001we are now live good evening everyone welcome to the Santa Rosa City Schools board meeting for June 10th 2020 and we will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance together so we would all stand and and face the sunset perhaps or the flag if you have one I pledge allegiance to the flag flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible Liberty and jce all Justice for All thank you I'd like to start with the grounding tonight and these unprecedented times before we get on with the rest of our meeting tonight and I just want to say that all of us all of us in our community that we are grappling with restarting school and Athletics and we're grappling with the budget cuts that are
002hitting programs that we love and and programs that save kids lives uh we are grappling with our responses to the murder of yet another black man we're grappling with the response to the police responses there's anger and there's frustration there's bewilderment and there's confusion and all of this is hitting our individual core beliefs and our core beliefs are shaped by our experiences but they're also shaped by listening and walking in the shoes of others so as we meet tonight I want all of us to do this not just board members I want all of us to do this to listen to understand not to listen to prepare one's remarks or The Comebacks or what you're going to say but listen to understand and this is relationship building and this is allyship and this is making
003sure we don't already have it the way it is because it is not that way to others so once again that we listen to understand tonight thank you so we are moving right into item C2 and I will report on that for you report of actions taken in Clos session uh during our Clos session the board acted to authorize our superintendent or design assistant superintendent Stacy Spectre to adopt resolution number d76 regarding the reduction or elimination of classified Services by the equivalent of 3.0 ft pursuant to District rules regulation and Ed code for the 2020 21 school year moving on to um agenda item C3 items considered in closed session for action and open session there were three items and the first one was case o a220 050 239 and I need a motion for
004that to for us to work to um I need a motion on that board members can you can you state it the number again one more time please 2020 050 239 I'll entertain a motion on U passing that uh so move to approve 2020 05 239 05 050 239 050 239 clerification what what case number is that that 20181 19-5 no this is the one um F this is the oah settlement oh that was in C2 so are we doing the readmits now uh just uh assistant superintendent missir that was O oah case right the number you did was an O case not the readmit cases yes so that was a motion by Jill McCormack clerk De La Cruz can we have a vote please is that Melanie who's gonna on second Miss fun superintendent
005Kim stop okay we are the case numbers are not correct because that's a different case you are are doing the readmits B5 correct no no we're doing the ohh case from closed session report out action and open session it it it doesn't report out in Open Session okay scratch that you are you need to go to B5 to the readmission or B5 the readmissions [Music] president F director Medina has his hand up I was asking you a question Diane the B3 we don't need to bring it to C3 no okay director Medina I wanted to make a motion that we accept the recommendations on case number 2018 19-7 thank you to Second director mtin seconded by director McCormick Melanie we could take a vote on this one 1807 director Mina hi director McCormack I director
006man Maneri um am I allowed to to amend that motion to include the modification for placement at LC Allen that other is that five this is okay thank you I D Cruz hi director Shield hi director close I president fun I all right so the next readmit Is 1920 d05 I move to approve the recommendations of 19205 with the modification for placement at LC in high school all second all right so director manary called for that motion with the modification for placement and it was seconded by director McCormack director Maneri I director DEA Cruz I director Sheffield hi director mccormic sorry director close hi director Medina hi president Fong hi thank you nobody called on me I'm sorry it's all right I okay thank you sorry direct Cori sorry all right that's seven eyes all
007right we're moving on C4 do we have any statements of exstension board members seeing none C5 do we have any adjustments to the agenda uh director Medina I believe we were we going to remove G1 is that correct the superintendent Kamura minute I'm looking for it sorry g g approval of minutes where where are okay um hold on on May [Music] 27th okay okay right so you're pulling that right director Medina uh well I I think you said we're going to bring it back after the corrections that I submitted um wasn't that for June 3 Dr Medina and so we we actually pulled those minutes so those uh Corrections could be made oh okay okay these are the minutes for May 27th yeah that's yes fine my bad okay so so retrack the pulling of
008G1 um director Medina okay so seeing no other adjustments to the agenda all right we're moving to C6 uh so we are going to be open for public comment so we are open for a public comment and moderator do we have public comments these are for non-agenda items and uh to the public to our public um because of our times right now are so unprecedented and our things are so emotional and we have so many people who want to talk and then in the way we're doing this now it used to be that we have cards and we kind of cut that off so right now people can continue to add things as as add on as they want to talk so it's hard for us to really time our meetings as you recall our
009last meeting went till midnight so um I am going to restrict our comments to two minutes from 3 minutes and um to our moderator I'd like you to give them the same I think it was 15 second warning and this will be for all items moving forward although it's temporary but it's all items moving forward so moderator do we have public comments right now on non-agenda items so we do have a couple of hands raised president Fong and I will just remind attendees if you'd like to comment on a non-agenda item please raise your hand at the bottom of your screen and we'll let you know when it's your turn to speak and please keep your comments to under two minutes and it looks like the first person for public comment is Elena bisac hello
010my name is alinaa Basset can you hear me Elena we can't hear you really my name is Elena Basset can you hear me now yes and F I can hear you if there's any way that you can get closer to the microphone that would be great okay is that better hello members of the board fellow Educators parents and students I'm speaking tonight to share thoughts on the importance of physical education it has come to our attention that our PE update to the board has needed to be put off for the past 5 years and with conversations about how to move forward with distance learning and plans for return to school it seems people may be relying too heavily on their own experiences from their school days in PE to inform their decisions on our future
011instead we'd like to share with you what our district is doing in physical education so that we may better prepare for what is to come we are hoping to share the perspective that there is Extreme value in physical education but specifically during this pandemic physical Ed education has come a long way from what many of us recall from our childhood if you look at our California State Standards you'll see a better reflection of Kinesiology the study of human movement this skill set helps prepare our students for an active healthy lifestyle embracing all the benefits that come with it we are attempting to PR prepare our next Generations to make conscious mindful decisions about how they treat their bodies we all only have one body and it is is up to us to learn how to
012appreciate and respect it physical education may be the only subject dedicated to our District's Wellness goal please know Santa Rosa city schools PE teachers can do this iners and through distance learning even with the possible strict return to school protocols physical education can be done and is essential to the health of our students will it look like it did before pandemic no and that is okay thank you I hope that another colleague will continue these points thank you Elena did you get to say everything you wanted to say it will be continued by one more speaker all right thank you and next to speak is Nikki kumasaka hello my name is Nikki kumasaka I'm here to continue the discussion on physical education in this time of covid-19 one of our best defenses is a healthy
013lifestyle students need the curriculum even more today than they ever did according to healthy people 2020 our midcourse reviews suggests mental health of our 12 to 17 year olds is getting worse physical activity can make an impact this study also demonstrates an improvement in physical activity rates highlighting changes in schools and PE have had an effect even with this Improvement the national obesity rate is still at 15% making inactivity itself a risk factor to preventable and chronic disease we know lifestyle choices begin young we need to continue to prioritize student health both physically and mentally physical education classes are a great vehicle for this specifically at this time of covid-19 according to the doctors of everyday Health exercise reduces specific covid complications do Ronda Patrick has found studies indicating there's an association between Co mortality
014and vitamin D deficiency spending time outside could help alleviate this lastly when planning our return to school please know that our teacher see value on our outdoor spaces UV light helps sanitize winds help blow air particles and online courses are very much doable if we do go to distance learning we ask them when you plan what items to give our students we make room for a ball and a jump rope at least for elementary students just like a Chromebook just like paper and pencils a ball and a jump rope would go a long way supporting physical literacy of which has many links to academic learning and supports outcomes of improved mental emotional and physical health physical education teachers are flexible creative and ready to take this on the two spee second the two speeches you
015heard tonight were prepared by PE teachers representing elementary middle and high school thank you for your time thank you Nikki did you get to finish your thoughts yes thank you we have one other public comment I believe actually um president Fong we see no further hands at this time we can make a last call if there's anyone else who would like to comment on items that are not on the agenda please raise your hand now and if you called in on a phone you can raise your hand by pushing star n president Fong I see no further hands at this time okay public comment is over um we have reports where are the report section section D it's um cssea report California School employee Association report do we have President Garcia with us tonight president
016Garcia does not have a report tonight thank you we have the Santa Rosa Teachers Association report tonight do we have president will Lon with us tonight hey everybody can you hear me hello yes all right all right um good evening president Fong Dr kidura and members of the board and the cabinet and the community my name is William Lan I'm the president of Santa Rosa Teachers Association representing uh over 900 Educators who work in our district um I I I I'm so proud of all this work that we're doing but I have to say that this week I have some Whiplash a lot of that Whiplash has nothing to do with the people in this room we are working on a covid mou our mou expires on July 1 and we revert back to the
017contract and the contract is silent on covid and we're working extremely hard to make sure that we can come up with anou that all sides can agree on that will serve our students and our staff and our schools well we also don't have any guidelines for how to do distance learning or hybrid learning or coming back into the classroom saf when the health department deems that safe those are two heavy heavy lifts and we've agreed to try to get that done by July 8th that's less than a month from now in a normal bargaining cycle we generally start bargaining September October and under those circumstances we're only bargaining may be a part of the contract and it's hard to get that done by May and sometimes we fail and we don't get our contracts bargained
018in time I would say that what we're doing is harder than normal bargaining because it touches so many parts of the contract and so many parts of our practice and we have less than a month to finish that up at the same time we are tonight discussing cutting $8.1 million as I understand it again Whiplash right we got the May Revis and then it's rejected we don't have a state budget we don't have any guidelines from the county about how to do the co work and still we have over 200 people on subcomittees that have put in thousands of man hours to begin the work so that when we get the budget and then we get the guidelines we're not starting from scratch and they are doing really really good work I'm I'm so proud
019of the teachers I'm so grateful for the administrators and the cabinet all of that I mean we should be patting on ourselves on the back for the lifting that we are already doing thank you for that and thank you for everybody who's participating in it it's hard we had we had 50 teachers show up yesterday to a zoom meeting at 3:30 in the summer it's amazing it's just amazing um and all of those things are things we can't control those are parameters that are sort of set by the virus and set by the laws and all that stuff this is the Whiplash part on top of all that in the last week I've heard school board members talking seriously about other projects that are also heavy heavy lifts consolidating school districts adding more graduation requirements
020redrawing attendance boundaries to eliminate segregation address segre I don't know what the verb is segregation desegregating our schools and severing ties with our school resource officers you may be underestimating how heavy those lifts are and the bandwidth of the teachers and the staff who would be tasked with lifting those over using the metaphor but it's a lot that's an awful lot um I just want you to be mindful of that I'm not say saying that any one of you are wrong for having those opinions or expressing them I'm not saying that any of those things shouldn't get talked about some of those things have absolutely not been talked about enough to move forward that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about them doesn't mean that that you're I don't want to invalidate the reasons why you
021bring it up I think we have very real problems that need to get addressed but in order to make solutions that solve those problems it takes a lot of time and a lot of people and there's a whole bunch of us that would be doing that work that are pretty busy um I think I'll leave it there I don't I'm not trying to admonish you or shame anybody who's who's trying to meet the moment a very real moment I mean this is I think this is I think history will bear out that this year will be every bit as important as 1968 was in terms of um a civil rights you know the work that that's happening there is important and we should meet that moment we also got to take care of Co so
022um I I have an agreement with um with President Fong that if I shelf my comments on a particular agenda item that I can speak later to that item and I I want to reserve my right to speak on um the ethnic studies report that's coming up uh but I'll just say this to it we absolutely should move forward with ethnic studies we have to do it with the plan and we have to fund it appropriately so we don't get it wrong every one of those things that I listed there are real consequences for getting it wrong my my sort of prayer at the moment uh prayer is the right word yeah I'll go with prayer is that we can do all of our work in a way that we write covid guidelines andus and
023do that work in a way that we have zero deaths in our srcs family that's Weighing on my soul heavily and that's a top priority for us um so please understand if I'm not the only one fing Whiplash because of all those things thank you for listening to me about it thank you president Lon we have a relationship building and communication improvement process committee report yes good evening everybody the this um we've changed this from the LMC to this working group that includes uh CA SRTA board members and administration District inside Administration um we've decided to place this on the agenda and provide reports to it because it's the real work at hand uh around communication and around uh the processes that are described in the title um and so Dr mccardy has attended our
024first his first return to school committee to observe process um and give us feedback and so when we meet as a group again uh with the board members and the members of that committee um he can report out uh our progress on working together in terms of communication and and some of the things we talked about at that first meeting and so um just really briefly to let you know that uh he is continuing to work on this agreed upon um committee and process as a result of the TA um and that you will we will hear from him once he has a couple of more meetings uh that he's been observing so thank you Dr kidura and would you please give us your superintendency report I I will um I'm happy to do that
025um so today I I did have a meeting with um Dr mace and um the other superintendent other four superintendant that represent the committee that works together with Dr har um I will tell you that the meeting was much more engaging uh much more uh felt much more listened to um to the point that uh we have a document that is in its final stages of uh some edits in the Sonoma County reoccupation mitigation plan that is a mouthful there are some specific areas that are of grave concern to us to even move forward and I think you know uh president lion described some of the the heaviness of what we need to get through in order to open schools um but there was great movement from um Public Health uh with our committee with
026the document around Transportation um face coverings and social distancing um so Transportation given and we remember why I said this the last time given social distancing in the realm of uh what has been provided we would need to increase routes from 81 89 to 261 some somewhere around there um pretty much virtually impossible uh so with some modifications uh you'll see coming out um some changes that we can make in order to make Transportation a little more doable um face coverings uh it it is stated and was asked about specifically about children under 12 and um it was stated specifically that children under 12 um are not required to wear face coverings uh children under two do not wear them at all it is absolutely do not wear them um and we asked further about
027clarification of anybody older than 12 and it is required that older than 12 do do wear face coverings so um those were some definites that we hadn't gotten before and so I appreciate um that Clarity social distancing social distancing is at the six foot um six foot between students um and so uh Deputy um superintendent Edson and his staff are going from room to room to determine how many students and what the capacity is for those rooms and knowing that um that six foot is still something that uh we need to look at in terms of uh teacher contact there is a duration a clause in here about 15 minutes and being closer to that than that six feet um I also think that there will be times where um there may be a little
028bit more than six feet and there may be a little less than six feet um and that we have to uh work together to come to a solution on that in order for all of our students to have some time of distant uh in-person instruction when we get to hybrid uh or when we you know when we move through the stages so those are some some very positive um Mo moves uh the final document is slated to be finished Friday uh so we as a county and a 40 School District entity will have a document to work from to create our own plans and I will tell you and I will say this publicly that I I am Gravely concerned about 40 districts going off and doing 40 different plans um it's going to to
029recre Havoc with our families it's going to recre Havoc with teachers who have kids in one District but teach in another district and I think those are all factors we have to consider um and on top of that the Union at the csca SRTA you know ensuring that um we do have anou and that we are looking at work conditions and changes to those so um I agree with will it is at with President Lon it's it's a lot but um I think with us working together with our committees working together and I tell you they are doing some fantastic work um it it it's just wonderful to have stakeholders who are involved be able to voice um their experiences their thoughts and their ideas um and and we're we're heading on that path in
030on time so far to be able to provide the board a report a plan on July 8th um so I'm going to say some more during the um um item with regard to the right District rather than during this time so I'll hold off till then um but for now that that's my report for tonight thank you superintendent koraa and I just want to say on behalf of the board that we are so grateful to this Committee of 200 probably Plus for doing plus now heavy work and everyone I've been talking to and everyone I've had my voice out referring to this group because it really is people who are involved in the work the teachers the administrators parents um I believe student voice as well to make the path by walking and being smart
031about it so thank you very grateful okay it's time in our meeting for uh board president report and also for uh director's reports and tonight we have decided that we are going to read a letter together that was written by board members that we want to share with our community and we talked about it last week and uh this is a response to the killing of black men people of color at the hands of police and this is our response and this is going to out to our commity and it's so important to us we want to read it out loud we will read it in Spanish and we will read it in English and I'm asking uh director Dina to start us off am I up I'm sorry I lost audio yes you are
032and I've neglected to tell Director D Cruz when she's going to read so can you just prompt her I'm sending her a text right now do that I'll start to our Beloved Community as your Santa Rosa City Schools Board of Education We Stand firmly and in solidarity with our black community and say black lives matter we are outraged and grief stricken over the senseless deaths of our black brothers and sisters at the hands of law enforcement we say their names George Floyd biona Taylor Ahmad arberry and so many others as we join those who mourn we say their names as we dedicate ourselves to transformation we remember our own loss Andy Lopez was a 13-year-old Cook Middle School student when a Sheriff Deputy shot and killed him in 2013 then who goes next Director D
033Cruz okay yeah vasta enough is enough we honor our responsibility and our power to implement critical changes in our own systems and we rely on data and evidence to guide our actions towards equity and transformation we call upon our local law enforcement agencies to ad eight can't wait policies eight evidence-based actions they can take right now we call upon our mayor and city council to pledge to review your Police use of force policies to engage your communities by including a diverse range of input experience and stories in your review to report the findings of your review to your community and seek feedback and to reform your community's Police use of force policies our strategic plan grounds our work in a deep understanding of students identities and the historical and cultural context in which we all
034operate srcs Santa Rosa city schools will remove barriers and create structures that provide opportunities to to further personal and academic Student Success that means that when we say #bl lives matter we have black lives reflected in our curriculum please join us in supporting and celebrating the implementation of ethnic studies curriculum that creates a new space for our diverse student body and Community to embrace our identities by navigating diverse complex and constantly changing environments we develop new capacities to inquire investigate collaborate communicate problem solve think critically and practice empathy participate civically and shift our cultural Consciousness we harness our Collective emotion to work harder together with you and our students to prioritize equity and access together by naming and responding to the injustices that create alienation and separation we contribute to our community health and we
035create solutions that reflect us all we invite you and our students to co-create in the world in which we want to live where we are all safe free to express themselves have the strength to speak up and act to further justice and Equity we believe this to be the highest form of Education whether you are a parent a student a staff member or a member of our community participate in our meetings observe us agitate us challenge us and hold us accountable join us to contribute to a greater community of compassion equity and justice for all K isto with love and respect your Santa Rosa City Schools board we will read it in Spanish now Omar unmute yeah helps to unmute okay City schol black lives matter George Floyd biona Taylor enough is enough [Music] for
036black lives matter in [Music] SE for with much love and respect santaa City Schools this is from not only the board but from our superintendent Dian camura for all of us to our community thank you everyone do we have a csba report tonight director close no thank you all right we're moving on to discussion items we are in E1 and we are going to be hearing um from our uh cabinet and superintendent the Santa Rosa city schools ethnic studies plan this is a discussion item and we will hear from the um Dr kidura and then we will take clarifying questions from board members then we will be opening up to public comment then we will be having a discussion with board members Dr Kar thank you before I turn it over to Dr Gusman um
037I just want to say that um we have been working now many years uh on our ethnic studies um Endeavor and I I just think and I'm going to say this and I said this to a couple of the board members it it's really time to move um we have trained a number of teachers we have um so much interest about uh instituting implementing ethnic studies across our school district um and I also think that if anything that we can do uh in addition to what we're already doing is to be able to have this um program this I don't even call it a program this stream of Consciousness curriculum or curriculum Consciousness within our school district if it isn't showing to be important at this moment in time then I don't know when it
038would be important um and so with that um and the work that's been done and the partnership with Dr aosta um it it is now time to move and so um the team will presenting be presenting where we are what's been done um and I I want to hear from the board you know your thoughts about um how we um use this as a trajectory how we use this as a a lever to to to go to do so uh with that I turn it over to um Dr Gusman thank you Dr kidura uh it is it is a great honor tonight to be able to introduce uh director Evans as she um takes us through the Journey that we've been through and the journey of where we're going it also is a great honor
039to have uh Dr aosta with us tonight um to be able to participate in the presentation and also to share his thoughts as he's been a true partner in this work um and moving forward specifically with the cultur responsive sustaining and humanizing education that he has been partnering with us um and he can share some of the survey results and the feelings that our um teachers are having as they've moved through this work it's it's it's exciting and I agree with um Dr kidura this is the time um and also you know just um even the text message that we received just a few minutes ago from Principal Aba about the board's um statement that was read collectively um I think it's about honoring uh voices and making sure that all stories are told and
040the right way and so I'm very honored and excited to turn it over to director Evans to take us through this journey so with that I turn it over to you and Dr aosta good evening I'm going to start by sharing my screen so that we can begin the presentation and just take me a little second to do that all right can everyone see the the uh screen yes we can okay great thank you so good evening president Fong members of the board and superintendent Kimura I'm director Elizabeth Evans and joining me this evening as you heard is Dr Curtis aosta we are here this evening to share with you our vision for ethnic studies in Santa Rosa city schools now why isn't advancing okay um you know oh there we go okay um as
041part of the Santa Rosa city school's ethnic studies committee work Heather Garcia Rossi and I visited Coachella Valley's Desert Mirage high school and El Rancho High School where we had an opportunity to talk to student panels when we ask the students why a school district should include ethnic studies in their course offerings one student named it so eloquently she said if you want students to love themselves in their Community you need to show them that their community and their values are important because a lot of education is ignoring their values and when you incorporate something that's about them you show them that their voice matters in society this photo shows the road that leads to Desert Mirage high school and illuminates the landscape of the students world within this context these students are thriving engaged
042Civic minded young people who have defined a vision for their future so in this report when we talk about ethnic studies courses that so empowered these students we mean classes that deconstruct categories of race ethnicity gender sexuality class and nation that honor the cultural wealth of historically underserved groups and promote Collective student agency what would ethnic studies bring to Santa Rosa city schools how might ethnic studies help us improve graduation rates and other markers of Student Success as a liberatory student centered pedagogy with a focus on community participation and multiple perspectives ethnic studies promotes a reimagining of Education that seeks to address the disparities and outcomes for communities of colors and Indigenous peoples that reimagining is reflected in the board's Mission Vision and priorities this next slide reminds us of the disparities in Santa Rosa
043city schools UC CSU eligibility rates as you can see from this slide neither white students nor latinx students are are accessing their these classes at the rate they are Statewide in order to address this disparity we need to provide students access to all classes I'd like to emphasize that ethnic studies has proven to benefit all students not only those who were underserved students go to school when they see that school is serving their needs the needs of their Futures and of their communities research supports that having even one ethnic studies class has a statistically significant effect on a student's engagement and achievement in all classes according to a 2016 study by Stanford Graduate School of Education they found that culturally relevant pedagogy embeds several features of interiew conventions designed to reduce stereotype threat such as
044explaining stereotypes and identifying external forces that contribute to academic challenges the data they got after this they did this study said that the improvements were significant attendance jumped by 21 percentage points grade point average by 1.4 points and students in ethnic studies courses covering discrimination stereotypes and social justice movements earned 23 more credits towards graduation overall the largest gains were found among boys and Hispanic students and in the subjects of math and science because this work is so pressing and despite the pandemic the ethnic study committee members continued to meet however the work was slowed down by the plagues of 201920 our school year we had covid-19 we had fires we had PSPs and those things may have created obstacles but we moved forward to create a plan beginning with this draft mission statement the
045mission for ethnic studies in Santa Rosa city schools is to provide a transformative education that empowers students to critically examine the contributions and experiences of colonially and institutionally underserved communities students will consciously and intentionally develop their understanding of community assets and cultural wealth to become agents of positive change who promote Equity empathy and social justice in society toward this end the needs of our students informs our work our Crush workshops with Dr Curtis aosta the secondary collaborative curriculum Design Group focused on social justice and ethnic studies the ongoing meetings by the ethnic studies committee our visit to Coachella Valley and El Rancho school districts our work with district teachers and our particip a in the Statewide ethnic studies advocacy group show that everything we do is intentional and coherent and designed to grow a culture
046that will prepare our students to respond to the cultural crossroads of our time in the last two and a half weeks it has become clear that the need for culturally responsive humanizing pedagogy woven throughout our classrooms is not enough our current current political climate calls out for our educational system to explicitly teach all students the histories and interactions of institutionally underserved communities and empowers all students to dismantle Injustice on June 5th the Santa Rosa Teachers Association executive board voted in favor of a mission statement for a caucus headed by Heather Garcia Rossi Paving the way for interested teachers to wrap around the Genesis of our program further 93.1% of this year's Crush survey respondents expressed an interest in participating in an ethnic studies K12 track there's a longer document with more details in your board
047packet that shows the depth of our Equity work this year and our prep preparedness to move forward with ethnic stud studies I want to point out to you that in our collaborative curriculum Design Group this year every Comprehensive High School was represented and we worked in the subject areas of Science Social Studies English language arts and World languages to create interdiscipline excuse me interdisciplinary units of study based on the teaching tolerance standards for social justice e studies courses are a way to build engagement and skills in K12 education they provide relevant opportunities where students see themselves as successful Learners who deserve a place in every classroom as Jose Laura vice president of El Rancho Board of Education points out that belief is a gateway to higher education and future opportunities so how do we move
048forward first we would like you to adopt our mission statement then we'd like to develop four ethnic studies courses a multicultural literature class statistics for social justice and two ethnic studies courses one for high school and one for Middle School we plan to Pilot statistics for social justice at LC Allen High School this fall the other three courses we would submit for approval in the fall with the intention of including them in the master schedule developed in Spring of 21 for the 2122 school year one of our next steps would be to form an ethnic studies curriculum review subcommittee for Course Review as we look forward to expanding ethnic studies course offerings in in other disciplines moving toward full implementation this is an opportunity for growth simply writing the course proposals is not enough in
049these difficult budgetary times when we are looking to innovate we must not only write the courses but also offer the training to provide the most effective pedagogy the importance of pedagogy has been reinforced by our visit to ethnic studies programs as well as through the crush workshops with Dr aosta and his associates these are exciting possibilities to expand ethnic studies to other curricular areas and grade levels and we are eager to take the next steps we have created a fiveyear plan beginning with writing the initial courses that I just spoke of training teachers to be successful in those courses and writing additional courses to increase subject area offerings full implementation is dependent on growing student and teacher interest and capacity and those two pieces are very important the interest and the capacity of of our
050community we expect that implementation of a robust ethnic study program in Santa Rosa city schools will have a similar effect to that shown in the Stanford study we expect to see students at every level including all ethnicities and class levels and from every background to be more engaged in Math Science Social Studies and English language arts and an increase in our attendance and graduation rates this is how we would move forward our goal is to offer ethnic studies K12 beginning with secondary year-long ethnic studies classes initially these courses would not become a graduation requirement but would count for Core Credit already included in the 220 units required for graduation as we grow in capacity there are various models we can look to for scheduling and with that we want to thank our committee members for
051their dedication and commitment to students the committee has included teachers administrators counselors SRTA members parents community members Santa Rosa Junior College colge professors and Sonoma State University professors we appreciate their time and energy this list with members affiliations is included in your Ford packet as we get near the end of our presentation we want to make sure to include in laes and the foundational idea that if I do harm to you I'm harming myself and if I love and respect my you if I love and respect you I am loving and respecting myself we are the mirrors of each other our goal is to actively Implement a vision of social justice focusing on eliminating inequalities motivated by race ethnicity class gender and sexuality through encouraging and mentoring our staff and all of our students we
052have the goal of developing a robust ethnic studies K12 program that will Foster long-term relationship skills knowledge of self and collaborative activist abilities for those working within and between communities of color and Indigenous peoples ethnic studies is a vehicle through which all and I want to emphasize that word again all students in Santa the city schools can grow to become community-minded citizens focused on social justice for all and now I'm going to stop sharing my screen so that um Dr aosta can speak and then if we need to come back to the PowerPoint I'll bring it up again okay Dr aosta remember to unmute thank you thank you director Evans for the the reminder um bues good evening president Wong board of directors Dr Kito mura and the Santa Rosa city schools Community um before
053I start um speaking today I would just like to say that my team and I stand in solidarity with black lives matter the movement for black lives the victims of covid-19 and all those who are still in the crisis due to the pandemic we remain committed to the transformation of dehumanizing practices inequities in all forms in our country and I cannot think of a more critical time to discuss the implementation of ethnic studies for the Youth of Santa Rosa um so with with that being said um I was given uh two tasks by by the district tonight uh one is to talk about where the district is in terms of ethnic studies my opinion on that and also you know where's the where's the growth potential and so I'm going to do my best to
054um to not take my usual 45 minutes per question to answer um and so uh and in In fairness to a long night that you all have ahead of you um one of the things I want to say before moving into the question though is I miss seeing you all miss being in your beautiful Community uh miss that wonderful little tiny airport that I love to uh to cruise through and uh and just um just the smiles and the warmth of of your of of Santa Rosa and I'm looking so forward to being with you all again in the flesh once we uh once we are resilient as as people and we get through this very difficult time um recently we've also been working um not only with yourselves but with the uh Santa Rosa
055sorry the Sonoma County Health Action Network and uh it's given our team added insight into the cross the cross-section of the region and we continue to be impressed at the willingness of this community to interrogate their institutions in the pursuit of racial Equity so when I think of of is you know where are we right now in terms of the time to move forward with ethnic studies in Santa Rosa I have a um been fortunate that my team and I have had U you know been able to feel this from your Educators but also um in different institutions that serve your serve your wonderful uh Community um as director Evans pointed out and articulated this past year our partnership with uh Santa Rosa city schools began with our culturally responsive sustaining and humanizing education professional
056development track uh to begin here was an excellent decision by District leadership since Crush as we call it gets a great gives us a great foundation for building teacher capacity toward ethnic studies um and I just want to say that uh it's always comforting for me as uh when I when I get to know leadership that they know where they're at who they are and can make the decisions from that point and um sometimes districts want to move too quickly as far as jumping right into ethnic studies and they haven't laid down the groundwork for um for every you know staff member faculty member to engage in this critical work and so I thought that you know I didn't I didn't have to do too much cajoling I didn't have to do too much um
057you know recommending uh suggesting it's the leadership new and we dove into this work and and I just want to share a few a few uh points of data that we collected from our exit survey with uh with the crush cohorts as as Dr H sorry director Evans pointed out we um were able to work with over 90 of your wonderful faculty staff and District Personnel it's another highlight I want to say is there were like a district um leadership um that chose to come to our to our training without being Twisted at least I'm not aware of the arm twisting that may have happened behind closed doors uh I but um I know some some of the the board of directors also popped in from time to time it just shows you the commitment
058and it's uh how it's holistic in your um in your organization in your institution it's really really um exciting when uh when with you know being the facilitators of of content to see that kind of energy and that kind of investment across the board um about close to half of or there's just a little under half of uh participants uh in our in our trainings gave us some data uh that was really phenomenal um surprising uh I mean I know we're good but uh it's still it was just shocking uh you know and my team's better than I am just so just just to put my make sure that my arrogance isn't uh out there first uh anybody that's seen some of my associates Miriam Romero Dr Orlando Kon that you know exactly what I'm
059talking about um 100% of of our Crush participants that that responded uh to our to our survey said that they would recommend uh Crush training to a um to to a colleague um and what that shows us is you know as as far as ethnic studies is that it you know it's exciting because it illustrates an overwhelmingly positive relationship with our approach and Trust in the direction that we're headed together um in addition over 90% of the participants are interested in an ethnic studies track so if you would asked me in my wildest dreams what I would have hoped for I would have said somewhere around 75% um you know and then if you would asked me you know what's more realistic I would I would have said for you know for the people in
060the room the 90 that I know intimately I would have said about 60% and that's not because um it doesn't show that investment or that excitement it's because the reasons for this is many Educators still conceive ethnic studies as a standalone social studies class in high school and not an interdisciplinary educational approach that can be applied to any K12 classroom however I'm proud to say that the teachers in Santa Rosa city schools we worked with this pastor they did not fall into this trap at all um they they see it clearly they know it's a lens they know it's a pedagogy they know it's interdisciplinary they they see it as a K12 uh K12 issue and they're they would be especially they'd be upset if we were trying to just pigeon hole this probably into
061just um to speaking to a social studies perspective only so that was really really exciting um in raw numbers that's about 30 which is um a you know already a full cohort and that's just from the respondents that we the response that we had those who responded to the survey so we know there's more out there in in the folks that we were able to work with who didn't have the chance to respond and we know there's probably more out there in the general Santa Rosa city school teacher population so it's super exciting to know that we have this kind of departure point um you know again everything going back to that question are we ready um I think the numbers are speaking for themselves and so with that being said pretty much you know
062that we it affirms what we knew or confirms what we knew my team and I before we asked asked the uh participants to uh to uh to fill out the Google form and that is uh you're ready and so uh with that being said where's the growth potential for Santa Rosa um the plan that director Evans and Santa Rosa city schools leadership bring forth to you tonight is much more robust and comprehensive than where the current Statewide plans are I think that's really important to highlight um for example the ethnic studies requirement that is being formalized in Sacramento is only for high school students and uh I've been told I've been participating in in Statewide webinars over the course of um course of May uh teacher preparation uh Educators like myself uh ethnic studies teachers
063Advocates um just the the the who's who if you will and including State uh State um Representatives The Who's Who of on top of this study I'm sorry on top of this uh the the the current uh State um implementation of this uh requirement and what they've been telling us is um is that after this is ratified and they're hoping for that to be uh completed by the end of 2020 calendar year that um the the middle school and Elementary School guidel are soon coming you're already ahead of that the plan that you have is beautiful in in that respect um and so uh you have a plan before you that has this flexibility and adaptability required to create ethnic studies in the image that Santa Rosa Youth and the community need it to be
064it is it is a commitment to every child every educator in your District you know as you move forward today tonight um you know and I'm I'm a positive person so I'm hoping that you know it's it's a it's affirm you know this is this is you know speaking to your kindergarten teachers and and and your high school teachers and everybody in between that you're behind all of them that you're committed to all of them and you're committed to creating this this culture of ethnic studies in your District um and with that being said um you could be a leader for sure in uh in in in Sonoma County of course but also in the North Bank um I'm pretty uh I'm aware of of where uh where many districts are right now in terms
065of ethnic studies and who's leading and who's who's ahead and who's not and who's uh and and what I could tell you is this plan and and the the time that you've put into this already um the excitement that's in your your region uh across the board um especially from your teachers um and and we all know the youth uh they're going to be right behind this generation don't play uh they're going to be ready to to make this uh transformation of your your um your district and your your community uh happen in real time so I'm super super excited for you all um I could talk about ethnic studies forever and how transformtive it is for Youth and families especially those on the margins but I know you have a long night ahead as
066I said earlier so I will exercise some self-discipline practice some inesh and end it right here for the time being but I just want to thank you muchas gracias thank you for for everything and so looking forward to continue our partnership and and visiting you all very soon Dr custa thank you so much that was inspiring uh we are going to take a second to change translators right now Marcela are you ready we're going to do the uh translating uh I am ready thank you I need to change the channel just a moment thank you okay I'm back thank you thank you Melanie are updated um director Evans yes um that is the end of the yeah that was the end of the presentation and if if at some point you need me to bring
067the PowerPoint back up I can do that and I know you have many other attachments on the um that we we have um clarifying questions from the board members at this point and then we'll open up to public uh director Medina and then director McCormack thank you president Fong thank you uh Dr aosta and and and Mr s for your presentation um first I just want to start off by sending out a congratulations to the Santa Ana school board for uh adopting an ethnic studies graduation requirement at their Schoolboard meeting last night um I bring that up because I want to make sure that you all know that for our next board meeting I'm proposing that we um incorporate an ethnic studies graduation requirement um that falls in line with AB 331 um not included
068in this presentation um I only just sent it in um but something that I wanted to add in terms of this presentation and our journey to where we're at right now and and why I'm doing this um I don't know if any of you saw the post that I did on Facebook around uh this board meeting but I I put a quote on there that said Justice too long delayed is Justice denied and that was in a letter by Dr Luther Kean and his letter from a Birmingham Jail and what I wanted to share is our journey here my my story um because it's tied to um a lot of what we're seeing right now you know back in December of 2012 um it's when mbop started uh their campaign towards Zero Tolerance here in
069Cal City schools and from there you know we organized a campaign and eventually our district we adopted a the restorative School distri model that happened in October of 2013 then in October of 22nd of 2013 that's when Andy Lopez was shot and killed by Deputy Gil house that what that there initiated was um Us in the community that same month after reinvigorating the work for the Latino student Congress right in Sona County that that stand from the activism and the energy from youth responding to the of Andy Lopez and within a year of that um we had the Latino student Congress going in November I mean in September of 2014 um we had a presentation to Latino student Congress on ethnic studies that was followed by our first interaction with centeral City Schools um related
070to ethnic studies on October 1st of 2014 was when I emailed uh then superintendent sooro Shields bringing up the issue of ethnic studies and so that led to the creation of the education task force uh committee and campaign for for ethnic studies here um in Sona County um targeting Santa Rosa city schools and uh that started in March of 2015 effectively we we were able to create a committee um by November of 2015 was when the ethnic studies uh committee here with Santa Rosa city schools met there was board members administrators teachers um I think it was Genevie L gr sen I was a middle school teacher who was the the chair of that committee um and at that point uh there was kind of the promise that there would be a pilot program in
0712016 2017 in that Academic Year obviously that didn't happen um we we kept on going the committee met uh with several board members and then by November of 2017 we ended our campaign after having met with all the board members and we kind of received the commitment by the 2019 2020 school year um there would be a curriculum set right um and obviously that didn't happen there there there's reasons and and delays that were caused um but we're here now a year after that and and for me the point is that I'm tired of waiting right and and that's why I'm proposing that ethnic studies requirement um I one of the things that I noticed in in looking back at everything at no point has there ever been any official direction from the board we've
072never officially taken any Vote or provided any guidance to any committees saying you know what should happen with the studies you know and I think right now I I hear this discussion of adopting this commission so I'm curious as to when when is that going to come to the board um given the fact that I'm asking for proposal at our next board meeting I would like for us to take some sort of action on adopting this hopefully by the next board meeting um but action is is what I'm asking for from us to then guide everything that happens the other thing in terms of um I'm curious about this Multicultural literature class I'm going to cut you off there because I want you to save some of this for discussion and we are some board
073members that have questions so we're in question phase before public comment and what you're saying is super important so can you say say the rest for discussion or can you finish that one thought so this is about the Multicultural literature class um it sounds like it's going to be some sort of like class that obviously incorporates different cultures and so I'm wondering like a lot of the models that I've seen and and that I'd prefer um are like you know just a focus courses like a Cho literature or you know African-American literature are those part of the plan or or is it just this you know Multicultural literature class that I think um should be part of that integrated model that you're talking about so I guess that's the question so we um thank you
074for that question and and um yeah this has been a a quite a process to get where we are today um the our idea around the Multicultural literature class and I don't really like that title Multicultural literature you know the term Multicultural is so outdated um and really what we're thinking about is a class that can really touch on different groups of people um you know there's no reason we couldn't decide to do a specific chonic literature class or an Asian literature class um really we're in the uh we're in these the stages of trying to figure out what's the best way to go forward and we wanted a class that was going to be in English so we could we could Branch out Beyond just social studies we wanted to have uh ethnic studies
075as an elective at high school an English class and we thought the multicult I'm going to call it Multicultural literature right now a literature class would be useful and then the social the statistics for social justice and then an ethnic studies elective at Middle School to start off but I'd be interested in your you know as we move forward I would love to have your input on our all the work that we're going to do we're going to need you know we're going to need your your input because I know you have a lot of knowledge and awareness and um experience well one of the other things that I saw in the presentation was I think uh you know I forget the exact term but it was like underserved students or you know that it
076wasn't just necessarily directed at those but I think just just the fact that that's in there to me it as as it relates to ethnic studies you know when I was first exposed I think it was in 93 I was a nth grader um I had a 3.83 GPA I I know that because it's in the newspaper um but but it's needed by everyone not necessarily just because you know oh they're struggling they need ethnic studies it it it's more for me it's about identity and who you are I don't see that necessarily reflected within the mission I think in the mission one of the things that I want to see it's about student empowerment self-empowerment the the mission is really Broad and to me the most impactful thing from my experience about ethnic studies
077is that self-reflection and and that development of my identity and empowerment of who I am um and I think that needs to be part of of that mission and I don't know if that's ever come up as part of the discussions in the committee I I would hope so but I'd like to know um because if if I look at what what I would like or what what I I would love to see out of ethnic studies I want some radicalized students that are going to be critical thinkers I want some some some black power Cho power students coming out from the radicalization of the education that they get from that so you know I'd love to know if that's been part of the conversation well uh so much of what we talk about is
078the need for student agency and creating students who can be activists in the world that they can work to change the world and and also we did point out and maybe maybe we didn't say this clearly enough that this is really about all our students our white students our Brown students our black students it's about everyone because we've learned that everyone benefits from ethnic studies so um there's that piece and then the other part is that you know we really need to build our program progr based on the capacity and the interest of our teachers and that's that's another piece and our students and our families and our communities so that'll be another piece that we will gather information from our community and from um our teachers and from and of course from the board
079um so that we can be the most effective and also do create the the most uh powerful program that we can and I'll just add by adding one thing that I saw that I don't see in the presentation that I think we need to address and and uh that is the issue of money um how are we going to spend where where's the money going to come from where are we going to readjust um because to me when when the issue of money is not addressed that to me puts stuff in danger of failing and I don't want to see this fail and I want to make sure that we're addressing that looking at that figuring out how we're going to make it succeed um and and and that be whether it be the train
080for teachers hiring of teachers that have the ability and Knowledge and Skills to do this um it it's got to be part of the presentation and the information that comes up and so so I'll just leave it at that thank you yeah thank you um Curtis did you want to respond to that yeah well I want to respond earlier uh to an earlier um comment director Medina like thank you so much I mean you're speaking to my my experiences as a teacher for well as a high high school teacher for nearly 20 years but an educator now pushing on hates it kills me to say this but almost 30 years um and so many of what so many of what so much of what you brought up is actually are the tenants of our trainings
081of of our professional development our ethnic studies professional development um identity intersectionality the sacredness of ethnic studies uh self-reflection um we Lai the will to act into the community um so um although it's not in the presentation because I I you know that I I didn't want to go into the details unless there was there was a question to that effect um you know because of the length that they that you know going into you know I can go on and on as you know as I intimated it earlier I'm pretty verbose so I want to stay disciplined but you're you're you're hitting exactly where where we are as far as you know um you know and I I would love you to attend as many um of our professional development uh you know opportunities
082as possible yeah and so but also I would like to say what what I like about the plan is it gives you the flexibility right now to create the courses in the image of what you all want and that might look different building the building um across your school district and I think you know because neighborhoods um have their own weight have their own history and you can lean into that in a really really powerful way and as neighborhoods change the students that are part of that change should know you know that history of of of of that neighborhood so um so I see a tremendous amount of potential because it's organic because it's it's it's cultivated from from uh from the the community itself that's the opportunity that I see in this plan right
083now I agree with you though the skeptic in me the person that had to fight for his program the person that had to fight for his classes understands that when it's not specifically laid out um it it seems like it can be endangered so um so I so I empathize with that um but I also see the potential of making this something that's that's more powerful than than um cookie cutter models or that that may be coming out that are a bit quicker but that doesn't mean that we can't be we must we can't be hyper we mustn't be hypervigilant we need to be and that means we have to be involved in in in order and I think the teachers that we had directed Medina were EXC would be excited to to start formulating
084these classes in the image of the community and and and and and what the students and the families uh desire other questions from panel from board members uh director McCormick and then director manieri then de director Sheffield uh thank you again for your presentation um in regards to Gathering input interests developing student agency um in your five your plan uh I'm wondering why we're waiting until 23 24 four years into the plan to develop a student Advisory board for recommendations um and interests on how we're going to develop ethnic studies so I'm just wondering why um strategy wise why we're waiting until then to get student input or are we already getting student input um and that that's like a a Next Step or what but that just kind of stood out to me so
085I'd love to get some clarification on that thanks yeah um director McCormick we um in the in the spring we had a whole plan to uh go out and and interview students and talk to students and we had talked to teachers about going to their classes and we had this whole thing we were going to do and then you know we weren't able to do that and so you know we could we can do that any time I guess it really just depends on our capacity to be able to to uh do that but I agree with you I think that's a a very important part getting that student voice I mean we keep hearing over and over again how important our students voices are so you know there's no reason that couldn't help ear
086happen earlier um it's just a matter of capacity for us thank you you're welcome director Manny are I think that was next so um thank you again for the presentation um my Wi-Fi is a little spotty so if you guys can tell me if I'm cutting in and out I'll just turn off my camera and that should help um I'm wondering director Evans um because I'm I'm really struck by um Dr a Costa's statement that that that srcs could be a leader in cinema County and in the North Bay um and I feel really similar to director Medina in that like the faster the better essentially um though I know that we need to take time to implement something as important as this and and think through it thoroughly I'm wondering if um I wasn't
087able to find any board policy on ethnic studies and I'm wondering if we've in the past had um some sort of resolution affirming or supporting ethnic study something that could really model um model this this curriculum for other districts um in in ca County and in the North Bay um so that if they're interested in doing something like what we're doing that they could that we could be a resource for them um thank you for that question uh director manary we don't we have not had any board policy ourselves um I did find out and I'm still trying to get the the skinny on this I did find out that Santa Rosa High School actually had ethnic studies in 1972 and 1973 and Tony negre taught the ethnic studies course and so he uh I
088I'm really hoping to talk to him to get some information about how how that course happened and you know where the heck I mean who knows where the course description is but we ourselves did not have an ethnic study we don't have that in our board policy um we've looked at other districts and sometimes what they'll they'll just say within their list of courses it will just say you know we will have ethnic studies or we will have ethnic studies as a graduation requirement and they don't locate it in a particular subject area just which allows for more flexibility thank you I'll save the rest of my comments for discussion okay thank you director Sheffield where you next yes thank thank you director Evans and Dr aosta um I am very excited that we're having
089this discussion that we're moving forward um I have um a lot I'll bring up discussion but a couple of questions that I had um just sort of echo uh director Medina's concern about making sure that we do this correctly um with our resource allocation and and dollars um any opportunities that you can think of where we can seek outside funding sources um this is really bold this is really bold for the Bay Area this is really bold for the North Bay um and you know on so many other issues it's oftentimes us the the the largest school district to to get the ball rolling on this to get the attention of the rest of the community um that this is a really important issue so maybe you could talk a little bit about um or
090maybe this is for for our our our next meeting discussion if if um director Omar is going to bring up um a proposal that we we look at dollars so that we can have a a discussion on on you know the value um of what this type of investment um that will get out of it that's my first question um um obviously if we're going to have pro professional development it's going to cost money uh I don't know you know I can't give you an exact figure but we do know and from everything that we've learned from talking to people excuse me that having the support of Consultants such as Dr aosta and his associates who have it's just been marvelous for us uh as well as the support of higher education um a number
091of districts that we talked to partnered with their local University to develop courses to get teacher training um so there that's and we're so lucky because we have Sona State we have the junior college um so you know it will take some planning and it will cost some money to train people but we want to make sure that our teachers really feel prepared to um teach ethnic studies in in their classes in their classrooms I want to I want to address this as well um I think that that we definitely have some resident experts in ethnic studies at both Sonoma State and San Rosa Junior College um and we need to utilize that expertise even more uh in my opinion here here's the beautiful thing about the Strategic plan that you created as a board
092you set priorities and that and it's exactly what we need to do as we Implement something as critical as ethnic studies and so the funding and the priorities go together this is a priority of the district this is a priority of the board so there are going to need to be decisions made about funding because it is limited but everything that I see from the board everything that I believe in as the superintendent of this district is that ethnic studies is at the top of the priority list so that that has to be as we look at our lcap as we look at our title dollars um ethnic studies needs to be and will be at the top of that priority for funding for funding thank you um my I don't know Omar did you
093want to add I had one second question but go ahead oh okay my second question um on one of the slides you had in the The Five-Year Plan slide talked about the roll out for um expanding to uh to K through six and just you know really want to stress the importance of some of the earlier grades um you know and it doesn't you know if you could talk um um director Evans about this timeline for k36 the slide was a little bit vague so I you know I know that we're kind of inventing or building as we're going along um but you know I just think in the in the times that we live in the the the K through sixth grades need a lot of attention as well so if you can talk
094about that timeline thank you yes thank you so much for that question director Sheffield we really believe that this is a K12 program and that in I think in one one of the slides we said the earlier the better you know the sooner we can start working with our our teachers and our our young students the better um Dr aosta and one of his colleagues in particular Miriam Romero is uh she works with him and helps train people teachers she's also an elementary teacher and some of the uh curriculum and the pedagogies that she has shared with our elementary teachers has just been marvelous and we got a a fantastic response from our element excuse me elementary teachers who have been particip ating in in the crush workshops for how meaningful this work with her
095was so I can really see us tapping into uh Miriam's uh expertise as well as Dr acosta's expertise and the rest of the team and how we address the uh the needs of ethnic studies with our younger students I'd like to add to that as well if I may um especially with you approving um the CCD units just a few months ago knowing that those units are really interdisciplinary and also continuously growing and moving it's a an opportunity really to infuse this into those units and really lay that Foundation um so I I'm very grateful that they have been adopted at that Elementary level and we cannot minimize those CCD units at all as a district um it it is it is so different than any other District not to be dictated by a tech
096company but that we own and live that curriculum is huge which why it's going to be actually an easier insertion of of ethnic studies into that at the elementary level than it will be at the secondary and I would bet that it'll be earlier than we think than that timeline yes and i' just like to follow up on that because I don't know if you remember in the in the presentation uh we mentioned the collaborative curriculum design team at secondary who who focused on social justice and ethnic studies we ethnic studies lessons for secondary we were in the process of wrapping up the work with that team of people it was about 14 secondary teachers high school mostly High School teachers um and then you know then the school shut and so then we weren't
097able to kind of wrap up but that is something that's really on our mind and we want to we want to expand that into the lower grades and it's perfect with the um Elementary CCD work that's been done I mean Kelly Dylan director Dylan has done a fantastic job of kind of Blazing the trail of the CCD units and I could really see us working with that with ethnic studies director de Cris just joining in the thanks to to you all for your amazing work I was really lucky to sneak into a couple of the crush trainings and um they were beautiful and I was super grateful for your work um one of the things that I wanted to follow up on that I really loved actually Dr you mentioned is that this isn't as
098easy as you know handing over somebody a binder and saying here's here's how you here's how you do and just go Um oops my internet connection unstable you guys okay you are unstable and you're breaking up okay um and so one of the things that's [Music] really still breaking up give me a thumbs up when you sorry my my iPad is losing power faster than it's charging and so I'm on my kids Chromebooks and we can all see how distance learn learning goes um so um where was I so Sonoma County has a has a rich and and tragic history with our Native American populations here and I'm wondering um what kind of participation on the committee um did we have that really reflected some of that richness and some of our local history um
099I'm GNA try without the camera is that better Elizabeth was um was uh Miss Billy on the committee um or yes okay yes she was Elizabeth Billy um who supports our uh Native students um she was on the committee and I you know what I tell you I'm trying to remember I know I met with another one of our um parents who had been part of the the disproportionality group around that our native students um and that but that was some time ago but I did I have talked to yeah Miss Billy was part of the group okay yes okay and remembering yeah okay good okay thank you thank you for that I just you know we we do have a very rich and unique um community of of many different peoples who went through
100lots of different things and I really appreciated the way Dr osta framed you know it's the responsibility of every institution that undertakes this effort um to really investigate you know how and and who stories we're going to be including in this and that it's so critical to reflect um you know the stories of the people on Whose Land We Stand um so I just wanted to um I'm grateful for Miss Billy for her work in the district and then to continue to to help develop this but we have some very powerful native leaders that I would I'm sure would be excited about participating in any deeper development of those um specific um you know chunks of the curriculum thank you uh if if I could just say something really quickly to that point uh director
101De La Cruz um I think you're hitting on something that we're finding out nationally right now that um there is a bit of a gap between how people perceive ethnic studies to be um as far as you know depending on I I since I I I'm fortunate to enough to to do organizing around ethnic studies around the country wherever the plane lands where with when I used to be on a plane where the zoom lands now um you get a different reaction sometime so um so it's really it's going to be um it's going to be our responsibility and I I include our our team in in this as well to reach out to our uh indigenous brothers and sisters and and letting them know that you know we cannot do this work can ethnic
102studies is uh is exploring you know the history of anti-blackness anti- indigeneity we got to start from from those pieces and started explaining to them you know um a lot much of the organizing uh especially in the west has had a a latinx chonic uh frame to it or face to it and and sometimes you you know when when you just see the surface you don't know uh the depth of of the principles the depth of the heart of the work and and your beautiful statement as a board today um is indicative of of your heart and that's the and that's how we need to move forward together um and and call call people um you know call our maybe our past histories out and then call folks back in to engage with us in
103this work um and I I'd like to say one more thing is like our model of working with with teachers because um we're I'm a bad businessman um because I'm a teacher uh you know um I those aren't mutually exclusive but in my case they are um like what we like you know we believe in in this is a life calling and not a business so it's a sustainability model we're already developing the leaders that are going to take this forward we we're seeing them in our in our Crush work I wish you all could have been we had plans to have a in-person showcase so you could feel the power of the work that your teachers are already doing um and we had to move it virtually um but we will we will be
104back and you will get to see that um in person yourselves and you'll see how we're trying to cultivate this and how it's going to then take the form of I think what director Medina is talking about which is the courses I taught were very much and co-constructed with my youth to to um to um and S not symbolize but that just a be grounded and uh and and and cultivated from the very Earth of this the west side of ton right our neighborhoods our varus and and it had that connection and I I I I see that we that's the way we roll with our work and that's the the dream I have for you all as well did I see Omar I see your hand up yeah um just kind of follow up
105on what Dr aosta and director de Cruz were touching on um I think um you know one of the the ethnic studies or specifically Chico studies programs that that I look to and like the most is that at CSU Northbridge Under The Cho studies program one of the the important requirements that they have there is a community involvement component and I think in course development having some sort of community involvement or engagement component um would be important something that that should definitely be a priority um secondly um Dr ker brought up growth and potential you know long-term of the program and I think that we we do have to look at our our Partnerships with our local institutions of higher education whether it be the CER junior college or Sonoma State uh one of my
106concerns with Sonoma state is you know my experien is over the past two decades their uh ethnic studies programs there have been weakened and weakened and weakened over time I think uh developing a partnership allows an opportunity to strengthen those programs and I think um with the development of teachers um we can develop some sort of partnership that also maybe feeds and becomes part of of our programs um that helps to prepare teachers not only in ethnic studies but in becoming the teachers and I think that also would uh potentially help address uh one of the issues that we have of of recruiting and hiring teachers of color so I think looking at a developing those Partnerships and being and maybe engaging them further in our ethnic studies programs um with with the goal of
107also helping strengthen them and I think as time goes on hopefully other districts within the county um become a part of that and become part of that program so I I'd like to ask that you take that back to the committee abely board members I am going to move us to public comment since we can't keep from discussing because we're all very inspired and passionate about this and I want it I want us to hear so I wanted to remind us to go back to listen to understand let's listen to public comment um we have seven people and eight people so again we're at two minutes I also am going to invite our SRTA president Will lion he was also on this committee and he would like to weigh in so uh president lion we're
108GNA let let's see moderator Melanie can we let him in as a panelist sure I'll do that right now president Lian are you ready I know this surprise to you hey hey uh back again thanks for giving me some time uh I'll try to be uh uh graceful with it thank you for thank you for doing this I don't want to bury the lead um every teacher I know thinks ethnic studies is important important and we need to move forward move forward including me um so I have some concerns and some suggestions but it is not intended in any way to deflate the balloon or to otherwise you know pourkour W on this or pick your metaphor um I I follow those who've already said we have to fund this because it's not a zero
109doll proposition if you don't fund it what you're really doing is taking away from other electives or other classes um or it'll be a bad program without any funding you could decide right now every sophomore English class is an ethic studies class done check mark done we win there isn't anybody I know who thinks that's what we're going to do here um but what H how much better than that is it going to be funding is a matter um if you gave two sections to each secondary school for those electives that we talked about about the English and the math they're kind of double dipping they're going to get math credit and English credit we still have to train those teachers but those those um elective courses each section is about $20,000 so if we
110have 11 secondary schools and they each get two sections it's $440,000 that's a lot of money if we don't fund it and say listen we're going to give everybody your section allotment plus two more make it three more I'm good that too what you're really doing is saying some principal in a year or two from now is going to have to decide whether or not to cut manufacturing or photography right and we need to give those teachers enough time to learn about ethnic studies so they can build their own ethnic studies photography class so the Money Matters thank you for those of you who brought that up we also have a lot of resources that have been mentioned we have a director we have a toosa Heather Rossi who is a super mega Champion for
111this and she's the right person to be helping lead on that um I wan to I want to talk about Crush for a second Curtis Dr Costa and Crush are the real deal this is the type of professional development that when teachers go to they leave excited about and it's it scratches the exact right itch that we need to move forward but we should be paying him too right this is uh whether is a good Economist or not he's a professional educator and we have to factor that in and it's not zero dollars um we also have I would like us to create when if I'm glad there's flexibility here I'm glad it's a discussion item I do hope it comes back next week with some of these things addressed I would like to see
112an evaluation tool even if we agreed on that evaluation tool so that we can say we've adopted ethnic studies if we meet this threshold I would like to see that if you're talking about every single high school kid needs 10 credits or of ethnic studies with flexibility English History math science photography right um but if they need that in order to do that we have to have the capacity to have 25% of our students a year or more take an ethnic studies class so so at Santa Rosa high school with 2,000 students we need 500 of them every year minimum to be enrolled in an ethnic studies class if you have one Multicultural uh literature class and one or two electives it's not enough so I think I think making a requirement when we have
113the capacity and we can put forward at Santa Rosa High case that's 17 sections of quality ethnic studies that isn't just a slaping yes on it and oh hey I already teach um joyet Club we're good like we want to do way way better than that but it it takes that capacity the last thing I would ask is that there is some flexibility that the timeline that's there that if we get there and we evaluate it and we're going faster than we thought great let's go if you give us everybody two sections and there's a school that could do three or four or five sections because they got it green light do it but if we find find out you know what we really need one more year to grow that capacity I think that
114that should be included in the plan the last thing I can't help but saying is this last week Santa Rosa Teachers Association created a book club and we had about 50 teachers in it now and we are going to read over the next six weeks um how to be anti-racist by ibram X kundi we divided into six reads we're meeting every Monday the teachers the teachers are hungry for this we want it to work we want the plan to have the flexibility and the funding and the time so that it is a success president Fong thank you for letting me uh in under these uh kind of covid parameters I know the zoom stuff is really hard and I really appreciate that you that you gave me the mic one more time thank you everybody
115all right uh moderator we are now open for public comment are there any I see there are some and uh we are at 2 minutes per comment and you are going to give them a 15sec warning that's correct um and so our first comment and please raise your hands if you'd like to make a comment on item E1 um first comment is from Manny baldenegro Jr please unmute your microphone Manny balra Jr would you like to make a comment hold on one second hold on one second I was away from um having gone to UCLA and been a part of what is now a Cho Chana studies Department I I understand and know the importance of having ethnic studies um for all of our students and seeing the value of of what a department can
116bring to a universally like UCLA it's imperative that we continue to move forward and you have a lot of people in the community who can provide their expertise in different areas um including myself having been an undergraduate um with political science and Chana and Cho studies um I commend the the board for moving forward on this and anything that I could do to support and help you have you have my support thank you we moderator we are GNA stop for a a translator um translator switch sorry I forgot Dan are you ready to make the switch yes go ahead [Music] okay that switch has been made thank you moderator next commenter please the next com is from Mora Ryan hello can you hear me yes we can thank you hello my name is Mora Ryan
117donu I applaud the board superintendent kumura assistant superintendent Guzman and director Evans for moving forward with a proposal for an ethnic studies program for Santa Rosa city schools it's a crucial area of study long overdue whose addition can only benefit the whole of our community so yay uh however in reading the PowerPoint slide defining ethnic studies it says that the quote field of study focuses on theoretical and political questions regarding the social construction of categories of race ethnicity gender sexuality class and nation and mentions that quote ethnic studies pedagogy humanizes all people by honoring the cultural wealth of historically underserved groups by critically analyzing systems of Oppression unquote while I certainly understand and agree with an emphasis on race and ethnicity in an ethnic studies program to also include the underserved oppressed groups of gender
118sexuality and class in your definition makes me beg the question of why disability was excluded graduation rates for people with disabilities are considerably worse than those listed in the presentation I would ask the board to study and review the work of Douglas Dr Douglas bainton regarding the history of how disability itself was used as a justification for inequality and to oppress people of color and women historically I will forward to the board one of Dr Bon's articles to illuminate this if the goal is to hear people's real stories to educate one another break through barriers and quote Empower students by expanding the curriculum to include stories of joy and cultural wealth so that all students understand the full histories and contributions of all people close quote then I would urge the board to consider the
119inclusion of stories of people with disabilities as well thank you very much and I'm very pleased to see this come about thank you Mora thank you our next comment is from ever Flores hello um can you guys hear me we can all right so um as someone said my name is AR flotes I've been the Atlantic director for the last 20 years the Atlantic program serves you know migrant populations throughout s County and I just want to say that I I truly applaud the idea of of implementing the plan of an ethnic Statics program making ethnic Statics an integral part of K12 schools makes sense in Santa Rosa as our city is home to a large and diverse student population I believe students of color account for over 55% of SATA City Schools given Santa
120Rosa's grow diversity it is especially important that students learn about the various racial and ethnic groups in our own city as an immigrant and personal of caller myself I believe it's important to Dem marginalize the history of historically overlooked populations I fully support the adoption of the ethnic study uh plan as proposed tonight and thank you for doing this and thank you for listening thank you Mr Flores our next comment is from Emma Zavala hi good evening can you guys hear me yes we can thank you to everyone that is here um uh superintendent K uh Dr Costa um and everyone from the panel my name is Emma I teach Spanish for Spanish speakers ATA High School I've been there 15 years I came here when I was 10 I didn't know English and I
121see my my kids I see myself and every time every year for the past 15 years they've always asked saana how come they don't teach classes for us and I've always asked them what what do you mean to teach a class for you and they always said we want ethnic studies we want something that we can relate to we can say our stories you know not just tell you that you understand but we need to tell it to everyone and in my class every break and lunch every year for the past 15 years I've always had a range of kids from A through Z with disabilities non- disabilities Native Americans African-Americans Latinos you name it the kids come into my class for some reason I don't know what it is but I'm always grateful to
122see them and they're always they're they're eager they're hungry for for answers they have questions they have ideas they have comments they have everything that they just want to say it and it's okay to say it in the class and not be judged Jud and not be questioned and not have anything to do with you know being afraid they want to speak they want that they're hungry for that and I'm so grateful that this is happening now for so many years it has started and and for some reason it hasn't gone past anything so thank you so much to every single one of you that had put all your efforts into providing this and I can't wait to be part of it because that also includes them and includes me and includes our Latino latinx
123and our parents our community this is what we're here for this is what teaching is all about so thank you Miss zala I want to thank you for your service uh I hear so much about you from parents uh and students uh your dedication your ability to connect kids um so as much as you thank us I I I turn it right back on to you and thank you for everything you've done thank you thank you Emma and the next comment will be from Tim zanardo hello my name is Tim zardo good evening superintendent kidura president Fong Board of Education assistant superintendent director Evans Dr Costa and president lion I want to begin by thanking the board of education for its ongoing service to our community especially in the current times first I would like
124to speak to the board as a director of teaching and learning in Santa Rosa city schools I want to recognize the hard work of my colleagues and peers on the ethnic studies committee most importantly they have been unwavering in their commitment to engaging students with pedagogy and curriculum that demands that students can't help but want to speak back to both secondly I want to speak as a parent of students in our district the belief and ethnic studies curriculum embodies the board's Mission Vision and priorities in Practical daily classroom practice most specifically priorities one three and five it helps youth develop self-loving and aware identities thank you for that finally I want to speak to the board as a community member and as a middle-aged Caucasian middle class male ethnic studies encourages students to engage with
125familial local indigenous and culturally Rich epistemologies so their lived lives are interwoven in the curriculum if student engagement is increased by all measures as peer-reviewed inquiries into the positive impacts of ethnic studies show then such support will only enhance and engender Student Success in a through G coursework these two things are coraly and inextricably entwined as said tonight ethnic studies I know I have 15 seconds increases empathy and allows us all to interrogate and investigate The Human Condition with more Nuance more cultural competence and more humanism than would otherwise be possible This truly strengthens individuals so we may all become in the most essential ways truly interdependent healthy loving and a whole human Community thank you have a nice evening and I surely do hope it ends before the official beginning of morning thank you
126director Tim and our next speaker will be Greg Hower uh good evening can everyone hear me yes uh good evening Dr keura and school board and cabinet this is my second week talking I don't usually come to you guys this often but um I work in state and federal programs and oversee our migrant Education Services first I am very supportive highly supportive of this initiative I did attend the crush workshops this year and found them thought-provoking and extremely useful while ethnic studies is not yet implemented there are two programs which culture and ethnicity are highly visible ever FL talked about one our adante program and also our elementary school migrant education program um so there is an elementary aspect to this someone was talking about that earlier this year uh because of the co we're
127uh specifically doing fourth through sixth grade and I just wanted to talk about our migrant education program is Under the Umbrella of what we call the state Service delivery plan um underneath the state Service delivery plan is a piece of cultural awareness and development and we have that in there as a way to build self-worth and self-confidence each year we have a bational teacher in these programs and this bational teacher is usually from meakan Mexico and they teach with us and provide activities relevant to many students home culture unfortunately this year we don't have that so as principal Diaz and I were start starting our migrant Ed Ed program this summer um I sent out an email talking about the cultural piece encouraging people to use inesh um and the importance of incorporating a cultural
128piece to our program we are only on day two of the program and I've already seen it um so part of what I've seen is a unit on meso America and also an activity on work dolls which come from Guatemala um it's a tool that helps students with anxiety and we also have a teacher that's planning on doing a Mexican dance with the students as well migrant education truly believes in implementing activities that build from and serve to validate students home culture 15 seconds thank you today um together these Foster a sense of belonging and community that lead to P lead students to persist in school despite the many obstacles they face our strong partnership with migrant education primarily due to my role being that of a liaison between srcs and migrant Ed will very
129likely serve as an important tool as we move forward with an ethnic studies curriculum and program thank you so much Greg how many students are being served with um migrant summer school the fourth it's less the summer um so we've got about 46 and we are very determined to have 100% participation today I was delivering materials to four of the homes and fifth grade was only missing one kid so our our our attendance is really it's getting close to 100 per. thank you keep up the good work thank you thank you Greg for your work our next speaker um actually is only identified with a hashtag so if you could please state your name for the record when I allow you to unmute my name is Andy marafield can I am I being heard yes
130you are okay um I'm an ameritus professor of political science at Sonoma State and I'm also a member for the last Academic Year of the ethnic studies committee as a community member um during my nearly 40 Years of teaching and higher education in this community um including 30 years plus at Soma State I had a lot of excellent students um but two of the very best that stand out for me were two women of color one was an Asian-American re-entry student who hadn't attended school since she left High School 10 years earlier and she took two courses from me at the junior college before getting accepted at Welsley uh where she graduated with distinction um another one was a Latina who would grew up in this area and attended the Santa Rosa schools um though
131I think she made a horrible Mistake by earning her PhD at Berkeley in history she should have stuck the political science um she is now an assistant professor at a major research University in latinx history um even though these two women were absolutely brilliant their knowledge of their own ethnic history was somewhat disjointed um as a member of this committee I'm very familiar with this that this is a concrete intentional disciplined plan as a first step to address the abstract ideals of equality and justice it will be beneficial to every person of color from those at the top of the academic ladder to those who need more help it will allow students to see themselves in their place in the world more clearly understanding their massive and too often ignored seconds it'll also help all
132the white students as well let me just finish by saying despite the horrors of the pandemic they can't be used to negate the longer horrors of racism that is so clearly put life through a white privilege lens so don't let any proponents of this is the wrong time or the status quo or preservers of white privilege using a shock Doctrine to say this is not the right time for those people there will never be a right time thank you thank you professor next is Asia luk good evening is my audio working yes it is great thank you so much good evening members of the board and the Santa Rosa city schools Community my name is Dr AEL aduk I am an associate professor in the school of education at Sonoma State University I have served
133on the srcs ethnic studies committee for almost three years along with fellow SSU and srjc colleagues through the committee's diligent review of successful ethnic studies programs ac across the state we have learned that strong and consistent collaboration with higher education Partners is a key factor to producing the positive social and academic outcomes identified in the research and uh that were shared in director evans's uh presentation I would like to speak in strong support of this proposal and to inform the board of the commitment of the Sonoma County higher education Community to this important work if approved I Envision a continued partnership that includes research with rather than just on teachers and students robust professional development to ensure well-prepared and well-positioned teachers and the co-creation and possible co- teing of dynamic and intellectually rigorous ethnic studies
134courses furthermore I see the possibilities for an ethnic studies authorization or perhaps even a standalone teaching credential at the state level which would provide additional opportunities for collaboration between the district and the university community I am proud and honored to be a part of this work and its potential to improve and enrich the lives of Santa Rosa students for generations to come thank you for your time and consideration thank you very much I appreciate that thank you for being on the committee next is Gabriel and Gabriel if you could state your name for the record before you make your comment yes this is uh Gabriela how are you can you guys hear me yeah we thank you uh well notes good evening I'm Gabriela principal at LC Allen High School and parent of a San
135Rosa city school student uh I want to say that uh I want to appreciate the statement that you all made in the beginning of this meeting uh the last time I felt that move was back on November 6 2012 when President Obama was elected so thank you for that I I really refreshing um it is my privilege to voice my full support of the great work that the committee has done I've also been in full support of being uh a graduation requirement I've been on this committee since the beginning with sister Eliz Evans uh I remember when there was only four of us uh and it grew from there uh when Dr aosta came on board I really felt that we were getting some credibility and our voices were starting to be heard uh we
136still have a lot of work to do still need to make sure that we have training for teachers recruitment of teachers with ethnic stud backgrounds and the passion to not only deliver instruction but feed the young minds that will be that will be in those classrooms and create the next generation of activists uh yes recruitment of educators of color is also of utmost importance as well I want to give a Sur props out to our one of our young activists uh and when I say our uh C City schools that will be on the board starting in August LC and high school student Omar Lopez who's already doing great work uh by doing his research connecting with students teachers and board members prior to even getting on the board uh I'm so appreciative of the
137board and our cabinet all of your voices coming from different perspectives is so important I'm going to give a little bit of a compliment here by reaching into my hip-hop Background by saying that all of you are like the members of the wuang clan if you don't know about that Google it or check out the Hulu series it's it's it's great uh the woo as are commonly known came was a group of many diverse voices coming at you at once and really changing the game as they change hip hop that is what you're all are doing you're changing the game and that game is changing the culture of Education in Sonoma County by creating a light that 15 seconds by creating a light that begins to honor our students Malcolm X once said we need
138more light about each other light creates understanding understanding creates love love creates patience and patience creates unity and right now we need all of that so thank you muchas gracias I applaud the great work that you do and let's keep it going thank you principal Gabe thank you so much next is Isabelle Lopez I'm is Lopez I'm a product of the adalanta migrant program member of this ethnic studies committee founder and director of a community organization RIS Collective which was created intentionally to empower people through AR Cultura because I didn't see my values reflected in our local education or any programs in my community you say you want to reflect back black lives matter in the curriculum you say you want to respond to the injustices and contribute to Community Health you say you want
139students and Community to co-create and have strength to speak up well then you will have to start advancing ethnic studies as a graduation requirement including decolonizing the curriculum you have the power to do some of that today this is the time to be bold listen to the young people speaking out Against Racism the ones thirsty to know the truth of the roots bold to me is seeing the police getting defunded and being and those funds being redirected to education and into Community this is the right time thank you thank you thank you and next is Melissa de hi all can you hear me yes hi um I actually want to reiterate what was just said um by Isabelle Lopez um I'm a new special educator at North Valley school it's a non-public I know we're
140not a part of the district but we do model our actions off of srcs schools um and so I had two comments the first was that um I am so excited uh about this program being implemented and the anti-racist work being done um in order to decolonize our education systems and pedagogy um but I also wanted to reiterate a comment earlier about the need to make it accessible for all students in including disability in the intersectionality of this narrative um I am a special educator and I am excited about this work but I also want to make sure that this curriculum and content is accessible for my students um I teach students with their disabilities primarily being emotional and behavioral disturbance and so a primary concern of mine is teaching um in a trauma informed
141way and I want to know what the framework would be for teaching this kind of um thing which is you know involves so much heart and so much pain and so much history through that trauma-informed lens my second comment is that of earlier and I wanted to recognize director Medina's comments on the need to radicalize and Empower our students um and ask you all to question this statement that you made earlier about the8 can't weight campaign and that many cities across the US with violent police forces have already adopted the eight can't weit campaign with little or no effect there need taken and that means terminating srcs contract with the police if the board is actually concerned with the lives and the livelihood and psychological Wellness of its black and brown students thank you thank
142you Melissa moderator do we have any more comments this is the last call for comments any other comments on item E1 please raise your hand the next to speak is Herman now he is gone so the next to speak is Manny Morales uh good evening board and thank you um Dr damura um and board members also for this opportunity to speak um I'm a restored specialist uh currently working at Cook Middle School and Cesar Chavez Elementary School or Charter I'm sorry um and I just wanted to weigh in and and um talk about the impact that um the opportunities for professional development have um have provided uh especially for me who um I struggled with um just continuing my my uh pursuit of of higher education um but also understanding um some of the conditions
143that restricted me and I can't help but but think about others who were in my position or who never had an opportunity to pursue higher education for different um circumstances and and and abilities so I really want to um support what we're doing I also understand that we're so late in the game and I thinkk um I thank uh director Omar um for bringing that up because this has been um an ongoing movement to try to implement and try to get this um Foundation started in our district um and I hope that we take action um I do think that if we're working towards changing the narrative and supporting um answer and resolve some of the injustices that are happening in our community it it starts with our education and it starts with making it
144accessible um to our youth 15 seconds yeah thank you thank you for for this opportunity and I just want to say that I'm in full support of EIC studies thank you thank you Manny next to speak is Omar Gallardo all right I think I'm unmuted um yeah I wasn't going to speak I'm I'm here watering my plants uh but I've been listening to you all and it's really great to hear uh this conversation moving forward uh or I hope it's moving forward uh I encourage it to move forward uh thank you for you know I'm sorry to uh to skip over the the uh you know just the protocol of uh acknowledging yall but I'm pretty excited of what's going on um thank you all for for actually dedicating the time to actually uh to
145to to to bring this forward I just wanted to share a little bit of uh you know U it the conversations have reminded me of what inspired me to to just stay in school and continue on to higher education I was handed a a a book uh a copy of Vita Martinez's 500 years of Cho history in high school uh by a student uh from from metch at Sonoma State University and I think from there I started just to just to get that different you know history uh the history of of of my people and just de started develop that that that self-love uh for myself and and to try to you know try to push my be you know my best and do my all uh uh in order in order to you know
146thinking about my parents I think every child out there uh could have that opportunity why because there's along the way uh into CA State University and and eventually you know getting my history history degree uh there was there was obviously There Was You Know mea but also California minior who has Pro which has provided so many you know teachers that are in in the district right now and throughout Sona County uh there's a well I think it's sometimes overlooked the program is overlooked uh on how they can contribute to this I think I have through that through that program I was able to have uh you know that connection back to my community and and and offer what I what what other Educators had had offered me the atan program was was crucial to just
147me staying alive um and I you know I I I you know that's kind of what inspired me seconds because I think that uh you know Professor mananes F nin were were crucial in in in just you know keeping me uh off the street and pursue my higher education please explore those those Partnerships in the community and and don't overlook them I think they're crucial for for the success of these programs Omar thanks for listening in and commenting next to speak is Maria agui hello this is Maria Aira can you hear me yes yes well I'm just jumping in um but I'm so excited I I couldn't just say watching the discussion I many of you might know me from my five years of interpreting for special services and now I moved into a new
148hat as a special L teacher working at LC Allen and um I'm just so excited to be part of this effort because um I have um been entrusted with four classes and all my students were mainly Latinos Latinas and um one Vietnamese and two Native American students and I would love for us to have a curriculum that speaks more to their identity and their heart and who that brings them into their empowerment but also into the respect for all the cultures that make this great nation so um I'm excited I hope that we can promote a program that is creating um creating relationships not just switching from who's on top and who's on bottom who's the victim who's the perpetrator but we can break all those limitations of language and really move into a Multicultural
149Society that can work together can live together in peace and in also relationship with our dear Mother Earth which is also part of of um of the picture here so thank you very much for this discussion I hope we all move forward together and Count Me In thank you thank you Maria next is Herman G Hernandez Herman are you unmuted Herman are you there well we'll probably have to go back to Herman can't hear you right now next is Ronald Lopez oh hi this is Ron Lopez can you hear me yes hi my name is Ron Lopez I'm the department chair of the Department of chado Latino studies at Sonoma State University where I've been teaching uh in that department for the past 15 years I've been participating with the committee uh to develop the
150ethnic studies uh uh proposal for this meeting and and um I fully support this and I would like the committee to to be fully aware that myself and other members of my department and other departments are fully behind this effort we're willing to contribute uh our knowledge and expertise uh and I I speak both for myself and for some of my colleagues who I know will also help uh I completely support the the introduction of ethnic studies into Santa Rosa schools my children also attend and um please let me know in in whatever way I can be of assistance or can contribute to this effort I applaud you all I respect you all I'm so privileged and grateful um to be part of the community uh and and to be able to work with all
151of you in the great leadership that you're demonstrating thank you thank you very much and next we're going to try Herman G Hernandez again hello hello hello can you hear me can you hear me can you hear me can you hear me I can hear you all right that was so weird and really frustrating at the same time I felt like I wasn't heard very similar to probably the feelings that our children of color are feeling when they're going through our educational system my name is Herman G Hernandez and I am full I am in full support I was so excited um that this was on your agenda and I really do want to also commend you um and and I agree with uh brother Gabe from LC Allen High School your guys's opening to
152this conversation was inspiring I got goosebumps and I really really appreciate the unity that was felt and the authenticity that was felt from each and every one of you but one of the things that I um Elizabeth knows how I feel about this I share uh trustee Mar's frustration or just comment of why is it taking so long why are we still talking about what are we going to do and forming all these committees but I've um if if one of the things that I want to mention right now uh is if you've never gone to the California Latino Schoolboard Association uh you should definitely put that in your board professional development that is where I first heard Dr aosta speak um about enlaes as well about ethnic studies and his and his battles in
153Arizona and that was almost four years ago and that has inspired me I had no idea that this whole realm of Education existed but some of the things that I've learned over the last four years of going to that conference is there's lgbtq history class that's a a through G women of color literature for English a3g environmental justice for Science a3g History Cho CH theatro that's an elective a through G Folklorico Dan and culture a through g Hip Hop if we had hip hop history when I was in high school I may actually pay attention when I went to school so without anything else being said I appreciate what you guys are doing but please let's get this stuff going because it's been way too long thank you thank you Herman and next is Katherine
154storl uh good evening board of directors superintendent kenura thank you all for this opportunity to speak on this agenda item um I am Katherine storl principal of James Monroe Elementary School in San City schools and I have to say my most important job is I'm the parent of a 14-year-old who is a rising sophomore at Montgomery High School um and thank you board I want to applaud you for entertaining adopting ethnic studies across sers City schools and I want to Echo some things that I heard earlier that ethnic studies really starts in the elementary schools and I can see that natural bridge between ethnic studies at the secondary level and our newly adopted CCD units at the elementary level um but tonight I just want to speak as a parent of a 14-year-old Caucasian male
155um in these past few years I have seen him struggling with processing social and institutionalized racism that he Witnesses is daily um I discuss this with him regularly and challenge him when I see his views shifting to include racial biases but let's be honest he's in an age when he doesn't want his mom's input he is at a developmental stage where he is craving this type of input and frankly mind expansion from other trusted adults and his peers um I remember being a student at San roah high and having the privilege of taking um Asian studies taught by EMT O'Neal and he chall chenged us to question our frames of reference and to confront our own budding unconscious biases and those lessons stick with me today I deeply desire that for my own child and
156all of our children um so in short I wholeheartedly Embrace sers City Schools instituting ethnic studies across the board let's work together to build empathy agency and acceptance and I am so honored to be a part of a district making these moves thank you and next is Amanda Morrison hi everyone um thank you Dr kidura and the Santa Ros City Schools board I'm uh like Ron Lopez I'm one of the ethnic studies uh professors I'm part-time at Sonoma State and uh thank you to Omar Medina for giving props to the work that I was one of the members and then chair of the task force of the education Justice ethnic studies task force with North Bay organizing project and we as I recall it's been years now we met with every member of the board
157and I'm looking at yall now and it's a lot more diverse now it's a whole through and that is good to see um I remember at the beginning of our struggle we had had a screening of precious knowledge featuring Dr aosta and there was a big turnout this has been a long struggle so I kind of want to uh Echo Omar that this that that's the context of struggle um but it seems to be it seems to be flourishing now and I want to ech Echo Dr Ron Lopez we just had Margaritas before this meeting and we were both like Hey we're in if you want to um train K through2 teachers we are down we have local expertise and knowledge and I'm really enthusiastic about that I work at srjc as well and they
158have no ethnic studies at department at srjc it's so frustrating and so in that sense you all are ahead of the game I'm usually a cultural critic and a little bit of a downer but I'm feeling really optimistic tonight I also appreciate the curriculum that's um going to develop around um statistics for social justice I think math is one of the biggest areas of inequity and oppression for our students and we have some local PhD level professors of color who May 15 seconds who may be available to help you develop that curriculum that teach at srjc that's another uh Resource as well as the model of Napa Valley colleges um partnership with uh with with the local high schools they actually have the Community College um offer ing the ethnic studies classes at least maybe
159in the beginning in the high school so that's something you may want to explore and I'm happy to help you explore that thank you thank you president Fong there are no more hands raised at this time thank you to all our commenters it's really obvious that we have a lot of support um and a lot of people with a lot of experience and a lot of people at uh our other institutions who are here not only on the committee but ready to weigh in and and help all right so I'm going to bring this back to the board for our discussion and um who'd like who needs to say something okay I will say that uh first of all Jenny had her hand up glori oh yes sorry thanks Dr camura a director close sorry
160sorry Jenny that's right thanks president Fong um thank Dr Kima I um I'm G to I appreciate going first I'm going to go off video after this but I want to make sure I got to talk about this on video um and I I really appreciate all the work um that's been going on with the crush and and the report today and um I'm going to be pretty short on this and just say yes you know we need ethnic studies embedded K through 12 um I want to acknowledge the callers today we had a lot of great personal comments and that really helps um acknowledge the um the comments made by Herman g Who reminded us that there can be all kinds of a through G courses um around ethnic studies and and also around
161other marginalized groups and and the caller who thank you reminded us to uh think about people with with disabilities in our discussions and and plans so thank you for that now I think as you if you're a board Watcher um I think you all know that I'm a big believer that when civil rights uh issues or matters of racial Justice are an issue that this is a board level policy issue that we have a moral duty to eliminate structural racism and create Equitable access to opportunity uh whenever we can um and so I think this is one of those situations now on one point I I disagree with director Medina tonight and and that said he said that he couldn't remember any board Direction on this going back and I been on this board for
162a while and I can tell you that there's been consistent board Direction since I've been on the board in 2012 saying we need ethnic studies we need ethnic studies and and the administration goes out and I'm not sure what happens but I think that it's met with some resistance um and and then we get sidetracked by something um and uh like fires or or or or something else but it's met with some resistance and so I think that this is a time where the Board needs to kind of push the pace and really support the administration and in the work that it's doing um and and our teacher Champions out there who are who are working um now director Medina is correct that there's been no vote and I'm hoping that we can vote on
163ethnic study soon and I'm hoping that could be even a little bit stronger than what I think is presented here tonight um I agree with director Medina that this needs to be a graduation requirement um we need to acknowledge that most of our graduation requirements right now could be classified to some degree as white male studies um and we need to change that so uh I would um we need to push the pace on this and I think the only way to do that is to say this needs to be a graduation requirement so I would support um setting a realistic date to create a graduation requirement and then it adopting most of what you have presented to us here tonight um but kind of changing that timeline walking backwards from implementing a graduation requirement
164um which is of course I think director McCormack um mentioned is going to require bringing on a student advisory um group sooner um and getting getting students involved in this so that those are that's you know I love the work that we're doing but we keep talking about this we have been talking about this for eight years the seven and a half years that I've been on this board not to this depth um but you know and so when that happens I think it is incumbent on this upon this board to say we need to create some policy that is going to ensure that there is change and the the the real strong uh lever that we have is a graduation requirement um so I would support that and and the last thing is that
165I want to just acknowledge that from what I've observed um what I've actually witnessed I want to acknowledge that k6 teachers have been doing a pretty bang up job injecting some ethnic studies and Multicultural studies on their own for a long time without any specific policy without real specific training and support and I just want to acknowledge that and just say how much stronger that can be when we say this needs this is going to have to be a graduation requirement so we're going to make sure that our students are working on it from uh the the moment they step on our campus and it's embedded in everything we do those are my comments thank you for your work thank you director close and I know you'll be listening director Medina hey thanks again um
166well a few things well so much to say uh quickly following up on uh director close um the the proposal that I have that should be coming up at our next meeting is is for graduation requirement to take effective with the class of 2025 in line with AB 331 um so I just wanted to provide that Insight um following up on some of the comments from the speakers um I think that there's a lot that I heard about you know resources and people that exist in our community um a couple that I'd just like to to add I think Roberto Ramirez was a math professor at s State he he thought uh you know uh May in math um he taught nante for a long time he's a amazing math teacher that I think we
167should definitely um reach out to if we haven't already um at as RJC Dr Brenda food Hawks has probably taught the most impactful uh psychology of racism and gender a class that I've ever experienced you you you got to reach out to her um but a lot a lot of my push has come from my my time as a student activist and and agism has always been one of the things that I've I've I've uh kind of fought against and I think when we teach ethnic studies one thing that I think would be core to the development of our curriculum um you know ever since I I I learned about kind of the banking concept of education and apo's pedagogic of the oppressed you know that whole deposit withdrawal model um you know countering that
168and realizing that teachers are just F facilitators in this discussion and recognizing that every student is a teacher and every teacher and every student is also a student we all have something to offer we all have something to to to teach and learn from each other and in the text of ethnic studies I think that is where this is most important and ensuring that that in in Core Curriculum development that that's the component that's clearly cited and referred to I think would be something that I'd really love to see and um I know uh Isabel Lopez was on and Omar Gallardo were on and I think in terms of I think of you know F requirement visual Performing Arts uh we have a lot of uh valuable programs you know I think of with Omar
169Dan shant you know azc dance one of the few ASC dance groups that we have in our community um with Isabel Ra's Collective um those are programs that exist but but I'm curious as to how we can incorporate that into some sort of um program and or class um since obviously you know th those aren't people that are credentialed so I think finding ways to to create courses that include some of those programs or some of the rich um education that that we can get from those programs that exist in our community would be something that I'd also like to see um so that that's all I just wanted to say thank you thank you director Sheffield thank you um again um I really did appreciate hearing from the uh the speakers and public comment
170uh just giving their support behind this um I want to reiterate that there however we move forward with this that we do it correctly um that we use all the resources that are available at our disposal um that we we give it the commitment that is needed um and um that moving forward we need to do it with you know despite distractions that come up um you know some of the speakers and director close talked about how long this discussion has been been going but you know again with the which was pointed out again the makeup of this board I think clearly we have um the best interests of our students in mind um so I just want to make sure that when we do move forward that we are fully committed we are looking
171at the resources we are looking at the dollars and knowing that you know despite any distractions we need to keep moving forward the momentum is here it's building um I also want to talk about um the student Advisory Board um proposal and I I just think that student feedback is really really valuable and and I I know that the the the the timeline um we have this years out but I I just think that we need to have the student voice um be a part of however whatever we're putting together in curriculum um and it needs to be you know the full scope we need to talk up with students at the elementary level the Middle School level definitely and the high school level so I would really like to see um part of the
172student Advisory Board the voices that are represented from from all the grade levels um I I I think that they can also you know we can we can survey what their interests are um and how relative the curriculum the courses that we're putting together are to them um um I I also want to stress the curriculum at the early grades um I'm glad to see that we do have a a timeline for that um I I I think at the early grades because it's closer to me obviously um but the timeliness of this proposal and moving forward I just don't know how else we're going to explain what's happening right now to our kids um the youth that are protesting they have you know as Dr marfield pointed out many of them have had to
173educate themselves because they didn't learn their own history um they didn't learn it in school um and they felt lied to and cheated and a lot of this is coming out in the messaging um that we're seeing as part of the black lives matter movement um um I think for our kids sake we need to give them the critical and analytical tools that they um need to help them rationalize complex issues like economic inequality like um blatant and subtle acts of racism deportation and uh detainment and unjust treatment of immigrants uh incarceration of people of color SE ISM homophobia uh differently abled um and on and on and on um I am very much looking forward to our next discussion on this Omar I am just I you're doing so much you you you come
174with such you know wealth of knowledge and history and your own background um your proposal I think you know I just applaud you for for pushing this forward with with you know um a policy that has teeth in it a resolution or whatever we're going to see come forward in our next meeting um and again just that we continue to move forward despite uh disruptions and distractions thank you thanks Ed uh director DEA Cruz I'm gonna turn off my video so that I don't lose kind of functionality here um Omar I want to start by kind of repeating some words that you shared during last meeting that have stuck with me in such a deep way um that I think really reflect the power of this of this teaching um you said that you know
175our culture is our shield and that it gives us a context to understand the ways in which we're being treated and knowing that it's not something that's against you as an individual person but allows you kind of a community context and an understanding and a connection to people who are more than just you alone is a powerful source of protection and strength and I you know I take that idea and I just really apply it to the ways in which ethnic studies creates that powerful sense of protection and allows kids just as you said director Sheffield you know a deeper understand and an intellectual understanding of their lives like their daily lives um so it's more important than ever that we move as fast as we possibly can um president lion with much respect there
176is no time to slow down and I think what we need to do right now is figure out how to really Elevate and empower the people who are ready to go and set them set them free going forward ad um this is not a zero sum game this is not a disinvestment in something else this isn't a critical investment in a foundational understanding for our kids to succeed and for all kids to understand how we're going to live together in a little bit more peace than we are right now um as I say that I want to start with people who are ready to go now I also want to acknowledge the additional work and the burden that that always puts on people of color specifically on women of color um to lead and to
177push um and to change culture and their own institution and to teach their colleagues um and to have to explain and find resources and share them and and I just I just want you to know that we see you and that I'm grateful for that additional work um that you do and I know that you're doing it um Prince I I literally have never received a greater compliment than to be compared to wuang and I see what you did because you just let a fire under all of us to truly like be I don't know to be to be able to claim wuang like in this moment is like exactly what it is that we want to do is to really Elevate the power of this diverse set of voices that um I'm so happy
178to hear kind of there be this unity and this consistency in the way that we see this importance for our kids and their education um so yes to graduation requirement yes to being consistent with legislation yes to being a leader in the North Bay yes to being a leader in this County do we lose you alria I think we did she can chime in again if she needs to other board members okay I will say this grateful to the committee fantastic committee Stephanie was that you go yeah really quickly I'm sorry um I I just I Echo a lot of what's being said um so I don't want to repeat a lot of it um I think that the I think that as a board graduation requirements is an amazing way to really strengthen and
179and really solidify and institutionalize ethnic studies in our district um and I'm also like as the conversation is going I'm also thinking of other ways that us the board can can continue to strengthen that and to see you know to to have policies that really reflect the work that's being done um and so I'm just kind of thinking through the value of some sort of resolution or or something um in our in our board policy that um that really says that we're going to um that we're going to um not prioritize but to ensure that the stories of our indigenous people and and the lands and and the land that we're on and um you know our local communities um all of those things that were already said Dr Costa mentioned them when he was
180talking I know director Medina did too and director Theus all of those things like I would love to see that in some sort of resolution and for that to change in our board policy um like very specific but broad enough so that there's flexibility but just reinforcing that in our board policy Beyond even the graduation requirements noted Dr Dr director manieri uh director Medina I wanted to be a doctor the uh I just wanted to add kind of uh I believe uh the issue of the the student input maybe is something think is important and maybe Dr Costa I'm sure you're familiar with um this is not an idea that's new you know I look to the Cho coordinating Council on higher education you know in 1969 they came out with a document called Santa
181Barbara and there's a good model in there about you know what should be um in existence in terms of a program just like this and it's ensuring that there's uh community and student and the faculty and classified involvement in the assessment and success of this program and and um you know Will lion brought up the issue of of a metric for evaluation earlier and and you know I think of that document it has a a section called notes on meta and um it talks about self-reflection and and and to me that's evaluation in mbop one of the things that we always say if it's worth doing it's worth evaluating and so I think we we need to make sure that we incorporate that and one of the things that I think would be good in
182terms of assessing um where our students are in these courses is something at the beginning that evaluates where they are and then something at the end of the course so that you know and and these could be per questions that are tied to them and their self-identity and their understanding before and after because you know there's no State tests or anything like that on ethnic studies that I know of but I think if we could develop something that that could be strong and impactful um that also measures our outcomes and also ensures that we're improving our program we're ensuring that it's working effectively over time um if we could incorporate that into the program or the mission that's I I think it'd be valuable and it's something that I would ask for all right so
183I'm going to sum up what we've said and I will add my two cents as well thank you to everybody first of all the committee fantastic committee never seen such excellent work on a committee um and I really appreciate that SRTA has got a sub a task force on this as well I will say that I think it was a director Evans who said that it would it would take student and teacher interest and capacity and as principal we had many good ideas some teachers had many good ideas and then the teacher moved on or got transferred or whatever or retired and then that kind of really exciting class just kind of died away and so we got to make sure through all the different things that we're doing and thanks to Diane's leadership actually
184with unconscious bias and Museum tolerance and crush and everything that we're building a lot of capacity and we have a lot of interest so definitely student on the committee and student voice is really important um I also really want to urge us to make sure that this is a it's not an add-on that it's a com from and I've said it before it's the water we swim in it's the air we breathe and kids have to be active Learners um I spent many many um many courses at UC Berkeley in ethnic studies and I'll tell you what they weren't that dynamic because it wasn't it wasn't active participation it was just kind of read this and answer some questions and it was bad that was a long time ago and so we know that active
185participation by by Learners and Learners as teachers is where we're going so I want to make sure that we see that in this program so I want to sum up what we're what we've said so far I think in board members if we miss anything um graduation requirement as an as an action item for next board meeting is what I heard [Music] um in the board policy also um a resolution director manieri was talking about this specific Broad and flexible that's that's kind of a tall ask but something like that um review of the mission statement review of the mission statement was another the mission statement for ethnic studies um also was there a part about evaluation was there a request about that there is a part of evaluation um and along with what um
186director Medina said within the slides there is a slide that talks about evaluation and I think that the projects in within those slides that demonstrates growth um are far better than any paper and pencil test we could give and so I want to be sure that we don't fall into a trap of you know a traditional way of assessing rather than these beautiful formative um Pro projects for lack of a better word the listening for change projects those kinds of things the community service I I think is is vital um and that those be the measurements of success I remember stories from Dr aasta about his students and what happened out in the community with his students who had taken you know had been a part of ethnic studies so and I was my question
187yeah it was my question too about student advisory that um I talked to Dr Gan about that I'd rather have that sooner than later just my my um my my my my my preference um loud and clear about disability students with disabilities are differently abled and so um I think that that's uh something and and you know let's not forget about funding so we we will delve into that and the priority of that um I want to I was trying to tag team with you president Fong about what kind of a sum up and what I remembered through through the item um and and I have one more but I'm I don't if you have something else I wanted to go ahead and say it funding will always be an issue but if this is
188our come from and if this is in our lcap and if this is part of our mission and vision then we are going to make sure that this happens I think I finally stabilized my connection can can I just add in yes yes yes support for an evaluation tool that's developed by students um to really help us guide teachers um and to develop this this program I I was going to just share a quick story that you know we we fought for ethnic studies when I was in college and got you know what was at the time a second major um that was the victory was one too late for me to actually major in it but my sister 5 years later did did and recognizing that students lead and that student voice in this
189development of this program is so critical and so I just really want to Echo all the calls for evaluation and for student advisory and for student voice to really have a very central place in the development of the program okay I think we have it I think we need to close we need to change interpreters we need a five minute break but Omar would you like to say one last thing yeah I was just going to add you know earlier it was brought up that there was ethnic studies at sen High School I think in the early 70s and it was I think in 1970 that they had their first uh Mayo Club Mexican-American Youth Organization and and that makes me think that as we develop these student advisory groups uh try to connect with
190the existing uh clubs that may may exist on campus BSU Metra whatever it may be and have them be part of that yeah Omar Lopez our new um student he is so involved ready and is going to make those connections I I want to thank um director Medina for um bringing forward the policy uh the the I I shared with him that uh uh I think he's found a job together working with me on policy um he he did a fantastic job you did you did a fantastic job in the way that you laid that out and so I'm excited for the board to see that next time um the second thing the last thing I'll say because I I just can't not say this but this is also the opportunity that direct that President
191Fong talks about every chance she can get someone to listen to her and that is to not think about ethnic studies courses as a hundred- year old project they don't think about them in periods and rows and but think about them as integrated in within the way we do education and so the idea of we're going to take away courses to put this course in we we can't we shouldn't think about it that way we need to think about it much deeper much broader as an integral part of how we teach um so there do president Fong I said it for you you didn't have to say it and then finally I want to thank Dr Costa for being here tonight um and continuing the work with us together uh I I wish as I
192entered kindergarten that I had a um Asian studies class because I did not know who I was I thought I was Mexican I thought I was Japanese and I thought I was white I had no clue and it affected me for the rest it for a long part of my life so I thank you for that um and I we will um bring this item forward at the next meeting and I'm going to look at a resolution ver manary I'm going to see I know there's things out there that we can pull from and so um if I could invite you to maybe take a look at that and help me um I'd like that I'd like to let's take a stab at it thank you Diane thank you Dr aosta thank you director Evans
193uh assistant superintendent Gusman and Diane just to talk about who you were I thought I was going to be a black panther for a long time ages 18 through 21 and uh kind of worked out kind of didn't all right we are going to take a break for five minutes and while we're breaking uh we will be changing interpreters so see everybody back at uh 9:12 is item E2 we are President Fong this is Jen I'm also here just no video just just to make sure better so item E2 is a letter and resolution from the right School District regarding the closure of Lawrence Cook Middle School due to the merger with Cesar Chavez Language Academy AK Kaa Charter located in the right District's boundaries and I'm going to turn this over to Dr kidura
194to explain to us thank you than you president Fong um we did receive this um letter and resolution from the wri district um just to go back a little bit in time not not to the very beginning I promise you I won't do that but um as you all know that we the board voted on February 12th um to combine the two schools under a Kate Charter and close Cook Middle School with an amendment by director DEA Cruz regarding U boundaries Middle School boundaries um and so then um after that uh the covid hit and we were closed and things kind of uh shut kind of slowed down uh I will say though that the merger team um after a bit of time they came right back and began working um on program and and
195getting ready for um the seventh and eighth graders and so um want to commend them and thank them for that and so primarily what by bringing this forward number one I wanted to be very clear and transparent that this did come forward um and number two the a discussion from the board and some direction for the board um that can go in a lot of different ways um including what was asked to do in the original um uh motion which was to look at the boundaries the School boundaries and the Middle School um uh District boundaries um I think that uh from the uh email the um resolution and the letter um there came about some um information so to speak from the right District um around kind of the discussion uh around the letter
196and the um the um resolution and and just a second somebody's got their microphone on it's me it's Emmy Emmy with the bottle so Emy needs to exit left there she goes okay she's exited left with her bottle sorry about that so what I was saying was that um after receiving the letter uh and after it became uh public in the agenda uh then people there began to be some discussion around it um it came to my attention that uh there were some things that were said and the merger team I met with them after uh this came out and I just want to share how um very hurt they were by some comments made at the right um um board meeting uh you know me I get myself in a little trouble sometimes because
197I say what I think should be said um and I don't want to bypass this that me members of our community were um very hurt and very angry about some things that were said um and I think it's up to the right District to figure out what context those were set in um but what it did Propel me to do after meeting with um the merger team was to have a meeting with the superintendent of the right District uh Dr Gusman attended that meeting with me um because we wanted to understand a little bit deeper and to share that our community members of our community were feeling very upset by some of the things that were said so let let me start with um the the I would say maybe misunderstanding and and um I'm
198not quite sure where the information got lost because I know that Dr Guzman and uh Deputy superintendent Edson spoke with um the superintendent of right about something very specific that was the major issue for them which was priority enrollment for seventh and eth graders from the right District into the school and that uh why that didn't translate we're not sure but once we shared that with um superintendent Shel um he did not feel that the issues around uh the resolution for closing um the uh Cook Middle School would be an issue um that that uh that now that they know that they have priority that that was that's something that that Mr shyo believes we can work through and work out what is the bigger issue in all of this now is really around having
199an elementary charter school within the right element Elementary District BR boundaries so that's one but I think the bigger picture that that he shared uh the bigger issue that he shared and I appreciate his honesty uh about this is that um the fear of right District students being going to the Charter School um like all districts they are in declining enrollment the same as us um but their size is such that uh losing five students has a huge impact on them so um he said very frankly that that that is an issue um that they are concerned about that they get people going to their district office trying to enroll in ccla and so that creates you know issues for for them um so that brings us to here and that's providing the information that
200I'm kind of bringing you up to date on right now around the the um Charter uh I've also shared this information with the merger team um and in meeting with the merger team they understand very clearly now that due to covid and all that has taken place that uh the school cook midle school it's going to be another year before it closes um and providing the time that the board talked about back in February or after febru no February around the the boundaries around the different issues uh that um we can address uh as a part of looking at this this Elementary I can tell you too that the team has uh talked with um former board members they've talked with legal um trying to find out some history about some of these boundaries because
201what we discovered and I think some of you discovered was that right district is a K8 District okay so that allows them to have their Charter School their seventh and eighth grade Charter within their boundaries without having to come to us for permission in digging further what we also found out is that um our Elementary District is also K8 as a district we are designated as a K8 what we also uh discovered is that we are designated as a 512 in the secondary District so legal council is looking at all of those scenarios um in with regard about how we move forward um and luckily you know we do have some time 2020 three is when the charter is up for Renewal um and so uh that that is certainly something that gives us a
202bit of a a time frame to be able to explore all of our options um and I think that um I think that's I'll turn it back to the board now for questions and I know there's probably some direction that the board would like to present to us I I would say at this point if we could keep it and think about it through a policy policy lens um I I I think that's going to be in our best interest um just not knowing kind of what direction we're going to go uh and what the response could be from the right District I my advice or my my recommendation is let's keep it at the policy level as as much as possible so I turn it back to the board for questions um I see
203director Medina's hand up first thank you um so on the them being a k to8 us 5 to 12 and k to8 um I I you know again I know that that that information comes from the CDE profiles on the on the you know that the state has but but I'm curious when it comes down to like the legal um you know like the stuff associated with ab55 if that's the actual reality or if there's something different I would like to see you know the the original charter for um right and us or or where that's truly defined um because I really don't think that that information is accurate um with that said I think you know listening to what they said in their board meeting and looking at what they wrote in their actual
204letter and policies I think Omar a lot of contradictions Omar we're gonna keep questions I want to have questions public comment discussion okay was that your your question do you have another question um well the first question Dr Med the first question was around the actual write up in the charters did I get that right correct like is that are th is that information just from what is on the California Department of Education profiles or is that the actual legal um stance this is a k to8 district for like you know the charter of right right okay and that that is one of the areas we uh addressing with legal okay other questions director MAA I'll save it for comments I I have a question president Fong hria yeah d uh superintendent kidura can you
205tell us when like what the timing is of legal getting us that information um uh Deputy superintendent did you get a time frame from um our legal council I uh as a superintendent say we are working with them I expect to have uh further conversations this week and next and hopefully we'll be able to provide some of this uh or this information requested uh probably within the next board meeting or two okay great thank you um to um director Dill Cruz and director close there's a a rais hand little button on the side if you click on participants and I'll look for your ra raed hand if you don't want to verbally butt in when somebody just just use that all right so I see no other questions and I'm going to moderator do any
206public comments yes I do see a hand that would be Jill um I just want to be clear on this so according to this letter and resolution that right unanimously passed uh they would not approve approve of Us closing cook and hosting a charter in their District but are you saying that once it was explained to them that the right um District students would have priority getting into seventh and eth grade they're saying that this resolution that they passed they're going to overturn that you didn't know that um superintendent sh didn't know exactly how they would handle the resolution ution part of it I'm going to leave that to him about how they back something out or or whatever but he said it his words were that um since that is the case that the
207neighborhood children would have priority to the school that they would not that's not an issue about not closing C about closing cook so he's saying that they would approve of that happening they would well they can't approve or not approve of it but of cook closing well and then approving the ccla charter no no that's separate they're not GNA at this point they are not going to approve a when when we put it in for Renewal they are not going to approve it but they also are not now but now with the understanding about their seventh and eighth graders have priority to cook ccla their their resolution around opposing the close of cook is what they would pull back on okay director Medina did you have your hand up again uh no it can go
208yeah keep going it is 9:30 can I have a motion to extend our meeting move to extend the meeting to Mid second all those in favor say I well have aoll call vote I doesn't have to be roll call I okay I I I hear six and I say I okay Jen says I we moderator do we have any public comment on on this agenda item we have one hand raised for this agenda item uh Xavier Nazario good evening board can you hear me yes my name is Xavier Nazario and I am a parent representative at CER Chavez Language Academy and an original member of the ccla cook merger committee that has been meeting for the past two years I am speaking in response to the right letter we would like to clarify some of
209the misunderstandings that have been discussed by the right school board and administrators first since the mergers committee since the merger committee's Inception we've been charged with the challenging task of merging two schools with different cultures together while increasing expectations of all involved we are halfway there we have embraced The Challenge and and recommended to the board and District staff specific enrollment language that prioritizes neighborhood students in seventh and eth grade these are students who currently live within the cook boundary we do not plan to turn them away we want these students and we look forward to them joining our family second ccla is not interested in growing at the K to6 level we are interested in quality of Education over quantity we have a bilingual teaching sta teacher Staffing shortage in our County and state
210and we have faced challenges at Staffing additional lower grade classrooms lastly while the cook campus is a truly shared campus we do not have space to grow without a large capital investment from the district that is not a reality in the district's current and foreseeable budget Outlook third when our srcs board voted to one in favor of closing cook and creating a TK through 8 dual language program led by ccla the main concerns were the impact on ELC Allen High School we embraced LC Allen and now they have a seat at the table on our merger committee we are inclusive we teach culture we teach love we teach pride in speaking two languages for example our plans in seventh and eighth grade are to provide rigorous courses where it is appropriate for newcomers uh like
211Spanish for Spanish speakers how amazing is that we hope that this letter will not be a distraction to our core mission to be one school with one Administration TK to8 under one culture unfortunately we have to wait until 2021 to make this happen but we are eager to do what we can to partner with all Educators parents and Community stakeholders I know that we are under a very challenging situation due to covid-19 but we are a transparent and passionate group of leaders and we would like to invite the board members and Leadership staff of right into our home ccla to tour our program if we can't do it physically we are happy to meet remotely and answer any additional questions they may have last but not least we need the help of our elected officials
212and District staff members you all we need your help in communicating and advocating the great things on the horizon for ccla and cook once we have merged please reach out to your colleagues at other District and be proactive in spreading the work we are doing thank you CE pu thank you Xavier for all your work president Fang um the next comment is Anastasia toar Rose good evening board members thank you president Fong thank you superintendent K Mara I feel once again we're running around a circle that is not continuing and this is getting very frustrating and I feel like I'm false adopting again my children and we're moving forward to almost adopting them and then we get pulled back and we're not adopting them so like this is like continuing same conversation that you know
213we don't hear the truth the truth is not presented like like we need to know facts why is this District putting up a wall against something that is positive that is needed on the west side of town and once again more reason why we should have one school district in this city and it's just frustrating to hear that you know it's once again miscommunicated and like who is miscommunicating to these people like Diane you're you have a great team like for me it's it's is it that team that's not communicating to these people that you know something positive just what Xavier just said it's like we have this great thing that is being done and like we run into another wall again it's like when is this going to stop like these board me you
214board members like true like reach out to these people tell them that you know this is great and we've already voted on and it needs to happen this circle needs to stop continuing and it's just it's frustrating as a parent to like you you take 10 steps forward and then you're just exhausted and once again you're told that this might not happen again so I I see up we we need to make this happen I like Diane your team needs to step up and you guys need to communicate to everybody that this is the truth and this is what's going to happen it's already voted on thank you thank you Anastasio and there are no hands raised all right with that it's open up to the board for discussion and as Diane has requested that
215we stay on policy because that's where we live and that's where we need to be and um too many moving parts right now for us to solve this tonight Omar um first I'm wondering if I could ask a question um and I don't know if maybe Xavier could speak to it um but I'm curious as so in terms of Outreach kind of what's what's being done that's maybe um that's potentially been a part of parents going to write asking about um enrolling and ccla like can is there something going on that could be done differently or can can we hear about what's going on with with that dran can you I'm sorry you my my internet connection was poor can you just ask the second part of your question again uh director Medina Outreach sorry
216Outreach for the right Community or the right School District to to the to the School dist yeah so um as part of the merger committee um uh members of that committee went to with um communication through the superintendant through uh uh Dr kidura went and made presentations at um the diff different feeder districts that feed into Lawrence Cook Middle School's attendance area about what was happening for this next year with the three different programs um and so that's how that Outreach had gone on um had gone to different doors had been able able to um be able to have those conversations with those different districts because R isn't the only School District that feeds into that middle school when the um staff went to do the registration for kids in for the sixth grade um
217was there also parent well there was the parent Outreach meeting but was there any specific parent uh Outreach um after that or around the same time as the registration I don't know the answer to that I can get that back you know as soon as pretty much after all of that Outreach took place then Co happened and then sort of everything stopped so um but I will say that you know we even when we presented to the board in February prior to us going into shelter in place we were very clear that students who lived in that footprint would get priority it it's also in our the PowerPoint it was in there a couple of times and then um Anna and Rick met with um uh superintendent chable yeah um in January because I was
218on medical lead that's how I remember it um and at that time it was indicated that it would be a priority that the right District would be a priority and so we talked to superintendent Shel about that um that we told kind of like we told you in January is right also it's past practice I do want to say that when um Fremont Elementary closed and the Arts Charter was erected it was written into the charter that students who live within that footprint would get priority for the first three years and uh can can we also hear from Xavier as a parent from the parent from the merger committee on this would you like me to allow him to talk pres please thank you thank you Bor I it's a little bit um challenging and
219it's been a moving Target when it comes to being able to do Outreach um you know with the delay our the the board item was was approved in February and and like you all mentioned covid happened soon after that um and then we were delayed a year you know we're not merging we're truly not merging until fall 20121 so it's challenging to go out to the community and say we have something new fresh and and exciting when when it's when we're not there yet and and so we have a plan um we are going to go out and do interviews on bilingual radio stations we plan on leveraging all of our resources as soon as we have that window of opportunity to know that this is happening and that we're not turning back what we
220don't want to do is get the hopes up of our community that we are transforming this school and then for some reason like this it' be pulled underneath us under underneath underneath our feet so we're just being cautious before we do a full out marketing Blitz um we have parents that are very passionate about going out and spreading the word they have been doing it already but until we have that final confirmation we don't feel comfortable that we can go out and and truly and truly advertise and advocate for um for what we know is the right thing which is a TK through eight and and go out and and uh recruit those seventh grade six six fifth sixth and seventh grade students so okay go ahead go ahead so what you know it's good
221to hear that because I think in the the item on the agenda is you know what is our response to this letter right and my initial thought is you know we we need to continue with our plan as we have it you know we need to um allow ccla to to become what it's meant to be and and I know that it will be something beautiful something successful something that will definitely um add value to our community and and offer a great education to our students um I think at obviously this this letter of their intent uh does nothing now it tells us oh well you know we won't approve it you know two years from now but I think that uh from a political perspective if we build something great great and beautiful that
222the Community Values then they would have to you know deal with the political backlash of trying to break something down at that point in the future simultaneously um I think this is just another uh example rationale for why we need to consolidate the their main concern if you listen to what they say um and what's in the letter they they seem to contradict each other if you listen to their comments in their board meeting right um so this and and I believe in in terms of their existing responses the only concern that they have is their enrollment figures which means that it's about money this isn't about student education and educational outcomes it's about money for them it's it's that business model which you know to me ultimately what's most important is what type of
223education a student is getting and you know whether it's their District or our district to me ultimately what's important to me is the education that our students are getting and so I think that this should just part of our response should be to follow follow up with the consolidation um the move towards consolidation um you know I I tried to follow uh the model that uh Steve hertin mentioned at our last meeting but everything that I'm looking at um whether it being the Department of Education or state Ed code doesn't seem to align with what um um superintendent Harrington's going so I'm having a lot of trouble and developing some sort of proposal or or resolution solution asking for that so I think um um we need legal help but I would like to see
224that come forward to us ASAP so that we can get that process started um because it's difficult to do it with with with nine districts um but I I don't want to go into what what those board members said or anything um but as we get more information from legal um in terms of what grades each district is you know I also want to have as part of our repertoire how we could respond is looking at the the right charter school which is a k eight and they have seventh to eighth graders that are part of a charter school um that to me are part of our district right so if ab55 is is what we're looking at then in my opinion um they would have to ask us to allow that to continue so
225I I think just having that as one of the potential respon resp es um because right now they have probably from from my estimates around 100 sth and eighth graders right and so they're saying they want cook but yet they they still have seventh and eighth graders so do they want them to go to cook or are they trying to have them there what what you know what are they trying to say so so those are just the points that I wanted to make and as it relates to response from us yeah I I I want to make it really clear um because I don't want that this to get yes in new sentence this to not to not get lost we have never stopped moving forward from a distri district perspective on ccla cook
226and and what that program is going to look look like and we've committed in a way that uh in a way that I think shows uh we believe in that program that is going to that's going to be there next year um we they they have seven periods a day um we that's the only school that has been allowed to hire because we found some wonderful bilingual teachers and bicultural teachers and so um I I don't I don't want I want the people to know and the public to know that we haven't stopped none of this has stopped us and none of it's going to stop us the playground is Rick can tell you I mean it's it's I can't even remember what step it is because I ask every day and so I can't
227remember what what but that's moving forward the the front part of it so um please know that no matter what comes up with the right District or whatever we're moving forward we are moving forward so uh Jenny close hi thank you president Fong um yeah I agree with Omar in terms of just moving forward and thank you Diane for clarifying that that that is what you're doing on the staff level and that's what I understood um I I think we do need to just move forward people vote with their feet and um if uh if lots of students in in in that area come to ccla and I anticipate that they will um that that's going to be a uh a program supported by the community and and that that might be um the impetus
228to uh to move forward with consolidation on right which which actually would be you know an easy District to consolidate with um because they're mostly Charters they can go ahead and and continue to operate with sort of nimbleness and autonomy that I think they've enjoyed and that has have also made them successful right actually has some really great educational outcomes and I I've actually brought up right several times in our board meetings before as as um some models for us in terms of their Elementary program so you know I think we move forward with that I am heartened to know that you know the way things have turned up is that we do have uh this extra year um be before there's cook closes which is what I was advocating for in the beginning beginning
229because this is and this is the thing that I I would like us to bring back and start talking about very quickly and very aggressively is that this is an opportunity to look at redistricting our entire District our our uh middle schools and our high schools together this is the opportunity to do this this is um this is a game Cher and an opportunity to to uh desegregate our schools to um to change the boundary line stick with with enrollment caps um you know put some real strict um uh guidelines and and restrictions on interdistrict transfer um and and that to me is the number one biggest game changer we can do in our district uh in terms of equity um so um or maybe in combination with our ethnic studies program so that's you
230know part of this um effort in terms of moving ccla I think also needs to be um us right now really soon pushing hard on on um redrawing boundary lines which we'll have to do when we close cook um I think there's some opportunity with right you know there could be some negotiation um based on what Omar brings up with the right Charter um uh that's a win-win in terms of allowing basically some variances um by our different Charters um potential for Co consolidation um I also just want to acknowledge I did listen to the or watch the board meeting um a few times actually and I do think that there's some um you think there there's there's a call for for some of us to talk to some of the right board members and
231I know that I'm going to be reaching out to one in specific and and maybe more and um and also want to acknowledge that um that board and and sort of some of the sentiments that were acknowledged I don't think are really reflective of the the uh staff there at the right District um I was surprised by the sentiment there um um but uh but I do think that that uh reaching out to the board members would be a good idea so um I say full steam ahead with ccla let's um let's lead on that let's um and um and and kind of work the the right District thing at the same time in parallel as well as pushing on uh redrawing boundary lines um to uh the benefit of our of our entire student
232body I am not seeing any other board member hands I see EDS Ed Ed and alria um I I Echo what my colleagues have said I appreciate hearing um their comments and um I'm also glad to hear our superintendent um talk about the need for moving forward I think we owe it to the ccla Cook Community to um put all the resources that we have available whether it's legal or political or otherwise um to keep this going um we can talk about what ultimately needs to be done um which is redrawing a boundaries absolutely and consolidation um but in the meantime I think our signal to our school Community is that is that we are going to continue moving forward regardless and director De La Cruz I echo my colleagues Echo the sentiment that we
233are moving forward that we have been moving forward I want to thank parents for their patience um and recognition of their frustration that every time we turn over a new rock there's a new bug underneath it um and that is that is the job that we have in in front of us is to keep you know um seeing those challenges meeting them and moving forward um dror close I would love to join you for those meetings with our colleagues um because I do think that there as as um Xavier nadio mentioned there's a there's a there's an opportunity here for us to talk about what it means to develop a shared understanding of our culture as a community that goes beyond boundaries of districts um recognizing that we have shared students um and that we
234have a shared dedication and a legal responsibility to make sure that those students and those parents know that we see them and that we're here to serve them um and that we're about creating community and creating um a positive understanding of who we are um so I just want to thank parents um for continuing to give Grace and to um not lose hope um something that my grandma always used to say hope is what dies last um and so I'm just grateful for your continued dedication um to this issue and know that we are here with you and that we are working for you um and for our kids thank you director uh director McCormack um for the sake of time I just want to say that I strongly agree and Echo what all of
235the other board members have said so far and just um a little shot of encouragement to the ccla community and the ccla cook merger team um the reason why is is so hard and so exhausting is because you're doing something truly Innovative creative and timely and anything that is really worth doing and really represents a change is going to be very very difficult and met with a lot of resistance so keep pushing we support you and um yeah let's get it done so I will close by saying this that um thank you to the ccla team and um this is another example of us Santa Rosa city schools teachers administrators board trying to do things that we know to be correct for human beings that are progressive that are for Equity bumping up against status
236quo for the last 2,000 years 150 years and we can't we can't allow this to stop us we have to continue to move forward forward I I throw my hat in the ring with supporting ccla and cook and I would um I'm also working on the consolidation issue I'm talking to some other school districts and the actually all of the county trustees including Dr Harrington so whoever whichever board member wants to connect with me on that let's work on that there was a report done a long time ago it kind of fell dead in the water we're going to resurrect it and see what happened there were a lot of a lot of barriers as you can imagine and so I think Diana I'm going to ask you to um I'd like to reach out
237to the board members of the right district and have us sit down with just a few of us with a few of them and just have a conversation and again like I said at the beginning of the meeting it is to listen to understand we're listenting to understand yeah um yes I we oh director Medina has something director I following up on what you said said in what I said earlier I think on this District consolidation thing I think what I would like um is can we work with legal to get an official resolution you know to the the um superintendent Harrington um by our July 22nd meeting can we have a resolution presented to us and be part of our AG of our agenda then so that would be my ask I know we
238can't vote on anything right now but um we need to put a time to it we need to make iten happen and so my ask is let's get it for that meeting and I think you know we've got over a month to work with legal to develop a resolution to get the process started so that's what I would like to see you're asking for a resolution to our County Superintendent of Education that he begin to look at consolidation of the explore consolidation of 40 districts or no no just nine my idea is the creation of a Santa Rosa Unified District right so that's only nine districts right not all 40 so not the county just us yeah Diane think will uh we will uh engage legal council in this um to to begin this process
239so I I I think that um also Rick can you say what's happening with the front playground just because we have an audience and I'd like it to be public yeah I I know construction is well underway uh the update that I received uh this afternoon although brief because of other meetings going on uh was that the the parking portion of it uh was uh I believe ahead of schedule uh and expected for for major movement on that by the end of next week uh and then turning the attention of construction uh back over to the playground side but I will have um more updates uh as we move along uh this just started last week officially with the with the construction portion of it uh but they are moving they are moving quickly thank
240you there there's there's one other thing that I have to say or it would I would be remissed that the Innovation that's moving on into the seventh and eth grade um is really being led by Dr Vicky xans the principal okay so I really want to acknowledge that and she can't do that alone the cook teachers from almost day one have been so supportive of this change and and I think it's important to acknowledge that and remember them along with um ccla that the cook staff has been phenomenal around this and uh been a part of the merger teams and and I want to thank Katherine who's a Katherine how who a teacher there for reminding me of that um so publicly I do do want to thank them as well Jenny close has your
241hand up yeah sorry about the second comment but I just um kind of coming back to the consolidation issue I like Omar sort of um what Dr Harrington um has said about consolidation hasn't squared with my my understanding of it I did some research on it and also talked in depth with the clerk reporter and and um and who did research on it for me and it it seems there's two methods and it seems actually much simpler either you know the boards agree or we put it on the ballot and by signature and um so I I just um let's just make sure that that we know what what we're talking about there and that we we don't take somebody else's word for it um I want to caution against I do think we do
242need to ask for some kind of report on the economics of it but I want to really caution us about um putting our argument eggs in that basket um there was a big report done I think Lori that you referenced this um by Dr Carl Wong Dr Harrington's predecessor and um and that report said that this would not save very much money um and in some in some districts it would it would not save any at all and um we could talk and that's basically because everybody's wages need to at every position are going to come up to the highest wage because nobody is going to take less than whatever is in their their current contract so all staff wages come up across the board and and that's great for the staff um but it
243doesn't save a ton of money um but there are a million other good reasons to do it and right now in this Co time this is the prime example like us going back to school coming up with 40 different uh plans to come back is absurd especially when we're looking at we're going to need to be making Transportation changes we might be looking at Outdoor Ed to help us and and that matters in geography so that to have these overlapping districts is uh is just makes absolutely no sense particularly in the city of Santa Rosa and there's lots of educational reasons which um you you all know but I I think it's really important that we start talking about all the other reasons why consolidation is important um because and be prepared for the fact
244that if we do an economic study that it might come back and say this isn't going to save you any money but still have all the other arguments ready to do that and and to be thinking about that now I think we have to be careful because 2023 is going to come up very soon yeah I I mean we we need to be um ahead of that game far earlier than 2023 um in my opinion um um when we unified uh at Twin Rivers what was the grant District it was it took 10 years and uh if I'm right correctly uh Rick can help me on this and it only the reason it finally took place was because because of Daryl Steinberg um when he was in the legislature he had to take it upon
245himself and champion this with all the school districts around um the grant District the elementary districts around the grant district and that was really the I think the Tipping Point for it being able to pass um by ballot that is correct yeah the legislature helped with that he he took it on himself he he championed the cause and talked all the districts around into that this was the way we needed to go or the district needed to go director matina actually just following up on on Dr kidura statement is that and looking at all the laws I was thinking that maybe a state level thing might be something that would be better something specific to to us within the Ed code right because I've seen seen model samples of that within the Ed code of
246of stuff like this happening so um just because of how complicated it would be to given the the way that I've seen the law written to to put nine districts together right so I think the the state model might be simpler um but but the other thing you know just given this this letter that we got today I think I also wanted to really acknowledge the the work that principal Rebecca roacha has done um and she must be going through with uh having to handle all this back and forth with ccla parents and and I think she's done a good job at you know trying to manage the all these obstacles that we face so I wanted to recognize and acknowledge here thank thank you for doing that Dr M I was just gonna say
247that as well so thank you for doing that okay I think um president Fong we have a long list um of things that we'll be bringing back and beginning to explore and talking to Legal about [Music] um it may be it may be a wise or maybe uh something you could do president Fong is maybe reach out to U mayor Steinberg and get some get some ideas and help from him in terms of what process he went through specifically with regard to um consolidating and helping I mean it was a long process I I do know that um and it was the grant District was the high school district and then it was surrounding Elementary District all around the grant District so yeah you you know the last thing I'm gonna say on this everyone
248is that I really appreciate uh Diane and her team for doing this because the heavy lift right now of course is reopening schools and Athletics and and all of that and uh our buildings and this is another one so um the bandwidth is there's only so much bandwidth we get that and everything's priority so thank you you're welcome and and also we get rocks thrown out us now at County meetings so wait wait you get rocks thrown at you County meeting I have culture as my shield bring it okay okay I love that term I love it Santa Rosa culture even okay thank you everybody uh we are on action item E3 student information system update transition approval of contracts for the next two school years thank you president uh Fong can we promote Rand
249van dijk please to panelist are you there Rand I am there oh good evening good evening president Fong superintendent K members of the board uh tonight we're bringing uh for forward for approval uh the contract for AR student information system uh as some of you may recall uh some four years ago or so uh we embarked down a path of replacing uh our previous student information system echool plus uh with a more mod version of that uh and unfortunately uh earlier this school year I during the summer there was a formal announcement that illuminate education was discontinuing uh support and their student information system uh starting in the 2122 school year so uh with that uh we want to give a little bit of background through presentation uh talk about the selection process uh originally
250and how that impacted moving forward uh or bringing this forward for AR's student information system uh with that I will share my screen is that up for everybody I see it rick can you just let us look at it while we change translators yeah absolutely so moderator we can change translators now or Melanie thank you Dan are you ready to switch Dan are you there yeah sorry I was having trouble unmuting because it was in full screen but I'm okay now you can switch thank you here to go not quite it's been uh finished it's complete so going into this uh we just wanted to uh make sure that that there was a full understanding of what a student information system is to a school district uh and it really is where our most important
251student data student data is stored uh it handles registration Master scheduling uh our state reporting which generates uh our funding along with uh transcripts report cards and grading systems uh to name a few uh as well as our portal for parents to uh view what's going on in their students classrooms and Grading uh so when we started the original process uh we really took it from an evaluation of our systems and what we wanted a student information system to do for us at the heart in the center of the screen as a student information system as it stood before we transitioned to illuminate uh knowing that we had a lot of uh one directional data pulls or pushes uh that fed many other systems uh desparate at times without coordination of data and that was
252something that we really looked uh in a product to to bring forward at that time and and ultimately the selection of illuminate education um one of the key things that we wanted to do was move that system to the cloud uh and and move the hosting offsite uh in order for continuity and also for ease of access uh from virtually anywhere with an internet connection uh to allow both Parent Access teacher access and student access to to the system uh and we were really excited about that and continued to be through our continued development and implementation of the illuminate product um with their um uh announcement it caused us to scramble uh to find a solution that still continue to meet those needs uh in the same manner or possibly even better uh and that's
253where we are at tonight I'm going to turn over to director man Dyke to discuss some more of the background and the process moving forward thank you Mr Edson so um for those of you that went down the the journey with us it was um a pretty intense search we implemented uh what illuminate officially calls isi but what is commonly known in the district as illuminate we we uh as users refer to it as illuminate but we're going to have to divorce ourselves a bit from that terminology because it becomes confusing but we began our search in the spring of 2016 we gathered a comprehensive districtwide committee uh everyone from teachers administrators uh classified other clerical staff we did a high level evaluation uh with some mus haves it needed to be cloud-based as Rick
254said it needed to be browser and computer agnostic and that limited the number of choices that we had to look at ultimately we did an evaluation of three systems that was narrowed down to two systems illuminates isi and we also looked at Aries Sis Sis stands for student information system and illuminate named theirs illuminate student information just as a uh the FYI so illuminate isi was the selected product which is what we've implemented and they gave us the um in my mind the gut-wrenching news that effective fall of 2021 they were going to discontinue their support of of and development of isi they were going to continue with other products that they offered DNA what is one of the products that we currently use as is the um inspec test Bank database uh we also
255use um educ climber by illuminate education so there's some other products that we continue to use and will continue to use so we looked at um what was left in the the uh student information space and that would be the next slide please Rick so we looked at what was remaining in the student information space Aries was still there um some others that we had um decided against reviewing still were present some had been gobbled up in fact our previous system had been acquired by another company the the one that of which a a name we don't use so in doing that we looked at um what what was left and available and how it compared and Aries really came out to be on top still in terms of what was available so we we
256brought the gang back together in December of 2019 we invited everybody that had been involved either in the implementation or selection of illuminate education we laid out the the pros and cons of uh other systems that were out there and it was my Department's recommendation to the group that we go forth and negotiate with Aries and the committee members that were able to make the meeting in December and a couple that couldn't make it uh they all said yes let's go forward with Aries so I began conversations with Aries and illuminate education my goals were um try and minimize the cost as much as possible have two systems that were parallel and available to us I have no uh stomach for doing double data entry so that was another musthave and it would give our
257our folks time to to learn the new system figure out what training was going to be needed in the new system which pieces of the old system were going to be seamless for teachers where we didn't necessarily need to do new training uh and we kind came to an agreement part of um go ahead and go to the next slide please re part of what illuminate Ed has done on their end and their decision to discontinue their student information system is they wanted to have a more seamless integration with the remainder of their products and they have um they have formal agreements with Aries and another another company to to really work on that in that seamless integration and I have been told by both sides of the equation that we'll log into one system
258and there'll be a link to the other so other than some changes in the appearance of what they're seeing they should see our teachers and other users should see a fairly seamless inter integration of the two functions so for clarity we are going to continue to use illuminates isi for the remainder of this school year and next school year the 2021 school year we're doing all of our scheduling in it this year we will do all of our scheduling in it next year we will continue with online registration in illuminate Ed for for the next year and I can't emphasize that enough because there's there's some out there we've been so casual in calling it illuminate it's really the SI product that we're going to continue on the use of continue and then terminate in
25921 so we'll continue to do attendance we'll continue to use the grading functions all the state reporting reports are going to continue to be created inum in illuminates isi for our needs and in fact the report in isi is is really a report in isi and DNA and that's important because uh with the Aries and illuminate integration are the expectation is things we've written today in illuminate will continue to work after we've transitioned to Aries as our student information system of record uh so isi is going to continue their support through the through the end of the year one more emphasis school year ending in 2021 so that's uh we'll click over on August 1st into areas um we're going to begin our data integration as soon as we have a signed contract we'll we'll
260start flipping the switches that'll give the student information system folks in my department an opportunity to to get their hands into Aries and and really kind of get messy with it and figure out what the pros and the cons really are because you never get that in a presentation and we will begin our conversation with teachers and other staff as to what training is going to look like so that we can Implement training somewhere beginning of the middle of next school year but we will have access to Aries full-on access to areas for all of 2021 at a reduced pricing uh actually at all I would say almost free they're not going to charge us for the use of but there's some setup stuff they need to charge us for in training and illuminate has
261agreeded agreed to cut their fee for isi in half for the next school year uh next slide Rick and that's this one so we'll begin our formal training as system operators in either July or August for now that will be webinar if we can do in person Aries will come to do inperson work with us so their their model is come to our site show us this show us the um steps that we need to know and we will also begin work on critical reports as an example um we do Post monitoring for uh redesignated students we want to actually have the the report that we've created in illuminate we want to know that that report either can be created in Aries or if it isn't going to be created in areas that it's still
262uh done through the DNA product because that's a day one we want to have that report up and running as an example we'll also use the Dual creation of reports to check that data is coming across as expected because no what I learned in the last time is nothing comes across as expected you think it does it doesn't on the districtwide training we're going to do A needs assessment make sure that we cover all the bases what um what things teachers are going to need where we need to supplement training where we need to do something completely new and different um and how we're going to support the student information the use of the student information system in general we'll create a plan it'll be shared we'll do some updates for the boards as well
263between now and the end of next school year and we expect to begin training the site in the use of alum in Aries the use of Aries somewhere in January or February we're mindful not to train to early because we know that they're not going to be able to use the system not be able to make changes but they will be able to get in and view things uh so we'll do training and then we'll have to be doing we'll have to also consider retraining so refresher training during the summer Andor right as school begins as well as Justin Time Training we're currently working on uh building into the tech Hub support documents for Aries rephrase that we're currently continuing to build support documents for I and we will then bring in the support documents
264that Aries has that are appropriate And Timely for our staff we'll have those available in our own help system so staff can find those items in a quick and convenient ma manner uh next slide so ongoing training plan um as we've done with classified and certificated staff with illuminate we we have to continue to to offer training for new teachers for existing teachers for new classified staff for existing classified staff so we will continue with that and the same for site District administrators we we have to continue with the comprehensive training so the goal live date the expected go live date for Aries for Santa Rosa city school student information system is August 1st of 2022 that that should actually be August 1st 202 thank you those dates have been floating around in my head
265all wacky that is correct poize for that error uh another thing I'd like to say uh before turning over for any questions or comments uh is one thing with going by going with Aries uh we also have a a different built-in support mechanism for Sonoma County uh with the majority of districts in Soma County using Aries uh sko also being a big provider of of tech support uh we have additional resources and expertise that we can call on locally uh that we didn't necessarily have with illuminate uh illuminate our our resources that we called on for other districts were spread out across the state uh Aries is I believe still the most widely used student information system in the State uh I believe there uh between five and 600 school districts so uh we're bringing
266a known product uh into Santa Rosa city schools and Rick I'll I'll add to that our team has already attended the Aries users group meetings at the County office and they're uh quite excited that we're joining that group uh with that we'll turn it back to the board thank you thank you very much if you would stop sharing your screen that would be good goad great and director Medina thank you um I would like to move that we uh approve the update and transition of the isi uh illuminate to the eies uh Eagle software suite um and approve Associated contracts as presented I'll second thank you that was director Medina seconded by director Sheffield Melanie may we have a roll call vote please well just just a point of order um we we can still
267have discussion if people have questions and stuff so I just want to make sure that that was clear no I had my hand up actually sorry with the hand function oh I'm in the in the dark I'm sorry ala director de Cruz um I I actually just had a little bit of what I feel like is a kind of a stupid question but I know that we had a lot of challenges with parents and specifically Spanish-speaking parents and parents who didn't have a ton of access to Tech um with the illuminate system and using it to enter in their student information and so I just wondered if um kind of Aries addresses that or if in the training plan we are including kind of training and capacity building for parents to the extent that they
268will use the system as well I I think that's a there's a a multifaceted answer there access to technology is one issue which um had we not been in Sheltering place in the last 80 plus days we would be solving in part by inviting those same very those very same parents to come into the school site and access the technology in real time with us side by side the registration forms that were created for online work were done uh in English and Spanish as a a side by side so a parent when they go into to do the registration could choose which version they looked at and we went through a lot of refinement in the process to make sure that the language that we that we had in the Spanish version was um natural
269and understandable to the general population so we've actually done a lot of refinement and learned a lot in terms of the process to support our our second language families especially the Hispanic community and through the course of of doing a whole online registration sites have learned a lot a tremendous amount about how to support families in in real time and in and in person the challenge that we've had and at the same time the benefit that we've had with online registration over the shelter and place orders is how do we help and support parents that still need that help and support and we're continuing to work on that I think think that's independent of whether we're using Aries Illuminator a different isi or a different student information system and those are ongoing conversations we have
270I would say very dedicated registration staff at the sites uh they they uh move Heaven and Earth to get a family registered they know the importance of getting that student into class as quick and as painless as possible if you will um so we're going to continue to look at that as uh independent whether we're an Aries District or an illuminated isi District excellent thank you so much for that I would also add to that director De La Cruz and for the other directors as well uh Rand Rand and team are also working on the roll out of parent Square um as a another communication tool that that naturally builds in two-way Communication in a native language uh example English to Spanish from from a teacher or administrator uh and the the parent can respond
271uh in Spanish and it translates to English for the administrator if they're not fluent in Spanish uh so we are taking proactive measures to increase our ability to communicate uh knowing that that's a real need uh and and that Tool uh will be available uh this summer with some initial roll out starting I believe towards the middle or end of next week thank you so much for that so there's a motion on the floor and it's been seconded uh it was Omar mardino and seconded by I think director Sheffield would you vote for us please Medina hi I Cruz hi MCC hi I president I thank you uh Rand vany thank you Rick Edson you're welcome you're welcome a lot of work that is a lot of work and I will say that these uh
272sis student Information Systems have evolved very quickly in the four years I've been away from uh a principal's office so the stuff that it can do now is amazing thank you all right we're moving to our last item for tonight uh action item for tonight and we are on e4 and it is a fiscal recovery stabilization plan part two and we are going to be hearing from uh Dr Kore and I think Rick Edson and maybe Joel can we promote Joel Dantes please yes Joel ising in good evening again president Fong members of the board Dr kidura uh tonight we are uh presenting the fiscal stabilization plan part two I am going to bring up the presentation so uh as we discussed just a couple of weeks ago at third interim and uh a month
273or so a month and a half before that at second interim uh the state of our budget and and where we need to be to go forward um as we've discussed at length uh there is uncertainty with State revenues uh with school district funding uh and uh you know I'd be remiss if I didn't say the presentation that we gave at third in was with the best information we had at that time and by Thursday morning that had changed completely uh with the Senate's uh and the legisl ultimately the legislator's uh budget that was in direct opposition to uh the May revision from Governor Nome so knowing that um we still had work to do uh I did add several slides in here so if someone is looking at this for the first time uh
274there's some context to some of the the reasons why we're going through this process uh but there are a couple of key items in the first couple of slides that I do want to point out uh very familiar slide we're now moving into budget adoption uh at the next meeting on the 24th uh we will be holding our public hearing uh as well as asking uh for approval for the 20202 21 Santa Rosa city schools budget uh this uh like any year uh there was a May revision but unlike any recent year of memory uh it seemingly didn't make a lot of sense and we were not sure which direction it would take once uh the legislature put their touch on it uh and sent something back uh so we're still waiting uh for the
275adoption uh by Statute the California state budget uh needs to be adopted by June 15 uh and there's a three-day public viewing period so we expect to see the majority of it uh minus some trailer bills potentially uh come out on either Thursday or Friday so if you'll recall from the um third intrum just two weeks ago uh we projected uh a negative 9.7 million in unidentified fiscal stabilization measures needed uh and negative 31 million uh over the course of the next two years based on the governor May rision uh it's important to note that because those are unidentified fiscal stabilization measures uh if the 9.7 is met with ongoing reductions uh the 31 million would be decreased to approximately 21.6 million needed in the 2021-22 school year uh and this is showing that we
276would be able to meet our uh reserve for economic uncertainty uh although that would be drastic Cuts uh to our educational organization fast forward to Thursday after the third interim report uh and taking uh what the Senate and assembly put together uh it now shows that there would not be additional unidentified fiscal stabilization measures needed in 2021 rather a $14 million reduction in 2122 so uh essentially kicking the can down the road but significantly less uh than what was projected with a May revision what we've added on this slide is that agement by the legislature and also uh for the current year adding our fourth year on to the multi-year projection uh at budget adoption on the 24th uh the 201920 year will drop off uh in 2022 23 will be considered our oute uh
277as you can see the $14 million is still there for 2021 22 uh and then 21 .1 million for 2223 uh same as I explained uh previously uh because they're unidentified uh those numbers are uh realized or shown in both years if the 14 million is uh found in 2122 uh then that number in 2223 comes down significantly uh for those cuts uh what this tells us is is uh with the projections that we're using uh coupled with the assumptions uh that we have been recommended to use from uh our key sources including School services casbo and fmat uh the future right now for Education funding um is is Bleak for the next couple of years and so uh we're still looking for help on that and we're still looking for a very short u
278recovery uh to the economy uh with jobs and other state revenues that directly impact uh California education uh in this scenario with those cuts identified we would meet our legal requirement for uh our reserve for economic uncertainty so getting into the fiscal stabilization plan part two uh uh if you recall in February we went through fiscal stabilization plan part one uh with the uh shelter in place and and distance learning uh enacted uh some of that work got pushed out a little bit uh but we have been able to reconvene the budget advisory committee again to go through uh through this process uh noting recent meetings on May 21st and June 4th uh with another one scheduled on June 16th uh the fiscal stabilization measures that we're presenting tonight uh equate to about 8.1 million
279over the three years knowing that we need to prepare for more in the event that state funding uh does not come in as we may or may not expect depending on what happens by tomorrow morning uh in order to be prepared moving forward so as a reminder uh the the budget advisory committee works with staff uh as well as submitting their own recommendations or suggestions for uh budget uh either expenditure reductions or Revenue enhancements uh those recommendations from the budget advisory committee are then forwarded to the superintendent uh who can either accept the recommendations as is uh add to those recommendations or take away some of those recommendations and ultimately is forwarded on to the board of approve board of education for consideration uh and an approval of all then or some for inclusion uh
280fiscal stabilization plan part one was included in the 19202 intrum report uh which will then carry forward to the 2021 budget uh the ones tonight for consideration uh will be incorporated for the presentation of the 2021 Budget on June 24th so as we go through this uh I won't go into great detail but be happy to answer questions about any of these between myself or Mr dantos uh on Revenue enhancements uh pg& our friend uh of power uh has offered us a deferral of up to six months on our PG obf program uh it does not cut months off of the uh the contract that we have for them for repayment it adds it on at the end but it gives us uh positive cash during that time period uh during this time uh and
281then also looking closely at moving uh summer school expenditures uh from supplemental funds into title funds uh as they had been previously uh the result of that with a total three years of approximately $1.1 million uh moving on to certificated Administration uh the action was to not fill the Ridgeway assistant principal uh or the split Elementary assistant principal uh for a three-year Savings of approximately $711,000 on classified Personnel uh we want to cap overtime uh based on the full year 1819 uh school year of approximately 620k uh cap that at 25% we know there will there is a need for some overtime uh for different things that come up throughout the school year uh but we want to try and minimize that uh as much as possible and reduce that expenditure uh item E2 uh
282the mild and moderate instructional AIDS uh currently we have approximately 28 positions that are open uh we are not saying to close these positions but rather realize budget savings uh now rather than at the end of the year uh and create a pool of these positions where the initial pool would be eight positions um and as those fill uh we would open up additional positions for the pool uh based on need uh these are uh in many times a requirement but are very hard to fill and often remain vacant for the entirety of a school year uh you can see through the three years proposed budget amount we are acknowledging that we will be able to hire some of these through that savings um and obviously if we could hire them all uh we'll have
283to make some additional uh recommendations for this money to find the same amount of money uh but we also don't want that money sitting encumbered uh and not being able to be counted uh for other purposes uh this part is other uh the first three F1 2 and three are uh contracts that uh we are not going to move forward with in 2021 or Beyond at this point uh we are putting a moratorium on all travel and conferences uh we're going to uh reduce books and Supply operating budget by approximately 10% uh and really looking at some of the money that we had previously budgeted for textbook adoption that may have not cost the district as much as originally anticipated uh and then uh assistant superintendent maera uh is looking at identifying students uh in
284sco or non-public school placement where we are already providing those services for other students in our district uh and bringing them through his processes um to put those back into our school system at our school sites uh with a estimated threeyear Savings of 3.5 million for all of the F items uh for on this slide I'm showing the total of these reductions I mentioned earlier approximately 8.1 million uh with 3.1 million coming next year uh 2.5 million in 2122 and then our new oute as of July 1 uh 2.3 or nearly 2.4 million counted towards that year at this point um as we move forward uh we still have many factors to prepare for including bargaining unit negotiations uh the uncertainty of funding in California for schools uh declining enrollment uh which is still plaguing
285us uh and we are concerned with enrollment uh as parents decide what they're going to do with their students for next year next year uh which includes uh our opening of schools with restrictions due to covid-19 and making sure our staff and students uh are are safe moving forward uh next uh as noted uh we are expecting the budget act to be passed by Monday the 15th uh shortly thereafter we'll present the board uh the 2021 uh budget as well as hold the public hearing uh right now it's still amazing to me the uncertainty that we have uh with what's going to come out of Sacramento uh KN there's a number of contributing factors to that uh and still the dependence on either the governor or the uh State Legislature uh their dependence on some
286of their funding tied to Federal Aid at this point uh which creates even more certainty as we move forward uh I would still expect um as we noted uh that California will have a major budget Revision in August and and or September uh which will make our budget revision irrelevant potentially as well if we don't have better information during our state mandated 45-day budget window uh so we're keeping close eye on all that uh and we will continuously update the board uh and our community at these meetings as we go through this um budget season that's going to be longer than normal with that I'll turn it over to the board for uh any questions or comments that either I or Mr Dantes can answer thank you all right I actually can't see very many
287people so I think I see Omar stop maybe so F first quick question um the you said budget adoption I believe June 15th is that um at the legislature and then it would need to go to the governor or is that like a governor signing it or or where exactly is that process that would be that would be the legislature and then uh Governor n has until July 30th or excuse me June 30th to either accept it reject it or line item things out of it and and have as there do do we know kind of where the governor is at as a response to this do we need to like maybe as individuals or as a board you know apply pressure or direct them to like sign this new budget since it is you
288know in contrast to to the original May revision uh it certainly could not hurt um any type of public assistance with that uh uh you know and he to your first question or or point the director Medina uh to my knowledge and I haven't received any information uh that he's tipped his hand so to speak in which way he's leaning at this point on a number of these issues I think that's part of the uncertainty that's going on uh between the organizations that follow this yeah he he there there's no indicator right now of what he could veto or line item well just on on that can we um assuming that by our next board meeting he hasn't signed it which I doubt he'll have signed it by then can we have as part of
289that board meeting on June 24th maybe a letter presented to us that we can as a board send to the governor to approve this new budget we we actually already have a letter um and the resolution from last time uh speaking to the dollars in sense and I think that's uh I I I think that's that's our letter so then the only other uh thing that um well well just for clarity so our our task today is to approve these revisions um to this budget right okay the only other thing that I think I would add is that um looking at you know what we're facing and I think we we definitely are going to have to look at you know our strategic plan priority seven right we need more Revenue um and and I
290think our private sector and our community is going to be an important part of that um I I did want to go back to um I think earlier this year I asked for us to review um our our action that we took as it related to on the establishment of foundation which you know I feel like it's something that we outsourced and um I think in in in that mention I I cited uh Education Code 4130 on a foundation fund that we as a district could have um so I I you know I wanted to see if we could bring that back um um as an item to review that action that we took last year in the establishing of that fund um to maybe bring something more internal um that we could have as
291a district um that is a part of um something that we as a district control so I would ask for that as we work to like you know develop these programs like ethnic studies and other things that we need in terms of ensuring the success of our students and the educational outcomes that we want um because this budget situation is not looking good for the foreseeable future um so yeah we we um and I can't remember off the top of my head but uh we did explore uh that issue um not issue that Ed code um and so Rick we can bring back that information and then director McCormick um probably time for maybe a report to the board on the um Foundation the the maiden Santa Rosa Foundation I'd like to call on uh
292director DEA Cruz who has her hand up thank you president Fong um I know like many of my colleagues that we've received a number of very concerned emails from parents about specific programs um specifically art Quest and kind of physical education and sports and um other um things that are typically considered kind of the icing on top of this cake um and so I just wanted to see if we could get some direction from staff about um and in line with what director Medina mentioned really relying on our strategic plan or making sure that folks know where to direct those kinds of concerns and attention um so I think we've gotten some direction that that is left up to school sites um to make some of those difficult choices as we move forward and so
293I just wanted to see if we could kind of receive a report on some of those more um nuts and bolts decisions as we move through you know tightening our our belts um and if you could share with us where best to direct people's energy to to advocate at for um those programs that are consistent with our our mission vision and priorities yeah I I think that there again um maybe fear and just all the talk about budget reductions um it had created some um uh generated the letters uh we have not talked about those programs that you mentioned art quest uh Athletics um because we we I mean I know this board is committed to it and and I am a strong believer in the those are the activities that have kids come to
294school um they they're you know you talk about what makes a difference of someone choosing Santa Rosa it's because we do offer those things and so uh it's not even on the radar I mean it's not that's not where we're headed at this point um who's to say what'll happen in the future but right now for next year um where it's not where it's it's not even I was surprised I was actually shocked that that came forward as something that people were fearful of or that there was a talk about that um if if what happens is that school sites will get their allocation of sections um based on their student enrollment and it is up to school sites to De develop a student driven master schedule and and what we keep pounding and preaching
295beginning with your most marginalized students first and building the schedule from there and so um that's one and one other adjustment that our district has gone through in the last seven years that I've been here because it hasn't always been student driven um decisions that create that um that uh master schedule and I think sometimes we have chosen to and we're the district has has been known to do this um prior to to me and somewhat somewhat some of the time with me here to be very honest um that uh we weren't listening to our students about their choices of courses and that we were funding continuing to fund courses that we're not filling and we can't afford to do that and we need to listen to our students it's the theme of the night
296um and so that is what staff is working on that is the training that Vice principls are have been getting um and where we're going to see problems with this um the board's going to hear about it because it's going to it's going to um attach to maybe some changes in Staffing just again putting it out there so um that's kind of where it I don't know if that helped explain dor director De La Cruz that it is site it really the site makes those choices and the district helps um them navigate the choices that they make uh helping them to remember um that students are at the heart of this and that the choices that we're making for courses should be based on what students need and want and especially our most marginalized thank
297you that's very helpful director Sheffield um I just also want to um highlight one thing that um Deputy superintendent Edson had brought up was um what is being proposed considered about the state pushing deep cuts down the road a few months and though even though we might have a promising Outlook in the fight that the legislators are making right now um in and what make might come out on on um on the 15th and what the governor might actually sign um everything is sort of resting on this uncertainty of what the federal uh proposed Heroes Act legislation um Dollars numbers that we're going to come up with there that's a a really big one um so you know we have we have one hurdle to get over possibly by the end of this week um
298and then we have the reality check of what things might look like when the school year is already possibly already even started so I just want to bring that to everybody's attention as well I I think also uh reminded me that um Mitch McConnell is going to be on the federal level is going to be the hold up and so any any influence you have on [Laughter] him for re-election you know laugh made you guys giggle um uh would be helpful um Mike fine the uh School Services executive director uh said the other day that um every school district will be qualified there just no doubt about it yeah with this fiscal so Santa Rosa is not alone doesn't really help the situation but there's going to there's going to have to be bail out
299I mean if you can bail out Boeing you got to bail out the school district districts exactly right know and why I you know I I I hate to say it but why not Kick the Can down the road with the assumption that we're all failing you know we're all in the red we're all bleeding so that's pretty much what Mike said that you know this is such a bigger issue than all of us sitting here because of the fin the financial um C catastrophe every district is going to face yeah yeah there's a thousand districts and right now I think there's well he named some number hundred and something that are qualified so we're going to go from 10 and something qualified and four negative to 1,000 qu no 900 and 900 qualified and
300100 negative well you know and this goes back to what I said months ago was that you know prior to financial collapse globally um that some action needs to be taken to send a real message to not just our legislators but you know the executives to our governor to you know our presidents and potential presidents that we can't keep treating education this way we can't it's we just we're not going to make it um yeah yeah Steve maero just texted me which you shouldn't be doing during a meeting education is too big to fail I was just gonna say that education is too big to fail so but see I don't think that I don't think that people consider that people don't think about it you know we're not the Chryslers of the world we're
301not the boeings we don't get you know we're not the banks we we just don't get the attention that is needed and and you know maybe it does take you know the the on the on the books failing of our system to highlight the fact that we're too big to fail yeah I mean I think it's gonna send a message when a thou when a thousand school districts are either qualified or negative yeah then they're going to change that law you watch they'll change that law but anyway can can I add just something real quick I think it's really interesting to to to your point director Sheffield uh and to this board you know because we were qualified at second intern we had to prepare a third interm report and to Dr kar's number There
302Was You Know roughly a hundred districts that were in that same position as us so in the course of the next couple of weeks as school districts have their public hearings and adopt their budget more and more information is going to be coming out that wasn't out like it was in Santa Rosa because of our requirement to do a third inum yeah so uh over the course of the next couple of weeks all these school districts are going to start posting their budgets online uh there's going to be uh you know the news media seeing that there's going to be different discussions at board meetings depending on what they've done to prepare their boards um you know I heard uh a school district down in in the East Bay is going going to report 47
303million for next year um which is just incredible amount of money uh that's coming out of that school district that's a little bit bigger than ours but but not that much uh and then one other thing I I have to take this opportunity um I want to just point out that Mr fine that uh Diane references the CEO of fmat oh that's right sorry yeah and sorry John Gray is the executive director of school sorry John sorry Mike just to give credit there so um sorry they all look they all run together to me all those financial people all run together so so a lot a lot to uh keep our eyes on as as an organization and looking at the impact that this is having not only on S Roa City Schools uh but
304the other districts in somoma County uh and Statewide at this point Point uh Deputy Deputy dog late didn't say it it wasn't me June 16th you have one more meeting I think for the budget committee what's what's going to happen what's on the agenda for that one uh well hopefully we'll get some information this week uh we have to look and really what we're looking for now um is if we get any uh information from the governor's office really about trailer bills trailer Bill language um flexibility in school days or School minutes uh that we can talk about with the budget advisory committee uh that's just our next scheduled meeting we're going to have to continue these moving forward and and and schedule them out for uh starting in July as well knowing that uh
305first interim report as it stands now is going to have to have significant uh additional Cuts looking not only at perhaps some more in 2021 but certainly in 2122 going forward uh and and giving us uh this time to do that work with that committee as well as our site administrators our district office administrators work with with all of you on the board uh to to make this work uh you know my best hope at this point is it comes in somewhere close to what the legislature saying so next year doesn't hurt as bad uh and it gives us that essentially that year to prepare adequately moving into uh 2122 yeah that's that's when it that's when it's going to really hit us folks is 2122 so so like the state is kicking it down
306the road so are we in I wouldn't expect anything less I just want to remind everybody that there's a ballot measure in November schools and communities first some Revenue that's possibly coming to the state and there's another one closing a loophole in um Prop 13 it's sponsored by the realtors that would be looking good for schools too so that's coming I think they're in the Gathering signature phase right now but it's really too bad that um we're having to locally Scramble for something that uh our state should take care of us better all right so this is an act oh sorry Omar yeah I just uh W to move that we uh adop the recommendations for Revenue enhancements and expenditure reductions for the fiscal stabilization plan part two for inclusion in the 2020-2021 budget a
307second um Melanie that was moved by Omar Medina and seconded by step Stephanie manier director Medina hi director maner hi director Dary Cruz I director shellfield I director McCormick I director close director close she's trying to get her unmute director close hey I I'm having airpods problems are do you hear me now yes president I've gone through two sets of airpods tonight because this meeting is so long for the record that was I George close and I say I so that passes thank you so much thank you uh we on consent items we need a motion for approval of consent items F2 through F1 10 move to approve consent items F2 through F10 second moved by Director D La Cruz seconded by director manary Melanie Director D La Cruz I director maner I director Sheffield
308I director McCormick hi director close put your thumb up Jenny director close hi oh wait okay we may have lost her I vote I uh director Medina I president phone got it I I'm here I sorry oh there she is okay trying to say I okay stay with us Jenny I'm trying um it's Tech item G approval of the minutes of the meeting H the regular board meeting held on May 27th 2020 I move for approval of the minutes of the regular board meeting held on May 27th 2020 second thank you that was Stephanie manier and seconded by Ed Sheffield manier hi director Sheffield I Director D La Cruz I director McCormack hi director close I director Medina I president Fong I are there any board member requests for information other than what we've already
309said before we close I'd like to give a heartfelt um best wishes to our executive secretary I think Administrative Assistant uh Lori kich I don't even know she's here anymore yeah I I went on I texted her to see if she was still online but I'm not sure if she is she can watch this video though so I'm sorry I didn't say it earlier but she has done a wonderful job she is um heading on to I would say Diane great greener pastures yes she has um re um been hired into a wonderful position with wonderful benefits and closer to her family and so uh we just extend to her our best wishes she'll she's not gonna get away I mean she's still gonna be around once in a while I think um but yes
310we wish her all the best in her new new endeavors well one advantage of Zoom is that you can be in any meeting from wherever you are right there you go there you go um I I also want to uh let the board know that the city council is meeting for the first time July 7th in the chamber and so it's very likely or maybe a very high possibility we'll be meeting in the chamber in our July 20 whatever that meeting is 22nd so just a heads up uh that might be coming down the pipe that'll be different yeah yeah yeah I want a hazmat suit everybody has to wear pants so I gave all my pants away okay do I want to prove it prove it by all stand all of you standing up
311right now no I'm kidding okay okay enough of this fancy fun thank you have a good night everybody bye everybody thank you great wonderful meeting great job a jour