SSFUSD Special Board Meeting - March 01, 2021

001bienvenidos is it's the state christina's gonna read the thank you vice president richard and richardson good evening all i would like to call the meeting of the south san francisco south san francisco unified school district board of trustees to order this meeting will be conducted pursuant to the provisions of the governor's executive order n3520 issued on march 21st 2020 allowing for the deviation of teleconference rules required by the brown act and pursuant to the order of the health officer of san mateo county dated march 31 2020 as this meeting is necessary so that the south san francisco unified school district can conduct necessary business and is permitted under the order as an essential government governmental function the board of trustees invites the community to participate in the meeting virtually um roll call please trustee baker

002president trustee murray you're muted sorry here vice president richardson here president lujan present thank you okay that brings us to the pledge of allegiance please surprise i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okie dokie this brings us to communications public comments may be submitted in advance of the meeting beginning at 3 pm on friday february 28th until 3 pm monday march 1st these comments will be read by all board members and have been read by all board members and are also posted on the district website under the 2021 board meetings page prior to the meeting to comment during the meeting plea well mr siam will shortly open up the raised hand feature

003seeing that this is a topic that is very there are a lot of opinions and board wants to hear we are going to make sure we would like to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to speak so we are going to limit public comments to two minutes per individual um seeing at this time the raised hand feature is on so if i can get if you are interested in making a public comment we would like you to go ahead and raise your hands that way we can see about how long we want to set public comment for okay all right at this time we're only seeing one raised hand and i will turn it over to mr siam who is far more capable in managing or navigating the zoom session than i am thank

004you president good evening i'll be calling on speakers during public comment in random order to our attendees if you would like to speak please use the raise hand feature on the zoom meeting platform now attendees that have called in can dial star nine to raise their hands speakers will have uh two two minutes to um give their remarks you'll hear a tone when your time begins when 30 seconds remain and when time is expired once time is expired we will move to the next speaker and i apologize in advance if i mispronounce your name uh the first speaker is liliana rivera let me get the timer ready and then okay uh liliana please go ahead hi uh good evening to the board i would just like to say on the topic of policing schools i

005would encourage everyone who's a stakeholder to read the words from the students which are in the agenda they spell it out very clearly what they want and what they're asking you to do um and it's been said so many times before but there is legitimately no good reason to keep police in schools the myth that the presence keeps students safer is easily debunked with a google search after this has ended and like you guys are looking back on it it's going to be shameful to see what we have put our students through um for them to not be any safer and i would just like to say to the school board meeting to the school board members um at the end of the day you can pretend like you have good intentions or pretend that

006you are an ally but if you're not willing to stick your neck out and make some sort of drastic changes these changes that the students are asking you to make then at the end of the day like you don't really care about addressing systemic racism and while you guys are complaining like what are the cops going to think about this you need to think about the children's lives not the cops feelings what their future is going to look like if they get arrested when they're 15 years old who is that going to help and there's no way to reform these police to do restorative justice which is honestly kind of insulting to like the concept of restorative justice because the police are a punitive organization that's all they can do that's all they know how

007to do trying to teach them to do something else is literally like trying to teach a fish to breathe on dry land it's just never going to happen and at the end of the day you guys need to get rid of the program if there's a real emergency just call 9-1-1 the police chief said it himself during his own presentation that's the fastest way to get a response time an emergency so what are they really doing in an emergency they're not keeping the kids safe and um yeah just read what the students say do what they tell you like they're begging you basically so you guys need to listen thank you times expired next speaker is russell lee please go ahead um hi board members uh superintendent moore um president lujan and the public before

008you continue this discussion on slos as well as policing in general and ssf usd i think we should be mindful of how dismissive comments and perspectives like the one echoed in a submitted public comment is the reason why students don't trust teachers and administrators with some sensitive materials such as intimidation and abuse by adults casting aside student voices is the number one thing we shouldn't do in a conversation about about criminalizing and policing students in our district just to reverberate some of the points from our students insightful presentation the presentation presented in january ssf usd only has the number only has half the number of counselors social workers and psychologists per 1 000 students than the state standard of 1.5 which isn't a lot to begin with in essence the ratio of students to mental

009health support and ssf usd is 1000 to 0.75 so not even one counselor per 1000 and on the cops hand only three percent of cops training is dedicated towards learning conflict mediation meaning that cops are not suited to help dia scully situations they are more likely to increase tensions instead of de-escalating them because they treat every situation as if a criminal or a problem needs to be solved not like thoughtfully and carefully but with the tools that like the previous commenter said is trained and given to them we lack a resources of care and we have an over investment in punitive measures like the sll program i know that the city is in control of the the budget for the slo but the ss ssf usd has the chance has the power to say no

010we don't want punitive measures in our district and we should start treating our kids as as not problems but could be invested into thank you next speaker is eddie holman please go ahead hi good evening uh south san francisco school board my name is eddie holman i'm an alumni of altaloma middle school in el camino high school and i want to speak in support of ending the relationship with the police department the slo program i think that should be ended because it is a contributing factor to the school-to-prison pipeline um i've heard that word thrown around a lot here on the board but now is the time to act on that um to actually be bold and to end this pipeline i think criminalizing our youth is morally unjust and short-sighted and plain cruel it's

011really setting up our kids our neighbors for failure not using counselors and nurses and instead relying on a police department that has the sole role of punishing people under the law and taking in the fact systematic racism that's affecting our policing and their relationship with our black and brown neighbors this is really a horrible program to have in our school district and i've heard uh as a party said in his presentation that it's the school that's calling the police so if our if our schools are actively punishing our students with the police they're contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline and this is a definitive way to get at that problem like russell said before me i think using punitive measures instead of restorative justice is our mor is morally wrong and i also want to echo

012what leonard vera said in the beginning listen to our students they've come here with a lot of courage and spoken about how they want the slo program to end and i think you need to listen to them and also we'd be saving money our budget our taxpayer budget is our set of values and if we spend our money on punishing our youth it's a really horrible thing to do and i that you can understand to the city to transfer this money to paying for counselors and nurses that will actually empower our youth instead of punish them thank you next speaker is marcy rivera please go ahead hi everyone i just want to come on here and say that i've been listening to a lot of these meetings that we come here to talk about slos

013and you know i hear students coming with the facts and the data that you ask for so often um and then the only responses i hear are we need more data and the police are part of our community and what will that say because the police are part of our community well there's a lot of people in our community that are not actively at our schools you know drug addicts are a part of our community and no one's asking for them to be around at our schools firemen uh more like influential or better influence are a part of our community and i don't hear you guys fighting for a fireman contract or a nurses contract or anyone or any other professional field all you guys care about are these cops and the students have clearly

014said that that's not the influence and the adults that they want around them um furthermore if the students are clearly telling you how they're feeling and you know coming to these meetings like historically how many students have you had come to these meetings time and time again and tell you what they directly want you know students want mental health counselors counselors who have cultural training and you know what like i bet they want soap in the freaking like soap dispensers okay like have you any of you ever walked into el camino or south city bathrooms there is never soap in there first of all and you guys are so worried about the cops and reopening schools like how are you gonna reopen schools when you don't even have sanitary products for the children and books

015you'll pay so many times i had to carry books home that weighed like five to ten pounds and you're worried about this community you're trying to force kids to have with cops cops are not part of these children's lives and so many of your students have had negative influences and interactions with cops with their families so you're just triggering these students and this relationship now thank you that's a speaker just raised their hand aristelle de la cruz please bye-bye hello um so i just wanted to um express some hope in regards to these study sessions um um last study session um that was about slos i noticed that um our board specifically did not look at the data the decades of data on like great programs and slos and sros um i'm wondering if that's

016going to be something that this study session will be covering um and how much of that is going to inform the decisions in regards to slos um i also want to um express how um there is when we talk about some sort of relationship in which officers are interacting with students in a non-emergency type of interaction there's always the danger and always the possibility in which officers might be investigating um and and potentially harassing students there's also the very fact that and this has been reiterated uh many times and with students um who's had family been incarcerated and separated uh and given the economic and emotional um consequences and and harm as a result of incarceration which we all know is not a great solution um the us is the is number one in mass

017incarceration uh and and we know that that when students see this um there's really no amount of basketball games or handing out stickers that is going to repair that type of relationship i would also caution against this idea that we need to quote-unquote eliminate some sort of cultural or racial bias before moving on policy such type of thinking is really trying to elongate this fear that students are already experiencing in regards to their interactions with police officers thank you uh one other speaker just raise their hand cesar rodriguez sister please go ahead thank you for your time i wanted to make my comments real briefly um that the school board i was disappointed to see that they were looking to pull public opinion in this matter particularly from the most enfranchised members of our community

018at the same moment they did not make similar efforts to find out from the most impacted people in our community um and instead of spending resources including time on such matters i would want the school board to pull one of the best practices this is something i've shared consistently before what are the best practices to serve working class young people of color um that have the most troubles the least resources and the most potential for transformation i would love it if i could see my school board making that kind of uh investment in terms of time and research even just an effort in that regard now in terms of data the one point that stood out heavily to me was that south san francisco unified school district has had this something that people have mentioned

019before this is from pro public because this is publicly available information that southside school unified school district has half the number of counselors social workers and psychologists per thousand students than the state average and even that is not enough we have one and a half per thousand students compared with three and it should even be higher than that that's what i want us to aspire to so the ending of the police and schools is the beginning of a process of harm reduction to end the school to prison and given the latinx where a migrant community we serve school to deportation pipeline start please start working on investing into the lives of students to expand their life chances and their quality of life i've sent email with resources about this before um to everyone from the

020superintendent to members of the board thank you for your time thank you next speaker is samantha avila please go ahead hi board and um fonterra moore i'm a student at south san francisco high school and again i'm asking you to reevaluate your relationship so-called relationship with the police and um ensure that police no longer terror our students i think it's this has been such a dragged out conversation i think it tells a lot that president luhan's school district like got rid of their police miranda back in august and only called them when necessary um i just don't understand why we keep on having these conversations when many people are telling you that they don't feel safe with police there's been people speaking out with the stories of other people because they don't feel safe speaking

021out about their own experiences it's um you know when we talk about well where's that money coming from it is coming from city council but i don't think we can't act like city council hasn't donated to the school board before um i think the ssf usd community needs to come together and really pressure our city council to redistribute these funds to our ssf usd students but that starts here first we have to know and our relationship that we have with cops because no matter the stickers no matter the teddy bears and the little games that they do with children at the end of the day when they go to parkway or when they go to south city all of a sudden there are these gang bangers that the community has to watch out for um

022it's not fair that they use them at further propaganda when they're children and don't know any better and then once they grow up they can put them in jail and have um have them endure these traumatic situations it's not fair for your black and brown children that are in your school um president luann at this time i don't see any other rave hands thank you mr siam um dr moore briefly aristel de la cruz asked about what was going to be covered in this evening's presentation and was curious about what was going to be shared would you become would you be comfortable briefly like providing a brief overview for you since we're about to jump into the presentations as it is sure so um based on the board memo that we provided an executive summary

023it's going to outline additional details about really the recommendations and the options before the board as our community has said they have shared data the board has reviewed data we have brought data through thought exchange student voices uh we've had community members share data directly with the school board and so for tonight's presentation it really is we'll do just a brief overview but we're focusing more on the recommendations aspect and the opportunity for the school board to begin deliberating because we didn't have that opportunity in january and we want to hopefully walk through um the recommendations and then spend some time for the board just talking about each of the options and hopefully identify and give some direction for what the next step is that the board would like the staff to do so that's

024what tonight's presentation is about wonderful thank you dr moore um so that brings us to the presentation portions of the portion of this evening uh so this evening's presentation is a discussion of the relationship between ssf usd and the ssfpd staff will present options to the board regarding the future of the ssf pd slo's ssf pd's slo program on district campuses thank you so before dr holt shares her screen i just wanted to expand on my initial introduction that um to make sure our community understands what's in the executive summary and we have currently the slos primarily support the secondary sites and then they rotate through the elementary sites making themselves available as needed or as requested we know that the school board had a study session to really listen to perspectives receive updates explore

025recommended courses of action regarding the slo presence in schools previously you've heard the presentation from nicole anderson and associates and and i joined in in offering summary uh summarizing to date all of the information that we had gathered for the board to consider the school board then asked me to follow up with several items thinking about a development of an equity action plan that would inform all of our decisions and recognizing that that is not something that's going to happen overnight to explore key professional development as part of this plan to gather more information from student voices to provide sample police department slo mou's that outline the roles and responsibilities of police and staff inclusive of an administrative regulation that outlines how the partnership if any will work and we also ended with return with

026recommended options and actions for the school board to take and so you have the executive summary so it really walks you through just at a an overview level of just where we are and then we really hope to get into the recommendations piece so that we can start talking about the relationship and the partnership that south san francisco unified school district has and what uh the school board would like to do in terms of next steps so with that i will turn it over to dr shelly holt and she will share her screen which has our presentation and we will walk you through this and give you time to discuss as a school board of course i'm on you can everyone see my screen yes we can awesome awesome i'm nicole i wanted to turn

027over a few to you for just a second if you want to do any intro if you are i can just keep going it's i just didn't know i think we're good i think we've all know each other and just excited to um continue to partner and give some options again i think that was the key word of really brainstorming options that the board can consider so yeah let's jump right in i think this is all right sounds good and i just want to uh acknowledge my other colleague at uh deborah keys wright uh for being here uh with us tonight as well all right so um after listening to all of the presentations uh we wanted to uh just like know what we're going to do here today so we're going to cover very

028briefly uh kind of how we got here i just uh kind of a little trip down memory lane of the last few presentations that the that have been presented to the board and uh what we've put together are three options for the board to consider and i've done a mini swat analysis on each one but it's uh it's just a start or a beginning for the board to um consider as you have your discussions um at the conclusion of this presentation um with that i'd like to remind us that whenever we start talking about issues of equity race racial or uh anti-racism or what we're going to deal with today which um is looking at policing we need to acknowledge our our four agreements and continue to make this a safe space for brave action

029um there are a lot of different uh perspectives in the room and so we want to make sure that we all stay engaged and just be engaged even if um the idea is being presented you're not too sure of that engagement means clarifying as opposed to uh operating on the uh assumptions that we may be having so um really making sure that we're engaged in with one another and with ourselves and with our own emotions around what's happening and just checking if we're really in safe uh if we're feeling safe safer for feeling uncomfortable which leads me to i mean our second uh agreement which is experiencing discomfort and uh some of these conversations make it uncomfortable there may be relationships um outside of this or within this that uh impact our judgment or impact

030our thoughts and so uh please make remember that we want to experience the discomfort um some of the things that our young people did say may have made you feel uncomfortable we have to explore why is that um and how can we essentially create a space where everyone is welcome and encouraged to speak their truth and so we encourage you today to speak your truth as you're thinking through this and then accept and expect non-closure we may not finish this out completely we may have to continue this conversation but we will make a decision tonight to be able to have the staff move forward because we do have to they they need some direction and uh and there's been a lot of work uh done to um start to think about this from a systemic

031change level and so as we make our decision and thought and think today i want to remind us of the water systems change and that a lot of times legislative policy or resource allocation doesn't quite stick like we wanted to because we haven't yet shifted the mental models and that's part of what's happening in the community right now is there are um different mental models from before where um this institution was created than we have here now we have different needs then than we have now we have different circumstances then than we have now and so regardless of where what has happened in the past we need to really chart a path moving forward using the past as a guide to help us understand why and what direction we need to take and so i'm

032just continuing to remind ourselves that there is a mentality around the just the concept of policing that is different depending on which community you're from your experiences your identities you may have different views and all views if we're going to follow the agreements are welcome in this space that being said uh we i wanted to i remind you of the recommendations that we uh were explained in the last presentation um and so we recommended them to continue to listen and understand and collect data from parents staff administrators businesses and the policing community um there are a few of the callers earlier alluded to that uh we want to hear from everyone essentially this is a big decision to be made as far as the future trajectory and so we want to make sure we get

033this right and that means we need to listen to not just the loudest voices but all of the voices and how do we invite everyone to the table um utilizing current structures that you have that you can build upon for safety and security in the schools um our kids are speaking out saying that one thing that is not making them feel as safe we want to explore that and also consider different ways that we can create emotional safety physical safety and mental safety um understanding how and why policing and education are experienced differently this is where we start to educate the community um if there are maybe folks that are on this call or are maybe listening going my goodness this is so clear as day i don't understand why this is still a conversation

034and then there are others that are like i don't get it i don't understand why this is why this is so different that hasn't been my experience and so that's part of the learning that needs to occur is just understanding how and why people experience uh the same exact institution differently and a lot of it is historical and so that really means that you're going to have to make that history transparent and that learning transparent uh building culture proficiency and equity knowledge in the entire community was one of the recommendations and that just goes again to speaking to how we can all understand where everyone is coming from and why these differences have existed um and discuss safety and what is needed for safety this is a word that is being tossed around a lot

035but as we heard in the thought exchange as we're hearing from the students as we're hearing from different parts of the community this word means different things to different people there are some people that hear safety and law enforcement comes to mind and yes i feel safe and then there are other people who hear safety and that's the exact opposite of what comes to mind um that's what they need to feel safety from and so we got to talk about what does safety mean and that's going um that can all be done if we were to look at developing an equity impact action plan and begin to have stakeholders come together around that so here are some more of the recommendations that we had around policing on campus particularly uh using the information that has

036been gathered to determine and explicitly define the role of policing on campus um regardless of which direction that this board decides to do there needs to be a clear expectation and understanding on all parts of the community of what the police role is and the work the police role is not um the fact that and i think one of the callers earlier alluded to this as well that luckily if there is an emergency there will be police on campus that's not something that's negotiable or anybody wants to negotiate if someone if there is an active issue that we need to have law enforcement involved in by all means that needs to happen uh but we need to well in other times we need to really think about how does this look on campus and what

037is the relationship defined as i'm sure all parts of the um community are aware of this explicitly teaching responses to police on campus so there needs to be a since we now know that this causes stress and strife and we know that there's going to be some sort of interaction not necessarily stationed on campus or anything but some kind of interaction at minimum with police where can someone go if they are not feeling safe so having those kind of arena for those kind of safe spaces recognizing the trauma that has occurred and then finally consider working in partnership with police departments for a more concerted positive relationship development so that brings me to the first direct option that uh is presented in your uh documentation and so um the first one option is quite frankly

038to because uh let me back up just a moment before discussing the first option um one of the things that was uh a nuance for uh south san francisco is the fact that in all of the research i went doing because i want the first thing i like to do is look at the mou or the contract um whenever there is a relationship with the police department and i just want to be very clear because we did a lot of research to find it there it there does not exist an actual mou agreement with the south san francisco police department is that officially correct okay and i say that because there seems that this leads to some challenges in communication that may exist because there seems to be a belief that there is some kind

039of paper agreement or contract with the school district and um and the police department and that does not exist um in all the research that we did with the school district with the police department so i just want to be very clear that this first option is to actually formalize and create an agreement if um if and i say that um knowing that uh that that if this is the issue is that they're they're wondering what the agreement should be in order to formalize an agreement would be to have those conversations about what would policing look like on campus um what would be a financial breakdown and such and so since that doesn't exist um there would need to be an existence of something that would formalize that relationship um if that were to happen

040uh what we recommend here is that there be a multi-organizational team that is created to it to develop a plan to implement that with clear guidelines from the school board they need to know if you want to create a formal relationship with the school district what is it that you are expecting it to look like i did also include in their questions and considerations for the board should you decide to go into that direction of creating an mou but there need to be protocols and roles defined um when to call who should call what kind of database processes should be followed to ensure we are collecting data um and provide additional education apparent if this program is going to be formalized in the form of an mou because right now what we could find is

041it's kind of like a a a gentleman's agreement so uh for lack of a better term that you know we're going to make sure that you know we're we're building positive relationships but um it looks seems like there may be some areas of growth there um if there are any questions around that i'm going to pause for a moment and see if there are questions on that before i move to option two all right hearing none uh i'm going to move on to option two and option two is to um consider severing the informal relationship that currently exists and uh and so what it is exploring what that would look like um the reason that and part of the um the the challenge with this is that the relationship with the police is that they

042come when called um and because there's uh there there may be a friendly relationship or there may be some times when they are called boar or um they uh know that there's go there has the potential for being challenges in the area like the times of round dismissal or um student arrival um it's more the intent has often been to be preventative but if we were to sever a relationship or formalize the when they are when they're not going to be there that may be uh involved more of a conversation around the administrators and the people in the building that are contacting the police for them to come in the first place and so um with this uh option there may need to be some consideration around training well and with the first one training

043of the administrative teams on when to and your staff on when to call when not to call and what are the internal processes or alternatives that can happen instead of calling the police for some of the minor infractions and so uh some of the strengths of this as you can see here are that um it it has been if we kind of sever that relationship we diminish the possibilities of triggering trauma related to the police and it may allow the staff to uh develop more authentic relationships without the threat of the police department we've heard that time and time again from the children that the police were using uh we were being used as enforcers and so if that's the case we want to um explore how uh having building relationships outside of having that

044police presence could occur um some challenges to that and the first option are just the planning and training uh and the time to change course uh takes time so we're whatever decision that is made there's going to have to be planning that occurs to ensure that we have met uh mechanisms and processes to address issues when they at when and if they do occur and so that if they're if your typical processes have always involved utilization of the police as one of those options we would want to revisit those and retrain on those to have alternatives to that um some of the opportunities here um are to build an environment free of the negative impacts of law enforcement uh shifting mindsets to approach situations more equitably and restoratively and collectively developing alternative methods for approaching

045discipline using this time right now where you have a lot of student and community engagement to build on that and say okay you know we wanted to handle things differently let's work together and do that and um and ensure and try to get the community involved um threats to this are um responding to uh uh demands without an action plan could set precedence so you just want to consider that as a board um and making a decision of this magnitude without input from staff administration parents or the larger student body um could uh be could have its challenges moving forward and so um returned and uh in addition to this making this decision amidst everything that's happening in the midst of pandemic in the midst of uh you know kids not being on campus and

046trying to figure out whether or not they're coming on campus um that just might cloud the ability to make a solid judgment so i'm just kind of putting that completely out there any questions on option two all right i'm seeing that i'm gonna move on to option three i'm sorry is to option three is to create an equity tax force and um let me be very clear and i probably didn't i forgive me for not saying this uh uh at the onset that um i i i'm gonna get in a moment to option four but i wanna make sure you know that there's no mandate that each of these options is in and of itself and so i just wanna be very clear there's going to be a fourth option and so the third option

047is to create an equity task force and that is uh designed to continue to you uh to take advantage of this time that we have right now the fact of the matter is we have a gift of time and that the children are not on campus full-time right now and this is something that may never happen again or hopefully never happens again in my lifetime but uh there we have an opportunity here to take some time and really engage voices uh by making maybe a decision that that will last through the end of the year and allowing this task force to come together and really dive deep into not only the issue of safety and school discipline and with the police role in that uh but also how will we deal with issues of equity

048when they come up in south san francisco um as as a leader in the um in the community around this work um we would be short-sighted if we didn't think that there was not going to be another equity issue that's going to come up it's probably already in the wings and what we know is that organizations that take a systemic approach to addressing equity issues are more apt and able and capable of addressing them when they come because there's a plan and a process already outlined within which to do that that is what we're suggesting is that we take this issue and really delve deep into it involve the various stakeholders that we know we haven't heard from include the ones that we have heard from take advantage of this gift of time and develop

049an equity impact action plan around this um effort and have this group come back with a recommendation for the board around the uh school police issue that the board because it's a board task force um we would you know follow some kind of process that we would outline uh for these representatives but to agree that whatever this task brings back um the board would consider that recommendation and so um there are some uh i did kind of a midi so we did a mini swat on this one as well there are plenty of questions and considerations with this um one of them is how will ssf usd address this and other issues of equity that arise and uh knowing what the times that we're in this is the critical question because this is one issue

050but how can we take this one issue and create something that is a legacy for all of us around um larger issues of equity and systemic oppression that we know plague our country um how will the school community begin to develop its lens to see and address issues of equity how can we use this opportunity to help people see that this is bigger than just police on campus and i'm not saying that to make a trite i'm saying that there are other issues that are going to come up and so how are we going to systemically address those um uh uh moving through um i don't want to read that uh that whole document to you um the strengths of this is that the largest strength is that it allows multiple voices to come to

051the table and be heard um i can't stress this enough i've wrote the reading in the papers as well um there are uh while we know that we hear the loud voices and everyone has heard the loud voices having sat in the role that dr moore is sitting in what we what i also know personally is that there are a lot of silent voices that are in emails and back behind the scenes that everybody doesn't see which makes these decisions ever much all the more difficult to make when those voices don't have a mechanism to be heard and be brought out to the forefront which allows you all to make a decision more transparently to say hey yes we hear this but look there's also another side of this and it's recognized by kind of

052a lot of folks that maybe the thought exchange was attempt that but it didn't work the way we wanted it to and so we want to create other mechanisms to allow more voice to come into the conversations um the second um which is also a large strength is that it allows to formalize a process and a system to address future issues that belongs to south san francisco um because it's not going to be the same here as let's say it is in oakland or that it is in claremont or that it is in you know piedmont or berkeley like it's not the same here this is south san francisco and we need a way to address this that meets our needs and that meets the needs of our community um and so that's the the

053two biggest strengths or what some of the strengths i should say largest and i want to quantify those so forgive me for that a few of the weaknesses to this are that uh planning and training is the same as the other ones planning and changing course takes time and so once the committee comes back with a decision um we would have to be prepared to um figure out how to change course in the time frames that we have it just takes time and the community just have to be transparent with that and the same thing funding and staff um and i think the other piece that which is all throughout all of these is that no matter which way you go you're gonna make some people happy and you're gonna accept others um and that's

054what you signed up for so welcome to the job i guess is the best i can say to that um the opportunities here the largest one is systemic change and i attached the water systems change framework which i know that this board has been working very diligently on building its equity lens and and working through um and uh formalize a team process for addressing issues of equity and developing a framework and so um the other threat which is the threat throughout is what to do in the interim as training and planning is occurring um whether or not we'll be able to start school with the same model or what kind of model to start school with so just thinking about that amidst everything that is going on which bring okay i'm gonna take a breath

055and see if there are any questions on number four but i mean number three before i move to number four and then we have some discussion because believe me i want to hear your voices trustee baker thank you um i'm just hoping maybe you can talk a little bit more about the task force and how that's different from kind of the process we've been having now because we've had what i think is a rather wide-ranging discussion with our community bringing in people for months um and getting input from you know all sides of the aisle and you know there's all there's already people on all sides of the issue saying that we're taking so long chatting back and forth so can you maybe help me figure out what would be different in an equity task

056force that we're not doing now uh the largest thing that would be different is educating a community on the history of policing and to understand how this came to be and to get some recommendations and some thoughts on how you're going to move forward no matter which way you go um right now your team i think that's one of the biggest uh pieces is to end developing an action plan around how you're going to address issues of equity in the future so the next time an issue of equity comes up um i know this process i've been kind of sitting through sometimes with you i'm not sure if we are are wanting this kind of you know the kind of the board having to kind of go back and forth with this um issue this

057many times or we create a systemic process where okay we have an issue of equity that's come up what is our process for addressing that and how do we systemically move forward in that direction i'm also going to um see if nicole wants to comment on that at all but that's the biggest difference i would see is just developing the process for it sure before nicole goes on i i did want to just have a very quick follow-up to that um and it isn't my understanding i know we're talking about using number three as a way to guide our decision but it's all i believe it you know when i got the print out of this without your context of talking about it it also seemed that forming a task force would could also be

058independent of either one or two um that we can form that and you know work on the way forward regardless of which decision we do make in the coming weeks of one over either one or two so you just stole my thunder trusty baker you just decided to steal it all all right so since if it's okay president lujan um because that is option four i hit my return your thunder i just want to check in because i saw vice president richardson's hand pop up but i also am excited about you talking about option four as well vice president richardson did you have a question that you needed that you wanted answered i'm sorry vice president richardson you're muted at the moment i i want to take the opportunity to perhaps have our director of

059services who i i see is in the among us to um because i see some replication of what we already have on campus as far as our protocols and when to call for the police and some of these are already covered and i would like to see if he he could uh re review some of this so that the public understands that anyway anything that we decide at some point that has to um possibly be a mirror some of the things that we have already so i don't know if we have mr siebers uh able to join us and uh remind us that there's a lot already a few of these already in place in the in the district protocols yes i'm here uh trustee richardson i'm i'm a little unclear as to uh which

060items you may be referencing now we do of course have our our disciplinary and intervention responses that can be found in our district expectations for student success handbook i'm not sure if um if that's what you're referring to in terms of some of the services that we would offer for various things that may occur on a school campus um but i think you were mentioning something about equivalent to police services could you clarify what you're asking yes um earlier i think it was option three where they had it had could we see option three so that i could refresh my memory about what we were talking ab uh the questions and considerations uh in creating an equity test score we already have a certain uh protocols that we follow when staff is uh considered to

061take um the initiative and call police on for for on campus i think it was is it this one or possibly the second option and those are the things that i i want to uh you to uh remind the public that we do have protocols in place and that the staff is already um has the um has the uh has the ground or the directive from the district on on the these new um protocols to take in when uh the police is on campus and that's already in place once we do get up back on campus is that my estimation of what you what the district has done with the uh with this new awareness that we need to define certain times when we should and we should not have police on campus um well

062as far as when we should or should not have police on campus there are obviously going to be times when there are mandatory situations and there's going to be the non-mandatory situations um so although i i can't speak to specifically what you may be referring to as i think you think you would reference to a change or um possibly some information that you might be privy to um that would suggest that we have uh you know that outlined what i can say is that just by law it's actually our california education code governs um when we have mandatory police situations for uh say for very serious offenses that would be a california education code 4890 and then we also have the penal code penal code 245 which also governs that but we do we are

063aware also that you know there are a number of situations at the discretion potentially of a school administrator in certain circumstances where police may be consulted or called potentially in non-mandatory situations that's what i had um had hoped that you would repeat because um some of this uh is alluding to the fact is uh when do you call the police well we'll have to follow the ed code and follow um our our guidelines locally that we have written up already uh in view of the concern that we have so i appreciate you bringing that back up again so that the public that i thought i heard mention that they were concerned about or how we can integrate these options in a new task force that some of these items need to be already in place

064that are already in place and we're already doing them or planning for them once we open up yeah and and um i would recommend that um if anyone has a question about you know when could some of these police calls come into play we do have our document that is public on our district website and our community resources section we do post that student success handbook and that shows our general philosophy and our approach to student interventions and that also includes behavioral infractions and things of that nature that are shown in a more of a matrix a continuum of uh intervention options and so obviously this discussion is you know a part of that continuum but it definitely the public could definitely take a look and see what i'm talking about okay thank you sure

065thank you vice president richardson and thank you mr siebers okay now turning it over to option four option four thank you and um uh so option four is to look at uh creating something that is going to work for you um you know your community and what your community needs right now if you're come if you are at a place where you can make a decision on one or two to keep the police and decide that you want to um combine what i'm saying is combine some of these options let's say you say you know what we do want to formalize the agreement and ensure that there are some written understandings of what is and isn't supposed to happen then that could begin to uh that word can begin and and that will be the

066decision for the police department relationship if you want to decide no we want to just formally sever it and really become clear about when police are and aren't on campus then that might be the direction you want to go and you make that decision and then in addition to that if you wanted to consider doing an equity task force to look at future issues of equity when they do come up that is an option or you can decide to you know how whatever is going to work best for you um in making this decision in doing that what i i do want you to consider is um going back to the systemic change framework that the water systems change uh article talks about and this it kind of alludes to what vice president richardson was

067saying in that there are many of the policies procedures and practices that we're discussing that are in existence and they are on paper they have been voted on by the board we um there are and that's that top level of structural change but if we haven't done uh the work together to shift the mentality we may be implementing those in in uh ways that they were not originally intended or the intent behind those has shifted and so taking an opportunity to really look at what is happening what do we want to see happening and how do we get there what is that path um and what is the role that we need to take now and in the future to get there so um regardless of the direction that you choose just consider that there's

068a difference between implementing policy and practices and procedures that are on paper and what's actually happening in the field which is influenced by what you say and do and then what's actually happening which is influenced by the mental models of the people that we assign and actually employ to do this work and the relationships that exist are caught in the middle and so what we're hearing a lot about is the relationships with the children with the community and the power dynamics around that um are are in play right now and so we just want to consider what that's going to look like so what are the next steps well as a board it's to consider the impact of of a long-term and a short-term decision or a long-term solution um or just a short-term solution

069it's j the the choice is yours um what the staff is looking for is a direction because that will help guide the work moving forward and um and kind of weaving that work together with uh what must be done with the return to school planning and um and give them this kind of the direction and the thought and the ability to make some plans in the interim because planning for a return to school is something no one has ever done before and so doing that amidst a large-scale decision like this is going to be uh just one that we want to get started on sooner rather than later i'm sure and so um we appreciate you and thank you for that and i want to open it up to having some discussion around uh the

070decision to be made thank you hall would it be okay i just jumped in for a second and asked um deborah to just share a little context because i think as you just shared the next steps um i think it's important to bring this in the context of what the role of the board is and just um deborah i know you always have great insight on this piece because the pressure of the community is one piece the law is another piece i mean there's a lot of moving parts for boards i think this would be really helpful to share a little bit about all of the board yeah thank you and and dr holt thank you for such a detailed presentation and i know the board is probably you know feeling just a little overwhelmed

071it is a lot of information but um so important information and you know the board you are tasked to um you know make some major decisions tonight and to consider all recommendations and of course not just from one lens you have to take in consideration every aspect and like um it was mentioned earlier of those voices that others may not have heard and so taking all of that into consideration and seeing what is the best for the district as a whole collectively not eliminating anyone's voice but being you know really focused on every lens that you have to look through to make a decision like this and it is not easy you know you you probably been i know you've been in this position before you have to make some decisions it's not a one-size-fits-all

072your job is to make the best decision based upon the information the facts um the surveys all of the different data points student voice community voice all voices experts and let's not forget the educators voice as well everyone on the same level they're taking all of that into consideration to make your best informed decision because again it's not a one-size-fits-all and this is the decision needs to be um a system a systematic type of approach where it has to be sustainable so you don't want to have to continue to come back so looking at the um like it was mentioned long term and short term but what is the best decision that you can make tonight based upon all of the information that you have that's what the role of the board of education is

073um not to you know not listen to all the one group only but listen to everyone's voice in this and then take that information and make the best decision that you can make with the information that you have that is what the board does and and so i know you can do this work um you've been tasked to do it and you have a lot of information and i'm looking forward to your discussion as well and if i could be of any help to jump in and assist you i will so i'm really look looking forward to your um your dialogue that you're going to have around this powerful yeah doctors will be able to stop sharing your screen too so i think everyone can figure out where everyone's at again yeah see everyone absolutely

074there we go there we go there we go hi everybody all right some questions see you now dr holt all right all right so first of all let's open it up for questions just kind of any any burning questions um and then we'll kind of just i take this one decision pointed at a time christy murray do i have my hand up you do [Laughter] no i i i read your your executive summary and i thought that it might be might be nice to share that it appears that the root cause may be less associated with policing and more closely associated to the processes and procedures used by administrators of staff address disciplinary challenges so my in addressing uh disciplinary challenges so i i think that i i think that an equity committee is something

075that we were that we've been working on for a long time and um i think that that's something well worth um well worth putting together i know the city of um of south san francisco is also working on equity and in fact they'll be hiring a director of equity and inclusion and i i see a place for for us working with that director you know maybe maybe in our committee however in the meantime we do have a relationship with the police even though it is even though it is informal and i think it's an important relationship they're part of our community it's not that we're friends i know i i heard one of the one of the people say oh you know don't worry about your friendship with the police it's not a matter of

076being friends it's a matter of being community and i'm all about community and collaboration and um and building relationships and i think that there's a place to do that but i do think we have to formalize that agreement we have to everybody has to be on the same page um if we're going to move forward and um and in in a systematic way everybody has to know what the what the relationship with the police um is um i've i've been in this district for i don't know 20 years more than 20 years i i was pta and volunteer for for almost all of that and um i as a white woman have never seen a problem with with kids being afraid of the police however i believe when the kids tell me that that that

077exists and so i have a real concern about that i want i want us to and maybe this this happens in the equity committee but i would like to see us um create safe spaces for the kids to express themselves i don't think that that any of the children should be questioned by a police officer by themselves and i know that happened my sister years ago now she graduated in 1988 from el camino high school and she was pulled into the office and the police officer actually took her in the police car took her to the police department and questioned her about something she had witnessed and my mother was never even called and um so that's something that sticks with me because i've actually heard some of the kids say something similar i'm sure

078that we have policies in place where that doesn't happen i think director sieber said at one of the last meetings that that when we when the police do come in to question a student there is like a counselor or someone that they feel safe with in the room um so i i don't believe that that is is the policy anymore but you know it's something that that stuck with me um so i in essence i guess what i'm saying is that i don't know how we identify those kids that don't feel safe and what we do to make them feel safe and i understand that it's a systemic issue that's not just within the school but within the city and everywhere so that's something that i just don't know how to address um taking police

079out of the schools that's not going to address it they're still going to be afraid if they're on the street or or if if a police officer is called for whatever reason they're still going to feel unsafe or or scared so i i i think part of our part of our job is to make sure the kids are educated and and i i think that part of you know if there's if if some of our students not if some of our students obviously feel unsafe and we need to figure out how to address that you know how how do we address that and uh an equity commission committee might help with that but i don't know beyond that so i guess it's more of a statement than a question well thank you so much for

080speaking your truth i appreciate it um so what i heard you say is that your lead you like the idea of an equity task force and that you like the idea of a relationship with police i didn't hear you speak about whether or not formal or not like what what is your thought around formalizing or not informal continue with the form informal like what are you thinking well you know i would leave that up to dr moore okay you know if if she feels like a formal and mou is more important then i back whatever whatever she feels is right i i'll i would back whatever she thought she and directly keepers and the rest of the the cabinet and the cabinet all right thank you any other questions i see vice president richardson has

081had her hand up and then trustee baker's hand popped up and then popped down yeah she asked for questions i have more of a statement so i came to christie murray so i'll wait okay well um thank you um well this is my dilemma um we're talking equity but appears to me that this is a competing statement because if we have equity that means everyone in the district will have the same uh uh treatment or the opportunity to have these uh types of programs that the uh city uh allows us to particip or we allow them to participate we participate um so this is this is what i want uh clarity on and i don't have it and i feel that if we have it for one a student one school it's is it it

082speaks to bias actually because there's only certain schools in our district who have these uh visits or these this presence of in in our schools so i need to i need to somehow um come to terms with this because i i am not committed to saying well you know we only have it for these two schools and we have it for these other schools does that that feeds into profiling and so that's where my uh my problem is and then the second item that i wanted to address is the fact that we we have only four members on the board and i think there would be a better idea if we had a full board to to decide on this that it's going to be um such a major decision in the district so that's

083my position thank you thank you vice president richardson trustee baker did you have some thoughts you wanted to share yeah and um first of all like i uh thank our presenters um and like i said earlier option three i think can be done independently of option one or two um you know but i'm kind of reflecting about what the role of a school board member is here and one of the main tasks we have on a school board is to review the effectiveness of programs we try to implement good programs try to revise bad ones and redirect resources where necessary sometimes programs start well but outlive their utility the school liaison program started during a different era when at least the perception of primary schools was higher and our mental health and restorative justice practices

084as limited as they are now did not exist at all that's changed a bit um so i believe it's time to at least put limits on the relationship if not ended entirely and i don't discredit our police officers as i said before i'm the son-in-law of a cop i was a police explorer scout i worked as a 9-1-1 dispatcher i believe there's probably no more bad eggs in law enforcement than any other profession of course when you're a cop and you're a bad egg there's a little bit more of a of a risk you know but this is not about the cops it's about the kids during this discussion we've had a lot of students both current and recent graduates come and talk about their experiences we've heard lots of problems but we've also heard

085a few cases where where lives turned out for the better but mostly it's to be honest it's been a minute from the community we had a letter writer today who was uh asking that we could put a kibosh on this whole process because it's been extended and he wants us to keep the program intact he wrote that the vast majority of kids and parents have no problem with the police and that the police are coming because we call them and you know what or at least those last two items he's absolutely right to me that means we need to put guidelines in place i have a starter set of guidelines that i've shared with community members put on social media i send a copy to dr moore for distribution after this meeting um the bulk

086of my proposal is actions that we as a district must do the rest is asking for modest concessions from the police if they want the program to continue things like no more routine community building drop-ins plain clothes when possible no questioning of students without parents no arrest in common areas or at least in a non-emergency situation i mean some in the community do want cops gone and worry that an mou is just formalizing the status quo my i think we can put together a proposal that does not do that it would put some voluntary limits on police that we couldn't otherwise enforce without an agreement but again the main part of my proposal is to give our staff a guide a secondary part is a physic is for physical security improvements to help ease the

087minds of those who believe us liaison officer's presence is not the police the campus but to protect it from the outside you know and going back to the beginning here i'll wrap it up ultimately programs should be judged on their consequences the current program has done some good but the perceived harm has begun to outweigh that good and the perceived experiences of those who've lived with feelings of distrust or fear because they see police on campus and worry are they coming for me are they coming for my friends that's real to them and that's got to make it real to us so again i have a set of proposed guidelines we can start from um but really i think uh you know we need to talk about putting limits i'm i guess i'm kind of

088asking for a you know option 1.5 um so not to throw not to throw anything works but you know there there's kind of there's got to be a better way to do than what we're doing now thank you trustee baker so as i've listened i've heard a couple trustees mention formalizing the relationship with some very clear guidelines i've also heard several mention interest in an equity task force i guess for me i'll start with questions and director siebers you will probably have the best insights because you know the practices and signing out am i correct in understanding that at this time um do we have any sort of record of who calls pd the purpose for calling when they were called do we have any sort of record of that on sites uh do you

089mean in so far as maybe a log or a record of those contacts yeah um well we do we do have a i can't speak specifically as to what each school site does but it does result at the end of the year that we do have to report for auditing purposes time that is being spent speaking with say for example probation officers police officers and so forth regarding disciplinary situations and so those case numbers and incident numbers that are associated with that documentation those are kept on record but if it was to be let's say uh just a daily log of maybe let's say an officer calling in um maybe about an investigation or something that they're doing i can't say for sure um that that that would be happening but as it pertains um

090to a student discipline situation in which uh police action is in parallel with a school disciplinary action let's let's say for i'll just use an extreme example that would be save for an expulsion situation yes those are most certainly uh recorded and and kept as part of the the history of that incident that's helpful and i guess also since i have your attention i would be curious because i heard trustee richardson briefly mentioned she was talking about ed code that necessitates law enforcement must be called um but i was wondering if there are guidelines um an if then chart of sorts or some sort of training for administrators as to when to call and what are and then what on those questionable ones what are the other options so kind of an option chart almost

091for administ like is there training on that and are there is there any sort of written documentation to provide guidance to administrators um when they're presented with the myriad of situations that pop up during the course of a regular school day um well uh that is both yes and no so uh you know in that you know to define each and every possible case that a uh that a police officer could be called or an sro officer um you're talking about whether or not an officer may be needed in person or whether an officer may be consulted there are you know a thousand different possible scenarios and nuances in which that can happen and so there is a high level of trust that we have with our school administrators to use their administrative discretion in

092those situations and so we do of course have our guiding documents our guiding laws our ars and vps that do outline that and as i mentioned to trustee richardson um you know we we have very clear awareness of what's what constitutes a mandatory call so at least you know there are there are boundaries and then the district expectations handbook helps even further to sort of outline uh some of the larger categories or the more common categories of contacts but it's the in-between things that uh now i've caught i've been in contact with our assistant principals and our principals regarding um some of those items and and i do have a kind of a running list of uh scenarios in which uh police may be uh called outside of mandatory situations and so we've we've had

093those discussions um as we've been um updating our administrators about um you know the initiatives of the district to um ensure equity and so forth um as those conversations have unfolded and as we've looked at over the past years of how we've utilized police services we can see that there are some pretty common categories in which um which police are contacted or consulted and so i i think it's more of a when we talk about training on issues i think we tend to train more on mandatory situations we tend to train more on safety related situations if something is has an implication to general school safety that's one thing if something has an implication for student welfare mental health um what's going on in the community at large that could present a safety issue what's

094going on with a family something that's occurring uh at home that could have you know far-reaching implications into the school community that's where i start talking about the thousand nuances um where you know could could a police officer be called in certain situations generally what i can speak to is that our administrators will only use a non-mandatory situation if they believe that it informs something that is of greater impact to the school community or to the community at large a lot of times that that's information a lot of that time a lot of times there are links between students between schools of different school districts of different cities there are historical situations that could lead to some adverse conditions where we might consult police all of those things are very individual circumstances very unique circumstances

095and so i will have conversations directly with school administrators in most of those situations and or schools that have teams of administrators usually at the high school level will find more of those kinds of nuanced situations where they're able to have team conversations and discuss that and discuss the implications of um you know taking any kind of action so i've kind of gone round about but i just i want to circle back to say um you know you you can take administrators through scenario based training but it's really it really comes down to understanding the position of advocating for students and understanding the need to ensure student mental health and so we've really tried to represent that in our document in our expectations document you hear me use that i refer to that document a

096lot because our district put a lot of effort to create a document that represents our philosophy and what we believe are what is important to treat individual student cases with the utmost care and so it the same thing extends to administrator discretion as to why a police officer could be consulted or be brought into a discussion about a safety issue or some other circumstance does that does that partially answer your question trust you go on absolutely thank you miss receiver so it's very much appreciated thank you nalani is it time for a break it's getting there thank you okay so um seeing that it is almost 7 30 and i we should probably take a 10-minute break for our captioner and then we can come back continue our discussion and then see if we can

097get to the action item is that okay with everybody yes okay wonderful i'll see you at 7 35 everybody okay saying that it's 7 35 just making sure everyone's making it back okay vice president richardson are you in the vicinity of your device oh there you are perfect okay so um just before we went to break i was kind of summarizing a little bit of what i heard had some questions and then i guess it would be time to share my thoughts i've heard a couple i've heard a few trustees and share support for option one with a very clear mou trustee baker shared some things that i think are very valuable non-uniformed officers when possible um and something that came up when director siebers was sharing he said that there's an annual report that's

098generated and and part of what i was thinking as i listened and also tied into what trustee baker was sharing is that in developing an mou part of that is one formalizing the relationship and another job as trustee baker shared is to evaluate are the programs effective on a regular basis and we haven't done that we haven't really formalized the relationship we haven't it's just been a to a statement that was made earlier a gentleman's agreement um and we have an evaluated on a consistent basis and so i was wondering if in addition to the mou we have an annual update where we look at the data and actually look at okay now that we have an mou in place and these are the parameters what is the data telling us and i also see

099a lot of benefit to an equity task force someone one of the members of the public asked earlier what is it that the board members consider when they make decisions and i can't speak to what goes on in trustee baker's or vice president richardson's head or trustee murray's head i can only speak on what goes on in my own head and i consider the conversations i have as i walk the neighborhood and neighborhoods i consider every email that i receive every public comment both that's typed in and also that's stated in the meetings i consider it all i read every presentation and i consider the statements and i have to weigh it all and so that's what goes through that's what i consider when i make the decisions it's not or when i provide my

100one my one voice and so as i consider all of that um one of the one of the comments today really stuck out to me um we received some very harsh feedback about how long it's taken to get to where we're at this evening and part of that is it's a process we have to we have study sessions and then we have another you know and and some of those are just information sessions and we can't make a decision at those meetings we only receive the information and we sit on that and we reflect on it and we listen to additional comments from the public and then we come back and we make decisions so part of it is the process but the other part of me sits back and and reflects if we truly

101are to create systems change we do need an equity task force because when the next topic comes up whether it comes from the board and we say hey we want you to look at grading practices from an equity lens it would be great if it did have a body a committed body that could talk about that and provide recommendations to the board so i'm in support of one with very tight parameters as trustee baker stated i would also love an annual update so we could evaluate um it sounds like some of that data already exists so that would be helpful and then i would love an equity task force not just to have a task force but to actually start really addressing the the systemic change that does need to happen i want to open

102it up to see if there's any feedback because i tried to do my best to listen but sometimes i miss things and don't summarize everything correctly i'm madam chair yes trustee baker yeah i think you summarized rather well and you know i i know there's some worry in the community about formalizing this relationship you know but this is how i've explained it before there are situations where either by the law the ed code or some other purpose we are required to have a police also respond to campus in those cases i would prefer it to be a police officer who's had some additional training that other police officers don't have about dealing with our our young people we got a few weeks ago when change ssf presented uh an outline of how little juvenile training

103there is in in general police training um you know we if we have some sort of agreement we can put boundaries we can we can put something enforceable that we don't have under you know i don't like using the term gentleman's agreement because that has racist undertones from dating back um but without the informal agreement we have now you know we can set up a guideline say oh yeah yeah we can do that we can come in plain clothes we cannot make any arrests in common areas but if some officer decides no no i i'm not gonna take this kid to the back i need to do i'm arresting you right here right now or something we have no means of of uh getting back to the police and saying hey you violated this you

104know here's your there's consequences because right now it's it's just informal so again when i say in mou i'm not talking about maintaining the status quo as it is i'm talking about let's have a actual partnership that we can work on that's not just um not just based on you know good faith so i think you summarized well and and that's where i'm leaning thank you trustee baker okay so if i correct an understanding we have transitioned naturally from the presentation to the administration portion of the meeting or action portion of the meeting um through a natural conversation um so from what i understand we've wandered into administration approval of the next steps with the ssf pd school resource liaison officers on school campuses and we have identified articulated and i think we're at the

105place of approving our next steps so i'll see if i may i'm sorry president lujan before the board takes action on this item which i'm i promise i'm not going to belabor the point i know we're all tired but i um i do think uh this whole idea when we think of an equity tax task force i know we're specifically talking about our relationship with the police but this is something as someone said that we initiated a couple of years ago and really tried to launch it last year it is not only about the homework issue or curriculum or the professional development that we're providing but it really is taking a look at what i'm hearing some of our students say is there is a lot of pain there's a lot of fear there's a

106lot of angst for different things we've heard students bring forward different issues and so what i am hopeful and will help as we formulate what this equity tax task force is and can do is that we will look at it from that lens as well so we can start unpacking some of the things that we're hearing are impacting our students and use this committee to elevate their voices and and be problem solvers you know we we tried to reach out and engage them and and they were very for they were open and they engaged but then they were very firm with what they wanted and so i just want to make sure that as we're approaching this we we talk about doing it to the lens of equity but also acknowledging that there are some

107inherent racist oppressive systems not just in south san francisco unified but across our country in multiple institutions and we have to be able to look at some of those and start trying to dismantle them and rebuild them and so i think it will be really important to use this really as a platform for how we're going to engage and process and start making systemic changes that can be replicated across the entire district thank you dr moore absolutely um so at that at this point i think we're at a place of do we have a motion for an action item with regard to the ssf ssfpd and ssfusd relationship so moved that we keep our relationship with the police department and have a very strong mou attached to that relationship very very um explicit um agreements

108as to what what their role is um with with us and number three to to move forward with our um our equity task force or equity committee and look at not only our relationship with the police but our relationships across the board and our policies across the board etc center i'd second it if the if the motion maker would accept a friendly amendment in terms of terminology um to negotiate the continued relationship really with the south san francisco police department and remain the rest remaining the same or or to partner with them so that we can negotiate or negotiate so that it's more friendly that we we are working together rather than negotiating terms how about negotiating my feeling is my feeling is that at least i i from the from the the officers that

109i've spoken to that are slos from our police chief who sits on the um the racial and social equity commission my feeling is that they're amenable to amenable to to change that they they want what's best for for our students and so they would be happy to uh to partner with us on an agreement um i i we can negotiate yes but i i think that we should all be on the same page if they're coming into our schools right they want what's best for our students hopefully and we want what's best for our students so um so what we what we'll be looking at is when we'll call them what their role will be when they're here the the things that that you put in your agreement or your i haven't seen them yet

110but but in saying that um i was trying to avoid a brown act violation so yeah i know um but my feeling is that probably all of those things that you put on your list are are things that they would be happy to move forward with so i don't know we we could say negotiate but my hope is that if they're coming into the into our schools that they're going to look at um look at what we think is best for our students and what our students and what our our district is looking at in terms of what's best for our students in terms of superintendent cabinet directors receivers etc no so i believe we had a motion and then we kind of had a discussion so i don't know if we i is everyone

111clear on the motion that was made uh no i you know i think uh trustee wrangler cruz has uh her hand up yeah uh yes i just wanted to kind of speak on behalf of the students um it has been mentioned previously as you guys have heard from um the written comments um it seems like you guys continue to throw out this idea that yes you guys are hearing the students and you guys keep saying like yes we're hearing the students i guess we're hearing students but are you truly listening to the students and what they have asked and what they are asking for because a lot of these claims are being made today are not being considered of the students you guys simply say something that you guys are considering the students but in

112reality it is not taking into consideration of the students is taking care um taking into consideration your own motives rather than what the students have been asking for thank you thank you for your comments okay trustee murray i see your hand does that yes so as i said at the last uh the last study session we are taking into account the students but um but we're taking in into account all of the students we've had more comments i've had people call me that that are actually afraid to speak at our meetings you know they're afraid of that um that they might be bullied or that they might be you know blasted on social media and so they're they're really afraid to to come forward but i have had students actually um text me or call

113me and and leave comments we have 8 400 students and so while we appreciate the voices of the the students that have come forward that's not all of the the voices that should be considered and um and so we're looking at at the district in its entirety there there also our school community is made up of students yes they're the most important part of our of it's the reason that we do what we do but but there are a lot of voices in the community that the school community that should be considered as well and uh and i i have to say that i am even even when i disagree with with the students that come forward or the students that i've spoken to at various times i am i'm actually immensely proud that we

114have a group of students that are willing to come forward and voice their opinions and but we're not always going to agree thank you trustee murray vice president richardson i see your hand is up thank you um this is the thing though exactly we're 84 hundred students yet this is a very small number of it will affect a very small number of students in our district and this is what is not being a formally looked at as a board this is not going this is going to affect two schools two high schools and a couple of the elementary schools and yet this is a sweeping issue um that we're discussing and they're saying it affects everybody well no honestly it doesn't because not all these uh our school sys district has these sros uh coming

115through that's just let's cut to the chase that's what it is and it's only gonna be a few schools and there that's my problem with this because we're not going to be even-handed across the board um actually i've heard some students voice their concern about that because um they may have uh grown up or gone to school where there is no evidence of any kind of uniform uh presence of a police on campus yet when they come to our high schools that's what they expect and it's sort of taken aback why do we have these you know why so that their that equity lens that we keep talking about um is just not really an equity lens and uh you know unless we we uh do it across the board i don't see where equity

116is going to get us anywhere where we should go where we should be so you know this is my problem with this i'm i just see what um i i'm not i'm not getting it that it's a it's a systemic issue why because of what i've my homework on this i've seen that our um expulsion rates suspension rates all our numbers are much better and what are we talking about we're talking about the latinx students really people of color and i was pleasantly surprised to see that this um the policies that we have are working with mr siebers mentioning how precipitously the expulsion and all our other rates have come down and we don't have all the markers that say whereas a district in trouble we pretty much have a handle on that and this

117discussion doesn't answer that but the students are saying we don't want it anymore and you know it's time to listen to that and i think that's what we should do listen to the students because this is this maybe have happened to their parents and you know i have i know kids that are already adults and have children are probably in our high schools already so um this is a problem that i have and we haven't talked to that we haven't focused our just we're already saying we're having an mou and this is only gonna matter in two schools and a couple of other schools so you know uh we got consultants that tell us the equity thing and the equity that this is not going to be equity honestly just just tell it like it

118is so unless we really are committed to everyone i don't think the city is going to want to do that you go to all our schools and you give these kids this problem no it's only the few the few people of color in our district that are having this problem and the few um title one schools those are the those are the ones that are going to be affected by this agreement this mou which i believe i don't know i don't it's not very s not a very strong document i mean you're you're supposed to when you have an agreement like that it has to be transitioned to a larger document a formal document and i don't i don't see that there's this intent i just don't see where this is going really to form

119a task force to me it's simple either you you rigid re read the district or re res uh re um purpose the whole program if you will and you ask the parents do you want your child to opt in or out let them decide let them decide if they want their kids to be part of this um that's that would be to me a real game changer because we have people that i don't that's where i'm at that you'd like to introduce trustee richardson sorry is i i appreciate your thoughts but i mean is are you recommending a specific motion we could talk about um well no because i see that the the board already wants something else and i'm just saying let's either consider this later and when we have a full board and

120nothing else in between because it's just we're just not a full board and that's one thing i i would like to make a motion in that regard if i have that we wait till that we have a full board to consider this therefore it would be a solid decision either be all or nothing so i'm just saying that i i would like to make that motion if there anybody or do we have to tonight i thought this was a special meeting we didn't have to or a study session we didn't have to come to any decision this is a an action meeting um and we have received quite a few public comments about the length of time it has taken to make a decision so if there is someone who would like to second trustee

121or vice president richard's motion to postpone making a decision until after i'll throw it out i i'll just comment that as you've said there's been a you know whatever course we take we can start the process and then ultimately to get to a full figure well there's a full decision when there's a full board but you know we do have people talking about and you know we have been our first meeting on this literally was at the end of june about about you know we've been spitting our wheels so um i again i would second trustees murray's motion but i do i'm uncomfortable just saying to continue because if we can't come to an agreement that's we can't continue in my opinion so i mean i would if if trustee murray would like is comfortable

122with saying to discuss the nature of an agreement to continue to potentially continue the relationship um i would support that and i would also support independently voting on uh keeping having number three because that's an independent process for the uh for the equity committee so yes she had trustee murray does have a motion on the floor and if she's comfortable with that minor what i hope is she thinks is a minor change to the phrasing i would second that's good okay so we have a first by trustee murray and a second by trustee baker with a with an amendment that trustee murray has accepted um may we have a roll call vote please nalani you're muted um sorry yes could you repeat the motion and what are we voting for so i will do my

123best to summarize um well this is almost like a test so this is actually kind of a good thing where are we paying attention okay so from what i understand the motion is to ex to negotiate an agreement to see if we can continue a relationship continue a relationship with the south san francisco police department with very clear parameters started in trustee baker's document with things such as non-uniformed officers to the extent possible not handcuffing students in public spaces contacting parents first to just list a few examples that would be the first part of the motion and the second part of the motion a separate process but also important if we're going to address systemic change would be to move forward with the development of an equity task force to explore larger systemic racism that

124exists within our practices and policies and even in our curriculum okay so we negotiate to see if we want to proceed and but we haven't said we would that's correct because if they if if we can't negotiate then we can't continue okay okay thank you for that clarity you're very welcome thank you it was kind of like a test make sure we all understand but i i'm always at a loss to these things because i'm like all over the place and then if i write it down i can sort of formulate it in my mind okay it's clear thank you thank you thank you vice president richardson okay nalani i think we're really ready for a roll call vote now okay susan trustee rangel cruz you're muted no okay trustee baker yes trustee murray yes

125vice president richardson yes president lujan yes motion carries i believe that brings us to the end of our meeting but i want to check and make sure dr moore we our conversation went all over um so i want to make sure you have enough guidance for your next steps because i remember part of the presentation was like clarity on what they're what are the immediate next steps and clarity on the longer term goals so i want to do a pause and check and see if you're clear i'm clear perfect so you're welcome thank you so with that i believe it's time to adjourn so thank you speak to you about some okay sounds good call me yeah okay that's what i was gonna say call you okay all right well thank you everyone i hope

126you have a wonderful evening good night good night good night thank you to our presenter