001Okay. Hi there. I'm Catherine. I just want to second what Juliet just said about our families of heritage of Arab descent, Muslims, Palestinians, and that connects with the O of position that I know is so desperately needed in our schools to keep families engaged. So I implore you to do everything you can to keep those positions. And tonight I have um a poem by Mosab Abuha who is an academic Palestinian living in Syracuse and was supposed to be coming to Berkeley but because of the current climate has had to cancel because of ice. Every child in Gaza is me. Every mother and father is me. Every house is my heart. Every tree is my leg. Every plant is my arm. Every flower is my eye. Every hole in the earth is my wound. We need
002to keep teaching Palestine. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we'll hear from uh Yasmir N, followed by Jamie T. Good evening, distinguished board. Thank you for uh having us up here today. Um I've appreciated listening to the update videos and understand that y'all are doing everything you can. Um I would like to share that even when and if funding is found, the impact has already rippled through our community. The psychological toll and uncertainty of being told that one should look for greener pastures eats into our daily conversations. And no amount of re reassurances from those of us who've been through it is enough. I used um I urge you to keep in mind this in the future when we find ourselves at similar crossroads. And as partners in education, I hope that um when and if
003you find soft funding that you please let us know as soon as possible. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you as well. And then finally, we'll have Jamie [Applause] T. Jamie. No. Okay. Well, that um concludes our uh all of our cards uh that are green that requested to uh speak this evening. And so, thank you all so much for uh your public comments to the board of education and I am happy that we were able to do it uh within the allowed time. Uh at this time, we will move on to our committee. Excuse me. Oh, we're online. Great. All right. Can you do me a favor since I'm not able to access Zoom on here? Can you um please uh call the Okay, our first student speaker is being promoted on Zoom. Okay, they declined
004participation to speak. So now we will move on to our next uh speaker who is [Music] Hello, Miss Ato. Whenever you're ready, you may begin. Ah, thank you. Uh, my name is Sagario Seepeda. I'm the mother of Nathan in 8th grade and Vanessa in 12th grade who is in bridge. I'm here tonight to thank the board and the district for supporting the Ver High School bridge program. We know that the district has to make large budget cuts this year. We also know that the district cares about equity and we know each year the number of African-American and Latinx students who are four-year college eligible is extremely low. Yet for the last 15 years, Bridge had almost uh had a 100% four-year college acceptance rate. Um the for the Latinx community and African-American students. This year
00580 income ninth graders asked to be part of the bridge including my son. Uh this program will be 50 of these kids are on the waiting list. If bridge funding remains the same next year as it is now, we can take the students on a waiting list and it will be graduating in two cohorts this year. We can bring it to two cohorts the next year as well. If we want the chance to dismount results for the Latinx and African-American students, we need to invest in the bridge program even when there are serious budgets and we know that is coming. We implore you not to make these cuts in the program. Every dollar we put in the bridge affirms our commitment to equity and makes a difference. And I know that I know that my
006time is it's over, but I I just have wonderful things about the bridge program because my daughter is graduating and she's going to college with all the bridge kids that are in the in the program right now. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Uh our next uh public commenter. Okay, we have one more student who we're going to try one more time. Hello. Welcome. Whenever you're ready, you may begin. Hi, my name is Kubel Bmanro. I'm a senior in Berkeley High, and I just want to talk about how the Bridge program has supported me all throughout high school. Joining Bridge in the ninth grade helped me build a strong academic foundation. I've had countless opportunities being in Bridge. My Bridge teacher, Mr. Benos, introduced me to dual enrollment classes, helped me get internships,
007and also my first job for the city of Berkeley. Miss Hammond's support with the college application process was beyond helpful, helping us fill out our college apps, getting us essay readers, and helping us with financial aid. Some of the big schools I got into were UCLA, UC Berkeley, and USC. According to Data Quest, the California data website, 110 African-American seniors graduate from Berkeley High, and only 23 are A throughG eligible, 15 of whom were Bridge kids. I know how much Bridge has positively impacted me and other students of color, striving for us to go to a 4-year university. Please don't cut the budget for Bridge. I know that there are 59th graders on the wait list right now, and I want them to have the same opportunity I received so they could do well, too.
008Thank you for your comments and congratulations on all of your college acceptances. I know you cannot hear it but you have a rousing applause here in the board room. Uh we are so very proud of you. Congratulations. Uh our next public commenter Oh, that is it for online. Okay. Thank you uh to all of those who came out uh to speak and to those who were patient and waited on Zoom to be able to speak. We will now move on to our committee comments. Um and if you are here to make a committee comment, I'll ask that you please um come to the microphone. Um, at this time I know for a fact uh that there are committee comments that we are receiving tonight from the African-American Advisory Committee. And so we will begin with
009those comments. And so I see Polar who is making her way to the podium. Uh, and if there are any other committee comments, I'll ask that you will please line up behind Polar. Just go. Okay. Um, good evening board directors, superintendent, and Berkeley community. Uh, my name is Par Fischer, and I come before you tonight as a proud and active BUSD parent and a dedicated member of the Superintendent African-American Success Advisory Committee, also known as ASAC. Um, I have a thriving seventh grader at Longfellow and also a thriving 10th grader at Berkeley High. Um, our family has been a part of uh this community since the start of their educational journey. So, I know firsthand how critical life's transitions can be. Um, not just for our students, but also for the parents and caregivers. Um,
010even as someone who is deeply involved as myself, I continue to be surprised on how much I don't know about all the resources available to support our students. That's one of the main reasons why I joined ASAC. Not just to advocate for my own children, but to also advocate for the many students and families who may not have the capacity to be as involved. Um, families who are surviving, working long hours, and still do their best to show up for their children in every way they can. Um, I want to personally invite you all to the annual BUSD African-American Success Framework Transition Fairs Saturday, April 19th, um, in the Donny Hugh Gym at Berkeley High for the students transitioning from 8th grade to 9th grade. Very important. Um, also Saturday, April 26th at Martin Luther
011King Jr. Middle School for the students transitioning from 5th to 6th grade. Both events begin at 10:00 a.m. um and it should last till about 11:30. Um these fairs were born out of the African-American Success Framework strategic actions specifically in response to the families who shared during uh community focus groups. Um parents and caregivers um there was there were too many students that were slipping through the cracks um especially in the transitions between middle school to high school. So these fairs are one concrete response to those calls. Um a way to make those invisible gaps visible and to close them with care, connection, and community. They are more than just helpful. They are essential. These events give families the chance to see around the corner with to ease the stress and transitions um to build
012a sense of belonging. Parents get to meet each other, ask questions, grow their support networks, and students get to gain confidence, access information, and begin to feel like they belong before they even walk into the new school. Um, we also recognize that we're in a season of stormy weather. Um, we are very aware of the budget decisions and the difficult priorities ahead. But in the midst of these challenges, we must keep our eyes on the prize, making sure that our students and families, especially our vulnerable um population, have what they need to succeed in this district. Um so tonight, I'm asking you, our board of education, to continue to support these um critical transition efforts. They are aligned with the very foundation of the African-American success framework and are clear examples of what it looks
013like to listen, respond, and act with equity at the center. Um, a heartfelt thank you to all of the BUSD staff, uh, community- based organizations and partners who are working behind the scenes to make these fairs, uh, meaningful and accessible. this work is serious and uh these transitions do matter. I know firsthand it's it's very difficult. Um and your continued support is not only deeply appreciated, but it is essential. Um our students and families are counting on your leadership to ensure that they don't just make it um through these transitions, but that they thrive. We want our babies to thrive. Um, thank you for your time and I hope to see you all there or as many as can be present. Again, real quick again, um, that's Saturday, April 19th for transitioning to high school
014and then Saturday, April 26th at Martin Luther King uh, middle school um, for 5th to 6th grade. Thank you. Thank you as well, Par. Are there any other folks who are here for committee comments? This is your time to speak. Okay, seeing none, we will now move on to our union comments. We will uh receive our union comments in this order. BFT, BCCE, Yuba, and Local 21. Miss Chariz, do we have any uh comments online from BFT? No. Do we have um any comments this evening from BCCE? Any comments from Yuba or from Local 21? Okay. Hearing none, we will now move on to our board member comments. Um, are there any board members who would like to begin? All right, Director Korn, would you like to go? Wonderful. Uh, following Director K, we will
015uh move to student director Clark. Okay. Hi. All right. Um, first I want to acknowledge all of the children, parents, and staff who came out to speak tonight about the impact of possible layoff notices. Um, I have great empathy for the uncertainty and stress that these notices cause both for the employees who are directly impacted and also for the students and families who benefit every day from our employees work. I want you all to know that I'm deeply grateful for BUSD's hardworking employees, including counselors. my own son's counselor is here in the room. Um, OPI and learn staff. Thank you to the learn staff I've worked with over the years. Um, elective teachers and our cooking and gardening teachers. And I want to remind everyone that final staffing decisions will depend on many budgetary factors
016that are not yet fully clear and decisions that are yet to be made. There are going to be some important presentations tonight about all of these issues. Um, and I'm grateful that the superintendent and her staff will be talking to us about bud budget balancing in general and layoffs specifically. If you're unable to stay for those presentations, I urge you to watch the recordings that will be posted online. I also want to invite everyone to attend the superintendent's budget advisory committee meetings to continue to learn about all the budgetary considerations being weighed and to advocate for your school communities. The next meeting will be held on April 16th. Everyone is welcome to attend online. These important meetings are the place where budgetary recommendations are hashed out in advance of coming to the board for a
017vote. Um I urge everyone here to stay engaged as we move through this difficult budget and staffing decisionmaking season. And I also want to take a moment tonight to thank everyone who came out in acknowledgement of Arab-American and Swana um South Asian, Southwest Asian, and North African heritage month here in BUSD. This is a month when we recognize and uplift our diverse Arab-American and Swana community here in Berkeley. In preparation for tonight's meeting, I took some time this afternoon to explore the district web page with resources for families and educators, which includes profiles of some of our Arab-American and Swana educators here in BUSD, including Christina Hart. Thank you so much. Um, I was really moved by these staff profiles. They highlight joyful c cultural celebrations. They highlight Arab cultures generosity and hospitality, the vital
018role that Arab-American and Swana staff members play in our school communities. And at the same time, these staff profiles include reflections on the targeting of Arab-Americans after 911 and stories of ancestors and family members who've been killed and displaced by war. So, as we joyfully honor ArabAmerican and Swana members of our community this April, it's clear to me the importance of simultaneously acknowledging the pain that many are experiencing as their family members in Yemen, Gaza, and elsewhere continue to be in grave danger. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Gaza over the past 18 months. And in a global community like ours here in Berkeley, these deaths directly impact many of our students, families, and staff. and the recent arrests of student anti-war activists like Makmoud Khalil and Romemesa Ojerk combined with today's
019news that 19 members of the UC Berkeley community have had their visas revoked are chilling evidence of an escalating attack on free speech and academic freedom that is explicitly targeting ArabAmericans. So I want to take this opportunity in honor of Arab ArabAmerican and Swana Heritage Month to do three things. One, encourage families and educators to access the resources provided by the district to uplift and celebrate our beautiful and diverse ArabAmerican and Swana community here in BUSD. Two, reaffirm the USD's stance against Islamophobia and all forms of hate this month and every day. And three, reiterate my commitment to free speech and academic freedom, a core value here in Berkeley. Thank you. Thank you for those beautiful, beautiful comments, Director Korn. We are actually going to go to Director Shinoski next. Okay. Well, I'm going to
020jump right off of that. Um, I also want to acknowledge all the budget cuts and the really difficult decisions um that are having to be made and point out that budget cuts wouldn't be necessary if we'd stop funding war in this country and we'd start funding education. Um, specifically, I I also want to um acknowledge celebration of ArabAmerican Swana Heritage Month. I'm proud of the resolution we passed last year and I want to acknowledge the continued um and ongoing othering war and murder of Arab people in Gaza, Yemen and elsewhere. Um I want to speak up for Mahmud Khalil in solidarity and support and all students and faculty um here in Berkeley and around the country. And I specifically want to call out uh appendix three of our BFT contract which actually identifies academic freedom
021for the faculty in our district um because it's quite special. It's quite unique. As a college professor, I'm used to academic freedom, but here in Berkeley, we honor that academic freedom for our K12 instructors. And that appendix says in part that the controversial nature of a subject shall not bar its discussion in schools. In the interest of the freedom to teach, all employees shall be encouraged to express all views, including their own, honestly and in good faith. To this end, the board, that's us, will provide a teaching and learning atmosphere free from unreasonable censorship and artificial restraint upon free inquiry. learning and academic [Applause] freedom. Um I just want to point out a couple of other um quick things that are coming up. Um on well tomorrow I will be holding my office hours. So
022I hope you will come and visit me from 3:00 to 5:00 um at Kasa Latina. And on April 15th, we have a community meeting about the needs of our Berkeley High School CTE classes, tennis team, softball, baseball, um, and the neighbors surrounding Mullering Field. So, I hope folks will come and stand in support um, for those projects. And finally, I want to give a huge shout out and congratulations to all of our graduating seniors, especially those who are seeing all the um results, the fruition of their hard work um as they're getting all these acceptances to wonderful schools and making decisions about their next four years. Thanks. That's okay. We'll we'll come back to you when you're ready. Okay. Are you ready? Okay. We'll go to director uh Vasu Dev and followed by um vice
023president Chang and then uh we'll end with student director Clark. Great. My comments really uh brief tonight. I'm not feeling uh very well tonight, but I just wanted to echo a lot of what was expressed uh by directors Korn and Shinowski. also just acknowledge how very difficult these budgetary conversations are and um even though it's a process and we have to follow all these different rules and you know provide notices I do want to acknowledge just the emotional toll that this has taken on our staff and it's very um it's very disheartening for me to just to hear just what it's like to have to um have this looming on you right now as you're thinking about your own futures and we're not giving giving you very clear answers right now at this stage in
024the budget. So, I just want to acknowledge that and I hear you and it's terrible and I'm sorry that this is the process. Um, but as we learn and you know what whatever you know we can do to be as transparent as we can, I think we're trying to do as a board and I and I know that the superintendent is trying to as well in her frequent communications with our community. I um just want to give a shout out to our robotics students. I uh I was able to see both our JV and I didn't know we had a JV team. This is very exciting. It's very new at Berkeley High. We have a JV and a varsity robotics team. Um and I got to visit them over the weekend at the first California
025robotics competition at BHS. And so I just wanted to thank them for an excellent job during the competition, but also just their public speaking skills as they were giving me a tour and uh showing me how their robot worked. Um, so shout out to to Berkeley High and all the students that put in a lot of work and to prepare over the break for this amazing competition. Um, and I look forward to the discussion on the budget tonight and continuing to meet with with folks. If you want to grab coffee, please uh reach out to me and I'm happy uh to meet up with folks that are concerned and worried and um to support you in any way that I can. Thanks. Thank you, Director Basud. Yes, President Chen, thank you so much, President. Um,
026thank you for again bringing your hearts and minds and exercising your right to assembly and speech to this space. Um, congratulations again to all of our BHS students for their college opportunities, including our student board director. Congratulations. Um, exciting and um, looking forward to your your great work in the future as well. Good luck. Much appreciation. Um and um again, as other board members have stated, somber reflection um and celebration for ArabAmerican and Swana heritage um during these very challenging times. Um as my board members have reflected, board colleagues have reflected, um we have deep respect for the service of our teachers and staff that you provide to this district. Um your uh hard work and effort is what makes this district run. Um and I think that is a throughine for our budget process.
027Um thank you students, parents, teachers, staff for your support again for teachers, counselors um for uh teaching controversial issues um local control um and reminding us again to focus on student centered services during this challenging budget season. Um the past weeks have been a roller coaster um for all of us. Um I I want to raise very briefly in this context um and raise up the practice and hold it up the practice of holding the line which um our superintendent has reflected in her messaging. Um both holding the line and the principle of local control. Um, even with the hollowing out of due process infrastructure across this country, B USD will continue to provide non-disrupted programs and services in a fair and inclusive manner that reflects Berkeley values. Thank you. That's what I want to
028leave it with. And thank you so much for coming again. Thanks again. I'm going to turn it over to me, the president. Thank you, Vice President Chang. Student Director Clark. Good evening everybody and I hope you all had a wonderful and well for the students restful spring break and happy National ArabAmerican History Month. It's great to see so many familiar faces here at tonight's board meeting and I truly appreciated hearing from everyone who spoke especially the little ones and I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you who shared your voice tonight. I truly stand with the concerns you're bringing forward. This district had play has played such a big role in shaping the person who I am today and that includes the incredible staff many of whom who are
029here tonight. So I wanted to say thank you to all the BC teachers for everything you've done. I stand with you during this incredibly difficult time of budget cuts and I see your dedication and strength. I also wanted to say that as a student who's taken ethnic studies at Berkeley High, I can say firsthand that it was a transformative experience. It was a liberating course that challenged us to think critically about the world we live in. And I believe that keeping our curriculum honest and inclusive allows students to develop the skills to question misinformation, especially around important and gruesome glo global events like the genocide in Palestine. And I also wanted to uplift a program that was mentioned earlier during public comment, the bridge program, which I've been a part of since my freshman year.
030And I honestly don't think I would have made it through high school if it weren't for the support that they gave me. And honestly, I probably wouldn't even be sitting here today as a student board director if it weren't for Bridge. Given that the college application process was very overwhelming, with their guidance, I can proudly say that I'm heading to college this fall as a first generation students with options like Cornell, Spellman, and Forom, which means everything to me. Um, so I'm going to keep the rest of my comments short. Prom this year was held at San Francisco City Hall and it was such a beautiful night. It was amazing to see everyone enjoy themselves and the superintendent was there. So, it was so lovely having you there. You looked amazing. And finally, to our
031seniors, college decisions are finally out. And so, I just wanted to say how proud I am of all of you. Wherever you're headed, please know that you're going to be okay. and congratulations on closing such a big chapter in your life. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Um, as student director Clark, we were clapping a little bit. Um, and so some folks may not have heard the colleges um that you've been accepted to and that you have the wonderful opportunity to decide where you're going to go. So, I'm gonna ask that you just read those one more time so that everyone can hear. Okay. I I only said three, but I said them all. I don't I don't think I know them all. Um I'll I'll just emphasize the my top three choices,
032which are Cornell, Spelman, and Forom. And we know that whichever school you choose, um although I'm hoping you choose Spellelman, whichever school you choose, um will be absolutely um better because they have you as a student enrolled. And so we're so very very proud of you uh as well as all of your uh Berkeley High School senior uh colleagues and peers who are getting ready to make uh an amazing mark on the world. So, congratulations, [Applause] Winter. Uh, good evening again, everyone. Thank you to uh those who spoke tonight to the board of education uh in regards to uh the layoffs and the impacts uh that those are having on our school district as well as budget cuts. Um thank you to those who spoke about protecting our rights um and the need to uh
033fight, fight, and continue to fight. um those who spoke tonight about uh the importance of uh centering and continuing to teach uh Palestine and those who spoke tonight um uh in support of and celebrating the bridge program and all of the phenomenal things that um the bridge program has done for our students. Um, I want to thank my board colleagues again for those beautiful, beautiful comments um, tonight. Uh, honoring uh, so many things, but really uh, honoring taking the time to honor and celebrate um, ArabAmerican Heritage um, and Swana Month. And so happy ArabAmerican Heritage and Swana Month uh, to all of you all. Um my board me colleague director Korn shared uh my exact sentiments and so I will just say that I'm very proud uh to be a part of a board of
034education who uh passed a resolution last year to honor to celebrate and to center the lives of our Arabana students our community members um and beyond. And this um would not have been possible. We cannot really take uh any credit for that because this would not have been possible without um our active community members of advocates who called upon the board who pushed upon the board and who advocated that the board uh do what is right and um do what is needed. However, there is still work uh that needs to be done to one raise awareness, two to heal and offer support uh to those who are continually impacted uh by the effects of the war. And there is still more that needs to be done to be able to teach Palestine uh with the
035freess and with the comfort that it deserves. And so, thank you to those who continue to come to the board meeting and advocate um time and time again and for allowing us to put our um our values uh in the forefront and pushing on us as a board to stand up for what we believe in despite um how scary it may be, despite those who come at us. Um, it is important that we do what is right. It is always the time to do and to say what is right when it's right to do it. I will make it quick. Uh, but since the last time we were together, I had the pleasure of attending uh the California Association of African-American Superintendent and Administrators um along with a couple of our uh BUSD um uh
036staff members, including our superintendent. Um, and we had such a a phenomenal time listening, learning, um, growing, and figuring out the best ways um, to advocate for our black and African-American students as Par uh, really called on us to do uh, earlier this evening with her um, board comments on behalf of the African-American Success Framework Advisory Committee. Um that conference is an annual conference that happens every year uh which brings together some powerhouse superintendents, some powerhouse board members, powerhouse teachers, and even powerhouse parents who um are advocating for um full fully funded education for all, but a fully funded education that um centers the needs of black students. And so it was wonderful to be able to attend and I'm excited to take all that I learned at that conference and bring it right back
037here to Berkeley Unified School District. Um also since the last time we were together um I chaired and participated along with director Shinoski um in our first 2 by two committee meeting of the year. uh and our two committee meeting meeting is where we partner and work with um two of our city council representatives to deal with issues that impact both the school district and the city to figure out the best way that we can come together to work on those issues. So at that meeting we were um able to have a timely and critical conversation and received an update about Craigmont Elementary School traffic safety as well as uh Longfellow Middle School traffic safety. And I'd like to take this time to give my appreciation to um the staff from the city of Berkeley
038as well um as our associate superintendent um Kiss and his team um for their ongoing work and for um your partnership to work together to uh make sure that our our schools are safe places for our students to uh to go every single day. And I'd like to also uh thank our community members who uh emailed us and spoke out uh during the board meeting and who came to the 2 by two committee meeting to advocate uh for both of those issues. Unfortunately, we had one other um item which was student safety around um homelessness encampments near school sites that we didn't get a chance to get to because of time restraints. Um, but we are ensuring that that is our first item of business during our next 2 by two committee. And so, thank
039you again to those community advocates who emailed the board of education because that really helps us to be able to advocate and give feedback and to push and to partner with our uh city partners to make sure that we get the work done. Um, that is it for me. Um, so I will pass it over to our superintendent for her uh comments this evening. Good evening, B USD family. So, let me tell y'all something. So, for the last couple months, I've been speaking first. Y'all knew that. And tonight, they switched it up. So, not only did public comments and committee comments go, then the board spoke. So, I'm looking at my notes like, what am I going to say? Cuz they said most of it all, but I'mma work with me. Okay. And superintendent, if
040I can just add, um that is actually the past practice that we've had uh where the superintendent um does come after the board of education and so we are adopting uh that practice again. So thank you so much. See my face for being so uh flexible. I have things to share. They love you. We love you. So what they didn't say first of all, welcome back. I hope you all had a wonderful spring break. I hope you are Welcome back. I hope you all had a wonderful spring break and that you are back rested, restored, and rejuvenated and can ready to continue the amazing work that happened here in BUSD. Um, so I'm going to just have to go through my notes and see what everybody else said. Um, I do want to say that
041um, in a time where many folks when many leaders, many districts and many organizations are changing their tune and ducking and dodging, I am so glad and proud to be superintendent of Berkeley Unified School District that remains steadfast and committed to celebrating our beautiful diversity and proudly recognizing and lifting the voices, experiences, and rich histories and contributions of ArabAmerican, South Asian, Southwest Asian, North African, Swana heritage folks in our district and beyond. So, happy ArabAmerican, Southeast Asian, Southwest Asian, North African, Swana Heritage Month, y'all. We celebrate the diversity of uh this community, not just in the month of April, but every day. And I think it's important that um now and every day, we stay committed to doing so. um really recognizing the contributions of this community and how it adds to the strength of
042who we are not just as Berkeley or B USD but as a country a nation and a world. Um already heard all the comments about what's going on in our world particularly um in Palestine and Gaza and our commitment to not just ongoing academic freedom but the ability to teach controversial issues. So, what I will add is that um Director Chang definitely referenced it, but I hope you all read my March 26 message to the community. And in that communication, I asked, "How do we stay steady and ready to support our children when students and staff are receiving a barrage of misleading and disrupting information that can distract and in my opinion is meant to divide us from our core mission? How do we acknowledge with heartbreak and outrage that some that many that most
043of us in this community, especially those that are most vulnerable, are feeling much more offbalance than usual. When folks in our community here and abroad are afraid and feel our government is crossing the line, how do we do that B USD? We do it by holding the line. Can y'all say we hold the line? Hold the line. We hold the line here in B USD when we continue to stay the course despite what is going on. We must continue to uplift all of our community, our diverse community, and continue to stand up against all forms of hate and reject all discrimination based on race, ethnicity, culture, religion, gender, gender identity, and expression, immigration status, disability, and sexual orientation. Regardless of what is going on around us, our policies have not changed. I'm going say that
044again. Regardless of what is going on around us in BUSD, our policies have not changed. We continue to believe our students have the right to learn about diverse topics and that our educators have the right and are ready and skilled and compassionate enough to teach them all about the various things that are going on here and abroad. We have been and we will continue to hold the line in B USD. One more time, we hold the line. B USD also is observing not just ArabAmerican swana month but um March 21st to April 10th is Caesar Chavez and Dolores Worth dot commemorative period in celebration of the rich histories of the CHO Chana Chana X Filipina Filipino Filipino X and Latina Lat Latino Latina X they didn't say that communities in our schools as such the
045district invites our community to solidarity across generations fields of unity which is an event held in partnership with various community organizations. That's actually happening tomorrow, April 10th at 4:30. Did somebody say that? Apr 410th at 8 I'm sorry, April 10th at 4:30 p.m. in the Berkeley City College Auditorium. Staff and families receive information about how to RSP some time ago. Please make sure you RSVP and hopefully you will all attend. Consistent with our commitment to transparency, tonight on this uh evening's agenda, we do have a budget balancing update. Um as well as information and an update regarding the March 15th notices that many of you came and spoke about. As you heard one public commenter speak and share, I have been u making videos and trying to share as best as I can information to
046keep you all up to date on what is going on, not only with the process, but where we are um with the March 15th notices. I do hope that folks stay because tonight we're not going to only give an update on the March 15th notices and the budget balancing process, but really try to um shed some light, address some misinformation and some confusion around the notices, why they are, what they are, and what they are not, and our work to really move as quickly as possible to rescend as many of them um as soon as possible. So, y'all stay. Okay. All right. Exactly. You already heard you already heard Par talk about the transition fairs. Please again, if you did not hear, it's also on our website. We have our 8th to 9th grade transition
047fair Saturday, April 19th from 10 to 11:30 at Berkeley High School. And then we have a fair for our folks transitioning into uh middle school, our fifth grader to sixth grade transition fair, which is Saturday, April 26 from 10 to 11:30 at MLK Middle School. Finally, because all of my other things were said, I'm going to end with congratulations. You already heard director Vasadv congratulate our Berkeley robotics team uh the Berkeley M team. It made it to the semi-finals and we also won an engineering design award um at last week's competition. But what you might not have heard is that we have winners from our oratoral fest here in Berkeley that was held right before spring break. And so I want to congratulate the duo from Sylvia Menddees Elementary and the student at Willard who
048won first place for their performance of How It Feels to Be Colored Me by Zora Neil Hursten. and to all of our incredible student performers from that evening's event. Finally, congratulations to the schools that placed in our attendance March Madness attendance chat. Remember that the March Madness? Y'all forgot about that. Stand up if you have a March Madness shirt on. Now, I'm not going to tell you which schools won. I'm not going to even tell you who placed where because I want you to stay. And if you stay through our LCAP presentation, you will hear at the end of that presentation where our schools placed in that attendance challenge. Thank you all for your time. President, that's the end of my comments for this evening. Thank you. And despite the fact that everyone stole what
049you were going to say, you still had some wonderful things to say. So, we thank you for saying them. We will uh now move on to the approval of our consent calendar. Is there a motion to approve? Speaking. I move to approve. Moved by Director Shinoski. Is there a second? I'll second. Seconded by Vice President Chang. All those in favor, please signify with the sign of I. I. I opposers abstensions the eyes have it the motion carries and the consent calendar is approved. Uh we will move on to item number 144.1 which is our uh first and only action item of the evening and that is uh resolution uh 23037 in recognition of adult education week. And so I'd like to uh welcome associate superintendent uh Hokandike as well as Tom Reed who will uh
050present this item. Welcome to you both. All right. Uh good evening uh board members, superintendent, members of the public. We are excited this evening to share a brief presentation um in support of the action item before you which is resolution 25-037 in support of K12 uh adult education and recognizing this week as adult education week. Uh next slide. Thank you. Um, we are going to ground this in our district's mission that we enable and inspire our diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and make positive contributions to the world. And often we think about that in the context of our PK12 schools, but it's important to note that we have an adult school program that serves over 4,000 students and is one of the oldest adult school programs um in the state. Berkeley Adult School
051holds a vision um to foster equitable, kind, and resilient communities and their own mission um in alignment with our district's mission that adult learners have the opportunity to engage in highquality educational programs committed to equity, diversity, and belonging. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Principal Reed to share with you a little bit about our own adult school program. Next slide, please. Good evening board members. Yes. Uh so you can see on this slide the um just some numbers of the adult school. You can see the 4,000 figure that uh that uh associate superintendent Hoganike mentioned. You can also see let me just briefly call attention to the fact that our ESL program has represents almost half of our students that we served last year and immigrants are throughout all programs. And
052so we're especially grateful for this district's support for protecting our immigrant students because they are throughout our program. Uh you can also see we serve many students that are seeking a high school diploma at this point in their lives, later in lives. They didn't get it the first earlier in life and we continue to serve that important community here in Berkeley and surrounding areas. Next slide, please. This year there have been changes in the adult school. Certainly uh we're all aware of the change that came with the Longfellow construction requirements and so I'm we are all very grateful for the district support in providing us spaces that could support almost all of our program to continue an in-person mode. Uh we have definitely found uh much lemonade in the new uh situations that we're in
053physically. So we're grateful for that that support. Also new this year is there's a new administrative team uh back one slide that uh that happened when we hired Bridget Luna to be our vice principal and that teamwork is working wonderfully. Bridget brings a lot of new life and vitality and interests given her own background in adult education and career technical education and experience at a comprehensive high school as well. What's what she's bringing that's new is new relationships with organizations in the community. Just this morning, she and I met with a leader for the Alama County Workforce Development Board who wants to provide resources to improve the transitions to workforce for our students. So, we are also seeing lots of appreciation happening um new energy around student support services. for example, a clothes closet activity
054is happening from time to time, which is something of uh distributing donations that are made for our very diverse students uh and something of an exchange among students things they don't need anymore. So, we're really really pleased with the life and the energy that's happening in our school with this um this change in our administrative team. All right. And then with that, um, what we're asking for tonight is that the board take action to approve the resolution. Um, and I'll just read the first clause. Therefore, be it resolved that the board of education of the Berkeley Unified School District recognizes April 6th through 13, 2025 as adult education week in California. Thank you as well. Uh, is there a motion for the board of education to um pass resolution 2537 in recognition of adult education
055week? I so move. Moved by director Shinoski. I want a second. Seconded by director Korn. All those in favor, please signify with a sign of I. I. Opposers, abstensions. The eyes have it. The motion uh passes and resolution 25 uh 25-037 is approved. So, thank you all so much for uh your hard work and for bringing this resolution forward this evening. We will uh move on to our uh first discussion item of the night which will be our midyear uh local control and accountability plan better known as the LCAP update. Uh this update tonight is specific to goal number three. Um as you all know, we've received updates uh in the past, but tonight we are focusing on the LCAP update as it relates to goal number three. And so I am going to invite
056our staff who will present tonight uh to please come on. As they are coming, I'd like to also give an appreciation um to uh you all. You all were scheduled to present at the last board meeting, but we did need to make um some shifts because of time and you all were very very flexible. And so we appreciate you uh for doing that and we appreciate you for making the time to come out again tonight uh to present. And whenever you are ready, you may begin. Extra short tonight. All right. Um Oh, look. We we have gifts. Um so as as Dr. Shelley is passing out those gifts, um I just wanted and uh we're getting the presentation set up. Um again, I'm Jill Hogendike, associate superintendent of the educational services department, but I am
057joined here this evening. So happy to now say director Sweeney is officially Dr. Sweeney. So we want to offer congratulations her to her. um who is our director of Brea, Dr. Shelley who is our director of um student services, Miss Rosena Karen who is our district's mental health uh coordinator and vice principal Darin Brachamontes is joining us this evening. Um again anchoring in our district's mission uh to enable inspire our diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and make positive contributions to the world. See, that was a test to see if I could say it without forwarding the slide. That's not forwarding it. Um, we are going um to Thank you. Uh, we're going to share with you um some mid, it is April, but some midyear data specifically um on our LCAP goal number
058three. So, we wanted to take a little bit of time to engage the board in a conversation around our attendance, chronic absenteeism, and suspension data and highlight some of the practices and shifts that we have been making um to address the needs of our students in in these three areas. Um want to remind folks that uh this work is grounded both in our LCAP goal number three which is on wellness and belonging and our emerging strategic plan which has a pillar um for wellness and belonging. And while we know um that wellness and belonging ultimately has an impact on our academic um outcomes, we do have specific uh actions articulated across multiple plans um that in that work to ensure that we are fostering safe, welcoming and inclusive school environments um that are humanizing, culturally
059and linguistically responsive for students and families um so that our students can come and be at school and be fully engaged. Um this is also situated um in our theory of change and specifically grounding in these three insights for organizational excellence. Recognizing that in order to get ideal um results, we need to have ideal behaviors. Um that purpose and system drive those behaviors and mindsets inform those behaviors. And these five areas that we've been focusing on even with our academic goals hold true for our wellness and belonging goals as well. how we focused on our tier one supports recognizing that differentiation um and intervention are necessary through MTSS that we're making decisions about how to support students that are data informed that we're working on collaborative practices and that all ways we're using a continuous
060improvement mindset as we approach this work. Um our three improve our improvement framework questions um that we have shared with you before is always around what is it that we're trying to improve. As we have articulated in our various plans, we've set some specific measures um for um both academic and our social emotional uh wellness goals. we do need to be clear about what changes or actions we're taking and why and then be monitoring how we know those changes led to improvement. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Shelley who's going to talk um first about chronic absenteeism and attendance. All right. Thank you, Gio. Uh good evening board superintendent community. So I'll I'll just dive straight in. Uh next slide, please. So just to give you a a again a
061review of uh chronic absenteeism, what that is as well as uh attendance rate and the difference uh between the two. So the attendance rate if we were talking about a 100 students uh and if 95 students show up every day, you have a 95% attendance rate. It's pretty straightforward. Chronic absenteeism, what that is is if a student misses 10% of the number of days that the student is enrolled in school, right? And so that student would be deemed chronically absent if the student misses that 10%. A chronic absenteeism rate for the school will be the number of students that the school has that are chronically absent. Right? And so that's how you can have what you see on this slide where we finished the uh the first semester with a 95.3 attendance rate and 11%
062chronic absenteeism rate. Um, and in comparison to where we were at the year before, we had a uh chronic absenteeism rate of 12% first semester of 93 and a attendance rate of 95% in uh 93. And just to give you even more uh of just uh grounding in it, the state average for chronic absenteeism rate last year and also um Alama County is about 19%. So, where we're at in comparison to the rest of the county and the state. Next slide, please. Okay. So, this this uh slide right here has the attendance rate by grade and race and ethnicity. It's a bunch of numbers on the uh the screen. So, I won't go through all of those numbers, but I'll just give you just a a just a brief um overview of what some of
063the data says. So when we look at the the all the subgroups and across uh the grade levels between kindergarten and fifth grade, every group uh improved or stayed level across uh kindergarten to fifth grade and also the district improved or stayed level uh from year to year. So from 23 24 to 242 semester 1 um you can see there was uh no decline. um we either stay level or um uh slightly improved. Next slide please. Okay, this particular slide here is again grade 6 through 12 uh grade again uh cross uh grade level and race and ethnicity. Um little different than the uh uh kindergarten and fifth grade. So in these particular groups you have Asian students improved or state level at all grades except nth grade. Uh, black African-American students improved or stayed
064level at all grades except 10th grade. Um, Filipino students improved or stayed level at all grades except 11th grade. Uh, Hispanic and Latinx improved or stayed level at all grades except sixth grade. Uh, white students improved and stayed level with all grades. And as a overall district, we either improved or stayed level at all grades. Slide. Okay. So this this uh graph looks a little bit different. Um this is our chronic absenteeism rate by grade. We actually have three years of data on the slide. And you can see the yellow is uh 2020 2022, red is 2023 and blue is first semester 2024. And when we look at the uh chronic absenteeism rates, they declined in 10 of the grades that are represented from TK to kindergarten. So you can see we had some decline
065um in 10 of the 14 uh listed grades. Okay, next slide. And then when we look at uh by subgroups again um you'll see some decline in certain groups. Obviously we still have a lot of work to do. uh the chronic absenteeism rate declined for our Asian, Hispanic, Latinx, multi-thnic, white, and our overall, but we increase for our black and African-American students. So, there's some disproportionality you see in our chronic absenteeism rate. Again, a lot of work that we uh still need to do. Thank you. And then this uh last chronic absenteeism uh slide looks at uh some of our focal groups. And so the chronic absenteeism rate slightly decreased for McKenna Vento students uh over the first semester. Um it stayed relatively flat for uh students um uh with disabilities, but it did slightly
066increase for foster youth and uh so socioeconomically uh disadvantaged students. Again, you can see uh the blue, red, and yellow. Okay. So, and when we talk about some of the things that we've done as a district to uh uh improve our attendance rate, uh we've had a district-wide focus on attendance. Um we've done celebrations and incentives. You you'll hear a little bit later uh the outcome of the March Madness attendance challenge. Um we've uh focused some of our communication around uh attendance, chronic absenteeism. So, um, through our partnership with Everyday, uh, Labs, we've sent out, um, different types of communication nudges. More than 3,000, almost 4,000 families have received, uh, different types of either text messages or uh, letter uh, messages regarding attendance. We've sent out 5,400 mail nudges and uh, more than 17,000 text
067messages uh, through the campaign. We've also uh provided some transportation support, individualized intervention, uh professional development for staff. Um in fact, our last uh PD uh was just last month uh before spring break. We we utilizing data um our early warning system. And then we have a partnership with the Alama County of Office of Education uh through a partnership called Basis is acronym first letter of the uh the different districts that are participating. And through that partnership, we received the LCSSP grant to fund some of the work that we're doing around attendance. Next slide. And then this slide uh just shows some additional supports that we're uh we've been providing particularly to some of our McKenna Vento students in the area of transportation, school supplies, um hygiene, kits, and then working with uh OPI staff
068to provide a different uh additional layers of support uh for students. And so this this last uh slide just shows uh some of the improvement data. So 51% of the of chronically absent students who've been chronically absent improved to non-chronic. Uh 70.5% of the students improve their attendance rates after receiving these nudges uh that we send out. And then 91% of students who were at risk and for us that's between 5% and 9% either stayed in that uh same area or they improved to satisfactory less than 5%. Okay. I'll pass it to Lena. All right. Good evening, board of directors. It's a pleasure to be with you tonight. Um, here we move to looking at the work happening at the site level regarding supporting student attendance, particularly as it relates to our 3x5 target. Our
069highlighted practitioner here, Miss Lily How is an OFI specialist at Emerson and also at Willard Middle School. really Lily reflected in our interview that building trusting relationships with families is key to the work in supporting attendant student attendance and also um working against chronic absenteeism. She and other educators we interviewed from principles to interventionists elevated the role of incentives and rewards, consistent monitoring and followup, cultural responsiveness in addressing attendance and engaging with families, as well as the value of community partnerships. And so here we lift up another qualitative data snapshot story. This time from our long fellow principal, Miss Selita Mitchell, and the movement her team is making using continuous improvement to increase attendance and decrease chronic absenteeism. She spoke to using data to drive interventions, devising strategies to support attendance through collaborative attendance team,
070attendance to, excuse me, attention to individualized support for students, and consistent, supportive, and ongoing communication with families and caregivers for our students with attendance challenges. Next slide. Okay, suspensions. Oh, and just one more thing before I moved on. Um when we talk about chronic absenteeism, it counts all absences whether they're excused absences or unexcused absences as well as suspensions uh count towards chronic absenteeism. And so then now we can segue to talking about uh some of the suspension data. Thank you. Now again the the the uh the barcode is a little different than what we were doing around chronic absenteeism actually reads left to right about year but um looking at the data you can see the suspensions have gone down for every group except for white students and Asian students and overall suspensions have
071been reduced by 26% over the last year uh black and African-American students have reduced by 40% however uh they're still disproportionately reflected in our suspension numbers. You went to the next slide. Okay. And so and then um suspensions have also gone down been reduced for all of our program groups except for foster youth. Um but the number is is such a small number for foster youth. It's not reflected on the slide, but I can tell you it just went from one to two uh suspensions for foster youth. um special education students have been reduced by 34% and uh socioeconomically students have been reduced by 38% over the prior year. Okay. So the the district employs a variety of strategies to cultivate a positive and supportive school climate. These include implementing SEAL programs that teach students
072self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, uh relationship skills, and responsible decision making. The district also invests in uh professional development for administrators and staff to enhance their abilities to manage our schools effectively, address behavioral issues constructively, and foster positive relationships with students. Uh wellness and well-being is a point of emphasis for us and restorative practices are also used. And we also have a climate and culture TSA um Michelle Ree that works uh closely with school sites and staff as well. And then we also um uh actively utilize our positive behavior matrix uh by uh uh our administrators to again look at strategies and approaches and alternative to suspensions. Okay. So here again um we present a snapshot of work at the site level use. Can you hear me? Okay. Let me get it a little closer. I'm
073usually kind of loud but okay. Um, in this on this slide, we present a snapshot of of work at the site level using qualitative data from our interviews with practitioners on fostering a positive school culture and climate while actively working to reduce suspensions. They highlighted through these interviews a multi-level response with a focus on educational opportunities alongside disciplinary actions. Th this aligns with a commitment to restorative practices. The practitioners that we interviewed also reinforced the key component of relationship building with teams prioritizing engagement with students and caregivers. This effort strengthens our school communities, making students feel more connected and supported. In our interview, Cassie highlighted on this slide and other BSD educators spoke to the importance of data and feedback to inform strategies allowing teams to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions in order to make
074any necessary adjustments. And next slide. We're going to pass the microphone down to Vice Principal Braantes because we do want to highlight a couple of other things that have been happening in the district um relative to actions that we're taking toward um wellness and belonging. Hello. So, a few top highlights here. Um, big takeaway that I'd like to share is that students are increasingly accessing the wellness center and they're doing it to manage stress and to connect to a continuum of care. Um, and so I have two semesters worth of data to share. You can see in our first semester open there were 1120 student visitors. 380 of those students were uh unduplicated visitors. And then this um fall we had 1,395 student visitors and 425 of them were unduplicated. Um what's important to note
075and important to us at the site is that 36% of those student visitors have 504 plans and individualized education plans and they represent students who um participate in special education in all of the programs uh that are offered on our campus. 53.5% of our student visitors identify as black or Latino. That's a really important um data point because we know that um subgroups like black and Latino students are hesitant to access services um both on campus and um even more so off-campus. And so the fact that students are showing up to the wellness center is uh is a big deal and it's giving us data. Um last thing I know I'm supposed to do like one minute is that this is actual student data. This is what the kids are telling us by showing up
076to us. Our student screener captures why they're dropping in. And so um you can see that they're seeing our restorative justice folks. They're looking for uh they're attending a group meeting. They're letting us know that they're feeling stressed or anxious. um they're reporting that there's some kind of classroom issue and that there's academic stress and that data is driving other work with other folks. Thank you. Hi to our amazing board members. I'm here to give you an update on our MHSSA grant. The first update is they changed the name. It's now our BHSSA grant. Has nothing to do with us and we still have the same amount of money but they changed it to behavioral health. Um and this is uh $2.4 4 million grant that our district was um allotted and we are in
077year three of the four-year grant. And the people who wrote the grant were very intentional and it was well written and aligned with our district's needs. So the funds that were allocated to us, we are in full compliance with all of the grant stipulations and they are funding critical mental health services in our schools. This initiative has provided funds for elementary school mental health support for a care navigator Carol Perez to assist families in accessing mental health services and my position as mental health service coordinator. We've established a thriving wellness center at Berkeley Technology Academy um based on the data and experience from Berkeley High School. And that um wellness center at Btech also houses their peer-to-peer mentoring program funded by this grant and also supports um the grant also supports counseling interns with a
078stipend for their service. The grant is also helping us strengthen and build a stronger partnership with the city of Berkeley family youth and children services. Also, because we do have a mental health services coordinator now, we have been able to take advantage of a generous offer from Senica and they agreed to place five therapists in our district at no cost to us. So, we took our needs assessment that we had conducted that was paid for by this grant and we thought about where is the best place based on the needs assessment to put these five therapists. So, we put one in each of our middle schools and one therapist is at BTE housed in the wellness center that the grant funded. And then we have a new therapist doing um newcomer work. So she's splitting
079her time between King and Sylvia Mendes. Next slide. So in addition to continuing the programs that I mentioned below, the second half of the grant period is really supposed to be focused on sustainability. And as we are looking at many budget cuts in our district, which we are all very sadly well aware of, um we have explored the option to join the California Youth Behavioral Health Initiative fee schedule as a potential revenue source for our mental health service provision. Uh this is a initiative that's statewide and California is beginning to reimburse schools for student mental health services and BUSD offers as you know quite an extensive level of support for mental health for our students. But the future funding is a challenge. So, we're looking at the California Youth Behavioral Health uh initiative fee schedule
080and working with our city partner as well as our current community- based organizations who we already have in place in our elementary schools and Senica to secure sustainable funding so we can continue the vital mental health services for our students. Thank you. All right. And as we close out this presentation, just wanted to share with you a few next steps. Obviously, we're analyzing the spring data um as this information will help contribute to our annual update for the LCAP um and our strategic plan. We do have our 2025 annual planning survey data um which gave us a robust amount of information and um we've wrapped up and are waiting for the California Healthy Kids Survey um data to to come back to us. We are, as you know, in the budget development process. As part
081of this process, we are also um using um some of our spring an analysis um to determine the future use of our learning recovery block grant funds and our title 4 funds, both of which um provide uh allowability to use for mental health services. Um and as Rosena just shared, our fee schedule implementation is going to require some internal infrastructure. We'll continue to get guidance from ACOE, but that is potentially a revenue generating opportunity for B USD that, you know, we'll probably start off small, but as we work to grow, it can help um generate some funds. And then with that, should we do a drum roll? I feel like we need to do a drum roll. March Madness winners. You got the next slide. Okay. So, just so you know, we had two competitions
082going at the same time. We had group competitions and then we had overall uh competition for you know all the uh schools in the district. So for group one um which were the early start schools u Berkeley Arts Magnet uh brought home the the title. For group two, it was Washington Elementary School and then Willard Middle School for the middle schools and the ninth grade uh class uh for high school and then Ruth Aki had the highest overall attendance rate. So just to give you a quick couple of numbers. So Ruth AI's attendance rate for the month of March was 96.6% which is their highest month that they have had since October. Right? So they, you know, blew away. Washington achieved their highest rate, which was 95% since since September. So the month of March
083was better than every month that preceded it except for September. Um, BAM, they received their highest rated month since December, which is 95.2%. Willard, uh, their attendance rate was 95.3 and then the ninth grade class had an attendance rate of 94.7. And so, you know, there it was a it was a I think it was an excellent um competition. Kids were excited. Um we you know, we passed it all kind of little awards and different things. Uh school sites were promoting attendance. Um we still have a lot of work to do around Fridays, Mondays before holidays and after holidays. So, that's our next um uh focus area that we'll focus on improving the attendance rates on those days. But, we continue to exceed where we were the year before. And so, we have a couple
084of months left for school. So, we have to ride this momentum to finish strongly. So, that's that's what I'm going to be pushing with the school sites. Let's finish. Thank you all uh so much for your uh presentation, especially the excitement uh at the end. And so a huge uh shout out to our schools who did such a great job uh with the March Madness competition and um our schools who did win. We're going to take questions from the board of education. I'll start uh as my colleagues get their questions together. I have a few questions around attendance and suspension. So we'll start there. Um so we in in your chart I can't remember which page it is on but um we saw an increase in chronic absentee absenteeism um specifically at some of the
085grades in at the high school level um which you know those of us who went to Berkeley High School can come up with many different theories of why um we we saw that uh increase but um we also I also want to appreciate uh you all sharing um the improving attendance actions. Um, and they're really awesome, especially uh the textbot director uh K and Liz and I were talking last week about uh the textbot um updates that you all send to parents to to keep them informed and to um not just ask them why their students were absent, but to also connect them with resources that may help um uh students get to school. And so I think including me as a parent who receives texts from the text. No, not just you, all the
086parents. Um, and but but those things are really really great. But what um else can we do to support the decrease of chronic absenteeism at the high school level? And I'm asking that question specifically um because we know that it looks different. And so because it looks different at the high school levels um the needs are different. And it could be a range of things from engagement to um schedules uh to even suspensions to there are a number of things. And so um what's the story? What's the need? And what can we um do to support? I mean well you you kind of touched upon it. I mean there's a range of reasons why students may miss school, right? And just like fingerprints, you know, you're going to have different needs, you're gonna have different
087risk factors and different barriers. And so really, you know, first focusing on tier one interventions for all students and then providing individualized support for those students who have uh tier 2 and tier three needs. Typically, your tier three needs are going to uh be uh support that go just beyond the school, but also include community partners. Um and so there are there are students for example now that we're working with them and their families and providing for example transportation support but understanding that um there's still underlying challenges that this the family may be experiencing and how can we connect them with resources um uh to support them. But I think one of the other uh big things is again raising awareness around the importance of attending school every single day. um you know talking about
088you know potential learning loss um and then you know again changing the culture uh at a partic at a school site where it's a culture of attendance right and we're constantly talking attendance constantly communicating with families constantly understanding what their needs are and then addressing those particular needs if I could add just a a concrete bullet to give you like a glimpse of discussions that happen right so when we um when we are faced with having to issue a consequence for a behavior that's not okay, the administrative team is always looking for um alternative means of correction, right? And so we're looking at what how do we stop that behavior from happening again and how do we teach? And so when you ask like what can we do, it is um for me and the
089admin team and all of the support teams on campus, teachers would agree we um we need to be able to have what we're starting to have behind the scenes uh implementing capacity building and time items for school counselors for the RJ staff or the wellness team. And those teams of people are getting really specific with the type of PD that they want and are creating for themselves. And so that work is going to influence our ability to then make space for a student, for example, who got suspended and then on their re-entry needs to now have a certain set of counseling meetings to be able to develop uh communication and relational skills with that teacher. So brief interventions. So being able to fund fe people who can do that and have those PD opportunities is
090going to influence our system. Thank you. Um I appreciate hearing uh both of those responses and also want to um shed some light on the importance of engagement and keeping our students engaged at the high school level because that plays a a huge role um in what classes our students decide to show up to, what days our students decide to show up on. Um, and so I'm really looking um to our high school staff um and you know, our high school uh administrators as well as our uh educators who will uh work together to think about and to reimagine what engagement looks like uh for our high school students. Um I know sometimes it becomes the same thing, warmed up uh for our students and we want to keep them um engaged. number one um
091because we know as we talked about earlier that it does have a direct impact to our budget but more importantly than that we know that kids can't learn if they're not in the seats and our most important uh goal here is to ensure that our kids are learning and so if we need to be um the the uh pioneers of engaging students and keeping them um engaged at school and wanting to continue to come to school especially by the time they reach senior senior year. Um then I'd love to to partner with you all and to hear some uh cool ideas and innovative ways in which we could do that. Um next moving on to um suspensions. First, Dr. Shelley, I'd like to appreciate uh you calling out um that our um black and African-American
092students are still disproportionately um suspended uh as it relates to um their their counterparts. Um, but I do want to take a moment to celebrate how far we've come um as a district. When I first joined uh the board of education way back in wander the wander years, a million years ago um back in 2018, uh we just uh went through a process that helped us to uh reduce suspension and expulsion rates for our black and African-American students. Um and at that time they were double almost three times as much as what we are seeing now. And so, um, we do have a lot to be proud of, um, because of that reduction. And I know that it is, uh, really the the work of so many things, uh, the working together, restorative practices, um,
093things that you mentioned earlier that helped us to reduce those, um, suspension rates for our black and African-American students, as well as policies that were written by, uh, the board of education that helped to reduce our expulsion rates. And so, um, I'm happy to see that number dwindling down, but I do want to appreciate you for, um, calling out what is true and what is, um, still happening in BUSD. Um, the data was, uh, disagregated, of course, by race and by, uh, socioeconomic status as well, um, as a uh, opportunity to highlight uh, suspensions for our special education students. But I'd like to know also know uh which divisions meaning elementary, middle, and high school were we seeing the bulk of our suspensions. Uh knowing that this information will help us to be intentional about
094our support services and restorative practices uh being making those uh practices and services division specific. And so if we don't have that data uh today, I'd like to receive that at another time. Yes, I we can get that for you. I mean, I know offhand that the majority of the suspensions are in secondary, so I do know that, but we can get the exact numbers. Okay. Thank you. That would be great. And then um once we do know that, in the same way that you were mentioning um using our counselors to to support um and help uh sus with our suspension or think about alternatives to suspension, it would be great to see that happening uh at the middle school level as well. Go ahead. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. You Thank you. Thank you very
095much. We're colleagues. Do you have questions? Uh we'll go with director Shinoski and director Vasu Dev and then director Shinoski. Sure. I just wanted to thank you for the presentation and I love seeing the data about the wellness center. That was um really exciting for me that you're collecting that data and also I just wanted to know like how we're learning from it. So um one question was about group. I noticed that the students are identifying that they're attending a group meeting. So I had a question if that's group mental health and just kind if you could just kind of give us an idea of the kind of group meetings are taking place at the wellness center. That's one question. And then the second question I'm noticing that stress is a big factor why students
096are coming into the wellness center either academic stress or just general feelings of stress. Wanted to dig in a little deeper into that. Um and if we're looking at is it you know college related stress? Is it a particular class? is it, you know, what are what are the stressors general like large buckets and how can we better support um students with with the stresses that they're identifying at the high school. Those are my two questions. Thanks for asking that. Um as far as groups um we have a community partner Nairoa longtime um partner at least at Berkeley High School and um two times a week there is a facilitator who comes in and they work closely with the RJ coordinators and there are identified students who participate in um in mindful breathing practices. So,
097there's one-on-one depending on the class period. There's a one-on-one um sessions for students who need a tier three level one-on-one space to do that and practice that coping strategy. And then also there's um a a boys group and a girls group that do that breathing. We also currently have two student uh two different titled groups that are being hosted by school psychologist uh with students in special education. And so um I'm going to get this I can't remember the second title but like executive functioning is one and and another one um is maybe social and behavioral based to assist students again with strategies and um and relationship building. So those are three groups that go on in the wellness center right now. Your other question is is a question that we'll um keep asking and
098that's where the work is. It's super clear by the student data that their reporting of stress and anxiety um related to the classroom. It there's a whole continuum of their why and their specific reason. And that's the workspace that we're in. And so we want to understand more on an individual basis because the screener just gives us that tagline, that category, and the ways in which we're preparing ourselves to dig in and learn more about students anxiety and stress and what we can do to amilarate that um is multi-prong. Um, an example is the coordinator of the wellness center is currently piloting in one classroom, a nth grade classroom, um, a a wellness um, area and in which the teacher is going to um, observe what items students are taking um, for to relieve stress
099or whatever energy they have and then get some feedback from students. So, we're piloting. We want to see what's happening in a classroom or what a teacher can do about that. A second thing is there are universal classroom presentations that are providing students information to understand what's happening in their bodies. Um example a school counselor is um has presented to classrooms in her learning community about identifying what stress and burnout feels like particularly around the college um entrances. So those are two anecdotes. I could go on, but we're we're testing right at a universal level. What's the prevention? If I start to understand and be aware of what's happening in my body, then I can engage when I'm one-on-one or in a group with what coping strategy might I do to to then work on
100that. And so for that, I need that whole team, the R.J. coordinators, all my counselors and everyone. Director Shanoski. Yeah, I have two sort of separate threads of questions. One, so first, attendance. So, um, the 11% chronically absent. I mean, it's one in 10 students is chronically absent in our district. So yes, it's a budgetary issue and yes, it also impacts that student and it also impacts the other students in the classes that they're missing, you know, as as students try to make up work. And so, um, I I just want to, you know, one in 10 students is chronically absent. That's a lot of students that are missing a lot of school. Um, and so I'm looking at some of the improvement data that's listed and it's a little bit hard to look at
101for me as a as a science person because it's percentages and so a lot of those categories are are small small groups and so the percentages are a little bit misleading. So I would love to see actually like numbers of students rather than percentages in those kinds of presentations. Um because I think it tells a more uh real story. Um and then the other thing I'm wondering is you know the changes are quite small and if you look at attendance data for the last like five years or so we see sort of these small fluctuations. So I'm wondering the data is great but the data is only great if we have you know some kind of idea about why it's changing. So do we have any ideas about why it's changing? Like if we look
102at um the March Madness winners and we say March was the best month you know um since September for a particular school. Is there something that they implemented? Is there something that's scalable and something that we can really um sort of test to see if it's if it is scalable and if it actually is the change that made a difference. I I would be really curious about that um information. And I would also like to suggest that um I think some of the communication strategies are great. I think you know texting people, sending letters are great, but it really is like the personal connections that are going to keep kids coming. And so I think um it's really important for us as a board to really consider the investment in education as an investment in
103attendance. Um and that it requires more than a text that a a parent has to respond to or a letter that can easily be thrown in the recycling bin and has, you know, no real impact or support. Um, usually if kids in my experience are missing school, they're missing something's going on, right? And so we have to find out. I realize it is individual, but um, yeah. So that's my attendance comments and questions. I guess they're all comments. Um, okay. The wellness center is actually a question. Um so the wellness center was really um a lot of the work around putting the wellness center in at Berkeley High and collaborating with the city was in response to a student suicide. And my understanding of the wellness center and the way that students um utilize it
104is they they really have to sort of out themselves in class as wanting to go to the wellness center. and that the wellness center for many students it's like a drop in for 10 minutes, you know, and then they have to go back to class. So, both of those things to me are not super supportive of crisis of kids that are in crisis um and may not be comfortable saying, you know, often when tragedy strikes, people are like, I had no idea. Um, so I'm wondering what kind of outreach we're doing with kids to normalize discussions about mental health and making sure that that space isn't just a space that we think is great and that we think is is helping um with mental health issues, but this but is actually making a difference. Yeah,
105thanks for that. So, uh, the wellness center um is not our crisis response. the folks who lead our crisis response, which is actually a care response on campus, they deploy to a space where a student might be noticed or observed um to need a a counselor or caring adult to interface with them to see what's happening. Um, so students are not, um, if a student's comfortable enough and they walk through those doors and they're in crisis, they get they get assistance that way as well. But what we've normalized on campus um for adults is to call a care response when we see a student whether it's a tier three actual crisis or learn of a student who's in crisis to a student who might just be having um uh need some emotional support for something
106that they can easily regulate about. Um and the wellness center dropin space um is being used for students who are not exper it's not it's for anybody who does need a break. So when you see the high rates of students with 504s and IEPs showing up, it's because those are kids who have a higher likelihood of needing built-in breaks in their day. And so they are advocating for themselves and their time and utilizing the wellness center appropriately. And that's a really great skill, right? And it's actually a lot of students goals like how can I acknowledge when I need a break? Um go utilize that, give myself that time and then re-engage with my learning. That's the kind of break we want to encourage. And that's what's starting to be normalized on our campus. Did
107I miss something else you asked? I guess what I wanted to convey to you is there's like this whole ecosystem and we talk about a counseling and wellness department and everything's not happening in the wellness center but the wellness center is our gateway and our hub. you referenced um kind of the case that really initiated the outpouring of resources. And something I want people to know is what we learned about our big campus is that there needed to be one place that was always open so that if there was a student who didn't know where to go, they could land there. And that's what's happening. Thanks, director. Um I have a couple of questions and comments that sort of build on things that have already been said. So um first about attendance, I was similar
108to uh President Brown, I was struck by some of the grade levels where we're seeing increases in chronic um absence and I noticed that sixth grade and nth grade were two of those grade levels. And it made me think about all the talk earlier tonight about the transition fair and whether that's an opportunity starting this month to begin to partner with families to help um improve those um attendance rates at sixth grade and 9th grade and help figure out what support those kids need in order to be in school consistently in sixth grade and nth grade. So that was my first thought. Um, and then my second thought, um, kind of building on the conversation about the the the text bot that talks to me a lot in my phone and the the letters in
109the mail. Um, I mean, it's really my experience as both a parent and an educator that the what's most effective is to director Brown's point really robust classroom engagement and um relationships and all of the presentation about attendance focused on sort of district level systems for communicating with families about attendance and then site level sort extra supports like OFI, but I think there's this piece about what are classroom teachers doing to engage their kids and to be in partnership with families to keep their kids in school that has to be part of the puzzle. And I know our teachers are very busy and working really hard already, but this is this is a really critical piece of the work. Um, so I don't know if anybody wants to respond to that or if that's just
110a comment, but No, I I can answer the question. So when we're talking about the technologist for example that is a piece it's just a piece of what we do right so teachers are still calling parents they're still holding parent conferences uh admin assistance principles are still contacting with families we're still um working with our um student welfare and attendance liaison who does home visits so you know so when we talk about the nudges the way I look at those is no more different than you know giving a a parent an update on math or giving them an update on how their child is doing in uh English language arts. We're just giving you information around attendance because we know that um you know missing a day here, missing a day there and without really
111even realizing it, it just sneaks up on you and you've missed 10 days, right? And so it's providing parents with additional information, but also letting them know that we do have additional supports. So even though you may be receiving uh messages via textbox which can then connect you with resources both within the district and within the community, we also are following up with families as well. And so um you know our attendance clerks for example at the high school work very hard to to engage with families. Thank you for that. Um, I also had a wellness center question which is that I recently met with the uh Aegis group, the alliance of gender expansive students at Berkeley High School. Um, and there was a lot of conversation in that group about needs for greater mental
112health supports um for at Berkeley High. Um, so I was struck in your presentation that you had disagregated the data and looked at students with 504s and IEPs, black and Latino students. Um, but there was nothing about our LGBTQ plus students on that um, slide um, which seems like a really important population to be targeting. We know that there's lots of evidence that they're very vulnerable population in terms of mental health in high school. So, how are we how are we also outreaching to those kids and making sure that they are getting access to the supports and services that they need and counting and measuring that. Yeah. Um yeah, I'll leave it at that. Yeah, absolutely. I um I have data on um uh I have other data points that we can share offline with
113you. There were just so much that I picked some highle public ones um and can absolutely include that in any like future. Um but I we do have it to share after the meeting for you to see that. Um some some noticings are there are lots of different subgroups of students who you know we want to get to the wellness center. And so what we've done this year is each month when the wellness center coordinator looks at uh she looks at data each month, who showed up, who's showing up, sharing it with the admin team, um sharing it with a few other support teams and asking what's missing, who's missing. And so what we've done is we've added in, oh, let's who's not coming from the M building all the way across school. and we
114noticed like that was a light um students who were in the M building were not coming to visit and so we thought do we need advertising so we're changing what we're doing so that we can make some out targeted outreach um similar we wanted to know okay what learning communities right um our students who identify um uh more openly as in the LGBTQI community um are located and um tend to be part of a particular learning community not exclusively and so we can do things like have outreach right now it's been very superficial um you know naming in a G-Shack meeting there's space to host if you want to you know have group meetings there but we haven't had a targeted um person to draw them in and so that's something that we can absolutely
115work on they see the adults who facilitate the groups in meetings and already had those trusting relationships and so I think there hasn't been incentive to move where they meet and congregate um and so there's just some outreach that needs to be done. Thank you for that Vice President Chang. Yeah, thank you so much. Um, thanks for this presentation and uh the trends look very promising and and I appreciate all the effort and intentionality that's gone into this uh with regard to the suspensions as well as the attendance. Um, my question and I'm I'm sorry for your many many questions on the wellness center. Um yeah and and I think it's because it's such an amazing program and a great space and you referred to it as this important kind of portal or um gate
116function gateway gateway gateway and a hub and I really like that and I know we we've had this conversation before as well but in this broader context um one is I really appreciate your raising that this is an important space for students with disabilities um in particular those uh you know have manifestations that are associated with executive functioning and anxiety which covers a broad range. Um, and that's an important space where they can also, um, self- advocate and go utilize that space. Um, uh, I think that's amazing. And I'm thinking because, um, manifestations of disabilities, um, tend to become flagged early on before high school, in middle school in particular, some of those manifestations start to emerge, and you see 504 and IEP plans. um uh you know that's the time and space often times
117when when parents and students and teachers become aware um and formalize those accommodations. Um uh I just want to support and emphasize um bringing the work that you're doing at the high school with this gateway and hub. While we may not have wellness quote unquote centers in our three middle schools, some type of space or learning or practice because that is where our students are first manifesting or we are becoming aware of the manifestations of their disabilities. So transitioning them earlier is going to make a big difference in the high school setting. Um, so this is a a kind of a us together type of project and I support that and in the future you know if there's like information upon that I'm not saying you have to have it now but um ways in
118which we we have been able to you know convert that um that uh understanding and and um skill set down to the middle schools. Absolutely. Sharing scaling and whatnot. And um just to comment briefly on it, it's all new, right? We're in this development phase, but uh Rosena partners constantly with me. And so we're learning and sharing knowing that um the same way that Berkeley High was just the first to have a wellness space that um BTE was the priority to do next and Rosina made that happen. And so we're because we're growing, we're share we're aligning practices and and doing that together. Um and so we definitely have that as part of the plan knowing middle school, elementary schools, what's appropriate in those spaces and how do we replicate and I'll give that to
119you. Sorry. Um yeah, the the Berkeley High and their wellness center starting things off and setting things in place and creating systems was amazing. our middle schools do have quite a number of resources for our children for the very reasons that you've mentioned. So back in 2015 when we were looking at LCAP and how are we going to spend that money um at that time we decided to put the money in restorative justice counselors in the middle schools. So each middle school has an RJ counselor. Um, also Longfellow now ha has their UMOA counselor and Longfellow and um, Berkeley High share a Pentec um, setting up a wellness center in every middle school is um we definitely have the data to show that it will be useful. We have um for example, when I was
120at Longfellow, we kept data on who came to what was then room one, and now they call it um the brain break room at the new at the adult school, but we have the data to show that students would definitely come through if we had they do come in the spaces that exist, but it would be really nice to be able to have actual designated larger spaces. And I know that when they're looking at the facilities for Longfellow, they're looking at that also. And um King also has various spaces throughout the school that they're using for that purpose. Yeah. And I I guess what I would hope that you would hear is that, you know, back to our theory of change and improvement. Like we're trying to be data informed and we recognize that this
121work sits in a continuous improvement landscape. Right? These are some new strategies that we've been trying. Some things have worked, some things have not worked. we're getting feedback and input most importantly from our students but also from our staff about how to make that better. Um and I think um one of the things that I do appreciate about the work that uh both Dorene and Rosena have been leading is this intentionality around starting smaller. So what can we do first? How do we learn from that before we scale and spread, which is an important component of any any process that we're doing in a school district, but particularly, you know, it's it's great for us to be able to say we want wellness centers everywhere, but if we don't understand like the nuances, the resources
122that are needed to support that work. And I think one of the challenges that we're facing is where where do where are we going to have consistent resources to sustain this work over time? Um we are providing for mental health counselors at the elementary school through our learning recovery block grant that is going to expire. Um we know that we'll be able to generate some funds um if we can get the fee based reimbursement um online but um but it's $800,000 for the mental services that we're providing at our elementary schools. and then we can add up the counseling staff that is necessary to be able to support um these these programs. So, we definitely want to do the work. We know that this is an important um support for our students. We know that
123in order for them to feel safe and come to school, we also need to provide spaces for them to be able to process those stressors that they're happening. Um but we also have to recognize that those the re the resources that are needed for that um before we we do large scale um large scale work. And I would just also add another learning that we have with any uh change or continuous improvement effort in just in the vein of starting small is in how do we make sure that we are training all of our staff that the systems and structures that we see to your point director Shinoski that perhaps are working for attendance or are working with the wellness center are not um exclusive to small groups or to oneoffs but really becomes the
124norm and the culture of of the school and the school system. And so as we are doing things smaller, starting small and learning, we do also acknowledge the reality that there are experiences that were shared in this presentation that are likely not the experiences of every parent or every student um in BUSD. And that is our goal. That's the end to scale. Um but there's a lot more learning that we have to do along the way. Thank you all so much for uh your presentation and for taking all of our questions. We appreciate your work and um are excited about uh the continuous improvement that we will see as it relates to um LCAP goal number three. Thank you all. Uh we will take a quick break and then we will go into our presentation,
125our budget presentation. I saw you enjoy. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Bye. Bye. See you guys tomorrow. tomorrow. I am also You are Chop it down. Start it now. He wants me to start your clock now. Start the clock. I'm gonna move forward. Jessica, can you pick up your stuff? I'll see you. Yes, sir. first. Well, I knew it was going to be a long night, but hey, from here the rest of the week's downhill, right? That's right. I'm just saying You're right. Yeah, right. She's working out. It's coming up on So, I hope you enjoyed my presentation. All right, CL have too many things to try and look at at the same time. Let me see anybody. All right. Uh we are moving to um our second discussion item of the night item 15.2
126which is an um update on the Berkeley Unified School District uh budget balancing um process. And so I'm happy to uh invite assistant superintendent of business services Pauline Farensby uh who will lead us in this presentation. Welcome. Thank you, President Brown. Um so this evening we're going to be going over the budget balancing solution. I'll be giving an update in terms of where we are in the process and other things that are influencing um our budget balancing process and our target and um a quick overview of next steps. And this worked earlier and now it's not working. So um as as with other presentations um it's um is grounded in our mission to enable and inspire diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and make positive contribution to the world. And we do this by
127um employing our four E excellence, equity, engagement and enrichment. Next slide. Um and on this slide we have a an overview of the agenda. We're going to talk a little bit about the target um and that's our goal for budget balancing. Um but this is impacted by the governor's um budget update. So I'm going to share a bit of um an update with you on that. Then I'm going to let you know where we are in terms of getting to our target. Um first of all understanding the process. um looking at the road map where what's our goal and where we've reached so far and then the actual proposals that we've um undertaken and then a brief summary of next steps. So um so in terms of identifying the target um we did this when
128we did our multi-year projections we're currently in year 2425 and as part of that presentation we do a multi-year projection for two subsequent years. So the year that we're currently working on is 2526 which is the second year of our budget balance of our multi-year projection. Um and it's important for us to understand what informs a target. So next slide. So um I mentioned the second interim um presentation. So when we came to the board um for the second interim we had to present u multi-year projections. This is a summary um or a snapshot of our multi-year projections and why this is relevant is because we actually use the multi-year projections to come up with our bud our budget balancing solution. So the first page um has a lot of our revenue assumptions or um
129our ADA and enrollment assumptions and what we know um building our budget from assumptions re um from the governor's um January budget we updated the 2526 numbers. So on the next slide the next slide is where you would see the target that we're actually um working towards. it's the 7.6 million um in 2526 with an additional two 200,000 2627. So with this um with this target in other words um reducing expenses or increasing revenue by this amount this will give us basically a balanced budget where we're spending pretty much the same amount that we're bringing in in 2526. And that would actually give us an um an an ending fund balance or an an undesated ending fund balance of 1.2 million for 2526. So um so this there's actually we had no change in in
130the target even though we know some things have changed in terms of the governor's budget. Um so the things that impact the target um on this slide we're talking about the f the governor's budget. What we're working with is a January assumption. When we get the final um governor's budget is going to possibly impact our target as well. Um and within the proposals the two things that I want us to focus on um are the block grants and the TK add-on in LCFF. So we can go to the next slide. So, as can you do me a favor? Can you go back just uh two slides over for just a second? This this slide. Mhm. Did you have questions? I don't have a question yet. I just wanted to um give us a a second
131to look at it for just a minute. So, this is what we shared at the second interim, the multi-air projections. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, um before we kind of start looking at numbers, we have to understand the process and what what guides us and what we're actually um some of the steps we're taking to actually meet the target. So, next slide. So on this slide we have our core values of resource allocations as well as some of the steps that we have implemented to try and meet this target. So our core values of of resource allocation it's important because we want to make sure that we're whatever we're doing is equitable. There's transparency, excellence, engagement, sustainability and um stability. Um a lot of times we do one-time solutions which is really not
132sustainable and it's not a the best way to actually um achieve our our um budget balancing target. But in some cases we are forced to use one-time solutions which means that we have to actually kick the can down the road for the following year. And on the right side you can see the various steps that we're implementing. We're evaluating and removing vacant positions as well as other steps um listed on that slide. And this is the way that we're kind of looking at the low lowest hanging fruit first and then kind of progressing and looking at other steps in terms of um how we're looking at the budget and how we're trying to come up with these budget budget balancing solutions. Next slide. And this is just um more of the process in terms of
133looking at all our proposals, making sure there's engagement, looking at possible bud budget um reductions, working with our budget um partners to come up with decisions that we will bring to the board for voting. Um next slide. And as I mentioned, um our target has been um is it is impacted by the governor's January budget. And I just want to go through two things here that actually impacted our target. So the first one is the cola. So um what we got um before the governor's budget, we were looking at year 2526 is the focus. So you can see before we got the governor's budget, the cola was 2.93 for 2526 and 2627 3.52 3.63 and 3.49. 49. What's significant um is when we um got the governor's budget, the cola was actually reduced to 2.43%.
134And we were asked to actually take that into a cons consideration when building um the multi-year at second in. Now each percentage is about a million. So 0.5 um% would would equate to about $500,000. So, we actually lost $500,000. That's displayed on the next slide. Um, so, um, you can see that, um, in terms of what we were thinking we were going to get at the 2.93 versus the 2.43, we lost $501,000 in base funding and $29,000 in supplemental. So, this is already included in the um in the second interim numbers that I shared with you. And this is taken into account um in the $7.6 million target that we're working with. Um next slide. Um these are other proposals that were in the governor's um January proposed budget. Um you can see the LCFF
135add-on. I'm only focusing on two things here. Um the LCFF add-on um would give us about $769,000. And there's also a new discretionary block grant that everybody got really excited about. We didn't have a lot of information at the time. Um but we've since gotten information about the grant as well as how it should be treated um moving forward. So let's go to the next slide. So, the block grant um what we received um after the governor after we went to the governor's workshop um the January workshop was that we were going to get this block grant $323 per ADA. We're told it was to going to be totally discretionary. We could use it for increasing costs. Um it was flexible. Um it was it was one time but at the same time $3 million
136sounded really good to us just in terms of well this would definitely help our 7.9 target. However um we were advised by ACE um who we actually work with closely and school services to say there are too many unknowns about this grant. Um at that time we were talking about the fires. um we're not sure if we're going to be getting it on a straight ADA basis. There may be some up factors um put in place. So, we're still cannot count the on this 3 million because we might meet um the revised requirements and it's not going to be as flexible as we thought. They think they're going to be putting more guidelines. This is information that we received from school services and acco and that's um we use those assumptions to build our budget.
137Next slide. Um we mentioned briefly the the TK add-on. Um that that factor was 3,152. Um, in the January budget, um, there was a proposal to increase it to 6,000 um, 404, which would give us about 7 to800,000 more. Again, in this situation, a lot of unknowns. Not sure we're going to actually receive it. So, we're advised not to take this into account. So, that's about $3.8 million, which we could love to score, but we're advised not to, and we have to comply with that. Um so this is the summary all the other things um we were advised to develop tentative internal plans. In other words when I present the second interrum to the um to the various to the um to acco um the items on the on in the right column um included.
138The only thing that we could technically include would have been the 2.43 43 cola, which means that we were losing um $500,000. So, um still no no concrete news on the $3.8 million that we're kind of hoping we will get, but we have to move um to move forward as if it's not there because we have been advised um to do that by ACOE. And this slide, no go back, sorry. And this slide just kind of um reminds everybody it's really really um rough weather ahead and of course we're going to have to make tradeoffs. We can't do everything. We can do some things and this is becoming more obvious as we're trying to meet our $7.6 million target. So um proposals these are actual proposals um working with the superintendent's budget advisory committee um
139staff we've actually come up with proposals that I will share with you on the next few slides. So um this is our overall road map and I know our superintendent wants to see a map but we're not getting a map. She I was clowned in um in sback anyway. Um, so we talked about a 7.6. I was trying to actually get a map to put on this slide. So anyway, this is a road map and um the target that we're are looking at is a $7.6 million. So we've had several meetings with ESBAC. We started um in the fall last year. We started early um even before we got the January um the governor's January budget just because we knew that we were facing significant budget balancing solutions. So um at our February 26th meeting,
140we proposed $1.3 million. We reassessed that at our March 26th meeting and decided $211,000 would no longer be applicable to be scored. So, our revised phase one is $1.1 million and at at February 26th, we actually brought phase 2 $2.7 million. So, we have a total of 3.7 3.8 eight and we're actually just about halfway um halfway um to our target but we're we're currently working on phase three that we will be taking back to ESBback and I think we have close to a million dollars. So it's it's been a slow process but we're getting to a point um where we're our goal is obviously the $7.6 6 million. And tonight's update is just to give you an idea of where we are in terms of meeting that target. Okay. And here are some of
141the strategies that we're um employing. Um the and and we're not bringing I'm not bringing the actual strategies onto ESBAG votes on them. I'm just giving an overview of where we are. So, we've um we have evaluated and removed approximately um positions totaling half a million dollar. We have eliminated expenses covered in other funding sources approximately 110,000. We have transferred $70,000 to other funding sources and we've consolidated and reduced positions um of about 399,700. There'll be a presentation tonight on the March layoff notices. Some of them have been rescended. Um but the ones that we are noticing that we have included here, they have received March 15th letters um to the extent that they're filled. So that's the $1.1 million in phase one. Um in phase two, we used um three strategies, actually two main
142strategies. retruded up program costs and um and we made sure that allocations matched the true cost. That gave us about $1.1 million. And then we looked at revenue and this was actually the projected change in enrollment and um ADA that we we um we determined we would get about another $1.6 million. So um and again this is this will be brought back to the board in detail for voting after ESBAC actually votes on them. So to summarize um phases one and two total $3.8 million. Phase one included 16 proposals um and some of the things that we included um we eliminated extra hours. We removed vacant TSA positions as well as several other strategies. Phase two includes three proposals and that mainly cover the impact of increased enrollment on revenue which also impacts a transfer
143that we got that we will get in from BP. So um in terms of um working with our superintendent budget advisory committee, they received um proposals in phases one and two and we actually did a straw poll on March 26 just to see which which um proposals they were voting to move forward. So nine of the 16 got a unanimous approval to move them forward to be voted on at a later date. Two got majority yes votes. So that's 11 so far. Three were removed from consideration. Um they needed additional information and two received a no or re needed additional information. So it's it's a pretty positive um straw poll and we'll be working um to actually get these to a vote. Once they're voted on, we can um we can bring them to the
144board for final approval. Next slide. This is just a summary of the next steps. Um, we're going to be you will be receiving vote detailed proposals for your vote after ESBAC actually votes on them. We are compiling phase three and we'll be presenting that at the next meeting. We're hopeful that we'll get over a million dollars there. And of course, our goal is to continue to use budget balancing strategies to ensure that we meet the entire $7.6 million target. So now I will take um questions or any um any clarification needed. Yes. Thank you, Assistant Superintendent Finsby. Um I'm sure we have a number of questions. Um I'll start. Um in terms of uh the block grant, I just want to make sure I understand this correctly. um despite the guidelines is the recommendation that
145we don't um apply to take the block grant or that we just are advised not to score it in our budget. So it's not an application process. Um we are just advised not to score it in our budget at this time and I know there's some literature or some concerns being shared but um like all our budgets we rely on guidance from school services the dart board and the advice of Alama County who reviews our budget and who determines whether we have met their guidelines um for them to accept it. Okay. So, it's just that we do not score that we're not scoring we're not scoring this time and and we're going to need to get more information. Okay. Um the reason I'm asking is because I think it's significant as we uh talk about
146how much money we need to cut. Um knowing that potentially there there may be money down the line um but but if the advice is not to score it for many reasons then um then I can understand that. And when that information was shared with ESPback, what was the response? Um, there wasn't um I think there was some discussion I think in at the last meeting where some union members thought that well, you know, they they they received some information that they thought it was more likely. I'm I'm relying on the guidance from ACE and school services which says it's just there are too many unknowns on this time for us to even think about scoring it. And remember that this would be a one-time funding and we're trying to find ongoing solutions. So correct
147and typically in the past it hasn't been our practice to um budget and think about um one-time funds for an ongoing general budget. And so, right, we we have used one-time funds, but then we have to to think about it the following years as a temporary solution. That's right. That's correct. Thank you. Um, in addition to that, can you please go back to the road map page? Um, oh, me. Um, Liz, can you bring it up? President Brown, while that's being brought up, I just wanted to add a point of clarification. The conversation regarding the block grant. Um, there is different information, but the biggest difference in the information is not so much when we will get it or the likelihood of us getting it, but whether or not those funds will be discretionary or
148uh targeted in more more specific and kind of categorical way. So, just wanted to add that piece of clarification. And also we think there may be a UPP component and our our upper um onduplicated pupil percentage there. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Um in in terms of the revisions um the reduction for uh the $211,000 um what were specifically were those revisions that came back? Um there were positions at sites that we thought we could score. Um but then based on the in revised enrollment numbers we we determined that the positions that we thought would could be offered up um as a ba balanced budgeting solution would not be feasible. So we came up with a um we had come up with this number in February but as we get updated information and then we got
149updated information by the March meeting um we would revise um the amount that we had originally proposed. So it is a move I mean it is a moving target literally um and we're making proposals and revising them um and fine-tuning them as we're going along. So, so we got additional information that determined that one position that we're thinking of including would not be um would not actually count towards towards the budget. Okay. Thank you. And then if you could go to the third to last slide, please. This one right here. Oh, one more. Yep. This one right here. um the three items that were removed for consideration uh from the uh aspect committee. What were those three items? The these were three positions that we thought needed additional um we needed additional information. So, there
150were three positions that I think the unions asked us to pull um from consu. I mean, we'll be bringing it back, but they they just weren't ready to um I think they needed more information before they could even vote to move it forward or not. So, we'll be bringing it back to the next ESPback. Okay. And so, then we'll we'll either know after phase three, we we'll know the results of that after phase three. Okay. Thank you board colleagues. Director Shinoski, I have a couple questions um regarding the block grant. So, we should understand something about the block grant and whether or not we're getting it when the state budget is finalized. Correct. Right. But that's going to be in June. I I understand. I just want to be sure we do have a timeline
151for that. Um and then also the um the TK add-on. So, I just want to be sure I understand what you said. Um, I think what you said was that was about $3 million in additional funding, but we're not includ the block grant was 3 million. The TK was going to be 800,000. 800,000 to 800. Okay. And that that cor that that was supposed to be a correction for something that um that they thought needed to be chewed up in the state budget, but from early indicators, what they're saying is that the amount that they're putting on the 6,000, they think that was too much of a correction. So there's still a lot of um unknowns about that 800,000 that would impact our budget. Okay. So, we're talking about about $4 million that we could
152see coming to the district that we're currently cutting to avoid. Some of which may be ongoing and some of which may be one time. Correct. So, um I I am curious what our strategy will be, especially as we're talking about cuts to people if those resources actually come to our district and whether we're also planning for that. I I understand the approach to be very fiscally conservative, but I also um think that we need to be mindful of cuts being made that directly impact students um in classrooms, afterchool programs and so on. Right? So what we what our strategy has been in the past um we would have tiered proposals. So the ones that we would do um that are lowhanging fruit um like recognizing additional revenue etc. um eliminating vacant positions that would be
153like in the tier one bracket. So we used to present it like in $500,000 buckets or tanches that would be okay if we get additional funding. the ones that we wouldn't cut would be like at the bottom, you know, like the last 500,000. But the ones um we it would be like a tiered system. I I guess let me say it in a different way. If, for example, I give a layoff notice to my good colleague Jen Korn, um, and then I have $4 million in additional resources two weeks later. Um, I mean, how are we, you know, realistically planning our budget? I I understand like we're not going to cash any checks until we have those resources, but Right. So, let me explain. So Jen's rejection letter uh or laying off any pos any
154layoffs that impact people um would be in like the last tier. So to the extent that we get 3 million then we wouldn't we wouldn't do the last 500. So we would be like um rescending budget reductions if you will. So let me say it in a different way maybe. So, I think the the challenge, director Shinoski, is the scenarios that uh assistant superintendent philans is giving is if we find out in advance that we're going to get those dollars back. And of course, if we find out that we're going to get some dollars, that tiered system will work. The problem is and the the challenge that we have this year that's unique I would say to this year is that we don't anticipate knowing um well enough in advance. So, if we if we
155talk about the budget timeline, typically around May 14th is the May revision. Um, but we have to, of course, as you know, by May 15th, let folks know, which means that prior to that, the board has to vote. And so I'll let Sam chime in, but it would honestly, it would not even be rescending because at that point, we could not rescend because I understand that. So I'm saying, what is our strategy for to utilize those resources? It would have to be to repo post positions and rehire. That would be the And again, Sam, you can chime in, but there's no other way for us to do it. And then also be compliant with the law in terms of timeline for notifying employees. But when we repost positions, do you recall back the people that
156were laid off first? So there's there's two pieces to it. One, we technically can rescend even after May 14th. Um but we the people may not be there. Um but the other piece is that everybody who does get laid off gets put on what's called the 39month rehire list and they are automatically contacted before we can hire anybody external um to see if they want the position. Thank you. That's what I was asking about. There's also a rehire list for uh certificated, but most certificated um don't end up staying on that list. Can you talk about the differentiation between the 39month hire list, rehire list for uh classified versus uh certificated difference between So the biggest difference is that um with the classified, if they get truly laid off, it actually gets extended another two
157years. So they end up for five years being on a list that they can still come back to us. If we ever open up a position, they have complete rights to it. We cannot fill it without offering it to them. Um for the certificated, they end up on a list where they are first call based on our agreement with the union that we contact them and see if they're still looking for a job and are interested. Um, but we are also doing all of our efforts ahead of time to try to make sure that even if we are like switching their positions that we're still trying to keep them um aligned, but they don't get the extra two years. Thank you uh for sharing that. It just feels um it it feels frustrating and scary
158to do. Um especially when we may have the possibility of having this despite the guidelines having um this funding from block grant and I understand and respect the um advisement to not score it. But what feels scarier than than that is to go through this process with our employees. But from early indications, the grants are going to be limited. It's not going to be a dollar amount per 80 and it's not going to be as unrestricted as they originally thought. So there's going to be some kind of caveat. So they they came out and said um only schools with up over 50% we would get zero. right? Or if they phased it in u we don't know how much it's going to be which is why we were fiscally advised by ACLE not to include
159there are too many unknowns um and the same thing with the block grant but um as we get information if we know that um if we get clarification that yes we are going to get some funding that would obviously impact the target which is what that slide was that I showed you. um this is the target and these are the things that are impacting the target. So, director Gordon, who is the decision maker about the block grant? Is it CDE? No, it's the state. It's the state. But who in the state? Is it the state legislature? It would I'm not sure exactly who in the state, but the proposal came from the governor. And in terms of he's going to work with his fiscal advisory team to determine how is that money going to be
160um given to the um to the schools. I guess I'm just wondering if there's any political pressure that could be applied to try to accelerate this process to give all all districts across California need this information sooner than than June. Right. So I would say that there's there's always space for that. there's political pressure, the opportunity for that, not only to advance the notification when schools will know, but also to inform that it's discretionary, etc. Because again, that was the point of confusion and that would make a significant difference if we were getting $3.8 million discretionary, then we can think about positions and programs, etc. But if we get 3.8 that is restricted funds, then we would only have to spend it those ways. And so again, that is why it would be um and
161I'm fiscally um not irresponsible to to to count money before you have it, but also to count money to be used in a certain way without having any idea if you can use it that way. And so that's why we're trying to proceed with as much caution as possible in addition to the fact that we were advised um not to score it. One thing I will add though is that as we are trying to get more information, one of the things that we um have started to do or will start to do with ESPback is to consider um what would we do if we got 100% of it discretionary, if we got uh 50% etc. So we're also trying to play with scenarios with the with the hope that we'll get some if not all
162of the dollars, right? And then remember this is the January proposal that we're working with. The governor also does a May revise and the interesting thing about the timing is that we have to build our budgets based on the May revise because even for the 2526 budget when we take it to the board for approval the governor has not come out with the final budget as yet. So that's why um when he comes out with his final budget, if there are significant changes, we would do what's called a 45day revise, which you're all familiar with. Vice President Chang, Director Vasadev, did you have any questions? Okay. Um I just want to remind thank you assistant superintendent fallins for your presentation for the the work during this very stormy uh weather as well as your partnership
163and collaboration um with the aspect committee. Um I just want to remind the board about next steps. This is just um an overall uh update about uh really the process and uh what you know our target is but there are um next steps that we will have to do and I want to ask um in those next steps we typically receive um in the p or in the past we've received um budget recommendations from the ESPback committee but we've also received recommendations from other committees as well specifically um the pack we've received it from DACA in the path um and those uh have been presented to the board for our consideration. So I was wondering if we are going to still follow that same process um and if so when will we see them a
164part of a budget presentation? So th those committees are actually in ESPback. So we've added um we've added PAC we've added G-Shack we've added um what is the other one anyway? So, so the before they were not included in ESPback, but with our revised bylaws, they're now they now have represent representation in ESPback and their votes are now included as part of ESPback. And so, we'll just receive one um recommendation from ESPback that includes representatives from all of those specific um uh committees, right? Instead of receiving uh the committee comments, correct? or committee recommendations. Yes. So, what what I'll be bringing back to the board will be um it's always three columns. So, we will say um staff recommendations, ESBback recommendations, and then bring it to you for a board for a final vote. Okay.
165Can I just add one clarification to that? Um the board will be receiving specific recommendations from both PAC and DAC relative to the LCAP. Um and so those recommendations will be shared with the board and we're required to respond to those recommendations as it pertains to the LCAP. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. We will uh now move on to our uh next and final presentation of the night which is the update on reduction in workforce uh specific to the March 15th notices. And so I'll invite the superintendent to uh come now for that presentation as well as assistant superintendent associate superintendent um Hoganike and assistant superintendent uh Tobias Espinosa. Good afternoon, directors and members of the public, both here in person and online. Um, we are cognizant of a time and are
166following up on the budget balancing update that you just received. um here to provide some clarification regarding the March 15th notices, specifically thinking about and responding to the resolutions that the board approved and received uh back in March March 5th, resolution 2525, 2526, as well as some other March 15th notices that were not necessarily publicly discussed in open session. Our hope is not only to provide clarification and updates on those notices, but also to share for some of those uh positions that were noticed some rationale and implications as well as to clarify next steps with the board of education. Um and so just following up on the conversation that we just had, um the timeline that schools usually engage in to develop and understand and confirm a budget um is a timeline that starts in
167January with the governor's budget and then ends um in July with the state budget enacted. And typically as a board of education uh not only in Berkeley but in other districts as well, you vote vote sorry on the final budget uh late May or June. as you can anticipate that is very late and last minute to notify um our educators both classified and or certificated as well as those who are unrepresented unrepresented if they have a position um in the district or not. And so as a precaution if you will or a safeguard uh there are laws in place that require that we notify employees of the potential of their position being reassigned, eliminated or reduced prior and in advance to the budget being approved um later in June. And those are what are commonly
168referred to as March 15th notices or reduction in forces. Um and so again our our intent this evening is to provide an update on that. Sorry, did you have your hand President Brown? Sorry. Thank you. So um you had heard director Shinaskki say earlier something that we've referred to several times in our ESPback committee is that about 80% of our budget here in B USD um pays for people um inclusive of programs because our programs are ran by people. And so when we think about our entirety, the entirety of our budget, we're talking about salary and benefits of about 80% of that total budget. There have been some questions around um what percent of that budget pays for um um administrators. And so on the slide, I'm sorry, on the pie chart to the right,
169you'll see a um chart that's identifying the different um certifications, if you will. the classified and certificated employees as well as administrators, both classified administrators and certificated administrators. And their salaries and benefits represent 12% of the entirety of the district's budget with 5% being for classified administrators and 7% being for certificated administrators. That was just a piece of information that was requested and so sharing with you all in the public here today. Um but moving along, we wanted to um first start with what are March 15th notices. Again, I started with the slide that showed you the timeline for budget development in the district and called out that March 15th notices um were in in my opinion intended to be perhaps a safeguard or a way to notify employees sooner than later. If you think
170about other industries typically you get two weeks notice, sometimes less than that and maybe 30 days. And so, um educators, um both classified and certificated folks working at districts get much more advanced notice. uh that is required by law for our certificated employees by California Ed code uh 44949 which says that no long no later than March 15th and before an employee is given notice by the governing board that his or her services will not be required um should we send them a notification and so that is why for a number of folks um across districts March 15th is a date uh that is known uh because we want to make sure they have notice but addition to that for our educators who are in Berkeley our B USD BFT contractual agreement says that those
171who are in um TSA or teacher on special assignment positions shall have the right to return for one year only to the same school department that he she held immediately preceding their special assignment. And so every year actually it's not necessarily publicized but every year those folks who are considered teachers on special assignment in Berkeley do get a letter of notification and just for the sake of consistency those notices go out um meeting the deadline of March 15th as well. So I want to distinguish that that is not legally required. It's something that we do just because it makes sense. If we're sending out information about um potential for changes, we send them out for reassignments as well. Similarly, when we think about our certificated employees who are not necessarily um uh teachers uh but
172our administrators who are certificated, there is also ED code that requires that they too if they are an administrative or supervisory positions get notification uh by March 15th and that is by ED code 44951. And then the same is true only recently actually for our classified employees via ED code uh 45117. Prior to that, I believe our classified employees only received 60 days notice. And so, again, the idea is to get ahead and give folks as much notice as possible. So, I wanted to just frame for you all um that there is a legal requirement that these notices go out. It's not that we're trying to cause um any upset or harm, but really trying to be honest about the fact that we um won't approve or even know our final budget until very late
173in the game. And we think it's respectful for folks to know that and be able to make some decisions for themselves and their families should they need to. So, a quick summary on this slide. Um, these notices are an attempt to protect employees and they are a practice that is not unique to BUD, but happens across um, uh, all school districts as required by law. Um, what these notices are not is they are not related to job performance. The vast majority of these notices are not, and we'll talk about some of the reasons or different types of notices in just a minute. Um, there is one exception to this statement, and that is for employees that are being non-reelected. like most other industries, if there is um an issue or an evaluation evaluatory process that
174says an employee should not continue in that role, um they might be non-reelected. And so there are some and in our case a few March 50 notices that meet this criteria, but the rest of the notices are not at all about um job performance or evaluation. Um and these notices though they are received on the same date and by law they talk about potential layoff or a change in job assignment, they are not a final notice. The final notice must be provided uh to the employee um on or before May 15th. So now we're going to move on to the types of March 15th notices. You now understand the laws and the contractual uh agreements that require that we send out notices by this date, but there are different types. I'll start with the right
175hand side. Um for our classified employees um actually there is only one type of March 15th notice and that notice is to notify the potential of a layoff and that is for lack of work or lack of funds. I distinguish that from our certificated employees which you'll see information about on the left hand side. They have multiple types of notices for March 15th. One is that reassignment notice that I talked about that is uh consistent with our BFTB USD contract. um that is to notify them not that they're going to get laid off, not that they're going to not have a job, but that they may be reassigned to a different position or a different place in the district. The vast majority of the certificated March 15 notices that we sent out uh this March
176were for reassignment. Um there's also March 15th notices that are temporary releases and these are for credentialed staff who are on contract in a position and when they became employees in BUSD their contract had a start and end date. So um again they get a March 15th notice but these folks in most all cases are aware that their contract will be ending by at the end of the school year. We also have our probationary non-reelect and as well as layoff layoffs um that is similar to the classified and we call those PKS particular kinds of service and they are based on um credentiing and they are linked they have to be linked to service I'm sorry to funding and for all of the certificated uh March 15 notices that we gave in the district um
177only about 22 of the folks who receive those notices are actual PKS layoffs for our certificated again the majority of our certificated March 15 notices are um around reassignment. Want to add anything? Um this slide just talks to the notice selection procedure and I'm going through this sort of quickly. We've talked about this in a number of settings and and publicly as well and I want to get to the some of the specific positions that we've noticed and the rationale. Um just want to call out there is a notice um selection procedure for classified. Again, it has to identify lack of funding and or lack of work. It must connect to job classification. we have some job same there's some folks who have the same job description but different locations or different departments um and
178that employees identified um are based on seniority within that classification. Do you want to add anything to that? No. For our certificated staff um we identify particular areas of service based on funding, student need, compliance, etc. Um we connect it to specific credential areas and connect to job classification. So again the same job title but might have a different location or title. And then employees identified um are based on seniority as well within their credential and job classification. So not seniority altogether, seniority based on the group that you are in. The final thing we want to share before moving on to talk about specific positions is that um some of these notices were sent also because uh positions are on what we call soft funding. When we think about soft funding, we we are talking
179about funding sources that are not guaranteed in the next fiscal year. And they could be not guaranteed for a number of reasons. It could be that the funding source itself is dependent on um a source that is finite or exhausted. This is an example of grants. Um we know we've received many um grants um after COVID for example and a lot of those dollars have dried up. And so if there were positions on those grants then those positions were noticed because again we don't want to be irresponsible and offer someone work if we don't know that we could um pay for the work that they're going to do. Another example of softunding is that um the funding source is is dependent on a decision or vote from parties external to BUD. And I don't know
180that I like that I put that word external because examples of this are um decisions of um funding from our uh PTAs, our parent teacher associations at school sites or our school site councils. They in no way are they external to BUD. They're very much a part of our family. However, the intent of that statement is to say that it is not decisions that we make here at the deis or that we make um in our central offices that the the sites themselves decide if they are going to fund that particular position again, if they have the funds, if they still need the the service, etc. And so that again is an example of soft funding. Could also be um donations that get delivered to us that we are waiting for confirmation that we're going
181to get that donation. Thank you. Um and then based on plans pending approval and so sometimes similar to the the school site council or PTA there might be some plans that have to be written and approved. Um and until those things are approved we can again say that we have those funds and can go ahead and move forward with those positions. So those are some ideas of what softunding is. And the reason why we want to call that out is because as we talk about specific positions, you will find that some of these folks were noticed because they are on softunding because they have a PTA funded position because they we're still waiting to see what their site's going to do with their BP discretionary funds. Um and or because there's federal or state grants
182that are either expired or expiring and we need to find another source. Um the implications is that um there are some of us who are waiting um to to get this confirmation. And to the question that director Shinoski asked, as soon as we get confirmation of funding um of a funding source um or continuation of a funding stream, then we are able to then resend that particular position that is on that funding source should that be the decision that is made. Um and then the other implication is that because the funding might dry up or a different decision might be made by those external for lack of a better word partners and those positions might be reduced or eliminated. Can would you mind entertaining um just some clarification questions before we get into specific positions?
183Is that okay? Um first of all, thank you so much for doing this because I think that it is providing some much needed um information to our community members, specifically our employees who may have not known all of this information or maybe kind of feeling like they're left in the dark. Do you mind going back two slides here? Yeah, thank you so much. So, I want to ask specifically about um the certificated uh positions that fall under reassignment. So, the resolution that um we passed, which was um from a couple slides earlier, that the one that we talked about in close session, um had a had the vast majority of notices on there. Um but if the vast majority of um certificated notices were reassignments, then why were they on um the resolution, especially if
184they're not non-reelected? So, um the reassignment for administrators, um people who hold an administrative credential are required to get a notice of reassignment specifically. It's its own piece of the ED code. Um and so they are um that was the resolution that you approved during close session was specifically about administrative positions. Um what didn't come to the board as part of a resolution was the TSAs, the teachers on special assignment because that's based purely on contract language as well as um the um reassignment of the counselors um which was we used the language on involuntary transfer um from the contract um to give them notice that they may get transferred um to a different location within the district. Um, and that's where that vast majority comes from is the um I believe it's approximately hundred
185Yeah, I think it was 101 or 102 um notices that were to either TSAs or counselors about getting reassigned that were not a part of a resolution because it was based on contract language instead. Um, okay. That that is helpful. And for um how in the past, how would um the public know this information um if we didn't discuss it or vote on it um during open session? So the the reassignments um we didn't do an uh anything previously in previous years because of the fact that it's based on contract language. For administrators, it always would have been something that would have happened in closed session based on the ed code. So for the teachers on special assignment, there was never anything that came to the board because they're keeping their job. They're just getting
186a different assignment, whether it's getting moved back to a classroom or a different TSA position. Um, so it's not truly a layoff. It's it's simply we're reigning where you're going to be working for the next year. Um, and then the counselors were new this year, and the reason we added them was to give us the most flexibility in terms of being able to figure out how do we um, structure our counselors to best support our students? Um, and is the same thing true um, not just for reassignments, but also for reduction in positions or is that the reduction in positions is the PKS. Um and that one we would come to the board. Um and we last year was the first time in the last 5 years that we have come to the board. Um
187and last year there was only one person on the PKS. Um and that was the um the teaching position that was lined with the cooking and gardening program which is again on the list again this time um due to the same softunding issues um and figuring out whether or not we are going to continue having that. But that's um the PKS is the one that's the most um similar to the classified side. And so we haven't done layoffs for teachers in that way. Um except for last year we we had one person and that person ended up keeping their job. But okay. Okay. Thank you. That makes sense because I do remember us discussing that in open session um last year with the result being that the person ended up keeping their job. So thank
188you for sharing that. Um, as it relates to to process and types of notices, are there questions that folks have before we get to specific positions? Yeah, go ahead, Director Showski. Just one quick question on the slide with the pie charts. I'm just wondering where the consultants that we hire fall into those categories. Are they part of services and operating expenses? Uh, so they fall under 5,800 is the um is it the object code? 5800. So they wouldn't show up here because this is just looking at salary and um and benefits. So they would show up in a different part of the budget. Um I'm talking about the pie the the left pie. So the left pie is let me zoom the budget. And so that of that full budget I see certificated salaries, classified
189salaries, employee benefits, books and supplies, capital outlay and direct and would be in services and operating expenses. Okay. So the 80% of the budget is people is only the permanent employees of the district. Correct. Thank you. Thank you. And directors, we do have and did not include in this deck, but we have definitely shared with ESPback both last year both last year and this year um a list with all of our various types of contractors and and how much we can definitely provide that to the board in future. Thank you. I you've provided that in the past. I just didn't know where it fell within that chart. Thanks. Um uh so the last slide before we start to share some specific examples of positions is um just a summary again of the when and what
190resolutions came before the board on uh March 5th. The total number of classified notices were 182. Again, um the classified has that one type of notice, notification of potential layoff. And then the certificated notices are inclusive of reassignment and PKS. Um there's a total of 191 people want to distinguish people from FTE, which is full-time employment. And so it is um though it sounds strange, there is the possibility that four people make up one FTE or one full-time equivalent position. And so um when when you're talking about noticing lots of people um oftent times it is you know not as many FTE and you'll see that as we begin to share in the in the future slides. I wanted to call that out. And of that um 182 and 191 that we noticed that was
191noticing of um employees across all bargaining units including unrepresented employees as well. At the bottom of this slide there is an FAQ uh regarding March 15th notices that we made some time ago and that we have shared. And then we also do uh staff updates just so you all know in our staff Willington every uh every so often when we get it out uh as well as videos we've been doing to explain this to our employees and so this is not the only opportunity they have to learn though I do hope that they're listening. Um so in the slides that uh follow um we are prepared to share um some of the rationale um and the implications of various u positions that were noted positions that these are we're not going to talk about every
192position that was noticed. We can definitely come back or share information in another setting with you all should you should you request. But we did try to identify um positions and groups that have either come to the board in public session um that have come up in ESPback either this year or last year or have just been um um groups or positions that folks have asked us a lot of questions about. Um and we hope that in doing so we we not only u provide some level of clarification but also demonstrate um the nuances that are involved when when thinking about who gets a notice and um if there's one person or an entire group of people. And so, um, the first one I'm going to now pass it to Sam, and then maybe Jill's
193going to chime in. Um, we're going to talk about the cooking and gardening, and you did hear some public comments about, um, wanting to make sure we keep our cooking and gardening educators at today's um, public comments. Um, so, as you may be familiar from last year, we had a lot of discussions about our cooking and gardening program. Um, they are funded mostly on grants. Um, and so, um, those positions are are therefore on soft money. Um and so we have seen um an increase in costs in the gardening and cooking program um and not an increase in the amount of uh revenue. So we are working on uh adjusting that um to match as well as we have some limitations within the grant funding that we're working on making sure that we're very clear
194about. Um we have gotten word from some of the grants that we can't use it to pay for um certain positions such as administrative or supervisor positions. Um the amplifications um with this are to um make sure that our program fits within the funding that's available. Um and we did that last year. Um these positions, all of them were on the list last year. Um the majority of them s had a little minor um reduction last year. Um but nobody lost a position um within this group. Um and we're hoping that that will be a similar outcome this year. But again, we need to make sure that we have the money. Um and so that we're able to match the funding with the uh re the expenses. What you'll notice on the left side uh
195for many of these slides where it says positions noted, we listed the again the FTE, not necessarily the amount of people um but also you'll notice that oftent times these cross different um bargaining units as well. Are there any questions about the cooking and gardening and the the rational? and the soft funding is the issue here and being able to confirm funding um while we're having rising costs and a decrease in revenues um was the rationale for noticing the potential. Yes. Can you speak to timing and when we'll have clarity about the funding? Um, I don't know that we've um there are a couple grants um maybe not a couple, one that we're waiting to get confirmation on, but as we're putting that budget together, it's it's putting all of these pieces. How much money
196are we allowed to spend for certain pieces and is that enough? um would we would we need a general fund contribution which we know is not likely given that we're still trying to meet that $3 million target and are what are the options? So a lot of what we talk about are scenario planning, right? So scenario planning a all of the grant funds can meet the needs of the staff that we have for this program. Scenario fund, you know, scenario B is what would it look like if we had to make a 25% reduction. So that's part of the implication is that we might need to reduce program to align with available funding. Um but the the positive news is that we have funding to support some not all of the programming at this point
197in time. So, another uh set of positions that have come up several times in um our board meetings are the before and after school program positions. Um the first thing we want to do for this particular slide is to clarify um which positions in before and after school were noticed. You've heard conversations about both specialists as well as coordinators. Um actually for the March 15th notices, only the coordinators were noticed and so we had 9.0 O FTE for the after school coordinators. Um again I'll let Sam uh and Jill talk about the rationale but wanted to just call that out and was hoping more folks would be listening to that because there was some confusion about um that particular um detail. So um the the biggest piece is that um that keeps coming up in
198the conversation is that we are cutting the the positions which will then reduce the size of the program. And we want to be very clear that these positions that are on this layoff notice do not actually count towards the staffing ratio. So whether we have these positions or not does not determine the amount of kids that we can serve. Um and so we are looking at that as a factor in our decision-m in terms of making sure that we are able to serve as many students as possible. But we want to be very clear about that. Um the other piece is that again this is also another program where we are looking at ma matching the expenses and the funding and making sure that they work together. Um and so we are working on that.
199Um this is a program where we were um very careful about who we noticed. Um partially because of the fact that we know we need every single person that um helps us to serve the students. Um but also because of the fact that we do have contractors and we're well aware of that and we um would do not want to lay off our own people um and to have any um idea of keeping contractors in those positions. Um the other piece is to make sure that um we are following all the guidelines with the funding. Um the funds that that support this um include like ELOP um and CARES and all of that. And so we have a bunch of other ideas that are also out there that we're working on um and other structures.
200But these positions specifically um the reason they were put up here was to be able to re-evaluate the process and look at these positions. And and I would also want to clarify because I think one of the talking points has been around don't cut the program or don't cut the funding. We don't have a general fund contribution to our before and after school programming. These are entirely grant-f funded and and most of those grants are also dependent on student demographics. So, um, you know, we have to understand the dollars that we're going to receive based on our current enrollment and then we have to make sure that we have programming. But we have we have programming at 12 sites currently. We're planning on having programming at 12 sites moving forward, but the staff how we
201staff that is going to likely look different. Um, thank you for that clarification. We have a couple of questions. Uh my first is in total um is 9.0 the total FTE that we have for after school program site coordinators or is that just the positions that were noticed? So that is the filled positions. We also have an additional three that are vacant. Okay. And um essentially though um it could be a possibility that not all of the 9.0 FTE um coordinate positions are get the actual layoff. Is that correct? That is possible. Yes. We we are looking at different options and and solutions to this and how to restructure and how do we come up with that criteria or uh so a piece of it is is looking at what are the needs of the
202program and what are we're we're talking to other districts looking at comparable districts to see how they structure their programs. Um I want to remind um everybody also that these positions have only existed for two years. um they were a design um a pilot per se to try to fix some issues that were going on in the afterchool program. And so we're re-evaluating that as well um and seeing how can we best serve um our students in the afterchool program so that we do have a very strong and robust program moving forward. Director Shinoski. Yeah, a couple questions I have. Um, so I think that this is a perfect example of of jobs that we really need to think about the position and not the people even though there are people in these positions and
203so it's really hard to do. Um, but that new structure I think was has um created a number of problems in within different bargaining units and within the programs themselves. And so this one is just a really complicated one, but I know that the people in these positions are beloved people. And so that is really um difficult here. I also wanted to just emphasize again this is not going to change enrollment. um and that we continue as a board and as a district to try and see what we can do about actually increasing enrollment, increasing revenues um and making our afterare uh program more robust and more available to more families. So that this is I just want to emphasize again the statement that was made earlier that those are separate issues here. Thanks. Vice
204President Chang. Um, hi. Thank you. And just following up on that as well. Um the and I also want to reiterate that my understanding is there's no change in the enrollment and uh I guess the second question related to that would be while there's no change in enrollment across the 12 schools would there be a change in um the ratio between those who are enrolled and those who are giving them direct services in the before and after care program. So the the ratio is actually written into the grants um and the the plan um and how we get the funding. And so um we can't change that ratio. We have to have a certain ratio to be able to continue to run the program. Um these positions do not impact that ratio. Um and so
205um we have not noticed um the positions that do um because of the fact that we don't want to touch that ratio um and continue to serve as many kids as we can. I'm sorry. Uh before you ask your uh next question, we do need to um extend the time of the meeting because it's 10:58. Is there a motion to do so? I move to extend by 10 minutes. Girl, we need more than 10 minutes, I think. How about we we have the option to go up to 11:30. And if we don't use the time, that would be great. Can we do that? Director make that. I'll move to do so. 11:30. Uh, is there a second? I'll second it. Seconded by director Korn. All those in favor? I opposed. Abstensions. The eyes have it.
206Continue with your next question. Sure. I'll be quick. So, um, thank you. That's super helpful. I know that there's um certain degree of um, uh, anxiousness around this and there's maybe perhaps some clarification that's helpful. Um so uh I I think um from the perspective of parents and my kids were in the early and afterare for multiple years and those really critical to our ability to go to work um particularly before the pandemic and before hybrid workspaces. um if the ratio is not going to change with regard to um students to um uh those providing the direct service. Um and there sounds like there potentially could be some structural change with the coordinator staffing or the coordinator oversight. um what type of oversight do you envision uh in terms of u maintaining whatever gains there
207were made with the two years ex not experiment but test or beta so we are um looking into multiple different ways of structuring um and like I said we're also looking at our neighboring districts to see how they have their structured to be able to determine what is the best um way to move forward um to both include what we've learned in the last two years as well as to make sure that we are um doing something that's fiscally solvent um for this program and can serve as many kids as possible. Um and when I say the ratio is not changing, it means we're not making it smaller. We don't want to make the program smaller. We want to make it so that we're able to serve as many students as possible. Um so we
208are looking into if there are solutions that would increase the amount of students we can serve. Um, we are also, um, I want to make sure that everybody's aware that there is also a, um, manager over this program as well as a supervisor, um, that's over the whole program districtwide. Um, and so those positions are um, also in existence. And so that's a part of the the larger discussion as well. Okay. Thanks. Thanks everyone. Um, I appreciate the comments about the grant funding and I want to reiterate that I hope we can look for ways to increase revenue. Um, I know that there's some conversation about looking at our fee schedule. Yeah, we're definitely doing that. Great. Yes, I'll say it in the microphone. Yes, it microphone that I mean and we definitely I just
209want to acknowledge and appreciate that um our PTA collaborative folks have been in agreement um that this is something that we should consider. We're looking at comparable districts um to understand um how other districts are doing that to make sure that we're in that range. We have not increased our fees in a number of years and we are definitely below the average. So, we'll be bringing that forward to make that shift. That's great. I've heard from many families who are willing to pay more in order to have access to quality child care before and after school. And I think in our next budget balancing uh update, we will share more of the strategies and the ideas for generating revenues that we've been coming up with and working with ESPback on. Um I did just want
210to just um be really transparent and say that um one thing that these notices allow um is is to the point that both um superintendents made is around kind of restructuring and rethinking. We definitely identified this these coordinator positions to address a need. And again, in the spirit of continuous improvement, we wanted to study and see if if the positions met the need. Um, and so even if revenues increased, I just want to be really transparent that we we still need to have that conversation. Did the positions do what we intended to for them to do? And how do we make sure that what we need or whatever that gap was is still being addressed while to the point that Sam made um serving as many students with quality programming for after school um as
211possible. So, want to say that um and then want to echo what director Shinaskki said, but extended to all of these positions that every time we're talking about reductions or changes or even reassignment. It's about the position, not the people. We love our people and we know that everyone loves people at the site and that's what makes it really really hard, but we try to think about it from the perspective of a systems lens and the positions as well. And so, with that in mind, can I ask one more question? I'm I remain confused about the specialist position because we've gotten lots of emails about some of the specialists. So, there were three specialists who received letters because they may be bumped mattering on different scenarios that happened. So, they are not truly on the
212layoff list per se, but they got letters basically warning them that they could be bumped. Um but we do also have vacancies in um specialist positions. So it's unlikely that any of them would be um bumped out of those. Can you explain what the scenario would be that would cause them to be bumped? Um so if all nine of these site coordinators were not kept in their positions, some of them would come back down to specialist positions. Um there's also other like we have people who have moved from different positions all over the place in this district. Um and so there are some various different scenarios that might happen. Great. That's very helpful. Thank you. So another group that has come up a lot that um also are amazing people doing great things for our
213students and families are our staff. Um uh I was going to say what stands for but just office of family engagement uh and and equities. So um if you'll notice that on the left hand side we have um a total of 14 FTE that were noticed um uh for OFI and again we're going to pass this to Sam uh to give the rationale. Um so again these are a lot of these positions are on um different funding. So there's multiple funding sources within this um 13 14 positions. Um, so there are some that are on one-time carryover funding, meaning that that funding has an end date at this point and doesn't exist for next school year. Um, we do have some of these positions that are on unrestricted general fund. So, we do need to
214evaluate whether that's what we want to use that for. Um, and then we also have some that are um, site funded and um, part of um, like BP site funds or PTA funding, things like that that we also need to look at. And then I believe we also may have a position that's on a grant as well. So there are numerous different funding of these positions that we want to look at. Um and so we also agree um that we want to make sure that we are providing family engagement. Um and equity is of course important and um so this is not a group that is unfortunately new to this process. Um this same group went through the same process last year. Unfortunately, all of them um re um were rescended and got their jobs
215back. Um and hopefully we will have a similar outcome, but we do need to make sure that we are um evaluating it and figuring out what is the best way to use our funding. Um and I will let Jill cover the implementation. Right. So again, um we have a whole goal uh in our LCAP on family engagement and we know that we're all responsible for family engagement, the work that you know we do every day at the district office to engage with families that principles and teachers do, but we also have specific uh positions that are called family engagement and equity equity specialists. So that work can happen in a number of different ways. There are still opportunities to achieve the actions that we've outlined in the LCAP, but the level of service, the span
216of those services might need to be adjusted if we have a reduction in funds. The board may recall that last spring um we came to the board to ask for approval to tap into the LCAP reserve. So, that is definitely something that we're going to be considering bringing back to you as we're navigating um the cost of services. So, our supplemental funds in the LCAP are a a definitive amount of of money and again with increasing costs and not a commiserate increase in the revenue that we're receiving. Um, we the we can't afford all of the actions that we have in the LCAP without looking at using that LCAP reserve. So, we'll be back to you with more details about that. Uh just for the purposes of folks who are who are listening and might
217not be aware, I want to just remind us all about the notice of selection process slide that we showed earlier. Um be again because a lot of this is based on seniority and or the possibility of bumping even if we anticipate maybe changing or reducing um a a group or a position by one. We notice the entire group because we have to then understand well who's seniority etc. And so again, just want to to to calm folks if they're seeing uh 14.0 FTE for family engagement, thinking that that means that all 14.0 um might be laid off. Um oftentimes that is not the case, but we have to notice as many folks as possible because of all those little nuances that are oftentimes not known to the public. Uh another group, sorry. Oh, another group
218that has been um come up a lot um you you've heard some public comments around it this evening as well uh are the middle and high school counselors. And so counselors uh were noticed 10 FTE and it was only middle and high school counselors. Um before I let Sam and Jill uh share more information about the rationale and implications. I want to point out the asterk here. Um that for our counselor positions um there are different types of counselors in BUSD. There are intervention counselors, academic counselors, uh program specific counselors like bridge and point. However, there's only one job title that says counselor and they all have the same credential. And so again, similar to what I just referred to in the previous slide. We we're not able to say we might reduce the academic
219counselors and just notice those two people. Let's say we have to notice all the folks with the counselor title even though we know there's some distinction to the type of counseling, for example, or the specifics of the counseling they provide. Um and so really want to again highlight that before Pauline Pauline before Sam and Jill share the rationale um which is going to be similar in pattern but again these have come up several times we want to make sure folks understand. Um again so this is a certificated group um and again these positions are on softunding. Um we identified that we had um a group of about 15 FTE that were on self-funding. Um and through attrition we reduced it down to being able to notice only 10. Um and so now we are looking
220at whether or not we we have funding to um not have to cut 10 positions, which is our goal. Um because we do know the value of counseling and all of that. Um and so we are looking at um re-evaluating the structure of the staffing um and how we're delivering the services to students. Um and then there is also the possibility that some of these people may move to a different site. Um and these notices allow us to do that as well. Um and so that's a piece of this. Um and then for the implic I keep adding an M implications. Um I'll turn it over to um Jill. So again the implications really are you know depending on where we have finalized funding how do we align the staffing for those available resources. Um
221I think the other thing under consideration is again because we have different types of counselors uh is us thinking about whether or not we can achieve sort of we can achieve the same level of service with a with rethinking those individual roles um in a more broad in a broad way. So there's been a lot of work that we've been doing to align and consolidate some of our services. You heard tonight with LCAP goal number three. So is there a different way for us to be thinking about um that sort of you know we'd love to have a counselor for every grade level at every school, but we we don't have enough money to be able to do that. But if we're organizing and strengthening some of our infrastructures to support students, is there a
222different way for us to to look at how those services are delivered with potentially a smaller number of of counselors? But um again, hoping to finalize some funding so that we can reduce that 10. I know we're getting close to the 11:30 hour. No, is that an hour? Yeah. So the last one we had uh was there was questions about uh not necessarily here in in these convenings but in other convenings about the 4.0 of educators, teachers from world language, specifically Spanish and then art that were noticed um as they did not obviously fit in any of the rationale that we have provided for the previous groups. And so um this is going to be Jill's favorite. Um you all might remember that we have recently completed our federal program monitoring which is an audit
223of the district and there were some findings from that audit that will um better explain why we had to notice these positions. Um yes. So federal program monitoring or FPM is a process that's conducted by the California Department of Education. One of uh we uh participated in a federal program monitoring review uh just last month. Um and one of the areas we were being reviewed in was for physical education. Um, as part of that review, what was identified was that we are not currently meeting state requirements um for the number of minutes that our students participate in physical education, which is uh which is going to require us to ensure that our ninth graders are enrolled in physical education next year. because we have to increase the sections of PE. That means that we're going
224to be reducing the number of sections in electives and that's why we have the potential uh we have the positions that have been noticed there. World language and arts are most of the electives um that will have some of that flexibility um to be able um to address the state mandate of our physical education requirements. No, he has a question. Um, so I I kind of understand what you're you're referencing with regard to um the 2.0 FTE in in in world languages in Spanish and and art with regard to what has to be done with ninth grade PE. Um though I think I'm not totally making the connection. Um can you explain that really rapidly for me again just because it's late? There are six periods in a school day and there are core classes
225that students have to participate in and up to this point in time our ninth graders have had the capac have had uh the option to select two electives. They are not going to be able to have two electives. One of those classes is going to need to be PE. So that means we need to reduce the number of those courses in order to increase the number of PE classes. Great. Thank you so much. What you all have been waiting for the last slide. Um again our goal was to provide some clarification as well as some explanation for some of the positions you've been hearing about. We're happy to come back to share more and hopefully come back and share that we have already started rescending notices um as early as before spring break and we
226continue to do so and our goal is to uh figure out all of these conundrums the softunding um waiting for PTAs etc to give us information and hoping the governor will send us something very soon so that we can resend um all or as many as possible. So wanted to share this last slide showing that again before the break we rescended 45 specifically the school campus aids again people are not the same as FTE and so those 45 people equal 11.77 FTE um but we've also resended a couple of the unrepresented um and local 21 um and Uber folks um and so we have a couple of those here on this slide but again our goal is to we know that all of our people matter and they help us do the amazing work that
227we do here in B USD um and so as soon as we get information that allows us to ensure that we'll be able to um pay their salary and their benefits. We will rescend as we go. Um and we'll provide you updates to that as well. Thank you. And when do we um anticipate that the next um phase or round of resending uh letters or notices will go out to people and if we don't know yet, that's okay. Yeah. So, um we just sent out letters today um to the the newest ones that were um on here. Um, I am hoping that we may be able to identify some people either tomorrow or uh next Tuesday to continue to supply um uh more recision notices as possible. Thanks. I appreciate that. The close the more
228we can do further away from um May 15th, I'm sure it will do all the good for for everyone involved. We've been doing them kind of in real time like as we know, we we send them out and that's how we want to keep Absolutely. I appreciate that versus doing one big batch. Letting people know as as soon as you figure it out um will relieve some some stress I'm sure from people. Thank you all so much for your presentation. Uh we'll move to the second opportunity for public comment. Is there anyone here for public comment? Seeing none, we'll move to the second opportunity for board member comments. Any board member comments? I have a quick board member comment. It is about this presentation. I'll keep it really quick. just that as I understand that
229we're still making decisions to like consolidate positions and there's a lot that's still TBD, but I would want our board and also the staff um to center those decisions also on our like equity goals as a district, right? So when we think about um you know bilingual OFI positions, right? Like that's part part of the reason why that um position was called out in our Latinx resolution or counselors, right? like there's um the counselors for point that it's serve a unique need and so I just want to make sure that we're holding our equity work like front and center as we're making some of those um decisions to consolidate. Yes, ma'am. And just want to remind you that this work is happening simultaneously with our budget balancing process and that process has us rooted in
230our core values of resource allocation and that first value is equity. And so the things that you just named, we're always asking ourselves if we are meeting those core values for every decision that we make and every discussion that we have. Thank you. And at 11:18, our meeting is adjourned. Uh board members, if you could give me 30 seconds of your time to recess back to close session to talk about one of the items that we already have agenda. 30 seconds. Thank you.