Berkeley USD Regular School Board Meeting - May 21, 2025

001Is this thing on? Good evening everyone. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you all so much for joining us uh for the May 21st, 2025 meeting of the Berkeley Unified School District Board of Education. At this time, I happily call the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m. Please excuse us for starting a little bit late, but thank you so much for your patience, and it is definitely a joy and a pleasure to see so many people here uh filling up our boardrooms, here for advocacy, here to support our student presentations that we'll see, um, and here to support other programs and, uh, things that we have going on in the district. There are people who are still trying to make their way in the room. So, if you are standing in the doorway, I'm

002just going to ask that you kind of just stand to the side a little bit. That way, folks who want to come in and go out have the opportunity to do so. In addition to that, uh just some other things around conduct. Um we are going to have a lot of presentations tonight. We're going to have a lot of speakers and so if you could do us a favor by keeping your um comments down to a minimum or um you know doing your best to to maintain an appropriate voice level so that everyone has the opportunity to hear and the opportunity to fully participate. We would really appreciate that. In addition to that, thank you again for coming and we are ready to begin. Uh at this time, Miss Charles, can you please call the

003role of the board? Director Anavasuv, Director Jennifer Shinowski here. Student Director Winter Clark here. Director Jennifer Corn present. Vice President Mike Chang here. President Cadia Brown, present. All board directors are present and accounted for. Uh we will now approve the agenda for this evening. Is there a motion to approve this evening's agenda? I'll move. Moved by Director Chang. Is there a second? I'll second. Seconded by Director Shinoski. All those in favor, please signify with the sign of I. I. Opposers. Abstensions. The eyes have it. The motion passes and this evening's agenda is approved. We have a couple of student presentations um as I mentioned earlier that we are so so so excited about. Um and so we will receive them at this time. The first presentation uh that we are going to receive today is

004in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month. If you are not aware, if you do not know, May uh signifi signifies uh here in the United States Jewish American Heritage Month. And last year we were definitely in for a treat when we received a presentation from students uh here in our district who educated us, got us excited for and got us excited for the opportunity to learn about and uplift our Jewish-American students, our Jewish-American families, and our Jewish-American community members right here in Berkeley Unified School District. And so tonight they will do the exact same thing. And so please welcome them as they come. You'll see the board of education leave our seats so that we can participate and enjoy the presentation. Please you are welcome. Um you want to do it from here? It it's

005up to you. So you can do it from the dis or you can take a seat here. It's totally up to you. Okay. Are you going to present directly to us? No. We have a slideshow. You have a slideshow. So, we'll stay up here then because then we're able to access the slideshow from the dis. Okay. Welcome. You may begin whenever you're ready. Um, so I'm just here to quickly introduce. My name is CC Mixa. I'm a counselor at King. Um, and I have had the privilege of supporting our JSU this year. Um, we have 25 members, but a lot of them are dance showcase who are that's at King right now. Um, so we have two of our seventh grade members here tonight. They're going to present to you a portion of our Jewish

006American Heritage Month assembly that they're actually doing tomorrow um at our school. So pieces of it will be addressed to students because it's for the students at King. Um but they're excited to share it with you tonight. So I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to the students. They've been working on this for weeks. Um so I know it's a little late, but hopefully we can all just give them all the support that they deserve with all this hard work. Thank you. Say your name. Um, my name is Ein Cman and I'm in seventh grade at King Middle School. Um, I'm Ellerie Andelman and I'm in seventh grade at King Middle School. A Jewish teen's daily life is very similar to the rest of your lives. However, there are many events and opportunities

007that many Jewish teens are able to take part of and experience that can an experience that can connect them with their Jewish heritage and foster a sense of community with their peers. Many Jewish teens attend Hebrew school. Programs often start when kids are very young and teach Hebrew stories from the Torah, the Jewish holy book, and important parts of Jewish daily life. As kids grow, the curriculum shifts away from stories and more towards preparing for a ben mitzvah, the Jewish coming of age ceremony. Another important part of Jewish culture is summer camp. Camp is a place for Jewish teens to bond, have fun, and be their authentic Jewish selves without fear of judgment. Whether they are going to sleep away camp like Camp Newman or Camp Toanga or attending day camp such as Camp Kito,

008camp is a thing that many teens look forward to all summer. There are several pieces of cultural Jewish clothing items. Some we wear only during prayer and some people wear them all the time. Kipot also called yarmakas and talit are used during prayer and given when a person has their bar or bach mitzvah. Some Jewish people choose to wear kipot all the time. Many Orthodox women wear tissels to cover their hair after they get married. Many conservative orthodox Jewish men will put on fill in when they pray. Kashroot, also known as kosher, is a Jewish dietary law that tells you what you're allowed to eat and how it needs to be prepared. There are many specific rules that you have to follow to keep kosher. Some of the most common ones are that Jews can't

009eat pork and can't eat meat and dairy in the same meal. Shabbat is the Jewish day of rest and is observed every week from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. On this slide, you can read certain things Jews can't do during Shabbat. Now we're going to talk about the Holocaust. The Holocaust is very heavy, sensitive topic and we want to make sure every student or person feels safe. So if you feel comfortable, feel free to step outside. If you feel bothered by any of these issues, please speak to a trusted adult. The Holocaust didn't happen that long ago. In fact, it still affects most Jews and Jewish families today. The Holocaust lasted 12 years from 1933 to 1945. Wait, the Nazis killed over 6 million Jews and 11 million people during this Holocaust. Today,

0100.2% of the world is Jewish. If the Holocaust had not happened, there would have been 11 to 18 million more Jewish people in the world right now. 1.5 million children were killed in the Holocaust. Take a look around this room. There are an average 300 kids in each grade at King. If you multiply the amount of kids in this in this auditorium by 5,000, that would be the number of kids that were killed in the Holocaust. The Holocaust still affects many Jewish families today. It is a generational traum trauma that affects the ways many families still act and think on a daily basis. For many Jewish people, there is a fear that something like this could happen again. Next, we're going to listen to us read about two King students sharing just a little bit

011about how the Holocaust has affected their families. This is a story from another King student. My grandfather was 7 years old when he was put in a safe house in Budapest, Hungary. He lived in the basement of his house for of this house for seven months with other young children, eating only small meals of lentils and beans. He was lucky to survive and was reunited with his mother not long after World War II ended. His dad passed away in a concentration camp. This experience has had a lasting effect on his everyday behaviors, some of which are especially profound. Whenever my family goes to visit him, we tend to find moldy food in his fridge, a sign of fear of not having enough food. Although he's been through so much, he uses his experience to educate

012students in his area in the on the importance of the Holocaust. This is another story from another King student. After my grandpa escaped Nazi Germany, he resented his Jewish identity and never took part in his culture again. My mom was raised non-religious and she never got to go to any seder until she was 13. When my mom had me and my sister, she decided she wasn't going to hide us from our Jewish heritage. I understand why my grandpa turned his back on his religion. But since my mom decided to raise her children Jewish, I have found a great community of people at my temple and I am so grateful to my mom for giving us this experience and pride for being Jewish. Anti-semitism is a dehumanizing and hateful act against the Jewish community. Anti-semitism has

013been around since the beginning of time. And recently, there have been many examples of anti-semitism in our local community. In 2024, there have been 498 anti-semitic incidents in Northern California alone. For example, in the Berkeley community, there has been a lot of vandalism and hateful language against and hateful language against Jews. A Jewish frat house and a shop owned by a Jewish business were vandalized with anti-Semitic images and phrases. In one instance, someone purposely dumped smelly non-coosher food at a Jewish residence. In an Oakland school in August of 2023, a teacher hung up anti-semitic posters in Jewish students classes. And during the pandemic, someone delivered flyers to many of the houses in Berkeley blaming Jewish people for the pandemic. Since the Holocaust, October 7th, 2023 has been the worst loss of life in a single

014day for Jewish people. During the horrific attack in Israel, militant troops from a violent group called Hamas took approximately 251 people hostage and murdered 1,200 Jewish men, women, and children. Since October 7th, anti-semitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Arab hate have been on the rise, and it's important that we recognize that both communities are being deeply affected and hurt. But it does not have to divide these two wonderful cultures. Just because the two governments are at war doesn't mean the people from these cultures are. We are both strong cultures full of history and traditions that have survived all the hardship through his throughout history. Now more than ever, unity is is so much more important than division. And we support all of our peers who are also being affected. Despite hardships in our Jewish community, Judaism is about

015life, celebration, community, and joy. Here are [Music] some Here are some photos of JSU members celebrating their Ben Mitzv the Benet Mitzvot and important coming of age milestone in Judaism. The Jewish community is a very important part of any Jew's life. Many Jewish people practice the same traditions in different ways, but all Jewish people share the values of life, community, and healing the world. Thank you for listening today. We hope you learned something new. Thank you so much. And I just wanted to take a second to give these students a huge shout out. It is hard to come in front of this many people and share something about your culture. and they have put weeks of work into this. So, thank you all so much. Appreciate it. The students are separated in the front. Thank

016you so much for that uh not just fabulous but also incredibly informative uh presentation. I don't think you missed anything at all. And so, it's really great uh for an opportunity to share and to learn about other cultures. Um, and it's even more exciting for us to do it in such a diverse community here as uh Berkeley Unified School District is. So again, kudos to our young people for the confidence and for the bravery that you showed tonight and for the opportunity to uh educate us all. So let's give them one more round of applause, please. We will now move on to our second uh student presentation of the evening. And tonight we are very excited to welcome uh and receive a presentation from the bridge program. Um yeah, give it up. I can I

017can tell I can tell by the applause in the room that many of you are already familiar with the bridge program. So, I will keep my introduction brief, but as you already know or may not know, uh, Bridge is a a phenomenal program and a beloved program here in BUSD um that seeks to support students in achieving academic excellence while also preparing them simultaneously preparing them for post-secary options. And so tonight we are going to receive um a presentation that talks about the bridge program that shares the mission of the bridge program and how that mission is achieved. Um we'll also see a couple of key data points. Um and most importantly we'll hear the voices of students as well as community members um who will talk about the bridge program, their experience in it

018and um why they think it's such a great program here in BUSD. So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce uh Miss Jesse Luxford, who will uh begin our presentation this evening. Thank you so much. I think um this says a lot. It's a beautiful moment. Um, my name is Jesse Luxford and um, I'm fortunate enough to be the Berkeley High School Bridge program coordinator. Um, thank you, President Brown, um, school board directors and superintendent for inviting us to celebrate our 15th year anniversary and for all the support you've given us over the last 15 years. Um, I'd like to start just by recognizing how many Bridge families and students um um and students on the wait list have come out tonight and who took time out of their schedules to support the program. Bridge

019belongs to our students and families. This is their program and I just coordinate. So, if families can wave their sign [Applause] [Music] Um, I'd like to introduce my colleagues who are here. Dwayne Binlas, if you're here, um, can come on up. Jennifer Hammond, um, it's our [Music] [Applause] our she's a cohort lead and also our part-time bridge counselor. Um, Yenia Rodriguez, are you here? There you [Music] are. Spencer Pritchard. There you go. And Sam Matsumoto um is another senior bridge cohort lead, but she can't be here tonight. And we have a really special guest. When um we started this program 15 years ago, um there was a student who I had taught at Longfellow and um she was a junior when bridge started and she helped me out. She was part of a program called

020um scholars to cow and um she I I really admired that program. I I sort of thought of bridge as I wanted to do that program. And Erica is here, Erica Grten. Erica, one of my favorite people in the whole world, and she helped to really start this program. So, thank you for being here tonight. Um, uh, just for people who don't know, uh, Bridge was built, um, from the ground up, from scratch at Berkeley High School. It was designed by teachers and students to serve primarily first generation African-American and Latinx students. We are, the Bridge staff are teachers and counselors on campus every single day. We know the system. We know how to help students and families navigate it. We meet with teachers. We walk in the hallways. We snitch to parents and take

021pictures of the kids in the hallway. I'm joking that they get an A in hallway class and they need to get back to their class. Um, we text and we communicate and we annoy and we do whatever it takes to help our students reach their potential. Um, we step in early, we build trust, we intervene quickly, and this allows us to improve attendance, mental health challenges, reduce DF rates, communicate with families often, and provide opportunities. And our mission is to close opportunity gap and make sure our students don't just make it through high school, but that they excel and they have real choice, four-year college, two-year path, or careers that they're proud of. Um, tonight we're celebrating not just 15 years, but we ha we have two cohorts that are graduating and many of them

022are at the amps graduation, at the cast graduation, or at a dance rehearsal. But these seniors came tonight um to represent the 52 students that graduated the bridge graduation last Thursday where over 300 people attended. And um what's really remarkable is that we've shown that we can double the size of Bridge and still get the um same results. Um, and so we have 52 seniors that are graduating this year. 50 of them were A throughG eligible, which means that they have the option to go to four-year. Sure. Yes. Um, 51 out of 52 were A throughG eligible. 50 applied and all of them got in. Okay. Not just not just to um one but to multiple schools as you can see. And they've gotten into um institutions across the country. Howard, Spellelman, UCLA, UC Berkeley,

023USC, Cornell, just to name a few. And that's just not access, it's choice. And it matters because getting accepted isn't about prestige. It's about power. And our students and families have options. they get to choose their path forward. Um, so we have our seniors here and we have a few of them who are just going to give a brief excerpt from their graduation speech. Just a brief expert just to give you a little bit of a sense of um, sort of what bridge meant to them and how it was for them. Okay. Um, Mariah Estavan, Rosa, and Nicole, you want to come up? [Applause] Hi, my name is Mariah. Um, while Berkeley High offers resources like the CCC and teacher tutorials, Bridge provides a uniquely comfortable environment where we can learn and grow alongside our

024peers. I want to thank Mr. Benos. You pushed us to stay on track, kept our parents informed, and never let us settle. You taught us to be lions, not gazels, to see failure and struggle not as the end, but as part of the journey. You reminded us that the dream is free, but the hustle is sold separately. Since S since sophomore year, Mr. Bloss has encouraged me to take advanced STEM classes that I never thought I'd do well in, but he supported me throughout the process so that I've excelled. A special thank you to Miss Hammond for guiding us through the college application process. Your support and expertise were essential, and honestly, I'm not sure how we would have made it through the stressful time without you. Hi, my name is Estavon. I joined Bridge

025because my family wanted to give me a better education, especially when they could no longer help me with the new material being taught in school. I want to thank Bridge for giving me the support to continue an education that I truly love. I wasn't on my own like there were people who genuinely cared and wanted to see me succeed. This that support gave me confidence to keep going. I also want to thank Miss Hammond who stood by us as we made decisions about our future and reminded us to aim high. Thank you, Bridge, for believing me and helping me believe in myself. I wrote this for the intentions of a teacher who has guided me through my four years of high school and who has been there for me since the beginning of my journey.

026As a little girl, I struggled to ask for help. But I learned that there is always a person there who cares and will listen and support you through difficult challenges. And you are that person to me, Mix Matsumoto. You are the person I run to to ask questions or concerns or doubts. If I could tell middle school Rosa anything about high school is to join Bridge because it will help you feel secure and confident through your academic achievements. The most important thing is that you believed in me more than anybody else could in the school. Thank you. I can't imagine what my high school career would have looked like without Bridge. Mix Mammoto and Mr. Bin Los, your commitment to seeing us thrive and be successful is real. There have been so many times where

027you have stayed until 6 p.m. so we can work with tutors. You sent out personalized message every week for the last four years to each of our families with our grades and attendance, even when we don't want you to. And we all know if we're even a second late to bridge, you text us and our family immediately. Miss Hammond, you are always there to guide us and comfort us through the entire college process. Next year, I will be attending UC Santa Cruz, majoring in biology in hopes to become a researcher. We have um very little time to summarize 15 years and we have three slides here with so much data on what we do. Um this has to do uh with how many kids uh get into four-year college so that they have every choice.

028This has to do with LCAP metrics which were funded through um you know all sorts of um data CTE pathway AP course completion all of that and I don't want to spend a lot of time on that because I'd rather that you hear from the student voices our attendance we work a lot on attendance and making sure our kids are in the classes um and you can see that um our attendance is um better than um the average we you can see here some highlights but I'd like to call up um some of our students who are in the 9th through 11th grade. Just to say a word about what bridge means to them. So, uh, Kai, Taii, the Miguel, Miguel, Tvel, Angel, and Jaylen, will you come on up? Um, hello. My name is

029Tai G and I just feel like Bridge is like a good place to go to. Like if I have a lot going on at school, I can just go there, you know, and uh get work done. And I feel like it's been a very uh very positive impact on my um high school career. [Applause] Hi, my name is Angel. Bridge is with me on my lowest and I know Bridge will be with me on my highest since we're are a family. Hi, my name is Miguel and Bridge is like a community. It's like a family and I could go there whenever I need help and they're always give the best support. Thank you, Bridge. Um, hi, my name is Farmy. And I think why bridge is important is because you're allowed to have you you

030have the same bridge teacher throughout the whole four years, which allows for a deeper connection to have a home within the school. Uh, hello, my name is Tail and um, Bridge has helped me be very successful throughout my high school experience and I know it has helped many others too. And if you were to get rid of the program, I feel like uh you'd be robbing others of being successful and being a part of something bigger than themselves. Thank you. Hi, my name is Miguel and I want to say that Bridge has really helped me and supported me and motivated me to change from a C student to a student. Thank you. Hi, my name is Jaylen. Bridge is something undefiable in one word or one sentence. It's a community. It's a foundation. And we're

031never alone. Somebody's always there to say they're proud of us. Um, hi, my name is Kai. bridge is like having a second parent at school. Um, someone who's always there to push me and look out for me even when my family can't be there. Um, yeah, [Applause] [Music] I want to be really conscious of time, but I think you can hear from the students that this isn't just a job for us. We adore them. We love them. and when the families turn them over to us um at school, we act like their parents at school and wrap around them and um really try to do whatever we can to support them. Um so just in closing because I want to be conscious of times um um for 15 years, Bridge has delivered what the district

032says it's striving for. It's closed the opportunity gap. Um, feeling safe A through G, family engagements. Um, and Bridge is not a luxury. It is the bridge. Right now, there's a wait list for Bridge. 108 African-American and Latinx students and families access asking for access to the program. The weight list has existed for years. We know it works, but they're being told there's no room. So, every year we leave those students on a wait list, and we're, you know, wondering why. Um, in a time of limited resources, we need to put our dollars where the impact is clearest. Funding a program like Bridge isn't just about fairness. It's a smart, high return investment in equity and in the future of our [Applause] students. Reducing funding for Bridge would send the wrong message about our priorities.

033If our mission is to close gaps and not perpetuate them, then we should expand the program. the bridge program is the safest way and smartest and most strategic investment we can make. Um, and I would just like to say that after 15 years, it would be really wonderful to stop stressing and um, about losing funding um, and have our money put somewhere that's stable so that I can spend all of my time um, making this program better, getting better tutors, helping kids have better access. I just want to focus on what we're not doing and what we can be doing instead of worrying about losing what we have. So I I also want to say according to Data Quest, which is a California state um website where people uh where districts post data, 23 out

034of 118 African-American seniors were uh UC and CSU eligible last year. And um that number shocks me every single time, you know. Um, and it's not necessary and we know how to give these kids opportunity. So, I would really like to see us do that. To our students, you are the reason Bridge exists. You're the model of resilience, brilliance, and possibility. To our families, thank you for trusting us and walking beside us. And to the Bridge staff and teachers, your care, your dedication are really at the heart of the program. And to the board, superintendent, and to the city who funds this program, thank you so much for your support over the last 15 years. We really appreciate you. Thank you so much to all of the bridge advocates who came out tonight and especially

035to our student speakers. It was really great to hear your voices elevated about a program uh that you love so much and that has really uh helped to impact uh and improve your opportunities for uh today and also for tomorrow. So, thank you again for our bridge presentation. At this time, we need to report out from close session. Um so, I'm going to ask Vice President Chang to do that. If you are leaving the boardroom at this time, we're going to ask that you please leave quietly so that uh we can continue on with the meeting. Thank you so much. Uh there are going to be two items uh two separate items that Vice President Chang reports out for. The first uh is a special close session that the board had and then the second

036is our regular close session. Okay. Again, if you are leaving the board meeting, uh please do so quietly so that we may continue the business of Berkeley Unified School District. Thank you. Thank you so much, President Brown. Um with regard to the special close session concurrent 4.1, um council provided the board with an update and a recommendation. Board voted in favor of council's recommendation to authorize the appeal of the PERB decision. Board motion for council's recommendation was moved by vice president Chang director Korin uh seconded director Shinowaskki abstained director Vasadev was in absentia and with regard to the regular close session 3.1.1 the district provided its recommendation just uh director Korn moved vice president Chang seconded and the motion carried director Vasidev was in absentia with regard to 3.1.2 Two, the district provided its recommendations.

037Vice President Chang moved. Director Shinowski seconded and the motion carried. Director Korn recused herself. Director Vasadev was in absentia. With regard to 3.1.3, the district provided an update and a recommendation. Director Shinowski moved. Director Korn seconded. The board voted unanimously in favor. With regard to 3.1.4, the district provided its recommendation. Director Vasadev moved. Director Korn seconded. The board voted unanimously in favor. Um, with regard to 3.1.5, the district provided an update and with regard to 3.2.1, council provided an update and recommendation. Director Shinowski moved. Vice President Chang seconded. The board voted unanimously. With regard to 3.2.2, the district voted, I'm sorry, district provided recommendation. Director Shinowski moved. Director Vasadev seconded. The board voted in favor unanimously. With regard to 3.3.1, the board voted in favor of the district's recommendation. Director Schnowski moved. Director Korn seconded.

038Director Vasadev was in absentia. With regard to 3.4, the district provided an update. Director Vasdev was in absentia. And with regard to 3.5, um the board determined to hold a special session to address that issue. Thank you so much. Uh thank you so much, Vice President Chang, for reporting out from close session. We will now move to our first opportunity for public comment. I have a ton of public comment cards and so this is how we are going to handle this. Um there are uh specific groups who are interested in speaking. Um and so what I'll ask Miss Chavez to do is to give those groups five minutes. Uh when I give the signal, you can give them five minutes to speak. We always receive our students first. Um however, there what what we will

039do since we have groups is we'll have our students speak within those groups first and then hear from uh the adults in the groups. Um and then we also need to move on to um Zoom to receive public comments that are virtual. So just uh stay with us please as we go through this public comment session. Um but the first group that we will call up are uh students and adults who will speak on the rise program. Uh the Rice program is another amazing program in BUSD. And so we are so so so excited um to receive the comments um from our students and our adults tonight. Miss Betty, let me ask you this. I have cards, but do you already have your speakers organized and prepared? They're right there. So they will get one

040minute a piece or how much they'll get a piece? I will give you five minutes in total for the entire presentation. And so, do you want me to call them up by cards or do you have I'll call the kids. Right. They're right here. Call Take the kids and the parents. Okay. I'm going to give you your five minutes. I'm going let you do your thing. Okay. Okay. Uh good evening, members of the school board. My name is Angel Rivera. Um and I come in front of you today to tell you why you should not cut funding to the RISE program. We'll start with the obvious. It's not easy for us minority students to become successful in school. I mean, according to multiple studies, 36% of college age Latino students and only 37% of black

041age students of the same age go to college. And when we compare these percentages to that of white students, we see that the aforementioned statistics are significantly lower. And the answer as to why is not surprising. For the Latino students, many who are first generation, such as myself, we struggle in finding guidance on how to go through school. Our parents didn't go through the school system and have no prior knowledge on how it works and how we can become successful in it. So, they find us people that can, people like those in Rise. I was one of those students who struggle to understand the school system, knowing nothing but the fact that high school came after middle school. No idea how I could become a competitive student on par with my white colleagues. students, white

042students, who had already had parents that went through the system and who they could turn to when they had any questions about school. I didn't have that. Many black and brown students across the country still don't have that. If it weren't for Rise and the amazing people in it, Miss Betty, my case manager, Javier and Wardell, I would have remained with those lingering questions and not become the student that I am today. The first person in my family to attend college and a student attending UC Berkeley later this year. They This is my mom. This is my mom. She helped me get there, too. Uh they they've been here since the 70s. They were there when my grades dropped to make sure that I was not slacking, helping me to communicate with my teachers and

043push me to do the best that I could do by recommending me community college classes and helping me through the enrollment process. They were there when I needed help finding a job. They were there with tutors whenever I felt hopeless in AP Chem, calculus, or English. And they were even there during the summer when I needed help with my college applications and proofreading my essays. I fear our future in which rise no longer exists or due to a decrease in funding becomes smaller than it already is. Who will students like me have to turn to when they when they have questions about school? Who will keep them in check when their grades drop? Who will provide a genuine care, counseling, and a 24/7 availability if it's not for Rise? Thank you. Hello, my name is

044Amin Jamal Ome and I'm 11th grader in Rise. I've been in this program since the summer going into my freshman year and high school comes with many challenges. I should know. Um, RISE was there through thick and thin for me academically and emotionally. Because of Miss Betty, Javier, and Wardell, I found a support system that allows me to succeed regardless of the challenges that I may face. I only have Rise to thank for instilling a belief in myself that I can do well and that I can continue to strive for success in my academics and in life after school. Through personal struggle, Rise has been a lot like a safe haven for me. Talking to Wordon Javier about potential opportunities and laying out an action plan regardless of what I have going on outside of

045school has been somewhat of a stress reliever. Um because of uh Wordell and Javier's encouragement, I am taking two college classes this summer and three AP classes next year. If I were to tell myself this time last year that I would be I would be doing this, I would not look at myself in in the mirror and believe that. I'm not going to lie. Um cutting rise funding can result in students like me who want to get ahead, a muchneeded support system that will allow them to grow as the next workers and leaders of this next generation of community and general society. So please, we plead with you. Without Rise, students like me and other kids like me all just want the best opportunities to give themselves a better future. And to be honest, this

046has been the best thing for me and everyone else. So, thank you so much for your time. I want to speak about Rise. I'm not only co-workers with Javier Wardell and Miss Betty, I'm also a parent and an aunt to uh students who went through RISE. And RISE is an invaluable piece of Berkeley High. And it provides opportunity and support and most importantly navigation for students who would normally slip through the crack because they're not always special ed or they don't have any other flags. They're not focal, but Rise comes in and stands by them during high school and post high school. My son has no qualms about Colin Wardell to tell him about a trouble he's having in a college class. So I just want to say this rise is a is a institutional

047part of Berkeley High and it should be studied and multiplied instead of cut. Thank you so much uh to our advocates who came out tonight to talk about the incredible, amazing, long-standing RISE program. Uh we've heard so many great things throughout the year years about RISE. And so it is great to see our student advocates and hear their voices um as well as their our parents, our families uh to hear their exciting stories about RISE um and their advocacy for the program uh to continue. So thank you all so much. Uh next we will move uh to our next set of public comments um specifically in support of Miss Farca. Um, I have a lot of cards um in this section and so you'll also get five minutes. U Miss Travis, if you can please

048put that on the timer. Um, and I I hope that you all had the opportunity to organize yourselves uh and that you're ready to begin whenever the timer begins. Okay. Welcome. Okay. Hi. I hope you're all doing well. I'm Aro and I'm a student at independent study and today I'm here to talk on behalf of Miss Falca. We need to keep her. By cutting her, you aren't doing anyone justice. By cutting so many of these teachers, you're not really helping anyone. Berkeley is supposed to be progressive. So where is the progress? We should be building this district to become even better. But instead, you are breaking it apart by cutting our funds and teachers that we need. Miss Falca being one of them. She's encouraged me to pursue college even with my struggles with high

049school as well as many other students in independent study. She helps her students tremendously and keeps them engaged in class. She's so kind and never has an issue with helping after hours. Teachers typically don't reach out as much after the year you spend with them or get too involved with you, but Miss Farca is not one of them. She goes above and she goes above and beyond for her students. We feel it and we see it. So why don't you? Her impact on students on all her students is tremendous. Not allowing her to teach would be taking away from us all. So I hope you ask yourself, is what I'm doing really helping? Is this all I can do? Please reconsider this decision and give her her ADA accommodation. Thank you. [Applause] Jonas Lmetri Brownell

050B USD's Heric Hospital teacher, independent study and HHI teacher. Miss Farca is BUD's only fully online teacher. And as some of you have already acknowledged, she is an excellent and transformative online teacher. As you also have heard from many of her students, we absolutely should do all we can to keep her. And I remain unconvinced that there is any reason why we must lose her um by requiring her to return in to in-person teaching when her documented ADA accommodation request makes it clear she needs to stay online. The students need her online. Please grant Miss Farca's ADA accommodation, which will cost BUD nothing and continue to have her students receive transformative excellent online education as one example of a solution. She is also an HHI teacher. She's qualified and experienced veteran excellent at 6 through

05112th grade humanities. We have I'm working with two online students right now in humanities. She can be the designated online teacher for all of those HHI students. A solution. We can do this. Let's keep her. [Applause] Hello, I'm Gregory Beaver and my oldest daughter is a student at Berkeley Independent Study. And my family is so grateful for the accommodation that BISD provides for my daughter to pursue her dream of being a ballerina and the time that it allows. I'm confused as to why that same accommodation is not granted for something far more affecting of someone's life, which is the ADA accommodation that Miss Farca is asking for. This feels like an opportunity to me for the board to really look at the policies and make a just choice, a right choice. The DNA of BISD

052is accommodation. That's the whole point of its existence is to provide an opportunity for people to thrive together, the students and the teachers. This is something I think is a real opportunity to look at what we need to do. It's not just about Miss Falcara. It's it's a higher thing. What can we do to make this really work to be a model for other systems around the country? BISD already is I've lived all over the country and this is very unique. uh we would have basically had to choose between ballet and school pretty much anywhere else. And so this has really been wonderful. I hope you'll make the right choice here. You have a great opportunity to do so. Thank you. Hi, my name is Adie Hogue and I'm a member of Eon BAM Caucus.

053I'm a teacher in Oakland and I've worked with Iet Farca for over 20 years, including being her student teacher at Martin Luther King Middle School. And I actually know this is not Iet Farca's first rodeo. Um there's been multiple rounds of harassment of investigations. I probably still have my I stand with Miss Felarca um pin and all of that amounted to total BS. She's still here and is still one of the most loved teachers in um in Berkeley and that's because she's like one of those amazing teachers that you know in the TV show the establishment comes after her. But in her case, she doesn't leave. She stays because she fights to win. And there is no establishment that she is afraid to challenge and fight until she wins. So I trust she will be

054here. You have a lot of wonderful programs that you need to fund and support. And so do not waste your money on legal fees trifling with Miss Farca because she will win. She's won before. She's going to be in Berkeley. get your priorities straight. Let her allow allow her to have her accommodation and teach online. Thank you. Thank you. You have 20. Oh, you're going back up, Liz. Okay. Thank you. Um, all right. We will move on to our uh next comments. We have uh comments specifically around. Um, if you are speaking for OFI, I'm going to ask that you come this time. I do have a number of cards uh for OFI as well. And so I'm going to give you all uh five minutes. We do have some student speakers. And so as

055you organize yourselves, can you please ensure that our student speakers get the opportunity to go first, including but not limited, including actually Xavier, Francia, and Aaliyah. Say your Alia, I should have gotten that right. Alasia, your name is spelled like my name. Sorry. All right, go ahead. Allayia, are you gonna go first? Yeah. Okay. Welcome. Hi, my name is Allayia Sims. I'm a ninth grader at Berkeley High. And I'm writing this letter because I care a lot about the family engagement and equity specialists, especially my mom and all her co-workers. And I want to speak up for them and the families that they help every day. These specialists do more than work at schools. They make sure students and families feel supported, understood, and respected. They help parents get the information they need. They check

056in on students who are struggling. and they make the school feel like a place where everyone belongs. I've seen my mom stay late, talk with parents who speak different languages, and work really hard to keep their students and families heard. If these jobs are if these jobs go away or aren't fully funded, so many families will be left without someone to help them navigate school. These mean this means students might not get the support they need and some parents won't have anyone to go to when they have questions and support and that's not fair. We talk about equity and inclusion and I think keeping these jobs shows we really mean it. Please make sure the office of family engagement and equity stays fully funded. Families and students, especially those who don't always have a voice,

057are counting on it. Thank [Applause] [Music] you. Hola, my student in Longfellow Middle School um in Octavo. Hi, my name is Francia. I am a student in Longfellow Middle School in 8th grade. Um, Latinos, Grand Element. Bus. Thank you. [Music] We we still have two minutes and 27 seconds left if anyone else would like to speak. Hi everyone. Uh good evening. Thank you for giving us this time. Um, as a parent of a student in Long Fellow, I'm just want to thank to Rebecca, the offic um, I'm just want to let you know that she's a very, um, helpful person for all the Latinos that we are in the school. I don't know in the other school, but in in the Long Fellow, she's very um, competent. She really help everyone. She's always on top.

058She's always sending reminders. she's always there for us. Um, so without those people who work on the off, what can we do? You know, we are in Berkeley and we are big. Berkeley is big. So I think it's very important to us to keep her um all those people like it's like a lifesaver for all the parents and also for all the student like um this student that came just speak up. Thank you so much. I hope you have in in mind that just to keep those people who keep the schools floating, you know, and keep um supporting all the students to be better in Berkeley. Thank you. I just want to say it's deeply disappointing that all the things that we're talking about cutting tonight are all equity initiatives. And I think that as

059Berkeley Unified, we can and we should be doing better. Um, it's embarrassing. Uh, I also want to say, and this is just off the top of my head, but the schools that still don't have OPI specialists with pink slips rescended are Oxford, Washington, Ruth Acti, uh, Berkeley Independent Study, uh, King, Thousand Oaks, Longfellow, um, Cragmont. Those are a a lot of our schools. Um 21 pink slips still remain unrescended which our district has been touting as a high achievement which it is. Seven of those are OIE. So the disproportionality when you think of the families and the equity initiatives that are affected are are deeply disappointing and a big statement about what the priorities are in this district. Thank you. Thank you. We also have a number of cards uh regarding contract negotiations and so

060uh if you submitted those cards uh can you please come at this time? You will also have five minutes. Are you talking to Liz or you talking to me? Okay. Okay. That That's perfect. Okay. Um, evening board and superintendent. My name is Boy Augustinini and I teach at the adult school. Next year will mark my 30th year of teaching at various levels including high schools, middle schools, and adult schools. For years, I would teach my 30-hour assignment at my high school and then teach an additional six hours on Saturdays at an adult school in downtown LA. It was there that I fell in love with my students and with adult ed. And when I moved here, I wanted to devote my teaching to adult ed. My colleagues and I love teaching our students and want

061to do the best we can for them. That's difficult to do when we're only allowed three hours of preparatory time to plan our lessons per month. This is in contrast to the five hours per week that are afforded the K12 teachers. Also, sister adult schools neighboring and in other parts of the state consistently have more prep time. Our proposal to include prep time for Berkeley adult ed instructors is asking for a fraction of that. Adult ed students represent such a rich mosaic of our society. They include those who are working to earn their high school diplomas, those who are trying to learn English, those who are attempting to master a specific skill, those who those who are hoping for a better life, and those who are the parents and grandparents of BUSD K12 students, and

062the list goes on. Please respect and support their teachers. Thank you. I'm a math teacher at Longfellow and I worked my butt off to secure my position having subbed in student taught since 2021. I changed careers during the pandemic because I saw there was a real need for quality math instruction in public schools. But I didn't expect the choice to work in this district would mean foregoing health benefits, which puts a heartbreaking halt to my own plans to start a family. Our district does not offer affordable health care for teachers, period. I could not afford a single healthcare plan from BD. The Kaiser plan for me and my new husband would be over $1,000 a month, which is more than 30% of my take-home salary as a new teacher on step one. I already cannot

063afford the astronomically high rent in this area, let alone paying off the student loans that I was forced to take out to pursue this career. In the private sector, healthcare coverage is basically a given when accepting a job. The same Kaiser plan is being offered for more than 50% less in nearby districts. In some cases, the employee contribution is zero. More than any professional development, my colleagues, the more experienced teachers at my school are the single most valuable resource to me and my development as an educator. If we are losing excellent teachers because of benefits, we are not investing in our students. Good evening. My name is Latasha Willis. I am a Bears teacher at Washington Elementary. This is my fourth year in a row and I and I hold an early childhood education an

064early childhood education permit. Each day I support students before and after school, helping with academics, leading activities, and collaborating with teachers, families, and staff to make sure every child is safe and supported. But like many of my colleagues, I'm struggling to keep up. Even living in Berkeley, the rising cost and of housing and groceries makes it harder and harder to get by on EC on an ECE salary. We're committed to our work, but commit commitment alone doesn't pay bills. We can't wait for better wages. We can't we can't keep losing passionate educators because they can't afford to stay. It's time for our pay to reflect the value we bring to every single the value we bring every single day. We can't wait. Thank you. Thank you as well for your comments. Uh next we will

065receive Ben Nathan or Ben in followed by uh Meline. Hello members of the board. My name is Ben. Jeez. I mean I'll take more if you want. All right. Hello members of the board. My name is Ben Nathan. I'm a math teacher at Berkeley High, currently in my 11th year at the school. I wanted to talk about the current crisis involving physical education and the possible solutions that are available. The first would be to move to a seventh period day, which would decrease uh the amount of time that students have with teachers and cost a great deal of money on top of that in addition to adding stress to teachers on an everyday basis. The second would be to cut electives. As we heard two weeks ago, that is something that nobody wants and it

066would take away that our school shines for so many students and so many people in our community. The third would be to move to a block schedule. Rotating blocks would help, but have been shown to have negative effects, especially on students with executive functioning issues, which leaves one option, which is the 4x4. The 4x4 block. By instituting this, we would be able to not only keep our current electives, but offer more than we currently do in a way that is closer to costneutral than any other viable solution. In addition, research shows that the 4x4 increases the happiness levels of all members of the communities as it lowers the stress levels of students, teachers, counselors, administrators, and staff. In addition to this, there are long-term savings as it would create solutions for our room issues. If

067any of you want to talk about this, please let me know. Email me. I'm more than happy to talk about it at any time. Thank you. Next, uh we will receive uh Meline. Matteline, are you with us? Okay, great. I also have um a few com few uh speaker cards here uh for the bridge program. However, we do have about 15 people online who need to speak. And so what I'm going to do because we received um a presentation from Bridge already tonight is I'm going to ask that we please give the opportunity for the public speakers or for the public commenters who are online to have the opportunity to speak before our public comment time is up. And so hopefully that is okay. But I will keep your cards until we get to the

068second opportunity for public comment and we'll ask for you to speak during that time. Um if you are still here and if you are still interested in speaking. Uh we will move on to our online commenters. Of course we always prioritize our students and so we will begin with Allayia Thompson followed by Isaiah. Miss Chavez, whenever you are ready, please promote those uh two individuals. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Allayia Thompson and I'm a 10th grader at Berkeley Independent Study. I have received word that a great teacher of my school, Berkeley Independent Study, is at risk of losing her job due to her location. This news has deeply troubled myself and peers. Miss Evette Falaraa is one of the most engaging, passionate, and inspiring teachers that I and other students have had. While

069teaching, she creates thought-provoking questions that truly build a deeper understanding of the subject matter, often encouraging all of her students to fulfill their true potential. even though she teaches ver virtually. She is truly an incredible figure at BIS and losing her would be such a tremendous loss in our community. Thank you. Thank you as well. Next we will have Isaiah followed by Sher Norris. Hi, my name is Isaiah and I'm a junior at independent studies. I've had the privilege of being a student of Miss Farca's online platform my 9th and 10th grade years. It was very beneficial for me to have the flexibility of an online class because I'm a three-year varsity athlete and finding the balance between school, baseball, and a social life is never easy to do. I have dyslexia and coming into

070independent studies, I lack confidence in my reading and writing abilities. And Miss Falarco worked tirelessly with me with extra office hours and sometimes logging into Zoom meetings at 10 p.m. her time just to help me with an assignment. She helped me gain the confidence that I desperately needed. I went from hoping to pass a ninth grade English class to excelling in an AP language class, getting A's in both quarters. And Miss Falca is the biggest reason why. and I feel like B USD school district would be doing itself a disservice if we don't continue to let her teach with the online platform. Thank you. Thank you, Isaiah. Next, we will have Sher Norris, followed by Natalie Miller. Hi. Can you see me? We can see you and we can hear you. And I know that

071you're on with two devices, so maybe turn the other one off and then that'll perfect. I just did that. Um I'm not familiar with your system and I couldn't tell if I was in the queue or not, so I joined again on a second. Anyways, um I'll get to it. Um my name is Sher Norris and I'm a a teach a parent um of a Berkeley student. She um has been in Berkeley school system since she was in kindergarten and in sixth grade she started to develop very severe anxiety and depression. Sorry. She ended up in a residential program and in a PHP program and it finally went to um home and hospital care online where she met Miss Falera. Miss Falera was the first teacher that my daughter said actually listened to her and

072helped her to come out of her shell. She used to be a very high scoring um um student with in star9 testing. She was one of the top um students in this in the country for her test scores for English. And it plummeted so badly in while she was in um middle school and high school. By the time she was in high school, she was hiding in the bathroom crying. Developed a very severe um fear of being on campus. Couldn't find anywhere that she could be safe. She was told there was places she could be for 15 minutes, but then she had to leave. She could visit her counselor, but only during the right times. She never could find any support on campus. And from that, all of those experience and she was also assaulted

073in middle school on campus by another student. You add all that together and her fear of being on campus is severe. She's um goes to see psychiatrists regularly, but without Miss Felarca, she would not have been able to reenter into school. She's now an independent study and she's still having a hard time there. Um and because she's not able to be online, she's losing she's losing her ability to her academic um um movement. And what we were really hoping through her IEP is that she could take at least one I'm I'm sorry, Sher. I'm not sure if you can um you can hear us on this end. Um and I apologize for interrupting, especially uh during the middle of that. Um but we only give one minute for public comment. Um and it's hard to

074see in the background, but there is a timer that goes off. Um and unfortunately, you've reached your time, but thank you so much for sharing that. And if there's anything that you miss or you want to share more, please feel free to email the board of education. Thank you for joining us and again, I apologize for having to cut you off. Next, we will move to Natalie Miller, followed by Iette Farca. Hi, my name is Natalie Miller and I represent the Bears program and I'd like to reiterate one of the facts that I mentioned last time. This program for the afterchool is handled by two people doing seven sites. This will now be eliminated both of those people that work as a team adding a new administrative assistant to handle all seven sites with a

075new supervisor at the same time. at one of the most impactful and detrimental times. This will be both unfamiliar to them, our processes and procedures. So, we're unclear as if they will just come and sit in our seats. But one thing is for sure that this is a program that prioritizes the undeserved underserved community. This is at a time with the government administration targeting them and us that we're here is another hit that impacts the type of consistency that needs to be stayed in place. These families are not aware and will not have the opportunity to make an adjustment and be prepared. So, I see my time is running out, but I encourage you to come and sit with us and learn more about our program. Thank you. I just want to sure that you

076finished the end of your sentence before you were cut off. Is that correct? Okay. Thank you so much. Next we will move to Evette Falaraa followed by Andrea. Good evening. I'm Evette Falca. I'm a teacher at Berkeley Independent Studies. I'm also um part of the Equal Opportunity Now by any means necessary EON BAM caucus. Today I filed my ADA accommodation application to Berkeley Unified School District to continue to teach online. I want to thank all the students and the families u my co-workers community supporters for all your support and advocacy not just for me but for the rights of students and families to get the type of education that you need and deserve and continue to demand that from your school district. Berkeley Unifi can and should be doing so much better. I also support

077RISE and Bridge and all the programs as well as the O of staff who still face cuts. And I really am appalled at the betrayal at the idea that this district might charge for busing when that would be a massive betrayal of Berkeley's most important gain for desegregation and a model for the nation. So, thank you to everyone. I see the rest of my time. Thank you. Next we will move to Andrea followed by Ashley. Okay, Andrea is declining um to speak. So Andrea, we will try our best to come back to you. Okay, Andrea, we'll come back to you. Let's go to Ashley, followed by Felicia. Hello, my name is Ashley Stephney. I'm representing the Bears program. I would like to say that my department Bears that is being downsized to one administrative assistant

078will not run efficiently. In fact, as someone who has had firsthand experience with a program operating off of one admin assistant, that being myself, I can say that the work was overwhelming and excessive for one person. This had a direct impact on the students, adjustment stage, parents being at risk of losing their jobs due to no due to longer application processing times, and other staff that work within the district servicing families who were unable to advocate for themselves. The current staff that is in place is knowledgeable of the most current regulations of how the program needs to function. Moving forward with bringing a new administrative assistant in at the height of enrollment season with no current knowledge on how this program runs will be a disservice to the community we say we serve. In addition,

079the program is in process of getting a new manager who will have no direct access to get answers needed during the first critical weeks of enrollment. And that's my time. Thank you. Thank you, Ashley. Next, we'll have Felicia, followed by Bill Press. Hi My name is Felicia Hopkins with camera. My name is Felicia Hopkins and I am here to support Miss Evette Farca and my grandson is here with me. His name is Don and my grandson is a ninth grade student, Miss of Miss Felarka. I feel it is important to speak up about the amazing impact she has had on his life and why she should be allowed to to continue to teach online so that we can keep her teaching in Berkeley. Don is a he has been taught online since since kindergarten. I

080was his learning coach. I put Don back into BUSD because I felt that he needed to have more communication with teachers and his fellow students. Um, you guys are really doing the wrong thing by cutting Miss Farco and all these programs because these kids need to have the opportunity to do what you're doing as the board for BUSD. We voted you in. I I talk people into voting you guys in and you can be voted out. No disrespect. No disrespect at all. But I feel that you guys need to keep Miss Farca. Think about the co the co you guys were not ready for the co when it hit. The computers were all messed up. Everything was messed up cuz I was a part of that. The kids was a part of that. my two

081grandsons was a part of that. So, with that being said, you need to keep Miss Felca as a teacher because she's one of the best teachers there is online, even through K12. So, with that being said, keep Miss Fela. That's not right. Next, we will have Bill Press followed by uh Tamara Mays. Hi, my name is Bill Press and I'm a parent of a 10th grader at BIS. I'm here to speak in support of a teacher, Miss Farca. I know you've received a lot of positive testimonials about Miss Felara. I've sent emails to all of you, so I won't repeat it here except to say that Ms. Fela has had a powerfully positive effect on our son and his burgeoning love of reading. I heard back from a number of you that this matter is

082out of the board's hands, that the BuzzDee policies prohibit remote teaching now that the virtual academy is ended and that the board uh has a governing role, not an operational role. So, this is in the hands of HR because the board must follow Buzzy policies. When I read the remote work policy though, I saw that the policy supports your taking action to uh support Miss Felarka. And I quote, "A full-time, part-time, or short-term work assignment may also be granted by the superintendent, provided that the position is suitable for remote work. The employees consistently demonstrated the ability to work independently and meets performance expectations." She has clearly demonstrated all these qualities. I keep hear please uh I know I'm out of time so I asked the superintendent uh you are this is clearly within the remitt

083of the superintendent to make this decision not HR please approve her continued remote teaching both for her benefit and for our children's you are empowered to do this thank you [Applause] thank you so much uh Bill and thank you for taking the opportunity to um address that again this is um although the board loves to hear and advocate on behalf of uh folks that this is not actually a decision of the board. So, thank you for the opportunity uh to address that. Next, we will move to Tamara Mays followed by Daniel Brownson. Tamar, you can unmute yourself. Oh, I'm so sorry. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can hear you just fine. Welcome. Thank you so much. I am calling in tonight to ask that you seriously consider approving Miss Farca's ADA request to

084continue teaching on an online platform. Her class has been more than just a course. It's been a safe haven for many students who struggle academically, socially, or simply don't thrive in a traditional setting. Independent study exists to provide alternatives for students who need support outside of the usual model, and Miss Falca has created an environment that does exactly that, one rooted in structure, support, and real connection. To remove this option would not only disrupt the progress of students who finally found a place where they can succeed, but it may also force families to consider transferring to other districts that are more responsive to these essential needs. Please don't take away this lifeline. Approving her request keeps open a path of learning that some of us can't find anywhere else. Thank you for hearing me and

085thank you for speaking. At next we will have Daniel Brownson followed by Maline Roberts Rich. Hello. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you just fine. Okay. So, it's really distressing to me that there are still a number of uh OPI staff who have been laid off and have not had their layoffs rescended. Um, you know, we talk a lot about the four E, but I don't see how this district can be committed to excellence, equity, engagement, and enrichment when it's drastically reducing the staff of the Office of Family Engagement, and equity. Um, and this is is the worst time to be reducing that office. Uh these are extremely dedicated people who really are help stu students and families and provide a safe place for our more marginalized community members which is especially

086important now in these times where there's Trump's Gestapo roaming the streets and incoming economic hardship. Please save Opie. Thank you, Daniel. Um, next we will have Maline Robertsbridge followed by Yolanda Thompson. Um, I believe Maline dropped her hand, so we will move on to Yolanda Thompson, followed by Shiloh. Okay, let me talk. Okay, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Welcome. Okay. Hi. Thank you. Okay. It has been brought to my attention that one of my child's best teacher could be leaving the school district. I was very appalled by the idea of her possible departure. If Miss Evet Floraca can teach 3,000 miles away and encourage our children to show up for class and participate in class, why would we risk losing such a good teacher? She shows student she cares and that's how she

087motivates our children to succeed. So let's show her that we care and keep her on our team because we need her. We need teachers like Miss Baraka. You guys, please keep her. She's a very good teacher. She's helped us out a lot. Thank you for hearing me. And thank you for speaking. Uh we will move to Shiloh followed by Maline Roberts Rich. Um, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Welcome. Okay, thank you. Um, I am Shiloh Maize, a freshman at Berkeley Independent Studies, and I am trying to advocate for Miss Farco. We sincerely hope the board would consider approving Miss Faka's ADA application to continue teaching online. As a student who has had a difficult time adjusting to school or to high school, Miss Fica's class has been incredibly important to me.

088Her teaching made me feel welcome, supporting supported, and intellectually challenged in ways that helped me grow both academically and personally. Her online platform provided a structure that made it easier for me to attend class regularly and participate in discussions with more confidence and comfort. Her continued presence in an online format would be meaningful support not just for me but many students just like me. I think that going going into high school like I didn't have any um I didn't have any experience with other teachers and I feel like that the way that she made me feel just so comforted around time when I joined for the first teacher who I've ever had that wasn't my mother helped me out exponentially. So I think that would be really good for others like me. Thank you so

089much Shiloh. Um and Shiloh, the next time you come and speak to the board, make sure you put S or student next to your name. That way we can give you priority to speak first. Okay. Uh now we will have uh Matteline Roberts Rich followed by uh Diana. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Welcome. Great. Sorry about that earlier and I was in person earlier, but I left one because I have a little one at home. My name is Maline Roberts Rich. I'm a Berkeley High grad, class of 2012. I'm calling because I am um have for a very long time been very passionate about ensuring adequate nutritional education um for young people, primarily girls and um also low-income students. Berkeley High is a uniquely vulnerable population because it has off-campus

090lunch. So, if ninth graders uh or any high schoolers really are not nutritionally educated and taught about things like protein, iron, calcium, dehydration, etc. It can actually be quite detrimental. When I was in high school, I remember we frequently have Arizona iced teas and Cheetos for lunch because that's what was affordable and that's what teens want. Um, I think that Berkeley being one mile away from the home of the farm-to-table movement as well as the home of the edible schoolyards, it's ironic that there's not a more holistic nutritional education program for 9th graders. I entreat you to create one and oversee one. Thank you very much. Thank you as well. Uh, next we will have um Diana. I believe Diana lowered her hand. So we'll move on to our last public commenter which is Jazz

091Deep. Jesse, please unmute yourself. Thank you. Can you guys Can you hear? Yes, we can hear you. And welcome to you can see me in my uh pajamas in my children's bedroom. Good evening, board. Um I really wanted to be there tonight and I'm actually here tonight to speak about uh Bridge as well. Um just from an intervention counseling standpoint and from a counseling standpoint. Um, as you know, I've been in the district for 15 years. And, um, I first learned about Bridge on my first day at Berkeley High when Jesse walked into my office saying, "Hi, you're a counselor. I have a kid who needs help." And that kind of happened every single day for the rest of that year. Um, so my heart is really near and dear to the Bridge program. Um,

092as you know, for years I helped facilitate the middle to high school transition, wanting to make sure that kids got a safe space at Berkeley High because it's so important that, as you heard in the room tonight, that these kids have a safe space to go, that they feel that sense of community, that we see those families that we talk about, that we're representing. Um, Bridge works. We want to see these pro this program expanded. It's a safe space. Um, the mental health needs of our kids need to be met. The counselor price is important. All of these parts are so important. Tonight in the boardroom, you're full of families that we always want to see at the table whose voices we say as a district we want in the room. They were there tonight.

093And so I just want to encourage us to listen to those voices and to think about are we representing who we say we're really representing and how do we continue to not talk about cuts but talk about expanding. Thank you, Jazz Deep. Um Miss Travis, I think we have Diana and Andrea back. Um they were already in the queue to speak, so we can try them one more time. Um hopefully they are ready. Um and if not, yeah. Okay, Diana, I believe that you are promoted now. Okay. Can you move on, Andrea? Okay. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Welcome. Awesome. Thanks. Um, so I'm here to express my support, strong support for um the OIE position. Our schools and families face on growing challenges such as language barriers, frozen food

094insecurities, housing instability, and unlimited access to resources. And the OFI is like a lifeline for some of these families, if not all these families. Um, and so the support and help that that they become our partners in our children's education. Some of these families I've witnessed in regards to Yesa's position, the Ofie at King. Um, I witnessed personally how she's created such a lifelong uh for these families and I've seen like how well she connects to these families. um something unparalleled that I've seen and in yeah in these positions with other people and so I just want to encourage to keep the feet position. Thank you as well, Andrea. Hi. Now, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you well. Hi, thank you. Thank you. Um yeah, my name is Andrea Kuang and um

095I'm a parent of a student at King Middle School. And I also wanted to speak in support of the OFI staff members who have received um layoff notices and in particular like the previous speaker, my experiences with Yenia Moran at King and um through her and Abby Greger's um family equity nights that they have organized. That was the first time in, let's see here, six or seven years in BOSD that there was ever a affinity group for students with IEPs or 504s and their families. And that was really unprecedented. made a huge difference for um my student and our family, but also I think some of the other students and families who joined that um kind of oh I mean it's hard to put into words but actually creating community at the school that didn't

096really exist um allowing people to connect and feel supported and actually for kind of a rare instance um creating a safe space where we could communicate with our you know our students could meet and the families could meet with the students. So, um I would like to encourage the board to and the superintendent's office to do whatever they can, whatever you can to um reinstate the OIE specialists who have um received those layoff notices. Thank you. Thank you. All right, this concludes our public comment period. Uh for those who had cards, speaker cards to speak, are there any committee comments this evening? Okay, can you please uh join us here at the podium? Good evening, Berkeley Unified School District Board Director, Superintendent, and members of the Berkeley community. My name is Nicole Harris. I'm a

097parent, a member of the African-American Success Advisory Committee, and shows up along with my fellow committee members for this work because we believe in the brilliance of our children, the power of a school system that truly sees them tonight. Tonight, I speak with humility and a deep sense of responsibility, not only to share a reflection on year three of our African-American success framework, but to uplift the stories, the partnerships, and the part possibilities this work has brought forward. We haven't done this work alone. We stand on the shoulders of many families, educators, and especially our community partners who have walked beside us every step of the way. Collegebound, Young, Gifted, and Black, the City, the City of Berkeley's Youth Equity Program Project, Healthy Black Families, and the Berkeley School, Berkeley Public Schools Fund. Their commitment

098and consistency have been vital to the growth of this framework and to the lives it continues to touch. We also want to thank the superintendent and the board of education for not just supporting this work but for centering it for making it clear that this is not an add-on but a core part of what it means to be a district striving toward equity and equalence excellence to the principles teachers and district and school staff who have embraced this work with open hearts and open minds. Thank you. We see your efforts and they are making a difference. As a reminder, the African-American success framework is grounded in two clear outcomes. Academic success for African-American students and the elimination of racial disparities in school discipline. But is also rooted in something deeper. Values that remind us of

099why we do this work. The guiding principles of AASSF. We ask ourselves often, how are the children? In a just and healthy community, the answer is all the children are well. That is the bar. And until it's true for every child, especially those who have historically been pushed to the margins, we are not done. The quote by Dr. King reminds us, "It's always the right time to do what is right." And James Bowwin told us plainly, not everything is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. That is what this framework does. It gives us a way to face what needs changing and commit to the work of change together. So where are we in year three? We've moved in with intention and consistency. Working not just from a plan,

100but with the plan. Side by side with district leaders, school sites, and our community partners, we began the foundation be excuse me, we began with the foundation academic success. This year, we strengthened student support through targeted intervention as Sylvia Mendes Elementary and partnered with the extended learning department to begin shaping summer academic programming. The meeting of math minds workshop helped us focus on differentiated strategies in math because how we teach must reflect the needs and strengths of every learner. We hosted our third annual black to school event reminding students and families that they are seen and celebrated. And for the first time, our transition fair expanded to Berkeley High School because students deserve a clear supported pathway as they grow through this system. We've also deepened our valued partnerships with collegebound young gifted and black

101healthy black families and others because when we collaborate with those who have already trust and connection with our families, we are stronger. In supporting our educators, we launched and sustained culturally and linguistically responsive professional learning. Longfellow year three, Willard year 1 and within the Bria RTI team year 1. This is more training is transformation. It's more than training. It's transformation because student success is deeply tied to adult belief, mindset, and action. This work equips educators not only to teach but to connect. Creating a safe and inclusive school climate is also central to the framework. At BTech, we've continued to invest in aligning school resources to help students stay on the college go going path or return to it when life gets difficult. This isn't about second chances and about creating systems that will never that

102never gives up on kids in the first place. Our final pillar in is community and his family and community engagement. And this year that meant Okay. Oh, they shorten us. All right. So, let's be honest. There's concern and caution, too. Concerned that we're on our ongo without ongoing commitment, without continued effort from every level of the system, this progress stalls. You've heard from parents tonight. You've heard about their children being supported and where others feel invisible. These are both true. They both feel our commitment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Nicole Shbo and I'm speaking tonight on behalf of my co-chair Vicky Davis and the 31 members of the Berkeley School's Excellence Program and the Berkeley Educator Recruitment and Retention Act Planning and Oversight Committee, which collectively represent all 18

103school sites. The short way to say all that is we are the oversight committee for the BP and Barrett tax measures which together account for $57 million or approximately one quarter of the district's total budget. The PNO has met diligently every three weeks over this past school year in our oversight duties to ensure the BP and Bara tax monies are always spent in accordance with the measures and towards improving educational outcomes for students across the district. One change we made to this year's process was to expedite review of the prior year's spend, focusing on efficacy and metrics in an effort to allocate more time looking forward to how next year's budget can be spent more successfully towards student outcomes. We look forward to continuously improving our process through feedback from the committee. At this point

104in the year, we've reviewed the 2324 financial audits for BEP and Barah, which were completed by Crow LLP, an independent outside auditor, and forwarded with no findings. In addition, we completed our review of all 12 2526 proposed program plans and budgets, and all were approved by the PO. Therefore, we recommend the elected school board similarly approve all BEP and Barah budgets as presented for the 2526 school year. We ask that you please take note of several important considerations raised by the members of the PNO. First, clearly this is an extremely difficult year of financial decision-making for BUSD. I serve together with my co-chair Vicky Davis on the superintendent's budget advisory committee so we may understand the budget reductions being considered and provide perspective from the BEP oversight committee in those discussions. The PNO has voted

105to approve two major actions in which BP tax measure will help alleviate the direct effects on students of our current budget reductions. First, we have approved the HQI class size calculation adjustment to 36 to1 for K through5, which will lead to $1.3 million in additional funds to be shared from BEP to the general fund to pay for classroom teachers. This achieves BP's primary goal of lower class sizes and partially alleviates the funding crisis in our general fund. Second, the PNO approved using $850,000 from Measure E1 carryover funds to support the implementation of the new English language arts curriculum for this year and an additional $487,000 for the 2526 school year. Again, we believe this judicious use of carryover funds which cannot be spent on headcount is an appropriate use of BP dollars to ensure this

106important new curriculum is implemented with efficacy. Both of these expenses fall within the language of the measure and we believe within the intent of Berkeley taxpayers to continue to provide small class sizes and the most effective education for all students. Given our roles as oversight members of a large source of funding for BUSD, we will continue to participate in the difficult work of the ESPback in evaluating BUSDwide programs currently in place to find opportunities to focus our funding on programs that have shown efficacy in helping our students succeed academically and achieve college and career readiness post u BUSD. Towards that end, this year and in every future year, the PNO asks that we further leverage our Brea partners to increase available and consistent data on the efficacy of each of our programs so that the

107PNO and all other committees as well as this board may use it in their decision-making related to budget across the district. As always, all materials and meeting recordings of the PNO are available to the public online at the PO page on the district website. We have deep appreciation for the team of Kathy Fleming, Danielle Perez, and Craig Kaufman for their tremendous work leading us through this annual process. And we sincerely thank the Berkeley property taxpayers for supporting and prioritizing education in our Berkeley community through their funding of both the BEP and Bara tax measures. Thank you. Thank you. We will move on to our union comments. Are there comments from BFT? Six minutes. Oh, yeah. I was going to say I was like, I don't got that much time. Okay. All right. Hello. Okay. Hello.

108Hello, superintendent and uh board school board directors. I'm Regina Chagoya. Um here and not Matt Meyer in the video. So, um but uh I'm Matt. I hope he's watching. I'm the vice president of Berkeley Federation of Teachers. We hope you're able to make it out to an elementary open house that happened last week or um tomorrow middle school open house. Um we invite you and um even as the year winds down, our members are still hard at work showcasing student work and connecting with families. Where' she go? Oh, she probably bathroom. Okay, I'll just email this to Kito. Um when you see the work displayed, you can feel the relationships built and the um school community in action. Uh so much that we do is um so much of the work that we do, you

109just can't capture it in data points and presentation slideshows. Uh our educators go above and beyond to make sure that they can best serve their students. Many are attending summer all day trainings next month. They voluntarily pack up and rebuild their classrooms every year. They attend countless meetings during their duty-free lunch and after work day instead of being home with their families. It is a labor of love, but we can't forget that it is still labor. We hear a lot of how much our educators are appreciated, but that appreciation doesn't always translate into action. We continue to have unresolved issues. Last year, the district and BFT agreed that the district um would utilize a help desk ticket system to resolve pay issues. Uh we agreed that it would begin in a year, which will be

110in August. Although we have um although we have brought up many times, we haven't received any updates or progress on it. And u we are held accountable to our collective bargaining agreement and the CBA is just that, an agreement amongst two sides. So where's the other side? Um, we have had issues this year with an instructional assistant who has been absent from TK classes. And this means, um, there are 24-y olds and one adult all day. And not only does this violate the intent of the law, um, staffing two adults for 20 students, in the preschool universe, the same age group would have three adults. Um, this happens in our afterchool program. Then when it does, the educators are paid for extra students that they now have to supervise and teach without support. This is

111past practice and follows the intent of our contract language. When we brought this up with the district and even wrote out ways to fix this, the district said, "No thanks." So the district thinks it's okay to have 24 year old 20 four year olds, not 24 year olds, but 20 little four-year-olds um with one adult this fall. And some of those students will be three years old. Um if any are not potty trained, there will not even be a way to change them safely. As for Sylvia Mendes, um teachers have had to completely move their entire classrooms to portables and now have to move again and then they will be moving one more time. So just bear with me, okay? I'm going to try to it's like a riddle. Uh because of literacy trainings, uh

112they basically have four days of teaching, an unpaid day of moving, an unpaid weekend of moving. So it's like three days right there and then another unpaid day of moving followed by two full days of literacy trainings. Teachers will be paid I mean that adds up right? It's like four days but teachers will be paid only six hours at the lowest pay rate of all this and another six hours later in the summer to unpack. So our elementary classrooms um they're full of stuff. You know we're just hoarders elementary teachers uh which would makes elementary classes a hands-on living experience but it just makes it moving like an apartment. you know, uh the district needs to provide a mover per classroom if they are expected if they expect our teachers can actually move in this

113timeline. Um not to mention they will be working four days in a row to move and then two all day trainings making it 10 consecutive work days of which a good chunk is volunteer. The district should be making this move easy as possible. Lastly, okay, I got a minute. Uh we know the district can do better when we sit down to negotiate. Our members need to know where the district stands on important issues like child wearing leave, attending mandatory meetings after the workday, providing affordable health care and um how we take care of our educators who have been laid off, um transparency around hiring contracts, and so many more issues. Unfortunately, we have one response over 20 proposals. Our educators continue to uh resign. So, at this pace, we will have to continue to negotiate

114in the fall and we'll expect more engagement as we improve working conditions for our teachers. Thank you and good night. [Applause] Thank you so much, Vice President Shaggoya. Um, we have our other labor partners up BCCE. Thank you so much. Oh, sorry. Good evening, board members, superintendent, and cabinet. Uh, my name is Mo Sher. I'm the vice president for BCCE, and here with me is Frank Hernandez, the president of BCCE. And tonight we're here to speak not just about the numbers on the layoff list, but about the values this board claims to stand for and the people who are left behind. We constantly hear talk about equity, but where is equity when it comes to BCCE? We hear about excellence, but where is excellence when it comes to how you treat BCCE workers? Last week

115proved that. The layoff list proved that. The resend list proved it. Every single management position was pulled back. Meanwhile, 18 BCCE members are still wondering how they are going to feed their families, keep a roof over their heads, and provide health care for their children. Even worse is how this process has played out. We have to fight to hold on to the very work we've done for decades, even with job descriptions in hand. What's the point of outlining duties and responsibilities if this district allows to come in and take over our work anyway? What should someone who has given 10, 20, even 30 years of service have to fight to justify the job they've already mastered? This isn't just about layoffs. It's about eraser. It's about stripping away the dignity, value, and recognition of BCCE

116staff and replacing it with silence and substitution. And after the fiasco last week, where countless hours of testimony, documents, and facts were presented to this board, none of it seemed to matter. The message was clear. No matter how much evidence we bring, no matter how well we advocate, BCCE is always the one expected to take the hit. And why? You cannot talk about equity, equity while gutting the most diverse, most underpaid, and most studentf facing work phase workforce in the district. We're told there's no money. But if you can't keep every high paid position and contractor, then you can afford to resend every BCC staff. How do you justify laying off someone who makes 3,000 a month while keeping someone who makes 9,000? And don't say it's because there is no work because in many

117cases the people being kept aren't doing their own jobs. They're doing our work. And when we call that out, we're told to turn a blind eye. But we won't. We are being laid off while our work is reassigned or contracted out. We have to sit back and watch others who don't hold our classifications and aren't in our union get paid more to do what we've already done for decades. And here's the truth. You can do anything but you can't do everything. One of my favorite speakers said that and it applies here. The board trying to do everything, manage, supervise, contract out, and now even absorb BCC work without the very people who've kept schools running for decades. It won't work. Can this district run with all management and no BCCE? I would honestly love to

118see you try because without BCCE staff, schools don't open, phones don't get answered, children don't get supported, buildings don't stay clean, budgets don't get processed, students with disabilities don't get served. And let me say this, our members are not just losing jobs. They are sacrificing for each other. We have single mothers who don't know how they're going to care for their kids. We have members who would rather be on the layoff list themselves than bump someone who is the sole provider for their family. And bless you, Daniel Bronson. That is the heart of BCCE. That is who we are and that is who you are choosing to lay off. If equity is more than just a slogan in this district, then show it. If student support truly matters, then prove it. Stop making BCCE staff

119the first to be cut and the only and the last to be considered. We are not disposable. We are not invisible and we are not going away. So please do the right thing. Resend all BCCE 18 staff. Thank you. Thank you so much BC. Do we have other union comments today? No. Um, we'll move on to board member comments. Do we have board student board member comments? Like to go first. Thank you so much. Okay. Good afternoon everybody. Um, happy Jewish Heritage M month and thank you Jewish student union for an insightful presentation. Also kudos to the two students who presented to us. That is not an easy task and they did it very well. Um, I wanted to begin by thanking everyone who spoke during public comment. As a student board representative, it's incredibly

120important to me to hear directly from my community and your concerns, especially regarding RISE, a program in which I have so much respect for. Funding OIE, our teachers not receiving enough benefits, advocating for a valuable teacher, and considering a special block schedule as a solution for required PE credits have not gone unnoticed. Today I wanted to take a slightly different approach with my board comment especially after seeing the bridge program presentation and all the amazing faces students and teachers who've played such a significant role in my life over the past four years as a student representative. I'm deeply honored to even be in this role and I'm grateful that our district values student voices and gives us a seat at this dis and I believe that it's my responsibility to use this platform not only

121to advocate but to offer an essential perspective the student perspective. And I've been a part of Bridge since my freshman year. And calling it a program doesn't do it justice. It's a family. My cohort is led by a teacher, Mix Matsumoto, who somehow balances teaching a full-time class with case managing dozens of students. They make sure we're in class, our grades are up, we're fed after school, provided a space to do homework, and keep our families informed on our grades and attendance. And they do all of this with compassion and consistency. And the same goes for the rest of my of the bridge team. Miss Luxford, the bridge program coordinator, always has her door open for snacks, support, or just to talk. Miss Hammond helps helps us navigate college applications, um, mental health, and everything

122in between. And the reality is, a school with nearly 4,000 students can't rely on baseline support alone. Counselors have an overwhelming case load, often managing hundreds of students each. And that makes meaningful individualized support nearly impossible. And many students end up feeling lost. Bridge fills that gap. It provides the kind of hands-on personal guidance that so many of us, especially black and brown youth, wouldn't otherwise receive. And I respect how tough budget decisions can be, but we need to hold ourselves accountable. Berkeley Unified has the second largest achievement gap in the nation. In the nation. Cutting funding from Bridge, a program directly working to close that gap, isn't just a setback. It's a contradiction to our values. So, I'll end with this. Bridge isn't extra. It's it's essential. Let's be a district that doesn't just

123talk about equity, but truly invests in it. And before I go, I wanted to make a quick few announcements. So, tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. is a Spring African Diaspora dance show in the Berkeley High Big Theater. It's $8 for students, $12 for general admission, and it's a really amazing celebration of culture and talent. Um, and also since we're heading into graduation season, AC graduation is May 27th. Um, and black graduation is May 31st. I would highly implore you all to come. Um, and just a quick reminder to all students, not just seniors, to turn in your library books and textbooks. I just turned mine in today. Um, but yeah, thank you all. That concludes my statement. Thank you so much, Student Director Clark. Um, do we have other board members who'd like to go next?

124Director Schnowski, I'll keep my comments brief in the name of time. Um, I just want to congratulate all of the uh, seniors graduating at the many different graduations um, and celebrations over the last couple weeks and going into the next couple weeks. Um, and I especially want to thank our very own graduating senior here. Um, because I didn't have a chance to last week when you announced your decision. So, congratulations. Thank you. You did keep that very short. Um, uh, who would like to go next? Dr. Vos. Mine are just going to be short also in the interest of time. I wanted to thank again all the teachers and staff members that have made all the various graduations really special for our students also including little elementary school students and middle school students. It's been

125really sweet um to go to the different campuses and just really wanted to thank the staff for taking that time. I know requires you staying after school and um fundraising for some of those smaller graduations. So, thanks everyone. Thank you so much, Director. I'll pile on to those comments to say that um it's a very exciting time. I am very excited for all the seniors. I'm also the parent of a senior as is director Chang. So, we're we're deep in it ourselves. Um it was really great last week to get to go to the mayor's awards ceremony and also um the reclassification ceremony which celebrated kids across many grade levels who have been reclassified as fluent in English which was such a beautiful event. Um, and there's also and um I appreciated Regina encouraging all

126of us to go to open house because there's also the the uh formal graduation ceremonies are really wonderful, but there's so many other great events happening this time of year and it's just such an important time for us all to pause and celebrate with our kids and um honor all the hard work and all the transitions and um I just want to name all of that I'll pass it back. Thank you so much, Director Korn. I'll keep it short. As well as Director Korn noted, I also have a graduating senior. Um, I'm very pleased with his education here at BUSD, and I'm very happy for him uh as he he moves on to uh university. Um, I attended the small school aha graduation last night at Freight and Salvage, and it's a shout out to

127the amazing small schools at BHS. Um but our range of programming here at BUSD and BHS in particular um it was clear from the uh graduating student student senior student comments at that event that there was a lot of love and there's a real sense of community in that small school um and a real sense of creativity innovation and a real support for arts and crafts and um uh poetry etc. And I'd be remiss, apologies for the coughing. Something's going around. I'm not contagious anymore. It's been weeks. It's the lingering. It's allergies at this point. Um, I want to of course do a shout out. Uh, this is AAPI Heritage Month in addition to um shout out to uh uh Jewish Heritage and History Month and the important contributions of the Jewish American community uh

128to uh Berkeley. Um it is AAPI Heritage Month and last week we had an amazing event um coordinated and run and supported by the AAPI B USD group um and teachers and staff at Longfellow in Exile at the adult school. um a really nice uh venue, uh lots of amazing food, um students who uh provided um poetry and reflections on what it meant to uh their Asian-American experience meant for them. Um dancing, um music, um there was a whole slew of um both catered food and food that folks um were making on-site, including custommade boba. And uh yes, it's very delicious. And I do have to say I um I apologize to our superintendent before, but we forgot to put aside a plate of food and everyone ate it up. She got there a little

129late. She knows that um dinner is on me at some point. Your choice. Um so, uh it was so fun. And I wanted to give a shout out for the teachers there, too. um Asian-American lit teachers Dana uh Dan Kung and Matt Laurel who um are teaching one of the first classes in decades on on Asian-American studies. Um and my daughter and I my daughter is a 2022 grad of BHS u we came and visited both of their classes and we also visited uh API the API club at Berkeley High School. Um they made some amazing t-shirts and sweatshirts uh that uh they were providing at the event. Um, Superintendent Shinoski did get some swag and and got a a t-shirt. I think we still owe something for associate superintendent. Yeah. Was that superintendent? Oh,

130future superintendent Shinoski, current superintendent Ford Morell. I apologize. Um, and uh, associate superintendent um, Hoointike. uh you know we have uh a teacher coming your way uh as well um from that group and uh I do want to thank everybody for coming out and sharing their their hearts and minds and we know this is a very challenging time uh with regard to budget cuts etc and there's some very complicated decisions being made um policy committee has met um please come to policy committee for public comments we are lonesome without you uh rarely do come. Uh we meet all the time and again please continue to reach out to me with office hours and uh next but not least um the real superintendent superintendent Ford next. Thank you Vice President Cheng. Good evening B USD family.

131Good evening. You guys are getting better. It's just only May. Two two meetings left but you guys have finally got it. Um I will be brief as well. I just wanted to say um like said that this is the the season, right? Right. This is the season of of not just graduations, but promotions and celebrations of all the accomplishments of our BUSD students from preK all the way to adult school. I was um able to attend many of the events that you just heard ush shared this evening and looking forward to attending the many more events that we have in the days and weeks to come. Um I had the privilege of attending actually the bridge graduation last week. It was a beautiful ceremony of our uh first cohort where there were two cohorts graduating.

132So like you heard in the presentation um over 50 students also had the opportunity to celebrate the graduate from our collegebound program um this past Saturday and I am very very much looking forward to congratulating and recognizing the seniors graduating from the rise ceremony this Friday. Um, all of the programs, you didn't get to hear much about all of them, but all of our pro, all of those programs provide resources, opportunity, support, community, and family and network to babies who otherwise wouldn't or maybe couldn't find such resources and support and space um in our BUSD school. So, I am as a superintendent fortunate to be in a community where we have so many people, so many programs, and so many partners that truly are committed like I am and my board is to equity, excellence,

133enrichment, and engagement. I'm excited that you were able to learn about some of those programs and look forward to sharing with you more about the various programs that we have for our babies here in B USD. I also want to get on your calendars, not me personally, but I would like you to mark your calendars for Saturday, June 7th. At Saturday, June 7th, at 10:00 a.m., BUSD along with our city and development partners will celebrate the groundbreaking of the Workforce Housing Project at 1701 San Pablo Avenue. Come on, y'all. workforce housing. Talk about appreciating our educators. We're now um going to be able to provide some housing for many of our staff. Upon completion, this project will comp will um comprise 110 110 affordable housing units specifically designated for B USD educators. Um it's expensive

134to live in Berkeley. Y'all know that it's expensive to live in the East Bay. It's expensive to live in California. Um, and so we know that educator workforce housing will really be of assistance to many of our district's employees, and will be a strategy to both recruit and retain quality educators, both certificated and classified. So, please mark your calendars again June 7th. And I look forward to seeing you all, not just there, but again, at the many ceremonies uh, and celebrations that we're having over the days to come. Thank you. Thank you. We will now move on to the consent calendar. Is there a motion to approve this evening's consent calendar? I move to do so. Moved by Director Chang. Is there a second? Seconded by Director Shinoski. All those in favor, please signify with

135the sign of I. I. Opposers. Abstensions. The eyes have it and the motion carries. Now we will move on to our first discussion item of the evening, which will be an update on Berkeley Unified School District's extended learning program. Uh if you've been watching the board meetings either here in person or online um you learned from our superintendent that they were preparing um a presentation for us because there were a lot of questions around the extended learning program, a lot of question questions around um positions within the program. Um and so there's been a lot of thoughtfulness um that has gone into it. And so we are going to uh receive that presentation in just a moment. Um I am asked getting asked for a fivem minute break from my colleagues and so we will

136take a five minute break uh which includes a fivem minute break for you all as well in the audience and then we will come back and receive our extended learning presentation. Thank you. First Oh yes. really set up the beginning. Wonderful. Thank you. That's it. All right. So uh again we will now receive um our presentation tonight on the uh extended learning plan. As many of you know uh Berkeley Unified School District has two um after school and before school programs across all of um our well not all of our school but across 12 of our schools. And so uh tonight we will receive an update on the extended learning vision, the progress and challenges towards realizing the vision, the status update on program funding and proposals for family fee rate changes, the status update

137on enrollment and enrollment requirements, partnership opportunities with the city of Berkeley to expand our afterchool offerings, and our current and projected funding. So, I'd like to welcome uh Associate Superintendent Hoganike uh who will give more of an introduction if needed, but we'll definitely introduce um our presenters this afternoon, this evening. Thank you. Thank you, President Brown. Good evening, uh members of the board and members of the public. I'm join I'm Jill Hoganike, the associate superintendent, and I'm joined here this evening uh with uh Dr. Jessica Bonduras, who's our interim director of state and federal programs and our interim manager of extended learning, Mr. Yousef Oleta. Um, I think that President Brown covered our uh scope of presentation. Um, we are going to be covering um a a lot of particular topics. Um, but I think

138that what is important to know is that our extended learning programs are an opportunity for us to realize our district mission to enable and inspire our diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and make positive contributions to the world. Um it's also a body of work that is complicated, complex, um and has a number of uh requirements and guidelines and expectations that are held both internally and by the public. Um but our afterchool and extended learning programs um are an important service that we provide to our students for a number of of important reasons. Um we want to connect the work of extended learning um to um both our LCAP and our emerging strategic plan. Um over the last year um we have been focused on our extended learning program realizing that this was an

139area of improvement and a need for our community. In that focus, we have been implementing and evaluating the program based ac based on um a number of components that hit every single one of our strategic plan pillars. Um we think about how we're connecting our afterchool programs to academics and uh an opportunity to extend the school day. We consider how we're providing enrichment opportunities for our young people to engage. We have been really looking at staffing for sustainability and working to address recruitment of our critical there our critical staff who work with our students. Um and we are constantly considering how we might maximize our funding sources and at the same time hold ourselves accountable to the grant and funding requirements. Um, as President Brown stated, we do have two programs um, in BUSD. Um,

140our extended learning program covers both our learns program and bears, both of which serve to provide students with safe and caring opportunities in academics and um, enrichment activities. And while there's some variation on the number of days of service and how they're staffed and the student groups that are prioritized for enrollment, um the crux of it is that we have um safe and caring, welcoming places for our young people to go before and after school. Um we want to share first and ground us in an overarching vision that we have for extended learning programs. And you can see again here this is lined up against our strategic plan pillars. Um we hold a vision that our extended learning uh program start with having clear goals in alignment with school day learning and serves as a

141lever for both equity and access particularly for our unduplicated student groups. Our goals and actions are outlined in our expanded learning opportunities program plan guide which is linked on the previous slide and can be found on our district's website. Every day we work to ensure a safe, inclusive, supportive environment and provide engaging expanded learning opportunities that are provided by well-trained staff. We do all of this with an eye toward continuous improvement and use our available funding resources in an impactful and efficient way. Um we want to make sure that at the foundation we understand that we entered this year um with um our programming as a focus and as we considered where we are in realizing that vision partnership and engagement was a key factor in our work and that pillar was a found was

142foundational toward our effort in improving our program. We've engaged in a number of ways. Uh we have met monthly with our PTA collaborative who have provided feedback, shared concerns and helped generate ideas. Afterchool programming was a topic ongoing topic in our 2 by two meetings with the city of Berkeley throughout the school year. And we've been working with them to see how we might enroll B USD students who are currently on our Bears and Learns waiting list into city programs and then help coordinate the transportation. You'll be hearing a little bit about that um in the last part of our presentation. This year, in additional to our in addition to our annual fiscal audit, we had two external reviews. One from the Alama County Office of Education and the other was the California Department of

143Education's federal program monitoring review. Um and you see here that some of the highlights were um our need to attend to some of our protocols processes particularly with regard to attendance taking um and how we are maximizing the use of our funding sources. Um and we've also been able to hold uh discussions with our labor partners as we've worked to address areas for improvement and efficiencies particularly with uh regard to staffing. um across the other components of our vision and and mission you can or the vision of the program uh you can see here that we've identified a number of strengths alongside of several challenges and we're going to be I'm not going to read through all of these today because we're going to be hitting a number of them as we move through the

144program. But ultimately we are working to prioritize access for unduplicated students and at the same time rec recognize that there are areas that we need to improve um particularly around communication how we're supporting students um and how we are strengthening um our both our program on the academic front but also to minimize the variance that is experienced across a number of sites um in uh in the last two components of our pillars. Um we do want to acknowledge that we and you have heard um here at the dis in a number of public comments that we have a very dedicated staff. We have staff who have made deep connections with our students and families and also want to shout out that that many of them are also BUSD alumni um which is a great um

145opportunity for folks to come back and serve in the spaces where they were once served. Um, but we also recognize that some of our greatest challenges in realizing the vision have to do with system efficiency and fiscal responsibility. And you see a couple of things highlighted on this slide, but we are going to be going um over these as we move through the presentation. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Yousef. Thank you, Jill. So, I'm going to be talking about funding for our extended learning programs. Our funding comes from three buckets primarily. We have our ASES grant, our ELOP funding, and our family fees. These funding sources sustain our afterchool program, our inter session programs, and our summer program as well. I'll be talking about each of those. So, our ELOP

146funding supports staffing, materials and supplies, for enrichment activities, and contractors for sped supports and additional staffing capacity. As you can see, our ELOP revenue and carryover sustained our expenditures for this year and for next year. Our budget projection going forward, however, shows that our revenue and carryover will not sustain that expenditure. Our ACEs and family fees together support staffing, online registration systems, materials and supplies, for enrichment and sports activities, as well as transportation. Combined, they total roughly $5.6 million. However, our estimated expenses for the program exceed $7 million, leaving us with an estimated net deficit of $1.6 million. So California Department of Ed ed code defines our unduplicated population as students who are English learners, homeless youth as defined by McKini Vento, students who are foster student foster children and those who are eligible for

147free and reduced price lunch. Those are our focal students in our program. You can see here that our enrollment prioritization is aligned with ed code beginning with our unduplicated population at the top and moving downward. I know that enrollment and weight list have been a major topic this year. This is our current numbers across our sites. Currently, we have 2,265 students enrolled in our programs with 438 students weight listed. You can see from the graph that the vast majority of our weight listed students are at the elementary level and most of those are at TK and kinder. That issue is compounded by the fact that the ratio is 10 to1 and we have expanding universal TK. I'm going to pass it over to Jessica. Okay, great. Thank you, Yousef. I'll be first discussing family fees.

148Okay, so family fees help fund our program. They fund personnel and enrichment activities. And we've had the same family fee structure. It's a sliding scale based on family size and household income since 2017. The sliding scale, I'm going to pull out a few examples. If a family has a monthly income of $2,541 for a family of two, that family would pay $55 a month for full-time enrollment, which is defined as five days a week. Another um data point was if a family has a monthly income of $8,000 $8,199 for a family of six, that family would pay $540 a month for full-time enrollment. So, how do how does Berkeley Unified um line up with the other surrounding districts? So, first uh let's look at summer school. So, as you can see in some of the

149districts, Alama, New Haven, and Albany, um they only offer summer school to unduplicated families. Berkeley offers it um first to our unduplicated families, of course, and then open it up to uh fee paying families. The cost is $720 for summer school. the JCC we have linked there because a lot of our families use um that program for summer school and the charge there is $11,100 for our afterchool programs. You can see here how Berkeley Unified um lines up with the with some surrounding districts. So for example in Alama the cost is $484 a month for kindergarten through fifth grade. And in Berkeley, we have TK and K at $475 a month and $450 a month for first through fifth grade. Albany is a little bit more as you can see. Be sorry for before school.

150Um, similarly to summer school, not all districts have before school. We do. We charge $200 a month for before school compared to Alama at $380 a month. and $166 a month for New Haven. So, we've been thinking about and hearing um an idea to increase fees, increase family fees. And so, we took a stab at that and increased um a draft revised family fee as an increase of 20% across the board in all the different cells. We brought that to first the PTA council and got some really great feedback from that group. Their feedback specifically was, "Why don't you think about having an additional higher tier for families who um make a higher monthly income? Another idea from the PTA council was to charge a lower have a lower sibling discount. Ours is 50% right

151now. Charging more for summer school, increasing the cost difference between part-time and full-time enrollment. and also an idea to rent BS um Berkeley Unified classrooms for um school space for private um after school providers. Additional feedback we got was thinking about aligning income levels in the sibling discounts not just um taking off the 15 the 50% for everyone but aligning that to um to income and then also again an idea for an additional tier but in lie of the 20%. So, just to give a data point, if we did an increase of 20% across the board, it would yield a revenue of $618370 uh $367 annually. So, just so you have a little bit of an idea what that would look like. Um, we're still getting feedback. So, that is a work in progress. So,

152some of the questions, um, if we raise family fees, will we be able to enroll more students? And the answer is not necessarily. We have to first enroll all of our priority students. So all of our unduplicated students and then we're additionally limited by the staffing ratio the 10 to1 in TKK and the 20 to1 in the other grades. In addition, recruitment and retention of learn its has been challenging. Another question we've been hearing is if we raise family fees, will we be able to have sustainable funding given our staffing structure? This answer again is is is complicated. So ELOP and the ASUS funding that Yousef spoke about is tied to unduplicated students who get the priority enrollment. And so if we enroll all of our unduplicated students as we're supposed to, there'll be limited

153space for fee paying families without additional staff. And then compounded with the labor um the rising labor and operational costs make it really hard to rely on fees alone for sustainable funding and again our staffing challenges. So, it's a little bit complicated. I wanted to show you um some examples of extended learning program staffing starting with what we currently have. So, on this slide, you can see our our current staffing structure, right? We operate in um uh in our 12 schools with 14 with um with Bears and you can see right now there's a program coordinator and program specialist. Um, however, in the gray boxes, those represent vacancies. And so, the way we're funding our program right now is because we have those vacancies, we're taking the cost of, you know, the the money that

154we we recouped with those vacancies to fund our current program. In thinking about our desired outcomes of maintaining the program at all of our existing sites, being fiscally sustainable over time, increasing the capacity of our students, um, you know, for student getting students off the weight list, and also increasing the capacity and oversight and training and evaluation and supervision that's needed, um, and the compliance issues that Jill mentioned that we um, got some feedback from from the county. We looked at um maybe a scenario A looking at two elementary schools covered by one program coordinator um with two specialists or option B maybe thinking about three elementary schools under one program coordinator and then two specialists over you know with with three elementary schools. However, both of these models were they didn't have there wasn't

155sustainable funding for those models. this other scenario we were thinking about again with the same desired outcomes and thinking really about the compliance and oversight and delivery of services where we're thinking about what if we could have two supervisors. We currently have one and then have a specialist at each each school but each supervisor would be over six of our schools. This is just an idea that we had as well. I wanted to also mention the topic of contractors and so we currently utilize two contractors in the afterchool program. Alovo is one of them and Alivo is used to provide ser afterchool services to students alongside our Berkeley Unified employees um to reduce as many students as we possibly can off the um reduce the weight lift weight list as much as possible. So currently

156we have 21 illegal contractors in our afterchool program. We need this because we have a lot of IT vacancies and a few AI staffing vacancies as well. Um, but that's not what we want. We want to and we want to hire as many ITs as possible and so we can lower this contract. And so we've been thinking about and already doing some things to that end. So for example, we'll be having a career fair to have strategic recruitment in this area. We're working with the personnel commission to get more than you know looking at our enrollment list and seeing how we can get people in jobs as soon as possible. Getting the word out to families. Um you know making sure that our families know, hey, this is what it does. Would you be interested?

157Here are the hours. And so being more vocal about the need and then looking for opportunities to increase um hours of the day and just making the position more attractive. How can we combine things in in in a strategic way? We've already reduced the LEO contract uh by 5 million. 1.5 million went down to 1 million. We were using COVID funding, the COVID recovery funds, which as you know are now expired, and ELOP to fund this contract, but we've been working with the ALEO company to al also lessen the contract. Um we've reduced the number of ALEO contractors. We've changed the LEO staffing model and we've also reduced the time that we um now need to as part of the contract to exit the contractors and so we can hire our people faster. The next

158step is to do the same sort of analysis and review with the emergence contract which is um for our students who have an IEP and require onetoone service. So, some really exciting news in um collaboration that's been happening with the city of Berkeley that Jill mentioned before. This um collaboration started um specifically around the afterchool program the fall of 2024. Now we have um the spring we are in the spring of 2025 and we are in a position now where we've um talked to the city of Berkeley had many meetings brought in our transportation department brought in our afterchool um leadership and we are at a position now where there are two other places that the city of Berkeley is going to be o able to open for um afterchool programming and so and our

159transportation department can transport our students there and so right now we're analyzing where um the enrollment for next year learns and seeing um the locations and the transportation routes to see where we can pick up from and um but we're going to be opening they're going to be opening another program at Willard and um uh at Shoreline. So, we're excited about that. And then again, as mentioned before, we are um thinking about getting feedback and reimagining our family fee structure. Thank you. Happy to answer any questions. I thank you all so much for taking the time to present and come to talk to the board uh this evening. I have questions. I'm sure my colleagues have questions. I see folks still writing, so I'll go first. Um but I wanted to go back to um

160a couple of slides. Let's first start with the uh slide around um the fees for families. I believe it's the second Q&A slide. Slide number 21. Perfect. Thank you. Um, so I wanted to ask, uh, currently what is the percentage of families who are, um, paying for the afterchool program at the $540 a month rate? And the reason I'm asking is because um, you know, the ELOP funding and the ASUS funding is tied to unduplicated students. Um, but what is our percentage of families that are paying um, at the highest rate? And so those are the families who are um have a monthly income of more than $8,199. And so what percentage of of families is that currently? We I currently don't have that um that number with me, but we can um we can

161run those numbers and see how many are at each tier. Okay. that that would be really great to know because then that'll I what helps us to better understand um how much more money we can um generate or from the program if if we know what percentage of families are are paying at the highest rate. And so I definitely understand um the priority to ensure that our unduplicated students um have access to our after school programs. That's what the ASUS grant does. Well, part of what the ASUS grant does. um and then some of the intention behind it. But how do we I'm just trying to figure out best how we come up with um our rationale if we don't know um our percentages. So you'll come back with that information. We absolutely will. And

162I will say now when we're doing the enrollment for um next year, one of the things because you you you show your income, right? That's part of the documentation. And so looking at um because I wanted to know how many of our families if we went to that higher tier would make above that. And so that's we don't have that information because that wasn't part of the tiers before, right? And so that's another data pay data point we're looking at. You did you want to say? Yeah. I will say that total family fees are $3 million and as this would be a 20% fee increase across the board, that would result in roughly $600,000 in increased revenue. 618. Correct. Correct. Okay. Thank you so much. Um are you ready or could I ask my other

163one? Okay. Um if we go back to slide number seven around uh challenges. I wanted to ask around um the academic excellence and equitable outcomes uh portion. One of the challenges that was identified was serving our unduplicated students um and ensuring equitable access and tailored supports and I was wondering if you could take some time to really unpack that and help us understand what you mean. Yeah, absolutely. So, we mentioned that as a challenge because we currently have students who are unduplicated on our weight list and so just making sure that we're serving all of our students. We identified that as a challenge because there isn't staffing right now to allow for that. And I think part of part part of what was happening was that there was a systems issue for the team being

164able to get access for students who are on free and reduced price lunch. That is the kind of data information that is on lockdown in systems for all sorts of reasons. Um so one shift that we have been able to make this year and actually starting with the launch for next school year is that we were able to make arrangements to get that list so that we could do targeted outreach to that particular um set of students first. So those letters went out just a few weeks ago um so that we will have a better we were always playing catchup. It was like, let's see who enrolls and then we could get the numbers and we worked to flip that as part of our internal process. Okay. Thank you for um taking the Thank you

165both for taking the time to explain that because you know in my mind if we're hearing our ELOP and our ASUS grants are um here and we're we're using uh that money to best support um our unduplicated students, but then we have unduplicated students on the wait list. Like how how does that happen? And so, um, it's good to hear that you all have access to that. And if there is additional policy work that needs to be done to ensure that we, uh, we as a board make sure that that information is accessible, please let us know and we would, um, love to support in whatever way we can. Uh, director, thanks. Um, I just have two questions. One, I'm excited to hear about the possible expansion with the city and the different rec sites.

166Wanted to know if the district is planning on charging transportation for the families that are paying at the full amount um for those programs. Number one. And number two, can you explain to me kind of the configuration of what you've thought of um for the configuration between like the ratio of supervisors to um staff members that are providing uh direct oversight over the children. just wanted to know like explain to me again the structure for like supervisors to people watching the children. I'll I'll do quick the transportation. So as you are aware the transportation conversation is part of our budget balancing situation. So depending on where we land there that would be applied um for transportation for after school. B USD is unique in that we transport um students to nonBUSD programs after school. Um

167in this particular case, we are working in partnership with the city of Berkeley so that we can target students who are on our current weight list for programs. So we're trying to think outside of the box about that whole constellation of processes. Um but I'll let uh Dr. Vonduras and Yousef um answer the staffing questions. Yeah. So to speak about the coordinators, we uh the structure is a coordinator at a site with a specialist in an ideal situation and in the neighborhood of five to seven ITs that are the direct service providers at each site. Um, did you want me to elaborate on that or So, is that the plan for next year too or like what's the staffing going to look like next year? So, we were tasked with reaching out to programs across

168Alama County and to find out what other programs are doing and what best practices were in Alama County. And there are variety of structures. Most of them include a a position similar to a coordinator. Um none of them included a coordinator at every site. Most of them were overseeing multiple sites with with support staff at each site. Um given our current situation, uh we will be working to allocate our coordinators equitably across the sites as best we can. Do you know when you'd have that information ready for the board of education just so we know what it what it'll look like next year and how that might impact the number of students served? Yeah. So right now we are look just as shared you know option A and option B. We're iterating on on options

169right now to best serve um you know enrolling as many students as possible the supervision the evaluation the ratios and taking all those into consideration and then bringing it back and having conversations with different partners getting feedback. And so we're at that stage right now. We know that our current staffing model um as I mentioned before, we're only able to pay for that this year because of using the money that's with the vacancies. And so we have um just a lot of thinking in modeling to to look over. Director Shinoski. Yeah, I have I have a few questions. So on slide 12, this is about the um estimated net revenue, the ACES and family fees annual funding. So that $1.6 million deficit. Yeah, right there. Thank you. That $ 1.6 million deficit, where is that

170budgeted from? So it seems like we're spending more um for our learns and bear our afterchool program than we are getting through the grants and family fees. So is that additional revenue coming budgeted out of the general fund where or some other fund? Where is that additional additional revenue budgeted from? So this is a projection for next year. So right now we're not pulling from the general fund, but this is forecasting if given our current staffing what it would look like. Okay. And without raising fees or anything like that. So where is it budgeted from for next year though? Because that's the budget that we're currently considering. So is that are those dollar question is Yeah. So that goes with the other question around staffing. How are we reimagining what the staffing and the structure

171looks like to be within our means as well as where are we going to land with the family fee increases so that it is sustainable and that we can move forward for next year with a green budget. Okay. I I think my question is we are currently looking at budget the budget and budget considerations um and we will need to pass a budget in the next month. So if this is the projection for next year then this has to be budgeted somehow in next in the budget that we'll be considering in the next month. And so what I'm wondering is where where is that which fund is that budgeted out of? It's a combination of ASUS and ELOP. It's braided funding. So we would be pulling from another funding source. We be pulling from the

172ELOP funding or the ASUS funding for to um we would be moving funding over and braiding it differently so that it would be sustainable. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, right? So, this projection currently includes if we were fully staffed at the current staffing model. So, um we are not in the position to fill any of those vacant positions at this per point in time because if we did, it would be contributing to this 1.6. So, we're going to be reducing reducing uh not reducing not filling those positions. So, the actual budget that we'll be considering next month will be about $1.7 million less than what's shown here as the total revenue or total expenditures we're going to have to so the impact of having that budget means that we have to decrease

173on the cost that exists. So, if we have open positions that we uh will need to figure out what that restructure looks like based on recent decisions, then we're not going to be able to fill those positions. And that also might mean reduced staffing, reduced contract services, which then means reduced spaces, right, for our students. So, we won't be there is a scenario where we won't be able to serve as many students um as we are currently um because the of the limitations on budget to complete the hiring. Got it. Um I have a couple more questions on this slide and then I have a couple of other questions. So, um can you tell me where the contractors are on this slide? Is that in field activities? Is that the contractor fees? No, it's in

174the ELOP funding. Okay. And then the vacancies, do those in vacancies include the vacancies for the IT that we're looking to fill? It does include the vacancies for the IT. It also include currently includes the vacancies as Jill mentioned for the supervisor and coordinator. Right. Okay. So there's some amount of sort of double counting though because we have coordinators counted in the ELOP funding and then we're counting the vacancies for those it right. Yeah. The um a coordinator is right now funded 50/50 from both of our grants. Yeah. I think it's important to know too that another added um another added component of budgeting on grant funds is that we have restricted amounts of those total grants that can be used for administrative costs. And when you have coordinators that are in the classification of

175administrators, it you have to be really careful not to exceed that 15% which in one I think it's the ASUS funds also includes the indirect costs. I'm sorry I I don't know if I misspoke but I was talking about the IT. We're double counting the IT in both spots then because we're counting the contractors in the ELOP budget and then we're counting the vacancies in the other slide when we ideally wouldn't need contractors if we were hiring staff. The IT are in the ASUS grant. Okay, I must have misspoken then. Um okay. Um I have just a couple questions about the contractors and then um two other quick things. Um, so the you said we currently have 21 contractors and that's the cost of a million dollars um this coming year and I'm wondering how

176many job openings we have posted for like how many vacancies we have posted and are searching and I'm hoping that they match because I know there has been some um confusion and concern about having contractors in in positions that are not actually open and being filled. Yeah. and we're doing a position control analysis as well. Great. Um, we do have matching vacancies and we are recruiting. In fact, my staff uh started last week contacting everybody who's on the eligibility list for these positions to start to offer them jobs for August because we can't process them fast enough for them to start this school year. um but to get them hired. And um we're also planning a care a career hiring event um to try to fill as many positions so that we hopefully will not

177have to have any contractors in the after school program um other than um what we can't provide because we don't have those positions. Um so great. Thank you so much and thank you for that work. I know that it's a big lift but I think it'll make a huge difference um to our staff and also to the programs. Okay, two last things. Um, one is I know in the 2 by two um we had brought up the idea of aligning some of our afterare programs with the districts with the um they're they're not called districts they're called regions zones zones in BUSD. So right now if I go to an after school, if I go to Malcolm X, my kids went to Malcolm X and I wanted my kids to then go to Live Oak

178Park for after school. Um that would be a possibility, but transportation becomes much easier when it is aligned with our zones. And we had talked about that at the 2 by 2. And I'm just wondering if that conversation continued at all or um if it could. Yeah, it has continued. Um it has continued in part of our conversation with the city of Berkeley and our transportation department and I know that that department is also um rethinking their routes and so um to provide to your point more efficient you know here to there to so it's because of that um reconfiguring that we're able to offer another option for the Willard and the um shoreline. And just maybe another idea that just came to mind is if the city isn't willing to sort of reszone their

179programs because it's too complicated. Maybe what it is is that we provide afterchool transportation just within zones to programs within zones um to try and maximize the number of kids we could serve. Okay. Um last quick things. Um one is um the use of part-time learns days and hours while signing up for full-time care. So, um, we've heard time and time again, we know that full-time care is prioritized, but then many families then choose to have it actually utilize it only part-time, which of course impacts our attendance numbers. And I'm wondering if we've done any work. I know that we've talked about it. So, I'm I'm assuming the answer is yes. But I'm wondering what we've done to try and figure out how to sort of fix that problem so that again we can maximize

180the number of kids we're serving. Um yeah. Yeah. We've taken we've done a many things around attendance. One is just a reboot and recalibration on how attendance is taken. Um what do we do if we don't have accurate attendance? um because we had to resubmit some things um in order to not um you know because there were some mistakes and so um additional training has taken place around attendance. One of the PTA collaborative um feedbacks was to increase as I mentioned the uh increase in cost between part-time and full-time so that people are really paying for what they're going to be getting. I don't know if that would help at all, but it's just made me think about, you know, just the difference between part-time and full-time, but our attendance taking um is uh a

181an area that we need to com, you know, continue to make improvements on. We're working in that in that area. Yeah. And maybe find a way to disincentivize the part the part-time use and full-time pay because it's only certain families that can actually do that, afford to do that within our district. And then it limits, you know, opportunities for other kids to be enrolled. Well, and it also impacts our grant funding, right? Because we if we're we have to maintain and Yousef will know better than me, I I we have to maintain a certain attendance rate. And because we have had inconsistencies in our attendance taking and because we have part-time employees, it is negatively impacting the grant funding that we have. Okay. And I just want to thank all of you because I know

182um especially Yousef, I know you're going back to the classroom, but I want to really thank you for your commitment to this work this year because I know that it's really vital for families um and so impactful. So, um we love our learns and bears and our bears. Um and thank you for mentioning um uh the attendance because you know we're both on the audit committee. Um and what was shared was not necessarily around um who's coming at what time, but more so around the attendance taking that like that was the biggest challenge um that the district was having. And so, um, have we really considered or thought about like a uniformed approach to taking attendance? Um, whether it is the same attendance tracker at every site or whether it is attendance taken around the

183same time for every site. Um, what are our protocols that we've thought about um to really help us with that? I can speak to this. Yes, please. We have had a training led by a CDE um expanded learning expert, I would say, in the field and she led all of our coordinators and specialists through a the importance of attendance taking and and doing it properly. Um made it abundantly clear to us that the 85% threshold and the 70% threshold for attendance, those are clear red lines. If we're below those ratios, we automatic funding reductions. Um, and uh, I got to give some credit to Brazil McIntyre as well was our learned supervisor who has um, she has created uh, documents and spreadsheets that are meant to kind of ensure and provide uh, a backup plan

184in the event that attendance procedures are not followed properly that we can still and in the end get an accurate attendance count to CDE which will limit the negative ramifications. Thank you so much. That's so great to hear. Um especially because it wasn't just nod finding this goound, but it has been um consistently. So hearing that we've done the work that we need to do to make those changes is really um kind of motivating and and hope gives us some hope. So thank you all for that. Director, um thank you again for all of your work and for your presentation. Um I want to build on some of these questions about systems. I really appreciate hearing about how we're improving our systems to make sure that we're enrolling in duplicated students, how we're improving our

185systems around taking attendance. I've also heard from a lot of community members around about our system, our payment systems. I've heard from families who said, "I'm ready to pay for Learns, but I don't know how." Or, "I've tried to sign into the portal and I couldn't access my account." or no one's asked me to pay all year or I never paid for summer. Can you speak to this issue and how you're addressing it? Yeah, thank you. And we've heard that too. And so as along the same lines as the attendance reboot and the training and the expectations, the same thing has to happen for collection of family fees. And so what are the expectations? What are the systems? What are the protocols? And what are the timelines? And so going forward, that's the work, right?

186is really putting this all down, making it clear, providing the training and the coaching so that we are operating the same way and that we aren't missing an opportunity to collect fees. I would just add that that was why that one of the the reorg structures we were looking at was to add an additional supervisor. I will say that um just cannot underscore the appreciation of the work that Yousef and Brazil have done, but folks need to know that their day starts at seven and it doesn't end until 6 and we don't have that that level of capacity to help support like we we I think we we have come a long way this year to really understanding some of the root causes and the systems that do need to get addressed. But these are

187not small fixes. These are pretty deep long long history situations that we're trying to unravel and unpack. And given the current situation with the constraints we now have on staffing, it is going to be really challenging for us to address some of those issues at the speed wi at which we would desire to be able to do that. And we also want to make sure that we're setting up our administrators to be successful in doing that. So I I do want to make that caution. Yeah, I appreciate your your cander and caution even if it's it's a little hard to hear. You know, I wish we could fix it all yesterday. Um sort of related. Well, I don't know if it's related, but I I also have a question about summer fees and um kind

188of related to President Brown's questions about can can we figure out who's in each tier so that we can really model um more effectively how increasing fees might help us um close our close our gap and ideally uh enroll more students. Are we also modeling what an increase in summer fees might look like and how that might impact our ability to serve more kids in the summer? Yeah, last year, my understanding is last year was the first time of collecting that 720 for summer and which is why we continued with that fee, just a flat fee uh for summer this year. um our summer programming in you know coordination of being fiscally sustainable has gone down to two elementary schools and one middle school. So with that um we are almost full with just our

189unduplicated families which of course as we know are not charged but um you know so that's summer school and are we fe also running a Bears summer program separate from the two learns sites? Yeah. So Bears has a calendar similar to the Berkeley preschool. So, we operate 240 days a year. And so, Bears will start on Friday, June 6th, and we'll go through Friday, August 8th. I I remember back in the day when I was a summer school principal for Bears when I was learning to when I was in PLI. Um, uh, I just wanted to mention to Director Schnowski's point about zones and City of Berkeley programs. I'm pretty sure it used to be true that there was a city of Berkeley program sort of assigned to each zone and there was transportation within

190the zone. Like my kids also went to Malcolm X and they went to the city of Berkeley program at Willard and I'm pretty sure Willard was the city of Berkeley program that served all the south zone schools. So it did help with the transportation. It might have changed in recent years because Willard was under construction. Um so there may be a model that we can go back to. Um, I think I'll leave it at that. Vice President Chang. Yeah, thank you so much for the detailed uh presentation. I know it's a late evening, too. Um, myself also had my kids in learns for I don't know if the grammar just came out correctly. Myself, myself also. Um, our kids were in learns for many, many years. And I really appreciated the the folks who were

191who were taking care of them uh in those programs across uh many many school years. Um, so, uh, there's been other questions about the contractors and and I appreciate the work that's been done in reducing the contractor cost of the service you have listed on slide 26 from one a.5 to1 million. That's $500,000. That's significant. Um, does that reference the uh cost that's paid out for the contractors themselves or does it include some type of fee to the uh contractor company of Elbo? So in other words, how much of that reduction or how much of that cost from 1 and a.5 million to 1 million is um a fee to the contractor company itself versus salary to the contractors? Well, we don't pay we just pay per the contract. So we get charged by how

192many contractors we're using. Um so that reduction is a result of using less contractors and hiring more its okay so um what does that number correlate to in terms of number of employees or contractor staff? How many? So the largest proportion of that $500,000 decrease was the result of us negotiating in October with ALO to reduce their schedule. And so we know we needed this we needed the power at all the sites. But what what we found when visiting sites was that by 5:00 the vast majority of students had been picked up. And so what we went back to Albo and asked was for them to reduce their schedule from four hours a day to three hours a day. And that's it didn't impact our ratios because most students have been picked up and it

193did take half a million dollars off the contract. Okay. And I think that's been touched upon in the past. So, I just want to make sure it's uh it's clear because this contractor area is a is as you know an an important area that's been raised by many folks including those on the board here. Yeah, I just I do want to make sure that we're transparent. So, part of the reason why we have been bringing the Aivo contract continue to bring the Levo contract. Number one, it's because of staffing issue, right? Like we have recruitment and retention challenges. This is going to be now my third launch of the beginning of the school year and one of the challenges that we were trying to solve. So coming in this was three or three summers ago

194was this overwhelming frustration on the part of parents that we were not able to notify them whether or not they were going to be an afterchool programming and it was really coming up into the beginning of the school year. That was entirely because we were not fully staffed. So, one of the one of the ways that we were working to address that was to implement a contract as we headed into summer so that we would have a Lebo staff in place so that we could pull more students off the weight list. So, while I know that there's a desire to ensure that we are staffing our programs with our own BUD employees, that's absolutely what we want. As you saw in our slides, many of our staff members are BUD alum. There's deep connections um

195that our students and families make with our staff at school sites and we were trying to address the challenge of not being able to pull families off the wait list. So, two things are true. One is we've had the contract which allows us to pull pull more families off the weight list. And I think this last summer what we were doing was just letting folks know we're not going to be able to pull you off the weight list and you're going to need to make alternative uh decisions. So again, when we're trying to make these staffing decisions coming into the year, recognizing that if we maintained everything, we would be running at a deficit and we have to prioritize the unduplicated students first. There is a high likelihood that we are not we are going

196to have more people on the waiting list. Um, and I think what we've been hearing from our families, not think what I know we've been hearing from our families is how we might do a better job communicating. So, I just want to be clear, what we might be communicating to them is not necessarily what they want to hear, but we want to make sure that we're communicating with families in enough time to make alternative arrangements. Yeah, I think that's really Oh, sorry. Go ahead. President, I think that's really important. I just want to remark and I I think this current board knows that and this current administration. Um this issue of having a large weight list in the learns program um has been going on since at least 2010. Uh when I first started in

197the elementary school system here um myself and many other parents wanted to get into learns and were not able to and that resulted in us pivoting into programs such as JCC which was a great program. Um but there is a very high demand. So, it's a it's a year-over-year weight list issue and I think it's really important to provide notice as you've u referred to um associate superintendent to ensure that there's a lot of communication early on as we try to figure out some of the longer term uh recruitment retention issues. I I do just want to call out the elephant in the room. Um, Jill, because I know that you were too gracious and you're not going to say it, but I know that um the decision that the board made uh last week

198um to keep and retain our um coordinators does then significantly impact uh what you all are trying to do to rethink um and re-evolve the program and to essentially be able to save or to um not save but to allow for more students to come off the weight list and to be in the program. So, I do want to call that out. Um, and um I mean identify that the decision that we made does does impact that and how do we um utilize and rethink those positions um to be able to then receive more students. And so as you're thinking about the new model, coordinator here, specialist here, what what does that look like? And how do we how can we uh utilize those positions to then bring more students in? And if we haven't

199if we don't have an answer for that tonight, which is okay, can I the direction I would like to give is to to maybe sit and to think about that and to utilize that because um you know, if we if it I think it would be in our best interest to think about okay these are the cards that we were dealt this is the decision that the board made and so then how do we pivot how do we shift um to reach our ultimate goal which is to be able to serve more students so from a continuous improvement perspect perspective we call this designing around constraints so we've been dealt a constraint and we're going to need to navigate around that constraint but we also need to will be clear and artic articulate what the

200tradeoffs are because of where we are. Um, so as we've talked about, you know, there are staffing ratios. I do want to acknowledge that there have been a number of comments um, regarding coordinators and that they are providing direct service. We are not discounting that our coordinators are engaging and and interacting with our students on the day-to-day, but there are provisions within the guidelines about the roles that administrative staff can play and how and when and if they can count toward a staffing ratio. So all all of that with the current configuration of where we have coordinators and specialists um we're going to need to look at and you know there might need to be some shifts about where folks are in order for us to cover that need. So, um, that, you know, we're

201we're a week into reconsidering what that might need to look like, um, and working as fast as we can to make, um, the best decisions without with the least amount of disruption. realizing that we still have those same guid the what do we call the guiding principles on the slide of wanting we're going to to be clear to everybody we're maintaining program at all of our current sites how many students were able to serve and what that looks like in terms of specialists and coordinators and h where folks are spending that time that configuration might look different thank you I I appreciate that response um especially when we're prioritizing our pri priorities. Um, our intention is to, you know, try to do our best to keep as many employees in BUSD as possible and, you

202know, that was evident in the the choice and the decision that the board made. But I do appreciate um the ability to pivot and to be flexible and the willingness to shift and the willingness to work collaboratively. I don't know if that looks like working with um HR. I don't know if what it looks like in negotiations. I don't I don't know exactly what it looks like, but I appreciate the opportunity to shift despite the constraints. So, thank you. Thank you all so much for your presentation and as always, thank you for your work. Have a good evening. Uh we actually need to go ahead and extend our meeting. Um it is now 10:50. I don't believe we will need until 11:30, but if we all do recall what happened last time, I think it

203is in our best interest to extend until the latest time possible. So even if we do not need it, uh we will uh still have it. And so is there a motion to extend our meeting to 11:30? So moved. Moved by director Shinoski. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by director Vasu Dev. All those in favor, please signify with the sign of I. I. Opposers, abstensions. The eyes have it and the motion carries. We are now going to extend our meeting to 11:30 uh at this time. I am very happy to uh welcome um our action items tonight uh which is around the approval of uh BEP. And so you'll see that there are three action items, three votes that the boards that the board is going to uh vote on tonight. Um, and they

204are all around our uh, BEP program. Um, and I'm really excited to invite Kathy Fleming who will introduce our uh, presentation tonight and our presenters. Thank you, President Brown. Good evening, board of directors. Um, yes, we are here tonight to present to you three separate action items. And, uh, my name is Kathy Fleming and I am the director of local resources and partnerships here at BUSD. And in this role, I'm responsible for two of our local partial tax measures, the Berkeley Schools Excellence Program and BARE, the Berkeley Educator Recruitment and Retention Act. I am responsible for ensuring that the funding from these two parcel taxes is planned, expended, and reported in accordance with measure language. Next slide. Great. Okay. So as we begin our presentation, we'll first ground ourselves in our mission to enable and

205inspire our diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and to make positive uh contributions to the world by focusing on our four E excellence, equity, engagement, and enrichment. Uh for tonight, we will share information about our plans for next year for both BEP and BARE where we address all four of our E throughout the programs. After our presentation, uh we'll ask you to take action on each of these items individually. The BUP and Barer programs collectively uh both address both the goals of the LCAP and our strategic plan plan pillars. Um each of the each of the plans now has a section on how the program activities align with the strategic plan pillars and these can be viewed in the attachments on the board items. Tonight, as we mentioned, we have three items for your

206review and approval. Um, we have one presentation for the nine Bet programs that are listed on the slide. Then we will uh present the oversight, communications and translation program and then the BERA recruitment and retention and development program. Uh also we have more details on each plan each program's plan in the appendix as well as information on the updated measure uh fund balance projections for both the current measure and the next uh measure H next year. Just want to pause and say uh thank you to our co-chairs uh Nicole Shabbo who spoke tonight and our other co-chair Vicky Davis who have provided ex excellent leadership this year in guiding uh the PNO group uh to perform their function and uh their commitment is always appreciated. Uh the planning and oversight committee is one way, one

207of the key ways we monitor these measures and allows us to have community input and engagement. They meet twice monthly on average and they have reviewed each of these plans at least twice, asked questions of managers, and requested follow-up information. The PNO has recommended each of these plans uh for board approval tonight. One highlight for this year, as uh Nicole Shabbo mentioned in her comments, we did change we made some major changes to the fall schedule and the order of information and this provided an opportunity for feedback to managers and a much deeper and richer discussion among Pino members and managers. Uh just a reminder that next year is uh the first year we're launching our recently approved BEP measure, measure H. And we want to pause here and thank the voters of Berkeley for

208continuing this very important initiative. And on to the first item, which is action item 15.1, which is the approval of the nine BET plans. some overview uh information points. As I mentioned, this is will be the first year of Bet Measure H. Just to note, we will then have two measure H's in our district. We have the maintenance and facilities tax as MA measure H and we will also have BP measure H. So, we're going to identify inboard documents and other reports uh the name of the measure along with the letter just to avoid confusion moving forward. And um as you know there's no cost of living adjustment in the first year of the measure. Uh that adjustment is set in the tax rate increase in the measure language and that will generate 45.4 million

209uh for programs in BP next year. There are some changes to program staffing and program activities which we'll go over. Um as usual we have a 5% reserve for staffing costs. Um and also we have met our required uh 3% reserve that is needed. And just a reminder that the majority of the funding goes to teachers and staffing and folks primarily that work at schools with kids directly supporting kids, students and teachers and and uh school communities. And uh lastly uh we will be using some measure E1 fund balances uh next year which we've already determined their uses and for those which we haven't will have plans that will go before the PNO and um that is permissible as long as the use of the measure measure E carryover is in line with the measure

210language and uh as you know uh our B set measure is divided into three major areas. The first is called highquality instruction which um receives 66% of the BIP allocation and the first thing we do is satisfy uh our class size goals and once we do that the remaining funds are available for these four programs professional development program evaluation classroom support and expanded course offerings and our second bucket of programs is the essentials for excellence uh section of programs and together they receive 27% % of the funding. Uh this section also includes the site BP site plans uh which will be incorporated into the uh school SIPA plans and that will be uh which are and they are reviewed by the SSC's for each school and approved. So that's how the site funds are reviewed

211and approved. And the last bucket uh in this group of programs is our um effective student support which is academic social emotional support and uh support for our affinity programs as well as middle school counselors. And now on to the major changes. Um as you know we are in the process of balancing our budget for next year. And as such, uh, we look at all of our funding sources to see what can be shifted, changed, or, um, used to offset any, um, needs that we have in our general fund. And we, here, this slide has a summary of the changes that we've made. And all these changes were reviewed by the PNO and incorporated into plans uh, for next year. And um, next slide, you can review that list. And now we go to action

212item 15.2. Plan for next year for oversight communications and translation uh services. Director Fleming, can I pause you right here for a second? Can we actually take questions from the board first on the first action item? Uh and then we can um move towards uh the vote for that and then we'll go into action item number two. Is that okay for you all? So, are there any questions that the board may have for action item number one? No. Okay. Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the 2025 2026 BEP annual plans for this one is under professional development, program evaluation, expanded course offerings, classroom support, library services, music and FAPA, instructional technology, student achievement strategies, and counseling and behavioral health. So moved. Okay. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. has been moved by

213director Basudv, seconded by director Schnowski. All those in favor, please signify with the sign of I. I. Opposers, abstensions. The eyes have it and action item number one is approved. Let's move on. Action item number two. Thank you, directors. Action item 15.2 is our oversight communications and translation plan. And we have here with our senior communications officer, Trish McDermott, who will offer a little bit of information very quickly. Thank you, director. So, sorry. Don't feel rushed. Take your time. Oh, there we go. Better. The communications department works to provide clear, concise, and accurate public information and also engagement opportunities across our multiple communications platform and to our diverse community. And we are shifting or continuing to shift our work to be more analytics driven and to use metrics in all of our decision making and

214planning. Thank you. Oh, both have to be on. Note that for future folks coming up here. So uh the office for local resources is responsible for all aspects as I mentioned of administering and overseeing the use of bip and bar funds as well as supporting the work of the oversight advisory functions of the PNO or the planning and oversight committee and additionally we support uh the school site uh councils and the principles with technical support for their budgeting and their development of their site plans. Uh so there's no changes in this plan uh as of now for the plan that's before you. If there are any staffing changes be uh with the budget adoption, we will bring any changes in the plans to the PNO for their for presentation uh as needed when those changes

215occur. Um and funds for services and funds and services and supplies remain consistent with the prior year and we have a carryover in measure E1. it has not been uh allocated toward any toward any uses yet and per the regular uh procedure we will take a plan for the use of those carryover over funds to the planning and oversight committee that concludes this uh information on that item. I have a quick question under program activities um can you be a little bit more specific about our contracted services? Yes, they refer to uh contracts that we have for our communications department. Trish, can you provide some information? Yeah. So these are things like the platforms that we use to deliver our um uh staff bulletin and our A+ news. Um uh other tools we use like

216social media metrics tools and delivery platforms as well. As well as translating translation and interpretation services. Thank you. Um if you could go for one slide. Um so our our contracted services are under programs activities are different than our staffing under translation and interpretation services. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Hearing none. Is there a motion to approve the 2025 2026 annual plan for Bep and Vera oversight, communications, and translation um annual plan? Approved. Uh do so. Move to do so. Moved by Vice President Chang. Is there a second? I'll second. Seconded. You all both said it. Seconded by Director Korn. All those in favor, please signify with a sign of I. I. Opposers, abstensions. The eyes have it and action item number two passes. If we can please go to action

217item number three. Thank you, President Brown. And for that, I'm going to turn the mic over to our assistant superintendent for human resources, Samantha Tobias Espinosa. All right. Um, so this is the BARE recruitment, Retention, and Development Plan. Um, so measure E is otherwise known as BEAR. Um, and this is a um uh item that was funded in 2020. Um, and this is the plan for 5% of those funds. Um, and so this is the plan um that includes our staffing and our resources that help us to be able to recruit and retain our employees. Um, there is another piece um to measure E that is the 95% which goes directly to salaries. that is not included in this plan. Um our goal is to make sure that we're filling all of our shortages um

218and that we are um using our tools to best recruit and retain our employees both classified and certificated. Um and so we have developed u multiple positions within this plan uh to help us with that. Um, so on this page you'll see some of the staffing including the classified professional development coordinator, a coordinator for our BPACT program which is our um pathway for our classified to achieve credentialed status. Um, as well as a TSA who helps support us in our recruitment, retention and support activities. um a special education coach that we have um that helps support our special education department and retaining their teachers. Uh a coordinator who helps um with our teacher induction program which uh we they just had a celebration last week, I believe it was, um which is the program that

219helps support our um teachers who are new to having a credential and need to get that through a two-year induction program. Uh they we also have staff that helps support our peer assistance and review um program which is our support for our veteran teachers who need a little bit of extra support. As well as we have a position um that we share with the personnel commission which is um an admin assistant to help make sure that our recruitment efforts um in the classified area um continue to improve and move as efficiently and effectively as possible. Um again, there are no changes to this plan. Everything is remaining consistent. If there were changes that are um end up being made in the budgeting process, we would then take it back to the um PNO um in

220the future um as we have had to do in the past. Um you will see here also some data about our BPAC program. Uh we have a very successful BBACK program. Uh it started with a base grant from the state. um that we are able to use to help pay tuition and fees for our classified staff to be able to earn their credentials. And we've also been able to secure some additional small grants. Um is it Berkeley public schools fund? Yes, that's correct. um gave us some additional money that has also helped support this. And we have um maintained and retained um a at least six of the people who have graduated through this program um as employees and we keep continuing to have a very high percentage of these um participants that become teachers

221in our district. And that concludes the information on that action item. And after that there's two more slides which we can do after the action item or that are not related to item 15.3 directly. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Is there a motion to approve the uh 2025 2026 annual plan for bear recruitment, retention, and development. I move that we approve the plan. Okay. It's been moved by Director K. Is there a second? I'll second. Seconded by Director Schnowski. All those in favor, please signify with the sign of I. I. Opposers, abstensions. The eyes have it. And the motion passes. Thank you. Thank you, directors. And two final slides just for your information. One on performance measures. And uh wanted to let you know that for per our pro program metrics or performance measures, we

222continuously work to broaden program metrics for both implementation measures and outcome measures. Kathy, now you know we can't see that. I have my readers, so I don't need magnifying glass. You all need readers. Okay. Okay. Um, and we continue our to partner with the PNO and program managers and district leadership in this work. A particular shout out to the Brea team who has rolled up their sleeves and partnered in this work particularly this year increasing the measures that we are able to present to the PNO and include in the plans. So this year we've continued to build out our district's data culture and systems and been able to further improve our work in data collection and reporting for BIP and Barer programs. And this helps us and the PNO and the general public to help

223understand our progress toward meeting our goals. And this year we've included new measures and types of information such as looking at additional disagregated participation info and including national standards for program quality. uh reviewing recommended best practices for staffing ratios, including research that substantiates the program goals and activities, comparing to state metrics, and also using logic models uh in terms of that helps us understand the connection between our investments, our outputs, and our short and long-term outcomes. Uh we expect to continue to expand this work next year as we continue to align to the strategic plan pillars and priorities and collaborate our measures to larger district measures while also focusing on program measures as well as capturing uh student and family voice moving forward which is one of the feedback points from the PO and final

224slide. All right, it doesn't matter. Uh so next steps uh we're going to review our unodudited actuals for our measure E1 fund and uh update our fund balances to inform our potential use uses next year and ongoing. And we're also going to be closely monitoring the class size reduction contribution from BP which you heard uh Nicole Shabbo talk about uh in her comments to ensure that we can sustain uh the same level of funding ongoing or if we need to make adjustments to maintain uh sustainability of funds and as I mentioned continue to work on our performance measures adding family voice and then lastly continue our partnership with the PNO uh to strengthen our continuous improvement cycle and uh that concludes our presentation and I thank you for your attention to all three items and

225our your continued uh support of Bep and Bara. Thank you and thank you all as well for your presentation and for your uh continuous work. All right, we will now move to item 15.4 Four, approval of resolution 25-046 to eliminate slashred reduce classified positions and this is the final notice. Assistant Superintendent Tobias Espinosa will invite you to come back for this presentation. Thank you. Um I do not have a presentation on this um but I am willing to answer questions. Uh this is one position uh that was not included in the resolution that you have already voted on. Um and that was due to an unforeseen consequence where this person did not get a hearing at the same time as everyone else. Um and so this position is brought forward um for your vote tonight.

226Uh board of education at this time uh if you have questions, comments, concerns, uh this is the perfect time to raise them. Okay. Hearing none. Is there a motion to approve? I'll move that we approve. Okay. It's been moved by Director Corn. Is there a second? It's been moved by Director K. Is there a second? Director Brown, I mean, President Brown, it looks like there's not a second. How does what happens now? Well, the great question. Here's an opportunity for parliamentary procedures. A second doesn't necessarily mean that you are um approving the resolution. A second just means that you are showing um an opportunity or identifying your readiness to vote. And so, if there is a second, then we can take a vote. President Brown, hold on. Yes. I want to identify or address if

227there is any unreiness to vote. And if there is unreiness to vote, then um let's go ahead and address the unreiness. Um but if folks are ready to vote, then all we will need is a second to go ahead and move forward with the vote. Regardless of what your vote is, if you're voting um in approval or if you are voting in opposition or voting as an abstension, we we need to move forward with the vote. And so it has already been properly moved by Director Korn. Is there a second? Okay, I'll second. All those in favor, please signify with the sign of I. I. I. I. Let's Let's do this. We'll do a roll call vote if you can take the role. Director Basv. No. Director Schmowski. Hi. Director Kor I. Vice President Chain

228I. President Brown. No. Okay. Uh the vote carries 3 to2. We will now move uh to item 15.5 approval for declaration of need for 20 2025 2026. Again no presentation. This is an annual forum that we do um that allows us to be able to um demonstrate that we have a need to hire um people who are not fully credentialed in certain areas. Um and so we have to go through this process and have this approved by the board before we can hire people who may not be fully qualified, meaning that they're on an intern credential or some kind of um waiver. Uh is there a motion to I I'll move this one. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. All those in favor, please signify with the sign of I. I. I. I. Opposers.

229Abstensions. The eyes have it. And the motion carries. Thank you so much. We have a number of uh information items on here tonight including um a well-awaited climate literacy update. So, please govern yourselves accordingly as well as uh with our board policies and um ARS that you will see next week on the consent calendar. Uh we have now reached our second opportunity for extended public comment. If there is anyone here for public comment, you may now um speak to the board of education at this time. Um we do have a number of cards from earlier today, but I don't see any of those individuals still in the room. And so unfortunately, they will not get the opportunity um to speak, but can always email the board of education uh if they are interested in being

230um heard on the topics that they wanted to address tonight. In addition, uh there isn't anyone who is lined up here in person to speak and there aren't any attendees uh online who are interested in speaking. And so with that being said, we will move on to extended board member comments. Are there any board member comments? Okay, hearing none, we will now adjourn uh at 11:16 p.m. Have a great night, everyone.