001Good evening everyone. >> Welcome to the June 10th meeting of the Berkeley School Board. I'm calling this meeting to order at 7:19 p.m. Thanks for your patience. Um, let's see. All right, folks who are online, if you'd like to follow along on our online agenda, it's posted on the district website. Um, before moving on to roll call, we need a vote to approve the remote participation of President Chang. Is there a motion and a second? >> So moved. I'll second. >> Director, yes. Director Brown, >> yes. >> Vice President Korn, >> yes. >> And President Chang, you get to vote. Uh yes. Thank you. >> Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. And Miss Chyros, can you please um call the role? >> Director Vasuv, >> Director Brown, >> present. >> Vice President
002Korn, >> present. >> President Chang, and this evening, director Shinoski is excused. Thank you. >> Thank you. President. >> Okay. For those using the audible translation option, please wear headphones. Headsets are available for mischievas and must be returned after use. Um, as a reminder, no person shall disturb the order of the meeting. Disruptive behaviors include booing, hissing, physical disturbances, speaking out of turn, interrupting speakers, blocking access or observation, entering restricted areas, or approaching the dis without permission. Um, in line with our bylaws, if a member of the public is disruptive to the meeting, the individual shall be warned, and if they continue to disrupt the meeting, the board should decide to recess to help restore order. If you have complaints against specific district employees, we encourage you to use the district complaint process through complaints.
003Berkeley.net as opposed to using public comment time to address these matters. And now we will approve the agenda for this evening's meetings. For this evening's meeting, are there any requested changes to the agenda? >> No. >> I I do have a You want to make the motion? >> Um I move that we >> Sorry. Um I move that we move action item 15.4 four to um to occur right after the consent calendar. >> I second the motion to amend the agenda to move item 15.4 up the agenda right after the consent calendar. >> And there's also a request to remove consent item >> um 13 >> seven. Thank you. when we get to the consent calendar, we should uh take action on that the consent item when we get to the consent calendar. But as
004it stands, the second has been made to uh move our move that action item up. >> Great. We're ready for the roll call. >> Miss Chz, will you take the roll call vote? >> Director Vasv, >> yes. >> Director Brown, >> yes. >> Vice President Korn, >> yes. >> President Chain, >> yes. >> Great. Um, so the agenda is approved with the requested changes and now we have our report out from close session. Director Brown, will you please report out? >> Yes, I will. For item 3.1.1, the board voted unanimously to approve. For item 3.2, the board did not hear an update at this time. And for item 3.3, the board discussed and provided direction. This ends a reading of the notes from close session. Thank you. >> Thank you, Director Brown. We will now
005move on to the public comment portion of our agenda. There are two opportunities for public comment at each meeting now and at the end of the meeting. If you do not get to speak right now at the beginning of the meeting, we encourage you to stay with us and speak your mind at the end of the meeting. You may, excuse me, you may also always email us your comments at board of edberkeley.net. And again, if you have complaints against specific district employees, we encourage you to use the district complaint process. Um, the board will does not respond directly to comments or questions made during public comment. Board members, the superintendent and staff do take notes during public comment, and we may follow up with speakers after the meeting. This is a hybrid meeting. So, we
006also have some public commenters online in addition to the commenters here in the boardroom. Um, we've we have about 20 to about 20 minutes of public commenters in person and then we'll move to our online public commenters. Um, we may not have time for everyone who has uh given us a speaker card to speak this evening. So we'll call um certain topics and we may ask you to decide amongst yourselves if uh how you want to use the time allocated um before we be uh we already talked about decorum expectations. Oh that's right. This my my script is off. Superintendent, would you like to make your comments before we begin public comment? >> Good evening B USD family. >> Good evening. >> That's all I wanted to say. I had the opportunity to go around
007and say hello to so many of you all. Um, thank you all for being here. This is uh unusual. This is our a meeting after school is out and I typically don't see so many faces and so I was just happy to see so many faces. Wanted to say good evening and when I said it at our last meeting last week, I did not have the opportunity to say congratulations to all of our graduates. So wanted to say that but to also uh wish There you go. Yes. and also didn't have the opportunity to wish you all a wonderful, restful, well-deserved summer. So, that's it. Thank you, President. Oh, vice president. Thank you, superintendent. Sorry about that. Um, and I won't repeat all of that about public comment. I think we'll dive right in. We
008always start with our youngest public commenters. And tonight, we have a student named Morgan Tommen, I believe, who's here with his mom, Aaron. Come on up. And Miss Chyres, each commenter will have one minute given the quantity of commenters we have this evening. My name is Morgan Tom and I'm from the Sylvia Mendes School and um I'm here to support um the miss the um that we need a bilingual teacher for afterare learns and um they need to be kind, they need to be um respectful and they need to be able to solve problems. problems and they need to be understanding and they need to be nice and they need to be friendly. And Uh, respect understanding. I'm done. Thank you, Morgan. We'll call on you to help us write all of our job descriptions
009in the future. Um, all right. I'm going to call up now a couple of speakers who are here to talk about our ELA curriculum agenda item this evening. There are three speakers. We'll give you one minute each. Lindsay Nofelt, Jamila Dunn, and Peggy Scott. Uh, good evening. My name is Lindseay Noelt and I'm here to talk about the literacy improvement report. When I look at these reports, I feel a lot of urgency. I'm grateful that future students will benefit from these reforms, but as a parent, it's really painful to watch the calendar tick by. My oldest child was just four years old when the literacy suit was filed, but at our current pace, he will be halfway through high school before any critical ELA changes will happen in middle school. We can't wait longer. The
010report celebrates success tonight, but it in relies on an incredibly small sample size, just one physical visit and a series of Zoom calls covering only two of the 14 schools affected by the improvement plan. While I appreciate the steps being taken, we cannot ethically accept this report as a finished job while the immediate gaping needs of our middle school adolescence remain unressed. Thank you. >> Thank you, Lindsay. Hi, good evening. I'm Jamila Dunn. Um, I Oh, okay. I urge you to extend the structured literacy curriculum to middle school as well. In just one year, we've seen encouraging progress from the district's fish tank ELA adoption in elementary schools. Students are benefiting from phonics and morphology, from knowledge building, from highquality instructional materials. Our middle school students deserve the same opportunity. This issue is personal for
011me. My son struggles with reading. Sorry. And for the first time ever, I have the ability to frontload the content he will learn in fifth grade English because there is a single curriculum that will be applied across all grades in um all fifth grade classrooms. Um his case manager shared with me that she often has to pull groups of kids to help understand this content before their classmates and therefore they're missing instructional time. So please adopt this curriculum K8. We already bought it. Thank you. >> Thank you Miss Dunn. >> Good evening board. My name is Peggy Scott. Congratulations. Berkeley Unified has completely replaced its old reading curriculum from TK through fifth grade. That's official. However, policy is not matching up with reality. We do not know how many teachers are actually using the new
012curriculum. I'm here tonight to request that you not call it quits on our kids by determining that BUSD is in full compliance with the 2020 dyslexia settlement because it isn't. Yes, there has been great progress, but there are huge gaps in the reporting. The settlement covered K through 8. The report with its happy talk completely ignores 100% of our middle school readers and over 80% of our elementary school readers. That is not a complete report. That's that's fully onethird of the plaintiffs. I don't know. I'm no good at math, but that's about 90% of the plaintiffs. >> Thank you, Miss >> Thank you. I appreciate you. >> Next, I'm going to call up a group of folks who are here to talk about the uh learns program at Emerson. And I'm going to give you
013five minutes collectively and ask you to sort of organize yourselves to use that five minutes. So this includes um Rachel Rosenarten, Yucer, Stephanie Yolish, I believe, Will Barton, Mattaline, Maddie Nunan, hi Maddie. Um Stacy Shasser, and Sarah Tares. >> Oh, awesome. Do you want to join? >> Yeah, is that okay? Am I allowed to say that? Great. Okay, we're sharing five minutes. Um, can I start? Great. Um, hello. >> I'm sorry. It seems like, um, you're not all Emerson, but you are all learns. Is that right? Are you you okay with organizing yourselves? Great. Thank you. Go ahead, Maddie. >> Okay. Oop, I lost my I'm back. Um, I'm Meline Nunan. I'm a proud Emerson parent and our um, vice president of our PTA. And I'm here because we have 50 families at our small
014school who are without afterare. families who are returning to learns, who are have siblings at learns, families who have been on the wait list for three and four years. We have an incredible highquality learns program that is a vital element of our school and exemplifies the vision for afterare that was shared with this board on April 15th. We understand that restructuring learns would result in it. We understood it would result in an increase to access access. We're here to tell you that is not the case at Emerson. We have families who as of today have still not heard about the status of their students. And for Emerson, we don't have busing to any programs that currently have spots. We have no options other than our highquality program. And we are asking that you give it
015the support to enroll the students at our school who have been there and want to be there. Hi, I am a child psychiatrist and you all are educators. Sorry, I get nervous. Um, you and I know the research shows consistent relationships with caring and safe adults is critical to children achieving their full potential. Learns at Emerson's provides that and under the management of Evan Ador has been a model for the district. If we are in agreement that all of our children deserve equitable access to education at public schools, it follows that they are also entitled to equitable access to an after-school program that supports their academic, social, and emotional development. Not for some, but for all. Yes, my family is personally affected. I have to tell my daughter to get back on the bus where
016when she told an adult that students were making her feel uncomfortable, she was told essentially to sit down and be quiet and she has to go back to an afterchool program that didn't have the structure and boundaries she needed as a student with ADHD. But I'm here on behalf of a community. I'm lucky to have the time and resources to provide her other options if Learns at Emerson isn't available. But many of her friends who attend school with us and those families do not have that option. I am not here to condemn but to collaborate and to get more transparency on the process and demand that there be an increase in the number of spots available for our families. Good evening board members. My name is Stacy Schesser. I'm a Thousand Oaks parent. I've been
017there for 10 years. My daughter Ramona is now in high school. My son Ace is in third grade. He was one of the petitioners to appear and advocate on behalf of Dante Gallon. I'm here tonight to speak about the parent perspective um about the learns enrollment process that happened last week. In brief, it's a mess. Um we truly appreciate that the board and admin found a workable solution to keep Dante at Tio. He is a treasured part of our community. But the stress of the situation is not over still. Instead, it has shifted now to the caregivers in the community to have a summer full of uncertainty. B USD promised better communication, which they may have thought that they accomplished here, but they haven't delivered on the result of expanded enrollment and put many families
018in a destabilizing care situation for the school year. The new weightless rollout has created confusion, send people back to the principal and the coordinator who have zero visibility into the problem at all. And I strongly recommend in fact that the BU BUSD admin actually lean on these coordinators who know their community best and how to manage this program efficiently. as you know somebody who's been involved with to on the PTA I've known Jen Cororin for years I'm also a single mom and if I can't have my kid in care then I can't work and then I'm going to leave Berkeley and that would be devastating for my community but also for me and my family and so we're just here tonight to advocate to do better because it is a mess right now and you
019are making parents and families feel so stressed out about what is to come for next Good evening. My name is Will Barton. My daughter Isabella has been in the Learns program at Emerson Elementary for the past two years. She's entering third grade this fall and as of today, she's not been offered a spot. She isn't alone. Expanded learning staff has told us that even after factoring in increased TK and kindergarten enrollment, the net result at Emerson is a loss of 40 to 50 children, returning students whose families built their year around those spots. What we keep hearing is that the cause is no specific change. The site staff no longer permitted to use substitutes the way the program has relied on for years. I'm asking the board tonight to reinstate the use of substitutes so
020that the children who have previously had a spot in learns, Isabella and many others can attend again. Thank you. >> Hi, I have a going into first and going into fourth grader at To0 as well. We have been greatly impacted and as some of our friends said back here, it's about the community, not about me. My son when he was in TK was being transported to an aftercare and got left on the bus and it was only because that I had an air tag on him that I found my son. And so for him to not be a part of the learns program greatly affects this trauma which will be a core memory for him. and my daughter was on the wait list for three years and just got in six months ago and now
021we don't have an afterare option. So families have been affected more so than just they have to find another option and I hope you will then consider. Thank you all for your comments. Next I'm going to call up a group of folks who are here to talk about our sustainability coordinator position. Um there's about 10 of you. Again, we'll give you five minutes and ask you to kind of organize yourselves. Mallerie Baron, Kate Gallagher, Jimmy Hangar, Linda Curry, Bethany Lorie, Martha Kaine, Bobby Smith, Ben Schlifer, Jacqueline Omania, Susan Silber, and Kimberly Schroeder. We start. >> Good evening. I'm Jacqueline Amana and I've taught in Berkeley for 42 years since I was 20. I started farm and garden at Sylvia Mendes which became the model garden for all the Berkeley garden programs including edible schoolyard. When
022I became a classroom teacher in 2004, I used the environment as the key to teach all subjects with projects like joining Full Belly Farm and using farm fresh produce to teach second graders math and writing. For the past 11 years, my students have been a zerowaste classroom. Back in 2016, our schoolwide efforts allowed our school, the smallest school in the B USD, to reduce its landfill pickup, saving the district 250 a month. Sustainability saves money and the planet. For me, sustainability is everything. Berkeley has a sustainability plan and a climate literacy resolution, and we need to actively implement them with a sustainability coordinator. There's no need for education if we don't have a planet to live on. Children know of this danger. They need education where they're learning to make a difference and where they
023see a difference being made like the reusable dishwear that they with we've enrolled recently. Move on. Hi, my name is Bethany Lori. I teach science at Ruth Acti Elementary. Please reinstate the position of sustainable co sustainability coordinator. The sustainability plan is a commitment and we cannot follow through without devoted staff on the ground proposing, orchestrating and supporting the changes we need to make in order to fulfill our duty to to our students and to the world. One concrete example I'd like to share is the implementation of reusable dishes and cutlery in the lunchroom at Ruth Acti. There was a lot of anxiety and agonizing over how this would work. I would even say there was resistance and stalling. It's not that folks didn't care or believe it was important. It's that change is hard and
024new systems need thoughtful planning and support. Sophia met with Ruth acti admin and lunch staff shared best practices that she gleaned from her work at other sites. She had experience and expertise and she facilitated our transition to reusables. This whole process was a living lab for staff and students. Teaching about environmental issues and sustainable practices must go along with action. Students want and need to have agency and to believe that adults at school have integrity that we will follow through and fight for our future along with them. Please keep this precious position. >> Good evening. I started working with Berkeley Unified in 2011 collaborating with the the district. Um and at that time there was very little infrastructure on waste reduction and other sustainability topics. We ended up working um on all the schools um
025focused on waste reduction and saved the district more than $60,000 because of our efforts for the past couple years. And in 2018, I was hired to write the sustainability plan and spoke with hundreds of parents, teachers, and students who enthusiastically wanted to see a healthier and cleaner district. And then you all ended up hiring Sophia. But more than just saving money, the climate crisis, there's so many benefits to sustainability. When students are learning about climate solutions, they're turning despair into action. A 2022 poll of Gen Z youth found that 80% of California youth had experienced a mental health related issue like anxiety or stress because of reading or hearing about climate change. So please we urge you to combine um Sophia and Ellen's position to continue to support students in schools for health and more
026resilient schools. Thanks. Hello, my name is Ben Schlifer. I am a reuse consultant. I've been working with BUSD for about four years and working with Sophia for about three. I'm proud to announce that BUSD has over 200,000 meals served on non-toxic reuse. But I am worried. I am worried that we cannot get all the schools in the district onto reusables. And that is your title. You deserve it. You've earned it. You've been working on it the longest. But other school districts are about to lap you. And so I think it that includes San Leandro, Fremont, Alama, and San Francisco Unified. If you all want to be the front of the spear, we need to have a sustainability coordinator because to get BHS onto reusables, which is very doable because we piloted it last year, we're
027going to need a sustainability coordinator to get it over the finish line. Thank you very much. >> Hi, good evening. I'm Linda Curry, Transition Berkeley co-founder and part of the Fix ItFest collaborating team. Honestly, I cannot understand how the decision to cut both B USD positions related to sustainability sustainability makes any sense. The district has made many climate resolutions. The two sustainability positions implemented those resolutions. Like a beautiful garden, without a gardener, successful programs will dry up and go to weeds. To my understanding, the climate literacy position, a 60% post, was eliminated due to funding cuts. But the other position under BUSD facilities, has had support for measure H since 2020 and goes through 2030. It seems that the decision to cut the position was decided because the person who had filled it recently resigned.
028>> Thank you so much. The sustainability coordinator position intact. Thank you. Thank you all so much. I'm going to call up four people who are here to talk about cell phones and technology and we're going to give you three minutes collectively. Um Vanessa Vega, Megan Warner, Grace Sukforth. Well, or I can just call three people. We're trying to we don't have time to call every single person. So, I'm trying to call people in groups and trying to allocate proportionally. And the last person is Rachie Lee. So, uh, I'm a parent of a rising second grader. Uh, with heavy screen use and screen addiction, youth have a greater risk of insufficient sleep, depression, ADD, obesity, exposure to harmful content, and lower academic performance. I expect B USD to provide an optimal learning environment and to protect
029our students when they are in school and in the online BUSD learning environment. I do not want my child or any of our students uh attention to be monetized by YouTube or thirdparty apps during school or while using school devices. I don't want thirdparty apps to harvest our students private information. I don't want my child to use addictive by design platforms during school or to be shown harmful content at school or on a school device. Studies have shown that YouTube filters fail and that it account of a 13-year-old will be shown harmful content within 3 minutes. I don't want BSD to enable my child or any students to use social media platforms where predators are increasingly known to approach and exploit youth such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Roblox, and Discord. I think BUD has lost
030control over what students can access and how much time they're spending online during school hours. Please implement at least in the middle school a lock away phone ban for the entire school day as research and middle school parents and many teachers support. Please eliminate YouTube, cloud moon games and third party apps from devices and the BSD network. Several studies uh have shown that these bans are uh going to help school climate and for struggling students academic performance by improving um the students engagement during class. Um so finally please stop recreational use of school devices um and student students use of recreational sorry students recreational use of school devices and their phones which is displacing activities that are more productive for their development. Thank you. Cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Jar Horvath's research has found that students using
031laptops in class spend about 38 minutes for every hour off task. This also happens at home. I block YouTube on my teenager's laptop only to find out also blocks Google Classroom. I block Roblox, but I have to block 13 different URLs just to stop access to a single gaming site. The distractions are endless. Solution: Bring back textbooks, paper, and pencils. Dr. Horvath warns, "If you have a policy that says, "Cool, you can use your cell phones during breaks during lunch or keep your phones in your bag. We just don't want to see them. In which case, kids are going to use them during breaks. This extreme craving will be met within 30 40 minutes. We call that a short delay. And when you know that there's only a certain amount of time until you can
032undertake that action, the dopamine increase and the habit cycle actually deepens. You make the habit worse. Solution: No, no phones in school. Period. The district's acceptable use policy is outdated and obsolete by perpetuating a policy that references netbooks and PDAs, you know, Palm Pilots, and ignores modern realities like generative AI and social media. The district is failing. You are leaving us vulnerable while ignoring the tools our kids navigate on a daily basis. Leadership requires foresight, not passive negligence. Thank you. Thank you. We have just three more in-person public commenters and then we're going to go online. Christina Cole, uh Ariana Thompson Lasted and Versil Mitchell. >> Good evening. I'm Christina Call. I'm a rising eighthyear parent at Sylvia Mendes. Um, my family does not use the Learns program currently, but I'm here to advocate strongly
033for the reclassification of a learns position as a bilingual position. I was recently reading the current enrollment policy and Sylvia Mendes is to allocate up to 23 of its seats to Spanishspeaking English language learners. And that definition is specifically kids who are coming from homes where they're Spanish speakers. And as a monolingual English speaker, I cannot imagine coming to my school and not being able to communicate with the staff and professionals in my language. And it's so clear how Sylvia Mendes was set up. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Ariana. I am also a longtime Sylvia Mendes parent. I have a third grader about to be a fourth grader and also a rising seventh grader at Longfellow. Um like Christina here to advocate on behalf of having a bilingual requirement
034for learn specialist at Sylvia Mendes. Um, my kids have been in learns for many years. And specifically, I want to read from the BUSD master plan for multilingual learners, which reads, quote, "District resources will ensure all students, staff, administrators, and families in the Spanish TWWI 2-way immersion programs to be consistent and successful practitioners of the four pillars of dual language. We currently have a learns coordinator who is bilingual. It makes a huge difference for families ability to do things basic things like sign up for learns for the next year so their kids can access it and communicate daily with the people taking care of their children and it's an absolute essential to align with this multilingual plan that we continue to have someone bilingual in that position. Thanks. >> Hi, my name is Aaron Egan.
035I'm a parent at Sylvia Mendes and I just wanted to share our support for the bilingual coordinator or specialist role. We also feel it's a safety issue given today's current environment. We are the only Spanish-speaking school in Berkeley that is fully Spanish-speaking. We feel that our families are at risk and we think it is critical to have a specialist/coordinator that can communicate quickly and effectively with our community to ensure their safety. Thank you very much. We say in Brazil we say in South Africa we say how's it in France we say in Japan we say in Nigeria we say >> I didn't know I was going to play that tonight but I was at our graduation recently and every year our school at Willard gives gives a moment for people to speak in their language
036for linguistics reasons. I'm mixel from Willard Middle School. Dear school board members, I hope you are taking a moment for yourself to breathe and clear your mind. I've been reflecting on how our purpose and the legacy we choose to leave behind, what our native people describe as leaving things behind for seven generations. Often we work in fields where we believe we are the only ones capable of doing certain tasks. But is important to look inward and consider our true intentions. >> When faced with harmful situations, we must ask to if we're going to stay as the right choice. >> We're going to fight or flight. Your instinct is to do this for the students. We're here for the kids and the future generations. >> Thank you so much, >> Miss Chavez. believe we have seven
037folks online uh with hands raised. We're going to start with Shaham Arabi and then next up will be Lena McDi going to unmute yourself please. >> Apologies I thought I did. Hi everyone, my name is Sham Harabi. I'm a parent of two Emerson Elementary School students and one of them sitting here, Anita, she wanted to say something to the group. >> Hi, I'm Anita. I really, really like all the games in Kids World and how it is. The snacks are really good and I just love all the teachers and how we could do a lot of fun stuff and I really don't want to leave it because this was my first year and it's so fun and I want to be in every year until I graduate and that's why >> and my uh her
038brother uh my son also wanted me to pass along uh does this really mean I won't be able to hang out with my friends at kids world anymore and my spouse wanted me to pass along also um based on a recent experience she had that much please email the rest of your comments thank you >> thank you very much thank you so next up is Lena Maktisi Hello. Hi. I'm an educator and parent of a rising third grader, and I'm here to demand transparency regarding our district's elementary technology practices. I've previously noted conflicting answers about screen time frequency. Even more alarming is the administration's cavalier attitude. Unsolicited, the principal joked about teachers needing to tell students to get off websites used for checking basketball scores. Even as I was asking in earnest about the instructional
039justification for this screen time, this should not be a punchline. I have to ask, what are our children accessing? Most sports sites are rife with adult conversations and gambling advertisements. Why is this treated with such nonchalance? My child, like all elementary students, is at a critical developmental stage where her brain is rewiring. For neurodeiverse children especially, this requires active human-led instruction. BUD families are currently in the dark. We need a clear, accessible technology plan and transparency on what our children are being exposed to. I urge the board to prioritize human centric learning and publish clear transparent guidelines before the next. >> Thank you so much. We appreciate your comments. Um, Alina Ball is up next and then after Alina will be Netsaw Coyoto Romero. Hello, my name is Alina Ball. My daughter is a rising
040third grader at Sylvia Mendes. And I'm here tonight to urge B USD to mandate that the learns after school specialist position at Sylvia Mendes Elementary be an explicitly bilingual Spanish uh English role. Sylvia Mendes is the only dedicated to a immersion elementary school. Our entire educational model is built on a foundation of linguistic equity and bilingualism. However, the learning and community building does not stop when the bell rings at 3 at at 2:30 or 1:30 on Wednesdays. I guess the learn program is learns program is not just afterare. It is a critical extension of the learning day. As our current learns coordinator, Miss Anita has demonstrated over the years that she's been with us. Uh this position is the primary she's the p primary face of of this program. She managed our enrollment, coordinated enrichment,
041um managed safety, and navigated student behavioral crisis. More importantly, she is a vital and direct bridge between families and the school. Thank you so much, Miss Ball. We appreciate your comment. You can email us if you have additional comments. Um Netsa Walyoro Romero is up next and then after that will be Lauren Marovski. Hi, how are you? Uh, my name is Netsa Romero and first of all, thank you for pronouncing my name correctly. Uh, I graduated from Berki High School in 2007. During my time there, I was part of RISE uh the Rice program which provided invaluable support as an immigrant student and helped create a pathway for me to attend college and build a successful career. Thanks to the guidance and encouragement of Miss Betty and the entire Rice team, I was able to
042pursue my dream of working in TV and radio, which eventually led me to my current career in the fashion industry. Today, I live in Los Angeles and I often look back on my experience with Rice and the impact it had on my life. The support I received helped shape the person I am today and I am incredibly grateful for that. I hope you will continue supporting this amazing program so that future students can benefit from the same opportunities and encouragement that helped me achieve my goals. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Lauren Marovski will be our ne next speaker and then after Lauren will be Filipini Studio. Thought >> you said Bonnie. >> Lauren Marovski is next. Hi there. Oh, we can hear you. Go ahead. >> Oh, great. Thanks. Hi. Good evening. My
043name is Lauren Marovsky. I'm the parent of a rising third grader, Louisa, at Emerson Elementary. I want to speak to the disruption that the loss of access to the learn's kids world program has caused for so many Emerson families like my own. Kids World is simply put fantastic and so much more than just after school care. It's tutoring. It's enrichment. It's community. It's a safe place for children to learn and grow. And for my daughter, it has meant reading support when she's struggled. It's meant friendships for a shy kid. It's meant connections to her school community that she hasn't had in the past. At Emerson, there are not comparative alternatives to Kids World. When families lose access, they're left scrambling for child care, enrichment, and transportation. Somewhere families waited years for access to the program
044only to lose it. I understand the goal of expanding access for our youngest learners, but solving access for one problem is creating uh a problem in another area, and it's not a sustainable solution. Um, families shouldn't have to lose access to a program they've relied upon for years. Our ask is simple. Please explore every available pathway to restore capacity for affected families. We don't want spots taken away from kids. We just want enough spots for everyone. Thank you. >> Thank you, Lauren. Our next uh online public speaker will be Filipini Studio and then Bonnie Barooi will be our last online speaker this evening. There's a couple more folks who raised their hands after we began the online public comment. Um, if you would like to stay on, you can make a comment at the end
045of the meeting. Go ahead, Filipini. >> Hi, my name is David Filipini. I'm a parent of Sylvia Mendes, a bilingual family. Um, thanks to the board and district staff for listening to uh hundreds of guardian, students, and children within our Sylvia Mendes community and uh that petitioned. and we hope to instate a bilingual specialist position for Sylvia Mendes um this coming uh June the 17th. Um our community strongly recommends that the board vote to replace the current specialist position at our school with a bilingual specialist position and uh this specialist uh bilingual specialist position will allow our multif multi-ingual families like mine to to have e equitable access to afterchool learnership. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, David. Uh Bonnie Barooi will be our final online public speaker this evening. Thank you. Okay, audio
046on camera. Sorry. Um, >> okay. So, my name is Bonnie Barooi. I'm the current director of Transition Berkeley. Um, and I'm a a parent of a former BSD student, um, B USD supporter, and I'm here to urge BSD to host and fill the sustainability coordinator for the 202627 school year. Transition Berkeley has collaborated with um the Eagle Literacy program and the sustainability coordinator to bring hundreds of volunteer hours and um advocated for grants to support zero waste and repair activities at BUSD. Without someone to coordinate these activities, funds will be lost. I don't trust that the work of this important position funded by measure 8 will be absorbed by the the other departments. Um so please um continue the s the sustainability coordinator position. It's necessary. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comments.
047At this time we will move on to item 10 on our agenda which is committee comments. I believe we have a G-Shock commenter here this evening. The gender equity and sexual harm advisory committee. Recent Berkeley High graduate October Harrenstein. Good evening board members. I'm October Herenstein. You may remember me. And as of last Friday, as was mentioned, I'm a proud Berkeley High alumni. During my sophomore year, I spoke at nearly every schoolboard meeting on behalf of the transgender students at Berkeley High School. I presented data on trans happiness. I shared testimonies of our experiences. I read poetry about my life. But most of all, I stood here and begged you to make change at BHS. That same year, I joined G-Shack as one of the student reps. I was the youngest person to ever join
048the committee, and when I graduated, I was the longest standing student member. In G-Shack, my fight against the district for trans rights was transformed into a battle we were fighting together. I met and befriended the superintendent. I met with sport schoolboard members outside of the meetings. And I learned that nearly every single person in our district is making an effort every single day to make our schools better. In our district, there's an idea that admin is working against us. But the truth is, you work tirelessly to improve. In the time I've been at Berkeley High, GSAC has completed the first annual Prism training for all certified staff 7th through 12th grade. We've introduced new gender neutral bathrooms in the new P building at Berkeley High School, the new gender neutral bathroom on M1, and the
049new gender neutral stalls at Oxford Elementary. We've renewed welcoming schools. We've scaled up Miss Molly's consent presentations. We've expanded Green Dot. And we've passed resolutions supporting our queer and trans youth. I'm proud of what this district has accomplished, and I'm proud of my involvement in it. But we need to continue this progress. We need to have officials like our wonderful Title N coordinator at our schools working to improve actively and available for students to discuss with and to make our voices heard. Without Yasmina, I would still view the district as something to be fought with rather than collaborated with. Without my discussions with her about policy and codes, about what we can do to make the school better, none of this change would have happened. Luckily for BSD, I don't plan to go far. I
050have the unique opportunity to be a mere hour and a half drive away from BHS and I get to text my friends about the quality of the bathrooms and I will be refreshing the B USD website just waiting for some new problem to pull me away from Stanford and right back into this meeting room. We need this progress to continue now more than ever. We need it. We need to continue funding positions for LGBTQ support like our LGBTQ leaison. We need to continue funding prevention programs like Green Dot and welcoming schools. We need to continue to increase access to genderneutral bathrooms. Yes, even more. And we need to continue professional development. One thing I especially would love to see is improved sexed comprehensive education when our students really need it, which means for upper classmen.
051I did research last year that showed our students are not confident in basic essentials of their own bodies. That the sex ed they have received is not inclusive of disabled, aerrowce, trans, or generally queer bodies. I've left my notes with Yasmina and now is the time to follow through. Last week, Rose was here and she called you all green dots. I'm here to call you allies. I'll pass you a flag, but know that waving it means continuing progress. Pride isn't just a month, it's a promise. Thank you for everything. Please remember I will be back. May I approach the bench? Are there other committees here this evening? Come on up. >> Um, thank you for having us here tonight. I'm Vicky Davis and I along with Nicole Shabbo co-chair the policy and oversight committee of
052the Berkeley Schools Excellence Program, also known as the PNO. This committee provides oversight and advises on funds from Measure H and Measure E, Berkeley's local special taxes in support of our public schools. The PO consists of 25 members representing 18 school sites. This year we had 15 meetings for a total commitment of more than 45 hours spent to oversee and make recommendations to this school board. First, a deep thank you to the PNO staff including Kathy Fleming, Danielle Perez, and Craig Kaufman. They are rock stars and dig diligently work to oversee taxpayer funds, ensuring dollars are always spent in accordance with the measure as passed by Berkeley voters and paid by Berkeley property owners. I would also like to thank the program managers for their careful creation of the many reports and proposals that are
053presented each year to the PO committee in addition to filling our requests for additional data and thoughtfully answering our many questions. Finally, I would like to thank our members. In addition to the over 45 hours we spent together, there are countless hours spent outside of our meetings where members review district data and analytics, program reports, and budget proposals so that they can attend our meetings fully informed and ready to engage in meaningful discussions. To that end, the PNO has reviewed all budget proposals and voted to recommend the school board approve all budgets as presented. We do however feel it very important to note that this year the BP and Bara budgets have absorbed approximately 700,000 from the general fund LCAP and expiring grant expenses that will be used to help fund programs in a year
054of difficult budget reductions. Additionally, this year, due to both union negotiations and an increase in classrooms, our main expense, the funding of small class sizes for BUSD has increased by over $1 million. It is important to note that these shifts in funds, while in accordance with the language of the measure, can affect BP's ability to fund our current programs or take on any new priorities. This year, three of the BSE programs have made 10% reductions to be able to absorb costs from the general fund, and we ask that the general fund see these savings as one-time dollars. Additionally, three other BET programs are currently using their measure E1 fund balances to pay for core program activities to some degree. This means that those expenditures can only be sustained for 2 to three years before those
055programs will need to reduce their own budgets. It is important to note that the BP supported budgets do not have space to absorb more expenses from the general fund without making further cuts to BPU supported programs. and most BPU supported budgets will have to carefully watch their current expenditures to stay in line with COLA increases to support the programs currently in place without having to make further reductions themselves. As we look to the 2627 school year in which we will inevitably have to make further reductions at the general fund level, BP will not have extra capacity to take on additional programs without making cuts in the same year. We look forward to continuing to work with you, the school board, and the district administration to navigate these difficult financial decisions in the coming years. Thank
056you. >> Thank you, Vicki. Um, Miss Chair, it looks like Spencer Pritchard is here for the African-American Success Advisory Committee. Great. >> Great. >> Hi there. You stole my introduction. Um, good evening, superintendent, school boards, and committee members. My name is Spencer Pritchard. on part of on behalf of the superintendent's African-American success advisory committee. I'm also the co-chair of the African-American studies department at Berkeley High School. So, a few days ago, we celebrated commencements. I want to shout out superintendent for her wonderful remarks at our 36th annual celebration of back black excellence at King Middle School. Um across and across our community, students cross stages, received diplomas, hugged their families, took pictures, and marked an important milestone in their lives. and they should be celebrated. Graduations and promotions matter. They represent pers perseverance, growth, sacrifice,
057and the collective effort of students, families, educators, and community members who helped make that moment possible. But we know that we call our graduations commencements because we know the diploma isn't the finish line. It is just the beginning. And while we should absolutely celebrate our graduates, we cannot rest on our laurels. As someone who works with students every day, as someone who has participated in the this work in the classroom, in across the school, across the district, and community levels, I can tell you that we have and are still far from where we need to be. Far too many black students are still navigating barriers that affect their academic experiences and future opportunities. Far too many are graduating without the full range of post-secary options we would want for our own children. And far too
058many continue to require supports that our systems are only beginning to learn how to provide consistently. That is why the African-American success framework matters. Sever several years ago before the co lockdowns, the district made an important decision. It acknowledged the long-standing disparities affecting black students would not improve through good intentions alone. The district committed to a different approach, not a slogan or temporary initiative, a framework for action. The pandemic just exposed how urgent this commitment truly was. Despite the setbacks of one of the most disruptive periods in modern educational history, this district continued to work. And as someone who has had a front row seat, I can say that we are beginning to see the results of sustained effort. We see stronger transitions between schools, deeper family engagement, greater coordination between departments, programs, and community
059partners, educators building new skills, and taking greater ownership of student success. And more most importantly though, we're beginning to see a development of actual pipelines for black student success. Students moving from elementary school to middle through step up and transition supports. Families becoming more connected to schools. Middle schools engaging in culturally responsive learning labs. Students receiving early earlier interventions and more coordinated support. These are the kinds of systems that create lasting change. The outcomes reflect progress. Our mathematics dashboard improved from red to yellow. College and career readiness improved from 17 and a half% to nearly 47%. And more than 1300 students and families participated in the transition fairs of targeted support um students and supports. And those gains matter, but they shouldn't make us comfortable. They should continue to make us committed. Because these numbers
060do not tell us the work is done. They tell us the work is beginning to take hold. As resources do become more limited, difficult decisions will continue to be made about what receives support and investment. I understand that reality, but I would encourage us to recognize that this is precisely the moment when sustained commitment matters the most. The framework is asking us to strengthen what is beginning to work. To deepen the pipelines being built, to reinforce that transitions are improving, to continue developing the systems that that help students succeed. And to remember that every commencement ceremony represents not only what we accomplished, but also what remains unfinished. The graduates, the graduates we celebrated last week made me proud. The students coming behind them make me determined because the question before us is the same question
061that's guided us this work from the beginning and the question we ask ourselves at the beginning of every ASAC committee meeting. How are the children and are there well? The honest answer is we made progress. The honest answer is also we have much more work to do. Thank you so much. >> Thank you Spencer. Are there any other committees here to speak this evening? How about our labor partners? Are there any union comments this evening? Are there any online? Okay, then we are ready to move on to board member comments. Um, Director Brown, Director Vasud, do you have comments? >> No, I have no comments this evening. Okay. Uh, good evening everyone. Uh thank you so much for uh coming out to our board meeting. Uh thank you to those who took the time to
062speak to the board of education uh regarding the need for a bilingual uh specialist support position at Sylvia Mendes. Um the need for the literacy report and the ongoing need for that extension to happen uh into our middle schools. Thank you to those who spoke about the learns program, the sustainability coordinator position, our technology practices and our school systems and the need to actually update our uh antiquated uh technology uh policy. And thank you for the mention of Palm Pilots. Haven't heard that in a long time. Um and thank you to those who spoke on behalf of the RISE program. um and to our committees uh for uh your comments tonight. The African-American Success Committee PNO Vicki haven't seen you in a very long time, so it's good to see you this evening. Um and
063thank you to G-Shack for your comments. October, congratulations. We are so proud of you. Um and as much as we want to see you, we know that you need to be on the campus of Stanford making a huge impact there. So come say hello and advocate when you can, but please make change on that campus in the way that you did on ours. Um, I am actually gonna cut my comment short tonight. Um, I want to uh just say how happy I've been these last couple of days. Um, celebrating all of our graduations across all of our schools. Um, and also um our Berkeley High graduation um that concluded on uh Friday. And it's always so great to be up there and see our all of our students um and to be able to give
064them their diplomas and take pictures with them. Uh but the thing that we don't talk about a lot is um our families, our community members who helped our graduates to get to where they are. And so I want to take the opportunity to really just thank our Berkeley community, our Berkeley families, our Berkeley caregivers, um who helped our our students get to that day. And just as much as it was our students day, it was also uh the day for our community members as well, as well as our educators who helped our students get there. So, congratulations to all of our stakeholders um on a great job getting our students to the finish line, but also congratulations to all of our stakeholders and getting through the year because this was definitely um a tough and
065a long and a difficult year. Uh but it's one that all of us have gotten through. And so, thank you uh for the opportunity to share Thank you, Director Brown. I will also keep my comments short. I echo all the gratitude to everyone who came out tonight to make public comment um on a variety of issues and to the representatives of our committees who are here this evening. And I also want to echo the huge congratulations to all of our graduates. Excuse me. >> Okay. Um I'll come back to you. Um, huge congratulations to all of our graduates and to their families. Um, and I actually want to end on a bit of a somber note. I want to note um, and director Schnowski really asked me to make sure that I shared this this
066evening. She couldn't be here tonight. Um, but everyone in BUD, we are deeply saddened to share the news that Miss Sophina Jones, who's our counselor at Berkeley Technology Academy, um, her husband passed away suddenly this week. She's been a really valued member of the BUSD community for many years. She actually um when I was the principal at Oxford, she her first role in BUSD was an intern um with with our school when she was getting her counseling credential. Um so I've known Sophina for a really long time. They are parents of three children in B USD, one at Berkeley High and twin daughters at Sylvia Mendes. Our thoughts are with her and her children. Um, I know that I've shared on my Facebook page the GoFundMe that has been put together and director Shinoski has
067shared it as well. And we invite anyone in the community who'd like to support their family to contact any of us and we can help you um get access to that. And I'll pass it back to you, Director Brown. Uh, that was actually my my additional comment. And so I thank you Vice President Korn for bringing that up and our hearts and prayers continue to stay with uh Sophina as well as her girls um who are experiencing a difficult time. So thank you for sharing. >> Thank you. And um President Chang is online and do you have any comments to add President Chang? Uh uh thank you so much and I just wanted to say as well um condolences to uh Miss Jones and her family and thanks everybody for bringing their hearts and minds
068uh to the board um and congratulations on the graduates. Uh sorry I can't make it today and thank you so much um board members colleagues for providing support as uh while I'm out of the uh not not there in person. Um and otherwise I want to give my time back. Thank you so much. Great. Thank you, President Chang. Um, now's the time in our agenda where we approve our consent calendar. Um, I would like to make a motion to approve the consent calendar with the exception of item 13.7. >> I'll second. >> Miss Tyres, will you call the role? >> Director Vasv, >> yes. >> Director Brown, >> yes. Vice President Korn, >> yes. President Chain, >> yes. Thank you. >> Great. And now we're going to move on to action item 15.4, which we
069earlier moved to this uh part of the agenda. Um this is a discussion of procedures for filling potential board vacancies. Um you will remember that we discussed this item at our meeting last week. Um, and we we discussed the need to form an ad hoc committee of two members of our board who can think through a procedure to um a timeline and a procedure to advertise, interview, and fill any potential vacancy that may arise on the board. Um, do either of my board colleagues have any comments you'd like to make or discussion on this matter? Yes, I do have a couple of comments. First, I want to recognize that we have uh Council Combmes in the room with us just in case we need to uh ask him. And thank you so much for all
070of uh the advice that you've given us on this um specific topic. In preparation for the vacancy that we will have on the board, uh I would like to volunteer as a member uh to serve as a member as of the ad hoc committee. I know that it does need to take a vote, but I would like to extend my um I'd like to volunteer as tribute at this time. >> Thanks, Director Brown. What were you going to say? Okay. Um, director Vas, >> I just have a question for council columns. I actually met recently with a board member at the county office of education and when they had a vacancy what that board member told me is that in their as part of their policies, they have like procedures for vacancies either um for
071any, you know, whatever reason either resignation because you're moving on to a different office and there could be a conflict of interest. that's will likely happen here. Um or because there some maybe there's a passing this actually happened at the county office when that trustee was elected. Uh there was a board member who pass sadly passed away and the board had a policy. Now do does B USD have a formal policy on v on what to do as part of this process and if not can you just maybe speak to the kind of policies that exist in different boards? Sure. Great, great question. And the short answer to the first part is no. Um, you do not. And um, in general, it would be advisable for the governing board to uh, adopt and and formulate
072a policy. Obviously, I well, it may not be obvious, but I think you have an existing policy committee. So, that would be the perfect form to have that discussion and develop uh, that policy. There are many examples out there because so much of this, at least the part that you're dealing with tonight, meaning how you decide whether or not to uh proceed with a provisional appointment or call for an election, those two options are really up to you. And if you decide on the um former, meaning an appointment, then that really is within your control how you do that. So that's why a policy would be helpful and there are many samples out there. I won't go through them because I want to be mindful of your time. Uh but the short answer is no,
073you don't have one and yes it would be advisable to have one. >> Thank you council member. So I'm happy to support you know whatever when we get to whatever you also like to propose vice president Korn um you know what the majority of the board wants. I will say that I think it's very important especially after speaking to other trustees on other boards um that this goes back to the policy committee and becomes formalized as part of policies because there are many reasons why there may be a vacancy on the board but having something that that the board can point out to as a matter of policy I think would be important in the future. >> I agree with you wholeheartedly. Yeah, I agree as well. And I think it would um be in
074the best interest of us that um because there aren't any policy committee meetings coming up, maybe it is um the ad hoc committee that can make a recommendation to the policy committee. Um and when the policy committee uh meets or decides to have a meeting, even if it's a special meeting, they at least have something uh to work with. And so um I myself if I'm given the opportunity to be on the ad hoc committee will definitely uh work towards that because I think policy definitely helps us to drive good practice and so it's important that we have a policy as we prepare for the vacancy. >> Great. I will say there is a policy committee meeting coming up. I'm not suggesting that that's where this be drafted but there is and I want to
075make sure that it really happens. I see Yia nodding her head. It will happen. There will be a policy committee meeting um later this month. >> Perfect. >> Great. >> So, given all of that, it sounds like we're all on the same page that we'd like to form an ad hoc committee to sort of quickly propose a process for the near-term eventuality that there may be a vacancy and that we also want to make sure that the policy committee takes this up probably in the fall to establish a policy sort of in perpetuity. I heard Director Brown volunteer herself. I would also like to volunteer myself as tribute for the ad hoc committee. Did you want to make another comment before we I I suggest we make a motion? >> Yes. Um I I do
076want to make sure that I'm understanding correctly uh what we are giving the ad hoc committee to do, what what work we're giving the ad hoc committee to do. So the last time we were in this session, we talked about forming uh we talked about moving forward with an appointment. We also uh received public comments about um maybe moving forward with an election. Um but we didn't leave uh saying exactly what it is that we wanted to do as a board. And I believe tonight's uh vote could be that we approve um the ad hoc committee and that we give the ad hoc committee marching orders on what to focus on. Um and um Council Combmes, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that we could uh take that action tonight. >>
077And I also believe Council Combmes that you have some guidance about the viability of an election versus an appointment. >> Uh yes. So um why don't I take if it's okay, uh that second part first. Um given the timing of the expected vacancy on the board um the current timing and this mean there are a couple of assumptions here. So the current timing if we assume the vacancy would arise on July 1st then uh that would trigger the 60-day timeline for the board to make a decision about the two options that we discussed. um the appointment option if that's what you were to choose because the vacancy occurs within meaning not more than 130 days but within 130 days of the next election if you chose appointment then that appointment would fill out the remainder
078of the term and it's just a quirk in the statutory scheme and if the vacancy occurred earlier then you could appoint and then have an election but at the moment that's not the time frame that you are dealing with. Um so if you chose appointment it would be appointment to complete the term. Uh if you chose an election then it would be at the next available election which would be November. I hope I answered the question. >> I think that answers the question. And how much time is there left on the term? uh two um November 2028 I believe. Yes. So I don't know director Brown if I answered your part of the question which was can you do both? You can. Sometimes it may be better to separate the two actions in terms of
079two motions. I would advise that. Um but you certainly can. >> Absolutely. Yes. >> Yeah. I think it is in our best interest to take them as uh two different action items. But my question originally was uh as we are forming the ad hoc committee and taking that vote tonight, can we also give the direction uh to move forward with an appointment as was the conversation by the majority of the board uh last meeting? And so definitely taking them as two different action items, but wanting to ensure that we give the ad hoc committee something to actually work with. >> Absolutely. Yes, you can. Yes. Yes. >> Would you like to make a motion? I was going to say with that being said, I'll I'll make both motions. Maybe I'll begin uh with the first
080which is to move forward uh with an appointment to uh fill out the rest of the term uh which is two more years in the term uh that we will have the vacancy for. Um and then so I I'll make that motion >> and I will second. >> Okay. >> Do we approve the ad hoc committee? We will get to the ad hoc committee next. That's the we're just giving the ad committee something to work on. So the first motion is around uh filling the vacancy that we will have for the next two years. Um and I made the motion. Director Korn seconded and we are ready for the roll call vote. >> Copy. Thank you. Director Vasv. >> Yes. >> Director Brown. >> Yes. >> Vice President Korn. >> Yes. >> President Chang. >>
081Yes. >> Okay. So the motion carries to give the ad hoc committee something to actually work on. And at this time I would like to make a second motion to approve myself as well as director Korn as the two members of the ad hoc committee. >> And the purpose of the ad hoc committee will be to propose a process and a timeline for appointment to fill a vacancy on the board. >> Yes. as well as uh providing uh information in preparation for the policy committee meeting to have a policy that is aligned with this um with this vacancy as well as addition or future vacancies. Um and so I gave the motion. Are you second? >> Second. >> Wonderful. >> Director Vasv, >> yes. >> Director Brown, >> yes. >> Vice President K. >> Yes.
082>> President Chang, >> yes. >> Motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much. >> Thank you everyone and thank you Council Combmes. That completes our discussion of action item 15.4. And now we're going to transition to item 14.1, which is a presentation of our literacy um the endear targeted monitoring literacy action report. Quite a breeze up here. >> All right. Um, good evening, Vice President Korn, members of the board, and superintendent. I'm Jill Hoganike, associate superintendent of the educational services department here in BUSD. Um our literacy work has focused on the key components of a strong literacy system infrastructure capacity building and instructional resources. This is work that we have pursued intentionally, deliberately and consistently over the last four years. The encouraging news is that we are seeing positive results as reflected in our uh 2526
083star and dibbles data that's attached as an information item to tonight's agenda and also as reflected in recent findings from the educational opportunity project. Good things are happening for teaching and learning in B USD and I am Berkeley proud of the work our teachers, our site specialists, literacy coaches, RTITSAs, case managers, principles and district staff have done and continue to do to strengthen instructional practices and better meet the needs of our Berkeley students. At the same time, we know that this work is not finished. As a learning organization, we continually examine what is working well and what we can improve. That commitment to continuous improvement is something that I hope you have seen in the work that we do in the ED services department and for our literacy work in particular. We are strengthening our
084practices by learning from what is working and what can be improved by incorporating feedback from teachers and leaders and by building systems for monitoring and support and making adjustments along the way. Under the 2225 settlement agreement, Mr. George Ellis from UC Berkeley monitored B USD's implementation of the literacy action plan and presented his final program monitoring report to the board on August 20th, 2025. In his final report, he recommended an additional year of targeted monitoring focused on observation and feedback practices implementation of the adopted English language arts curriculum at our elementary schools and specifically at the two identified target schools in addition to general monitoring of tier 1 implementation of the new curriculum. To support this next phase of monitoring, BSD contracted with Dr. Kim Gibbons and Dr. Dr. Gim Gibbons presented her mid-year report
085to the board in February and she's joining us here virtually this evening to share her final monitoring report. So with that, I welcome you Dr. Gibbons from Minnesota. >> Thank Thank you so much. Uh good evening, President Chang, Vice President Korn, members of the board, Superintendent Gordell, and members of the Berkeley Unified School District community. Uh thank you for the opportunity to share the findings from the final year of the literacy monitoring conducted as part of the literacy improvement program and the dyslexia class action settlement agreement. Uh before discussing the report I really want to acknowledge the extraordinary amount of work that has occurred across Berkeley Unified School District over the past four years um that I have been part of this journey. meaningful systems change is never easy. Um, and the progress reflected in
086this report is really the result of the collective efforts of the district leaders, the principles, the literacy coaches, the teachers, the specialists, and the support staff who have remained committed to improving literacy outcomes for students. I want to really um lift up that throughout this process I have consistently observed a willingness to engage in reflection, address challenges directly and remain focused on continuous improvement. Uh in my dual role this year as both the consultant and and the monitor, my role has been to collect and review evidence, conduct observations, facilitate monitoring discussions, analyze implementation and student outcome data, and provide an independent assessment regarding the district's pro uh progress. So, the findings and conclusions that I'm presenting this evening represent my monitoring recommendations based on the evidence gathered um throughout the 2025 26 school years. Um,
087I'd also just like to say that after um reviewing district-wide implementation efforts, targeted school monitoring across two schools, classroom observations, lead leadership practices, coaching systems, and student outcome data, I I found substantial evidence that Berkeley Unified has sustained and strengthened the literacy systems that have been established um throughout the four years. And I think the most significant finding is that the conversations over the past four years have really evolved from conversations that were focused on compliance with monitoring requirements, getting instructional routines set up, discussions around why screening and progress monitoring are important and uh an ongoing work around the curriculum um adoption. So we've moved from those set of of questions and discussion items to really now the questions it that I've been a part of in the district are about instructional effectiveness. How do
088we differentiate and engage all of our students? How are we going to respond um to the needs of of both lifting up outcomes for all students as well as closing um achievement up gaps for for different um groups of students. So um in my experience, I've been doing this for over 30 years. I work with a lot of schools around the country. the type of shift that I've seen in in terms of the conversations along with my observations in the classrooms and looking at your data. Um th this shift is one of the clearest indicators that improvement efforts have really started to become embedded within the district's culture and systems. So this evening I'll just give you a brief overview. You have the full report. I'll give you an overview of of what happened this
089year and highlight the ma major findings from the report and and leave time for questions as well. Okay. So um really uh the purpose of this final year was to really work on strengthening the implementation, the consistency and the sustainability of the improvement plan that we've been working on the last four years. So, um, as as you heard, the the real focus this year has been around highquality tier one literacy instruction, uh, at the elementary level with a strong focus on, um, instructional leadership and coaching systems. So, uh have have spent a lot of time with in various groups uh talking and looking at the evidence of all of the activities that have happened this year. And two schools that um are remain anonymous in in the report, they're referred to as school A and
090school B received target focused monitoring um due to a finding from Mr. Ellis uh that those two schools um still didn't um provide enough evidence of of implementation. So uh again my final recommendation and I'll share the highlights are that both um of the two focal schools um met all of the expectations for the 202526 school year. um I saw demonstrate a substantial evidence of sustained implementation and sufficient capacity um to conclude focus monitoring and um that will be my recommendation and of course the final um determination regarding settlement compliance doesn't rest with me it's with legal counsel and the parties to the settlement agreement. So the activities again that took place this year, there were um two site visits October and April that included um a full day at the two target schools um
091each and I was in every classroom from um K through five. Uh we also had leadership meetings um monthly with uh with a focus on looking across the district at what was happening with the uh curriculum adoption of your of your two new programs. Uh we had coaching discussions. We reviewed implementation. Um we looked at uh student outcomes I should say for the two focal schools. Um I was there on site at two different times and then the in between months uh we met monthly and reviewed progress since the last meeting. We reviewed and looked at progress monitoring data for all students uh that had not reached grade level expectations. Uh we did a lot of work around how to respond to the data when we were seeing that students weren't making enough progress. uh
092talked about changes that could um could be made in their instructional program to intensify instruction. So, uh you know, the major accomplishments is like the executive summary is that really um we we found I I found a a very strong infrastructure that's in place right now. um where we have systems in place um that really function as continuous improvement tools. Um so use of the bullseye uh program where uh principal walkthroughs and coaching data are organized. Um looking at um at leadership calibration activities that have been going on across the district. Um I found consistent implementation of of functional phonics and morphology. My observations uh at both schools were largely focused around the foundational skills program functional phonics and morphology. Uh but also reviewed implementation notes regarding fish tank. um every classroom that I visited
093in both of the two focal schools uh were implementing the curriculum and I saw a lot of progress um from the fall visit to the spring visit. I believe that I mentioned at uh the midyear monitoring report that it's quite challenging to adopt one curriculum at a time and your you know your teachers were learning two different curriculum that worked complimentary together. Um that's a that can be a larger lift than implementing just a single comprehensive curriculum. Um, and I'm I saw coherent coaching um with professional learning opportunities uh that were offered um to all of the literacy coaches across the district and a real intentional um effort to really focus on support in the classroom, which was a big shift as as in previous years, your literacy coaches were largely delivering um intervention instruction
094to students. So it was a big shift this year and and it was a needed shift to really support teachers in their first year of implementation. uh looking at your student growth um your benchmark um your fall winter spring dibbles screening benchmark period um you have a range of between 77% and 86% at or above proficiency um across grades K through five and you know as I said in uh my opening statement uh the real significant finding is how the convers conversations have evolved from the first year that I set foot in your district um to the end of this fourth year. Um the conversations are all about it's not about compliance with a settlement agreement. It's about continuous improvement and doing the work improving instruction and ultimately student um outcomes. And I think the
095shift in those conversations has really reflected how uh your district's literacy system has m has matured over the years. So um you know thinking about the last four years we we started with um a lot of new leader a district leadership team a real focus on trying to get some coherence and some consistency in place um developing an MTSS framework and really focusing on the infrastructure um moving towards um implementing systems you know delivering professional learning learning and really working on consistent instructional routi routines um to refining systems and you know I think you you are now at the point where you know the work is never fi finished it's all about continuous improvement and continuing you know to get better at getting better and really continue continue uh the practices that have happened over
096the the past four years and maintain u maintain those practices through continuous improvement cycles. So at the districtwide level there were really five um key districtwide systems finding and the first was really about the monitoring infrastructure. And so you had a lot of systems in place like by monthly instructional rounds, bullseye walkthroughs, coaching cycles, principal calibration activities. All of those happened and they were maintained across all of the schools. um you have s successfully um adopted and began implementation of both functional phonics and morphology and fish tank learning. um those have been as I said there's evidence in the focal schools through my observations that that's been implemented consistently and the other data that I have reviewed in the monthly meetings that really focus on districtwide um has has shown that those are that fish
097tank is also being implemented consistency consistently. Um we have coherent coaching systems in place that with district umwide PD days release days, weekly literacy collaboration opportunities and teacher literacy teacher leader networks, principal learning opportunities um and assessment and data focused learning sessions and then uh based coaching with system Um I think principal instructional leadership um has really um really emerged as a critical driver for implementation. Um, teachers tend to have the most impact on student achievement, but principles are are right behind teachers in terms of their impact on making sure that we have the systems and the infrastructure in place to support effective literacy practices. So um you the data that I was provided from Bullseye um observations were that the average number of principal walkthroughs this year across all sites um was 27 um
098classroom visits per principal. Um and then finally, database decision makingaking. Um really moved from a period of adopting a new assessment system. And most districts that are adopting a new system, the first couple of years are really about how do you do it? How do you collect the data? How do you organize um your system to to collect the data? How do you start to learn how to interpret new data reports? Um and and now the shift is really it's less about we we know how to collect the data. Now it's using the data to really drive um decision making. So if we take a look at the district-wide student outcomes um from fall to spring. So, I looked at the percentage of kids that were at or above the grade level benchmark um and
099um looked at the the students that were below and then students that were well below. And um you had some pretty impressive gains. Um in kindergarten it was a 27% uh improvement from fall to spring. So it rose from 52% of students at or above benchmark to 79. Um and that was the largest single grade improvement districtwide. And I should also note it's that kindergarten and first grade are really important years. And if you can get this right and really get kids on a positive trajectory, um you're going to it's going to pay off dividends um as kids continue to progress in um in their grades. Um, grade 1 um was at 86% districtwide uh which was up from 67% in the fall and across um K through five the range was 77 to 86%.
100Um our goal within an MTSS framework is to have at least 80% um at or above expectations and that's due to resource allocation issues that most skill uh schools aren't equipped to provide instructional uh interventions to more than about 20% of the population. So um kudos there. You're um you're seeing a lot of of good growth. Um this is just in the report and again it's districtwide looking at kindergarten um through fifth grade. Um we see a slight little dip um districtwide at grade four. Um but again those really good uh really significant growth rates in kindergarten through 2 grade. Uh just looking at um primary grades versus grades three through five um benchmark attainment um reaching benchmark increased across nearly all of the student subgroups. Um Hispanic students demonstrated particularly strong growth across multiple
101grade levels. uh black African-American students showed improvement in benchmark attainment and reductions in intensive risk and white, Asian, and multithnic students consistently demonstrated the highest attainment rates. Um in grades three through three through five, most student groups demonstrated improvements and reduction in intervention needs. Hispanic students continued meaningful gains. Um there are there are still um gaps uh with uh black African-American students. Um though they demonstrated improvement, um there are still gaps that that need to be attended to and continue to really provide um uh intensive support at ensuring that we're closing some of those gaps. If we look at the two focused monitoring schools um school A and school B um school A uh their benchmark attainment um on dibbles ranged from 76 to 81% approximately four out of five students met expectations across most
102grades. The strong K2 growth mirrored the districtwide trends that I just shared with you. Uh, in grades four and five, school A slightly exceeded district averages, and the principal in that building conducted 31 literacy classroom observations that all followed an in-person debrief. At school B, grade 1 and grade three exceeded 80% attain benchmark attainment. Kindergarten grew from 41 to 68%. principal. The principal conducted 39 literacy classroom observation and uh a big culture shift did occur where staff were increasingly viewing observations um as growth opportunities. Um and um you know kudos to both of the literacy coaches in both of those two focal schools. They really established a good partnership with um the building principal and provided a great deal of support at school B. Um grade two um still warrants some continued attention. Um there's
10324% of students that remain well below benchmark. Um, so that is going to continue to warrant um, close attention and and I think that the principal there is committed to that and the district recognizes this and will continue providing the support that's that's needed. Um so I think you know overall by spring both of the schools performed at levels largely comparable to district averages which um is compelling evidence that the supports that are in place in the district are effectively reaching those schools that require additional assistance. Um, so I think, you know, we're we're getting to the point now where we really need to think about sustainability and I think I believe that there is evidence that literacy practices are embedded in the district systems um with a commitment to continue implementing those. So, we've
104got the bullseye walkthroughs, the instructional rounds, the coaching cycles, implementation reviews. Those are functioning right now as internal accountability tools and no longer dependent on external monitoring. Um I'm seeing a lot of distributed leadership that's happening uh across the district with principles, coaches and teacher leaders um assuming ownership of monitoring professional learning and instructional improvement. Um there is a very strong culture of continuous improvement in the district and that is what most district conversations have been centered around since the the you know the early years that I started working with the district. And I think that that shift of really not viewing this as a compliance um effort, but the work that that all districts need to do to really ensure um getting those strong outcomes. And then finally, um you've made a lot of
105progress with your MTSS framework and integrating um and integration. the strong focus has been on literacy and I think that the work that you've done in literacy will really um transfer well and the goal will be to try to um include math and behavior and social emotional domains also well integrated within the MTSS framework. So um really the the conclusions again are um there was substantial evidence of sustained implementation and continued improvement. Both school A and school B met all of the monitoring expectations. Um literacy practices are embedded um within the district and school systems rather than than dependent on external monitoring. So um Mr. Ellis last year um uh rated your district in full um compliance with goals one, two, and three. This year the focus was on goal three around fidelity and the
106two focal schools. My determination is that you've that you've met those as well. And um I think going forward what you know what success continues to look like and should look like are really having those uh the literacy systems embedded in district operations along with expanding to math and social emotional behavior. Um really um continuing the focus on supporting the leaders to really continue to monitor implementation independently so that drift doesn't start to occur. Keeping those coaching and professional learning structures established. um really focusing on not only maintaining the strong outcomes you have um for the students that are at or above expectations um recognizing that historically marginalized student groups have benefited. But there is still work that needs to be continued um to to close those gaps. And um I I I believe that
107continued improvement will occur um without external monitoring. With that said, the five things that I really um believe need to um continue are focusing on on deepening instructional responsiveness and different differentiation within tier one. Um, I wasn't looking at full fidelity this year of tier 1. I was looking for good progress and there was good progress. But now, as teachers have a a year under their belts of implementation, I would only expect um that that that practices are even going to become more solidified and and solid. Um, but really keeping an eye on on data and really knowing who those students are in our classrooms that are going to require more differentiation within tier one than than most students need. Um, you need to continue strengthening database decision making and really looking at data and
108making decisions. Um when you see uh a number of consecutive data points on on student graphs um that are flat or trending downward, that's a strong signal that there needs to be um changes and intensification. Continue developing your coaching and instructional leadership capacity. Um really working on sustaining continuous improvement. Um, as hard as it is sometimes to begin installing new practices um and procedures and routines, it's often even more challenging to s sustain those over time. And again, really work towards integrating literacy, math, behavior, and so I will stop there. Happy to answer any questions that you might have. Dr. Brown. >> Yes, I will begin. Uh, thank you so much uh Dr. Gibbs for joining us and thank you for uh your report and for your update. Um, I think the recommendation to conclude
109a focused literacy monitoring is definitely a celebratory moment for us and for the district. And so I thank you for that and thank you also for these five priorities uh for the next phase. My questions are actually for our district staff. Um, but I'm sure that my board colleagues may have some questions specifically for you. Uh, but I loved hearing about um how some of the elements of the current monitoring system have already become institutionalized um or maybe it was already institutionalized and it was just um something that was checked off by the monitoring system. So I was happy to hear that. But um Associate Superintendent Hoganike, I am interested to know what internal accountability systems um will replace um the external oversight that um the monitoring provided um so that we can ensure that
110progress um continues. That's my first question. >> Yes, definitely appreciate the question. Um I think uh there's been a lot of work done. I do want to acknowledge director Albeck who is here this evening along with director dean um our uh literacy coordinator Rose James and our TSA um Erica Carter along with the literacy coaches and the principles I think we've done a lot of this a lot of work this year there's a mantra that um that Chris has iterated that we adopted from core about learn it support it expect it and this year was monitor it um and a lot of that had to do with building um our instructional leadership capacity and alignment. So you heard Dr. Gibbons reference that in her report. We've been using some time during the Wednesday PD meeting
111days to really uh talk and calibrate on what instructional feedback looks like. Um specifically using um the look fors that we have in our adopted curriculum. Those have been embedded into a platform that we call Bullseye. And there has been an expectation for our principles to be making regular observations. Um and you heard some reference to that tonight in Dr. Gibbons report. Additionally, um we were conducting um bimonthly instructional walkthroughs at our school sites. Um so that we were looking for instructional practices, but um most specifically the use of materials, but also an opportunity to talk with the principles, teachers, and leaders about what's been happening in the classroom, what's been working well, where do they um need support. Um also, uh uh we have our bimonthly literacy coach meetings and so we're getting a
112lot of feedback there. Um as you also heard Dr. uh Gibbons mentioned um and this was a push coming out of um the literacy action plan was to shift the focus of our sitebased specialists to more coaching and monitoring um as opposed to spending all of their time on intervention. Right? So that I think was a pretty significant shift, but how we're working and supporting that. So I think that those are a lot of the routines that will continue. Um, it's also an opportunity for us to get feedback and data to understand where we need to uh, what we need to be thinking about for things like our district-wide PD days, um, our Wednesday um, staff meeting time that's been allocated to support this um, and uh, our district-wide PD and and where we need
113to put resources. Um, so those are some things. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. um knowing that although we're at the end of monitoring, we are not at the end of the road for our work. Right? So continuous improvement um I believe uh helps it was mentioned earlier that continuous improvement helps us to uh lead to better instructional strategies, but I think that continuous improvement helps us to lead to to excellence. There's so much more that we need to do. Um, and I think on the heels of this evening's public comments, I would like to know um what additional actions will take place to address the needs for our middle school students as well as um the report that we received tonight notes that black and African-American students showed improvement but continue to have lower
114benchmark um attainment and higher intervention needs than other um than our other than other groups that were addressed this evening. And so I want to know what targeted strategies are planned to accelerate progress for um these learners. >> Um I'm going to go ahead and take a stab at that, but if I I'm missing anything, I'm going to take a look back and and make sure uh I didn't I didn't miss anything. I'm going to take the second question first about focus um on our black African-American students. Um our black and African-American students are one of our focal groups. Um, we have a district-wide target which is >> 3x5. Yes. And so we're really looking at at accelerating our progress um for our focal student groups and and that includes our African-American students. I think
115that we are getting better and stronger with the existing systems to be able to understand where our students are and and how to progress monitor. um we are trying to build in these checks like if we say we need to be doing progress monitoring how do we know that progress monitoring is happening and I think that was a good learning um for us this year and I think that happens across the the board with the folks that we have to be able to support that work. We've also been intentional on making sure that we're um we're we're providing the training for the tier 2 and tier three supports that we've had and we've invested in that tier 2 train. The primary one being Orton Gillingham, but there's also curriculum embedded supports that are happening across
116the the district. Um, I think this next phase for us is really being able to pull that information out from Edge Climber about that progress monitoring so that we understand is progress monitoring happening for whom and where is that happening and how often is that happening. Dr. Dr. Gibbons has really been pushing us to in to make sure that for any of our um below benchmark students that we're doing that with more frequency than we have been before which is going to be giving us um additional information. I also think that one of the things that we're going to see happening and I think there was a lot of excitement on the part of teachers is that as our students are metriculating into the next grade, there are a lot of systems and routines that
117are not going to be new learning for them and that's going to lower all of the work uh work that teachers have to do to be able to focus on where students need that additional support. So, our black African-American students will remain a focus. We are going to track to see how our students are being progress monitored. And I I will say where are the bright spots happening because we are seeing some places where there is acceleration for particular student groups and we can in that continuous improvement model learn from what are some of the strategies, routines or processes that teachers and principles are doing in those places that we can then share more broadly. I I appreciate the uh second part of your response because um while I know that our 3x5 target has
118really helped us to get some some great um outcomes and we you know we can see it on our California dashboard. We see it um throughout our systems, throughout our schools that our targeted focal groups have been making progress. And my question was really around acceleration for black and African-American students. And the reason I'm asking that is because if you think about it from a place of um equity and equality, equity really is the three by by five target. But within that target group, there's equality that's happening for the same thing that's happening for all of the targeted groups within that 3x5 target. But while those uh instructional shifts are being made, while those interventions are being made, the same thing is happening for all of the students within that target group. And so what
119happens is all students begin to rise and then our black and African-American students because they are not getting a different or a tiered instruction that meets the these unique needs then we're continuing to see those gaps. And I think that it was addressed um you know by Dr. Gibbons. And so while I'm happy to hear that the 3x5 target is continuing I'm happy to hear that our focal groups are going to continue to get what they need. My focus is really on how do we make a shift for accelerated progress that is specific to black and African-American students based on the need and um there are bright spots that are happening like you mentioned and so I appreciate learning from those and I also would appreciate pausing and thinking about something different so that we
120can close that very wide gap. >> Yeah. And I I do appreciate that and I'll see if of director Albeck has anything to add. Um I think what's important to note is that this was year one of implementation and you know as you know implementing curriculum for the first time and not one curriculum but two as as Dr. Gibbons pointed out is going to be a learning curve. I think there are a number of supports that are embedded there that are going to are going to help us with with that acceleration that you're talking about. Right? Because we saw that even in our CASP data with the different the distance from standards, right? Like how do we accelerate that um that gap that's growing uh that gap that has been in existence and we're seeing
121some of that acceleration start to happen. Right? So what we're looking for is that strong tier one and building those foundational skills for learning how to read and then being able to understand where are those places of acceleration needed. And I think with the assessments that we have at this point in time, we're more able to identify the very the very specific skill sets that students are missing. And that's going to help with that that acceleration too. Do you have anything you want to add? >> Uh I could add just a few comments. So specifically for this year being year one of implementation just like Jill mentioned, our questions were really around is it happening? And I think Dr. Gibbons was able to speak to it very clearly this evening that um implementation is happening
122not only at our two focal uh schools but across the board which we feel very positive about um due to some of the um internal monitoring systems that we've been able to create that will outlive you know um Dr. Dr. Gibbons work with us and Dr. Ellis um and now moving forward it's is it happening often and then past that is it happening well and when it's is it happening well is it happening well for our 3x5 students right our focal students because we chose this curriculum specifically with uh certain focal groups in mind making sure that it met the needs of what what our community um shared and what our our teachers shared. Um, but moving into year two, we're really taking a look at what those focal students need and what how we
123could pull the resources that are built into the curriculum. Um, and making sure that that that happens in the in the actual day-to-day teaching. So, I'll bring up just sort of just two examples. Um, this year, year one, all of our educators were learning something brand new. Um, and all of our PD was around like what is the curriculum at the most basic level. Um year two is really focused on differentiation. Both functional phonics at IBA at Sylvia Mendes um have built in differentiation for students that are not yet at grade level or at grade level um and to to push for to to build um further. So next year it'll be really t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t
124t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t tapping into what does that differentiation look like in our in our classes now that we understand the curriculum, what it can look like daytoday, but how can we make sure that um students are being pushed and how can we make sure that students that potentially are at uh below grade level are getting the differentiation that they need. Um and one way that we're going to go about doing that next year is we're we're introducing learning labs. So next year all of our teachers will be visiting uh colleague sites uh classrooms across the district with a specific uh focus on differentiation practices um meeting the needs of some of our focal students. That's one of our approaches moving
125into next year. >> Do you want the middle school? All right. So, in in response to middle school, so um we have been all in on elementary school, but I do want to take us back a couple years because um as part of the settlement agreement, um there uh were some components there relative to the curriculum and instruction in the middle grade 6 through 8 in particular. Um as part of that work within that three-year uh time span, we had worked with um Mr. Ellis along with um along with others to identify that where we needed to put our focus was on understanding the intervention that was being used. Um and uh director Albeck along with um our uh R with Rose James uh worked with our middle schools to conduct a needs analysis on
126um the reading support classes and we identified a we identified a need to shift the curriculum that was being used for that so that we were using a curriculum with a higher effect size. And so that that work has already happened. We know that we need to turn our attention to the secondary curriculum. Um, but we had a pretty big lift at elementary school and so as we move into next year, we're going to be taking a look at the instructional materials review for the middle grades and we'll be able to start that work. Um, so just want to recognize that that is going to be a piece of the piece. It was always in the plan, but we have time, capacity, and resource issues that, you know, I'm trying to help manage to ensure
127that we have successful implementation and not spread ourselves too thin, but also recognize that in order to build an effective literacy system, then we need to be looking at um our practices across a grade spend. >> And I'll just add one thing really quick around that, but it gets to the literacy systems change. One thing that was very powerful around elementary is that before we went to instructional materials, before we went to curriculum, we um invested a lot in shared understanding and shared learning and professional learning. And we have uh we have been doing that work at the middle school level. So uh we haven't made a shift on tier one instructional materials at this point, but we have been making a shift in regards to our own understanding and preparation for why this shift
128is potentially needed. So that when a shift does happen, um it's that we're being done with with one another rather than to one another, right? Um so for example, like this year we we partner with core again, we come together four times our middle schools uh throughout the year, all King, Willard and and Longfellow to come together to do share learning. But this year we did uh share learning around um specific word instruction, word learning strategies, decod decoding multi-elabic words. So some these are components that our next curriculum will likely have. So that shared understanding and learning and vocabulary when we get to those conversations they'll be like yeah and we need that because this is what we've learned. So hopefully you know that that's getting us to the point where then when we transition
129they'll make sense. >> Can I jump in to ask a followup there? Um that's sort of exactly the question that I was wondering about. Um it was really striking in this presentation both in um your comments and also Dr. Gibbons. It was about implementing a particular curriculum, but it's really much more than that. It's about a culture shift and a and building a system and building the capacity of everyone in the system to do their jobs more effectively. So, I guess to your point about the work that's being done in middle school, I I'm really um I'm really interested in slide five, which names five different things that have been done to build the system. only one of which is the tier one curriculum. The others are about building coherent coaching systems, building principles capacity
130to be instructional leaders, building everyone's muscle around database decision-m so I guess I'm wondering to what extent um the work you're doing with core or other work that's being done in the middle school is helping to develop those systems in anticipation of the eventual adoption of a new tier one curriculum. >> Yeah. I could speak specifically to the work with our instructional leaders because I think that really uh did come through in Dr. Gibbons's presentation and again kudos to uh Miss Debbie Dean for her work with our site leaders for uh she really works with our site leaders so that they can carry the torch and they could support their educators back at the school site. So although not mentioned in this evening's report, our middle school and also our high school teachers are participating
131in that instructional leadership that um documenting of instructional practice that are in classes and giving feedback to their teachers. So that building of that muscle so when a shift does come, they're going to be very used to that practice. Um also at our middle school and we we do have literacy coaches. I think you heard a lot around what support looks like um and what ongoing professional development looks like and we are fortunate that our our district continues to invest in literacy coaches and they are right by our side as it as it relates to any potential um shifts and we do have some uh shifts around assessment um specifically Dr. Sweenie could probably speak to it, but uh dibbles being more accessible now moving into middle school, not being paper and pencil anymore, so
132we can give it more on demand moving into next year. I hope I'm speaking correctly about that. It's something like it's something very close to that. Um so those literacy systems pieces are there. Um it's just a matter of putting it all together similar to how we have uh year one at least done at the elementary level. >> Yeah. Yeah. I and I would just double down on one of my favorite slides which is around the key insights for organizational excellence. Like I you know we've really been anchoring everything in this notion that ideal results require ideal behaviors and purpose and systems drive behaviors and mindsets inform behaviors. So yes, it was a culture shift, but it was also about us thinking about how to build and support a system that's going to be able
133to sustain this over time. That's an evaluation of existing resources. It's an evaluation of how easy or difficult it is to move through these um different processes or implementation components that we have and how do we continuously think about how do we make this easier? How do we make this faster? How do we uh how do we ensure that adults in the system are doing the things that we need them to do, but we're supporting them to do that well. So, colleagues, do we have any additional questions? No. Thank you very much for this report. >> With that, thank you so much. Um, and I believe we are moving on to action item 15.1, approval of the 2627 BP annual plan. Oh, wait. What did I do with my visa? Hold on a second. I
134moved my notes around. Okay. All right. Yeah, I'll do it. Okay. Uh good evening again. Um we are going to turn our attention to the uh BUP and Bara plans. I'm joined here at the DIAS by um uh Miss Kathy Fleming, our director of local resources. Um we just want to clarify that this is one single presentation with three parts. So, um, Vice President Korn will sort of we'll stop at those stopping places to see if there is discussion for each of these sections and then we can take the vote as we move along because this is an action item. Um, we can go to the next slide. Um, so of course we ground uh this work in our district's mission um that we enable and inspire our diverse student body to achieve academic excellence
135and make positive contributions to the world. and the resources that we receive through the generosity of the Berkeley voters really enables us um to do this work in a number of different avenues. And I do want to acknowledge um our uh our PNO co-chairs uh Miss Vicki and uh Miss Nicole um and all of the work that the PNO committee and our program managers many of whom you are are here in the audience to answer any particular questions you might have done this year um to lead us to this plan. So we are going to share information on the annual plans and then ask um for your approval um for each of those plans. Um what you see here is a bit of a timeline of where we were coming from um how uh just
136a very high level um the milestones that we have been looking at for this year. We are here on June 10th for these three items um for approval and then they would be incorporated into the final budget. Um the sitebased uh BUP allocations are included in the school plans for student achievement which will also be on the agenda the board agenda for next week. Right. uh our BUP and Barrow work is situated in this context of our both our LCAP goals and our emerging strategic plan. Um any one of the items that are supported by these resources can be directly linked to one of our four main district goals. Um and our five strategic uh plan areas which is inclusive of academic excellence, wellness and belonging, partnership and engagement, talent and culture, and system efficiency
137and fiscal responsibility. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Director Fleming. >> Okay. Sorry, is it work? Check check. >> I just wanted to add on the uh information on the previous slide that the full plans are attached uh to the items on the agenda. Also, we have more details on each program in the appendex of this presentation. And I'd also like to pause and thank the voters of Berkeley for their support of these critical funding sources that provide programs and supports that impact each one of our students and all of our schools. The planning and oversight committee is one of the key ways we monitor these measures. The group spends time in the fall meeting with managers and learning more about the programs. This group uh reviewed the plan drafts at
138least twice this spring and asked questions of managers and followed up requested follow-up information and held discussions. And as you've heard earlier from co-chair Vicky Davis that they have the PNO has recommended that each of the plans for tonight be approved by the board. Sorry about my pages. It's a little windy. Okay. and uh previous slide please. Okay, thanks. So um this year we continue to implement the major changes to the fall schedule we did last year um of revising the annual report process and program overview presentations. And um during the spring we monitored and adjusted our schedule for review of the plans and budgets for next year. And I just want to point out that uh we appreciate our collaboration with our PNO co-chairs for navigating the unknowns this budget season and our work
139together to plan effectively to ensure committee members have as much time and as much information as possible um to do their to fulfill their role. I'd also like to take a moment and have a special thanks to uh the co-chairs for that work and the members and additionally thank our program managers. sorry, >> for their work uh on the plans and their work with the PNO. And lastly, uh to thank our budget analyst Craig Kaufman and our BUP specialist Danielle Perez for their expertise and dedication to these two measures. Uh they work with all school sites program managers and with me to plan, implement, and monitor and report out on these two very important measures. Next slide. This is just a quick view of the schedule that we had this year. And as you can
140see, we had to push some of the items later in the year for approval. Um, that's per my previous comments, trying to have the most complete budgets and plans possible. And next slide. And that brings us to item uh 15.1, which includes nine of our BEP programs. Next slide. And as a reminder, this is our our framework for measure H. And uh another reminder that we have two measure H's now. one is BP and the other is our uh maintenance tax. So we're making sure that we um refer to each of these measures not only by letter but also by name. And we are presenting of course uh on the majority of these programs tonight and some key information uh for the uh plans under this item. Um this is the second year of of
141the 8-year measure for measure H and our cola this year is 3%. Um the projected revenue is 3 point of three uh 1.3 million increase over the prior year. And this year we included a staffing reserve of 6% as opposed to five in anticipation of um planning for budget increase or salary increases and benefit increases. And um we also have included a approximate 10% reduction in the HQI program areas to create some capacity and we uh for shifting in costs from other funding sources for budget balancing and um we also have an increased class size reduction cost as you've heard earlier from uh Vicky Davis and this is due to salary and benefit increases and a slight increase in the number of classrooms. and some Bet program activities have been shifted, reduced or eliminated and
142new activities or activities from other funding sources have been shifted in. Next slide please. Uh just a couple notes on the last slide. Um as you heard from Vicky Davis that our the capacity in uh BP measure H for year two and ongoing can be limited. It's uh generally uh we don't have any capacity for next year and that's something that we're monitoring ongoing and I have some comments on that on a subsequent slide. So I'll be addressing sustainability of funds. Okay. So um the first set of programs is the HQI or highquality instruction program area which includes professional development program evaluation which is our Brea department classroom support and expanded course offerings. And this slide offers some uh descriptions of those programs. And um just a reminder that the first thing we do with
143this 66% of the funding is ensure that we meet our class- size goals, which are smaller class sizes per uh the the measure uh as the measure outlines. And after we meet those class- size goals, the remaining al funding and allocation of that 66% can be dedicated to those four programs. This slide is a summary of the the fiscal changes that happened this year. Um it's reviewing for the whole 66% uh the main changes that we made and as again program managers for these program programs were asked to create capacity by reducing their expenditures by approximately 10%. This action generated around $1.12 million and on the subsequent slides will include a listing of the changes for each program. In addition to that, we shifted 230,000 into our measure E1 fund balance for professional development activities
144such as workshops and trainings. And of that um of that of those funds, uh 1.06 million was used for the adjustment to this class size reduction budget. As I mentioned, it's due to increases in salary benefits and a slight increase of the classroom uh number of classrooms. I just want to note that this is not uh BEP taking on a greater share of the cost of the classroom teachers. BP still is taking on about a third of the cost of the classroom teachers. Okay, next slide, please. Oh, previous slide, please. Okay, so this slide is uh summarizing the professional development changes. And for all of the slides, the that there's two columns to note. The middle column includes a list of all of the items that were either reduced, shifted, or discontinued. And the column
145on the right includes items that we have either increased, shifted in from other BP programs or shifted in from other funding sources such as the general fund, LCAP or expiring grants. Uh the main uh things to note here is that there was a change in the PD uh lead structure at BHS resulting in a decrease of a8 FTE in aggregate and this change uh will result in one teacher leader for each learning community program or department and we also shifted in 1.3 FTE of literacy coaches from the BP student achievement strategies program to create some capacity in that program to shift in uh some of FTE which we'll go over later. Note that there is no net change to the number of elementary or middle school lit literacy coaches. Um, additionally, we have partial reductions
146to TSAs, including uh 2 of the BHS instructional technology TSA and 0.4 reduction of the ethnic studies TSA. And we shifted.5 of the K8 instructional technology TSA into the instructional technology BEP budget. You can go to the next slide. Uh, next slide. Sorry, my pages. We had a few changes in the classroom support program and mainly a reduction in the number of LEAP sections as part of the universal 9th grade program at BHS. This component of U9 was restructured to reduce the number of sections offered for LEAP uh based on the program need. Additionally, the math support classes for middle school continues at the uh at three sections per middle school. However, the funding has been shifted where the sites are now picking up one of the classes. BP will cover the second and LCAP
147the third. So, this is a net changes reduction to BP of a point4 and LCAP of 2. Next page. And uh this last um slide on HQI programs for program evaluation. The main change was an exchange of a reduction of a point4 TSA for Brea and an increase of a point4 student assessment analyst that was shifted in from the general fund. Uh that's that position is a full 1.0, 0 but we're shifting in a point 4 and no changes to expanded course offerings. And next slide I'm going to clip my papers for management. Bear with me. Okay. The next group of of programs is in the essentials for excellence uh portion of of BP. And these programs have specified funding percentages 6.25 for music and 7.25% for libraries and 3.25% for instructional technology. Initially we
148requested program managers to prepare budgets of with 10% reductions. These budgets were prepared and presented to the PNO showing the impact that these reductions would have in the next year and ongoing. The PNO was able to review this information, ask questions, and provide feedback. After leadership review of the projected 10% reductions and and uh potential impact and considering PNO feedback, it was decided to have no reductions in these programs. Uh this is to ensure these programs can continue to provide key staffing and services per the Bet measure and to ensure fiscal sustainability. These programs will also utilize measure E carryover to sustain some program activities. And it is necessary for us to evaluate anticipated revenue versus uh expenditures ongoing um to ensure that these program uh line items can be continued because the U measure
149E carryover will be expired for these programs in two to three years. That's something that we're continuously monitoring. Okay. And the next program section is the effective student support which includes student achievement strategies and counseling and behavioral health. And these programs share 7% of the BEP funding. Student achievement strategies provide RTI teachers, literacy coaches, middle school math coach, African-American success framework support, and also support for Poente and the Be a Scientist program in the middle schools. The counseling program supports uh provides middle school counselors to support students and families. The biggest change, next slide, please. And the biggest change in the program in this program area is in the student achievement strategies programs program. In order to create capacity for OFI staffing, we shifted out the 1.3 FTE of literacy coaches to the professional development
150program within BP. As I mentioned before, this enabled us to provide funding for a 1.0 OFI manager and a portion of the O of specialist focused on Spanish bilingual support. There is additional support for that position in the communications budget which we will review in a subsequent slide. There were no changes to the number of counselors uh for middle school. Next slide. This is going to be animated. Yes, I'll tell you when to animate. >> Not yet. Well, that's fine. Okay. For our program metrics, we continuously work to broaden our program metrics for both implementation measures and outcome measures. And we continue to partner with the PNO, our Brea Department, program managers, and district leaderships. In this work, um we have logic models that are included in the plans which explore the relationship between a
151program's resources, activities, outputs, and intended outcomes. and it serves as a roadmap for understanding and communicating how our program aims to achieve its goals. the identifi the data identified in the logic model tells us how we're doing and I we intend to frontload these a bit next year per the PNO feedback that we gathered um this spring and uh our BP program metrics include program goals and strategic plan alignment performance measures for both implementation measures and outcome measures equity measures uh program level and districtwide quality rubrics uh research and supportive programs, comparisons, the state metrics and/or logic models as I mentioned uh that are added to plans. You can visit our uh the link on this slide that takes you to should be one more Liz our annual report for the prior year which includes
152all of the measures that we have collected and presented to the planning and oversight committee. >> Next slide. You can just run through these numbers quickly because they're reflected. >> I'll just go ahead. Sorry. Okay. So, this is a summary of the HQI program area and um as you know, we track our projected ending fund balance. The projected ending fund balance with all the changes that we've gone over is estimated to be $34,000. But it is important to note that um for the for this year, year one, we are not projecting um any fund balance as of yet for beginning fund balance because um we are chewing up for salaries and benefits adjustments per the uh bargaining outcomes. We do anticipate to have some balances though and that uh we our beginning fund balance will
153uh increase for next year. We review this information at the close and at first interim and um generally we have more revenue available at that time. Additionally on this slide you can see that I've added the uses of the E1 carryover for the plans the the professional development 230K and the program evaluation contracts. There's a three-year uh commitment we've made with the E1 fund balance car or carryover um for the Brea contracts and this will be the second of three years. Okay, next slide please. This is a summary of the second interim report just so you know uh that we're tracking it and you can see for this year um that our anticipated ending fund balance is I believe it says 1.3 and we've went ahead and put some placeholders in there for our intended
154uses and that leads us leaves us with a 749k estimated fund balance and we will look at the close uh to review the actual amounts available able and um prepare our potential uses for the for these funds and have them reviewed by the planning and oversight committee. This slide is uh the title is not correct. It's actually a summary of year 2 measure H plans and again you can see the projected uh beginning fund balance is zero. However, know that that will change. So the projected ending fund balance will be larger for these programs. And this is something we're keeping an eye on because in the first four years of the measure, we're trying to build up a fund balance for programs and we're going to know a lot by uh the first interim of
155next year how we're doing in that regard. Uh but as I stated before, there's uh generally no capacity for us to shift anything new in. Next slide. And this is the measure E summary for the other programs other than HQI. And you can see the projected ending fund balance. And the managers for library, music, and instructional technology programs, as I mentioned, have used the measure E fund balance to augment their uh regular budgets. Um, and those fund balances uh will will be exhausted in two to three years. Um but that gives us a little bit of a runway and a ramp to plan for that to ensure that they can continue their core function. Um and uh the last the last two mentioned the last two items on that we have potentially intended to use
156uh the student achievement strategies projected ending fund balance uh with for curriculum materials for the roll out uh of curriculum adoption and also for our mental health contract for counseling and behavioral health fund balance. Next. Okay, that brings us to the end of this the longest of the three items for discussion. Back to you, Pres. Uh, Vice President Korn, >> colleagues, any questions or discussion? >> Hi there. I do I'm sorry. I'm on online. Um, should I just raise my hand so we can do this in a >> Go ahead. >> In a Yeah. Hi there. Thank you so much. Um, thank you. Uh, INOP, um, puts in a substantial amount of effort and I really appreciate the detailed presentation um, that has been provided tonight. Um, one thing that I I did want to
157raise is and I know we have heard a lot of it um, both at meetings and I think board members have also received a significant number of emails on this. I do have concerns of the reduction of the ethnic studies TSA from 1.0 FTE to 0.6. Um I do appreciate that uh the TSA is not being eliminated um and that uh you are making an attempt to um reduce uh costs but still maintain the TSA function. Um, I want to assert however that um because that ethnic studies TSA and I'm not talking about the particular person, I'm talking about that position um is still uh really midway in process of building out a very important cadre of teachers and um uh a support framework around lesson planning. I don't want to call it curriculum because
158that's not what really ethnic studies is. Um that TSA that has been in place for some time has navigated a number of years of controversial issues, politicization of ethnic studies that has necessitated the time that it has taken. Um I don't think anyone disagrees with the critical value of ethnic studies in Berkeley. Um I do think that uh it is important to understand however that not only is it an important uh critical value to Berkeley um which is uh and nationally it is under an onslaught a polit highly politicized onslaught uh and misrepresentation. Uh it is also um or to Berkeley values which is why uh we set out to push down ethnic studies in an age appropriate manner um and uh into the lower grades and support and create a teaching cadre. Um I
159think the reduction from a 1.0 to a 0.6 is going to stall that. Um there is some folks may know uh a grant that's already been approved uh by um the UC Berkeley uh uh chancellor's uh partnership fund with the professor Courtney Kowano um who is working with um our ethnic studies TSA as a the lead community researcher to roll out um a number of professional development opportunities for teachers uh for the ethnic studies program um that has been uh in place for some time and this is really kind of the to me that's like the last phase of implementation. So uh reduction from a 1.0 to a 0.6 um I think is going to severely stall that process. Um there are also additional very likely funds coming from UC Berkeley um if this um
160partnership is to proceed uh which is a historic critical partnership. We're a historic program in ethnic studies, first in the nation, decades here. uh working with UC Berkeley um we're trying to create a program that really um I think respects that history and provides that framework for our students to engage on controversial issues in a way that is constructive and makes them you know uh knowledgeable and reasonable in their responses and understanding the the complexity of uh these issues that we um address. And these are intersectional too. Um I I'm talking a lot but I want to make sure that folks recognize that ethnic studies is not about race. It is about difference and inclusion. So it's intersectional. Um the uh lesson planning uh addresses um race, sex, uh age, disability, uh sexual orientation. uh
161it's uh deeply inclusive in that manner. So if you were to look at the lesson planning, especially with the work that is being done here at Berkeley Unifi, but also with engagement with the flagship ethnic studies program at UC Berkeley, um it is not about purely one classification. It really pulls it all together. Um, and I think it is really critical at a time when there is a lot of confusing politicization of issues that um are really important to folks in Berkeley Unified uh for our students to be able to understand how do we navigate these controversial issues. We do have an amazing uh high school ethnic studies program. um it is really not sufficient to have just one year of it or one class in one year. The rest of the state is going
162to have that. Um what we're doing as the flagship school district is to naturalize it younger to introduce it as age appropriate and you need to develop a cadre of teachers. So I am very concerned about reducing that 1.0 to a 6.0 know right when we are hitting a stride to try to get to that point of uh creating that tadre where there's a number of teachers who are really uh interested in teaching and have started to do so um and they need and they want and been asking for that professional development then now you have a partner at UC Berkeley uh to do so. Thank you. I wonder if staff can speak to how that decision or recommendation to reduce that position was developed and what the thinking behind that is. >> Yeah, I
163think I mean similar to all of the recommendations, we had a charge. We had a $10.4 million target plus an additional $3 million of expiring grants. Um, and I, you know, again, as I stated last week, none of these decisions are easy. I, nobody wants to slow down or reduce or uh or or stop some work altogether. Um, but it is going to be really challenging for a district to make this level of reduction without experiencing some level of slowdown. We engaged in a number of different avenues really trying to identify um where the priority action is um particularly around the core content. Um and you will see across our plans inclusive of BP L and and LCAP from last week that we were reducing on um on positions that were not part of the
164core. That said, do want to make it clear programs like ethnic studies and our other affinity based programs are core to our B USD identity. And so we are not saying that we are going to stop ethnic studies. We have invested in ethnic studies. We as a district have been implementing the minimum requirement for over decades. um and that is a wellrun and supported program at Berkeley High. We have benefited from the work of the ethnic studies TSA over the last couple of years along with our other teachers and leaders who have stepped up to develop, implement and pilot um curriculum units in grade levels across the district. I think we fundamentally believe that experiencing experiences with ethnic studies is important for all of our students to have. It celebrates the diversity that we have
165in BUSD. Um and I think there's a lot of support for that. Um we had to make hard decisions. This is a recommendation. It went through PNO to make that recommendation. And you know want to be clear we didn't say to reduce the position alto altogether. We did recognize that there's been a large amount of work that has been done. Um some of that is going to require a little bit less work. Other pieces of that are going to require a little bit more work and we're going to need to take direction from the board along with folks who have been involved in the work to say what's going to be the reasonable chunk that we can focus on given a reduced FTE. And we have to be okay that things might not be moving
166as fast as we would want them to be, but they are going to continue to move in a forward direction. >> Can I add to that and thank you so much uh associate superintendent. Um, I'm I'm trying to You're uh, Vice President K. You are a tiny postage size stamp. >> You're a tiny image inside of a tiny poster size stamp on my screen. So, I'm trying to see if you you're nodding your head or um whatnot. Go ahead. >> Is it okay? Okay. Thank you. I feel like I've been speaking a lot, so I don't want to sit here and procilize. I think everybody understands the importance of this. Um and I do understand the importance of the reductions. Um we do have uh you know uh plan pillars and our superintendent has laid
167out a framework um that is grounded in equity um uh with and excellence with regard to our reductions. And um you know there's this term deficit spending and um that is of course uh a challenging situation to be put in. Uh yes I would love that we would have full funding um uh full public funding for public education. I do want to say also that we as we make these decisions for what to cut and uh what not to cut uh even recognizing that we're not entirely cutting the ethnic studies TSA but it's going from a 1.0 to 6 0.6 six. Um the harm that we can do to our um our system and structures and ultimately the uh implementation of core um programs and services that are critical to what makes Berkeley unique. And
168um sometimes you just have to and I know this may not sound popular. Sometimes you have to deficit spend and in the meantime you have to advocate to get those funds. Um, so I'd like to get as close of course to where we can to stabilize our budget. Um, the ethics studies TSA, however, to me it is midstream. Um, and a reduction from 1.0 to 0.6 is going to stall that process. um just as we're linking into an important partnership with UC Berkeley and as they're getting off the ground with getting to PD's professional developments with teachers who are ready to go to um engage on how to teach ethnic studies at a time when um teaching ethnic studies can frankly be dangerous for for teachers or a school district. they want to understand how
169to do it properly so that their um uh our students uh understand how to engage on controversial issues. Thanks. >> Um thank you President Chang and I echo a lot of what you said about the importance of ethnic studies especially in light of um just the national political rhetoric happening right now. Um my question for you, associate superintendent, will this change preclude us from being able to do that professional development work with uh the UC Berkeley grant that was referenced? Um, I am trying to remember my first read of the grant and as I understand it, um, it's approximately a $15,000 grant coming in this year to support, I believe it's a quarterly engagement with teachers who are interested in pursuing this work with some data and needs analysis. I'm gonna I'm hoping I'm saying
170all of this correctly, so I will double check and and get back to you. with the intention of planning for a summer PD. Um, so as I understand it, the grant was was not intended to support part of the FTE, but rather the hours to support teachers participating in professional development after hours along with uh planning for a summer PD I believe for summer of 2026. So this would work that be would begin next year. Um, I might not be remembering all of the details, but that's what I'm I'm remembering off the top of my head. >> That's correct in in the gist of >> So, just to build on that, I mean, it's possible that even with the reduction of FTE from 1.0 to 6 that some of the time within that 6 could
171uh focus on the work within this. >> Correct. I mean there are a number of work streams that any one of our TSAs are responsible for and I think it's going to be incumbent upon us to understand where to put that priority. Um I heard from uh President Chang's comments the importance of building our teacher capacity to deliver units in ethnic studies and the grant with UC Berkeley as an opportunity to provide a lever to do that. um and that could be the top priority for that 6 time, right? So, we're going to have to take a look at what all those work streams are, what is reasonable within that time frame. Uh and then what you know building capacity of teacher leaders is always a great place to start because then you're diff you're
172expanding um the capacity of us as a system to deliver on these instructional units that are important for our students and families. >> And I just want to build on what you're saying, associate superintendent. I feel really lucky to be in a city like we are so close with many of the ethnic studies experts so closely aligned with our district and you know they've served as amazing resources to us. Um, I also know that other UC's like UCLA has put forth and this was um both Appeisma and the California Latino School Board Association uh had a session to highlight the foundations of the futures curriculum um that uh emerged out of the state's um work to stop uh hate in the AAPI community, but it's basically an open- source ethnic studies curriculum that's available to
173teachers. And so I think that what you're saying around prioritizing that level of professional development and making use of the resources already publicly available by other UC's um that were developed by experts in the field to ethnic studies professors makes a lot of sense to me as something that we should prioritize as a district. um that train the trainer model and that train the trainer work makes a lot of sense to me to make sure that we are providing our educators with the support that they need to do ethnic studies work especially at the elementary and middle school level. I know that we have more robust work that we've done for many years at the high school level but the gap seems to be correct me if I'm wrong elementary and middle school. So saying
174that we want to make use of those resources for that um and prioritize that explicitly as painful as this reduction is um makes a lot of sense to me. Are there any other questions or comments about this item or would anyone like to make a motion? Um, I just have questions about um or since the conversation has kind of gone on long, maybe I'll just ask one question about um just the in general HQI reduction um and how we've thought about I guess the impact on student achievement over the next year and um have we thought about the ways that we're going to just monitor that? Do you want Yeah. I I mean I think that there's a lot that we've been doing as a system app propo of our previous presentation um to build
175a data platform that would allow for us to um capture information on a number of different measures and be able to use that. Um I think that we I'm looking at uh Dr. Sweeney behind me and her team have really been working to build uh data routines to understand that impact. I think we had a significant charge um to our BEP program managers in particular this year about the reduction which was very much needed in order to support um our uh salary increases for negotiations. Um I think that the PNO has been really clear that they do want to see activities and actions that are both aligned to the program measures but also that are aligned to measures that we as a district are trying to imple implement more broadly. So you see their significant
176support um for our literacy coaches and RTI TSAs um our counseling and behavioral health which also comes up in a lot of our different surveys and needs assessments um and other classroom support. I want to acknowledge principal Regosa and uh vice principal uh Kle who are both here today because they did a lot of work with their teacher leader teams to make some significant program shifts that haven't happened in a while. really thinking about what does um what's what's the role of our teacher leaders and how do we think about where we have not had teacher leaders um and what that means um for the high school as a system to be able to track monitor um strategies and implementation um on a number of different levels. So again, we're we're really fortunate to have
177our BP funding supporting so many of these things that a lot of school districts don't benefit from and are really important um and additional important additional services for each of our individual school sites. I don't I hope that I don't know if that answered your question exactly, but >> kind of. But it was a good um segue to my next question. Um I think the last couple of board meetings I have been um kind of just sounding the bell on how much we're transferring into um into specifically into BEP and also into specifically into BEP. um and really my um nervousness around BEP's ability to kind of carry all of this and I think that that was echoed by Vicki tonight and her comments from PNO. So I really appreciated um the alignment and also
178the kind of confirmation there. And so I think when I'm what I what makes me nervous is um the the running out of of those funds. What makes me nervous is uh how reliant we kind of are becoming on BEP. Um and so at what point will the board need to consider programmatic reductions or programmatic changes versus um kind of where we are now where we're just trying to do all of the things. And I did ask that question last week, but I think um hearing the response again would be great. and then I'll go on to my next question. >> Okay, great question. Um, two two responses to that. One is um mid year next year, we'll be able to know what our cola will be for the coming year. Um, so that will
179give us a sense of the revenue we can project and we can um project out over a number of years our anticipated costs based on our current budget at that time. So, we'll be able to look to the to the end of the measure using our very conservative parameters, the COLA and the the low COLA and the average teacher raises over the years and then uh increases for supplies, materials, and contracts. And that enables us to do some forecasting hypothetically of course, but this is basically what we do every year. Um, but we we project out on that and we'll be able to adjust the budget for the coming year at that time. Uh secondly, um we also uh know that when we adjusted the teacher template for BEP this year, I believe that it's
180very accurate and uh I don't think that we're going to need much of a true up in the next year. Um depending on uh you know, we'll have our COLA take care of the raises and benefits. So, we'll be able to um review that and we will have potentially a little bit more fund balance in the HQI to accommodate um the an increase there. So, again, it is a track it as we go. We'll know more at the close. We'll see what revenue we have coming in for our fund balance for the for all the programs and then at first interim when we true up for our actual costs for our staffing that will give us an indication as well. and then that will be in uh December and then looking at the cola comes
181in mid January. So by the end of January we're going to have a pretty good picture of the coming year and be able to know uh if we need to do any changes. >> Thank you. Um my next question is really around um small class size funding. Um it is a um huge financial uh cost and I was wondering do we think that this is the largest long-term cost pressure that pressuring uh sorry largest long-term cost that uh BP is facing over the next um coming years and um is there a need in the future to make a sh a shift and what would that look like and mean for us? >> Okay. So, um looking in the long term I and past thinking about the future and looking at past u patterns um I
182don't think that the share that these classroom uh class size reduction uh cost is taking of the HQI is necessarily reducing the available dollars for the programs. Um but I you know as the salaries and benefits increase so does the COLA. So the COLA has generally been uh keeping in pace with salaries and benefits you know when we look over the past 101 15 years. Um, but when we're talking about making a change, do you mean in terms of the formula that we use in terms of how much BEP is contributing to the cost of uh having smaller class sizes and or changing something in the measure in terms of class size goals? >> Yeah, I think uh thank you for asking me that question. I think that um to for the second part of
183your question, my answer would be no. uh because the intention of the measure or one of the most important intentions of the measure is to be able to support small class sizes and so I think that when I'm asking the question I'm really think more so thinking about the formula right okay uh one point with that that I will note is that and this is why I made a point earlier when I talked about the percentage that BP is contributing to the total cost of the class uh classroom teachers is around a third um and and right now we're using a ratio for K5 of 36 to1 and uh previously we had it at 34 to1 which decreased the um contribution amount it was around 31 32% at that time but we did we had
184changed it uh to 34 to1 because previous to that it had been changed 34 to 36 to1 to generate funds for the general funds. So the point of this is to say that there is a give and take and a back and forth. I mean the challenge is going to come is if we need to go back to 34 to1 in BP because we're you know concerned about their ending fund balance in any one year or the end of the measure then that means that the general fund would need to absorb that difference. So that's what I think you're getting at with the unknown is that we don't know what the status of the general fund is going to be in 1 2 3 years. So, uh, I hear you on that and that's something
185that, you know, we'll need to be monitoring as we go along. But in the end, if we have to keep it at 36 to1 and we have increases in the cost of the teacher template for BEP, that means the programs in those in that the HQI program area will need to be reduced further um, if the COLA doesn't outpace the salaries and benefits increase. So, there's all these variables we need to monitor as we go along. Thank you. I I I don't want to uh stay right here for too long, but I think that what I'm asking is not to do um a decrease because that wouldn't uh be feasible and it would be different than kind of what we're asking to do. But if we've thought about a potential increase, so moving up from
18636 is more so my question. Not not at all moving down cuz we I don't think financially we'd be able to afford that. >> Well, if you mean moving up in the ratio so that BET would assume a greater percentage or portion of the cost of the classroom teachers overall. >> Is that what you're saying or is it >> talking about increasing the class size? Increasing the class size >> the actual class size. That would be a matter of changing the measure. If if we increase say for example at elementary K5 from 23 to 1 to 25 to1 is that what you're just considering to explore. So that would be uh we would need to go and change the measure language which would mean we would need to go back to the voters. That's my
187understanding. So unless there's uh there is a provision for a fiscal emergency um in the measure and there's a number of parameters that need to be in place to enact that and that's uh one way you could uh exceed the class size ratios in the measure. Uh we also have contractual um class sizes um for the teachers contract that uh align with what's in the BET measure. So there would be two areas to address in changing the class size. One thing that could happen though is we could annually look at the actual class size in the lower grades tends to be lower than 23 to1 and that's an area where we could look at increasing next not next year but the coming year. But that that is probably the most viable option. >> I I
188think that that makes um sense. I don't think that we're necessarily in the play in that place where we should one go back and uh relook at the measure or two go back to the place where we're at negotiations but if we are ina in places which you just named that we are um where we're not meeting that class size and we're thinking about the future because again my question was about the remaining years of measure H and moving for and and what projections we have for the future then it's good to know that we have the space to be ble to do that should we need to. >> Yes. >> Thank you for >> response. >> Is there any further discussion or uh would anyone like to make a motion? >> Nothing further from
189me. Thank you. >> Okay. >> Um I'm sorry. I'd like to make a motion to accept the recommendations with and I want to find out if this is possible and I know I've been talking a lot but with the amendment for ethnic studies to not be reduced to retain at a 1.0 but to accept all other P you know recommendations. Is there a second? It appears that there's not a second for this motion. Does anyone have a different motion they'd like to make? I will move that we accept the recommended the staff recommended actions for action item 15.1. >> I'll second roll call. Miss Tyres. Director Vasvette. >> Yes. Director Brown. >> Yes. Vice President Korn. >> Yes. President Chain, >> I respectfully decline to a no. >> 3 to one. Motion carries. Thank you.
190Thank you, Miss Chyus. >> I believe we're now on to 15.2. >> Yes. >> 15.2. >> Okay. Item 15.2 2 is for one program and that's for uh communications translation and measure oversight. This has funds from both BP and BER that contribute to the budget uh for this program. And uh in this budget we were able to shift in portions of positions who work in the comm's and oversight program and these include portions of our district transer our comm's manager and and five of our budget analysts and all three of these positions are coming from the general fund uh for a savings there. Additionally we have capacity to shift in a 0.25 25 of the OPI specialists who focuses on Spanish bilingual support and we have not made reductions in this program and the reason
191we are able to shift these positions in is due to capacity that was already present and the reason why we have capacity uh for the main reason is is that um last year we had uh two comm specialists and the end of last year one of those comm specialist positions uh was eliminated ated which created capacity. However, this year we did not utilize that capacity and so we have that uh for uh action to use for next year. Um, additionally, we al also have an increase of $11,000. Uh, you can go to the next slide, please, Liz, to fund our website, new website platform, and it's an additional cost of $11,000 on top of the funds we already have for some software that will be replaced by the platform. So, it's a minor increase and
192uh is sustainable over time. And uh we will be utilizing the E fun E1 fund balance or carryover for this budget and we'll be doing some journaling of expenditures from measure HB for this year 1 into the measure E1 uh fund balance to create a greater fund balance in H uh to support this budget moving forward. And just a reminder that both BEP and Barer contribute uh to this budget. Um and there's supports uh for the measure oversight planning and uh planning and uh the PO support um support for our school site councils communications community engagement and information for the district. And uh that's summary for this item. Happy to move the staff recommendation to approve the 2026 2027 annual plan for communications translation and measure oversight annual plan. >> I'll second director Vasv. >>
193Yes. >> Director Brown. >> Yes. >> Vice President Korn. >> Yes. >> President Chang. Yes. All right. Uh so filling in for Assistant Superintendent uh Tobias Espinosa, we have um Director Billet here this evening um to review uh the Barra plan. >> Good evening board members and superintendent. As you know, bearer funds are a local resource to support recruitment and retention of our workforce here in B USD. The majority of those funds have been used annually to support educator compensation. That's 95% approximately and the remaining 5% has been focused on recruitment for hardto staff positions and increasing opportunities for staff development. Next slide, please. As in other areas that have been mentioned this evening, we have been deficit spending and bearer recruitment, retention and development, that 5% that I was just referring to. And the
194focus this budget season has been on right sizing the budget, prioritizing funding for required programming for teacher induction and bar, that's our peer assistance program for teachers that have been supported on grants that are now expiring. This slide shows the reductions in the middle column which shifts into barer funding on the right on the column furthest to the right. The biggest line item there is the $195,000 needed to support teacher induction and that was previously paid for on the now expiring educator effectiveness grant and is an allowable use of funds. Next slide please. These three charts are basically a line by line item detail for the proposed changes year-over-year. It's the last slide with the details broken down piece by piece. We can we perhaps pause on that one for just a second if folks
195have more time to look at it. >> I think we can go on. Thanks. >> Oh, wait. Uh, we gonna go back one more slide. We have to see if there's Yeah. any questions and then we'll uh ask for a vote. Just quickly, I I know um I would love to hear you just talk briefly about the teacher induction, the the shifts in funding to teacher induction, which I know is such a critical um function of our district that we need to provide support for new teachers through the teacher induction program. And I know that some of the funding that was being used for that is no longer available and so that had to be shifted into Barra. I just wonder if you could describe that a little a little bit more. >> Um so
196our teacher induction program um supports new teachers I think and I'm looking at Joya in the back she might have the number. I think it's about 42 teachers this year. um that is inclusive of a contract um that we pay for the professional learning plan in addition to stipen or training for mentors and stipens for mentors and then part of an FTE um to manage that whole program. Um, and so again, that's a required function of a school district to ensure that we can clear credentials for our teachers and um, and that we've got uh, highly qualified instructors in front of our in front of our students. Um, and that has been covered by the educator effectiveness block grant for the last five or six years, which as you mentioned expires this June. Any further
197discussion or would anyone like to make a motion? >> If not, I will I move that we approve uh item 15.33, the annual plan for bearer recruitment, retention, and development. >> I'll second your motion. >> Director Vasv, >> yes. >> Director Brown, >> yes. >> Vice President Korn, >> yes. President Chang. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> All right. And then that last slide is just action item of some next steps um as we prepare um to close out this school year and enact um the plans moving forward. >> Thank you again, Miss Fleming, and thank you to all of the PNO. I know that that committee works really hard all year long, and we really appreciate it. >> Thank you. and echo your appreciation to the taxpayers of Berkeley for all of this funding.
198>> Thank you, PNL. >> All right. Um, that brings us to the end of our action items. There are three information items for the board to consider. And I'm told by Miss Chavez that we do have an extended union comment. Local 21. Okay. Good evening, President Chang and members of the board of education. My name is Paula Phillips and I'm deeply concerned uh from the local as a local 21 member. I am standing before you tonight to urge this board to resend the elimination of the classified professional development coordinator position. When a school district faces a multi-million dollar deficit, its budget ceases to be a mayor spreadsheet of numbers. It becomes a moral document. It stands as a direct unvarnished statement of our core values. Right now, the choices laid out in this budget balancing
199process show a community whose actions are deeply out of alignment with its slated principles of excellence, equity, and engagement. Let us look honestly at the stark disparity in who is being asked to bear the weight of this fiscal crisis. On one hand, our executive cabinet members have emerged from recent labor alignment reports with proposed retroactive salary increases for the upcoming school year and beyond, followed by an additional increase for the next year. While executive compensation is shielded and enhanced, our frontline classified professionals, the literal backbone of our daily operations, are watching the floor being pulled out from under their departments. The recent final layoff notices target 12 vital employees, wiping out nearly 12 full-time equivalent positions to include my position as a classified professional development coordinator. Among among these cuts, the elimination of the classified
200PD coordinator is perhaps the most egregious. Let's be entirely transparent about the history of this role. From the very beginning, my position was systematically undermined and set up for failure. It was constructed as a oneperson show, an isolated individual tasked with single-handedly coordinating PD specialized training and compliance pathways for the entirety of the district's vast and diverse classified staff. And the my work got even more complicated when the current superintendent and the associate superintendent pulled the rug from under me by pulling resources that I relied on for years to provide classified PD to the district's specialed pair of professionals. Instead of treating my role with the structural gravity it deserved, instead of providing a team, resources, and the institutional backing necessary to make it thrive, the district left it underfunded and isolated. And now, in
201a moment of fiscal strain, the district is using that manufactured predictable struggle as a convenient excuse to eliminate the position entirely. Stripping away the single supervisory role dedicated to the growth and safety of our support staffs sends a devastating clear message to the workers who keep this district afloat. Your growth is expendable. What makes this pill even more bitter to swallow is the glaring political hypocrisy surrounding how these positions are handled. Look no further than the funding of the personnel commission's administrative assistant which was recently approved by the PNO committee. The motion to fund the specific position was made by Nicole Shabbo. Yes, the exact same Nicole Shabbo who sits on the committee working to eliminate the personnel commission with the ballot measure in 2028. We are witnessing a calculated game of political musical chairs
202with district funding. And I'm using musical chairs because that's what the superintendent categorized the funding cuts as a game of musical chairs. Only not all of us were able to jockey for a chair or a seat in that game. While these political maneuvers take place in committee rooms, our schools are experiencing the immediate cascading operational strain of these staffing shortages. We see it clearly on the campuses like Thousand Oaks and Emerson because transitional kindergarten in the learns program and the expansions require a strict 1 to 10 adult to student ratio in the learns program. Specifically, an influx of 38 to 50 early childhood students means we are forced to pull four to five staff members to cover those classrooms exclusively for the learns program. We are leaving our school sites without enough remaining personnel to
203safely cover first through fifth grade classes in the Learns program. We are stretching our remaining frontline workers to a dangerous breaking point, compromising student safety and safe and staff morale. Deficit planning is undeniably difficult and requires hard choices. But a true commitment to equity means that those who have the least, not the those who have the least do not lose the most. Budget balancing should never be achieved by undermining our classified workforce, gutting their professional infrastructure, or playing political games with commission seats while shielding executive level allocations. >> Phillips, >> Thank you. We appreciate your comments. Are there any other extended public comments? Oh, we have one online also, Miss Chz. Um, so I learned today, um, well, I heard today something I hope that is not true, but is deeply concerning to me if
204it is that the admin assistant position for the district registar had been eliminated. The district registar's office is at Berkeley High, but as the name would imply, uh she's not just the registar for Berkeley High's uh 3,200 students, but for the district's over 9,000 students. Um, I'm given to understand that the hope is that new technology will make some of this work easier or faster. But given past experiences with the district adopting new technology in the hopes that it would make work easier or faster, uh I remain skeptical of this and I don't think that uh this is a wise decision. >> Thank you. Um our last public comment this evening will be Kelly Grinstaff who's online. Hi there. Thanks for taking my comment. Um, I would be there in person if I could, but
205I'm out of town as my mother has had a stroke recently and I'm staying with my dad. Um, it's a difficult time for my family for that reason, but also because of what I want to raise right now. Uh, my son was one of the graduates who walked in his red gown on Friday, but we are not celebrating because he is very stressed out. um that he is one PE credit short of getting his diploma. Um this is not because he hasn't completed the PE requirements. In fact, he has exceeded them, but that um an outside his ice hockey coach, an outside coach who's unfamiliar with the paperwork did not get it in on time. and I have asked for a um administrative accommodation so that that paperwork could be accepted which is the last
206thing he needs for his diploma which is a condition of his admission to university. >> Thank you Miss Grimstaff. Um that concludes public comment. Are there any extended board member comments hearing? None. We adjourn at 10:33 p.m. Thanks everyone.