001and welcome e e director um anav vasev is joining us remotely I can hear you now great um vice president uh Mike changus excuse this evening and president kadia Brown I am president thank you very much we will now move on to the approval of the agenda but before we do I have uh something that we need to do that we need to change uh typically our superintendent has her comments before open uh public session but we will actually move her comments um to item number we will actually move her item her comments to item number 10 after Union comments so that all of you all who have been waiting for a long time especially our young people who have been waiting for a long time get the opportunity to speak and you don't have
002to be here any longer than possible and so we thank you superintendent uh for your graciousness and for uh being okay with that move uh there aren't any other Corrections or additions that need to be made to the agenda tonight so is there a motion to approve this evening's agenda with the necessary correction I move okay it's been moved by director shinoski is there a second I'll second it's been seconded by director Cor Miss Charis can you please call the role dor shoski yes director corn yes director vasev yes president Brown yes okay stent director yes thank you the motion passes and this evening's agenda is approved we will now uh go to our report out from Clos session this evening for Clos session the board members that were present were president Brown uh director
003Korn director vasudev and director shinoski with director Chang vice president Chang being excused for item 3.1 uh it has been put on here as two parts and so we will only speak to the first part of item 3.1 and uh we will then uh table the second part of item 3.1 but for the first part of item 3.1 the board heard an update and provided direct moved by director shinoski second by director Korn and all present board directors voted in favor for item 3.2.1 it was moved by director shinas move on to uh the reason why most of you all are here I'm sure which is our public opportunity for public Co our first opportunity for public comment um I have lots and lots and lots of cards up here and we cards um so
004that everyone knows what we will do thank you so that everyone knows what we will do it is always the practice of the board to allow our students to be the first speakers um and so we can make sure that we uh prioritize their voices first and so we will call on our student speakers and they will go first after that we will call on uh individual adults who will be speaking on various topics however if there are five or more cards that we have under the same topic we are going to uh give that time a five minute speaking time and we are going to ask you all to organize yourselves you will uh be able to give as much speaking time to all of the individuals who want to speak on that specific
005topic um and so if I can be a little bit more specific give me one second e thank you very much if you can please just be careful uh the lights are against the wall uh I believe on this side and so just be careful uh to make sure you don't turn them off again because we all want to be able to see e the school that you are representing and speaking for and what you'll do is you'll come to the Das and you'll speak so I'm going to call one card and that e e e understand hello everyone my name is z Hill and I'm in sec I'm a second grader at Thousand Oaks and I also attend the we rock program we also wait we want to talk about something really important to
006me Mr Dante because of him we we know we can make a difference in my community he can he shows me that I matter and that I can be a leader too adult how to do something but what we will allow you to do sorry but what we will allow you to do is finish your sentence as soon as you hear the Boop we're we're going to let you finish your sentence um whenever you hear that okay and so um Zade did you need to finish the last part of your sentence or are you good you want to finish that last part of your sentence okay come on back wait it makes me really sad to hear that he might not work here with us anymore Thousand Oaks and we rock wouldn't be the same
007without him I don't want to lose someone who really wait to lose someone who makes such a big difference in my life and the lives of my friends thank you next we will hear from L followed by uh Claire Murrow hi my name is El Wy and I'm here I'm a second grade at TH Oaks Elementary I'm speaking because I want Mr Dante to stay at Thousand Oaks I want Mr Dante to stay at because he is the best say Mr Dante's face every afternoon makes me feel happy one of the things I love about Mr Dante's all the activities he organizes like for us like dance singing and arts and crafts he makes rck so much fun and I'm feeling so sad he always he always makes me feel better I really want Mr
008Dante to stay thank you very much next we will hear from Clara followed by um our student speakers from Sylvia Mendes and I'll give some instruction for that okay thank you for coming I think Mr Dante is such a nice person and a lot of people want him to stay and he makes such good activities for us and we love him so so much and we don't want him to leave thank you Mr Dante for being here for us and making us happy when we're set and you leaving is the worst nightmare and we will never leave you thank you for coming to our school the best reot principal in the world and I want to thank you guys for coming here tonight it means a lot to us and have a good night and
009one one more thing I want to ask the school board to keep him at Thousand Oaks school thank you Clara next we will hear from uh the students at Sylvia Mendes um they were kind enough to put all eight speakers on one card and so what we will do is we will give you um the same five minute speaking time since you all are one group um I know that you only need three minutes but we will give you th those five minutes and then with the other two minutes we will just enjoy other student speakers and so whenever you are ready you may begin hi my name is Arlo And this is Olivia Anders Elena Zia Rowan Valentina Gracie and rosalin we want to advocate for the literacy curriculum of fish tank and functional
010morphology we are fifth graders at Sylvia Mendes and teacher Erica's class and we have been trying out different new curriculums my classmates will explain why Berkeley's elementary school should AB adopt these programs uh I'm Olivia we think you should adopt functional morphology this program teaches us parts and words like prefixes suffixes and Roots we can we learn what the the word Parts mean so now we can understand what the words mean and that makes the words make more sense we can understand those words when we read and we can use them when we write and when we speak my name my name is Andre and I using functional morphology I think I know how to spell the word parts so I know how to SP spell difficult words other kids have improved their spelling too
011also many kids have become more fluent readers because they can also read difficult words more easily my name is Gracie and we also think that you should adopt fish tank as our reading and writing curriculum my name is Elena in my opinion fish tank is giving elementary students more knowledge about what is happening in the world right now we are learning about what life is like like for women and girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan when I take in this information it challenges my mental thinking and helps me understand more complex scenarios that I might read about hi my name is Zia when we learn more about the world we are preparing ourselves to help we think about who is struggling in the world and what we can do we read I am aala and from
012her we learned that we can speak up for what we think is right knowing about the world will also help us when we're older it's a really interested in the topics that we're learning about we really enjoy the books and fish tanks so we're focused in more and more interested to part and we want to participate more good evening my name is Valentina we write about human rights and it's interesting and important this program helps us plan our writing and express our ideas clearly we write pretty much every day to help us process what we're learning and then we do some bigger writing projects after we've learned a lot also because of morthy when I write my spelling is better and I use better vocabulary thank you my name is Ros my name is Roslin
013my name is Roslin and in conclusion we are getting to be better readers and writers using fish tank and functional morphology we think it'll help others other kids in Berkeley we also think they will really enjoy this curriculum everybody gets to learn the same important material together we all deserve to learn about challenging topics while we read and write thank you for your time and consideration thank you thank you Sylvia Mendes Scholars next we will hear from Victoria followed by yazari yeah because Mom I just have one ask as you're letting her stand up on the chair just stand behind her and hold I know you got it I know you my name is Victoria and I go to Sylvia Mendes I am in kindergarten I'm six I felt sad when and worried when I
014heard Miss Anita wouldn't work at my school anymore I felt sad because she's great to have at my school Miss Anita gets special snacks for kids with allergies she helps us practice Spanish she stops bullies from hurting people and helps them make friends May I'm victorita [Music] Manon an senorita Anita [Music] thank you Victoria thank you so much Victoria our new biliterate queen of Bud thank you Victoria next we will hear from yazari followed by Delan hello my name is yazari and I am a second grader at Thousand Oaks and student of R Rock I love my teachers and it makes me sad that they may not be here to see me finish growing up my teachers help me learn feel safe and do my best every day please keep Mr Dante and it would
015mean the world to me without them School wouldn't be the same we need them and they need us too save our staff and help us keep them here thank you thank you Yari next we will hear from is it deia or Delia deia next we'll hear from deia hi my name is Julia and I go to Sylvia Mendes Elementary and I'm in third grade I get sad when I hear that Miss Anita might not work at my school anymore I I'm happy when I see Miss Anita at my school because she prepares a lot of fun activities for us and she's really nice to us I think that it would be really nice to keep her at our school because she helps us out when there are problems and she takes care of us really
016well thank you next we will hear from Nicholas followed by Lauren and anma n Nicholas is that you yeah hi hi my name is Nicholas Ste coures and and I am in the third grade please don't fire Anita aleexandra FMA EP MAA and our other beautiful Panda staffs I don't know what I would do with without them thank you hello my name is Autumn and I go to Craigmont Elementary I don't think it's fair for us to not have Miss Jasmine work at our school she's the perfect combination of someone you feel like could protect you in an emergency but also is one of the most kind and loving people you know it's really unfair especially since we have several teachers working in Aftercare and it feels like she's the only one who is actually
017helping them coordinate she also is always talking to other people like my principal Miss Canon and other people who work on the yard during the day and so she always knows what's going on and always feels like she can help us feel she can always make us feel safe my yard is also open and without someone like Miss Jasmine it's hard for us to feel safe next we will hear from Kalia followed by Fern hi my name is Kalia and I'm a fourth grader at Washington Elementary and I met Mr dant at BAM summer camp a few years ago and I have never forgotten him since I think that Mr Dante should stay because he choreographed most of the dances at Thousand Oaks and he is funny and he helps put on all of the
018good shows and I always love to attend them he is well known also it doesn't matter that he is at Thousand Oaks I still go to see the performances and that's why I think he should not be let go my name is Fern and I'm a student at Thousand Oak School if I had one wish it would be that Mr Dante could stay with us at Thousand Oaks he's the kindest most warmhearted and fun teacher I've ever had when we're happy he makes us happier and when we feel sad scared or nervous he always gives us love and support and help help helps us feel better I can't imagine our school without Mr Dante he works so hard every single day and we need him so please please please let Mr Dante stay with us
019at Thousand n school thank you to you both Kalia and firm next firm next we will hear from Lillian and Olivia followed by Ashley go first good e good evening superintendent Ford Morel president Brown and esteemed members of the board Malcolm X once said the most disrespected person in America is the black woman the most unprotected person in America is a black woman the most neglected person in America is a black woman my name is Olivia King and my name is lilan King and my mother is Jasmine mccy the before and after school program site coordinator at kman elementary her job her livelihood is being threatened not because she lacks dedication not because she has failed but because this District the very one that claims to stand for Equity has turned its back on her
020and now my family is paying the price BD has been a safe haven for us as survivors of domestic violence it gives us stability when our world was unstable but now that's sec security is being ripped away the decisions made today will change the course of my life and my siblings lives if families and communities are the foundation of Student Success why is this District choosing to upro mine oh yeah let me tell you about the Towering red redwoods of Mir woods they grow over 300 feet tall yet their roots are only 6 to 12 feet deep how because their Roots stretch outward intertwining holding each other up no tree Hoards resources every tree gets what it needs if oh sorry ready yeah that's how a community is supposed to work so why is BC
021choosing to sever the roots of one of its strongest trees if BD flip it over if BD truly values Equity community and Student Success then it must act accordingly because no tree stand without the strength of his forest and no Community thrives by tearing down his strongest Roots thank you for your time and your commitment to all students in schools before I before I call up the next speaker I just have to take this moment of personal privilege um to say it is great to hear all of our student speakers however Olivia used to be one of my students and so it is so great to see you in here advocating for your mom and I'm so so proud of you and all that you're doing please give her a round of applause all right
022we will continue with our student speakers um I believe this is a group uh correct me if I'm wrong so there's Ashley as well as kala or just Ashley okay K is a student so we'll hear from kala yep [Music] andz graas scum next we will hear from Sophia followed by Harlem hi my name is Sophia and I am in fifth grade and I go to Sylvia mandes Elementary School I think you shouldn't fire people like Alejandra Nita and other staff members because for example Alejandra supports parents students and others she also does workshops for parents that want to help another example is Anita who would take care of learns because Mr Jason can't take care of all of those students and those are some examples also they all they all are a big part
023in our community and that's why I think you should not fire all those people thank you my name is Harlem and I have known Mr Dante since 2019 when he worked at Berkeley Arts Magnet he was one of the best after school teachers I've ever had when the school district decided to transfer him to Thousand Oaks my friends and I were heartbroken he was always fun and participate participated with us on the yard with games and music and he didn't just sit down and watch us when I found out he started working at my cousin's School Thousand Oaks I was excited that she would have such a great after school coordinator and I have been able to come and enjoy many performances that he has been a big part of he makes all the difference
024I have come to performances at many other Berkeley schools and I can definitely tell a Mr Dante production we Al we also learn during the performances and we have fun we need more coordinators like the ones at Thousand Oaks not L Schoolboard please figure it out thank you h both Sophia and Harlem and our final student speaker card that I have here is for Jamie okay start good afternoon my name is Jamie Lawrence I'm a senior at Berkeley High I'm here tonight because I'm deeply concerned about the potential layoff District that impact and could impact Berkeley High especially when it comes to restorative justice program and student safety restorative justice isn't just a program it's a vital part of how we support students resolve conflicts and create a safer more inclusive School environment cutting staff
025like Miss and Coach Rashad from oci and missa and Miss Stacy from the wellness center doesn't just shrink a budget it removes a crucial support system for students who need guidance mediation and a space to be heard without the program we were seeing a decrease in student attendance more students push out of classrooms and a rise in conflicts that could have been prevented through restorative dialogue the absence of trained staff means fewer intervent interventions fewer opportunities to rebuild relationships and ultimately a less safe environment for everyone so please when talking about and considering to decisions based about budget cuts you take into account all the people you will be affecting thank you thank you Jamie and thank you to all of our student speakers we will now move on to our adult speakers adults the
026students definitely set the tone so you know what to do okay all right you all will be giving one minute to speak thank you adults you will be given one minute to speak and we will begin with forest and then move on to Megan um we are moving on to the topics of teacher retirement um as well as B USD support of lgbtq plus students and faculty so we'll be first begin with forest and then move to Megan whenever you're ready Mr Bor you um well I wasn't I didn't realize there was going to be such a turnout with everybody and I I do want to also I'm sorry Mr Bor I'm gonna stop you if you don't mind we're going to restart your time folks who are in the room we want to make
027sure that we we are able to hear uh and make sure that everyone else in the room who is also able to hear and so if you have to have a conversation we completely understand and respect that but please make sure you don't do it in the room Mr Bor we will start your time over and you can begin whenever you're ready something long term and I'm hoping that b USD can support um create something to support uh to any weapons manufacturer uh or oil companies and every paycheck I receive a portion of that is going to them and it's it's not something I want and it's not something any teacher wants so there are 90 95% of schools in Palestine right now are out of commission and it is our earned money that is
028supporting that terrible catastrophe so thank you thank you Mr Bor next we will hear from Megan Bates and then we will move on to the adult speakers who are speaking on item 13.2 in regards to curriculum so our first adult speaker after Megan will Lindsay noelan are you in the room Megan Megan okay we do not see Megan in the room but if Megan uh does re-enter the room we will go back to her so we will uh have Nikki Lindsay Noel followed by Nick Williams okay my name is Lindsay nelt I'm speaking as a member of reading for Berkeley on the K through 5 English language arts curriculum recommendation we've been coming to you since October 22 so nearly three years of testimony you've heard from us and um we're proud to say that
029we're um moving toward a systematic evidence-based knowledge building approach based on and responsive to individual student data it's an enormous undertaking and it is thanks to the leadership of people like rose James that we're making these strides we're really hopeful for a future of Berkeley students where every child no matter their background or struggle is expected to succeed that's only possible with the support of a curriculum like fish tank and foundational phonics and morphology together they have the elements to meet the needs of our students while this is a major Milestone it's only the beginning of a new even harder phase so we look forward to advocating and supporting teachers through the next essential part of the work thank you Lindsay next we will hear from Nick followed by Carrie hello I'm Nick Williams I'm
030a first grade 10 years in The District 20 years in the classroom and I've been a part of the literacy pilot adoption committee and I just wanted to speak to the Integrity of this committee um as a teacher it's been really astounding how much they have listened to teacher voice in this committee how much theyve honored us and come into our classrooms watched us teach these curriculums and I'm very excited for fish tank and functional phonics um more important than teacher voice though is students and my students just love these lessons every day we're in a we're in a middle of a folk tale unit they cannot wait to read the next folk tale we get out the map and find where it Harry Johnston I teach first grade at John Mir and I'm just
031adding to the science of reading and it's with that lens that we have been able to take part in a really rigorous and stimulating and engaging pilot process it's been really inspiring to work with the other teachers who are super thoughtful and as Nick said the kids really like both of these programs they're challenging and rigorous for all of the students and they also have supports for all of the students they're really loving the engaging literature and also I think word work is fun but it's not always fun in the curricula that we've used but it is really fun in functional phonics so there's sometimes times when my principal will come to the room and he'll be like I didn't even know that and there's ways that we're talking about language that is giving the
032kids great skills so I'm super excited about this I love followed by uh Maya Ooa who will both speak in regards to layoffs for Opie layoffs hello good evening um dear superintendent for Marto members of the Berkeley School District board my name is nor agilar from Latinos unidos the berley and as well I'm a mother of um two uh children in syia Mendes and one Longfellow we are here to express our un unweaving support for syia Mendes family engagement and Equity specialist Alejandra FAS and other office staff from across the district as well as the learns program coordinator Anita Ryan to strongly urge you to reconsider the dec to eliminate their positions at a two-way Spanish Immersion schools Alejandra has played an essential role in ensuring Equitable access to education for All Families particularly those
033from multilingual and historically underserve communities thank you very much yeah ni especially in a Twi program where so many students are navigating so many different things and trying to adapt Alejandra plays a key role in anchoring I added a little bit of My Salsa but go ahead she's she to really navigate a an educational system that some of us don't really know or are learning about thanks to her job we feel not only informed but accompanied she holds her hands and she empowers us to participate and become active members of this community and helps us in the education of kids here taking away or eliminated her petition would be a huge blow to the connection that maintains our our school Community she really is an anchor again we need her presence her experience and her
034commitment to continue to to to create a a school culture that is not only inclusive bilingual and also is is solidaria ripe with solidarity I ask I ask that we value her role and that we we assure together that she continues to be an integral part of our community for our kids our families and our students vamos pasas thank you very much for your comments um and just as an FYI to everyone if this is your first board meeting uh we do give additional time for translation and so that's why you saw a little bit more time for um our last speaker M choa we do have a student speaker call card um that was actually not included with our student speaker Pio and so first we want to apologize and then finally welcome up
035uh Theo and tia who are going to speak this evening please welcome them hi I'm the parent of Theo and Tia and I um they just lost a a parent few months ago and Miss Alejandra has um literally we wouldn't even be here today um if it wasn't for her I took off for a whole month I couldn't even get out of bed and I just want to say that her Mr Jason really took time out their personal lives to just come to our house and they're the reason why my kids are here today and able to speak here okay um hi my name is Tia and um I go to Longfellow Middle School and I wanted to say that Mr Jason Miss Anita and Miss Adana um was there for me and my family
036when um my dad died a few months ago she has been like family to us too all of them and I wouldn't be able to attend school without their support thank you Miss Adana and um Mr Jason for being there for us hello my name is dio and I don't want miss or Miss Miss to leave because they are really kind people and the about them the cool would be the same and they really nice thank you um thank you for your comments um Theo and Tia and Mom and keep going we're proud of you we love you and we are glad that this Berkeley Community is here for you all we will continue with our uh student we will continue with our adult speakers who will speak uh in regards to layoffs for program
037Specialists so first we will hear from Kathleen Russell next we will hear from unique Wells and then finally we will hear from probably the best name of the night kadesia bartlo and I just say that because my name's kadesia too so Kathleen unique and then kadesia and as they are coming um it is important to let you all know especially those of you who are online uh that we are having some technical issues with our sound online and so our Tech team is doing um some troubleshooting and so if you are not able to hear we are working on that on our end uh but we will ensure that this um this meeting is uploaded to YouTube um this week later on this weekend so you will be able to hear it at a later
038time we are ready to receive you whenever you're ready M everybody I just want to mention before I start yeah good evening everybody I just wanted to mention uh that two years ago my daughter was here advocating for the college bound and uh I'm honoring her tonight and I'm going to talk also by myself my name is Kadija bllo I'm a program specialist at Rosa par Rosa par Elementary tonight I would like to speak on behalf of the program specialist position since I started to work at uh for the district as a learn program specialist I pride myself for leading a high quality program without a site coordinator but under the supervision of Miss Brazil Max entire two years ago the site coordinator position was created with the same job description while the program Specialists
039were performing the same job description for over 20 years today our district has a deficit in order to reduce it drastic cuts are required the coordinator position is uh has a cost at almost $100,000 per oh you may finish your sentence Miss yeah per per each coordinator for year um can we allow our time to her you can absolutely seed your time to her and so if the both of you are seeding your time then you have two additional minutes or are you not seeing your time okay then you have two additional minutes okay thank you very much um having a program specialist per site will save the district at least $50,000 per site and 600 $600,000 for 12 site if we were uh 12 program specialist having 12 specialist because of our wages the
040response is phys fiscally more responsible than having nine coordinators we program Specialists have been doing the same job as a site coordinator at a cheaper cost in budget cuts it is a more responsible choice we program Specialists have been doing and still willing to do the task that they voiced they don't want to be responsible for uh keeping the program especially during this financial crisis is the best solution we want you please board to reconsider the necessity to keep all the program specialist in place please save our jobs thank you very much thank you I want to ensure that we did not miss unique Wells oh that was you okay perfect and then I want to make sure that we didn't miss Kathleen Russell she is not here perfect thank you very much uh next
041we will move on to um layoffs regarding after school and so we will hear first from Evan followed by Jasmine Fe my time to or whatever you call it to Jared Sanders if that's okay okay and I just want to make sure I know who you are are you Mr Evan okay thank you so much Evan Evan you are gonna seed your time to Jerry Taylor to Jared Sanders oh Jared yeah hi Jared you come on up and then he knows and I know him so Jared will go and then after um jine you ago oh you're gonna seed your time as well okay perfect well well jerck you have three minutes if you need it so you have three minutes if you need it take the time that you need yeah let the CL
042run we let it run let's go all right um uh greetings superintendent board members thank you for your time um this feels all too familiar um but um my name is Jared Sanders I'm the learns after school coordinator for King Middle School I'm here to speak on behalf of the importance of my colleagues and the coordinator position but also express my solidarity and confidence um in the need for all our learned staff to remain in place um from our specialist to our coordinators it everyone should remain where they are um for the past several years as an it or 15 years as an it and now as a coordinator I've seen our programs lose wonderful employees as they've pursued new careers and educational opportunities but I admire that about our programs our programs was a
043feeder system for people to learn professional development and grow into bigger and better things for themselves some people stay for longer some people leave sooner but I think it was a point of Pride for learns to have people that came through qualified capable people that would come through and then pursue other careers sometimes in education um that we had such talent moving on uh to New Opportunities after developing professionally b bs BSD is is a testament to the quality of people we have however in that time um since maybe that pandemic days I also seen our hiring rate slow down to a near standstill and I've seen our staffing become more dependent outside contractors um so instead of from building from within we've been supplementing and piecing it together with outside contractors this external investment
044left our programs weaker than they once were both culturally financially and at capacity as could been seen with the hundreds of families on our weight list that still can't get into after school care still can't get after school care from us due to a lack of Staffing and our mandated ratios my purpose for being here is to implore you superintendent board not to reduce any learn positions from coordinators Specialists athletic directors the quality Integrity of our programs rely on skilled dedicated Leaders with resolve and vision um to remain at the helm we have a vision and we have been working on a proposal that will help the programs grow and continue to generate Revenue which is unique about our programs is that we can generate this Revenue that will justify all our positions and learns
045and hopefully continue to build a prosperous program for all our the USD community and students we ask that you hear our proposal and our feedback as we want to be part of the solution we are the internal investment that I promise will pay off thank you for your time and consideration I look forward to speaking with you all very soon thank you as well uh next we will hear from Aaron followed by Kimberly followed by rashne okay hello superintendent and board like Jared I'm back again thank you for having us uh I really was prepared to seed my time but I'll just say this uh I do want to piggy back on what Jared said um you know I've been uh coordinators then Specialists then back again to coordinator again for the last 20 plus
046years uh I also seen the growth of our after school program I've seen the struggles outside um contractors staffing issues and I know a lot of people who've been working Specialists coordinators everyone has worked very hard to push through these issues whether it's uh racial issues and we're taking classes whether it's us doing the role of two jobs some coordinators and special been athletic directors we've been everything and so um I just hope that the mass layoffs and everything we don't it doesn't leave to a restructuring that our kids and students suffer that's the one thing I'm worried about that's the one thing I cared about since I've been here thank you are Kimberly and rashne here and ready to speak tonight okay should I go ahead yes go ahead okay thank you my name
047is roshi kasid and I have a second my name is rosne and I have a second grader Azad and a younger son who will be an incoming TK student this fall at Thousand Oaks Azad has been attending after care at Berkeley for the past three years at Thousand Oaks and is deeply committed or connected to the community there which is very much due to the leadership strong mentorship and program management on Dante and all the other after Care staff there at Thousand Oaks we were shocked when we learned that Monte and other after Care staff were being eliminated their roles were being eliminated and immediately saw the Thousand Oaks Community mobilized behind them after care is an integral part of the overall Thousand Oaks experience and is deeply connected to the school day program in
048large part due to Dante and the strong other Aftercare providers there earlier this year when my son was having challenges in his second grade classroom Dante is and his school day teacher connected and Dante immediately told AA that the next time he has ches Dante would be happy to come in his classroom and assist him I just want to say the staff are so connected and so deeply um really just strong role models to our students and we hope that you can retain their positions thank you thank you okay so we have about 10 cards left uh and then these 10 cards are under this all under the same category and so I'm going to ask if there are any folks who are seating their time um if you could identify that uh at this
049time if not we will first move on to um Miss C followed by Ilia are there any folks who are seeding their time you're seing your time what's your name IIA seaing your time thank you very much is there anyone else who is seeding their time out of Amanda Dan Lanisha EMT Steve okay thank you and are you Miss Lanisha okay um and then we have EMT Steve Lizzy Jessica and Travis are any of those folks seating their time okay so here's what we will do typically typically when you're speaking as a group you you get the five minutes but what I think is happening is these are all individuals who are speaking as individuals and so what we will do is we will continue the one minute um but because we are going over
050time um for the board meeting as a board member I will actually seed my time for my comments tonight and not give any comments so that all the people who took the time to come out and have a card and would like to speak may go ahead and do that tonight okay so first we will hear from uh Mrs C followed by Amanda oh well we have Amanda uh C and then we have Amanda Montes so it's not the same person but Missy I know you girl so w you come on up okay good evening board members tonight we are coming to you with urgent and necessary please from Berkeley Technology Academy Berkeley Technology Academy staff and programs are instrumental in being able to offer alternative educational access to the most these students often need
051specialized programs and Community Partners like the staff at BTA our staff members including Sandra Maldonado sopina Jones Molina Landry and nandu Williams and the programs they provide to stud behind by BD taking away programs like Career Technical education student welfare office of family e equity and engagement and academic counseling focused on one site will be felt tremendously by our small campus these staff members put their heart into advocating for the students we see these position positions not as budget cuts but as valuable members of our Berkeley technology Community we must stop the cuts of these essential BTA programs and commit to keeping BTA staff intact because our site is so small even a single position cut makes a huge impact I respectfully urge the board to see that BTA doesn't face any Cuts this year
052and in the near future show us you care show us you value our work and keep BTA staff and Community the same in the new school year my final plan is to ensure Safety and Security for children across BD by keeping our after school program staff and their respective directors for each site the staff and security the Safety and Security for our youth depend on it thank you for your time and consideration thank you Miss uh next we will hear from uh Amanda Montes okay I'm sorry I'm going to pause you for just one second is EMT a student okay EMT is a student cuz I had emt's card as an adult but EMT is a student and so Amanda if it is okay with you do you mind if our student goes before you
053and then we'll call you back up okay hi EMT welcome I would like to say that Miss Anita shouldn't be F from our school because she is super nice thank you emit for that super nice comment next we will hear from a followed Dan Brown place now those two students are advocates for each other and that is invaluable in fact that family is here tonight and we found out we go to the same church and didn't even know that without Miss Anita being in our lives to bring us together that way and that was incredibly powerful for our two families um I want to mention something that I think is important that this board understands this summer my daughter was enrolled in learns we tried to pay for that program we could not pay the
054district for learns during the summertime we are not the only family there are multiple families that try to give you our money and we could not give you money I just want to say one short thing is that vital staff shouldn't suffer because of administrative mishaps neither should our students please count your summer enrollment numbers and your funds and maybe we'll find a way to keep staff when we Bank our funds appropriately thank you thank you next we will hear from Dan followed by Lizzy so this is my uh layoff notice um has a list of all the uh position s on it um you know I'm just a lowly clerical assistant so I mean I'm not that close the classroom but you know the filing still needs to be done uh administrators need their
055administrative assistance because uh I don't think yall would want to be doing having to do all that yourselves additionally I found out today that uh you can research this yourselves but uh school districts that eliminated programs like Opie saw drops in attendance which of course means a drop in money so this is going to become a vicious cycle of layoffs and drops in attendance then more layoffs and drop and so on and we've got a all these about 16 IIA positions and over 30 instru instuctional specialist positions on here as well just I please let me finish um I harped on this last time but why are all these jobs getting eliminated when I know for a fact because I've seen the invoices that we have enormous contracts with staffing companies for IA positions and
056one of my co-workers did the math it would be cheaper to just hire for those positions or retain these positions than the enormous amount that's all thank you you may begin okay thank you hi everyone my name is Lizzie Hager Barnard I'm here tonight to strongly oppose the plan to reduce the learn site coordinat positions this decision would have devastating effects on our youngest students this is especially true at Cragmont given our staffing situation and our very open campus kont site coordinator Miss Jasmine mccy is the heart of our program and over 140 caregivers and Educators have signed a petition in support of her our community loves Miss Jasmine and she has the skills and authority to run a program that prioritizes safety first as you've heard earlier tonight from students this is no easy
057feat as kont has one of the most open campuses in the district and a multi M tiered play area Miss Jasmine has taken critical steps to improve safety such as making sure that community members who come onto Campus before 6 p.m are asked to leave and avoid security risks I also ask that you consider whether your proposed changes are allowed by your grants and California's Education Code principles have already been wrongly told they have no say in hiring site coordinators despite California education code 84 83.4 requiring their approval next we will hear from Jessica followed by Travis and I want to as they're coming up uh Steve are you uh commenting as an individual or on behalf of the Union Yes for the union so I'll call you up during Union time okay so our
058last uh public commenters in person for uh this session will be Jessica followed by Travis thank you thank you superintendent and board uh I'm the parent of a first grader at Sylvia Mendes and I'm here tonight to add my voice to the communities to implore this board to utilize every measure at your disposal to avoid these layoffs districtwide I'm very moved by the showing tonight and the extent of these notices I think speaking to the situation specifically at Sylvia Mendes one thing that hasn't been mentioned tonight is that we know there's a shortage of bilingual staff that are available in the area to serve the school's unique Mission and we can't lose that expertise in that human capital it's not just something that we can backfill for easily when our budget pressures are alleviated uh
059the actions would severely compromise our current and our future ability to deliver on those Collective core values that we hold our budget choices I realize they are difficult they are choices are the most meaningful indicator of our values thank you thank you as well and then finally we will hear from Travis hello excuse me in a time where education in this country is under imminent attack I Rise to express my unwavering support for Mr Dante who has been an incredible educator and positive influence on my 10-year-old daughter Fern it is imperative that the Berkeley Unified School District understands the profound impact Mr Dante has had not only on her academic growth but also on her personal development Mr Dante goes above and beyond what is expected of an educator he Fosters an environment where children
060feel safe motivated and eager to learn my daughter fern consistently comes home excited about what she's learned in his after school program and speaks highly of how he educates critical or excuse me encourages critical thinking creativity and self-confidence Beyond academics Mr D has instilled in her a genuine love for Learning and a sense of responsibility that is rare to find it would be a grave mistake to overlook or undervalue the dedication and positive influence Mr Dante brings to the school Educators like him are the best backbone of a thriving school system I don't know and his ability to connect with students challenge them intelle intellectually and nurture their potential is something that should be celebrated and supported not questioned or put at risk thank you uh it is my hope that our sound is now
061working online um we have 11 additional public comments commenters who will be speaking online uh each of you will be be given one minute to speak um we will begin with RI followed by mati and uh Miss charz if you can please go ahead and promote them at this time we are beginning the public comment period for folks online and so we will not be uh accepting any more commenters uh at this time so our last commenter will be David raie whenever you're ready you may begin thank you so much um good evening members of the board superintendent and Community um thanks for coming out tonight my name is Rae Lee I'm a mom to a sixth and eighth grader at king um first I want to recognize the important progress this district has made
062I've been following the literacy um issue and um I think the district has made incredible progress in identifying um what appears to be a really great Elementary um curriculum um this is a critical first step and so congratulations um at the same time I want to see speak about my personal experience my own son sixth grade still struggles with the reading delay and I know firsthand that had he had a strong research-based curriculum um it would have made a difference um I want to emphasize that well this is a really amazing progress the work is not done choosing the curriculum is just the beginning the implementation is going to be really hard our teachers deserve real support um I urge the board to commit to budgeting for sustained teacher training for at least the next
063two academic years um I also ask the board to closely monitor implementation by scheduling regular check-ins and updates to assess progress and identify challenges and ensure accountability and establish clear metrics for what successful imple implementation will look like including um getting student feedback thank you so much thank you raim next we will hear from mati uh and as a reminder to our online uh public speakers you will see uh the timer in the back as soon as I'm done talking it'll pop up but you'll see the timer in the back so if you could just check periodically um and you will know when your minute is close uh close to ending okay next we will hear from mati followed by Milner good evening uh board uh I'm um I'm calling to talk about the uh
064board policy regarding uh adoption of a curriculum I have recognized that uh since the last comments from last fall uh you rep the word uh May consult with uh uh uh May provide opportunities for input to parents you replace that word with Shia not a lawyer but understand the difference but still that leaves uh parents in the very very back seat together with representative of local businesses uh Etc while looking at the um regulation it does recognize that what you uh the process that went last uh year of approval of the un9 curriculum was against and contradicts the regulation that you just approved and it is my hope that going forward you will indeed um follow this regulation that says that curriculum uh thank you mati I believe you uh got cut off finishing your
065sentence um but as always you are free to email uh your comments to the Board of Education next we will hear uh Milner followed by Laura hello hello I'm Karine Gibbs and this is my husband Jules brai and we have two children in BSD one in e8th grade at King Middle School and the other in fourth grade at Thousand Oaks Elementary uh we really greatly appreciate the learns um after school programs both at King and we rock um especially the after school program at we rock led by Mr Dante and his very capable um staff of of Specialists um want to Second what Karine said and particularly just add that Mr dant Gallen as a program site coordinator and Ms Asen Wiggins as a key uh teacher are really important um both in their organizational
066and creative contributions and uh to weok and we want to ask that you please keep them at Thousand Oaks in these roles thank you thank you as well next we will hear from Laura followed by Paula Phillips so what we since Lura has dropped off what we'll do is we'll keep her place um and then if she gets back on Zoom we will make sure she has the opportunity to speak so may you please promote Paula followed by L Monica good evening good evening welcome good evening it's been a while um my name is Paula Phillips I'm District's classi professional development coordinator I'm the only person tasked with coordinating training for the district's 400 plus classified employees I received a March 15 notice along with my classified colleagues during the last board meeting President Brown
067said going forward she wanted staff to be transparent with the layoff process unfortunately that ship is sailed the only resolutions that were listed on the March 5th agenda were for 169 classified positions and 20.6 FTE certificated staff the word around the district is that additional certificated teachers tsas directors and principles receive non- reelect or probationary release notices too and the only way we know they did is because our colleagues said they did due to the lack of transparency I have a few questions that I want you to ask yourselves and staff one were these the only two resolution on the consent calendar um if the board voted in Clos session to non- reelect probe release or to eliminate or discontinue additional certificated positions according to the Ed code why were they done in close session
068if they were and why did this year's process change from years past a process that hasn't changed legally a process to vote on all preliminary layoff notices in public session why was there a lack of transparency if we all have to shoulder the burden of layoffs if the board approved additional layoffs in closed session it was crafty and disingenous and it left me feeling disrespected devalued and unappreciated thank you the new station alert thank you Miss Phillips as you know it is not our um our typical practice to respond um to public comment but please know um that whatever we've decided to do in Clos session we have ensured that it is done in Open Session and so thank you for this very important information and update um that we are unaware of but we'll
069handle um as we need to thank you um next can you please promote Ian followed by Ramona and Asa hello hello you may begin oh did you call my name I did oh okay thank you you're welcome my name is a know I'm commenting to support the district's choice of evidence-based Elementary Ela curriculum additionally I offer some suggestions for the three-year implementation plan first strengthening instructional practice differentiation and Equity should be a parallel Focus From the Start do not wait until 2 years from now to make focal students a priority it is not true that a rising tide raises all boats because some boats have leaks District elcap data demonstrate that focal students cannot wait from an equity standpoint if you Center the needs of our most marginalized then it raises everyone second the curriculum
070adoption process to prepare study and decide makes no mention of engaging Community stakeholders continue engaging with students and families all throughout the implementation process and importantly close the loop when we when we give you constructive feedback the curriculum and development and evaluation board board policy requires that the process shall provide opportunities for input from students parent care caregivers and other community members finally invest in expanding the number of literacy leaders who will be doing the heavy lifting of professional development coaching and supporting teachers one literacy coach cannot do it all there are still teachers including education Specialists who need help with implementing evidence-based methods with Fidelity thank you thank you next we will hear from Ramona and ASA followed by Anita we may begin unfortunately we cannot hear your sound um so give us just
071a a second and maybe on you your in can you check and make sure there you go okay so sorry hi my name is Ramona and I'm an eighth grader at King Middle School my Brother currently goes to Thousand Oaks Elementary which where which is where I went as well after school programs like we rock and learns are non-n negotiable the school board has over 115 parents signing to keep Mr Dante who helps run the reok program at Thousand Oaks alive my mom is a single parent and without we rock she can't work and if she can't work she can't support me and my brother more importantly we rock is a place for kids to go after school that is Joy filled safe happy and welcoming and that's all because of Mr Dante whenever I
072go to pick up my brother the kids are all smiling and having fun in fact my brother loves Mr Dante so much and the we staff that he insists on being the last kid there and won't leave until 600 p.m. Mr Dante and the wi Rock staff make every kid feel happy empowered encourage and encouraged the staff need to secure and the staff need to feel secure and their employment just as much as these kids need this program to continue on thank you for listening next can you please promote Anita followed by Rachel but hello can you hear me yes we can hear you welcome Monita ran and I'm the after school coordinator at Sylvia Mendes I speak tonight on issues that prevent learns from delivering essential services to families today we heard testimony on
073the importance of retaining all of our after school members from Specialists to coordinators to it through these budget cuts while funding at the federal and state level are out of our control the viability of after school programs is very much in our hands we have untapped potential to be sustainable and self-sufficient serve more families and invest in our own communities instead the leaders who can make that happen are being cut to save money while our district is paying the equivalent of four it salaries for a single AO coach to do the exact same work with less impact I am board to invest in our own communities find long-term solutions that represent the values and needs of Berkeley families cut these contracts not our after school leaders thank you Miss Anita next we will hear from
074Rachel followed by our final public commentary this evening who is David hi I'm Rachel doie I'm a parent of a uh student at Longfellow and also a student at Sylvia Mendes I'm also on the PTA at Sylvia mes and I just wanted to speak in support of the staff and the support staff at the school the most important thing to our students as is obvious from the comments tonight is the people who actually have face-to-face contact with them and maintaining continuity in that and trying the best we can as a district to avoid the annual pink slip um you know trauma that we inflict upon the staff who are so important to our students and often are the ones who are the um least well paid uh it's it just feels really unfair and so
075I understand they're important decisions and compromises the district has to make but I would really hope that this is the place that we strive to to maintain these important positions thank you thank you as well we'll move on to our final public commenter David oh good evening board and superintendent I'm David trer from brookley independent study um for decades my math students barely got by without a counselor but then the bis coordinator and administrative and assistant positions were cut and students totally lost support this proportionately the third of them who have special needs yet thanks to the school board bis recently gained a dedicated full-time counselor to support High need students and avoid transferring delays for weeks of school during which time students just couldn't attend any classes so here's the takeaway saving our counseling
076positions saves the district attendance Revenue just don't merge and cut the bis and BTA counselor positions just don't cut BTA and bis thank you thank you as well we will move on to our committee comments um our committee comments include um I know there one comment um tonight someone who will speak on the African-American um advisory committee are there any uh other committee comments this evening if there are I'm going to ask that you please come up to the podium to speak at this time okay we'll have pack comments as well miss charz do you see uh Spencer online he's online okay so what we'll do is we'll take Spencer who is ready to go and then after that uh we will take our uh pack comments okay hi there um good evening board directors
077superintendent and the Berkeley Community my name is Spencer pitchard and I'm the co-chair of the black studies department at Berkeley High School and a member of the superintendent African-American success advisory committee and the AAC representative to the superintendent's budget advisory committee the a has produced quarterly meeting has had a productive quarterly meeting last week where we received an update from the superintendent on student data Trends various AAC members shared their work in the Bry Community the Berkley Schools fund shared its theory of change and key Equity Grant Investments and we learn more about the ways to support the upcoming oratorical Fest on March 26 an important topic for the ASAC and frankly all of us is the impact of the budget reductions this board has to make in light of US Department of Education funding
078decreases as the BC board considers tough and difficult decisions this spring we would like to remind the board that investing in africanamerican Student Success is still vital and important recent data from the 2025 Ed Trust West black mines matter report highlightes why continued investment in African-American student achievement must continue for instance 17% of black students in California have teachers who look like them compared to 87% of white students who have white teachers three and 10 met English Language Art standards 18% are proficient in math 78% graduation rate compared to 89% for white students black students in the state are still three times as likely to be suspended as white students chonic absenteeism increased for African-American students in the 2023 24 Academic Year from 21% to 33% compared to 16% for white students I also include
079that they did share highlights such as the afan SES department at Berkeley High School as different solutions um as well so these uh student data points are compelling and a called to action for best practice intervention in this District while these data points are daunting and unsettling the ASAC believes in leadership of this board superintendent staff families students and Community to accelerate Improvement for African-American and ultimately all the USB students we commend the district's team for the gain share at the February 19th the USD Board of Ed meeting and both the winter star reading and math results for the African-American and all students we would like to also include the ways that the ASF U District Partners support the district's efforts to accelerate achievement for students including urge under the leadership of Ika Davis um
080young GI in Black provides ongoing growth mindset and social emotional learning support City Berkeley Works through youth Equity project which Nina Goldman leads supporting several berley orgs serving to USD students um Duffy Ross and her leadership runs the brookley public schools program invest in school sites and community orgs and then College Bound led by Dr darling Willis provides monthly college going strategy sessions as I wrap up my comments I'd like to invite the BD Community to attend the third annual BD aftering success framework transition fairs on Saturday April 19th for students transitioning from 8th to 9th grade at berly High School in the Don Hue gym and on Saturday April 26th for students transitioning from 5ifth to 6th grade at the Martin Luther King Middle School both transition fairs are from 10: a.m. to 11:30
081a.m. transition fairs play an important role in helping students and families see around the corner as they approach important grade level transitions um the ASAC would like to give a special shout out to Berkley High School's principal L goza and C clay for their partnership and thought leadership and designing this year's eth to nth grade transition fa and finally want to exess U express our appreciation to former BTA principal Heidi Weber for her strong support of the aing success framework implementation at BTA over the past few years thank you so much and that's my time uh thank you African-American uh success framework advisory committee now we will hear the comments from our parent advisory committee good evening my name is Jesse Le Brandy and I am here as the co-chair of the elcap parent advisory
082committee to give an update on the Pack's progress as in past years of the pack we have struggled with incomplete representation and low attendance from members members we currently have several unrepresented schools and have failed to meet Quorum at three out of our three of our six meetings thanks to the help of our district admin we have been able to somewhat increase attendance by calling members with a reminder a few days before each meeting and I'm happy to report that after my co-chair stepped back at the end of January another pack member stepped forward and I have a new co-chair sea Rios this year the pack has agreed to focus on three areas addressing barriers in the school Home Connection academic intervention especially at our elementary schools and ensuring focal student groups are fully supported
083since my last pack update we have had three meetings each one covering one of those Focus areas at each of these meetings we received a presentation from District staff and the pack discussed current strengths and areas for improvement and noted further questions to investigate our first of these meetings we met to discuss our first Focus area barrier in the school Home Connection this Focus closely aligns with the elcap goal 4 we invited members from the office of family equity and engagement to join us and present on their work pack members expressed that Opie's work is invaluable both in building one-on-one relational trust with focal families and holding community events to support our students outside of the classroom we did note that op's VAR visibility varies widely between the school sites and there remains work to
084be done in building awareness Ness of Opie's Services among our focal families so that they can access these these services at our next meeting we discussed our second Focus area academic intervention this Focus aligns neatly with the elcap goal to we received presentations from Rose James and Mandy hubard on the district's work on literacy and math Lena Sweeney also gave us an overview of the district's RTI system pack members recognize the critical nature of coaching intervention in supporting our students learning we appreciated the district's continued work on literacy especially with literacy coaches working in every elementary and middle school as we see increases in our focal population star and Dibbles testing results and while we are excited to see the work that has been started through the meeting of the math Minds some pack members
085were frustrated that math intervention is currently very limited at the elementary level and some sites do not have any math coaches pack members also recognized the need to ensure all students and their caregivers have support and understanding and accessing IEPs and 504 plans we need to continue working to build awareness of different learning styles and to reduce stigma especially within our focal populations at our last meeting we discussed our final Focus area supports for focal student groups aligning with lcap Goal 3 and touching on aspects of lcap goal one we started with a presentation from Dr Shelly and Amelia Lewis discussing mckin vento supports for housing insecure students in our district P members were excited to hear about the new signs and enrollment forms the personalized support available to these students especially in regards to
086transportation and the ongoing training for staff and teachers to address stigma around unhoused students and families however there were deep concerns regarding our mckin vento family's Admissions Office experience we needed a we noted a strong need for anti-bias communication and utmost discretion regarding mckin vento qualifications so that every family that qualifies feels safe and rolling in the program at this meeting we also invited Mary Patterson to present on the AVID program and Jesse luxford to present on bridge the pack appreciated the work done by both of these programs and we know that families and students in both Avid and Bridge speak very highly of their work but we were left with concerns about enrollment in both programs given Bridge's limited capacity and the Fairly specific profile of students that Abid serves pack members also wondered
087about the numerous support and acceleration programs available to our students with so many different programs how can we ensure that we are efficiently serving the needs of our students and how can we spread awareness of these programs among vocal students and families our next meeting is tomorrow evening and we will dig into the results from the districtwide elcap survey at our remaining meetings we will address follow-up questions from pack members and prepare our official recommendations to the superintendent and the board thank you thank you as well we will move on to our Union comments um yes is right we will move on to our Union comments um and we will receive them in the order that they are listed on the agenda so we'll receive comments from bft I know that there is a video
088uh followed by comments from bcce if there are comments from Yuba we will hear those and then we will hear Steve Collins who will make com comments on behalf of Local 21 Miss chus do you need some time to load up okay here's what we'll do uh while masarus loads up uh the comments for bft we'll actually move on to bcce for your comments good evening board members superintendent and bcce members the 164 BCC positions targeted for layoffs are not just numbers they represent dedicated individuals who provide vital support to students and families these cuts are not just fiscal decisions they are cuts to student support equity and Community stability we hear the district's commitment to Excellence Equity engagement and enrichment yet those values are now at risk bcce demands four things accountability accessibility answers
089and actions accountability the district must take responsibility for ensuring these layoffs are strategic and Justified staff reductions must be prepared with a clear plan that identifies how essential services will continue without compromising Student Success accessibility critical data that informs the decisions must be transparent and available we demand full disclosure promptly of the analysis used to determine which positions were targeted and how those choices align with the district's priorities this will allow bcce to best support our members and be a true thought partner in the process answers families employees and the community deserve clear explanations how will the district fill the gaps left by these reductions What alternative Solutions were considered how will the District ensures students receive the same level of support they rely on today action the district must proactively address these concerns by
090re-evaluating the proposed cuts and prioritizing reductions that protect the employees who are vital to student wellbe and District stability our students rely on people not spesies in times of Crisis positions like student welfare and attendance Specialists family engagement coordinators and restorative justice leaders are irreplaceable these are mentors Advocates and trusted connections for students seeking guidance and support their absence will leave students vulnerable and disconnected as Sebastian Garcia fosto a 10th grader at Berkeley High School put it all these Educators have helped us grow and become better people without them lots of students would be lost and confused Beyond student services these Cuts undermine critical Financial oversight for example cutting a budget analyst 2 jeopardizes the management of 53.7 million in special education and maintenance budgets the special education budget alone is one of the most
091complex in the district requiring constant oversight reporting and meticulous financial management over the past four years this analyst has generated over 1.1 million in additional Revenue through diligence and expertise cutting a budget analyst one eliminates oversight of the district's general fund bank accounts and the management of critical School site funds like ptas and the principal discretionary funds who will ensure these essential Financial processes continue without disruption decisions about these roles must be informed by an understanding of their significance and impact meanwhile the district continues to spend heavily on contractors while loyal experienced employees face layoffs are these Cuts truly addressing Financial stability or will they create long-term cost in academic achievement student well-being and District Operations we also request that the district conduct a thorough investigation and to the rationale Behind These Cuts in each
092department and provide a clear plan detailing how essential services will continue to function if these positions are eliminated transparency and accountability are crucial to ensuring the district remains stable and effective layoffs don't just move employees they they destabilize the system erode trust and weaken the foundation supports success board members superintendent and District leaders we urge you to carefully reconsider these 164 BCC classified support positions prioritize strategic reductions that maintain stability start at the top protect the staff who are vital to our students families and schools our school our students deserve better our community deserves better we will not back down on our fight for what's right this charz are we ready all right Miss chis are we are we ready if not we will actually go ahead and move on to Steve Collins okay Steve
093whenever you are welcome to come and make your comments at this time hello I'm with the International Federation of professional and Technical Engineers better known as Local 21 I am here today with uh Angela long our Local 21 business rep and with the now famous Dante gallon and I'm Gonna Let each of them speak and then if there's time after I'll say a couple more words thank you hello board um I'm Angela long I'm the rep for Local 21 and I'm here today on behalf thank you I'm here today on behalf of our members who received layoff notices we have four single person classifications that receive notices African-American success project manager classified professional development cordinator family engagement and Equity supervisor and our nutritional education program supervisor letting these individuals off and leaving these classifications vacant
094would have an enormous negative effect on the programs that they run and the communities they serve as would laying off the nine after school program coordinators after losing three of these positions last year these members provide vital services and oversight to their programs that are of critical importance the impact of losing any more of these positions would be felt throughout the community and make it extremely difficult for the programs to continue to run successfully in order to maintain the Integrity of the program we must not lose one more after school program coordinator we understand the budget is not finalized and there are many difficult decisions to be made but we urge you not to cut any more of these important positions and I'm handing it over to Dante hello everyone uh first off I want
095to acknowledge and thank all the families and the students that spoke on my behalf thank you so much and to the students that spoke on any of these topics keeps using your voice also I would like to thank the Berkeley District as a whole for supporting my sister who is Lisha um and my nephew uh Theo and my niece Tia when tragedy struck their family like it was a lot of support so thank you uh good evening board members my name is Dante Gallen Ooa and I stand before you today as a dedicated coordinator speaking not just for myself but for all of my colleagues who are at risk of losing our positions many of us coordinators came up through the bcce union earning promotions through years of dedication to our students and programs we
096have worked tirelessly to build strong thriving programs and now we are being told that our jobs jobs that were created out of District necessity are no longer valued this decision is not just unfair to us but it is a direct blow to the quality of the programs that so many families rely on coordinators are the backrounds of these programs we handle their administrative work oversee day-to-day operations tend to students and parents needs and supervise both staff and students we are the ones making critical decisions in ensuring safety resolving conflict and maintaining the quality standards that keep the programs running effectively without us there is no leadership on site there is no oversight there is no consistency the proposed alternative having program specialist absorb these duties is simply not viable these responsibilities fall outside of their
097job descriptions and simply not fair to ask of them without compensation their jobs are important too these duties will then fall into the laps of principles who already have a heavy workload and don't always know the ins and outs of the after school program and frankly shouldn't have to deal with added responsibilities rotating coordinators between schools is equally damaging as it disrupts the relationship the relationships we've built with students families and staffs community and Trust takes time to establish and the continuity is essential for the program's success this would actually traumatize and devastate the students and dis sorry students and disrupt the community building practices that are necessary to help these students with their development and in the after school programs parents look forward to joining our programs based off the work that we do
098you would never expect a school to function without a principal why then would you expect a program to function without a coordinator it is beyond is heartening that the district would rather allocate Millions to outside vendors such as a levo rather than invest in the dedicated bu USC staff who have already proven their commitment to these programs eliminating coordinators is not a cost-saving solution it is a decision that will directly harm students families and staff we have created a plan that could help keep our jobs while also finding a solution to help with the financial Funk that we did not create we urge you to reconsider keep the positions keep the quality keep the leadership that the programs need to thrive our students deserve nothing less thank you guys so much thank you as well
099are we ready to receive our bft comments okay here we are hello superintendent Ford Morel and the Berkeley Schoolboard director c s I am Matt Meyer president of the Berkeley Federation of teachers tonight I am bringing to you some concerns that I believe were completely preventable I will start with layoffs as you can see from the turnout tonight layoffs are no joke although the district says they are only notices of possible layoffs they do carry with them the very real possibility that someone may lose their job thus their livelihood our members and members of other unions in B USD do not know what is really under consideration and what isn't B USD claims they are reducing employees to fill in a deficit in the budget that deficit when you add in the revenue from new
100enrollment numbers and figure in other savings already identified is relatively small especially compared to the deficits other districts are experiencing who are already resending layoff notices if you were to add up the monetary value of all the positions being laid off it would equal tens of millions of dollars there is a major disconnect between the layoff notices and the need to reduce spending the district not only over noticed there's no timeline to resend these notices this means that our employees that the district has invested considerable professional development into whose kids go to our schools and who have been working for the district for many many years do not know if they have a job as a member of the superintendent budget advisory committee I shared at last week's esack meeting how the use of layoff
101notices as a tool to move towards the target causes concern the esac presentations have been unclear as to what's real and what's not real I also noted that we as a committee have had very little discussion on positions making it difficult for me to articulate to members which positions are being considered and which are not know that other districts are hiring now our longtime Educators as well as classified staff and administrators are actively looking for work outside B USD many Educators were devastated to receive these letters there is no communication about why they're getting this and what the steps will be to resend these notices I've talked to many Educators and tear unable to make sense out of what is happening to their career the numbers just don't add up B USD needs to be
102more transparent with our community and staff about the cuts it actually intends to make and stop this madness of giving notices to a quarter of our employees that work for them these notices need to be rescinded immediately we are also o experiencing the same delays and deprioritization that we experienced last year with regards to our contract negotiations the district has not brought our sunshine to the board even though bft submitted it in time to be on the March 5th agenda our first meeting has been delay until after spring break because the sunshine is not on today's agenda what could have begun next week will have to take place three weeks from today we have a completely open contract and many issues that need to be addressed through negotiation we have many proposals already ready to
103go that align the three pillars of our we can't wait for the schools our students deserve bargaining platform the three pillars include fully stuff our schools improve educator pay and stability for our students this platform represents our broader goals and integrates the work we are doing with education unions across the state we are hoping to achieve through collective bargaining contract language that will keep our counselors and support staff establish solutions to our sped Department set forth competitive paying benefits Fair compensation for after school work meetings breaking the cycle of Contracting oppositions in buusd protections against layoffs displacements and disruptions to the continuity of our student services we really hope something changes soon thank you well there's that all right thank you uh as well for your comments we will uh now actually move on to
104our board comments and all of our board members oh I'm so sorry we will now move on to our Yuba comments I'm so sorry Yuba good evening I'm Alexander hunt the president of the Union of Berkeley administrators I have been a principal at BD for 15 years and I'm here representing the principles Vice principles Deans coordinators and program supervisors that make up our Union this is a time of both excitement and apprehension for our members we're excited about the prospect of a new language arts adoption in elementary school like you heard about this evening aligned with the learning we've had over the past several years we are apprehensive about how the budget cuts we are facing this year will impact our ability to serve our students and accomplish our District's Mission we understand that the
105board didn't create this budget situation and come to you to advocate for a few steps that we believe the board can take to help us retain our staff in the face of budget uncertainties as you know a few days ago over 300 USD staff members from bcce bft Local 21 and Yuba received layoff notices or notices of potential reassignment the administrators have been Fielding a lot of questions about what these notices mean and a lot of feelings about that in our own Union more than half of our members received a notice of potential reassignment including all Vice principes coordinators and Deans while we realize that the notices do not mean that all of these positions will be cut this is a demoralizing message to our experienced and dedicated staff while these leaders are dedicated to
106our students this uncertainty signals that they should begin looking for work outside of Berkeley in order to be responsible to their own families to compound this message we are currently out of contract after a year of negotiations and the current District offer represents a reduction in total compensation for all uba members with a salary increase that does not match the cost of living that was approved by not offering competitive compensation while simultaneously showing people the prial door we run the risk of losing talented administrators this is a time when there is a critical shortage of qualified and experienced administrators teachers and classified staff in California in order to attract and retain qualified administrators I urge the board to empower the district bargaining team to come to the table with an offer that isn't less than
107every other Union with a settled contract and less than what the board approved for non-representative management we know that the board can't make money magically appear to solve the budget crisis and that there will be hard decisions to be made we urge the board to support quickly resending as many notices as possible across all unions to avoid losing talented and experienced staff again across all unions this will require the creation of a plan that minimizes the impact of necessary cuts on students experience at school creating a plan like this requires listening to many voices and yet it's critical that it happens quickly so that we don't lose our highly qualified teachers administrators and classified staff I also urge the board to consider allowing School sites to budget for Staffing for 25 26 using unencumbered site
108carryover money from BP and other funds while this is not our usual practice it would give schools the flexibility to preserve some positions and programs that we would not be otherwise able to fund or that may no longer be centrally funded this is the equivalent to what districts are doing when we dip into our Reserve or budget using onetime funds it isn't our usual way of doing business but this is an unusual year it doesn't solve the long-term structural problem but it would give us needed flexibility to support our students this upcoming year there are clearly difficult decisions up ahead to be made for the members of the Union of Berkeley administrators our day-to-day involves figuring out how to maximize student safety prioritize essential learning and ensure Equitable outcomes for our students that isn't our
109Union work that's our day job it's our hope that these are the same guiding principles that the board brings to this budget making process we welcome the opportunity to be involved in these kinds of conversations that put students at the center as we work towards making the best of of a difficult budget year not to be partial to my own school but at Malcolm X our motto is together we can and this budget conversation is the kind of Crisis that can pull communities to together or P pull communities apart and we really need to be together in this conversation and it will take a willingness to compromise and listen to cooperate not compete I believe that Berkeley as a community should be up to this challenge thank you very much thank you as well yba
110and again my apologies for um that mistake uh we will uh now go on to uh our board member comments and what uh the adult board members have decided to do um is again seed our time uh to the public commentators uh who were speaking this evening but we will hear from our student board director and then we will hear from our superintendent thank you so much good afternoon I'm Lisha Garcia one of the student board representatives for Berkeley Technology Academy first of all I'd love to thank all of you that could attend today it really means the world to me to know that people still care very deeply about education and the people who would make it happen but as I sit here tonight I can only think about the cuts being made at
111my small school of BT TA or many students may need extra help and or our special needs every staff member at that school has made a difference in not only my life but many others as well out of the 16 full-time staff members of BTA I believe four have been pink slipped that's a quarter of our staff from counselors to teachers I've been able to form beautiful meaningful relationships where I can not only rely on them to teach but talk to without them our school wouldn't be doing as good as it is now the staff are our pillars that hold us up please don't forget that thank you thank you good evening B USD family good evening listen it was like a hundred of y'all in here in the beginning let's let's get that same
112energy good evening B USD family so I'm feeling some kind of way because I gave up my time because the babies were so cute and we had to hear from them but the reason why I typically go be before public comments one is because we usually have a full room up until public comments are over but two because I think that or I try to share and say things that are relevant and responsive to um the themes and the concepts that are being shared in public comments and so um it is clear to all of us that a good number of folks who had things to say and had questions are no longer in this space but I do hope that they are listening online and that you share with them what I'm about to
113share with you so get your notepads out and let's take some notes uh so two years ago I created what's on the screen here and these are BD core values for resource allocation um these values guide all decisions that we make in buusd with regards to Resource allocation at the last board meeting our president reiterated the need for one of those values transparency to be at the Forefront we Define transparency here as believing it essential that the community understands the criteria and conditions that inform the allocation of resources with this value in mind and response to your calls for greater transparency I have launched a regular budget update video series for our staff to provide more detail about our budget development cycle they're like three to five minutes but we will be providing those updates
114regularly the first one actually came out uh today we have also introduced a special budget section in our weekly staff bulletin and I will be providing some level of budget update in all of my board comments going forward at these meetings additionally our staff will be making regular board presentations that both talk about the budget itself as well as the budget process throughout the weeks and board meetings to come through the time where our board is adopted adopted by our board later in U May or June we will also continue to share budget information at District advisory committees and other convenings another core value that's on the screen that I call your attention to is engagement we believe that context matters and that those closest to the work with the deepest understanding must have input
115in the decisions to leverage resources and meet our students needs with both of these values in mind transparency and engagement I encourage our community to stay engaged and involved not just during public comments but throughout I encourage you to accept and listen out for invitations like the one I'm going to make to you shortly uh to listen to uh board presentations but also to tend different settings and convenings where the budget is discussed like our esbat this evening actually there will be a budget presentation a pretty important budget presentation that highlights our second interim budget it talks about our expenses and our revenues and gives you some indication as to why we are up against the reductions that we've been discussing over the last couple weeks I also invite you to watch or attend virtually
116the upcoming esac meeting which will be held on Wednesday March 26th at 300 p.m. that's not correct at 4 P.M I apologize again this is a virtual meeting so you can listen in from home and you can find more information about this esac meeting and all reportings as well as artifacts from previous esac meetings on our District esac web page the esbc though it is an important group I want to be clear that that group does not make any decisions regarding District's budget but they do make recommendations they are a critical piece and bringing that committee is a critical committee sorry where we bring in different voices including representatives from our various Labor uh Partners as well as community members and District staff and different uh family and parent representatives from our different advisory committees
117we were trying to get some students we would love to get some students I might have to tag personally some students because that is the voice that is missing from those okay I see one I think you've been B and toed by the person sitting next to you but we are looking for student Representatives as well because that is a place where various perspectives and voices come together to engage in the very in the very conversations that you all are asking for to stand to get input and to consider a number of ideas to get us towards that very important budget Target I appreciate the engagement that we witnessed evening many of you came out and support programs people and positions the idea of these notices came out a lot this afternoon or this evening
118these notices communicate to staff that their positions may need to be eliminated but they also represent positions that might be reduced or reassigned a good majority of these notices are for positions to be re assigned to different locations um in different School sites that said there is no vote tonight and I know that some of those comments were not about votes but I think there were some folks who thought that the board would be taking some action and so I want to be clear there's no vote tonight on any positions in fact there's been no decisions made on any positions or nor on any of our budget reduction strategies we had to send out those notices to comply with California law even though we're still trying to understand and figure out our budget we have
119said and we have triying to sh show that we are really trying to exhaust next slide all options before we even consider reducing positions in programs if you look at this screen here you'll see um the budget reduction strategies that BD goes through they're not in any specific order but I want to call your attention to the first strategy which is evaluate and remove vacant positions that is most often the first thing that every District does when having to consider reductions to their budget but I also want to point your attention to the last one is consolidate and reduce programs or positions that is the very last thing that we want to it is the very last thing that we will do and it's only going to happen after we've exhausted all of those uh
120rectangles in between um including looking at an evaluating our contracts and various Partnerships internally as well as externally so again I encourage you to come to those sback meetings because you will hear the committee engaging in Rich discussion around these various reduction strategies but I also want you to know even if you don't come that we will exhaust every possible option before reducing or eliminating positions or programs um I do have to also say and they're not in the room but I love to uh pick up great Insight I look forward to continued partnership and collaboration with all of our labor Partners to ensure where's Miss Mildred at accountability accessibility answers and action I wrote that down and to you Alex I too believe that together we can um in terms of curriculum be USD
121values transparency and engagement not just when thinking about resource allocation but also thinking about teaching and learning and so over the last years we have had a number of engagements with family staff and our Elementary uh L literacy adoption committee to think about the curriculum that our babies receive um in language arts our staff have piloted curriculum over the past several months engaging two pilot Cycles tonight if you stay I sure hope that you stay you will hear staff's recommendations for the K5 reading curriculum adoption that's a big deal y'all and you heard some of our babies speak about it and you also heard some Educators speak about it as well um there have been a number of people who have been a part of this process School staff including members of the pilot committee
122who were here tonight some of them are still here tonight our school leaders who are some of them still here tonight and District staff families and leaders as well have participated in these sessions to get us to the place that we are this evening I appreciate all the learning leading and engagement that have brought us to the point this point in the process and again I hope that you will stay to hear staff's recommendation on our curriculum finally we have an important resolution on the agenda that I want to call your attention to and that's item 12.6 on consent it is the approval of revolu of resolution 25-36 in support of transgender students these have not been easy times for many in our community and this includes our lgbtq plus students staff and families this
123resolution is important it reflects our ongoing commitment to inclusivity and to celebrating our beautiful diversity recognizing that in 2018 the progress flag was designed to integrate the original Rainbow pride flag of 1978 and the trans flag of 1999 expanding acknowledgement of LGBT lgbtq plus identities including identities of keep up with me y'all with me light blue pink and white represented transgend represent transgender and non-binary ident entities thank you you want to do it Vanna that's light blue pink and white to represent transgender and non-binary identities brown and black to represent queer people of color identities black to represent those living with and lost to HIV and AIDS and also Rec recognizing that International transgender day of visibility is an annual event occurring every March 31st since 209 20 2009 dedicated to celebrating transgender people and
124raising awareness of discrimination faced by transgender people worldwide as well as a celebration of their contribution to society this resolution as on tonight's agenda resolves that the Berkeley Unified School District Board of Education and Berkeley Unified School District shall in recognition of transgender day of visibility on March 31st 2025 install the progress pride flag representing and celebrating lgbtq plus identity in the board meeting room where it should remain on display for all public meetings this resolution and flag that now hangs on this wall is a reiteration and a recommitment from all of us in Berkeley unified to represent and celebrate lgbtq plus identities clap y'all okay I li that wasn't the last thing last thing is I really I told him be inviting you to lots of stuff tonight last invitation I invite you you
125um to our B USD 7th annual black history oratorical Fest which will be on Wednesday March 26th right over here at the Oxford theater starting at 5:30 p.m. um this year's theme is the Harlem Renaissance it's an essential period in American history and the era witnessed a convergence of artistic expression and you're going to be able to witness our babies and all of their magic and magnificent and their artistic expression as well so that's the end of my comments this evening president um thank you all for listening thank you we will move on to the consent calendar is there a motion to approve this evening's consent calendar move that we approve the consent calendar I second move by director Corin seconded by director shinoski can you please call the role student director Garcia here director
126student Excuse Me Miss Char student director Garcia your response is yes to approve the calendar sorry yes okay recorded uh director vasb yes director shanos yes director horn yes president Brown yes thank you so much the motion passes and the consent calendar is approved uh we will now move on to our uh agenda items for this evening we only have about an hour left um for our meeting tonight with an extens a possible extens extension of 30 minutes uh but we can only extend our meeting time once and so what we will need to do um is we will need to actually table one of our items to another meeting and so I'm going to entertain the motion to uh table item 13.1 which is the midyear local control and accountability plan update to the
127next meeting is there a motion I move to table item 13.1 until the next meeting moveed by director shinoski is there a second second seconded by director K all those in favor will signified by I when Miss chares calls your name director V hi director Garcia I director shinoski yes director K yes president Brown yes uh thank you so much are there any Nays extensions okay we will uh move this item to our next meeting deepest apologies to staff who stayed um to present and we look forward to seeing you at the next meeting at this time we will move to item 13.2 the curriculum adoption uh which is the recommendation for elementary English language art program so we will receive associate superintendent uh Jill hogen dij at this time all right good evening uh
128members superintendent members of the board turned it off excited to be joined here uh by our literacy coordinator uh Rose James and we're joined in Spirit by director Chris albeck and TSA uh Erica Carter who could not be here with us this evening was gonna say next slide uh we want to make sure that we ground this presentation in our District's Mission which is on the next slide uh we know that the work that we do particularly around literacy really is a lever to enable and Inspire our diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and make positive contributions to the world tonight we are here to share with the bu and the bud Community our curriculum adoption recommendation for the elementary Ling English language arts um and we are going to share the rationale and
129implications for implementation um and as you heard from some of our public speakers this evening that is the next next layer of work we have always said that the work of a curriculum is the work of literacy is not just about curriculum and there have been a number of components that have been involved in this work not the least of which is the alignment across our lcap and our district strategic plan we know that to provide high quality instruction and academic interventions we need a number of things in place inclusive of curriculum director albeck has presented a number of times on our BD curriculum adoption process and here we are at the bottom of this list um at the decide stage of this work um our work uh on our literacy adoption is grounded in
130our framework our BD literacy framework um this framework was adopted by our pilot committee and has been shared with various stakeholder groups for input and feedback what you see here is the vision statement and the four priority areas that are named in the in the framework as we will share in this presentation this framework has been our North Star and our road and our road map in defining what we needed as a BD community and a new curriculum but it will also continue to serve as a decision-making compass for us around our continued work strengthening and vertically aligning our literacy system the literacy system and it's been a minute since we've seen this before really hones in on three important components the infrastructure um which involves our collaboration through professional learning and valid and reliable
131assessments you heard mention of this uh this evening and public comment that we have invested a lot in uh the professional development of our staff not just in District leaders or our site-based Specialists but our classroom teachers we um we had started with a book study two years ago and last year invested in the core reading Academy to ground um all of our practitioners in the components that are necessary to teach students how to read this also involves capacity building which is the ongoing coaching and support and then finally instructional resources um that are not just about the time that are allocated to instruction but the curriculum that's aligned to the science of reading we've been before you a number of times taking you along this journey um and so there have been four Public
132Presentation presentations over the course of the last year and a half um those are just featured for you here um as a reminder that we have an ongoing commitment to this complex systems change um and keep we want to make sure that we are doing the work to keep the community informed and a breast of the changes that we are making making um and that we have been implementing cycles of continuous Improvement around literacy we are building a system that really is grounded in transparency and trust and centering the needs of our students so that we can sustain this work over time um we have had a number of touch points with the community before um as we have been progressing through this work and you see uh Flyers just as a reminder um that
133we have engaged with our educational Partners um to really enlist their unique perspectives particularly for our focal student groups um we held Affinity spaces uh for input and then since February of uh last year so a a year and a month we've held eight Community listening sessions to calibrate with our families and communities um and share the progress of this process as well as getting their input and feedback um as we have made adjustments um to this work so with that I'm going to turn it over to Rose James who's going to share with you um the work on uh we that have led us to this evening in making a curriculum recommendation uh you could actually um good evening board directors um Rose James literacy coordinator I'm honored to be with you this evening
134to present this body of work um completed by our language arts committee and culminating in the recommendation you will hear tonight I also want to acknowledge the leadership of director Chris albeck who's been leading this adoption process um with me with a lot of integrity and Care um as well as Erica Carter who unfortunately has had to be out on medical leave but I just want to call out her work and um how critical it was to the success of this pilot process um the successful completion of this pilot process has really been thanks to the hard work of our pilot committee members um some of whom were in the audience tonight and spoke in comment our committee of dedicated professionals 85% of which were classroom teachers um with the other 15% being Specialists and
135literacy coaches really committed fully to this process um learning and then teaching to full curricula in one year is a huge amount of work um in addition to having to be away from their classrooms for our committee days and training days and leaving sub plans um they engaged in this process with so much commitment and intention um and perseverance in many cases and took this with the seriousness and gravity that it deserves um and so I just want to give them a moment of gratitude I know there's not many people in the room but just a round of applause for our committee um I hope they're watching they can watch later um starting last April when we convened our committee um we began by investigating the curriculum selections from the carry Center out of the
136University of Minnesota this review provided us with a deep dive into the available curricula and their alignment with the reading research um we then set out to identify and distill what our priorities would be our local priorities as a as a district committee and team in narrowing down and pilot and the piloting process um out of which came our literacy framework and our look Force um finally building on the work of the carry review we used our framework as a lens as we explored six options which you see here on your left um and narrowed them down to the two cycles you see on your right and it was really based on stakeholder feedback from our first two listening sessions as well as pilot committee members we ultimately decided to conduct fewer Cycles um our
137committee agreed that two cycles would provide a deeper understanding and the opportunity to teach more than one unit or module um based on the Review Committee we decided to Pilot um El education which is a comprehensive curriculum so it includes all the components of learning to read um and writing and then we piloted a pairing of a knowledge building curriculum called fish tank Ela um which is designed to be taught in partnership with a foundational skills program um and for that purpose we selected functional phonics and morphology which is actually K5 um because it teaches students to read in K2 and then in third through fifth grade they engage in a deep study of morphology over the course of thank you over the course of this year um the team has led a robust collaborative
138process which included interfacing with over 134 community members throughout the last year and the eight districtwide Community listening and learning events um training prepping teaching and learning um with the work of our incredible pilot committee and their 414 students in grade K5 who now as of Monday have engaged in almost 29 weeks of pilot curriculum instruction across two cycles so multiple units and modules later we are thrilled to recommend the selection of um fish tank Ela paired with functional phonics and morphology um the pilot committee identified four key strengths of this program pairing that R it really stand out for recommendation and those strengths I'm going to speak to in some detail on the following slides um but they are strengths in implementation strength strengths in building knowledge and rigor um cultural relevance and joy
139in learning and access opportunities for all students so our committee found that both of these programs offered a high level of Challenge and rigor for our students we know that students in BSD classrooms come to us with beautifully diverse funds of knowledge and we know that part of our Equity imperative is that we prepare prare all of our students for deep content area learning in the secondary grades and we do that by systematically building that knowledge and vocabulary from their earliest School experiences in fish tank students engage in diverse text sets on particular topics and then use reading and writing as vehicles to deepen their knowledge and in turn build their skills as readers and writers um one student spoke to how meaningful the knowledge building and word study was to her when she said
140I loved that fish tank um actually believed that we as fifth graders were mature enough to handle topics like war and also the word workk is really helpful and actually it works to improve your vocabulary and ability to spell so you'll see throughout these slides I will refer to some of our teacher student and Community inputs um that we highlighted and we'll speak to the strengths in this selection but just know that this is just some of the qualitative data that we collected um and we want to just highlight some of those voices that informed this recommendation um so fish tank and functional also stood out to our committee in in the way that these programs complemented one another um in their strengths and in the way that the materials organization and lesson design felt
141very intuitive for our teachers um both curricula are not short on resources for scaffolding um for all Learners toward grade level but they also follow a predictable structure um and routines that make it easy for teachers to teach and students to learn um for example every reading lesson in fish tank follows a predictable sequence of building background knowledge engaging with the text um for understanding through key questions and then a seel a section called building deeper meaning where students engage in academic discussion or writing um in a Target task so this predictability in structure and Clarity in lesson design really showed up um in the strengths this was also a theme that emerged from our community and can see here on the right um some handwritten feedback from a member of our community that says
142it needs to work with our teacher prep time in order to implement with Fidelity and that Clarity and efficiency was very um came out very strongly in the review process fish tank also stood out to our committee immediately last year um in its selection of diverse relevant texts and perspectives um as well as the social justice themes of many of their units um in the qualitative data collected from students which was both classroom observation and survey we saw high levels of Engagement across classrooms with text with one another and with their world uh their engagement with these materials is on display tonight as you saw them come up and speak um to the relevance and their interest in learning about the world and learning how language works in the words of one third grade student
143who completed a unit on identity I loved reading about Diamond Daniel and Maria Isabelle and and can connect to how I wish I could jump into a book the final area of strength that I want to share in our recommendation tonight is around access um this curriculum pairing is characterized by ease of use not just for teachers but for interventionists and education Specialists who will have very easy access to all lessons at all grade levels um easily modified and scaffolded or extended to a student's point of need part of the beauty of the High marks for usability with these curricula is that instead of spending their time planning to understand the point of the lesson um our pilot teachers found that they it allowed them to get deeper faster and use their expertise in knowing
144their students to enhance the lesson to fit those needs in front of them without sacrificing rigor um or access to higher order thinking um I just want to mention functional phonics and morphology also align really well with our structured literacy interventions because they are built on the same research um and in addition they themselves can be used as interventions for students who need additional exposure or have unfinished learning from a previous grade um and finally we know that handing teachers a program is is not enough and along with this recommendation we also want to share a three-year plan and commitment of support for our Educators um we know that the initial training will just be a launch and the most important training will be the ongoing job embedded professional learning that will be provided in
145the first years of implementation and Beyond um year one we are calling a learn stage we know that it will be new to all including our literacy coaches and site leaders so we will need to make sure that we are really working to understand and teach all the components um as well as making time to do unit unpacking and back backwards planning um in year two our deepen stage we we're moving from with Fidelity to integrity and really focusing on evidence of learning cycles of impact and beginning to refine and then finally moving to the no stage where we really start to think about sustainability over time continuing to refine innovate and evaluate our impact through continuous cycles of improvement and with that I will pass it off to associate superintendent to discuss the fiscal
146impact all right so we always knew that this was going to be a significant investment we've made a significant investment in our teachers and school leaders through the core reading training last year um but the pairing of fish tank and functional phonics and morphology uh is a total implementation year One cost of about $1.1 million we tried to break down on this slide what you can see is that first year of implementation which would be incl inclusive of training days um pre-service training or training days during the summer which was really called out by our school leaders and by our teachers like wanting to make sure that we had committed days to get into the materials and to plan and prep thoughtfully for the coming year we also know that we have professional development days
147in the course of the school year and maximizing our use of the early release Wednesdays to do that ongoing work um we have identified some potential funding sources through um the spend down on some Grant funds that we have and some um fund balance with BP so we are anticipating that we are going to be able what we are anticipating we got to I'm going to double check my numbers with my friend Pauline fenby over there to the left but um we've we we feel like we are confident in being able to cover that initial cost as well as the ongoing cost these material are open source but we would have an ongoing cost to pay for the licensing over the course of the adoption so in terms of next steps um this is uh
148the we're making a public recommendation but there is not actually a vote tonight but just to make it official and clear uh we are recommending that we adopt functional phonics and morphology paired with fish tank for our elementary English language arts curriculum beginning in the next school year uh the curriculum materials will be available for public view here at 2020 boner um folks can check in with um the reception downstairs and they'll direct you appropriately um and there are links online to those curriculum materials um and we'll have those up through April 4th along with a survey if people want to give us feedback after looking at those materials we will agendize the recommendation for Action at our next board meeting and then we are already in the stages of planning for that initial curriculum
149launch through professional development days um have the link to our website there and with that we'll take questions thank you so much for uh your presentation this evening there were uh a lot of comments tonight um and a lot of also head nods uh in the audience in agreeance uh with the recommendation um that you all are um presenting to us tonight and that we as a board of education will vote on during our next meeting and so uh thank you for the thorough presentation and thank you to um our students as well as our uh community members who came out tonight to speak uh in support I will at this time entertain questions from the Board of Education we do have two minutes and 24 seconds for questions and so if we could move
150those quickly uh director vasu Dev do you have any questions online yes um just really quickly I know you talked about the Cadence for professional development in the implementation phase it seems like the summer and then a couple of Wednesdays but just wanted to know if you could like be a little bit more specific about that and then for the survey that you alluded to to get um broader feedback just wanted to make sure that was going to be available in multi in a multilingual way and wondering how you were going to outreach to our English language Learners thanks yeah so we yes we we are ident we've identified initial training so launch training and then as for the ongoing training for next year we're looking into a few different options um one thing that
151we know has been really effective in the past um as in like with core and other professional development when we're able to bring our Educators together cross site grade alike um so we're looking for some different opportunities to do that but we haven't identified yet what those are going to be and then just to the so the materials are available online we want people to have an opportunity should they choose to do so to look at that and and in person we have those set up here at 2020 bonard will'll be able to take feedback in but in both languages it is important to note that this is one of two curriculum adoption recommendations that we're going to be making because we have been working with the Sylvia Mendes Community specifically and there will be
152a different curriculum that we will be um that the the pilot team at Sylvia Mendes will be recommending for the primary grades at Sylvia mendas so those are the materials that will be available in Spanish uh director cor that was going to be my question you beat me to it wonderful director shinoski I just want to thank you and I want to thank all the students and Educators it's been a long road and so it feels really good to see this um come to fruition so thank you and thank both of you for spearheading it can I just piggy back on that to say that the public comment from the students tonight about literacy curriculum was one of the most beautiful public comments I've seen in many years of attending board meetings it was really
153exciting to hear kids talking like that about their learning I just wanted to just so piggyback on that and I think the curriculum discussion as the committee was voting on The Pilot was probably one of the most thoughtful input sessions I've experienced in in my career and just the Deep connection that our teachers and leaders have been making to that content and the impact that they were seeing with their students was really beautiful to see thank you for that last hitbit uh and thank you for you all presentation this evening we will now move on to our action items uh the first action item is 14.1 which is the approval to certifi Berkeley Unified School District second interim uh report uh ending January 31st 2025 we have listed for this presentation 45 minutes but I'm
154hoping that we will actually only use 30 minutes for this presentation including uh time for questions and so I will welcome assistant superintendent Pauline Fallin thank you [Music] you'll turn push the button to turn the microphone on so that M put these to our screens were the both okay oh of them okay hello so um good evening everyone um we'll be presenting the second interim as um as president Brown mentioned and tonight I'm um presenting with executive director Emily Mayer we'll be doing a lot of the presentation tonight um but we just want to make sure that um when we're looking just the sing know to do oh yeah so um so we just want to um to share with you the fiscal um Outlook or the fiscal um presentation of where the district is
155at the second interim and again as all our um presentations are grounded in our mission to enable and Inspire diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and to make positive contributions to the world so the agenda we're going to be looking at the um the general fund and we're going to be pointing out how the on restricted general fund actually rolls up into the combined general fund we're going to be looking at the budget cycle then we're going to do a brief budget recap um summary and highlights we have a little section on special education that we'll share with you um the variance report Ada and enrollment and the multi-year projections so that's the agenda that we'll be covering in the 20 30 minutes we have located next SL so this is a really um
156this is a probably difficult to see slide but what's important on this Slide the take away is that the focus of our presentation is the First Column only and that's the nonrestricted general fund you can see we also have a restricted general fund we have um we have the maintenance tax unrestricted and restricted as well as BP and barel so what most people see when they look at our sax forms is the last three columns unrestricted and restricted but want to remind everyone that our focus is on the unrestricted general fund which is the first column of numbers the next slide okay so um this is a brief recap of the budget cycle um we're currently presenting the second interim um that's our that's the March deadline we also have to look forward to the
157May Revis as well as the governor's final budget and these will be um situations that will inform us developing the 2526 budget which we on the way it's on the way already so and for our unrestricted general fund the highlights we are having a positive certification which means that we're balanced and we're able to meet our reserves for the current year and the subsequent two years and it is contingent however on adopting budget balancing Solutions um in 26 and 27 um which will be um it's it's all watch also presenting is a resolution tonight that the board has to approve and these budget balancing Solutions are included in the multi-year so we had an early start in developing our budget we can we're working with our superintendent budget advisory committee and we're um we're continuing
158to update proposals and to explore um budget balancing Solutions with the committee and the second interim does look at the changes since the first which is the Vance report which will be covered by Emily next slide so again we mentioned it's an unrestricted general fund focus and we tend to stress that because there's there can be confusion in terms of looking at form one versus an unrestricted general fund and as um as president Brown mentions this covering the period through January 31st but it is projecting the activity for the um for the rest of the fiscal year and the assumptions that are baked into the multi-year projections is based on the governor's January proposed budget um this is just an overview we've been talking about um Stormy Weather ahead um this is alam's slide they
159are dis they're saying that most districts are experiencing declining enrollment Burkley is disc is um experiencing a slight uptick enroll in enrollment since pandemic but there has been a decline um from before the pandemic um of course all of all districts are now realizing that our pandemic District um funding is gone and we are facing increasing costs um with not um with Revenue not keeping at the same Pace as the increasing cost which is causing districts to deficit fund deficit spend um and that's just know we can go to next one and this is just a note on our um special education so what I have here is our the special educations um um their what is that like their motel or there they they're actually um their their whole methodology is to provide services
160to individuals with exceptional needs and sustain um the community where each child um respecting their exceptional exception um um are welcomed so um our special education um for first and foremost they're there to make sure our children are educated and our challenge that we're seeing is making sure that this program is able to provide the service with a fiscal lens so we want to serve all our students we want to make sure all needs are met and at the same time we have to make sure we're fiscally responsible because we've seen an increase in in um in costs um over the over since 2018 the the costs have gone up about um 49% but the message that needs to be communicated clearly is that a lot of that increase is due to negotiated salary increases
161that we've had over that period um so next SL for the variance thank you uh so the uh variance report is looking at the differences um since the last time we presented a budget update which is our first interim report so we presented on the first interim uh earlier this winter and that was covering the period through October 31st and now this second interim is taking into account uh additional changes and information that we know as of January 31st and so uh this first slide here is looking at our updated Revenue projections compared to the first interim and you'll see that the the major change there is a decrease of about $100,000 and that's due to a decrease in projected uh local control funding formula revenue and that's driven by um our funded average daily
162attendance rate and So based on our our calpads data which is a snapshot day that we take in October that's sort of the official day that the funding is based on that ended up being about uh nine student fewer than what we'd initially been uh projecting at the first interim which is why we have that uh decrease there on the next slide here we're looking at our expenditures comparing um unrestricted general fund first interim to Second interim um you'll see that overall our expenditures um compared to the first interim are going up about $1.7 million that's primarily driven by the fact that since um October 31st we've settled with um three of our bargaining units so Berkeley Federation of teachers bcce and Local 21 we'd known that the bft negotiation was in the process of
163being settled at the time of first interim and so we designated that in the fund balance so you'll see that later in the slides as well but so we've now that we've completely settled and and approved those raises we've um put them into the budget uh slightly offsetting this is a a um decrease in our services and um operating expenses and that's due primarily to onetime savings from unspent budget balances one of the main things that we do is part of our second inum reviews we look at where is our spending exceeding projections where is it um less than projected and we we start to make those true UPS so that we're uh projecting as close to actual when we close the books at the end of the year um and then finally one last
164item is that are indirect costs uh did increase slightly um and that's due uh primarily to budgeting grants in our restricted programs including the um 1% bonus to uh bcce Local 21 and bft which was funded on our parcel tax now looking at the uh deficiency of revenues over expenditures so you can see here that um we are uh deficit spending we're we're spending um at a faster rate than um what we're bringing in the uh variance has uh decreased slightly since the the first interim um but that's partially due to a contribution from fund 20 so that's our reserve for uh post-employment benefits and so we've increased that um contribution from that sort of Reserve account um by an additional $800,000 which means that we were already dipping into this um and we we
165replenish it based on what we're spending on positions but we're at this point depleting it faster than we're replenishing it at first interim we'd counted on about $3.8 million we now increased that by about $800,000 to about $4.6 million and that's um driven in part by uh covering costs for our labor agreements which we partially planned on um was board approv yes was and was board approved and then um also due to increased cost for special education um in this case uh increases in our NPS costs or non-public uh School uh costs and non-public agency costs um looking at our our contributions in um you can see that these the first sort of paragraph is areas where we have contribut ions in our um parcel taxes are our main drivers of that and those are
166mostly constant we did um adjust the Arts music and instructional materials block grant contribution it had been initially marked as uh one time at first interim so it wasn't showing up in the first interim column so we've uh addressed that for second interim so you can see that $800,000 contribution there um but you'll also see that our uh contributions out so our contributions from our unrestricted general fund to our other programs have gone up for our special education program by um about $1. 385 million and so that's offset by um this block grant uh contribution as well as by the additional contributions from our fund 20 Reserve um but this is primarily uh due to costs for our nonpublic agency contracts as well as um the costs of our um raises that are being covered
167by the contribution that goes up when our salary costs go up overall as well so that's another part of the driver there and so then um looking here at the uh overall um bottom line you can see that our um net uh decrease in our fund balance we um we're projecting at first interim to be drawing into the fund balance about $42,000 we're now um projecting a decrease of the fund balance of about $1.6 million and that's in addition to those contributions from uh fund um what this means is that our our ending fund balance is um at first interim was about $3.57 million is now about $1.96 7 million we can um commit and assign um portions of that including for our required 3% Reserve um you can see that that committed and assigned
168amount has gone down and that's primarily because of the uh bft contract negotiation which had been um designated in the fund balance and we've now moved it into the budget um but you can see that at the end of the day our our ending undesignated fund balance in the unrestricted general fund has decreased by about $100,000 and so we're looking at an undesignated fund balance of about uh $786,000 and you can see here this is just the the summary of the designations of those ending fund balances so the um $1.5 million designated for the bft raise is now removed from second interim and put up into the budget but otherwise our designations are pretty similar to what we'd had um at first interim uh so that's the the variant so the major changes compared to
169First interim um this slide here is looking at our average daily attendance Trend and so this is summarizing um going back all the way to um 2021 how our attendance is tracked over time so we are um projecting our enrollment to be about 900 sorry 9,162 students and we're holding that projection constant going into the subsequent years um our average daily attendance rate uh we are um again holding constant compared to our previous projection so about uh 94.8% in the current year and in the out years and so that gives us a funded average daily attendance rate of about 8,686 students uh you'll see if you go back into prior years that our funded and our projected average daily attendance rates were different that's because we'd been benefiting from a rolling average that factored in
170our preco higher attendance rates we're now more than three years out from the pandemic and so we're no longer benefiting from that rolling average so our funded average daily attendance and our projected average daily attendance are the same uh and now I'll turn it back over to assistant superintendent Fallen spe for the multiyear projections thanks Emily so um so now we're looking at our multi-year projections and every um every interim that we present we present the current year and two subsequent years so 25 26 is actually the year that we're um working on now to um working with the various um Partners um to construct the 2526 budget so we're actually sort of in two years actually in 2425 but projecting and building 2526 so the cola um you can see the cola for 2425
171is at 1.07 um for 2526 that number was higher but based on the governor's budget um we're revising it downwards to 2.43 which actually reduced our Revenue by about 500,000 um we kept everything flat um at second inum even though when we're looking at 2526 projections are showing that the numbers will be going up in terms of um attendance especially at our prek level but we'll be using that to actually construct the budget and actually count that towards a b budget balancing solution um in terms of our Revenue our base Revenue um as I mentioned um in 25 26 that number went down by about 500,000 um most other numbers are remaining constant from this year to 25 26 and 26 27 so we're looking at total revenue in the unrestricted general fund 117 million
17211 19.9 and 123. 7 and those increases are driven by the um the 2.43 cola predominantly as well as a 3.52 next slide so the next slide looks at our expenses and that's where we um we can see what we've been talking about our budget balancing Solution on this slid it's shown as a Target so it's $7.6 million and an additional $200,000 um in 2627 and again that's what we're going to be um asking the board to vote on um in the resolution after this presentation so with with the budget balancing Solutions we actually have a positive um the Blue Line the change in fund balance we're not deficit spending it's showing that we actually are have a surplus of 100,000 and 1.7 million and we have an undesignated ending fund balance of .9 1.2
173and3 million so why while we actually have a positive number it's a very tight budget we don't have a lot of extras um and this is after making our budget reductions so it's imperative that we all have um a fiscal lens when we're making decisions because it has um far-reaching impacts to our bottom line and our ability to keep um to be positive um to certify as a positive and not um not have a negative certification um so the myp does as I mentioned it does show that we have um to make budget reductions and a caution without these reductions we'll have a negative or qualified opinion um reminding we need reminding us that we need to have the resolution formally approved and more most importantly um the oute do not include negotiated um labor
174um lab negotiations with our labor unions as was mentioned in tonight so so we will be um working with Sam and um and the labor unions to move forward with that um so next steps um the board will continue to receive regular updates um and we will continue to work with our advisory committees and our on our labor partners and various other committees to construct the 2526 budget um special education it's critical that we continue to work closely with special education to align um the fiscal and program because we have seen that the costs are increasing and whereas we know what the drivers are it's critical that we have a fiscal lens when we're looking at that program um and of course we did we say we're going to continue to work with our other
175partners the city of Berkeley and of course um we rely on um advice from Alam the County Office of Ed and we continue to work closely with them so that's the end of our presentation so if you have any questions we'll take them thank you very much uh we will begin with you director vasu Dev do you have any questions regarding the budget presentation no no questions just uh thaning the staff for putting this together it is really hard to look at those numbers um so wanted to thank you all and I look forward to continuing the budget discussions this spring thank you okay um we will move to director shanoski do you have questions I just have a couple comments and a question um so you know I've been talking about attendance a lot
176lately and I just want to point out those Ada numbers again you know under 95% uh means that we have room to grow and every 1% in attendance is a million dollar uh of revenue for our district so I think that's a really important area for us to grow in and we also know not just the bottom line but that students that come to school uh have better outcomes in school so um big there I also want to highlight the sped budget and uh the over Reliance on contractors within that sped budget and that that's another huge area in which we can um have cost savings so that we don't have to make some of the painful decisions um that we've been talking about today and finally I would just like to um put out
177a request um for the superintendent and board president um that we do a sort of Deep dive um budget Workshop uh because these numbers are all you know wonderful and I appreciate um both of you and your teams um there's a lot of information sort of buried within within that and our budget really is a statement of our values and it's the information that's buried within all those lines that helps us really um live those values um and be true to them thanks thank you can I ask a clarifying question uh we will uh approve the resolution for the budget adjustments tonight if that is the pleasure of the board but you would like to have um a bud budget presentation or budget workshop for the board outside of uh the approval if that's the
178will yes sort of a deep dive into the budget as a body wonderful thank you director cor I don't have any additional questions just thank you for the work and the Really thorough explanation I appreciate it thank H thank you all for your presentation normally you know I have a billion in one questions which should so tonight is uh very surprising um but uh we will actually keep you all here for item 14.2 that we need to move on to okay oh so how you want me to present it so we we're going to do SE two separate votes we do we do need to do two separate votes and so um why don't we actually just go ahead and approve the second inum first and then we'll move on to item 14.2 so is
179there a motion to approve I move to approve the second in report move by director shoski is there a second I'll second seconded by director Corin can you please call the role director vas yes director shinoski yes director Korn yes president Brown yes okay we will now move on to item 14.2 so 14.2 is a resolution um that um supports the request for the board to approve 7.6 um 7 .6 million and $7.8 million in budget balancing Solutions not actual Solutions but just that you're aware that there is a need for us to um into input these reductions for us to have a balanced budget and they we have a timeline attached on the appendix to the resolution and we're asking the board to approve that tonight as well uh before we call for the
180motion to uh approve are there any questions from the board director vasev do you have any questions no okay hearing none is there a motion to approve the resolution I move to approve the resolution move by director shanoski is there a second a second second it by director Korn can you please call the role director vas yes director shinoski yes director Korn yes president Brown yes thank you the motion passes thank you both for your have a great evening God bless you uh there are a number of information items um including some uh board policies as well as administrative regulations and so um I'd like to thank my counterpart uh vice president Chang um as well as yina for uh the work on these items um and so please board govern yourselves accordingly as we
181will see these again on the uh consent calendar we will now move on to Extended public comment uh is there anyone here for extended public comment okay you will have one minute and once you begin speaking we will um close the public comment period so if there's anyone else who'd like to speak please identify yourself at this time good seeing none you may begin soly good evening board excuse me good evening board members um I'm for those who don't know I'm Su Albert I'm the new BCC appointee on the Personnel commission and we just had the pleasure of attending the conference of of the uh State's Personnel commissions with which included both our staff our commissioners and some Union Representatives uh and one of the really interesting presentations that I what didn't hear but some
182of our Union colleagues heard was from um a district in um south southern California the name is escaping me but they had some really interesting information about um ways that their personnel commission and Union work together really collaboratively and also um methods for hiring and approving hiring for special ed instructors and special ed techs and we know that's one of the positions that's been really hard for us to fill so I'm looking forward to hearing more from them and hopefully bringing some lessons that we can take to hiring here so thank you very much thank you soie and thank you for staying all the way to the end of our board meeting are there any other uh we'll move to the second opportunity for extended board member comments are there any comments from board members
183no hearing then our meeting is adjourned at 10:51 p.m. see you all dur