating here U from whatever country and our white um I welcome all of the students from the school to come in and they are all um learning this curriculum they're enjoying the curriculum and some of them have high a scores which uh they're able to um work on uh issues that they may not have addressed so far uh thank you I lost my train of thought thank you Miss Cruz next I have Adena Flores followed by Matel prri followed by Maria barut good evening good evening Bard and super tendent I'm curious why uh directors Medina and Del Cruz were refusing to pay Santa Rosa Police uh you waited for the vendor warrants at a
067meeting till the very end and the superintendent and business officer actually had to inform you that that's most likely illegal so as an attorney Miss Del Cruz uh if you look at the graduating class when you're supposedly a bipo representative they were primarily Black and Latino so why are you refusing to pay your own people for services already rendered and then the following meeting when you guys had to vote because you pulled that item all of a sudden you neither one of you you made it to close session because director Flores announced that you were excused for Just Cause to be attending remotely so why did you not come to open session did you not want to vote on that and leave it up to the rest of the board I missed that so I
068just want to know why are you guys not wanting to pay Santa Rosa Police it's interesting uh Mr Medina everybody is now aware that you uh have been served with a recall notice I just don't understand your response to Safe campus Alliance uh you actually responded and told them I'm going to read it out loud the truth is that a recall election is a waste of taxpayer resources that could be better used to address the real issues our schools are facing but you've been under investigation with the fair political practices commission for a year and a half now you don't have a child why do you serve on this board you traveled for two years straight while kids got stabbed on campus why is it taking a year and a half to investigate you you
069run a financial consulting company but what are you Consulting for you invite the nonprofits here uh North Bay organizing project who actually assaulted me at your recent event but I don't call cops I'm not you guys you like to call them on me so I'd appreciate if we can quit these political narratives we have money in the budget if we weren't stealing it through nonprofits thank you next we have Matel pry Matel prasy followed by Maria Barakat followed by just have Jordan here hello I'm uh Mato PRI good evening everyone I'm just going to speak very briefly hopefully on the topic of school resource officers in Santa Rosa schools um to be quite Frank I noticed a few people speaking earlier on this lots of emotion no real facts you know the facts are school
070resource officers lower violence in schools uh to be really quite Frank I don't care about your feelings I don't care if you feel safe I don't care if you feel unsafe with school resource officers I care if the students are safe if you are safe and school resources school resource officers increase safety in schools according to every single study that has been done on the subject thank you next I have Jordan followed by Karen Corbett Jordan could you please say your last name Barat oh sorry Mar okay my name is my name is Maria Barat um I am a Sonoma County resident I have a niece and nephew in the school systems here I want to vocalize support for Mr Medina and Mrs DEA Cruz for opposing investing in more police officers in school I
071am a social scientist I have a sociology degree in law and Society I have also um been a racial Equity practitioner and I consulted the state level for racial equity in California specifically I'd like to offer some reasons why I oppose law enforcement in schools generally and especially in our community while I understand the desire to make students safer through protected protection and security unfortunately the outcomes for people of color for children of color in in schools and for marginalized Communities In Schools is extraordinarily High the disparities are extraordinarily high for children of color in schools with high police presences there are disparities in treatment by teachers as well that are exacerbated by having sro's on on staff and this is a an unequitable proposal at this time thank you thank you next I have
072Jordan followed by Karen Corbett followed by Carolyn Spencer and is Jordan here and Jordan if you could please State your last name for the record uh bird um so I have a nephew who is black and um on the Spectrum and um I have several black family members male uh especially and as I get more and more nephews and cousins that come into the world and go through these school systems and are alive in America I um every time I see another news story like the most recent one of Ryan gainer in San Bernardino being shot by the police at 15 years old and he was unarmed and he was having a mental health crisis um as we've seen over the years the violence uh against especially children unarmed black children and brown children um
073not being uh being targeted and attacked by police officers and having no justice like Andy Lopez here in Santa Rosa um I think it's abhorent that we're still having to argue black children Brown children are not born bad okay so I think there's some like idea that's not really being called out here but the the disproportionate targeting of those children in the school systems is not because they're just inherently bad children we have systemic inequalities that are not being dealt with and they're only every day being further exacerbated in our society and we need to deal with those and our money needs to to go towards filling the gaps of um equity and um uh racial systemic racism and um police officers are not going to help with that so I support the opposition of
074the sro's and I I support in lie of that um restorative justice actions and um restorative justice actions taking place in in the community and in our schools thank you thank you next we have Karen Corbett followed by Carolyn Spencer followed by J Jason Farnham good even board members my name is Karen I work in the special education department I'm here tonight because I have a few concerns about the lots of program managers the number of students we serve within within the department of special services is increasing daily the loss of program managers means training opportunities for our teachers our psychologists and our other staff members won't won't get to happen the loss of program managers means that side admins will be attending more IEPs on average a program manager can attend anywhere between 200
075to 500 IPS a year the loss of program managers could cost the district money with an increase of legal cases settlements and fees impact students I'm sure like like you I'm sure you like me feel that it's important to support our students and the loss of program managers will not support our students impact site support as I mentioned earlier impact families with timely responses in a timely manner with a lot of program managers the type of Clerks responsibility increase we have lost a clerical staff position this position needs to be increased to a full-time position not cut with the loss this means myself and the type of cler responsibility will increase we work a 40 hour week with these extra responsibilities added to our workload it feels like we are now working an 80 hour
076week the number of our students are increasing in the special education on a daily basis more more compliance issues than ever before we need additional support because we have timeline time sensitive timelines again without proper clerical support in the district we could find themselves in a costly legal battle lawsuit in and District money thank you thank you next we have Carolyn Spencer followed by Jason fornham make it go a little bit higher hi my name is Carolyn Spencer I am on the board for capsa the vice chair I'm also on the board for redemption house of the Bay Area thank you um I actually wanted to two things first I'm going to plug caps syoma we have a um human race walk that we're doing on May 4th it would be great to have some
077Community Support given the closure of saay they are one of the only large organizations that are serving are under um served and exploited um population that is going to be on May 4th and you can go to capson on my website to find out about that secondly I'm here to talk about the SRO situation and the young the gentleman was right like there are a lot of feelings about having police officers on campus and the reason for that is exactly as what this young lady was talking about both people are right there is a high level of emotion because there is a high level of crime or incidents that happen against black and brown children when they are in the presence of police the problem is not with the individual police on campus in my
078opinion the problem is the perception so say you have a specially trained person who is that friendly guy on campus that your kids can go to and talk to and get advice that's fabulous but the one they run into out in the streets may not have had the same training may not be that safe space and that kid may end up dead or un alived okay and that's a real real that is a real reality for people of color and I understand if you are not a person of color you may not have experienced it and that's okay that doesn't mean it doesn't exist so what I'd like to just just really encourage everybody is to look past what you have seen and try to understand and empathize that every child is entitled to safety
079and that doesn't always look like police thank you thank you next I have Jason Farnham hello there is a huge rise in gang violence in our community we all know it every day we sit here and do nothing is another opportunity for someone to Walt into Slater my son's school with another knife or worse and I'm not talking about the other students that go to the school I'm talking about the kids that don't go to that school showing up and hurting students that do attend that school and don't get me wrong I am all for more counselors and restorative justice but as I'm sure you're aware that all takes time lots of time in the meantime who's going to protect those kids right now from gang members who decide to bring weapons onto the campus
080again and assault students who's going to stop them the teachers other school staff that's not their job and they're already not paid enough as it is their job is to teach their job is to educate on the other hand wouldn't it make sense to have a trained SRO on campus who knows the kids quite literally the ins and outs of the school so that he or she can act immediately in case of an emergency or safety threat someone who's trained in CPR and I leave you with this to ponder let's talk about this school to prison pipeline if there is some sort of altercation that requires police intervention do you want a regular old police officer showing up or would you rather have a trained SRO who already knows the kids has a relationship with
081them knows some of their families and maybe has a better understanding of what's Happening which one do you think is going to escalate the school to prison pipeline thank you thank you next I have Tammy mcnalty hello my name is Tammy MCN and I am here just to say that I do not agree with the resource officers being put back into schools um I do want to say that uh the most common uh demographic of people who have historically come and shot up schools within the United States has been white boys so um if there's any white boys in the room that can talk with their friends and maybe educate themselves uh to be kinder to other people around them um yeah let's just look at the facts of who is actually doing um The
082Killing within our community ities and uh the systemic harm that is perpetuating the violence so we can address that here and uh understand that increasing more systemic violence which is through the presence of these resource officers is not going to be um making our children any safer have a beautiful evening thank you that concludes our public comments on non-agenda items we will now be moving on to our F items first we have item F1 uh resolution designating April as school library month thank you president Medina uh attendent trell members of the board student staff and community of Senate Rosal City Schools uh tonight's requested action is that the Board of Education approve the resolution recognizing April 2024 as school library month I'm here to um share some comments on the importance of this month is
083executive director Alisa Haley good evening I'm gonna say not just this month every month it's really important to recognize um our school libraries within Santa Rosa City school we have 21 School libraries that provide Library services to our students families and staff they provide materials for teachers and students and encourage growth and knowledge they contribute to an interest um to continue lifelong learning they enhance the students quality of life they encourage students to read for pleasure they reflect ideas and beliefs of religious social political histo historical and ethnical groups and their contributions to America and the world they provide access to literacy materials to meet individual needs and interests our school libraries are a welcome welcoming place for students to go during lunch during um maybe a free period they create places for students to
084engage with one another work together and access a wide variety of resources both in print and digitally so it's my pleasure to recommend the Santa Rosa City School Board of Education to to claim April 24 April 2024 as school library month thank you uh board members any questions com no all right um with no questions we're going to move on to public comment um I have one card uh Micah Carlin Goldberg you have two minutes uh good evening my name is Micah Carlin Goldberg I'm a six grade educator at steel Lane Elementary while I fully support this resolution it feels incredibly disingenuous to me we had Past Tense one certificated librarian for 15,000 students two weeks ago you served that position with a reduction and force notice so next year we will have zero certificated
085Librarians in a district with 15,000 students we have a library Tech technician who is not a certified librarian she is awesome she does great works with the kids she is at my school 3 hours a day my sixth graders get 30 minutes a week with her total one day a week 30 minutes total I can go access the library in the hours when she's not in there but we don't have the resources of an actual full Librarian On Campus our Librarian Is there three hours a day and this librarian is actually here 30 minutes a day more than the previous one because the previous one was working three jobs in the district she was working as an IMT and a library Tech at two different schools and so she was spread even thinner so why
086are we spouting empty words that mean nothing without action to back it up calling the school library month I love the library I love reading I love teaching my students to love reading but the actions by this school board and this school administration say we want to say the right words and do nothing to back it up and this is not the only topic where this is happening again as I said before you need to do better thank you thank you next I have lenda Moore good evening director my name is lenda Moore I teach special ad middle school and libraries are integral I teach the children how to greet the librarian how to say her name how to ask for what they need share books that they're interested in and how to use the
087library and navigate it when the summer is in session and the esy library is the office and the library for the school campus is closed the public library is an integral part of my curriculum I also teach them how to navigate at the public libraries with their srcs one cards I feel disen heartened that the resolution thanks the librarian staff and I know for a fact that some of them are the ones that are been riffed so the actions don't match the words literacy is so important we stress a through G and wanting students to be College ready we need them to know how to read to be able to read the textbooks that they will have when they get to College please as M said do better thank you back to the board um
088are there any questions or comments from the board just the Lotus sorry I'm go ahead I just want to validate the frustration um that's been expressed you know ideally we would have a full-time librarian at every site that would be my ideal for this District but we're in an impossible situation with the budget and we haven't found a way to maintain that but our libraries the spaces are still important and we want to honor the spaces and the work that's been put into them and and I I hope that well I know this is about honoring School libraries I also hope that we can maybe strengthen our relationship with this Sonoma County Library um just to to educate our students about the worth of libraries and keep that in their education in their lives thank
089you now Tristy [Music] Flores yeah I just want to acknowledge that yes you know having something like this on our agenda uh seems actually not it doesn't seem it is hypocritical right I mean where are our priorities in terms of budgets right uh we have asked you know our staff to make sure that we prioritize our students right we've you know we've asked our superer to come back with uh a list of uh administrators uh that that we can let go away from our students right uh this is an ongoing process that we are discussing right and I just want to say thank you to the library texts the few Library texts that are still out there and uh and everyone who's given you know themselves uh for you know you know to to ensure
090that our students have the literacy and access to the books that we all deserve thank you Tristy Flores any other board member comments questions um I just want to add from my perspective I love libraries in seventh grade my favorite class was uh Mr prid silent sustained reading needed the library to get those books at Cook to just keep me in a whole another world inside of books books to me as I would tell my niece are the gym for your brain they you know you work out your mind and it's critically important and I agree we could do better we need to do better but it's difficult given all the responsibilities that we have um I could would only say that we'll try but we need a lot of help from a lot of
091different perspectives we can't do it all but yeah keep holding us accountable keep calling us on it but it libraries are still important and I think this is about recognizing that recognizing their importance and and the importance for our students so with that said is there any would anybody like to make a motion on this resolution I move to approve the resolution second moved by truste MCN second by trusty Flores any discussion see none vote trusty MCN hi trusty Flores hi trusty Sheffield I trusty De La Cruz hi trusty de la Tor hi president Medina I now we are moving on to item F2 resolution supporting the ceasefire in Gaza and promoting inclusive education so board as you are aware as president it falls on me to set the agenda for our meetings bringing forth
092this resolution is something that I have been wanting to do for a while now in Reading many of the messages we received many people have asked why do we as a school board bring this resolution forward as the third point of this resolution points out it is essential for educational educational institutions to address global events that impact the lives of our students and community members promoting understanding empathy and critical thinking given the number of emails we've received from both sides on this resolution I think it's clear this is a global event that's impacting our community and people feel very strongly about as the second point in this resolution points out the current conflict in Gaza has resulted in a humanitarian crisis causing significant distress and hardship for the people affected this resolution calls for an
093immediate ceasefire urging all parties involved in the conflict to immediately seize hostilities prioritize the safety and well-being of civilians and to work towards a peaceful resolution peace call me crazy but peace and the safety and well-being of civilians shouldn't be controversial but this resolution is also about promoting inclusive education committing us to ongoing efforts to create an inclusive educational environment that encourages dialogue understanding and empathy on global issues as the first point in this resolution points out we are committed to fostering a safe inclusive and respectful learning environment for all students Educators and staff this resolution recognizes the importance of protecting the rights of all students to express their views on international issues without Fe Fe of discrimination harassment or accusations of hate speech it reaffirms our commitment to creating a safe space and supportive
094environment for Arab Muslim and Jewish students ensuring they feel valued and included with our diverse School community and that they as well as those with diverse perspectives on the Israel Palestine conflict should be supported and protected from discrimination from bullying or bias in our school Community it also highlights that Educators have the right to discuss International conflict such as the Israel Palestine conflict in a balanced informative and constructive manner within the classroom setting this resolution promotes that we believe that an inclusive and respectful education environment is fundamental to the academic Su success and emotional well-being of all students in preparing to bring this forth I reached out to Tristy Maneri and mcnali to help me in writing and reviewing the content I want to thank them both for for their assistance in reading messages from
095some that do not want this resolution to pass it's argued that we didn't bring a resolution on other conflicts like those in Ukraine or Sudan or others so why this conflict so that I respond that we should all be aware and speak up against all humanitarian conflicts and I'm sorry for not standing up sooner others argue that this is an international conflict outside the jurisdiction of the school board and that we should stay in our lane because we will not make any impact that I say that every voice matters and should be heard on our campuses we tell our students that if they see something they should say something this to me is seeing something and saying something on a larger scale others will argue that we've got our own issues here we need to
096prioritize the safety of our schools first and focus on that to that I say there's so much work that our staff students and families and community members are doing for which I'm very thankful but the work is getting done we can walk and chew gum personally I feel this is an important issue not just to me but to our community to our institution and in the context of Education not only to the in in the context of education but also to humanity board I ask for your support in the passage of this resolution and with that said I will now open it up uh to the board for questions uh before me we move on to public comment trusty De La Cruz um given the process that we that we brought uh to this resolution
097I'd actually like to suggest that we open up to public comment to really hear from our community before we continue to discuss is the board open to that yeah we can do that so again I will got a lot of cards here again I ask for folks to please be civil and respectful and remember we're in a public forum our children are watching so let's uh keep that in mind so I'll call three cards at a time again and please line up Karen lishus followed by Esther lishus followed by jenica and you'll each have two minutes hello my name is Karen and I go to Santa Rosa accelerated charter school since October 7th I haven't felt safe every Sunday morning my family and I participate in a program called run for their lives which involves
098a peaceful 20 minute walk in downtown Santa Rosa the reason we walk is to release the hostages held in Gaza unfortunately during these walks people often scream at us on one occasion I even recorded a video of that there your yelling makes me feel like I've done something wrong like I'm a criminal thankfully many cars honk and support as we walk I don't understand the hate directed toward us they shout things like Zionist and genocide supporter while showing their middle fingers as an 11-year-old this is extremely frightening I wear my starve David to school but some days I think to myself if it is safe I earn urge the S City education board to address this Jewish hatred all I'm asking for is to be allowed to live without fear thank you Karen next next
099I have Esther litus followed by Jennica followed by Michael comers hi my name is Esther and I'm a junior at Maria kuo High School sitting there you have no idea who I am besides the first impressions you already gathered the Hamza necklace the proud ey in a shirt and if you have really good eyesight the ring with Hebrew written on it these little details come together to give a full picture of a teenager who's very passionate about sharing the Jewish perspective my shirt doesn't lie I truly am a proud Zionist I was proud walking through the rows of barracks and OSH was this summer thinking about how far we as Jews have come I was proud visiting the border with Gaza two summers ago seeing the bomb shelters in preschools knowing that people still live
100in their Homeland even at personal cost I was proud when founding the first ever Jewish Alliance Club at koreo and Je and teaching people about Jewish culture and tradition and I'm proud here standing in front of you asking you to reject a resolution that doesn't do any good but instead divides people I created my club in order to use education to fight ignorance and thus fight anti-Semitism also I want to clarify that anti-zionism is anti anti-Semitism per the house resolution 894 but even with this at my own school kids have done Hitler salutes drawn swastikas and even my principal was afraid for the safety of students supporting the release of hostages why aren't you talking about that instead of talking about issues that are actively affecting me and other students you are talking about an
101international conflict that outdates all of us and even more if you truly find it necessary to speak on this issue why does in the resolution mention the hostages mention the terrorist organization Hamas and mention the atrocities of October 7 why don't you then speak of other international issues such as human rights violations in China Iran Syria Ukraine the list goes on most of all I'm asking you the school board to put your personal agendas and political views aside and reject this resolution thank you thank you eser next next I have jenica followed by Michael Converse followed by Susan and Jennica if you could please State your last name for the record yes sir my name is Jennica Leonard good morning or excuse me good evening everyone I'd like to start I am a lawyer after
102all quoting or citing the government code 54.3 which indicates that a body should only rule on place on things it has subject matter jurisdiction over and for those of you who don't know the jurisdiction the definition of jurisdiction is power right or authority to interpret or apply something you're out of your you're out of your depths Santa Roa City schools has never weighed in on a global crisis not Ukraine not Yemen not Sudan not Iran not Iraq not mosul so why now as you pointed out president Medina context matters those who cannot repast are condemned to repeat them studying history is necessary to avoid repeating past mistakes yet this resolution fails to mention what started this war conflict whatever you want to call it October 7th 2024 on October 700 Jews ma were massacred in
103their homes at and at a music festival 220 were kidnapped and 130 plus are still held in Gaza no acknowledgement of the harms perpetrated by Hamas against Jews is within this resolution there is no in fact desire on hamas's part for a ceasefire so why does the Santa Rosa city schools insert themselves into this dialogue from your own resolution it aims to promote inclusive education by safeguarding the rights of all students to express their views on international issues without fear of discrimination and by fostering informed discussion among Educators and students and yet October 7th is not mentioned in the resolution thank you Jennica your time is up my name is Jennica Leonard I next I have Michael Converse followed by Susan Lamont followed by Lev Lee Michael comers good evening my name is Michael conders
104I teach biology um earth science and occasionally chemistry at Piner high school but I'm not really here for that tonight I'm a father I'm a husband um an uncle son and uh I only got less than two minutes now and there it's burning first thing I want to do is I want to congratulate the two young ladies that came up here and spoke their peace give them a hand folks see this is a topic that's going to have a lot of emotion in it and I can feel it in the room and I'm just going to shoot from the hip on this one on um I count about at least four of you that were uh present on the board when the ethnic studies was first brought up and then eventually approved probably more of
105you since then in essence you made a promise I'm here tonight to make sure you keep it because my dander up a little bit you see when you hear things like it's too divisive topic uh it's just gonna with all there's other things I've heard of our kids have got so much on their plates already um I closed my door when I talk about this subject okay shouldn't have to do that for anybody nobody everybody should be willing to be able to speak in a civilized manner thank you president Medina for that that said we do have a lot of differences but I urge you to pass this resolution because students need to be heard and students need to be seen and not every student feels this way thank you very much thank you next
106we we have Susan Lamont followed by Lev Lee followed by hila Cohen I'm Susan Lamont trustee District 5 and my name was inscribed on the Sebastapol living peace wall in 2017 33 people have been honored to have their names inscribed on that wall of those 21 are still alive most live in Sonoma County of those the following as advocates of peace and social justice support a god ceasefire resolution in order of their induction there are Alicia Sanchez Linda Sartor Holly nearer Susan Lamont terz magcanam Dr Earl Herr Adrienne lby Mary Moore Fred pucha brother Toby mccarrell Barton Stone Susan chunko Norman Solomon also honory Congress person Barbara Lee has sponsored house resolution 786 calling for a ceasefire we did not obviously contact former President Jimmy Carter another Honore but the Carter Center has called for
107a ceasefire with these two that is 15 of the surviving 21 inductees so far we've been unable to reach the remaining six no one has said no we hope you will listen to these voices and join us in supporting a ceasefire in and peace on a personal note I will say this began in 1948 anybody is deceiving you if they say it started on October 7th that's a rejection of history in 2023 before October 7th in the West Bank alone almost 350 Palestinians were killed by IDF and settlers and what makes this person makes this relevant to you is it is amazing how many of our tax dollars have gone and you're you're struggling well there's where your tax dollars are thank you thank you next we have Lev Lee followed by Ela Cohen followed
108by Mark rudo just this Monday I received a parents Square message stating and I quote Central to Mission is ensuring that every student feels safe value and welcomeing our schools the hearts and mind Series reaffirms this commitment by amplifying Voices that reflect the inclusive environment we strive to forer each day the proposed resolution on ceasefire in Gaza goes completely against the initiative stated goals all synagogues in San Rosa asked the board to dismiss the resolution let me repeat this all synagogues this is unprecedented they asked you to dismiss this resol resolution I believe the majority of Jewish parents and kids in the district feel isolated and outraged when there is a resolution that demands an immediate Seas FY in Gaza without unequivocally linking the action to a demand for an immediate and unconditional release of
109all hostages and unforgivably failing to condemn Hamas brutal terrorism we feel isolated because there was no resolution after the biggest Massacre of Jews since Holocaust we didn't see board members attend a vigil in Santa Rosa I strongly believe that board members precious time and taxpayer precious money should be spent on solving local problems in a timely fashion as they tend to become bigger if they're not address looking around right now I feel I'm at un meeting not Board of Education meeting can I have a show of hands for people who have kids in Santa Rosa City School District thank you I also feel I'm at the city council meeting and you know why because every Tuesday there are people who are right here on my right side commenting on non-agenda items they're famous for defending
110the terrorist organization Hamas and promoting anti-zionist and anti-semitic agenda do we want to ad the resolution to thank you your time is up next next I have hila Cohen followed by Mark Rau followed by Savannah Carlson hi my name is Ela Coen I'm an mft associate I provide Mental Health Services I'm also F Moroccan F Iranian and I was born and raised in Israel how many of the people present here today are israelies how many are you from Gaza how many of you ever visited in that area I was born and grew up there I'm standing in front of you today with the V and direct experience of living in Israel and the Israeli Palestinian conflict I experienc Terror Rockets alarms I have family and friends who were either injured or murdered by Terror attacks
111I experience and so as many other Israelis Jews and Muslims and Christians experienced oppression and violence that have lasted for decades not just from October 7 I'm telling you this because when you talk about ceasefire you need to ask several questions one do you consider a piece of cultural sensitivity does the facilitator of the discussion have direct experience where are they getting their information from Tik Tok do they have a political agenda two will there be a discussion about the humanitarian crisis in Israel the October 7th Massacre the rapes the abuse the murders will anyone mention Decades of growing up in the South and the North of Israel under constant threat of rockets of rockets what about the citizens the citizens who have left their cities and have not been back for almost six months
112due to rockets and constant Terror Vex yes in Israel what if what happened in Israel happened in the US with dozens of terrorists invading and kidnapping children and the thank you your time is up thank you thank you next I [Music] have Mark ROV followed by Savannah Carlson followed by Michael taton hi I'm Mark rudow I've lived in Santa Rosa for 35 years my daughter went through the Santa Rosa school district and I live in District 4 I was glad to hear the land acknowledgement today at the beginning of the meeting because it underscores that everyone present here except for those who are native American descent or whose ancestors were brought here against their will are settler colonialists it also makes me wonder whether similar acknowledgements are regularly recited at the aloa mosque recognizing the
113fact that the mosque was built on the runs of two Jewish temples that existed 13700 years before the mosque I'm here to speak against the resolution for a number of reasons first it makes no mention of the hostages uh held by Hamas a ceasefire resolution that doesn't include the unconditional immediate release of all Israeli hostages needs to be rejected hamash should not be allowed to benefit in any way from the massacre that had perpetrated when they broke an existing ceasefire on October 7th second for Hamas ceasefires are not steps on the road to peace they are chance to rearm reorganize and plan their next atrocity Hamas leaders have already boasted of countless October 7th the future it is clear in their Charter their documents their speeches and their actions that treaties or International agreements have
114no role for them in serving in solving the conflict their goal is not a Palestinian State alongside a Jewish State their goal is to destroy Israel and Massacre and or drive the Jews out of Israel can anyone doubt their intentions after October 7th they joyfully hunted Israel thank you your time is up next next I have Savannah Carlson followed by Michael taton followed by Tatiana Orosco um hello my name is Savannah Carlson um this is my fifth year working with the San Rosa city school district um I'm currently an MSW student intern with the school-based therapy team and I previously worked as an aid with our special education Elementary and preschool programs I also graduated from Santa Rosa schools on March 17th UNICEF released a statement that over 13,000 children have been killed in Gaza
115since October 7th there are around 15,000 students in Santa Rosa city school district according to the district's website imagine if more than 85% of our students were dead and less than six months when I think of the children in Gaza it makes me think of the children that I see through my internship here who have experienced trauma and the way that it impacts every area of their life it doesn't end with their death the children of Gaza deserve your care too and our struggles are interlined it is our job as people who work for the schools to care for children and to build a world where children can be safe and grow and learn and I urge you to pass the resolution in support of a ceasefire thank you next I have Michael taton followed
116by taana Osco followed by Karen freed I believe it is hi this is Michael toone I'm disappointed I thought we were going to talk about us settler colonialism and how we shouldn't be promoting settler colonialist regimes around the globe for our own interests like we have been doing and the way that we settle colonize this land it's bad it's all bad we should stop doing that um but I'm happy you're putting this resolution before us today I think it's important to teach kids to be question of authority I I said I think I just add in a think there but no it is important to teach kids to be questioning of authority our authority figures on the left and the right are being complicit with tens of thousands of murders using our weapons and tax
117dollars um in the name of fighting terrorism and regime change and as someone who went to high school and middle school during the Iraq War it's really sad that we're still here but we've always been here and I am glad school district is speaking up about it this is different from what happened during my time um I think we need to set an example for kids so thank you um you know we live in an environment where people call you terrorists just for supporting peace and supporting Palestinians um and that's not the kind of environment that kids should grow up in in school um and this isn't a religious conflict this is a conflict about land not all Jews support Israel and not everyone in Palestine is a Muslim there's a lot of diversity but
118it's about land and I do want to say that anti-Semitism is real I was at the Board of Supervisors um when they voted on uh you know condemning racism as a Public Health crisis and there were a lot of explicitly Neo-Nazi people in the audience um that's bad I hate anti-semites but this isn't anti-Semitism this is about stopping settler colonialism um and I want the money that we're spending for these regimes to go back to our school so that we can stop firing our staff that we need thank you thank you next I have Tatiana Orosco followed by Karen freed followed by Nelly arov my name is Tatiana and I'm a Santa Rosa resident parent and voter I'd like to know why we're wasting taxpayer money opining on an ongoing conflict thousands of miles away
119at a meeting of the school board do you consider peace in the Middle East within your jurisdiction when you can't find the budget for librarians do we discuss resolutions for every global conflict did we meet to demand an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine if not then I'm curious why we're singling out this conflict involving the world's only Jewish State you want to talk ceasefire Hamas has broken every ceasefire ever on October 7 they didn't just break a ceasefire they declared war by invading Southern Israel and butchering families and children in their beds raping girls and women shooting senior citizens on a day trip slaughtering Festival goers and taking hundreds of men women and children hostage Hamas has also rejected every ceasefire since October 7 so if you talk for a ceasefire you're clearly not
120talking to Hamas which is a terrorist organization whose stated goal is to kill all Jews in the world please unless you think this school district resolution will be the one to get through to them you're talking to Israel our country's Ally a democratic beacon in the Middle East whose stated goal is the rescue of their hostages and the complete elimination of Hamas if you insist on dragging politics into a school board meeting why don't you call for Hamas to release all the hostages and surrender unconditionally so the war can end better yet I ask you to focus on the tasks for which we elected you such as protecting our children from violence at schools keeping gangs out of our schools and improving the quality of our children's education vote no on this resolution focus on
121education not indoctrination thank you thank you be before I continue with the speaker cards I just want to again please ask be respectful everybody has the right to be heard so please just don't interrupt people that way we could get through everybody as soon as possible um Karen freed followed by Nelly aronov followed by geord this resolution does the opposite of supporting and protecting students you must know that school districts that have enacted such resolutions in those districts Jewish students Express fear and heightened anti anti-Semitism one can discuss Affairs without a resolution especially one that is one-sided and expresses a view which is very hurtful to many in the Jewish Community because it does not demand an unconditional return of hostages brutally kidnapped as soon as Hamas returns all hostages and surrenders there would be
122an immediate ceasefire but Hamas has refused even two days ago when they were offered to get 700 Terror convicted terrorists back for just 40 hostages Israel wants peace they do not they I wonder why the authors of this resolution feel it's necessary to support hamas's goal to remain in power which enables them to carry out their promise to repeat their atrocities over and over which they say they will do why don't they even mention the return of hostages having discussions about international issues in classes is great as long as the board adopts a policy to ensure they're discussed accurately without the teacher actively promoting a personal point of view too often hostile attitudes have seeped into our schools as evidence by the horrific rise and anti-Semitism in our California school system especially in the communities
123where such resolutions have been enacted Santa Rosa schools have many problems to solve please vote against this because supporting it does not support peace my apologies I think there was a timer issue there yeah apologies for that next we have Nelly arov followed by Jordan followed by Robin presy I believe it is I think they need just one minute to get the timer um working again one second oh looks like it's ready go ahead we got Nelly where's Nelly no okay all right so we're we're not having Nelly okay Jordan do we have Jordan hi I'm here your last name for the record please uh burd give me just a second before we start um okay so I work in public libraries I am a media literacy um specialist as well and I really don't
124have the time to go through how much disinformation I've just heard and I have been at the Santa Rosa city council Board of Supervisors the human rights commission um a lot of these folks are going to those jurisdictions and saying um to those bodies and saying that they have no jurisdiction there which I can't tell you how ridiculous it is to sit at the human the somoma County Human Rights Commission and have people tell them that those people have no jurisdiction when this is clearly a human rights violation that we're witnessing so anyways um I'm also Jewish um and I just am I I can't express to you the particularity of the experience of having so many members of my community who are also not a majority by the way there are plenty of anti-zionist
125Jews um and they've been mobilizing all over the country um but to have our Judaism weaponized in this like wildly narcissistic um self-victimization is one of the most horrifying things I've ever witnessed in my life um um and I do want to say that [Music] um what since I've been alive the US has been at War schools have been underfunded if not now when are we going to stop the war machine it's not starting with Israel because everybody hates Jews it's starting with Israel because we fund Israel directly you know Israel has free education and free health care on our dime we pay more to Israel than we have historically to any other country and if that money uh we're going here we could have in Santa Rosa alone 294 households with public housing for
126a year 861 children receiving free or lowcost Health Care thank you your time is up next I have Robin prusy followed by Tariq kazza followed by Diane Monroe Robin yes hi I'm Robin prusi I'm a resident of Santa Rosa I was going to start with asking if you've ever called for a ceasefire of any other War you've already answered that question sometimes we have to have the humility to say that we don't know enough to have an opinion there's a lot of history to understand before statements are made the statistics that are published are complex are they real there is no free press in Palestine we do know civilians held hostages these are just a couple of many examples of the complexity in our district our superintendent M IUI has done a phenomenal job asking
127the teachers to stay away from this very complex topic what she has done is working there are no protests no hate no Division and absolutely no bullying in our school they get to be children at school and my son gets to feel safe let's not forget that ceasefire negotiations are ongoing in Qatar right now A unilateral call for a ceasefire by Israel is not going to happen there's been a massive uptick in anti-Semitism since October 7th so I ask you please don't call for a ceasefire nothing will be accomplished by it in the middle East a call for ceasefire by your board can only cause more division stress and harm to the children in our community I know you all come here already knowing what you're going to do but I hope you listen to
128us and this is coming from a mother in your community with Jewish children thank you very much thank you next we have pre TQ kazna followed by Dan Monroe followed by Danielle Feldman hi uh first of all I want to say I'm I'm struggling to understand how anything that has been said today has been said here justifies the slaughter of over 32,000 people and thousands more that have begun the slow process of dying from starvation H and to answer uh questions that were uh posed before I live in Santa Rosa my son went to Santa Rosa schools I'm a Palestinian citizen of Israel I've lived in Israel I've lived in West Bank and I have many friends in Gaza so uh but not what I came to say uh the last the last time I
129was here was about 12 years ago at the school board at the time voted to shut down my son's school joyal Park Elementary to make room for a charter school uh hello my name is Diane Monroe and I would like to say that I am a proud anti-zionist Jew and so to make clear that we are not talking about Jews and Palestinians we are talking about Israel Zionism okay because there are thousands and thousands of Jews that do not agree with the actions of Israel and the philosophy of Zionism and we are out there and we say loudly not in our name so I want to thank the school board and Omar Medina for coming with this resolution including the part about holding all children and all views in safety this is an important issue
130to discuss openly now there is a long and complex history of the Middle East before the state of Israel since the state of Israel with the occupied Palestinian territories that never had a day of Freedom never a day without oppression by Israel before October 7 7th this did not start on October 7th and regardless of how we see that history what we have now are two million civilians women children elderly faced with starvation food not coming in no electricity no clean water and that is why we are saying ceasefire now you don't need a degree in the history all you need is a heart and compassion to say let's name it and let's discuss this and let's hold all opinions in a circle thank you thank you for doing this it's an important part of
131our children's education thank you your time is up next we have Danielle Feldman followed by Julia Feldman followed by Mattel prki my name is Danielle Feldman thank you for allowing me to speak tonight I'm a Jewish resident of Santa Rosa trustee Area 1 and I've been a a substitute teacher in the Santa Rosa schools district I do vote in every election I do respect and appreciate your Devotion to humanity worldwide and inclusivity locally but I don't believe that this is the appropriate way to achieve that in our schools so I'm asking you to vote no on this resolution first of all calls for foreign policy decisions are far outside the scope of responsibility and the knowledge required for a school board you're clearly aware of this because you added in multiple points of resolution that
132are related to schools none of which needs a resolution by the way because they're already all covered by school and government codes and regulations at local state and federal levels furthermore numerous communities and school boards across the bay area and the country have debated similar resolutions since October you're aware of this in each case the associated meetings and outcomes have been volatile I am extremely grateful to everyone here tonight who has not made this an extremely VI volatile situation but you came into this knowing that in previous meetings crowds filled the meeting rooms they shouted over each other they yelled hateful statements they yelled conspiracy theories in one meeting the disrespectful crowd even shouted at a holocaust Survivor as she attempted to share her comments you couldn't have known that tonight would be calm and
133you can't know the feelings of those of us who are here speaking whether we feel safe whether we feel included or not you claim that part of this resolution is to create a safe and supportive environment for your students but you intentionally and knowingly created a situation that doesn't feel safe or supportive so seriously is the current violence in Santa Rosa schools not enough for you did you need to make more thank you your time is up next we have Julia Feldman followed by Matel psky followed by Jason Sweeney board members thank you for allowing me to speak this evening my name is Julia Feldman I am a Jewish resident of Santa Rosa trustee Area 1 and I vote in every election I am also a substitute teacher and have taught in most of Santa
134Rosa's high schools I am asking you to vote no on this resolution the only thing this resolution will do in fact it is already doing is deepen deepen the divisions in our schools and communities that are already traumatized by violence natural disasters and federal elections we have already seen sorry this isn't hypothetical we have already seen it happen in communities and school districts across the bay area and the country these meetings are always filled with hours of public comment that include anti-semitic jering perpetration of conspiracy theories and General disruption it is very welcoming that this community is behaving the aftermath has been an increased anti-Semitism in every Community including graphiti and targeting of Jewish businesses and Jewish students leaving public schools out of fear in several districts the US Department of Education is conducting investigations
135into the severity and handling of anti-Semitism in public schools so why why would board members who claim to be so concerned about safety and inclusivity knowingly create such an unsafe and divisive environment for their students if you really care about your students please Focus your time and your resources on safety issues you can actually thank you your time is up next I have Matel psky followed by Jason Sweeny followed by Maria Barakat good evening everyone uh my name is mato purki and I'm uh here to oppose this resolution for a few reasons uh first thing I'm GNA go with a quote here quote our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious it needs all sincere efforts it is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps unquote uh that's a
136quote from Hitler's main comp um oh sorry that's a quote from hamas's founding Charter so yes they do call for the destruction of Jews just wanted to establish that as fact from hamas's own mouth uh second of all is why I'm opposing the resolution itself if I read the resolution without having ever known about this uh conflict I would not know who Israel is fighting and that's because because the word Hamas does not appear in the resolution you you you cannot know who Hamas is or who Israel is fighting by reading this resolution uh second of all why the resolution as a whole is not something that should be on agenda uh it's a partisan issue the purpose of this council is not to take part in partisan issues and you can ask yourself why
137it's a partisan issue you can disagree with why it's a partisan issue but if you want proof it's a partisan issue every single person that has urged the council to vote Yes absolutely despises Israel wants the destruction of Israel or at the very least thinks that Israel is absolutely wrong in this conflict every single person that is one of this Council to vote no on the resolution has thought the opposite that Israel is in the right in this conflict uh that Hamas started this war they're not going to get to uh have a ceasefire on their terms and you you need look no further than that to prove it's a partisan issue but I think everyone knows that it's a partisan issue I don't think that's really a secret uh what's also a secret is
138that it's useless um if you want to know the jurisdiction of the Santa Rosa city council it's in the name Santa Rosa uh the Santa Rosa city council has no effect or jurisdiction over what's happening in Israel or Gaza thank you time is up next I have Jason Sweeney followed by Maria barot followed by Ari ban good evening thank you for for taking my comment and Mr Medina I want to thank you for your opening comments as well thank you um so the correct response to 100 plus years conflict in Palestine Israel is honesty education tolerance diplomacy and peace not militarism we all we need all hands on deck all the voices we can get to come out and call for a ceasefire we cannot stay silent what what what a better place to advocate
139for peace and in our school system a permanent ceasefire is the first step to resolving this conflict and we need to force the people in power to face this I'm also concerned that see that the seeming indifference at the Santa Rosa city council and what that represents in our community and Beyond is further normalizing the dehumanization of one group of people in in this particular moment the Palestinians we cannot allow this one-sided response and the normalization of violence that comes with it and then Fain surprise when people in our own community and our schools carry out harassment and violent acts we must stop being Hypocrites please hold the line and set the example for all of our youth in our community a vote for a ceasefire in Santa Rosa is a vote for nonviolent solutions
140to conflict in Santa Rosa people coming out to speak in opposition to a ceasefire resolution in Santa Rose are conflating every person in Gaza as a terrorist and supporting mindblowing atro happening right now they say nothing about the atrocities committed by Israel they cannot afford to be honest as we've seen here again tonight they say nothing about the Palestinian hostages those in opposition want to pretend that there's only one side denying the relationship between actions and reactions dating back to the 1930s Zionism is rooted in racism and we need to stand up and make it not okay thank you your time is up thank you time is up thank you next next I have please please be respectful please be respectful or or I'll ask you to step out next I have Maria Barakat followed
141by Ari ion followed by Jackie O'Neal mermit followed by Tina gner my name is Maria Barakat I have so many things that I'd like to say but there's only two minutes um I'm a Lebanese uh American and sonoman with family from Palestine my Aunt Renee and her family were violently expelled in 1945 in the catastrophe the nuba when million ions of Palestinians were forced out of the country on foot she lived in the UN refugee camps in Lebanon for years I am now going on 172 days of watching my people and uh children that could easily be me or you being blown apart by a military force that we're paying for with our tax dollars all I want is to see this violence end passing local resolutions are truly potent a truly potent way to
142show Community Support for our County state and federal electeds to see that we do not support the funding of Civilian deaths the starvation of children I'm here to State explicitly that this is an attempt to that this is an this is an attempt to establish peace we're in a critical urgent need right now of robust education on this issue issue this meeting proves that there has been so much misinformation in this meeting some comments I've heard tonight are rooted in utter ahistoric narrative it is very sad that this is what our youth face is having to battle these wrong ideas this meeting is not causing division it's highlighting division that has already existed here islamophobia anti-arab hate and anti-Semitism are alive and well in Sonoma County and have been always but tell me this why
143are we opposing the ceasefire and talking about hostages when 35,000 civilians and don't thank you your time is up next I have AR venan followed by Jackie O'Neal mermit followed by Tina geffner hello uh my name is Ari vinyan I'm a resident of Santa Rosa um while I haven't had the pleasure of working within the District of Santa Rosa I'm a mental health worker I'm a psychotherapist I've worked with children from preschool through High School uh in several districts throughout the Bay Area not only in schools but also in crisis stabilization I am here to speak to this resolution please pass the ceasefire resolution it is so vital for our children to know that we don't stand with genocide right they see the news I've heard the substitute teacher talking about like how traumatized our
144kids are it's like yeah they are really traumatized they're living through so much right now and it's so present on their phones and on the news everywhere they're seeing death that's traumatizing they need to process that they need to be allowed to talk they need to be able to be taught media education like oh my gosh the information in this room tonight I wish that we could have some factchecking right like let's teach our kid kids media literacy let's give them spaces to talk and investigate I love how you're making a space for all voices right kids might hear things they might not know what's true I can say as a white person I was not taught about the atrocities of our country how did that work out plenty of ignorant white people right there
145is so much that we can do in our school systems to teach Equity Foster peace Foster understanding and help our children grow not only as Scholars but as humans with solid mental health and hope for their future let's give them hope ceasefire now thank you next we have Jackie O'Neal mermaid followed by Tina gner followed by Maggie cauer good evening um I just want to start by saying I'm fully in support of this resolution thank you very much for bringing this to this uh chamber so we can have this very important conversation my name is Jaclyn oil mermet I am a parent I am a PTA board member at Proctor Terrace and I am a public servant I work in a local jurisdiction in Marin County I was recently at a Dei Summit where I
146heard one of our board members give some very wonderful comments about diversity equity and inclusion and belonging belonging I have so much to say the oppos [Music] freedom of speech and and expression are Paramount in the goal of creating critical thinkers and that is our goal when we send our students to school so they can think critically so they can challenge the status quo I want that for my daughter and the language and this resolution affirms that our school board and our community believe in that and want to see it go forward please please please I urge you to vote yes thank you your thums up next we have Tina geffner followed by Maggie cauer followed by Holly CA good evening distinguished board members my name is Tina geffner I have been a Santa Rosa
147city school special education teacher for 25 years but I'm here tonight as a concerned parent of a high school student at one of our schools I'm asking you to vote no on the Santa Rosa city school ceasefire resolution a yes vote on a resolution with the term ceasefire May further embolden those who wish to commit more vandalism or other acts which could make Jewish students uncomfortable there has already been a graffiti incident at my daughter's school and I do not want her exposed to more anti-Semitism has increased in the Bay Area recently with incidents such as Nazi symbols and other more frightening incidents frankly too disturbing to share aloud with this audience dozens of Oakland Unified families are pulling their kids out of their District over these types of concerns a complaint has been filed
148with the US Department of Education against Berkeley unified for violations of the Civil Rights Act for verbal and non-verbal harassment based on Jewish ethnicity a resolution with the term ceasefire during These Times May contribute to a potential climate that Fosters this type of behavior please vote no on this resolution thank you thank you so I've I've been told Maggie ker has left so next I have Holly Cala followed by Tammy Joe followed by Erica Foster Holly uh good evening my name is Holly Kika I am a retired teacher from San Francisco Unified School District having taught there for 26 years and also taught preschool prior to that I wanted to actually Point first of all I want to really thank you for putting this resolution forward as an educator myself and I don't know how
149many I know there's the the teacher below me but there are several other Educators here um and I think a lot of you are quoting a lot of different historical facts and nonfacts to it seems like in this room the division is Big because maybe as adults we've only looked at one point of view we should be able to sit here and talk and I've noticed in different meetings that I've gone to that we haven't been able to when I began teaching at high school level I was teaching about South Africa to my students and I had a Palestinian student that was there that taught me about what happened why her family was in the United States yes I want to talk about landback thank you your time is up next I have Tammy Joe
150followed by Erica Foster followed by Kelsey vle hello my name is Tammy Joe I um want to just complete what Tark had said the quote you are the bows from which your children as living arrows are set forth uh back to me okay so uh somebody made a comment about graffiti if if you don't like graffiti just look away like you do human suffering um to the children and parents who spoke earlier about feeling scared and living in fear uh there's a gentleman here wearing an IDF shirt who stated that they don't care about your feelings they care about facts the facts are that Palestinian children are being constantly terrorized drones buzzing bombs dropping getting sniped while playing clawing their family from under the rubble they do not even even get to go to school
151or the hospital safely because they are bombed there while in close proximity zionists or excuse me human beings who have been poorly educated are raving right outside a concentration camp it is incredibly concerning seeing what an exclusive education can lead to such deep ignorance and a whole population where a whole population is dehumanized perpetuating the story that you are a forever victim if I were educated so poorly I would also fall to the idea that I should be living in fear and that others are out to get me especially when that education is based on dehumanizing other people the children protesting the indiscriminate Slaughter of other children is not violence and certainly not anti-semitic violence I want to point out that just because you feel less safe does not mean that you actually are less
152safe I want to bring the light that it may be your ego getting bruised that is your violence the violence that you are experiencing ego death is very painful uh but when you align your identity with such a dishonest state that pain is expected uh let's see while the 1988 Hamas Charter has been widely criticized for its anti-Semitism the 201 thank you your time is up next we have Erica Foster followed by Kelsey vle followed by bayy Russell thank you for putting this on the agenda I am a Santa Rosa voter and I though I do not work in the Santa Rosa School District I've worked as an educator for over a decade and I don't have students in the school district now but I love the community I found in Santa Rosa and I
153hope to have students in the district one day it's interesting that here tonight it seems that there are two sides to this story when really we all want to be pro- Humanity stopping ongoing violence paid by our tax dollars that could be funding the school districts is a within the jurisdiction of this body and I think that this resolution really is pro pro learning in an open way which is also within the jurisdiction and something um it seems that our parent and adult and educator Community clearly could benefit from now is open learning how many of us in this room currently are opening listening to the quote opposite side even though again we're all pro Humanity in this room um i' first need to offer a rebuttal to a few comments presented by the opposition
154to this resolution tonight first of all why haven't we spoken up about other countries again I'll just Echo that we need to speak up at some point when there's a genocide going on and so if not now wi um we need to protect all human lives students teachers Jews Muslims Christians Israelis and Palestinians all of which are in this community in Santa Rosa and the latter of which Palestinians are under unprecedented attack with us tax dollars um which again we'd love to see funding school education instead um kindness curiosity fairness and Justice are traits that we want to cultivate with young citizens to teach and to model for students open conversation dialogue and listening to understand are key aspects to educate Santa Rosa's students and this involves engaging with history with current issues and how
155we can imagine our future we need students to be able to discuss these seemingly complex issues in an open way so please thank you your time is up next we have Kelsey V followed by Bailey Russell followed by Lee Bender Elie hi yeah my name is Kelsey Vero um here just as a community member in support of the uh ceasefire resolution um I guess what I was thinking about is that U this is not a zero sum game where one person's gain is equivalent to another person's loss or and and one atrocity does not justify another um the idea of justifying uh war crimes is is very hard to understand um it is possible to join as a community to oppose anti-Semitism and still oppose the killing of thousands of civilians we we can choose
156that way if we want um you could be proar I suppose I would not understand that but this is not a war uh a genocide is not a war um it seems odd to have to to say it also but you don't create safety with bombs we need a local resolution because politics is politics and political pressure is one of the only ways we can affect what our federal government is doing with our tax dollars to support this we know our children are watching and I will speak from my own experience that when I was a child I was greatly affected by the apathy of the adults around me and by the justification and acceptance of violent systems which I could not understand they need to see us stand up against this when they see
157it happening and they see us supporting it that is where the pain comes from and it is not healthy for them in addition to obviously being terrible for those that it is affecting more directly um so I just want to uh say again that I really appreciate um bringing this issue that local community members really care about to uh the board for vote today and I hope you'll support this measure thanks thank you next I have Bailey Russell followed by Lee Vander followed by June Brock Caris yeah hi um I'm just gonna keep this short and sweet um as a community member of ca County um in full support of the ceasefire resolution um genocide needs to end now and ceasefire now thank you thank you next I have Lee Vander followed by June braer
158I'm sorry if I'm buter in that hi thank you so much um thank you Bard for putting this resolution on the agenda um I just want to say that I'm in full support of my Palestinian and anti-zionist Jewish neighbors and community members who are asking every single elected official in the entire country to stand up and hear our voices the numbers are overwhelming we are absolutely against uh ethnic cleansing and genocide and we together come to you and ask for you to consider all of the kids in our schools and that will include Palestinian kids not passing a ceasefire puts them in very great harm and they are experiencing something that not hard none of us can most of us cannot even fathom and so I just want to say um as a former employee
159of Santa Rosa city schools a credential teacher a parent I urge you to consider all children stop the war say that your community wants a ceasefire thank you thank you and finally I have June if you could please say your last name Jun BR shares you're close sorry it's kind of difficult hi I'm Jun Bashar and thank you for uh taking this up and listening to the community tonight um you know this resolution didn't bring division or trauma we have the trauma in our community and our students feel it because of what's happening in the world and there isn't a way to escape it so no matter what happens with this you know nobody wants it but it's here and it's before us and it's before each of you to make a decision tonight and
160it's really how do you respond when there's a crisis in the world where you see two million people starving and what are the students are really looking to you to say do you just ignore that or do you say something and what do you say do you encourage deescalation in the schools when there's conflict so that you would be are you going to now encourage deescalation and ceasefire no matter how difficult people feel given past traumas P wrongs what are we teaching by what we do here um this resolution isn't about who did what when and condemnation and violent and Vengeance it's not about that it's about what are we calling for what direction do we want to go in and what we want to go in is a direction towards peace and calling all
161towards ceasefire it's not about sides it's about what do we do we call call for peace what do we want our students to do when they are in a difficult situation do you want them to remember that they feel rightfully vengeant and they can act out or do you want them to take that pause towards peace and seeking peace and I ask you to set that example of calling for peace thank you that concludes the public comments now um okay again I'll ask folks to please be respectful or please leave take take the comments outside please please thank you um overall fairly civil we could have done better I appreciate y'all being here and speaking out and hopefully we could all learn from each other from this now I bring it back to the board
162for discussion comments um trusty deor thank you again to the entire Community who's come out and spoken on this matter on both sides uh your passion has been felt your words have been heard and this is a difficult um situation to be in for any of us my hopes is that none of us were dealing with this at this moment and that these situations were not the reality of the world we live in um I would really like better Clarity please and understanding of what the intent and expected benefit is of this resolution um what are we hoping to achieve because unfortunately as presented we really are hearing a lot of voices that this is an either or and to vote on this situation is to pick a side and that should not be the
163intent so I'm hoping to find a little bit better understanding and Clarity on what the benefits of this resolution could be for our community and our active Santa Rose City Schools Community um because in all honesty to hear even one student Express concern and fear over the resolution is one too many so again um I'll I'll express my motivation um before I continue um is that okay okay um again calling for the ceasefire ensuring that all our students uh feel safe and supported especially our Arab Muslim and Jewish students in terms of having to feel valued and and being included within our diverse School Community um having safe spaces where they can express their views safe from harassment and bullying um protecting our students rights um protecting our Educators rights um and again promoting inclusive
164education all of those things um in the context of this issue that is happening that's very real that a lot of people clearly are very passionate about um to me I see it at something that's an opportunity for Education um an opportunity for folks to call for dialogue in a safe space and to have that understanding that we need to have a safe space to have these conversations where people can be safe from the hate and a lot of the misunderstanding that exists out there I think we could all benefit from listening to each other and understanding how others feel and I think for me that is part of the a big part of the motivation behind the resolution um in addition to saying that hey we we are elevating the voice of this war
165to stand behind this call for cease fire um by forwarding it to other um policy makers that do actually have power in making decision around this um so do you have another question or anything or should I move on to the next speaker I'd like to hear from other board members on this and then I have trusty Flores and um first of all thank you everyone um I don't know if you know this about me but I am a child of the 1970s and ' 80s I grew up in El Salvador uh the height of its bloody Civil War I have personally seen the attrocities that we as human beings can ca one another lost family I have lost friends lost go to war I have lost people to war firsthand I am completely in
166favor of ending a war that indiscriminately kills kids I have seen my fellow students when I was a child being killed absolutely for no reason um to me this is you know very personal in terms of I cannot stand idly by and say nothing to our feral government to say please stop I want to say thank you to those folks back in the 80s uh who actually stood up and and and spoke against the atrocities that were happening in Salvador um and and because of that I'm here and because of that I could have escaped what I and my family went through so I just want to say that we don't know what those children are going for and my heart goes out to the Jewish families that were sequestered no one deserves that no
167one deserves that at all okay but I can't stand here and say while I hold this position and said I can't just turn i b eye to say I don't do anything the US has so much political power not just in the Middle East Central South America southeast Asia everywhere so it is up us to make sure that we do something about it so you know uh initially you know I had talk I had spoken to um our president um Medina that I thought this resolution would be you know out of compliance with our purview right but the more I hear about the ability of us to stand by and make sure that these crimes against our Jewish community and our Arab Community need to stop and we need to send that message so um
168that's all I have to say Youk you next I have trusty DEA Cruz then Sheffield and did you have okay the La Cruz Sheffield and MCN okay rock okay MCN Electro Sheffield okay so when President Medina contacted me about this resolution it was important to me that we Center its relevance to our students because it is relevant to our students as others have mentioned this is a major humanitarian crisis that they are seeing in the news and they're seeing on social media and they don't always have the context they don't always have someone to talk through it with we want our students to be informed and we want them to be critical thinkers so that they can participate effectively in our democracy and in a global community and what we have right now this culture
169of Silence around this issue where teachers are afraid to even touch it because it is divisive that's not conducive to creating those critical thinkers those informed citizens we need to be able to talk about it so it is relevant in that way in that it needs to be an open discussion we need them they need history they need context they need to know how to evaluate sources from all sides and it's relevant because of the anti-semitism the anti- um Arab racism the islamophobia I'm I'm a teacher not in this District but in a nearby district and I see it every day I see this wasas I see my students my Arab students called terrorists it is not okay and we all we know it's not okay it it's in the law already it's in our
170policies already but with this crisis happening now we need to restate it we need to reaffirm our support for all students for our Jewish students our Muslim Students and our Arab students so that is why I contributed to this resolution and I hope that helps answer uh director dori's question as well about the purpose I thank you for adding your pece to it and ever making it personal and your childhood and president Medina for bringing that to light um I'm just trying to add Clarity to the community why this is at RAS I'm going to try to stay in line and I'll come back to you trusty La Cruz then trusty Sheffield then trusty Lor thank you to everybody who came out tonight to share your perspectives and to show us how critical it is
171for us to continue talking to each other um and listening to each other and learning from each other and being open to hearing and learning different perspectives and as Educators and as Leaders of our community's education it's really critical for us to lead and to step up when something unjust is happening in the world and to create spaces that are safe for our kids to develop critical thinking skills um to be challenged with things that they are seeing and they are dealing with every single day in their lives um I am so sorry that kids are having to see you know graffiti that makes them feel like they're unsafe and to be faced with um the kinds of horrible things that children who are finding their ways to critical thinking say to each other until
172the institutions and the leaders and the adults around them right that's our job is to make sure that they see the ways that we are going to engage in nonviolence resolution of conflict and of making sure that we help them to develop those skills to hear each other and to learn from each other so I think it's perfectly in line with our responsibility as the Santa Rosa Schoolboard trustees to lean into this opportunity to stand against Injustice to condemn War to condemn terrorism to condemn genocide um and to stand as leaders for peace uh for civil resolution for continued conversations that are respectful that are informed that are educated um and that are really grounded in being able to hold the complexity of History right of multiple histories um of understanding that different people have
173had different experiences in the world and when you are able to kind of pick up those pieces and put them together that is part of becoming an informed adult that you know somebody who's able to to to roll in the world where nothing is black and white um and it's really critical for us to be able to hold those skill sets together in order to live in a diverse world and to be successful um to be loving and to continue to build a peaceful community that can hear each other and hold space um I I love the connection back to you know guidance to our educators in our district about how to not shut down conversations or close doors but to make sure that we are doing everything we can to provide those safe spaces
174for ongoing conversation um I'm always interested in you know actual resources Beyond just the words and a resolution to our Educators so if it's you know a series of texts that we can help people to be able to access um that provide you know some um some different perspectives some facts some realities but the reality is is that 13,000 children are dead and we do know that it's really important for us to be able to hold space for recognizing that information in a time of war is always going to be contested and if we are working towards peace we're going to hold space to make sure that we continue to collect information from multiple perspectives with love and with peace in our hearts and so I'm not I'm not trying to challenge anybody's facts tonight
175I'm trying to make sure that we continue to create those spaces in our community to share multiple perspectives and to recognize that they exist different people are going to have different experiences in the world and it's our responsibility as humans to be able to still hold that Humanity of our of our fellow human beings and understand those experiences with love and to work towards peace um some of the things that I am curious about um I watched with a lot of uh respect for the way that the Sonoma County Human Rights Commission held this conversation over a couple of meetings um and spent some time really hearing um how to include both you know ideas and words that were important to multiple people in our community so instead of just a ceasefire also condemning terrorism
176holding the recognition of saying that we are standing in support of peace and that we release we support the release of hostages and so again being able to hold ourselves the complexity of this conflict um and recognize that we do have the responsibility of being responsive to multiple members of our community but that ultimately and most importantly that we stand against violence and that we stand for the creation of peace and the creation of space for our children that will help them to develop those skills to be peaceful in this world as they grow up and as they take their own spaces into leadership um it is really really scary to hear people hold such black and white ideas to be able to say no one and everyone that is not true right that that
177monolithic understanding of human beings will make sure that we are not able to see and hold space for each other with love and so I just really want to say that you know again as educational leaders in this community it's our responsibility to make sure that we hold space for multiplicity for complexity for critical thinking and to do everything that we can um to create those educational spaces to support those skills in our children so I stand in support of this resolution I am interested in hearing if there are any additional kind of pieces of language or ideas that need to be included in this for this to feel like a truly inclusive statement um that stands in support of non-violence of resolution of Peace of stopping war of saying no to terrorism But ultimately
178saying also ceasefire now thank you next I have trusty Sheffield followed by trusty Lor um first of all I just want to say respect for my colleagues opinions and respect for president Medina for bringing this very thoughtful resolution to the board for consideration and I do encourage the public to read it um particularly the whereas that reads Arab Muslim and Jewish students as well as those with diverse perspectives on the Israeli Palestine conflict should be supported and protected from discrimination bullying or bias in our school community and I fully support these words and I agree with this resolution and its intent to bring Community awareness to a monthlong war that delivers News Daily to the world about the tens of thousands of Palestinian and Israeli children who have been killed or severely wounded so so
179far in the conflict um I'm glad that we started this agenda with public comment so our school Community um could see how divided we are and people who are leaving I'm sorry um if you were not able to stay to the rest of this discussion but this is a sensitive and complex and and volatile issue um and you see how passionate um emotions are and and how passionate people feel about this issue whether it's opinion whether it's experience I personally support any efforts that emphasize protecting human lives children's lives the Dignity of all people is this a matter for school boards to take up this is the question that has been asked by people in the room tonight by the dozens of emails we've received in the past 24 hours um are there other school
180districts that have addressed ceasefires there are last December the New Haven Unified School District down in Union City they passed a resolution mourning the loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives and emphasizing diplomacy January 29th the Santa Clara County Board of Education approved a resolution recognizing sustained peace and safety for children February 10th the board of directors of the National Education Association reaffirmed their call for a ceasefire that's the education world where the issue has spilled into um this past Monday March 25th the United Nations security Council issued um its first demand for a ceasefire in Gaza the United States abstained from the vote allowing the remainder of the security Council to pass a binding resolution for a ceasefire um and yet in this country in this community divide disagreement anger we've seen some of that
181this evening we've definitely seen it in the comments and emails we've received despite language and sincere intent um Palestinian Israeli issues are as we know are so deep and complex that any position involving the two identities is polarizing and it's been polarizing my whole life it's been polarizing my parents' life as well and this really hurts because when you're talking about addressing sensitive issues with sympathy and compassion and love for life and Humanity which I think we all try to do but it's unfortunate because this issue is dividing countries it's dividing religions it's dividing beliefs ideologies it's dividing National institutions it is despite the language of symbolic resolutions like this one even a position supporting peace is dividing our community right in front of us right in this room and it's not like we don't
182have enough division already we heard that from a speaker right our school Community is divided week to week I personally I feel like I can't even keep my head above water and do my role as a trustee to help the district address important things like what's on the rest of this agenda right focusing on curriculum and supports for all of our students and Staffing and budget cuts and I'm not even going to start on the other forces working to bring the district down the attacks on everything that we do despite the absurdity of it finding fault finding cracks pointing fingers paying attention to what goes on in our schools only when it's of self-importance and not for the collective benefit of all of our students the district needs to be able to function without every
183single issue showing up on the front page of the local paper this entire school year it's been eyes on us for everything that we do and it's disrup Ive and it has really not allowed us to do the job that we need to do um and to the point I want to say to the letter I love the message of this resolution and I personally I support it but I do think clearly from the public comment we've heard from the emails from messages we've received this is and will be another huge divide that will lead to another distraction the important work that we need to do and personally I don't think that this District can function with any more Divide from within our school community and I do think this divide could spill over onto
184our campuses I think it already is and I say to the people in this room please to the people who spoke please the people listening at home please don't let this divide or harm our students we can't insulate them and we should make them aware and we should have these complicated discussions um but we shouldn't harm them um atrocities overseas are without a doubt causing atrocities here at home talked a lot I'll say with respect to my colleagues and to the board chair and for the love of humanity towards the helpless victims in a conflict that has gone on far too long I'll say with deep apologies but for the sake of the school district's ability to function just for the rest of the school year without any more disruptions I intend to abstain on
185this vote thank you trusty Sheffield um TR Lor I'm struggling to put the Motions into words of what needs to be said in this time of division the amount of pain that is read through the emails the amount of pain that has been spoken through the voices has been heard tonight February 28th I was born to a Jewish mother regardless of what culture I was raised or not raised within I do not lose that birth right this resolution has been put in front of me less than a week and I've had to prepare myself and educate myself on what this resolution truly means and what good it can bring to our community here in Santa Rosa the Santa Rosa city school district students staff and Community to me this resolution only offers division with a
186yes or a no we are being asked to pick a side regardless of how voted one side's going to be heartbroken and the other side's going to lift up that vote my vote is not only my vote it's vote of my constituents that have put me into this seat so I must listen to my community and what their hearts are telling me and with that we'll see where this goes thank you if there are no uh further comments from the board um are there any um I Heard a mention of potential amendments or suggestions are there any um if not I'll just add in terms of me um TR I know you indicated only having like a week to to look at this I mean for me as a for a very long time you
187know as a student my identity is a Cho has been tied to like ethic studies and Cho studies and and I really relate to uh the idea of irredentism um you know from the context of uh the Treaty of Guadalupe algo and and that in that context I've learned about this complex for many years and so maybe that's why it it has a a lot of meaning for me and as I said in the beginning I've been wanting to bring this forth for a long time but I've struggled I've held back like do we need it but I couldn't not do it anymore I felt like the need to do it how could I just as as trusty Flores said stand idolly by and do nothing when I have this as an opportunity to bring
188it forth and I recognize the distraction as trusty Sheffield says and it won't be perfect nothing is and I'm constantly feeling as uh the anti-hero in the context of Taylor Swift but um it's here and so with that um if nobody has any more comments I'd like to entertain a motion to pass this resolution as presented there's nobody's willing to move it then just move on nobody okay I'd like to move that we approve this resolution tonight there's a motion to the resolution is there a second at all here second moved by trusty the La Cruz and seconded by trusty MCN um so now it goes back to discussion is there any discussion on the motion if not well then let's go to the vote trusty De La Cruz I trusty MCN I trusty Sheffield
189abstain trusty de laor AB trusty Flores I president Med I thank you we will now move on to item F3 item F3 is a discussion item on Communications for strategic plan uh please allow us to continue our business respectfully thank you president Medina as this item is getting um set up I just want to uh welcome our public information officer and Communications coordinator Miss Vanessa wurn as well as uh our consultant who is the president of sounding board marketing and Communications Heather mcgaan thank you heather for being our guest here this evening and co-presenting with Miss wurn St can you hear me now okay great okay um first I would like to say that it is really difficult to follow the previous item everyone who participated is an advocate for our students and our wonderful
190community and I really appreciate hearing everyone's voices today so before we just jump into this I think it would be great for us all to take a deep breath all right thank you good evening everyone and thank you for having us I would like to introduce you to Heather McGowen of sounding board marketing and Communications she has worked with us in preparing the Santa Rosa city schools communication strategy for the years 2024 to 2027 today we are excited to present to you an overview of this communication strategy as the largest school district in Sonoma County we are dedicated to overcoming challenges and leveraging our strengths to enhance our reputation and Foster positive relationships within our community here is a snapshot of the information we will be presenting you this evening we will provide an overview
191of the process used to develop this plan and then an overview of the insights gained from the research with within our audiences from there we will provide a summary of the communications plan plan so the communication strategic plan that you have in front of you is is very detailed and so I just wanted to take a quick moment moment to let you know how that was organized so it's organized into the executive summary a situation analysis which includes a swad analysis key findings audience insights and the Strategic plan itself we utilize the four-step public relations process in developing this plan so that process includes research planning implementation and evaluation for the research during the fall we conducted surveys with parents and staff focus groups with students parents and the district's various employee groups and interviews
192with the board members 891 parents 754 of which were English respondents and 137 which were Spanish and 241 employees completed the surveys we also conducted a scan of the district's regular digital and printed Communications which were evaluated on use consistency and quality first let's address some of the challenges we've faced recent incidents such as a students tragic death campus violence and external factors like the pandemic wildfires have understandably impacted our District's reputation and perception however we are committed to addressing these challenges head-on and highlighting our strengths including our dedication to equity our diverse programs and our historic significance within the community Through the thorough research and Analysis that we conducted we've identified several key findings that inform our strategy the findings from the research highlighted the following first there is an overall neutral parent opinion
193of the district and a positive opinion about children's educ education So based on the survey findings about 45% h of parents have neutral negative or very negative opinion about the district as a whole and 54% of parents have a positive or very positive opinion about the district as a whole however 70.5% of parents have a positive or very positive opinion about the education their children are receiving and I must sayate that that the survey is a snapshot in time and so um as um Vanessa previously outlined because of different challenges uh it it it it was not surprising that that these were the results but it's important to also highlight that um the positive opinions that parents have of their children's education the uh research also showed that there's an alignment on the high value
194of diversity inclusion in the district and that was very clear this evening um however there's a lack of alignment on other values and so the Strategic plan does address this and we'll be covering that in just a little bit also the communication in the district is strategic but the internal capacity for full implementation is hindered and the Strategic plan also addresses this um some some different approaches to um to doing this um so as you know there's um you know there's always there's going to be crisis Communications and then there's also going to be positive uh news and and other types of information to share and so um and and the district has a very strategic approach to that but the internal capacity to roll that out um is is hindered next the last two
195of the key findings is that audiences do feel well informed through the district's varied Communications however there are varying levels of consistency proficiency and success in the utilization of those Communications and lastly there are opportunities to enhance proactive and consistent engagement and and also have some standardized response timelines and so the Strategic plan also addresses that as well it's important to also note that across all audiences there is a high level of satisfaction with the district's communication efforts with a preference and Reliance on text email and parent Square students feel that their schools offer a positive environment that their teachers contribute greatly to this environment and that there is a diverse support and student engagement students noted safety concerns some information gaps and misconceptions about schools next we're going to look over our guiding principles
196our guiding principles underscore the importance of tying all communication to District goals they include alignment with District goals Communications impact on academic achievement education quality and effective communication research and evaluation and strategic communication everyone as communicators and ambassadors engaging stakeholders for students understanding the correlation between positive communication and family and Community involvement recognizing that quality education and effective communication go hand inand and acknowledging the Strategic communication requires ongoing research evaluation and Eng engagement from all members of our district so let's get to the good stuff we're going to talk about the Strategic plan itself so the goals of this plan there's there's five of them and um I'll go over them briefly and then we'll go into a little bit more depth about the objectives um to support those goals so the first is to
197strengthen transparency and communication or to continue to strengthen transparent transparency and communication the next is to promote the district as a district of choice for families and employees the third is to emphasize the district's diversity and inclusivity the fourth is about championing and enhancing the district as a unifying force in the community and then lastly enhancing participation and engagement in district meetings so this is really a very quick snapshot of um what is much more detailed in the communication strategy document that you have in front of you and so um probably not surprisingly the goal that has the most objectives tied to it is the one around strengthening and enhancing the district's transparency and comprehensive communication program and so um I'll go over these briefly by objectives um you'll see the strategies and tactics up
198on the screen and um again this is this is a very brief snapshot um and we will have a more detailed work plan that also outlines the um evaluation the responsibilities timelines Etc and again this is a three-year plan so um the objectives for supporting this include increasing representation of student and staff voices which is already started to be done through the implementation of the hearts and Minds campaign and um and also utilizing these uh these stories across your communication uh platforms the next is about expanding communication accessibility for families without electronic means this is still a reality um for many families and so utilizing your um your current Outreach staff um and printed Communications and inperson information sessions um are a a few of the different ways that this can be achieved the next
199is regarding the implementation of consistent proactive communication practices across all School sites this is this would be done through developing best practices processes and protocols capacity building um as well as full implementation of parents square and also developing consistent website and newsletter topics across school campuses the other objectives to support this goal U around strengthening crisis communication protocols and we've already started this process through capacity building with the site staff or excuse me the site administrators and um and also um uh providing some consistency in terms of the adherence to these protocols improving communication channels and customer service for all audiences is also another objective to support this goal and this would come through developing some consistent customer service approaches through implementing feedback that was received through the survey results um as well as practices
200um capacity and capacity building for employees uh it was noted through the survey and our focus groups that there are some information gaps and so um so the uh strategies to address that would be to utilize existing committees for feed for ongoing feedback approaches to um Cas G Communications to staff as well as student superintendent check-ins and then the last two objectives that support this goal are um around improving the transparency of the communications of the community or excuse me the Committees and student group activities and so um you know such as the information that was shared this evening by you know your different groups um utilizing the district's Communications to get more information out to your District Community about the that these committees are making um their their calls to action the timelines that
201they're working with so that your public um understand um what the what the activities of these committees and and what they're doing and then lastly um as I mentioned before um developing some uh tactics um and strategies around increasing the communication offices capacity to provide proactive District Communications um with one um uh District um public information officer when a crisis occurs basically it's it's drop everything and attend to the crisis and crisis Communications of course right and letting the community know um what the district's response is and what next steps are going to be taken and sometimes um oftentimes when those crises are ongoing um that limits the the district's capacity to um have the ability to get the positive and um proactive um types of approaches to communication and so as a result the
202the public that that can have a that can diminish public trust and their opinion of your district and so at at at some point in time when when it's um you know when the timing is right from a budgetary standpoint U it would be advisable to evaluate the feasibility of increasing the Staffing of the communication office um and um and also the cabinet members and principal capacity is key spokespeople for of the district um and their um and their to help to also get out the proactive um uh positive stories about what's happening in your District the next uh few goals I'll go over quickly in terms of the objectives because I'm this I'm able to summarize these a a little bit more easily as I um than I did with the previous ones but
203for promoting the district as a district of choice um for families employees the objectives are really about um developing um stories um resources and positioning of the district um to really put its best pH forward in a number of different ways and so that would be through stories um for local media coverage um of your of your students and your um and your academic programs and showcasing those success stories developing fact sheets that could be utilized um or brag sheets whatever you guys want to end up calling it in the end um that could be utilized on your websites and and provided to um to your local Realtors and to and and at Community uh um activities just so people have you know the the you know the the basic information about your schools and
204and what's great about them and then for positioning the district as a best place for employment is developing the you know a an employment brand campaign that incorporates Co website content video testimonials from your employees of why it's great to work here um and utilizing your employees as District ambassadors the next goal is about promoting the district's diversity and inclusivity because that was noted as a key strength across all of your your different audiences and so again um promoting your diversity through storytelling such as through your hearts and Minds campaign but also through all of your different Communications um as well as you know as developing a campaign that actually showcases what your inclusive practices are and what you're doing um it there's uh it it definitely shows in in in the work that that
205is being done every day on your campuses and so this is a way to Showcase this is how we're doing it um and even having student-led projects and having the students tell the stories of that as well and then um the goal of enhancing and championing the district as a unifying influence in the community I think this really probably uh comes close to home in in terms of just the um that you know yes there's a lot of opinions out there um and and that doesn't mean though that there aren't shared values in this community and so it really bringing together and and establishing and promoting District wide shared values helps to provide the communication and the decision-making lens and and other lenses through through which we can that your District can can really talk
206about what it's doing through those shared values that that your community has established and so it talks about the why we're doing this through those shared values that that your community has come to consensus on and so that strategy would would engage a process um through which that that those shared values would be developed and promoted and then the um opportunities for Community uh collaboration and engagement with Community Partners really as a district of this size is uh being uh being very intentional about the ways in which the the district engag with the with the uh Community Leaders with the city leaders and um and also utilizing District ambassadors uh to develop um you know forums you know around different topics of interest of the community um as well as partnering on projects and and
207volunteer opportunities in your district and then there there was also a goal around engage enhancing participation districts and school meetings and so the there was concern raised in in different focus groups um that that a lot of the same people are at the same meetings and so how do we have more diverse representation of voices um that that really represent the district community and so these objectives um address um meeting that goal of both for diversifying parent representation as well as employee representation in those meetings and so again this is a three-year plan I I like to come back to this because I've shared a lot about these goals and objectives and so as we identify uh priorities um you know some of these it might be starting with something this year and then expanding
208you know in year two and year three so you know in terms of kind of seeing what the results are and and and and the outcomes from from this plan you may see some small things happen and then and then some progress made from there and so you know in relation to that it's you know the question is well how do we measure success how do we know we were successful with this and so just some um examples of metrics that will be utilized to measure success and you saw them on the previous slides as well but it would be through things like social media engagement E Event and meeting attendance the reach of the communications employee retention surveys you know of your different audiences and um and and each of those uh evaluation measures
209will be will be detailed in the work plan for this uh communication strategy and that evaluation process will involve some baseline data collection regular regular reviews as as well as adjustments based on feedback this is a a living and breathing strategy that will be tweaked along the way to to meet the uh the needs and and to U be responsive to the feedback that we receive in conclusion while Stak holders believe that the district communicates well we recognize that there's always room for improvement by focusing on our key goals and leveraging our strengths we aim to position Santa Rosa city schools as the District of choice fostering a positive reputation effective storytelling and strong stakeholder relationships together we can build capacity and enhance our communication systems for a more effective consistent and timely interactions next
210we'd like to answer any questions that you have about this communication strategy and we thank you for your attention and I look forward to working together to implement our communication strategy effectively thank you and before we move on um like to entertain a motion to extend the meeting to 11:45 at the latest anybody moved by v seconded um any objections all in favor please say I all right now board questions uh Lor thank you both very much for your presentation um unfortunately as we all know the main story that's out there is whatever the Press puts out about us and that's what a lot of people are reading um and I've had several conversations with friends and family constituents of oh my God what's happening and I'm like well actually this is what happened and
211like go that's completely different so with your presentation and your opinions what should we be do this a three-year plan so right now what should we be doing or perhaps superintendent what can we do as board members um to help get the good message there that is an excellent question and so one of the things that I that I wanted to make sure I highlight about this plan it is about diversifying the approaches that are taken to get the word out and and so um as you saw in in a few different areas the there's the idea of utiliz but leveraging your um your leadership your District's leadership's uh capabilities to to be able to you know get the messages out but also utilizing employees as ambassadors um to also get these messages out in
212a in a number of different ways so out in the community that you know that would involve providing things like talking points to both those emplo to you as a board about the about some of the different things you can be talking about in the community of of course you know yes there's there's going to always be something that people some say this is you know this is the you know something that's going wrong in the district and you know you can say you know I understand we're you know this is something that we're tackling but let me also share with you some of these other things that are happening and so it would be really providing that information so that ambass as ambassadors as board members as ambassadors um for employees that that they
213have the information they need in order to be effective ambassadors um that was something that the survey results also highlighted is that there was about you know almost what was it 75% of the employees who said that they feel like they could be good ambassadors of the district we want we want more of them to be able to say that by by providing them what they need in order to be good investors the district thank you guys um thank you for the presentation um and first of all I just want to say thank you so much to Vanessa for all the work that you've done already since you came on um in helping us promote positive stories so that the school Community knows there are exciting things that happen every day on our campuses and
214things that we should celebrate because you know some folks in the community they don't they they don't get that message and you're doing an excellent job promoting it and and I'm hearing you know some good feed back um I wanted to a question around um around bringing students in and student Le projects and you know obviously I really support this I love this idea um are we doing any of that now so at this time when I'm working with students it's often times um through a staff member um whether it's a classified or certificated staff member at a school site will say hey Vanessa our students are doing this really cool thing can I put you in touch with them and then I like to learn a little bit from them and decide if this
215is something that should be filmed by by me or if this is something bigger um for example just today we had our the best buddies prom featured on KTVU in the morning um that that was something that I circled back with them on to make sure that they would be involved in that um but I do have ideas for bigger and better and and really getting in touch with our high school and possibly middle school students that are interested in whether it's um you know digital media journalism uh things of that nature that Communications realm to see if we can come up with an internal kind of club or internship program for our students so that they can be ambassadors Within their schools and on behalf of the district and has there been any conversation
216with krcb which you know I know that they like to um explore other areas of um of delivering information media I will happily take that suggestion and reach out to krcb great all right thank you trusty votes uh so in terms of the data so I'm looking at just slide number see three so when we have um you know the uh parent engagement or the inside and student inside staff inside um how we okay it says 81% 81.4% of parents feel somewhat extremely informed right so how are we getting information from the parents that have no access to electronic devices so at this time when we are are we are relying on our school sites to relay information through our family engagement facilitators um for example our family engagement facilitators have helped our ed services
217team in doing our in-person lcap meetings and things of that nature and that's really right now currently what we've been doing to bridge that Gap and it's EV it's obviously not enough that and we should be doing more and that's kind of part of our strategic plan here is leveraging more of the school site to help us reach those families that may not have the technology or may have language barriers or may prefer just to have a phone call okay and so how is that data being collected so for from the evaluation perspective that's part of the evaluation processes to collect the data from the family directly from the families that don't have the the the electronic communication means to follow up with them to find out how how well do they feel informed based
218on the new approaches that we'll be taking place so some of that would be be through survey but also just through through meetings and and collecting their feedback through meetings with the parents okay so we still have to do more of that that's what I'm hearing exactly we need to get more of that Baseline line information evaluation a lot of that feedback also came through the parent focus groups that was something that was noted by the parents that some of the parents that attended the focus group meetings is that there there are casual means by which parents are sharing information via text with each other and so they ask well how can how can we better improve this with the district so it may it it's like text is still like electronic but it's but
219it's also it's through it's also finding but they they also noted ways of like how can we get that information from the parents who don't have text who or who who aren't you know utilizing parent square or you know through those methods so so there is still some we need to get more we more in depth with talking with these parents more about okay how can we better get that information to you and so that we so we can be effective in that approach so and then the the the other I'd like to see is um you know a little bit of stratification in terms of different uh population groups like you know special education low social economic English language Learners right that's just for Spanish but uh so uh I just want to make
220sure that it's also included in the data collection part of it you know from the Geo to make sure you know the uh if to see if there are any discrepancies within those subgroups thank you for that P Feb on the board comments trust the La Cruz um I really appreciate the kind of the focus on communication as distinct from engagement and I'm just wondering kind of where do you see engagement um supporting or kind of like underpinning some of the communication strategies here that's an excellent question and and maybe Vanessa can also speak more to this and this is where uh folding in different approaches to for instance having U so are you speaking more specifically about parent engagement or employee student or all of them all all of it I mean I feel
221like you know communication is the one-sided right like here's here's information here's you know stuff for you and ideally that kind of generates engagement right and so I'm just wondering like how does this plan um create a pathway to I really appreciate it that kind of description of rolling out implementation of this in a much more you know thoughtful and frankly resourced way right this is going to cost money and that's right it should right this is somebody's job um this is multiple people's jobs not just one Vanessa um and so just thinking about like how are we layering what it is that we're doing with that ultimate goal of really creating community and really creating conversations so so some of the strategies that were outlining um to support some of the objectives um include
222forums events and um and other opportunities or even going doing Outreach to different uh communities through through these um through the different strategies that were outlined and so um so definitely incorporating two-way communication is intentional in in the different strategies and tactics that are that are outlined um I probably didn't go over that as thoroughly as I could have because I was wanted make sure to to hit upon each goal um but that is definitely part of the strategies is to incorporate those opportunities for engagement um the other question I had was just around um kind of the data so 81.4% that's of people who participated in the survey did I miss that number of like how many folks participated so the numbers that participated in the survey there were 891 parents 754 uh were
223English speaking parents and 137 were Spanish um speaking parents and then 241 employees completed the surveys okay uh can I ask out of how many employees do we have 14600 so that's what 14% I had a question about communication with um families that may be technologically disadvantaged um information even important information about upcoming things like summer programs um how what what you doing now and how do we um intend to address this absolutely so um one of the Avenues that we have leveraged in the past is through radio ads um many people who may not be techsavvy are you know driving to work and possibly listening to the radio and we do um these radio ads on uh Sonoma County's most popular um Spanish speaking radio station as well um so that it can hit
224that audience but more importantly I know that for our summer programs um team they have gone out to school site councils and and have presented to elac teams as well so it's kind of really that work if you're not getting it through the tech side you're getting it through the word of mouth right now and if we could have representatives from those sites actually do help out on say radio yeah you know yeah in in fact um last year we had a radio um at we didn't just have the radio advertisement we also had a live radio interview uh with Dr Castro featured on that radio station I also think it's important to mention before I forget that we do a bi-weekly kbbf interview it's it's mostly superintendent tranell and we do the different topics
225throughout um what's going on throughout the year so we've talked about summer programs on that and we'll be talking about it as it gets closer again to make sure that people don't miss out on summer programs and you know everybody not everybody but everybody seems to be on the go I guess and have you know these devices and any way we can capture audience in a split second you know whether it's a kbbf interview that can then be crunched into something that can be put on social media and then disseminated and you know spreads like like wildfire yeah you know yeah definitely um as we are building capacity we can produce more content like that to get out there to our families and our community members yeah I mean definitely there's something to be said
226about Word of Mouth especially when it's coming from the source you know but then we also have to be um available to provide that information when it comes back to us and and so again I I love that we're we have a a you know a three-year plan to do this um that we're looking at all avenues that we're exploring all options um I want to hear you know updates and see how we're doing I intend to be following and you know I again praise the the um the work that you've done so far thank you uh trusty Lor followed by trusty Flores then trusty me so suggestion and maybe it's already in q but let's ensure we're taking full advantage of the opportunity of the upcoming roast parade um it's back post pandemic and
227nothing brings the community together like food music and art um so make let's make sure it's not just site based being participants but we be active members on how to have the school district's best foot forward in that environment um to show all the bright colors of who we are on display that day thank you for that suggestion JY Flores uh yes you know trying to crunch numbers here but I won't try to do that um so I I think that I initially I would like to to address is uh making sure the uh proportionality of the respondents um it's elevated a little bit more in terms of making sure that you know U the number of English um well in terms of ethnicities right a representer or English language Learners or Spanish speaking parents
228uh because I did see I did hear your number was kind of low right so if we can Elevate that to make sure that it reaches a level of proportionality that is um valid all right thank you now me um first off thank you again for the presentation I do have quite a few things um so I'm going to try to go fast um first um and one of the goals to talk about increasing student representation you mentioned um newspapers um I think evaluating like you know I was recently looking for newspaper on one of the high school campuses to realize it doesn't even have one so I think making sure that there's Equity across the board in terms of students having those means of communication to express would be something to address um with
229social media I don't know what's being done or how it's being addressed but I think if we could have policies that make sure we somehow manage so many there's so many different like accounts for every little thing um I don't know if there's rules that kind of regulate that but I think as part of communicating who we are I I would hope that's part of that I I appreciate you bringing attention to that there is policy um that the district does have however I will share that I did inherit what I would call a bit of a wild west um right now it's very site based and so um that is something that has been a long conversation with our site administrators to reel some of that in and it's definitely a a big um
230a big sticky point for me to get that under not just um One Umbrella um but also just to have a consistent voice across of them as well and um I definitely understand how complicated it is to do that so I think understanding the the mutual shared interest that we all have and having those shared messages I think is important um with that said um for a while there I was frustrated just seeing in how our websites just weren't really deel really developing I'm glad to see there's been a lot of improvement as of late so thank you for all the work there but in terms of all this work given where we're at my question is who who does this all me um me an and um sometimes I tap in um I I
231I I sometimes tap in Emmanuel as well to help me along but I have um something that's in our plan which I come from this background having worked um you know part-time jobs and all of that customer service is is something I hold near and dear I don't know how not to be good at giving customer service it's not in my blood and so when we have a School site reach out and say hey I'm still struggling to learn how to do this on the back end I know you showed me three times if you show me one more time I take the time I find time on my calendar and I go in person and do a one-hour one-on-one training with a few Folks at our school sites that are trying to maintain their
232School site websites to the best of their abilities and if they feel like they're falling short I pick up that slack and I take care of it for them and so I think in uring oh go ahead go ahead um I want to just give kudos to miss wedderburn because she has led trainings we have executive assistants in this room who also contribute to the website development and we have site administrators who are trained um and receiving training uh to add that content as well Vanessa is not alone in that um she definitely is our lead liaison along with Emanuel and I'll go to one of the goals one of the things that um kind of had issue this idea of District of choice and what does that mean to me sometimes that has a
233negative connotation sometimes especially with a lot of the demographic shifts we've seen this idea of brag sheets um would there be differences where oh well this school looks better than that one um I I don't know what it'll look like so understanding what that means I didn't understand like this realtor sheets do they get them for all and say here these are all the schools or is it realtor sheets per specific District um so so I just have kind of concerns around what what that might mean and what it looks like um yeah so our vision for that is not to pit our schools against each other by any means what we really want to solve is this issue of well I heard this about that school and this about that school and this about
234that school and this is an opportunity to say well actually I have all of this information about that school here's the offer here's what they've been doing here are some of the awards that they're choir has W you know those kinds of things to combat that negativity I like the sound of that um are there any other board questions before I go to public comment I don't this is some I guess it is a question I'll try to frame it around a question this is more around your role Vanessa as a as a Pio and your relationship with um news outlets um that maybe aren't that familiar with the district and they come to you or maybe there are things that are need Corrections in the paper can you talk a little bit about your
235role there yeah um certainly so I do have a regular relationship with the two main education reporters um for the Press Democrat they're not the only ones who ever report on us um on on behalf of the Press Democrat and sometimes you can really tell the differences um and with our other outlets as well um although they have our our larger Bay Area news outlets have made contact with me about things that are not always positive it has it has H cemented a relationship in which I'm able to pitch to them good opportunities um and I've really been leveraging that relationship that I have specifically you know with our local newspaper um to pitch things like the beella robotics event that just took place um the best buddies anything that's that's upcoming um as well
236as a possibility the community should know about yeah that the community should know about um and I also sometimes I notice articles that that get published they're not quite in the paper but they're they're just pushed out online very live um and I see what's wrong with it and I get on the horn with the reporter immediately in real time in real time to make sure that it gets fixed before anyone else because it could cause a lot of confusion is what I'm saying yes I I I caught one of those recently yeah yeah okay thank you yeah any other board members if not let's go to public comments um I've got Micah Carlin Goldberg and listend de Moore uh you'll each have two minutes all right um so I'm half of the Santa Rosa
237Teachers Association Communications team and have been for half a decade now and I have to say that this sounds like a really good propaganda plan and not a really good communication plan most of what I heard is about what to say and not how to make sure people can hear it I have been telling you for years we need to send paper home we were told parents Square would fix all of that because we have a 99% contact contactability rate well I sent a post home on Monday about a field trip that we went on today um email users 29 delivered 13 viewed text users 39 delivered we don't know who saw it app users 12 were sent out six got confirmed on delivery so yes they set up an account at one point are
238they seeing it no when we stopped sending home paper copies of the reduced lunch forms our participation in that plummeted immensely now our family engagement person did a great job calling people and badgering people to come in and do it and it made a huge difference this year but just send home paper seriously it's not that hard right you've got 241 of 1500 staff members who replied one email email was sent to us about the communication survey I took it because I see every email I have I don't know how many of my colleagues have 10,000 emails in their inbox and never saw that one or didn't bother looking at it and it wasn't communicated any other way right we want to send it five different times three different ways and we're going hey let's
239send it to their phone and be done with it or let's send it to their email and be done with it that's not a communication plan how are we actually going to reach our people we've got a super summer school 10,000 uh $100,000 spending with land paths I have seen zero information go to Steel Lane kids about how to do that my kids went to to science camp two weeks ago they loved it they want to do more how do they know about this opportunity thank you m next we have Linda hi good evening guard members I just wanted to let you know that there's a between a rock and a hard place where we have digitized the summer school applications this year and that really helps with streamlining it because it does make it
240harder when it's paper and losing track of them however the problem now becomes how are we going to get all of those parents who don't have computers to fill out the applications who's going to sit with them if they aren't techsavvy to learn how to apply for summer school it would um you would be able to uh come to the conclusion that the majority of the students that might be in summer school might be the students that need that help that might not have those resources so Al although sometimes the online applications might make it easier for us it makes me excited is it better for the families and how are they going to get access to those Services thank you very much thank you it's back to the board for um discussion um I
241I did just want to say that um what what Micah stated it's I I feel it's very real I think since we went to like all digital the idea of paper we needing paper was brought up um talking to a lot of people of late they feel we really need it um people talk about um a bombardment of parent Square messages and people just having so many they don't review them so I think these are real issues especially if we're going to talk about communication that we need to address that are actually impacting our students so I just wanted to elevate that and kind of ask um at what point do we like what's the Tipping Point before we like actually do something real and concrete around that that was a question you them anybody
242the implementation of the communication strategic plan starts this this calendar year and so Vanessa and I our next meeting as as we've heard the feedback from you as a board we've already been starting to work on the work plan and identifying the year one and year two and year three U the priorities and so this this feedback is helpful for informing what will be worked on beginning through the end of this school year um and those are those those are those immediate um approaches that would be taken and then and then what will be rolled out uh over the summer and and through the through the next school year and that that's all part of year one I add uh I think just to the the yes just to the dialogue um one we have
243never told sites that they can't send home anything in paper they absolutely have the option right now and have always been able to do that in fact we ask them to do that number one number two teachers can offer opportunities to directly connect with their parents and ask them and share information sites can also do that uh it is open for many of our staff to be able to reach out to our families it is not the job of one person um and then to the uh piece about the the question um I want to just acknowledge that this is the first time in the history of this District that we actually have a strategic plan on communication it connects to our strategic priority number six with engagement it actually aligns with our sart strategic
244plan which has its own pillar on communication and transparency and our partners in education committee has as communication one of two main goals in the work that we do so as this may not be in a perfect sense although we know that what Perfection means when it comes to white supremacy and our culture we are always working towards that goal knowing that the people that we serve change with their needs and therefore this plan will always be a work in progress thank you just want to say to that point just I I push back against a word I heard propaganda and I really do I take offense I think that when we're talking about diversifying messaging and I think when we're talking about student centered information if we're talking about promoting diversity and inclusion we
245have to do a better job and we can't be pushed back into a corner with somebody claiming that it's not what it is if we're allowing um for a better system if we're moving forward with a better system if we're planning a a a a three-year strategy to do that to tell our story that's truth and again I take offense to the term propaganda I think that's actually pushing against what what we see as maybe progress and something that is really promoting the positives of public education so just a comment on the paper aspect as a parent for the last 22 years let's be very sure that we're not trying to reinvent the will and that we find balance there have been times where I've had all three children at the same school and I've
246gotten a whole lot of paper that either never made out of the backpack or I didn't need triplicates of that same form so it could be cost prohibitive to just print everything and send it out to every student I suggest that we work with the sites we work with the practitioners and we work with the parent groups on those sites to have a better understanding of how each site is communicating more efficiently with that specific parent community so we know how to communicate with them um there just there needs to be some balance needs to be a little bit of everything to make sure we're connecting as effectively as possible and having an understanding of that information is getting through trusty Flores uh yeah I just need a clarifying question so um answered uh so
247the difference between site and District uh communication uh are we saying that we are sending uh information also uh via paper that is um District or is it just site based that's a great question um we do send things out in paper um there are flyers and information that we actually ask our sites to be the conductors of for us so we provide that to the sites we ask them to get it out to students because they are the ones who have the closer relationship with kids and they're the closest to the backpacks um when we are talking about District w data we actually provide uh data to our families both electronically and in hard copy a lot of districts have gone away from paper report cards paper State assessment results We are continuing that
248tradition so that our families get it in multiple uh modalities just as an example thank you and um I just wanted to say that I love the idea of story our students have powerful stories and people hearing those stories are really sharing who we are as Community as a district so the more of that we can do um I think that would be good so if there's uh go ahead trusty Cruz just wanted to say I I did appreciate this a lot one of the things that I just felt was missing was a recognition of multilingual communication and the importance of making sure that we know that Google translate doesn't work that word for word translation doesn't work that this requires people who are native language speakers to maintain quality control and to really make
249sure that we are communicating effectively with people who don't speak English um that we recognize that we also have a really diverse school system that it's not just English Spanish um that we are recognizing um that we have increasing number of kids who you know initially folks might think are Spanish speakers but are actually indigenous language speakers um and so just increasing the recognition that we are also needing to increase our own capacity to engage in effective multilingual communication is something that I didn't really hear in this plan um and when you look at the kind of the data of our schools and especially around our kids um language data is actually showing increased diversification of the languages being spoken in our district um and throughout our County so just um that that was that
250was a little um it was a hole that I saw that I would love to figure out how to patch up with some love um if there's nothing else thank you and we will now move on to item F4 um expanded and extracurricular interventions report thank you uh president Medina superintendent trell members of the board student staff and community of Sena rosa city schools for this opportunity while Dr ryer sets up uh the computer just a quick overview we thought it would be important to bring to you an update of some of the things that we're doing outside beyond the bell as I call it doing a lot of great things um during the school today but there's an obvious need I think the conversation um that we've that we ongoing conversations we have here
251um show that there's an ongoing need to support our students right now um beyond the bell before school after school um across the board what we're looking at here is the team uh K12 of support staff that are um assigned to do that work um and as we get started the first thing we're going to be talking about is Credit Recovery efforts this is a stop Gap measure obviously this is a technical solution um to some of the um credit um issues that a lot of our students have um we basically uh cast a net saying how could we tailor a program for you immediately to help more students cross um the Finish Line cross the stage as I say um it it uh is a little different at the different sites I'll let um
252Mr Thompson get into that so what we have here is we have Ryan Thompson our coordinator of extracurricular interventions he is the secondary um support um individual for the Beyond Bell work that we do and then Dr Rymer who handles tk6 um one thing more thing I'd like to mention is that this work actually was originally um scheduled to start last year but immediately upon his um being put into the position Mr Thompson was actually moved to Montgomery High School as an additional staff member to support the school um so he really started to get legs on this under this work this year um both of the individuals up here also work one day as an additional administrator um on mcgomery high school campus so um that's also something we appreciate with respect to the
253support that they provide at this point I'll turn it over to Ryan Thompson to get started on the credit recovery information thank you hello thank you Dr Castro uh good evening president Medina uh superintendent trell trustee members and the C City School Community um so yes my name is Ryan Thompson I'm currently a coordinator of extracurricular intervention in the education services department and yes I have some information here to present and share with you all about credit recovery co-curricular and extracurricular programs here is a list of the or sharing of the current credit recovery programs that are being offered um at some of our school sites um it I want to highlight a few things about these programs first and foremost that these are all inperson um these are all programs that are being being
254taught in person instruction um while there are also uh virtual options that are occurring during the school day so these are in addition to that to provide options and access for students to recover credits towards graduation um in an in-person setting uh so we have currently um 15 different teachers uh employed uh running 15 different classes on three different School sites um serving a major uh a lot of our students um um the extended day for example the extended day credit recovery program occurring at Maria Creo high school and Montgomery High School um serve uh students four days a week and five days a week um and then we also have night school classes uh that serve students actually six days a week um at Santa Rosa High School um and actually one of their
255classes just wrapped up about uh two hours ago so um these classes are currently operating um and serving um over 300 something students uh here's a list of our extracurricular and co-curricular programs we've been able to offer um the first program that I'll highlight is the compression only CPR program this program is not brand new to Santa Rosa city schools it's actually been around for a while um our Community Partners healthy Petaluma and santosa fire department uh work closely with with our Middle School PE departments and school sites to and they have been able to this year uh certify over 14 or at least train over 1400 7th grade students in compression only CPR so they are now equipped with the skills and knowledge to save lives out in the community um the next three
256programs are new this year um and so are are uh hitting a few of our school sites the know your rights presentation uh served 20 students at LC Allen High School this was a presentation where a local U member of our um Department of uh public defender our our Cinema County Public Defenders Office came and presented um information to our students at LC Allen High School about rights as a citizen um being active as a voter um and understanding their legal obligations as they uh move on into the community as a citizen and as a community member um um the next program that was presented at Piner high school and Maria CIO High School served over 827 students this is the impact teen driver program just I just have a quick question about kind of
257the the word citizen was there a distinction made for kids around kind of the rights of immigrant children and the responsibilities and the distinction between you of United States citizens and residents legal permanent residents and kids who are undocumented that's a good question I know if um are we allowed to click on the information in the presentation here there is a quick little synopsis um that was prepared that overviews the program and if we scroll down to paragraph three um there's a whole bunch of different topics that they were um they wanted to cover which involves civil rights freedom of speech and assembly rights during encounters with law enforcement voting rights and any other issues students inquire about during question and answer session um I was not able to attend that so as far as
258any question and answers that came up with those students in that um session but I know that our public defender uh Community member did want to address all of these topics within that session um the just to continue on with the impact teen driver program so this um is a more uh the every 15minute program that has existed in our school district pre pandemic and in other districts uh this is a more um uh intimate setting where it actually serves students in a classroom setting as opposed to a larger School presentation um and it allows students a closer connection to um a community presenter um from the impact team driver program as well as a California highway patrol officer to ask questions about laws pertaining to um uh graduated driver license program and obtaining a
259driver's license um but the impact team driver program mainly highlights the safety in not only being a um safe and responsible driver but also a safe and responsible passenger um so while some of our students are not licensed and aren't operating the vehicle they need to understand their impact as a passenger in the vehicle as well so over 827 students were able to receive information on that so Ryan for a program like that is that voluntary or is it going to specific classes good question there um at Piner high school for example this was launched in the PE classrooms um and at Maria Creo High School the science department was able to launch this their science classes the a letter was sent to through the students where it allowed students to be able to opt
260out if they wanted to so as a parent of Maria Creo and a permed driver I know nothing about this program um and my student know nothing about this program so that's why I'm curious like sounds like a great program as a dad something I may want my student to be involved with um but as far as how that access is being known to students um and tomorrow I can ask my son do you know about this um but I'm just curious on how we're notifying students what's available sure I I will just thank you I will clarify that uh like for example at Maria Creo in the science department they sered the 10th grade classes science classes I believe 10th and then AP 11th grade science classes so whether or not your student and
261those two classes would have completely missed my junior is a junior so he's not a sophomore and he's not an AP science so um you know he fits the demographic of a student that would could benefit from this class but it's not being offered in classes that he would have any access to absolutely um and as these are like I mentioned these first three Pro or these last three programs here are new to the district this year there is definitely room for expansion um for additional need um if School sites were to report back feedback on reaching additional populations absolutely um quick quick question um yes uh do we pay for these programs or some does someone else pay the uh all three of these Pro well actually not all three but the not your
262rights presentation and impact team driver program are provided free through our Community Partners thank you y uh the last program here is a level up program uh that was developed by uh launched at later middle school and developed by one of our local actually one of our very own Educators um in San City Schools who also has um experience in the community working in the juvenile probation department um as well as with uh adult members in the community um so this pilot program currently serving 20 to 25 students at Herbert's later Middle School um engages students in um Afterschool mentoring um to both improve their mental um awareness their mental capacities their uh personal management um and and their physical abilities so they they participate both in like a little bit of mentoring a little
263bit of positive encouragement um some skill building some goal setting but also some Fitness um So currently in the first couple weeks they've been participating in some physical fitness um activities like in the weight room and that'll move on to like some inter mural team building um personal skill building activities as well so we're really excited about that program and to see the results and to see the survey results from the students at the very end to kind of Tinker with that and R revise that as needed and now I'll introduce Dr Michael Rymer good evening uh Michael Rhymer I'm a director of course in ed services good to see you all the next two portions of the presentation this evening are uh centering on uh expanded learning in two different forms uh first of
264all going to talk about programming for the elementary school students what we've done this this school year we're going to transition towards the end uh just a preview of summer school programs if we think about expanded learning programs uh and we've seen some of this uh together previously but just as a quick review the intent of these programs is to provide increased access for all of our unduplicated TK through six students and to provide them comprehensive after school and intercession uh programming when we talk about unduplicated pupil counts uh of course uh this is defined by the state there three broad categories English Learners free and reduced lunch students Foster or homeless youth the requirements as set out by the the state the funding requirements uh focus on something called the 9-hour day and here
265what they describe to us is the need for us to work together uh with the uh regular school day um staff and teams and then in cooperation with our uh Partners is to build out expanded learning uh experiences so that the entire school day is nine hours so we work carefully with our schools with our principles and uh our partners to make sure that of course we're doing this um for all of the school days 180 school days in addition to that another requirement is that at least 30 non-school days are also provided so in addition to 180 school days and after school programming uh at each one of those school days were required to offer families 30 additional days 9 hours of programming that happens by the way in in uh mostly in intercession
266offering spring break camp we just finished and then also through our summer school programming uh a last bullet on the slide of course is just reference to the different grades served wanted to note that there are different ratio Staffing requirements of course smaller class sizes for the youngest students how have we done this year in terms of expanded offerings pleased to uh celebrate this slide tonight first one summarizes where we are offering after school programming uh in our district we now uh as of the start of this year fall 2023 offer Afterschool programming at all nine of our elementary schools last year it was five we offer Afterschool programming at three of our Charters and one of our middle schools in the middle of that slide what you see is a nice representation I think
267of the the hard work and the expansion that that uh we've been able to um kind of see as we've grown the program out at the end of the 2023 school year our existing contracts um and and existing programming had just over 700 students 740 to be exact being served we worked hard to develop a plan in the last year to grow um en enrollment at all of our elementary schools the five last year then we worked to do a targeted Outreach over the summer to make sure that we were celebrating the new opportunities for our families was in it was in uh iners it was celebrated via social media and website postings and they were uh conducted in multiple languages that proved to be very successful and together with our site administrator and and
268you know various stakeholders this year we are currently serving 1,565 students in our after school programming of course this is an expansion of just over 100% 112% uh more than doubling uh our capacity and then just finally at the end I did a little bit of quick math you know thinking about the additional programs or service that we're offering families in our after school programming if you take that number of students and multiply it times 3.5 hours per day times 210 school days you know we end up at a an impressive one point you know 1 Point almost two million hours of additional programming for our students in our schools this is 1.2 million hours of programming where students are on campus at our school sites with caring adults participating in enrichment or academic um
269programming and opportunities complete with a snack and some physical activity too so it's a fantastic number trustee uh Del Chris yes I had just have a question some of the extended day programs at elementary schools um my understanding is that we have two providers um kind of at the same site and depending on whether the student is you know free and reduced lunch essentially allowed for um free or Andor subsidized daycare extended daycare versus those who are paying full price that there's actually kind of segregation happening between the different groups of students and the different providers is that is that happening we've been fortunate I think in many ways to have received funding for different programming to serve uh different students so the E the elop funding which is funded much of this growth does
270have restrictions in terms of who can be served fortunately in our in our district at some of our schools we have also had a history of successful daycare or Child Care programming so some of you will know this um I think at one of the previous presentations the issue of extensive weight lists for some of our child care programs has kind of come to our attention by partnering together uh with that Department Child Care department and by carefully uh arranging and um configuring the options and programming we've been able to not only expand these these offerings but to actually to eliminate all of our weight lists whether it's on the child care offerings at some of our schools or um in in these elop funded uh Afterschool programs so you know I I I don't
271know if if the term segregation is one that I would use I would rather um you know look at it as different funding requirements natur Al that come with different monies and then emphasize the work that we've done to successfully I think serve more students and increase access for all of our kids I meant segregation only and like you're differentiating between kids and not necessar necessarily racial segregation but I I am hearing reports of basically people saying you are a Boys and Girls Club kid you have to go over here with these people you can't play with your friends because they're in a different after school program because they pay for it and that is being experienced by our children like that distinction so I I have memories of you know being the kid with
272the red lunch ticket and being told you go in that line with the poor kids right and having that experience right of essentially segregating kids based on the funding streams that they're being served with that that that is what I'm hearing so I I super appreciate that we've been able to expand the offerings I'm I'm just wondering you know how we're able to integrate kids after school regardless of the funding um thank you I'm I'm happy to look into that and investigate that a little bit more so um thank I can follow up on that definitely yeah and then I think the the other thing that that has arisen as a result of some of that differentiation that's happening with the programs is that you know extended daycare that's run by this is you know
273a particular Elementary it's different programming than is provided by the boys and girls club and so it it's again it's still not necessarily integrated even if it's at the same School site with the same community of kids who every day sit in the same classrooms and then after school are kind of pulled apart and and engaged in different programming by different providers yeah uh so to that I can just say quickly is um you know I I think that as things have rapidly grown in this situation there still is a a lot of opportunity within our system and between our our partners uh and internally to continue to learn best practices and to um you know over time I think smooth some of those parts out and just on that point I will say this
274we've had a number of very successful um in in my mind PDS professional development sessions between our teams and our staffs and here what I'm I'm talking about is uh depending on the expertise from our child care staff to actually help cross Trin uh some of our after school service providers particularly on the youngest students uh the TK and K students thank you um just on the the concept of expanded offerings continuing uh some of those points from the previous slide wanted to note that last spring for the first time we had run a pilot uh it was a spring break Camp a full five days 9-hour Days um it it invited students from across the district and uh would had options for students to pick between an arts and a stem theme attended by
275160 students that was capacity as a pilot that's you know we we were trying it out and and capped it there this year we were able to again more than double uh that capacity we ran two sites this uh just last week uh so Helen Layman elementary school and then also Luther Burbank um and uh just under 350 students served there in addition to these great spring break uh camps I wanted to celebrate the efforts of our a number of our teachers um thank you very much to them before school and after school tutoring that has been integrated into the after school um program so not only do they attend after school program but in a number of instances we've been able to hire the classroom teachers for a number of days per week and
276to serve so they get pulled out of the after school program and then work um you know in very small group settings getting uh you know in uh very specific intentional academic help um together with their teachers if you total that up from those three semesters ERS we're looking at just over 300 students and finally in terms of expanded offerings just uh on how things have uh you know been been able to have grown I think in the last um year or so uh last bullet point there is we've we've used some of the funding to expand our uh summer programming so this year we've doubled the capacity of our k6 elementary program last year it we had one site this year we're offering two and uh in addition to that I wanted to celebrate
277some new programs that we've built out this year we've got a fantastic partnership with Santa Rosa wreck and parks department I wanted to thank them we're we're uh launching two different sites there in in in connection with their team and their staff we've built out a new Middle grades stem program that I'm very keen for focusing on grades 4 through 8 it's going to be run at Piner High School where they've got a fantastic science lab and um a number of our other summer school programs have seen notable expansions uh for this coming year I'll just pause there briefly and and then uh the last couple of slides are for summer school yes so on the spring break camp opportunities um what is the cost breakdown on those for the families and are these fully
278paid students that we're seeing numbers of or are there um scholarship opportunities for families that cannot afford those programs thank you so the first part of the question is they're free so uh they're free for families and we partnered um with a local CBO our after school service provider to customize a full uh 5-day week n 9 hours and then arts and and science theme the the because of the funding requirements initially the program is offered to UPC students first so uh that was done and then uh once capacity once we were told that um it looks it looked like we had maxed out in terms of interested parents and students for the program we open we open opened it up more essentially to all district students in elementary school to fill the remaining spots
279and and those spots were free as well thank you that's great news now on the additional opportunities that were spoken about earlier at the different uh School sites like the the driver opportunity and the level up are students receiving any curriculum for those lessons or is that just additional information for them to take can uh the impact T it there's no additional curriculum um I'm sorry creden any any credentials are picking up for those classes oh I understand um credentials no um so in other words like for the team impact team driver program they're not being licensed or anything like that they're just receiving information on how they can pursue their driver's license through the gdlp program um and then same as the level up program other than like little incentives through that program and
280increasing their skills and their own um meeting their goals their personal goals there's no additional credentials or certificates the students are receiving with that either and do we have any opportunities for credit recovery during the school day so we see some after school programs we see some night programs um but some students may have very limited time when they can be on campus do we have any opportunities that we're exploring for students while they're on campus during the day that is something that's being explored um for future offerings uh right now these are just what we're able to offer for during after school hours so this may be specialed Steve um but maybe something for you guys to consider as well a lot of students with um an IEP have a directed studies course in
281high school um and I know that there are some times where students are not fully utilizing that and that might be a space where we can introduce some credit recovery where needed where they can use that time and their directed study teacher uh to catch up where they need to be creditwise trusty Chef I wanted to go back to some maybe earlier in the presentation um Mr Thompson you were talking about night school um and we were all on San rosah High campus for a special meeting a while back and walking out with Dr Castro and pointed out the students in the classrooms you know I wanted to peek in I didn't want to interfere disrupt what was going on but I you know there's a lot of students and this is something that the
282public should know about you know again maybe that's part of our communication um you know getting word out um but this is six days a week right and what was the number of students uh at the time when we put this presentation together the enrollment was at 309 students that's amazing so who are these students it's a mix of grades 9 through 12 at Santa Rosa High um based on student requests and needs that um the counseling team and the admin team have identified that their students need yeah I think an important thing to mention about all of these efforts is that we're capitalizing on any way that we can to get something up and going quickly right would like try to cut through any of the bureaucracy that might happen as a result of
283an organization that's this size so we really talk to the principles and say what can we do for you like work with your team come back with a proposal and we'll make it work yeah and using our school sites now is this again our school sites you know we being the largest District around you know in the county are there students from other districts who could utilize this I don't have that information yeah yeah I know anyway but I'm wondering who who who the instructors who's teaching they're all teachers within our district or or at least teachers that are credentialed within our district so whether it's it's a mix of teachers at either currently at Sosa high school or at other high schools some middle schools some are some of our tosas that are also
284credential in these subjects and you're teaching these classes so it's it's a a mix yeah uh for example the class at Maria CIO um there's a teacher from Piner high school that travels over to Korea after the school day to teach that class yeah okay and Ed real quick um I had an opportunity another situation we were on campus for an event during the evening um where I met with a group of students on the way to the class and I just wanted to turn the air for a minute and see how it was going and they were so excited yeah they loved being there they Lov the opportunity they were enjoying their classes um there was just so much positive energy from the students and they were super excited incredible asset to the community
285here we are you know the campus is a buzz at night you know and students are there getting fulfilling some of the requirements that they need it's just amazing you know yeah and we're going to learn a lot from this first itation of it this is nowhere near where we want to be but it's really opening some doors with respect to what's possible yeah yeah thank you just to I I'm very intrigued about you know outside um for for the program itself it is funded by um our Extended Learning uh dollars so um uh like I mentioned before Dr Ryman represents tk6 interventions Ryan Thompson represents the secondary um the tk6 is a mixture of funding but mostly funded by elop which is a resource that we've been um given by the state for this
286particular reason and has its um you know criteria that you have to follow um secondary we actually had money separated in the lcap for that um that um like I said before we would have started working on a little earlier but just because of a number of different things um Ryan was able to get um legs under that work stream this year but um a lot of the funding for the secondary support is something that we identified um as a priority in the lcap um that's finishing out this year so with that in mind if we were to just go down that road we would either charge people to because we don't have the internal funding that's reserved for our own students or we could have anou with another District where they pay us using
287their dollars so that our instructor can can lead it yeah I I think we have a lot more students that we can serve still before we start looking outside though just to wrap up the summer school conversation so we wanted to celebrate the fact that um um number one I think we importantly we got a early start this year so that has put us I think in a strong position and uh in many ways and then also another key term there is we've expanded things in summer school as well um you know we wanted to really learn from last year so we work to incorporate the feedback and the learnings that we had from last year and to build in as many of those points as we could into this year one of which of
288course was the early start wanted to celebrate our principles who are currently recruiting and hiring for classified and credential staff members um in some cases that's weeks or months ahead of where we've been in some previous years I've already talked about uh the additional offerings and the expansion of our summer school programs this year the link that's hot there uh will take you to an overview it's a public facing document that celebrates all 15 uh summer school programs that we're going to offer this year and of course they are designed to meet the needs of all all three levels uh elementary middle and high school with some new ones of course we wanted to Target Middle School this year and build some new options out there um uh wanted to uh just quickly comment on
289uh we developed a common application portal uh some of the feedback we received last year was a little bit splotchy in terms of uh uh parents experience in terms of red registration it happened at different times uh it looked and felt quite different um in some cases the translation was not consistent so as a way to um help kind of standardize that experience and to launch it in a timely fashion uh that was one thing we integrated this year and finally um I encourage you if you get a moment to click the final link additional launch and support training uh details here what we we tried to celebrate is the many additional supports that we've been able to uh look at internally within our system to make sure that we are communicating these fantastic opportunities
290to people um uh as early and uh uh you know as as quickly as possible what you'll see if you click on that link I can take you there quickly um is a summary high level summary of the Outreach and training that we've done with District staff and teams across the district to make sure that number one they're aware of the opportunities number two that they understand how easy the online application portal is and um to kind of showcase what we're trying to do so so I'm sorry I'm just going to say um as we're starting to run low on time I'm just going to ask if we could start getting closing up so we could get going down to about an hour thank you final slide this evening is just a summary simply of
291our programs and the financial impact um so it's noted there for uh each one of the programs and then the asterisk of course uh just explains new or expanded offerings if we if we've grown the program out um I'm going to go to public comment really quick I have a one comment card listen to more you have two minutes I won't take that long Dr ryr I made a public comment on this last time that there wasn't enough time for planning and you did that this year and you heard us and it did not go unnoticed when the announcements started to go out and I appreciate your expedient feedback and it like I said did not go unnoticed thank you um board members uh TR L real quick I just want to put it out
292to the district that we ensure any Community Partners that we are working with with and offering programs with our students are prepared and willing to serve all of our students um I have heard some rumors of Community Partners that are making uh decisions within their organizations to close our doors to certain students I want to make sure that any Partners we work with are not doing that yeah that's not something that's acceptable so we were going we're going to look into that board any final comments before we move on see none thank you for all the work you're doing and for the presentation uh we will now move on to item F5 acceptance of the 2022 2023 independent audit report thank you president Medina members of the board superintendent tranell and our community I will
293be brief and just say that thank you so much to our fiscal team who has worked diligently and again has passed the audit with zero findings or question costs so fantastic job to our team um it definitely takes a lot of work um and diligence to to do that thank you any questions from the board uh is there question I just want to say thank you for doing that because um I remember before before I got on the board a long time ago we years ago um this were one of the things that kept reoccurring I mean a lot of these mistakes would come up you know over and over again so um and it's been like like this for the last few years so um I just want to say thank you extend my
294gratitude to to you and the rest of the team thanks thank you any other comments from the board questions not um there's no public comment cards thank you for the presentation board um now it comes to us for a motion to accept anybody move to approve we're all excited about this can you tell I got a motion from trusty Sheffield second second from trusty DEA Cruz um let's go to vote trusty Sheffield hi trusty de Cruz hi trusty MCN I trusty Flores I trusty de laor I president Medina I now we will move on to item F6 approval of theou 20242 number two reach with Center City schools and California School employee Association chapter 75 regarding the student safety advisor job description president Medina superintendent chel members of the board members of the school Community
295um today what I'm bringing before you is a memorandum of understanding with the California School employee Association regarding a new position called student safety advisor um this position was developed to address the need for um campus supervision and our difficulty in filling that position on our school campuses so a new position was created and presented to csca uh we came to a memorandum of understanding that effective July 1st um there would be a new classification called student safety advisor that any um current student advisers or campus supervisors that were interested in the new position would be able to reclassify into the new position and any vacancies would be advertised as student safety advisors and we would no longer advertise student advisors or campus supervisors go ahead superintendent can you um also clarify is this an
296approval of theou along with the job description or just theou this is theou and the job description my apologies board members any questions um thank you for the presentation I don't have any comment cards um so looks like now we would need a motion to approve theou as well as the job description moved second moved by trustee the lau seconded by truste Flores is there any discussion none all right let's go to the vote trusty De La Cruz hi trusty Flores hi trusty Sheffield hi trusty MCN hi trusty de laori hi president Medina Hi and um I think uh the only thing I would ask is that maybe we get like a follow-up report maybe around the June 12th meeting to see what the final numbers were of the transition and maybe what the the
297cost of all that would be absolutely so with that said um thank you again and we'll move on to item f all right item F7 discussion discussion on the potential renaming of James mon Elementary and Brink Valley Middle School so board um for more than a decade now I along with other community leaders have worked to have some of our campuses named after local leaders of color um in the three efforts prior to me joining the board that I was a part of we failed um as some of you know four years ago I began the process to request the renaming of James Monroe Elementary I chose this school primarily because James Monroe was a slave owner and I do not believe that anyone that viewed and treated humans as property and participated in the
298horrific slave trade is someone we should honor the culmination of that process ended in May of 2021 with no change having been been made um from a board member perspective the way the process was handled did not meet my intention uh not because the committee results weren't what was expected but because the direction to the staff I felt was unclear um Ben superintendent Dian kidura indicated that we would follow up and that the issue would be Revisited um but here we are three years later and it has not been brought back as it was intended um so my aim in agendize this discussion is to visit the topic and providing direction to superintendent trell two weeks ago uh the ca County Board of Supervisors declared racism a Public Health crisis during those deliberations uh former
299Montgomery High School principal and our former uh fellow trustee Lori Fong um said racism is pervasive and it's real and it's invisible to those who are most racist why do I mention this so I bring this up because to me the fact that the majority of our schools and buildings aren't named after folks of color is a form of invisible racism that is part of this Public Health crisis something that is seen by our students as I know I saw it then as a student and obviously I continue to see it today I am proposing that we rename James Monroe Elementary after George Ortiz a local Latin X leader and that we rename rinken Valley Middle School after Carol Ellis one of our former employees and a local black leader I think it's important that
300we focus on local leaders um these two individuals have had a positive impact on thousands of individuals in our community and I believe they deserve to be recognized and celebrated and in the context of ethnic studies their story should be shared in terms of process my ask is that the assigned board Liaisons uh trusty De La Cruz for James Monroe Elementary and trusty Sheffield for rinken Valley midle brinken Valley Middle School participate in the process by collaborating with the superintendent um in the selection of the committee members as delineated in the administrative regulations and I would Al go I would also ask that the both board members collaborate with me to develop a presentation to the community advisory committee um as to why George Ortiz and Carol Ellis are worthy of serving as the names
301of these campuses um so with that said I'd like to open it up for questions or discussion on this issue to rest the board oh Sor um first of all I just want to say in that you you know you had specifically called for two names and you know we one of the names I know came out of um a comment that we had at at at a meeting one of the names is the name that that you put forward others have put forward as well um and I I I love the idea of honoring um our local folks um but there might be other names too so in this process of that kind of included if we're selecting committee members or we're trying to um to get some type of you know better engagement
302from the community yeah I think in in terms of the AR that's that's part of the process the community would propose so not necessarily these names but I do love these names yeah it wouldn't necessarily be these names what I ask in terms of process is um to collaborate with me so that I could present arguments why I think these are important and and focus on that being part of the presentation but the committee could come up with other other options then I I want to just be clear that there are there is potential for other options yes okay not that I can think of any but there could be okay so I I I did want to speak to you know why is this important you know and questions that were asked what's in
303a name and I think when years ago when when we were having discussion before any of you were on this board um I shared a story about my family and and my my father's name George Washington and and my brother's name George Washington and my grand father's name George Washington and my great great George Washington I have a great aunt who's Georgia Washington right and at the time I I said well I recall when I was younger and I asked my my big brother we call him Butch um and we my dad has always been known as Chef right you know I asked my my big brother you know about his name you know and and growing up he never really liked his name he was just you know it was a family tradition and
304this was a tradition going back to the days of slavery where uh a slave was named after an important figure somebody who's great you know somebody historic importance right and that name stuck but it was never AR name right we just did it because it was tradition and when I got to my brother you know and he's like well you know if I have kids he has sense has just daughters right so the name is died but you know I asked him what would you name your kid and he and and you know he being of this generation My Generation Um he's older than me but um but he said he would have broke that tradition you know because it was time and it was the right thing to do and it there's identity that's
305what's behind the name is identity right um so you know as I was thinking back to when we had the discussion years ago and seeing this on the agenda and reading some correspondents um one of our teachers who supports the idea at least of cons considering name changes provided a quote um from writer and activist James Baldwin the quote reads history as nearly no one seems to know is not merely something to be read and it does not refer merely or even principally to the Past on the contrary the great force of History comes from the fact that we carry it within us are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways and history is literally present in all that we do and that's really powerful because it it's my family's history too and it's the
306identity that I think people in our district are seeking they want um a place that that represents them and who they are and their story and their history and I was asked to speak you know um um um maybe in support of the name change at rinken Valley and I don't know rinken Valley corner right that's that's the name I don't know why and how you know it came to be I don't know the history behind it I hope to learn it in this process but you know does it have any significance are we taking away a history from somebody else I don't I don't think so there but we'll we'll we'll we'll flush it out but but as far as Carol Ellis you know she's one of us right she's a woman who who
307came to us she left the segregated South and she moved to this community she was a community organizer she was an educator um she first taught at rinken Valley Middle um she was a principal at CTO and a principal at Cook right this was an opportunity for us to honor one of our own right um I didn't know her personally I think I met her I know that she was really active in organizing um the MLK um event that we have annually um I know she has family that is here she raised a family here in addition to dedicating her life to education right um we should reach out to the family Sor Mike um I've had interactions with folks with folks okay yeah I mean I want to know that we have both with
308both families great excellent um so that that's all I want to say and I do want to say to folks who you know might not see as much value to this it it it does have value it is important and it's important I think to to our students and our families as well um real quickly uh truste deor do you want to speak first or want me to go okay so I appreciate bringing this up and having a discussion but I also ask that this board and District be very pragmatic about this discussion and renaming schools we are in a time where we are looking at budgets and budget constraints and it can cost a significant amount to change the name of a long established school and everything that goes with that now for James
309Monroe that school was originally named Monroe after a family that settled here in Santa Rosa um that name was changed by this board to James monreal to honor the president I don't agree with that so I think that needs to be part of that conversation as we're vetting out specific names um of to work back to history is there relevance to that history or to move forward with something new um other cost effective ideas that should be looked into during the this process are naming specific sites on these campuses to honor those local community Civics rights leaders um I knew Carol elves personally I worked with her when I was a student and advocated at 16 years old she's an amazing woman nobody deserves something more within our district to hold that honor but with
310stewards of a struggling budget let's make sure we're being very pragmatic in how we move forward with this and we make sound decisions that're going to best serve our community and the amount of money we could be spending on updating all the signs could mean updated restrooms or something on site that does need to be repaired and updated so let's just keep that part of the process as we have these discussions thank you and um before you know with discussion I'm going to go to public comment cards we do have four so I will call the names and you have two minutes Norma braco followed by Micah Carlin Goldberg followed by Michael B Porton and then Katherine how hi my name is Norma broco I've been teaching at moral Elementary uh for the past 28
311years there have been many changes in this District in those 28 years from educational programs and changes in leadership in the year 2021 Monroe Community was blindsided by the decision to change our school needs to George Ortiz uh during the summer and covid period by one board member our principal spent countless hours working with the community to find a solution during a later board meeting uh we were we presented names that were chosen by the community we voted as a community to keep the Monroe name and remove the name James the Monroe name has ties to the area when the school was originally built it was named for the district it was located in the name James was added by born member in the in 1980s with gone through this process before we voted and
312because someone doesn't like what the outcome was we want to bring it up again our community has spoken the last time that this was brought up we voted to keep the name in row I'm asking you if you want to change the name of our school keep the name in row and remove the name James um also we're will you guys are willing to spend money to change the name of our um to change the name at this time when the board just voted to eliminate 18 School positions countless secondary positions and 12 District hes doesn't change this name going to cost us some money that we could use other places thank you for your time thank you next we have H Micah Carlin Goldberg file by Michael Bond Porton followed by Katherine H um
313I'd like to start by thanking uh director delatori for bringing up the money thing um members of this board voted to approve three4 of a million dollars to put digital signs in front of schools which were not wanted by the schools um and this seems like another expense that could totally be avoided as my colleague Miss broco said we've already done this work for Monroe school so my first year in the district I was at Monroe and I never once heard a single person say the word James in reference to the school the only place it said James was on the sign in front of the school all of gear said Monroe School all of our everything said Monroe School I still consider myself a Monroe Griffin even though I moved to Steel Lane the
314next year because that Community is strong and I'm a part of that Community still eight years later I don't understand why we are trying to redo this process when as Miss broco said it's been done the community wants James gone and Monroe School to stay so I I recognize that I'm a white male and as such I'm coming from a very different position than many of the people who are down there and I love that our board is diverse but also our Board needs to listen to our community I didn't make that decision I was not part of that decision the community of families at that school said keep Monroe and get rid of James and the board did not like that so they sheld it and now it's brought up again 3 years later
315later with far less Fanfare and people not quite so up in arms about it probably because we're all exhausted way more than we were in 2021 and it feels like trying to sneak it in the barn door behind us so that we can just sneak it in do what the community wants drop James keep Monroe and we don't need to spend the money on this thank you your time is up I next I have Michael V Porton followed by Katherine how good evening uh Mike V Porton c local citizen um we're curious about this process about why the Burbank name change was dropped and why rink and Valley is now a new Target of course at this late hour we've lost large number of our participants but I've been asked to let you know that
316the Historical Society of Santa Rosa would very much like to participate if anything moves forward I'd remind you that hundreds of hours of effort went into the name change committees that we held three or four years ago we've been through this we've spent the time we spent the money Monroe is the district it's been a district since about 1854 it's a road district it's a um School District it's an area pull up a map one of your own maps online or Google Earth and go look at the corner of gerville Road and Marlo Road it gets the name Monroe it's a district the directions to the committee committees back then were very clear there's no doubt about that when these volunteers turned the field behind Monroe Elementary into public fields for soccer they didn't stick
317the name James Monroe on there they didn't stick the names of the volunteers who had done all the work on there they stuck the name Monroe field on it it's in bronze we believe we call it Monroe School um there's no need to have another process as it's been stated drop the name James as far as we're concerned just go out there and chop off the name James and leave it we're happy with that we don't need the burdens of another name change process let's keep the uh the Monroe name let's get drop rid of the name James and if you want to move forward we'd certainly like to see uh director MCN involved out in Monroe we invite her to come on out to our area meet with the people who live in her
318District let's have her be the one to talk to our local citizens so please drop James thank you next we have have uh C how good evening I don't have much to add I want to say thank you to these teachers that are sitting here at 11:21 at night waiting to speak up for their school it's too bad that this item got put last but here we are um SRTA does not support these name changes just want to make that clear uh we do support Monroe and get rid of the James like they asked for years ago um but I'm going to respond to the what's in a name and the history and I'm going to remind uh all of you about the more recent uh takeover of Lawrence Cook Middle School and the conversation
319that was held then around trying to choose a neutral name to create a merger between cook and ccla and at the time when ccla was only eight years old their argument was made by members of the board that the re the the school had too much invested in their name and their identity as Caesar Chavez Language Academy couldn't be interrupted and changing the name when it was only eight years in existence would be too disruptive to that charter school and here we are looking at schools that have had those names for decades and insisting that wouldn't be disruptive to change their name so there is history in both of those names rink and Valley Middle School and Monroe Elementary School and decades and more than a hundred years of history there and what's again I'm
320going to call out the hypocrisy to say an eight a school that had a name that for only eight years not a local person by the way couldn't possibly be changed because of its identity but let's go ahead and do that for schools that have existed for decades thank you thank you um so I will um comment and then I'll I'll ask board members again um so so again this is a discussion item um I'll bring it up in the context of for me again historically movements this is a movement that I've been a part of for a long time with a lot of folks in the community we talked you know sad Chavez was brought up that was one of the losses right that wasn't the name that I was fighting for um I
321was fighting for someone locally um and and that was a name change that was lost and so to me this is about continuing to have local folks that look like me that other young kids like me can look at and say hey that represents me I'm represented there that's that's what I'm trying to bring by bringing this discussion and continuing this conversation there's things that I have worked on at many levels um through this District such as ethnic studies that it took a long time to get here a lot of people even before me worked on it and so to me it's about not giving up and continuing the fight um and so I recognize maybe it's not the right time but it's the right time for me it's always been the right time for
322me so I'm going to continue to bring it up if the board chooses to not move forward and decide this isn't what we want to do I accept that but I think it's very important and I think it's very important because I think it sends a very clear message to a lot of young people that have the experience that I have growing up that saw what I saw that see the invisible racism as I as I mentioned that exist out there um and that's very real uh to me it's real that's my experience and I know it's the experience of others I know that there's others that share my view and and and given that I don't know how much longer I'll be in this role I want to make sure that I Elevate um
323come back to this conversation that was supposed to come back and don't leave it unattended like we've left other issues in the past so with that I bring it back to the board for comments or discussion anybody no I just think that sometimes the argument that that's the way things always have been so we should leave them like that is really deeply problematic when we're talking about changing structural and institutional racism and the way that it feels to kids who have never been considered um and and that argument doesn't necessarily convince me that we shouldn't make change I am very concerned about the costs um in the time that we're in right now um I feel like there is a simple lowcost fix to removing the name of somebody who enslaved people because of the
324color of their skin um that can be done at low cost um and I do think that the process of culture change needs to be um accompanied by our guidance and Leadership around the educational process that needs to be undertaken that it's it's a CommunityWide approach and that it's not an approach where the loudest voices are the ones that lead the charge against change um that once our kids and our Educators together are learning about the histories of the people who came here and stole land and then got schools named after them that's also not an appropriate thing to celebrate in our community where we have the largest number of ferally recognized tribes um in our in the boundaries of this local government jurisdiction um and so I just I feel I feel torn right
325now by the resources available to us and frankly the energy going back to what you said Ed I don't know how many more things can pull us apart and kind of continue to dismember this community and this sense of community and the last time we even contemplated these school name changes it was devastating um and it was also pretty horrific to watch the way that our school Community behaved in that conversation and so I for one am willing to take it really slow and to make sure that we are engaged in an educational and deeply informed conversation at school sites rather than being topped down about this approach um with a lot of care towards where we are putting our limited resources our limited energy um and making sure that we are you know truly
326working with people in a way that's respectful but also recognize that change needs to happen um because right now these school names um may not make and Mike I appreciate you recognizing they may not make you feel a certain way but they sure as heck make certain kids feel a certain way and they sure as heck make certain parents feel a certain way and that's not a feeling that we want people to feel in the institution that's here to serve them and to educate their children um so um I'm kind of pushing for a slightly slower approach that's really grounded and understanding the history of these people um and what is possible when we are um bringing New Perspectives and introducing new leaders to our children that are truly reflective of a more um a
327more informed a more loving a more accepting and a more open-minded approach to who we celebrate and why um so I think with regards to Monro I also really appreciate the idea of you and I sharing space that's your area um it's my school right assignment this year but I love the idea of you know doing this with um a couple of board members in a space together working with the the larger School community over us a longer period of time um with a real uh a real eye towards sensitivity to our very very limited resources and so if we can put those resources towards education and not performative talk down feeling I'm not saying that that's what we're doing right but to create a feeling or that churn in our community I don't think
328is going to necessarily be productive right now and and L uh I agree not put a timeline on this just that doesn't get lost as it's been lost for the last like three years um I like this idea of like the Leon also working with the trustee that actually represents the area somehow um I would leave it up to to yall to collaborate with the superintendent on kind of what the process looks like maybe what the timeline might look like this isn't committing to any money right now but just that it not be lost did you want to say something so is there anybody like objection to that at all um I just want to reiterate what um uh director uh Del Chris mentioned I I think we need to go move forward with intentionality
329and make sure that it's a it's it's a granular sort of you know approach that you know our community is involved our teachers are involved our parents are involved that you know that we take that approach uh I'm also concerned about SP you know we've just cut left and right uh and uh and I know this is different funding you know in terms of you know uh renaming and and and Facilities uh but we do have you know quite a bit of um projects to do so um um I'm I'm with uh director delator that I think we need to be mindful of the uh of what priorities we're taking on right now uh and I'm not really looking forward to to an item that will be divisive you know in nature like it was
330years ago um so um that's where I stand on this and and I think the issue of not having it all happen really so fast it's important um taking the time to in developing a timeline and ENT to presenting it to the community in an effective way that uh opens up makes the ability to get community advisory committee developed with plenty of time and whatever process has played out at that point and it doesn't have to be this year but just like again like I said it it's not lost I I do have to say that you know here in Sant Rosa I don't think we do a very good job of celebrating you know those folks that have been marginalized for a very very very long time so um you know U but you
331know we need to do this intentionally and with care and and and and make sure that we've you know that we also have the funding to do something like this and the bandwidth um especially given the resources of our you know staff being uh spread through to to thinly thank you superintendent do you have any questions um just so that I'm clear uh I had heard uh trusty Sheffield and trusty De La Cruz as the names named because I think these are your liaison sites um I can't work with all four of you because that would be a quorum of the board uh so are you wanting the actual area Trustees of these schools to be the ones involved on the committee or the liaison site the I think that the initial thought was the
332liaison to the school to work with it um in terms of developing the timeline um I think maybe initially would makes sense to be the on so I think to have that conversation and then once the process gets started later on then it could be it'd be two separate like sets of work you're working with one committee that's two more board members you're working with another committee that's another two members does that make sense right so there will be two committees it's not one will'll be engaging in two separate meetings and multiple meetings with each of these communities so I'm hearing the Lea uh liaison superintendent oh we have that um the liaison uh trustee and the area trustee on a particular committee as one right yeah yeah okay so I'll have to I'll work
333with you separately then two by two um so that we can talk about what the process is and I will make the inter connection to be sure there's consistency with the two separate entities working thank you just one thing that I wanted to add my request is that this is also really integrated with curriculum that children are engaging with this process as part of their educational experiences that teachers are engaged in supporting children to be involved in this process um with some board en engagement in that I think what happened last time is that school sites felt like something came down on them and so they took it up and ran in the exact opposite direction Direction really angrily without kind of thinking about how are we working together as a larger community and so
334I'd love for like the structure of this of this effort to really be kind of you know vertically integrated all the way through that we're really able to hear from and work with our school sites and our school communities as part of an educational effort what we'll do is we'll we'll have a discussion about the timeline because the timeline is going to dictate how good our curriculum is we have to create and write the curriculum uh and it'll have to be tailored to each specific Community right because it can't be the same just like ethnic studies right so that will take time to create we'll have to train the teachers because they'll be the ones teaching it and then the committee which is outlined uh the representatives of the Committees is a part of our
335policy so it dictates who the representatives are on that committee and luckily we have Educators on that we have par parents Historical Society is a required member of each of these committees so you know some of those things will be a part of it and the educational component can inform the committee as we learn and do data analysis I think the question is going to be what is the timeline of learning that we expect the students to have to be informed before any name changes occur is that a year-long learning is that a quarters worth like what's that process like for us to be satisfied and of course we would want that to go beyond just this process but those are some considerations in my in my mind all right so we'll move on to
336consent items um if I can get a motion to approve items G1 through G4 and G7 through G10 um we got public comments for G5 and G6 so I'm going to hold so I move to to approve uh G1 through 4 7 through1 the motion is there second second vote please trusty Sheffield hi trusty Flores hi trusty de the Cruz I think I should vote I on two through four but abstain from one since I was one of the absent board members does that feel appropriate okay trusty MCN hi trusty de laori hi president Medina wait I'm trying to clear what did you vote know I I I abstained from the approval of absent board members I don't want to proove my own absence oh okay okay yeah same what she did abstained from one
337and yes on the the rest I got that um that was all the votes right okay now for item G5 uh public comment Listen to More You Got 2 minutes just up there oh there you are I'm I'm sorry I typed in G4 and I actually meant G3 and I apologize um I think it was I'm trying to find it sorry I thought it was G4 and G5 uh for the way so tell me what item you got G5 and G6 you can't comment on G3 anymore nor G4 the notes that I had didn't match it I apologize so um you're on the clock should be on the clock what item are you speaking on so G5 for the approval of contracts um I have a question about the maximum health service contract for um
338additional speds so it's a contract for 480,000 is that correct okay um and so that will it says it'll bring it up to almost $1.3 million to cover unfilled classified sped assistance $1.3 million to have our outside contractors because we cannot hire enough classified aids to be in the classrooms why are we paying the overhead for almost $70 an hour to the contractors and they get 40 in overhead and then the employee that's the contractor gets 30 why can't we raise more of the AIDS positions up to that 30 and save the $40 overhead per per person instead of paying $1.3 million adding to a contract with maximum Help Services for outside sped contractor uh AIDS thank you thank you um board is there a motion on item G5 approval approval of contracts need a
339motion yeah I move for my question about G5 is about you're you're you're done right now we're voting your time is up oh G5 so I heard G5 I thought board move for approval moved by trusty Sheffield is our second is there a second board need a second to move on item G5 oh a second okay there's a second on item G5 okay let's go to the vote trusty Sheffield hi trusty De La Cruz hi trusty MCN hi trusty de la Tori hi trusty Flores hi president Medina hi now did you have a comment on Adam G6 Linda two minutes I apologize it's almost midnight and I got nervous and tired um my question about G6 is the uh $482,000 item for Heavenly Greens to do landscape Turf curb appeal at Maria Creo high school
340now I wanted to let you know that we have a approach driveway that has so many potholes parents call regularly to complain about the painter won't paint the speed bumps because there's no point because the driveway is so faded the district did a very surface asphalt like covering and 2 weeks later it rained and the potholes are back to exactly where they were before so for $482,000 how many approach driveways can you fix and actually rip up completely and redo completely instead and make it safer for the students instead of having flying gravel and debris going through and speed bumps that aren't labeled properly and so people take them too fast why is Marie Careo High School getting $482,000 for curb appeal how is that Equitable to all the other 27 schools in the district
341thank you very much thank you com back to the board um is there a motion on item G6 motion to approve G6 there's motions there second anybody second mov been seconded um can we get the votey de la Tori hi trusty Sheffield hi trusty De La Cruz hi trusty mcnell hi trusty Flores no president Medina I all right we've got a two minutes left one minute left um H1 approval of the minutes of the regular board meeting held on March 13 2024 is there a motion motion approve minutes on regular board meeting on March 13th second moved by trust theor seconded by truste Sheffield vote trusty de Tor hi trusty Sheffield hi trusty de Cruz abstain trusty MCN hi trusty Flores hi president Medina I okay any board member request for information see none information
342items are listed on the agenda we got a few seconds left hope you all have a good night meeting adjourned