001good evening good evening good evening everyone thank you so much for joining us this evening for the March 5th a board meeting of the Berkeley Unified School District Board of Education can you hear me okay out there wonderful great to see all of your faces we haven't seen a packed boardroom like this in a while so it is really great uh to see everyone and we look forward to what you are here advocating for um and and hearing your advocacy during public comment at this time I'd like to call the meeting to order at 7:28 p.m. apologies for being a little bit late um we had some important things that we needed to handle in close session so we appreciate um all of the grace that you all are providing us to start a little
002bit later than our normal time um at this time we will uh approve this evening's board agenda is there a motion from the Board of Education to approve our agenda tonight I'll move it's been moved by director shinoski is there a second second seconded by director Chang all board directors who would like to vote in favor please signify with a sign of I I opposers abstentions the eyes have it and the motion carries tonight's agenda is approved at this time we will move it over to director Chang who will report out from closed session on item 3.1 the district provided an update to the board 3.2 the district provided an update to the board director corn move 25-30 director vasad Dev seconded all board directors voted unanimously director corn move 25-31 director vasev seconded all
003board directors voted unanimously with 3.3 director Chang moved and director K seconded all board directors voted unanimously and 3.4 um will be continued thanks thank you that is the report out from close session if she is ready we'll pass it over to the superintendent who will give her superintendent comments at this time thank you madam president good evening B USD family so on Monday we kicked off our second annual March Madness attendance challenge it's a bracket style tournament where schools separated into elementary middle and high school levels compete for the highest attendance rate and on Monday we kicked off our second annual March Madness attendance challenge we have our school separated into elementary middle and high school levels and they compete for the highest attendance rate and the winning school will win a big shiny
004trophy bigger and better than last year's Big Shiny trophy um so each week BD schools will be competing against other schools to see who has the highest attendance rate for that particular week at the end of The four-week Challenge schools will be awarded with either a first place trophy a second place trophy or a third place trophy or a certificate that notes other standings Additionally the school with the highest overall attendance rate for the month of March will receive that attendance trophy and of course bragging rights attendance really matters in B USD and so we we talk about it and it's fun and it's exciting but we also know it's really important for our babies to be in school every day to engage in the rigorous uh and responsive instruction that our teachers work so
005hard to provide students who attend school regularly increase academic skills gain important emotional and social skills and they get to be with their friends and other members of the BD family all while building a foundation for positive life life outcomes and so um we want to make sure that this is a fun month this is exciting month we want to see who's going to win that Big Shiny trophy but we also want to make sure that our our babies understand that even after the month of March is over um that they still need to attend school on time every day so please share this with friends um our we got some of our Educators in the room this evening and even some of our students so get ready y'all to make sure that your school
006is showcased as the best attendance um in your category again elementary middle or High School the middle the U March Madness attendance challenge has officially begun um every year California require School District to participate in an annual process referred to as March 15th notices the purpose is to provide employees notice of possible change in duties um or reassignment um insufficient time to seek satisfactory employee employment elsewhere should they choose by law employees must be notified by March 15th this timeline is required by law and comes before we have any final information about our budget or any confirmation about what our budget allocations are for the next year so the timing of these notices and the legal requirement don't oftentimes match um District's budgeting processes or the timeline that districts follow to get to their final
007budget these March 15th notices come to the bo tonight in the form of resolutions and so I want to call your attention to the resolutions as they exist on our agenda um you will find two of these resolutions um under our consent calendar 12.3 and 12.4 these two resolutions uh reflect job categories and positions without names that will be possibly reduced from our certificated and classified employees um positions that are on these two resolution lists represent members from Berkeley Federation of teachers Berkeley Council of classified employees and Local 21 in addition to these in closed session the board considered a list of administrative and central office positions representing unrepresented central office staff and those in the union of Berkeley administrators or Uber for potential reassignment and reduction as well so again it's the two resolutions
008that you see in our Open Session consent uh calendar as well as resolutions that were presented to the board um in close session these lists note staff position that have been identified as possible positions that may need to be reduced or eliminated I want to stress possible and May in that sentence the action that the board takes this evening does not actually mean the positions are being eliminated these March 15th notices are not unique to Berkeley unified many of us many of us in this room who have been in education for years are familiar with this practice and more and more you might be seeing headlines of other districts talking about um their need to consider staff reductions as well not just in Alama County but across the state I want to be clear that
009BD is sending these notices both in response to the practice that I just talked about the legal requirement that we have but also as a precautionary measure as our district Works to balance our budget by $8 million and that's in addition to the $7 million reductions We Made You Might Recall last spring we are among all of the other districts in Alam County every single other District in Alam County like us is facing a fiscal forecast as Bleaker than it has been in previous years in anticipation of that our district began our budgeting process um even earlier than we did in previous years um I have a group called the superintendent budget advisory committee and we began meeting in October to start to ground ourselves in our core values of resource allocation to really start
010to think about and and get aligned on our budget balancing strategies and to understand our our budget in general and think about what our budget reduction Target needs to be and even with that early start um and really early iterations of budget balancing strategies and targets we still find ourselves even right now in March having to prepare for a number of fiscal unknowns we are working with a budget reduction Target that is still precarious as we are still trying to wait for confirmation around revenues from our state a critical part of superintendency and the work of District leaders is to be good fiscal stewards as we develop our budget and to ensure we provide updates to our board and our community around the process of developing our budget many of you have heard our business
011team present the first interim budget and even provide budget updates on the governor's budget earlier this year 2025 you can learn more about our B our fiscal forecast and by coming out on March 19th where our associate superintendent of Business Services will provide an update on our second interim report as well as more information about the governor's budget we have learned some things new and the fiscal outlook for our district if you're not able to attend remember that all these meetings are recorded I also want to invite those who are interested in really understanding more about our budget as well as engaging in the process that we're going through as a community to move towards our reduction targets to come out to our superintendent's budget advisory committee it's a virtual meeting however it's a public
012meeting and the meeting dates can be found on our district website our next meeting is on March 12th at 4M um for those who don't have time to make those meetings all of those superintendent budget advisory committee meetings are recorded and posted on our website as well as all the artifacts that we discuss as we again move towards budget um reduction targets and just work to better understand in the line around some critical budget decisions I understand that for our staff um a notice of possible layoff or reassignment can cause confusion and concern again like I said I've received one every year um for the tenure of my career on my birthday March 15th um and I'll say it again I said it in a letter that I sent to you all last week we
013value every single member of the B USD Community we know I know that each of you plays a critical role in supporting us to move towards our Collective mission to serve our students and families I heard earlier this evening that how we start this process matters because how we end defines us that really resonated with me as we engaged in over $7 million of budget reductions last year we grounded ourselves in our core values of resource allocation when we started these really critical conversations this year in October and in the months that have happened since then we have rooted ourselves in the principles of equity inclusion transparency and being data informed and student centered no decisions have been made yet we will continue to hold these values and these principles at the core as we
014navigate over the next few months towards those decisions making sure to engage in a thoughtful budgeting process before we make any final decisions about resource allocations before we make any final decisions about changes to programs and before we make any final um decisions about changes in Personnel I spoke with my board this evening and we would do those um processes and engaging those conversations and move towards transparency not just in esac not just in board presentations uh presentations to the board but also by having public conversations around the various scenarios that we are exploring um specifically around Staffing in the months to come finally as we are talking about Staffing and the people that matter in our district I want to take the last few minutes that I have to honor um and prepare to
015say goodbye to a longterm USD staff member principal Miss Heidi Weber who is sitting with us right here in the front of um the room you can clap now Miss Heidi started student teaching y'all she was a student teacher when she was just 21 years old here in Berkeley unified and has worked in service to students and their families over a career spanding 30 SP 31 year I'm not even 31 31 years um 30 of those years right here in B USD so when I say good evening BD family I'm talking about Heidi Heidi is B USD family um you know you might know Miss Weber in her current role as the principal of Berkeley Technology Academy or BTA and Berkeley Independent Study bis as well as our home and Hospital instruction and heric Hospital
016program but miss Weber has worn many hats at Berkeley unified she taught elod and English at Berkeley High School for 20 years she was a founding team member of the Arts and Humanities Academy also known as Aha and was the teacher leader for E newcomer program AKA multilingual learner program for six years but that's not all Miss Weber was an instructional coach at BHS for six years bringing constructing meaning academic language framework to BHS and then B USD overall and she served as a Dean at BHS for a year she you've done it all oh wait she said two correct me two years she was a dean at BHS for two years um she became the Berkeley Independent Study principal over seven years ago and then soon also became the principal at BTA where she
017has overseen a six-year wasque accreditation I have personally been struck by how deeply miss Weber cares for the academic and emotional well-being of her students and her commitment to make real and true for all students the district's Mission you know what it is I've heard Miss Weber say um in so many of our times together when she was engaging Community it's deeply good to be sitting here together in community dare I take your words Miss Heidi or speak on behalf of the hundreds of students families and staff that have had the pleasure of working with you over the past 30 something years but I cannot let you leave us without saying that it's been deeply good having you as a member of our B USD family Miss Heidi deeply good and I know that we
018are not is good but better so much better as a result of your person your passion your service and your leadership thank you for being BHS bu USD BTA bis Berkeley family e e for nothing thank you superintendent uh Ford Morel and uh Miss Weber be ready because you're going to get a lot more comments from the board when we get to our board comments but we are very grateful uh for all that you have done for our community and are incredibly sad to see you go but definitely uh impacted by all of your work uh at this time we will move to open session for public comment um I want to make a comment about how this will go so I received a number of green card of cards that are green for um
019public comments around the tennis courts and so what I will do is I will allow our students to speak individually but for those of you who are here uh for the tennis courts we will give you a few minutes as a group to speak so I'm going to ask that you take this time right now to kind of govern yourselves accordingly and organize yourselves so that you all can make all of the comments that you need to make within the time frame that you were given for um the group for tennis courts after that everyone else will be given one minute for their public comments who are speaking on other items um that are not around the tennis courts I hope that makes sense and the tennis courts uh people who are here to speak
020we've done this before so you know how to do this dance okay all right so let's go ahead and begin with our students first then we will go to the tennis cour group and then we will go to individual speakers all right we will begin our with our student speakers who are here to speak for the tennis court so we're going to first start with um I believe that's Henry and then we'll go to I think this is Wyatt and then we'll go to Otter okay as an entire group with the students with the students is completely fine um I wanted to give space to to elevate the student comments on their own but if you have already prepared I appreciate that and we will give you 5 minutes to speak as an entire group
021with the students okay so we'll let you all come up in the way that you need to and we'll put five minutes on the uh clock for speaking time and we're ready to receive you whenever you are okay sure yeah we have some uh some things to give you at the end because this may be hard to see okay okay and that that would be no problem you'll just give them to Liz and then she'll distribute them to us perfect okay thank you good evening Schoolboard thank you for your support of the Berkeley High tennis team getting new courts we really appreciate it we're here tonight representing the Berkeley High tennis commun to explain how the current plan to build Four Courts next to the Future CTE building is missing some important pieces we'd like
022to present a practical win-win alternative solution that doesn't impact future construction or displace other sports teams we call this solution the swap what do we want to swap tennis courts and teacher parking our goal is to build six lit tennis courts on milia this summer and use street parking permits for teachers until permanent parking is built with the CTE uh project so in this plan six courts would be built now where the current parking lot is and a parking lot would later be built where the four tennis cores are currently slated to go in the meanwhile teachers would park with parking permits we want to underscore that with this plan softball wouldn't reload ate until the CTE project broke ground so why are we asking for this there are four reasons for context uh Berkeley
023High's tennis program has been without home courts for over 20 years the current teacher parking lot that displaced the tennis courts was intended as a temporary solution so one we really want our old courts back there's Justice in this here here is a uh a picture of 1985 the courts from 1985 six courts there um two the most Bay Area high schools have six to eight courts so they can run JV and varsity programs and host competitions the current proposal within the CTE project includes only four courts which would significantly limit our program's ability to practice effectively grow our teams and host competitions a competitive High School tennis program needs six courts the average uh number of Courts for each of the East Bay Schools is uh 6.6 here's Berkeley High we currently have zero
024home courts three the current solution creates a clear access Gap without home courts our program has only been able to accommodate students with the means to learn the game elsewhere six courts allows us to dramatically expand opportunities for students of all backgrounds and properly fulfill obligation to provide equal access to educational programs under education codes 220 and 260 four being entangled with a project involving multiple sports teams and construction plans that keeps getting kicked down the road as it changes and seeks more funding has the tennis community uh a bit of Shake in faith that this next solution will actually happen we hope that it does but we'd like to solve our part of this now which will simplify things by removing tennis from the equation later on can we get enough parking permits that
025that's what this hinges on yes a May 2023 BD commissioned parking study shows that 380 parking spaces around Berkeley remain uh around Berkeley High remain unused during peak hours the district has successfully implemented 80 permits demonstrating that this approach Works a total of 240 permits they say are available the parking lot in movia has 130 spaces so there are enough permits available to more than cover this amount so what does the swap get us the swap gets us Justice the courts return to their original promised location the swap gets us competitive six courts not four to match other schools in the area the swap gets us equality tennis for more students from different backgrounds the swap gets us playing courts by Fall 2025 versus repeated delays the swap aligns with the community after our last
026uh meeting with the school board were almost 30 students attended we got a petition with 300 signatures supporting the restoration of Courts on mil people care about this playing tennis brings them Joy now we recognize that uh this will require a lot of coordination with multiple stakeholders and we stand ready to help make this happen we can assist with Outreach to the city teachers union and any other stakeholders um we ask the board for two things tonight one endorse the Swap and two refer us to the necessary stakeholders after 20 years of waiting six courts on Novia isn't just a solution it's coming home thank you thank you thank you for your comments and if you don't mind uh taking that and giving it to Liz she'll make sure that is distributed to the board
027thank you so much thank you for your comments and for being here this evening thank you uh we will now move on to our student speakers um NE we will call on Lena followed by Lind or lunis lonus okay thank you lonus um we will uh Grant this evening speaking time to two minutes because we only have three other cards tonight okay okay after our speakers oh sorry go ahead hi um my name is lanaa Kar I go to Berkeley High um to be honest I'm mostly talking because my advisers from Ying encourag me to but um today me and some of my other classmates in academic choice at Berkeley High chose our classes while choosing I noticed that a lot of people chose the AP English and AP History option because they want to
028take AP classes although there are a lot of other really cool options that don't just focus on American perspectives like lgbtq IPA plus literature A lot of people don't take them including myself because they aren't as academically challenging as the aps I think it would be much more more incentivizing to learn about the other P perspectives if there was an honors version or Advanced version of those classes I think that right now while other people are decentivize to learn about unique P perspectives we should do our best to encourage students to take the opportunities to take classes like African-American history and asian-pacific Islanders lit thank you thank you as well after Linus we will receive uh Deborah Theus you're going to be speaking during the bft time okay thank you hello School Board I am
029here for the same reason as lanaa um today I also chose my uh courses for junior year and I was only made aware of it about yesterday which is probably my fault but um I think there should probably be more awareness given to students about when they choose their courses for next year and what courses they will take next year because I had to do some last minute looking at the course catalog which was a little bit confusing but I figured it out so if like Juan R goza could email me like a week before I think that'd be pretty cool thank you for your comments and your advocacy uh next we will hear from Dan Bronson followed by uh Diana Mullins hello um I'm a worker with bcce um I know the layoff notices
030just might mean you might be uh laid off but given what I know about the financial situation of uh BD and the budget deficit um it does make it seem a bit more likely than less likely um that many of our positions will be eliminated um well you know we we're happy to endorse uh all the uh sitting uh board directors in your elections um we would like you to be a little I'm I'm just speaking as myself not not on behalf of the Union but I was part of the committee that endorsed y'all um getting laid off was not really what we had in mind um I have shared a few uh ideas is with my supervisor already so she's aware of what I'm about to say already but um I another coworker have
031noticed that we are spending Millions on contracts with staffing agencies and I see I see the invoices for some of those some of them charge $55 an hour for each of the staff that they send to us and I know from being a contractor not in education but in other IND Industries before that the person actually do doing the work does not see 55 an hour they see less than half of that and the company is just skimming all of that off the top robbing Us blind so please before we lay anyone off let's please end these contracts that are just hemorrhaging money thank you and finally we'll hear from Diana Mullins good evening my name is Diana Mullins um and thank you all for showing up and for serving us we really appreciate it
032and for doing the hard things that you're doing right now I'm a Craigmont parent a PTA board member I'm on the SSC and I'm in a commissioner on the commission on the study of women I share this with you so that you know know that I'm here tonight because I also care and I show up to advocate for our children every single day I'm here to talk about safety the safety of our children I understand that the leadership of our Aftercare program is being considered for cuts it would never be considered to have the school go without a principal so why would we do that to our after CARE program it kills me um so we have fouryear olds 5-year-olds and six-year-olds being cared for by seasonal contractors the only way that it's working is
033because of the senior leadership of the learns program at Craigmont Elementary that experience is Jasmine mccy she knows how to manage the unexpected to deescalate issues to get strangers off of our unsecure land without incident I ask you to find another way to meet your financial needs without sacrificing the safety of our babies thank you very much thank you as well Diana for your comments we will now move on to our uh Zoom commenters we have two hands that are raised and once they begin talking our um period for our online comment will end and so we will begin with Lona Custer followed by Katie Miss chz if you can please promote them both thank you we also have an additional hand of uh Barbara Andrews who will begin uh or who will be our
034last public commentary speaker online welcome Lona whenever you are ready you may begin hello my name is Lona and I'm writing on behalf of fellow parents and co-workers who are deeply concerned about recent decisions affecting our schools it saddens me to see that the very people who make the differences in our children's lives every day are being let go these are some of the staff members who support guide and care for our students the ones who create a safe and Nur train environment for them if the district truly values these children why are they losing the people who matter most in these kids daily experiences but even more troubling to me is that the district continues to hire executive directors when managers supervisors could effectively handle the same responsibilities at a lower cost at the
035same time H higher ups are asking for raises while employees who work directly with the students are being pushed out it sends a painful message that leadership pay is more important than saving the jobs of those who dedicate themselves to our children every day the USD is telling us through its actions that executive salaries take priority over the well-being of the staff and students have to do better please let's reconsider thank you hi um can I seed my time to Amanda cardino I was just able to get on the call earlier is it on now yes you may if Amanda Cardinal is online uh is she online Miss charz if she is you may seed your time to her um online and if you do not see her okay she is online so we will
036um promote her and thank you for um seeding your time thank you so much you're welcome Amanda you have two minutes and then following Amanda will be our last comment from Barbara Andrews hey can we try it one more time um Katie just to let you know um Amanda has uh declined the invitation to be a panelist and so we will try we've tried it twice already we'll try it one more time um however if she declines the motion to be a speaker participant you have the option to reclaim your time and that time will be 2 minutes so let's try Amanda once more declined can you hear me yes we can hear you Amanda welcome wonderful thank you so much you're wel um please forgive me as I try and work this technology uh
037good evening to the board and good evening to Heidi Weber um our can you pause Amanda's time please Amanda I'm not sure if you can hear me but you cut out um and so if you'd like to uh begin again and hopefully we will be able to hear you okay can you hear me now we can hear you now and so we'll start the time over for you okay thank you please let me know if it goes out again absolutely you may begin um Amanda you went out again and so here's what we will do we'll give you a little bit of time um so that you can get your Tech together we will go to the next public speaker and then we'll Circle back to you okay hopefully you can hear me okay um
038next we will hear from Barbara Andrews followed by Amanda CNO um hi hi my name is Barbara Andrews I am a teacher at Berkeley adult school and I'm I'm here this evening to talk about the workforce housing project I've heard many teachers and also classified staff express interest in living in the workforce housing which will be at 1701 s Pablo but it's come to my attention that the city also has its eyes on the workforce housing project what I mean by that is it looks as though be USD employees um will not necessarily have full priority for a living in that building um according to the city households that fall between the 30% and 50% Ami group um fifth 50 of the 110 units will be allotted for those families I don't know that many
039people who work for B USD will actually fall into that 30% to 50% Ami group that really is cause for concern in my opinion imagine we go to all the effort we give up school property we invest all this money and then it's not enti L for B USD employees that makes me feel really sad and nervous I hope that you as a board are have your eyes on this and can be confident that the workforce housing will truly be for B USD staff thank you and thank thank you as well for your comments um Barbara uh we typically don't respond um Direct to public comment but hopefully you will stay on from my comments and I'll give um actually a response to that question uh we received a message that Amanda Cardinal has now
040asked Katie uh to read her comments for her so if you could please promote Katie c a t y C AE Ty y actually my parents are that weird all right this speech is very entirely on behalf of Amanda cardino so I'll be reading this she wrote this good evening board members my name is Amanda cardno affectionately known to many of my students and colleagues as Miss C I am calling on behalf of the BTA community and the larger Secondary School Community I am a b USD teacher parent and Community member I am also a graduate of the following USD schools Oxford Longfellow and BHS class of 2007 as we move to practice the ease outlined in our title at Berkeley Unified School District Excellence Equity engagement and enrichment I would like you to consider
041the following I returned to Berkeley to work with and in my community during my time as a special educator and Community partner I have worked with the most vulnerable students and predominantly students of color like students at Berkeley technology academy yesterday I coordinated a session with a student and their documented IEP counselor this facilitation and collaboration of support allow students with the highest needs to get much-needed mental support when they are in crisis they go to the people who they feel safe with this student had the permission of myself his counselor and our principal to visit BHS for the purpose of attending a counseling session after meeting with their IEP counselor our BTA student was accosted by multiple safety officers an argument ensued and eventually multiple BPD officers were called for one student this was
042a student in emotional crisis looking for help they were met with aggression and a lack of deescalation tactics their disability was ignored and then a child were treated like a threat the most vulnerable students those with IEPs documented emotional needs mental illness and medical illness are treated as less than human and without regard to their health and wellness BHS often treats our BTA students as trespassers I understand that they attend different schools but multiple BTA students are enrolled in BHS classes and vice versa we have to have systems in place to ensure students can safely attend counseling sessions and feel like valued members of the BD Community not like trespassers these actions at the hand of Our Community Partners who are supposed to to protect and serve we need training and charges dropped for this
043particular BTA student and we call for BTA students to be treated with respect and dignity structures need to be put in place to protect our students and build relationships please respond with immediate support and actions in these matters in closing please don't make cuts to BTA Staffing we've been cut down so much over the years and please don't make cuts to after school Staffing they are important with frustration and collaboration in mind Amanda cardo all right thank you so much uh for reading those chat or reading uh that message we will have a second opportunity for public comment for both of our um attendees in person and online towards the end of our meeting uh at this time we will move on to our committee comments is there anyone who is here to make uh
044committee comments this evening okay seeing then we will now move on to our Union comments we will begin with bft followed by bcce uba and Local 21 if there are commenters for those represented unions oh great okay he is ready hello superintendent Ford marel and the Berkeley Schoolboard directors I am Matt Meyer president of the Berkeley Federation of teachers we have submitted our Sunshine document opening up this year's round of negotiations the proposals you will see over the next couple of months support students and solve systemic problems in our district they represent the schools our students deserve our proposals highlight the financial crisis that our Public Schools face we believe that our school should be fully staffed that our Educators should have competitive compensation in order to stay in this profession and that our students
045need stable Educators in their lives for Success my name is Sarah Kerber I'm a BF Treasurer and a kindergarten teacher at Malcolm X I here to speak about fully funding our schools and educator positions Berkeley needs to offer competitive salaries our district is not keeping up with surrounding districts mid-career teacher pay is 15th out of 17 nearby districts and Veteran teachers are paid the lowest in the County healthcare is not fully paid by our district and costs are over $1,000 more for families compared to last year with the same amount of coverage teachers are also not compensated to do all the work that we do we work with other Specialists and service providers often outside of our duty day especially when students have IEPs 504s or unidentified additional needs we are not talking about just
046one or two students per class this year I've needed to meet with Specialists for over one3 third of my kindergarten students and I need to do so regularly we need to be compensated for this extra work we do that is needed to meet our students needs when elementary teachers have a larger class size each child deserves more time from their teacher to work with them administer assessments grade their work as well as meet and communicate with their families with more students we need more time to meet those needs having an additional weekly prep when class sizes get too large will allow teachers to more properly support our students good evening my name is Yasmin Navaro I'm a fifth year counselor at Berkeley High School and I'm shocked to see that there are 10 counselors receiving
047layoff notices at a time when student needs for counseling is at an all-time high this district is telling 10 of us that we should be looking for other work this means students will be forced to change counselors um counselors will need to start overbuilding relationships and Trust while managing larger case loads our counselors provide critical support to all students if counseling casee loads go up as a result of such a huge loss our ability to provide direct student support will decrease and our students mental health will suffer my name is Deborah th and I'm a preschool sped educator I'm here on behalf of the BD preschool teachers who agree that our ability to provide high quality Early Education is hampered by class sizes of 24 with an 8:1 ratio before Co we could meet our
048students needs with 24 per class because Co TK had not yet fun fundamentally changed our student demographic now it most definitely has we no longer have 5-year-olds we have many fewer fours we now enroll students as young as two years seven months rather than three years younger students have more needs and we have lost many of the older students who served as Role Models or at the very least as students who can play and learn with greater Independence freeing Educators to provide Ed additional help to the younger children no one expects teaching young children to be easy but we all want to feel we are making a difference in providing a positive and nurturing preschool experience cap our classes at 18 students please do not lay off Preschool teachers and instructional assistants thank you the
049Berkeley Unified School District has yet to put forth a comprehensive plan on meeting their budget reduction Target when the district is providing is a huge list of positions including classroom teachers and support staff that will be receiving layoff notices many of these will be rescinded as funding is approved but in the meantime BD will lose some of these Educators as they seek employment elsewhere many of these layoff notices are in positions that we already can't keep staffed some of these layoffs are for educators who our district has financially supported through a classified to certificated pipeline at times of already increased anxiety in our public education Universe not knowing whether you will be employed or not will negatively impact staff morale and impact our ability to best serve students we should not even be in this
050conversation while the district continues to fund private contractors rather than this massive layoff notice of our Educators and staff at school sites the district should have pushed up its decision-making timelines so that unnecessary pink slips could have been prevented we look forward to the upcoming negotiation session where we will hopefully find common ground on Staffing compensation and stability thank you as well for your comments uh we will uh continue with Union comments and we are ready to receive Union comments from bcce at this time evening U superintendent or maral and Berkeley School Board uh directors we are here tonight to express our concerns regarding the current situation within Berkeley uh Unified School District in a potential layoffs of nearly 150 classified employees represented by the bcce bargaining unit uh this news is deeply troubling and
051warrants IM media attention and reconsideration layoffs are about lack of funds or a lack of work not not a lack of Personality or personal uh differences this process must not be weaponized to push our employees simply push our employees out simply because they are because they are inconvenience bcce is deeply concerned and we are putting this on record because some of the positions targeted for the cuts are not being eliminated due to financial constraints or a dwindling workload classified employees in their uh contributions are in invaluable to the daily operations of our schools in the overall well-being of our students to consider layoffs of this magnitude is to disregard their uh dedication and critical Services they provide the fact that buusd is considering such drastic measures while simultaneously employing a growing number of contractors for
052roles that should be filled by bcce bargaining unit members is deeply concerning this practice undermines the job security of our classified staff and raises questions about the district commitment to its Workforce the consequences of laying off these dedicated workers would be uh devastating our students would undoubtedly suffer from a lack of support in essential services our schools will struggle to function effectively without a contribution of these classified employees in our community as a whole would feel the Ripple effects of these layoffs our district has kept contractors on the payroll under the guise of hiring perent staff it's been over a year and there is still no effort to replace these contractors with full-time employees now the district plans to eliminate Behavior instructional specialist positions even though the work remains essential and squarely Falls within bcc's
053responsibility B USD cannot continue to erod our bargaining unit for financial gain forcing other classified workers to absorb the duties of laid off positions is not a viable solution it's a clear violation of labor law and an unfair Labor practice we urge the board to reconsider laying off classified employees instead the district should consider cut back on long-term contractors who have who have overstay their welcome reduce Reliance on Brokers that drain our funds re-evaluate the budget for textbook adoptions that never materialize explore leas and District facilities to generate additional income investigate new strategies to attract students and increases Ada there are plenty of alternatives for BD to achieve savings without sacrificing the jobs of our classified employees the after school program a case study in wasteful spending bcce leadership was told there would be six
054after school coordinators stop and think about that why does this District suddenly need six coordinator is to oversee a program that once ran officially with just one supervisor if budget cuts are necessary why are we adding expensive administrative layers instead of protecting Frontline staff the work that directly benefits our students is done by our after school Specialists that is BCC work and we will not stand by while the district takes our jobs and repackages them with inflated salaries for Unnecessary oversight this is exactly what happens when inexperienced oversight operates without organiz organizational Clarity departments become unstable and essential programs suffer look around neighboring districts do not burden themselves with multiple after school coordinators in fact one District just hired is first coordinator so why is our district stacking administrative layers when we desperately need is
055more Frontline workers we need more Direct Services not more supervisors let's be real this District cannot afford to lose the people who are the barck of our schools these Frontline workers build Rel relationship with students keep programs running and ensure our schools function every day if money is our priority why is it trapped at the top rather than moving where it's needed most to sustain the people who keep this District standing because the students are the foundation cutting the very people who serve them is tantamount to dismantling the structure that holds our community together we understand that tough Financial choices must be made but those cut should never come at the expense of the employees who work directly with our students if B us is serious about responsible budgeting it must start at the top
056where there are more executive directors and administrative layers than ever before thank you thank you as well for your comments are there any comments from yubu or Local 21 tonight okay hearing none we will move on to our board member comments um I will begin thank you to those of you uh who spoke to us tonight in regards to the tennis courts layoff layoffs uh layoff notices workfor housing um and systems in place to protect our students following um the recent incidents this week um there are so many Hot Topic issues uh that are happening in our district um and again it isn't our typical practice to respond to public comments uh but there are a few that I want to respond to tonight uh the very first is in regards to layoff notices um
057as already expressed by the superintendent um this is a practice that is done by most districts and unfortunately uh Berkeley Unified School District is not IM uh immune to the unsettling challenges that are brought forth by um layoff notices and uh for the first time in most recent B USD history um our layoff notices um are not just for what we've seen in the past for classifying our certificated employees um but there are layoffs that are happening at every single level uh in our layoff notices excuse me that are happening at every single level in our organization but I want to remind folks that this once again is a layoff notice um we are not finalizing um any layoffs or making a decision but we are uh providing notices because you all know that that
058is the practice however um it is really really important to note that in my time in B USD um I found that these layoff notices without proper engagement leads to um our district uh being in a state of confusion and it causes unnecessary stress and unnecessary Strife uh within our community and so I have asked uh the superintendent and staff to do between now um and may is give public um presentations about their plans of actions as well as engage with our labor Partners it has not been my experience that we've had these public um presentations that help our community understand um the decisions that are being made it's my experience that these conversations normally happen uh with Union Partners uh behind close doors but because we are moving into uh the season of transparency
059it is very important to me that we have these conversations in public um and that the board have the opportunity to engage publicly um Advocate publicly and ask questions about um some of these layoff notices that have been given out and so although uh again it is UN unsettling to receive these notices is my hope that this new practice that we will Implement help us to come to some resolve together as a community Community instead of dealing with these um challenges in silos so hopefully that will um help our district move forward and be able to uh be on what Accord when we by the time we get to May in addition to that earlier um there was a comment I believe from Barbara about our Workforce housing plans um and I want to let
060the community in on uh what's happening and so for our Workforce housing um plans uh we actually re reive some measure o money from the city to be able to provide Workforce housing to our Educators um however for the first time and what I believe is um Berkeley history there is a special um ordinance that comes with that measure o money that says that that uh that money for that must be open um to a specific uh subgroup which is what Barbara spoke to earlier um her comment also shared that she wasn't sure how many of our bu USD um teachers or Educators um met or followed under that criteria um which is true however we are in conversations right now uh with the city our city manager as well as our director of um
061facilities is in conversations right now with our city manager so that we can come to some sort of um understanding especially because we want to ensure that Workforce housing for our educators is for our Educators there's been a lot of work there's been a lot of advocacy there's um been years of work to make sure that this uh is something that happens for our Educators and we want to ensure that we um have it and hold it for our Educators which was the purpose and so we are um aware of that Barbara and everyone else who may have have have those concerns um and we are working to uh see a resolve additionally we are um asking that it is required by the Council to take action on this um this should not just be
062something that the city tells us is going to happen we need to take action on this by our city coun uh we need our city council members to take action on this and so I have asked that all of our Schoolboard directors engage with our city council partners and I'm asking that everyone here in our community Educators community members students families alike to please push on our city council members to ensure that we hold that Workforce housing that we are that we've been working so hard to develop for our Educators um it is a it has a specific purpose and we don't want any of the work um that is done to be to go in vain so please please please push on your city council representatives to make sure that we hold the workforce
063housing for those who it was intended for um and that the city council is the group that actually takes action on it instead of just hearing um the city tell us what what it is that they feel that we should do just because we receive measure o funds okay so I hope that clears that up for everyone um and I hope everyone leaves here with the charge to know that we are going to call on our city council members uh to take action and take action in the right way okay uh finally I will end my public comments with saying a huge thank you uh to Heidi Weber for all that you have done uh for our district Heidi you are an amazing Force um one thing that I'm always inspired by uh with inspired
064by when I have conversations with you is how passionate you are about your students how passionate you are about the Educators that you have the privilege to work with and how much you love our school district every conversation I've ever had with you has been positive it has helped me uh in my own personal craft and your spirit is infectious you always greet us with a hug something positive to say um and and so much love to give and although our superintendent um is a just a smidge older than 31 uh when you got here I was only two years old and not yet in the district but I do remember being a student uh in the district um when you when you were working um at Berkeley High School and I have always been
065moved and touched um by who you are as an educator and I know that you are leaving us for a short while I hope but know that um wherever you go please keep that wonderful and infectious spirit because that Spirit helps to motivate people in ways you have no idea that you are doing so and so you always as the superintendent um mentioned will be a part of our Berkley community and you always have a home right here in Berkeley so please know that we love you we appreciate you and we'll always hold you in our hearts so thank you for all that you've done and I did say finally but I want to call your attention to one more thing I was going to do it when we got to uh the consent calendar
066but I'll go ahead and do it now so that when we do get to the consent calendar we can move through that vote pretty quickly um there have been a couple of people who have raised um questions about uh item 12.5 that is on the consent calendar um especially during this season of re receiving layoff notices and I want to talk to you a little bit about what uh that is and why uh this is the practice so um as some of you may know the district has concluded our bargaining with bft bcce and Local 21 with respect to uh salary and related stiens differentials and hourly rates um in addition to that uh the board ratified these increases for our bargaining units um aend received a staff recommendation um for a 2% increase for
067our uh directors cabinet members confidentials hourly um and stien only position so just about every person um in our district which is something that we all should be very proud of especially in the day and age of how expensive it is to live in California and how expensive it continues to get to live in uh the Bay Area however um the super and this includes the superintend okay but there is a clause in the superintendent's contract that says that any increase um has to be has to have a board uh decision and a board vote and it must be done publicly she um is the only employee in our district where we have to do this publicly and so that is why you see it on the consent calendar everyone else who has received an
068increase you know nothing about because it is not in their contract for us to have to do that publicly but for the superintendent it is and so um you will see that on our agenda tonight as item 12.5 so anyone else who has questions May absolutely refer those questions to me they may replay this uh comment when they see it on YouTube and they also may go to you who have heard it uh publicly if there are any additional questions please feel free to reach out to me um in regards to this item but this is a process that we um do and this is a process that I wrote into our contract for our superintendent that this should happen publicly and so it is happening publicly tonight thank you so much for hearing um
069all of my comments this evening and for the opportunity to uh kind of uh respond to some of the things that our district needs to address publicly that we don't always address publicly so again we are moving into this season of transparency and hopefully this transparency doesn't fall on death ears but that um it falls on the ears of those who are ready to continue to do the work so that we can move together in unity are there any other board com board commenters who are ready to go at this time are students ready you are okay are you ready all right we will uh start with our student board directors so we'll go uh This Way W if you're ready to go and then after that we will go to director shinoski director Korn
070and then director changen will you be ready and director vasudev wonderful um so as soon soon as a student as soon as a director is done speaking I won't need to call on you director K I won't need to call on you so as soon as um a director is done speaking you just may go ahead and start okay she will we're going to start with our I'm going to say it one more time so that everybody gets it we're going to start with our student directors first as soon as our student directors are done director shinoski will just jump straight in as soon as she's done director cor you will jump straight in as soon as you are done director Chang will jump straight in and then finally we will end our comments with
071director Basu Dev I will not call on you all individually I'll just allow you to go so that we can save some of our time you may begin whenever you're ready student director Clark okay thank you um good evening everybody it's great to be back for another board meeting and I truly appreciate hearing from all of you during public comment it was a happy surprise to see my fellow Youth and government delegate speak tonight and before diving into my main topic I want to take a moment moment to highlight some of the great things that are happening at our school I would also like to extend my gratitude to miss Weber which teachers like her are the heart of our school community and the type of people to make a lasting impact on school on
072students experiences so thank you so much um so last week Berkeley High hosted the black scholar ceremony where we celebrated black students for their academic excellence and it was a really beautiful event that highlighted the hard work and dedication of so many of our students and also prom season is officially here with tickets now on sale something I know a lot of my fellow classmates soon start getting on top of and of course it's now women's History Month a time to celebrate the resilience leadership and contributions of women sitting here not just on this dis but in this room I feel incredibly grateful to be surrounded by such amazing hardworking women who are dedicated day in and out towards making our schools better and go above and beyond in our role so thank you to
073all the women here um but on another note I want to be transparent with you all instead of focusing on student awards and prom Seasons the student body is talking about the fact that over the past two weeks three students have been arrested on campus due to actions taken by our school resource officer from what we know about these incidents his actions directly violated board policy 51451 and were carried out without proper communication with School administration in most cases parents were not notified until it was too late this policy was put in place to ensure that law enforcement interactions with students are handled in a way that is fair trauma informed and minimizes disruption to the school environment it requires that one law enforcement must Co coordinate with school administrators before questioning or apprehending a
074student two parents must be contacted emphasis on the must immediately except in cases of suspected child abuse and three officers should take every step to avoid unnecessary harm stigma or distress to students but this in fact did not happen instead we watched policy violations that led to unnecessary and damaging encounters with law enforcement and as a student representative I have a firm belief our school should be a place of safety and learning not fear we need real accountability to make sure this does not happen again and so moving forward I want to ensure that we uphold our commitment to student safety and hold all parties accountable when policies are violated students deserve to students deserve to feel protected by the very policies meant to safegard them this issue cannot be ignored and I look forward
075to working with my fellow board members administrators and students to make sure our schools remain a place where students feel safe respected and heard thank you thank you so much um for your comment director Clark and I apologize for budding in because I put it in my notes to respond to that um issue this evening and didn't get it uh the chance to the policy that student um Clark spoke to just a few minutes ago was actually a policy that we passed on the policy committee uh when uh myself and former director Laura babbit uh were on that policy committee but the reason why the policy is so important is because that uh policy was brought forth by a student sir Remington um and the student was really impacted by something that he saw happened
076on campus which was similar to what happened this week and so we created with the support and help of uh Yasmin created that policy to ensure that that would never happen to any other students um on our campuses unfortunately multiple times it has happened in the last couple of days um and it is actually not okay at all it is really um unfortunate it's horrible for our students to not just witness but for our students to experience we pride ourselves on being um a school where all of our students are welcome we're there safe um and where they have belonging but students cannot feel safe if we are breaking policies and it is absolutely not okay and so at the um I would like to take the time to appreciate our superintendent and principal R
077goza who will be meeting uh with Chief Lewis to discuss this um and to come up with a plan of action to ensure that this never happens to any of our students again um so thank you director Clark for your advocacy and for speaking on behalf of uh not just not just students at Berkeley High but students at BTA and all of our students in bu USD who deserve to feel welcomed who deserve to feel a sense of belonging but above all who deserve to feel safe thank you hello good evening and I here to speak on behalf of Lea gas our other school board member who officially unfortunately couldn't make it today there has been many times where BTA students has been been treated unfairly by BHS staffs just because they go to bis
078or BTA snub students has told me that they were accused of trespassing even though they were at BHS for the classes but what happened yesterday is really disturbing a BTA student who has special needs was arrested for trespassing just for being being on BHS campus even though they were given permission to be there by a BTA staff's member along with a BHS staff member it's hard to understand why a student would be arrested for something like this the actions taken against this student were wrong and unfair safety officers are supposed to help calm down situations but in this case it seems like they were they made their they made things worse my question is how can we make sure situation like this are handled with more care and kindness instead of making things harder for
079students thank you so much um first of all principal Weber Heidi I want to thank you for your service to brookley unified I appreciate you so much for the love that you unabashedly show every one of our students uh standing with you at graduations and ceremony is such a privilege because your pride and your joy for our students is truly obvious and infectious so thank you thank you for helping to educate me as a board member thank you for supporting my own child and thank you for supporting so many others so I want to do one more round of applause for principal Weber I want to um comment on the March 15 notices it's really painful to vote on these notices um it's painful to read them to see them and to vote on them
080at the same time there's a very real and very pressing need for us to manage the decrease in funding um that we along with neighboring districts and really all districts across California are facing right now and the uncertainty that we have with um Federal funding our budget is however a reflection of our values and any Cuts must really be done in service of those values they need to be made as far away from our students in classrooms as possible in my opinion and I look forward to continued engagement with our community through esac and through discussions here on the dis so that we can minimize Cuts we can show our commitment to the staff that has committed to us and continue to serve all BD students I highly encourage any and all of you to
081join us both at ESP back and here at our board meetings um virtually or in person so that you can continue to ask questions and get really important updates um we do dig in the district is digging in and is quite responsive when we have concerns so those are really the places to come um in talking about funding I want to come back to um March Madness and attendance uh attendance is not just for March our attendance matters for the students who are missing out on class it also matters for the peers for their peers um who you know are often left behind in classes as kids are getting brought up to speed and it matters for our funding because we receive State dollars based on our average daily attendance so make sure that your
082kids are in school and make sure that your kids friends are in school and um I think attendance just needs to be a high priority for all of us not just in March but all year long um quick updates on some uh meetings I've um had the privilege of continuing to partner with director uh student board director winter Clark on youth voting I'm really thankful to the Berkeley High Administration uh for embracing voter reg registration and W's continued commitment to see it through all the way through to graduation um I also attended um in the last couple weeks both the Berkeley High School and districtwide safety committee meetings and at those meetings there's been a lot of discussion about the homeless encampment at Civic Center Park it was also the topic of a city planned
083community meeting sponsored uh last week I want to clarify for the public that the school district does not have jurisdiction over Civic Center Park and we were not involved in the planning of the community meeting last week I'd like to thank the city for their commitment to increase increased patrolling around Berkeley High School even though the indivi individual involved in the reported sexual battery case was not a member of that unhoused Community last week I had the privilege of attending the Longfellow PTA meeting with principal Mitchell and superintendent Ford Morell it was a really productive meeting where our superintendent provided updates on Longfellow both the Sacramento and San Pablo locations as well as some updates on Workforce housing um I stayed behind to talk to some safe routes to school families about their concerns with
084rolling drop off and walk walking and biking to school and I want to thank those families for their engagement and their positive approach to finding Solutions um to some really challenging problems uh yesterday I was able to attend the finance audit committee and the citizens Bond oversight committee meetings um and I want to thank those um have community volunteers that serve on both of those committees and I'd like to thank those um community members who always come prepared and ask great questions and make us all much better at our jobs um I also want to thank the Berkeley voters once again who have so generously approved um so many different funding streams that we have in Berkeley and finally to the students that talked about more rigorous options at Berkeley High and the need for
085more AP courses I would highly encourage you to look at dual moment opportunities at your nearby community colleges because at your nearby community colleges you can take a more rigorous course and get college credits and save your parents some money um okay and with that I will turn it over to the other Jen good advice director shinoski my own son is taking two classes at Berkeley City College right now getting college credit and um taking care of his last credit so that he can graduate from Berkeley High highly recommend um thank you everyone I missed the last meeting because I was out of the country but I am very happy to be back this evening um to work with my colleagues to conduct the district's business I I want to say that I'm so grateful
086for our student directors on the board and your comments tonight were such a good reminder of why we need Student voice in this room um I too am alarmed by the recent events involving law enforcement at Berkeley High School that are counter to our district policy and I'm grateful that the superintendent and principal Rick Roso will be meeting with the police chief to ensure student safety at school um I also want to add my personal gratitude to Heidi Weber um although I will say that President Brown's comments made me feel super old because while uh president Brown was a toddler um Heidi Weber and I were young teachers together in B USD um I had the honor of working with Heidi many years ago when we were both supporting English language learner students um in
087B USD and she is now my son's principal at bis and I just want to Echo what everyone has said about how dearly missed you will be Heidi um I am also grateful to everyone who came out tonight to share your perspectives in public comment and I'm particularly grateful always to students who come out to speak um and I want to just end by also addressing um the March 15th notices um and I I just want to say that none of us want to lay off employees I am a lifelong educator myself I've worked as an after school program director a classroom teacher a teacher on special assignment and a site administrator and I know firstand and I deeply appreciate the hard work that each of these positions requires and I'm deeply grateful to everyone
088of us usd's hardworking employees I myself have received March 15th letters many times and I have great empathy for the uncertainty and the stress that these notices cause and I want to reiterate that our vote tonight is only to provide notice to employees that it is possible that they might be laid off or reassigned and I just want to reiterate what's already been said many times that no decisions have been made yet final Staffing decisions will will depend on many budgetary factors that are not yet fully clear and decisions that are yet to be made and I look forward to a transparent process this spring that will prioritize services to students and minimize Cuts as much as possible I believe that we can work together as a community to get through these really challenging budgetary
089times thank you thank you so much my colleagues have spoken so eloquently on these issues um I you know want to say good evening to everybody and thank you for providing your hearts and Minds again um I emphasize and support president Brown's call for the season of transparency um both on Staffing and our engagement with the city um engagement with the city on safety and law enforcement uh in particular um I also want to emphasize and support um student directors Clark Tabit and joas call out that all students should be able to attend programs and services with without escalated law enforcement outcomes um I encourage you to reach out to Berkeley's police accountability board uh which is our police oversight body to ensure that the Berkeley Police Department's school resource officers are properly selected and
090trained please reach out to them uh through public comment Etc they have meetings just like we do um thank you principal Weber for your Decades of service to our district um I really enjoyed our chats sitting next to each other on the podium during High School graduations um so again I want to do another clap for you thank you so much Decades of work and we hope you have some Adventures uh in the future I heard from our chats that you you're doing some very interesting stuff um BHS tennis uh thanks for continuing to remind us that you need an appropriate home um I'm going to make a corny dad joke here for a minute I thought that you had convinced David Letterman to speak on your behalf that's pretty cool funny and handsome looking
091guy um thank you student speakers on course selections at BHS um BCC and bft members thank you for reminding us of the important value of the work that you do holding up the district um and full Staffing compensation and stability um so I'm going to leave it at that thank you so much and I know we're going through a Time of a lot of tumult both nationally and locally and um I know that this board is very conscientious and has been said here um we do not at all take lightly um these um letters the pink slips as they are called that are sent out um we are engaging very closely with um the administrators here and and ourselves in sessions to make sure that um we look at very closely and it's all done
092um through an empathy for um the great work that everybody in this District does in in holding up the district um so thank you again for uh all of thanks director Chang uh one of the benefits of going last is that you can just say I Echo a lot of the sentiment sentiment stated by my colleagues um which is absolutely true today um and also wanted just to give another thank you to our students um as I've said many times from the dice we're here to serve them we do this work for you and so when adults are failing at camp on campus like the SRO in this situation um it's really important that you I know it takes it's very hard because of the power dynamics to speak out in these situations but it's
093um really important that you do speak out to the board directors and help us make sure that we are you know holding uh staff accountable for for making sure that we're serving you to the best of our ability so thank you both um and I also look forward to hearing how those conversations with our police chief go and I know that our superintendent um is on top of that I also um just wanted to Echo what what my colleague Jen Korn said about looking forward to the transparent budgeting process this is a really hard time it's not fun to to approve these layoff notices um but I think that the the transparency throughout the budgeting process becomes very important and so um you know I'm I'm in talks with the superintendent as are my colleagu
094to make sure that as we make these difficult decisions the public is aware of how we got there um so I think that's that's very important I had the pleasure of attending the Camino ziv College and Career Readiness event on the 22nd of February we had over 100 Spanish speaking families at that event at BCC very grateful to our community colleges for opening up their space um it was a beautiful event and you know we had a sessions on um you know applying for financial aid um at a time when a lot of families are very scared of you know filling out a FAFSA form because it means outing their immigration status and so we had those kind of nuance conversations um it was also great to hear from our bua students directly our students
095who are taking part in the early academic outreach program from UC Berkeley which is also at BHS from our um different nonprofit partners and all these great programs to help close the opportunity Gap uh for our latinx students and our immigrant students but in spite of all the of the positivity of that of that event um it was very heavy uh to feel some of the fears that families have around navigating the college process given the you know Federal political situation and landscape and just um you know fears fears that they have about you know if their students are going to be safe should there be a raid and so um I really appreciate student director winter Clark and our BHS students who were there passing out red cards to the families so that they
096um were aware of their immigration rights thank you for doing that and all our profit partners that were there to answer some of those questions for our families as well um I also wanted to thank everyone who came out to get public comment to the tennis team I'm no fan of parking so you know I as a city planner I'm always going to prioritize using those spaces for something else um I know that I was in conversations with one of the coaches about staggering practices to making sure that the lighting was great so you could have a JV practice even if you had to do a practice later when it was dark um to make sure that the lighting was great in the new fields the need courts um so I know there's Creative Solutions
097I know the superintendent I'll be talking to D director um of facilities John kis to make sure that um we can uh explore the ideas that you presented to us tonight so thank you very much uh for being here and I also wanted to give my thanks uh to principal Weber who took the time early in my first term to meet with me when I ran on a platform that I wanted to make sure the district updated the multilingual learner master plan H and it was principal we who met with me early in that during that time and said well this is all you can do to update this Beast of a plan and so um I really appreciate that meeting I learned I have learned so much from you and also just opening your
098Camp I'll never forget how you opened your campus for our MLP graduation during the pandemic when we had just come back to school and um I know we were looking for a space for that graduation it was really beautiful and thank you for opening your campus and always making sure that our vulnerable students felt heard and celebrated and for all your work with our multilingual Learners thank you and with all our students thank you so much and um I'd also like to thank our labor partners for their comments and that's it for me tonight thanks everyone for being here thank you so much director vasu Dev and thank you for all of your comments at directors we will now move on to our consent calendar hopefully you all heard and understood uh what I said
099in regards to item 12.5 um and if there aren't any other questions can I please have a motion to approve the consent calendar I moved by director shasi is there a second second seconded by director Chang all directors uh who would like to vote in favor please signify with the sign of I I okay opposers have the same sign extensions the eyes have it and the motion carries at this time it is almost 900 p.m. and so we will take a f minute break to excuse our student directors um and to prepare for our one agenda item our action item tonight so we will take a 5 minute recess and we will come back to receive our presentation yeah um J it these people going at 9 o' spe e for for but part your
100to who do you want to introduce this we do I always say B broown but how do you want to technically oh say the ISS of okay D is yeah yeah well thanks for giving us the opportunity to present John with about they draw down right any geobond issuances no Okay no Okay um I think I actually you know what we usually just had on consent we never had a but because it's such a large need a change in Council and yeah I think they feel more comfortable with it being a action item versus a consent item so I have to ask is this a picture of no this home or anything I mean it's beautiful no it's just a stop picture oh well gorgeous photo so how have you been oh God hardly yeah
101it's a very difficult time so yeah but got to do it yes yeah not as bad as some districts but pretty bad yeah well um I think you kind of uh warned us about that before we started this yeah um but we're we are some of the things that we're concerned about I'm meeting with a Cy tomorrow but we're okay for know um second it's h it's h they're on okay can we turn them okay um going to the board next um it would have come tonight but um the county said we could send it to them on the 15th and then to the next oh no that's okay person yeah nice I like it Liz you have um um just me you don't have the thing to change so you're going to change S
102Dan you just tell when you want oh thank you thank you yeah I have the same [Music] I'm in my office it's going around because I try to keep it fresh for you guys yes we don't have it was well planned then good we're just going to go ahead and build on that then all right for e all right so we are getting ready to uh begin again thank you board directors for returning as a reminder our student board directors have been dismissed um and they are dismissed every evening at around 900 p.m. uh at this time we will move on to our first action item of the evening which is the approval of the bond draw down um as many of you know um in 2020 voters of um the district approve measure G
103authorizing the district to issue up to uh $380 million in principal amount bonds for authorized projects and so um tonight we are going to hear um an update and hear a recommendation uh that the Board of Education approve uh the resolutions that you will see um come forth tonight and authorize the district uh officers to and officers and staff to take the necessary step steps to complete um our financing and so at this time I will'll turn it over to our assistant superintendent uh Miss Pauline Fallin welcome thanks president Brown um so as president Brown um indicates we're going to be discussing um issuing $150 million of bonds and with me tonight is Danielle from KNN our advisor and she's going to actually be doing the presentation so welcome Daniel and thank you very much
104good evening president Brown other members oh that better it's on it's on how about that okay all right well then I will begin again uh good evening president Brown and other members of the board good evening to superintendent Ford marel it's wonderful to be with you here and as uh Pauline has already provided a little brief intro um my name is Daniel Ruda I am with KN andn Public Finance we serve as the district's Municipal advisor and if I could distill what I do in just a short phrase It's to protect the interest of the district as it goes through the bond issuance process so that is what we're here to do today um the presentation that has been placed before you is to provide some additional context to the various documents that are before
105you so that board members who are veterans will find this presentation as a nice refresher and for those board members who may be a little bit new to the process uh it provides them with the opportunity to really dig down understand what these various documents are what the Geo Bond program is at BSD and gives you the opportunity to ask any questions so I find that these presentations go really well if it is open so if you have any questions during the presentation please feel free to interrupt me I'm happy to answer any questions as we go through okay so to that end let's go ahead and begin with slide number two here and it is entitled measure G background so the reason and importance for this slide is to really understand what sort of
106Revenue sources are available to the district as it needs to support a capital program okay so in the state of California school districts have three resources that it can call upon number one local bonds issued by the school District so General obligation bonds two developer fees and then finally three state funding that's usually done on a match basis there's also opportunities through grants endowments or even gifts that are provided by alumni or friends of the district so we're going to focus on what's closest to home which is the geob bond program okay so you'll see that this is entitled measure G and as president Brown had mentioned yes the district has had a successful um engagement with its community on four separate Geo Bond measures so measure a a a i and G the reason
107that we're focusing on G is because G is the only active authorization meaning it's the only authorization that still has dollars that can be deployed for future projects the rest of the author authorizations excuse me have been completely exhausted so in March of 2020 uh the district's constituents went ahead and approved a authorization of 380 million what that means is that's 380 million that will go towards capital projects at the district this was a Proposition 39 election which means that it only required 55% approval rating by its constituents your constituents showed up in a real big way with 80.5 %c and I know that there was already some Kudos that was given about um the generosity of its taxpayers and its constituents what I want to underscore is that it really shows the value that
108the constituents have in B USD and to reinvest in the school district to make sure that it has the facilities as well as the tools necessary to support positive educational outcomes for its students so uh moving on since the passage of measure G there has been four separate Geo Bond issuances and each of those issuances are noted Below in the table uh the first taking place in November of 2020 and then most recently in August of 2024 in aggregate all four issuances total 147.5 million so if we take the original authorization amount of 380 deduct what has already been issued that gives the district 232 5 million in remaining authorization I know that assistant superintendent kisi um in February provided this board with an update on uh the various Capital programs or excuse me capital
109projects that are taking place there's I believe 10 different projects so to support those efforts we are considering looking at an additional issuance of Geo bonds for measure G so that the district has those funds to deploy when needed and to continue the progress that it is going through okay moving on to our next slide slide three tax space and assessed value the importance of this slide is that the assessed value is the key marker in actually calculating what the impact is on the tax rate or what our taxpayers are going to be paying to support future measure G Debt Service okay okay so we'll go ahead and take a look at the chart on the top right and I realized there's a lot going on here so let's walk through it um we can
110see here that we are listing the assessed value from 2000 fiscal 20089 all the way to current and what I want to point out here is not in any year that's listed here do we see a situation in which assessed value is negative that is huge it it speaks to the resilience and strength of the overall tax base there are many many school districts who do not have this sort of strong tax base to support their Geo Bond programs um the reason that I felt it necessary to go back as far as I did is as we all know the Great Recession caused a lot of dislocation in the real estate market and so there were plenty of school districts that saw multiple years of negative growth and a contraction in their tax base when
111your tax base value goes down your tax rate goes up and vice versa when your tax value or the value of your tax base goes up your tax rate goes down okay so we can see here that the district has enjoyed very healthy growth the chart that's directly below this first chart we are looking at and is entitled compound annual growth rate really distills all of those various numbers and growth rates to show various growth rates at certain years so we see in very shortterm 3 five 10 year very strong growth 877 it speaks to the fact that there is a lot of uh turnover and re-evaluation of the district's tax base then when we look 152 years out where we're looking at including those years in which the Great Recession had an impact on
112the value of the tax base again still very strong AV numbers at over 5% so the question for the board is is why is it that the tax base in B USD is so resilient and there's a number of reasons for that one the city of Berkeley is one of the oldest cities in California but what I like to attribute it to is that you guys are an urban Suburban so you guys have amenities that speak to Growing families there space to have kids they are close resources for these kids kids are able to walk to school many cities within your neighboring um vicinities do not have those sorts of amenities plus there's the opportunity for parents as we saw tonight to take part in a very active and Vibrant Community which people really appreciate
113having the ability to um have a say in what how and what their kids learn okay there's also the urban amenities that are unique to the city of Berkeley obviously your neighbor not too far you see Berkeley provides a lot of resources and attention additionally Lawrence Berkeley National Labs there is a sphere of innovation as well as research here in the city of Berkeley and what has resulted in it is that it's an attraction for employers and employees there is well-paying jobs that are in the area as well as well-compensated and a very um well educated Workforce that's here so that is what's really causing the demand and the stability in that tax space when we look to see how the tax space is actually made up 83% of the value is coming from residential
114property owners and of that 83% 50% of it about 50% of it is single family residents and then 29% of it is multifam so going back to that Urban Suburban right having the ability to have multif family homes and seeing the value that it provides for various families at different economic levels okay um I also want to go ahead and talk about the concentration or lack thereof really of the top 10 secured property tax owners so we've all heard that age long saying don't put all your eggs in one basket right so the same is true for assessed value there isn't any one property owner that is making up a large portion of the district assess value so it is well Diversified among many property holders in fact the top 10 property holders that make
115up the largest portion of your secured tax role only account for 5.9% of the role which in our eyes means that it is very diverse and it isn't concentrated okay um I'll go ahead and pause there because I've said a lot so far and see if there's any questions excellent all right let's keep going slide four um these next two slides are really going to speak to what the actual cost is to the property tax owner so we will start with a very focused view on just measure G and then obviously as I said before there are other outstanding go bonds so we will widen our scope to look at the other Geo bonds that are outstanding as well as the parcel tax measures so let's stick with uh measure G here to really understand
116what the cost is to the taxpayer at the time that measure G was approved d by the constituents in the ballot language it provide constituents with a estimate of what the cost would be to repay the outstanding bonds for measure G and that was a tax rate of 40 excuse me 4 $44.50 per 100,000 of Av that is an average tax rate so what that means is the tax rate on the very first assessment rle all the way through to the final maturity the average tax rate being $44.50 in addition there was a second estimate that was provided to taxpayers which was what is going to be the max tax rate to be levied to support this Geo Bond program and that was $59 per 100,000 of Av so the question is is how have
117we been doing since our first issuance in November of 2020 uh the bars directly below show what the tax rate has been uh this is again sourced by the county this is what the taxpayers are seeing on their tax bills so uh assessment year 2122 when we first issued series A and B for measure G tax rate was $524 then purposefully we went ahead and backed down the TR the tax rate in order to provide the district with plenty of capacity for future debt to be layered in which took place just this past last August and you could see 2425 that tax rate jumping up to $15.74 to account for series C and D so what does this show us over the four fiscal years in which the district has levied a tax for the
118repayment of measure G the average tax rate has been $19.37 and each of those four years the tax rate has been well below the $59 threshold so that provides some cont text based off of a tax rate but what does that tax rate really translate to in terms of dollars and cents for the taxpayers so we're going to go to the next page or the next slide excuse me uh in impact on the taxpayers the first um graphic and I apologize that it is so small but um there's again a lot of information that I wanted to include here for you but that is an actual screenshot of a tax bill uh for a taxpayer within the district um so the first portion we'll go ahead and look at um the bottom right which that
119indicates the total tax that is levied for the repayment of all Geo bonds for B USD that includes measure a a a i g and any refundings the tax rate for 2425 is $78 per 100,000 of Av so let's translate that tax rate into real dollars okay I went ahead and did an analysis to take a look at what the median AV is here in BD and based off of the statistical data available we're looking at a median AV of 64720 so we take that dollar amount for AV okay divide it by 100,000 and then multiply it by the $78 tax rate for this particular C circumstance uh based off this median AV the taxpayer would be paying $482 this year to support the repayment of all bu USD outstanding debt the district also has
120the benefit of the parcel tax measures that are deployed for various um for various um for various items that the community has valued and so what we have there is in the next column over when we're looking at the tax bill again three line items to account for BP Bara and measure h i I want to thank Kathy Fleming and her team for their assistance with this information uh she was able to provide me with uh the tax rates for each of the parcel taxes given 2425 but obviously I saw on the consent calendar that you just went ahead and approved 2526 so we'll stick with what we got here um we also went ahead and received uh data for the average square footage for a single family resident uh this was provided by the
121city of Berkeley um so the average square footage being 1,971 um when we take the various parcel tax measure tax rates and apply it to that square footage we get a total cost of $1,439 so Allin we're looking at 1,98 80 that uh this I guess um case study we will say based off of medians and averages uh avails us so real dollars behind what those tax rates um translate to any questions okay so moving on to slide six plan of Finance as I said before this presentation is to provide context to the documents that are before you the plan of Finance is basically the terms of the financing or the transaction that we are uh planning to go forward with once the board has granted their approval so as I said before the district
122is anticipating 150 million uh to be issued that will be split across two series of bonds which has been the practice since we began the measure G issuances there is Series E we could see that the total par or principal amount there at 2.5 million and then Series F for 147.5 million some might be asking why traditionally we have put a small series to go ahead and finance technology related projects so what we want to make sure is we all know that technology has a very short span so rather than find financing technology on a 30-year basis we're instead going to do what's best for the taxpayer and only finance it for a short period of time for Series E we're planning on a final maturity of February 1 of 2026 so less than a
123year moving on to Series F where the bulk of the authorization will be issued from that series is really intended for Brick In mortar and other sort of projects that have longer lifespans okay so these are the projects that are going to be benefiting generation after generation of B USD students we are using very conservative assumptions to go ahead and structure this debt uh first and foremost I want to bring to your attention the note that these are fixed rate meaning once we sell these bonds the rates are not going to vary they are set and stone okay second piece current interest meaning these are not capital appreciation bonds okay that the district's tax Bas is too robust to require the need for capital appreciation bonds sure um capital appreciation Bonds in a short um
124kind of piece is their bonds that are issued that delay the repayment of principal because a tax base is constrained so in for instance real life situation the wildfires in La now you have various school districts whose AV has been completely decimated because of the wildfires but there are still very real projects that need to take place and schools that need to be rebuilt unfortunately there is not assessed value there any longer so capital appreciation bonds may be a appropriate financing um resource for them however that's not the case here at BD so I want to make sure that I went ahead and highlighted that long-term AV growth rate of 3.5% so remember when we looked back at the assessed value slide and we were talking about growth rates in every single instance whether we
125look at short-term rates or are long-term rates the district's AV has been well above that 3.5% finally optional redemption in 10 years meaning if interest rates 10 years from the date that we sell these bonds are more attractive can generate savings to the taxpayers the district would be able to go ahead and refinance the debt and any savings that are generated from that refinance would be passed directly on to the taxpayers and seen in lower tax rates for them okay um the term 30 years which has been consistent with the prior measure G issuances on the lower corner we have our profor and Debt Service so what this is is in the red bars we have what's already been issued in terms of measure G bonds you can barely see it because it's very small
126but the gray striped bar represents measure e obviously very small portion of this transaction and then the larger bars the blue bars represent the series F Debt Service so you can see that the first three years we are fully leveraging the tax rate um in the upper portion of the table you can see that we have an estimated um max tax rate for measure F of $42.72 but when we take into consideration measure e as well as what's outstanding overall that tax rate is probably somewhere around 50 8890 or so and the reason that we've gone ahead and amortised so much debt in the beginning of the loan is because as most people know short-term rates historically have been more advantageous or they cost less whereas longer term rates 20 30 years are more expensive
127so the more principle that we can pay off early means the less interest that's outstanding and the less burden that's placed on the taxpayer so it's an overall more efficient structure that is sensitive to the taxpayer okay we've then purposefully dropped off the tax rate in 2029 to allow the district the opportunity to layer on additional additional excuse me measure G debt because as it's noted there's still 82.5 million that will be outstanding for measure G so we want to make sure that the district has the opportunity to issue bonds when needed and in conversation with assistant superintendent kisi it seems like that is about the time frame that you'll be potentially looking at a new issuance okay yes thank you and then it spikes up again after 2033 uh 2033 is that what you
128said according to the graph so according to the graph yes so what ends up happening is during 29 through 33 we've gone ahead and purposefully dropped off some of that principle we probably could go ahead and advertise more principle there but to be conservative we're trying to just minimally amortise principle there to allow for the future Geo bonds to amortise more principle in those years so similar sort of tact where we pay off as much Principle as we can in the early years and then allow for yes more room at in the later years if the district does end up issuing all of its remaining um authorization in just one additional um series of bonds will be a little bit more creative and thoughtful at of the tax rate Trying to minimize the impact to
129the taxpayer overall so but something to look forward to the next time we uh meet okay thank you sure um moving on to slide eight and oh excuse me I skipped a slide slide seven so again with the idea of focusing on measure G and then broadening our Horizons to look at the overall Geo Bond tax rate we have again shown with these various bars what the impact is on the tax rate my understanding is um District staff has placed guide rails um with this $171 180 threshold on the overall Geo Bond program and so that is depicted with the yellow dotted line at the very top uh similar to our prior graphs the Navy uh excuse me the red bars being prior debt this includes all Geo Bond measures and refunding bonds and then
130the striped bars being The proforma Debt Service for the measure or excuse me Series E and F so in short the more white space we see between These Bars the more flexibility and capacity that the district has for future Geo Bond debt issuances okay now moving on to slide eight when we were looking at the initial plan of finance and refining it with both assistant superintendent vsby as well as assistant superintendent kisi we took a hard look at the cash flows and kind of what the construction timeline looked like for future measure G projects so we initially looked at two issuances one in 2025 and one in 2026 uh the first one being 80 million for 2025 and then later in 2026 an issue of 76.5 million in further discussions it doesn't seem like there
131is a issue with being able to spend down the proceeds within the three-year confines that the IRS places on tax exempt dollars so rather than looking at paying cost of issuance twice what if we went ahead and brought those two issuances into a One Singular issuance of 150 million so what are the implications here obviously the district enjoys the economy of skills we're not going to be paying Consultants twice for the work done in 25 as well as the work done in 2026 what that results in is cost Savings of 137,00 another piece here that is not included is there has been a policy shift uh in recent months with our new president and as a result of it there are concerns about tax exempt financings for municipalities to give a little history lesson when
132we went in back in 2017 when President Trump was in office he did go ahead and place um a lot of emphasis on tax cuts and trying to promote the economy through those tax cuts in the tax cuts and job acts of 2017 one of the things that impacted school districts and other municipalities was was there was an elimination of tax exempt Advanced refundings so in 2021 I worked with assistant superintendent fby on the district's 2021 refinancing which was done on an advanced basis and we did that taxable because of covid and the interesting market dynamics that were going on right then and there taxable rates were more advantageous than tax exempt rates so the district Not only was able to realize savings through this Advanced refunding but was also able to shorten its debt
133service and that was impacted on measure I so good story for the district overall however fast forward to current days what does the difference between tax exempt and taxable rates look like right now on average the difference between a tax exempt rate and a taxable rate is about 1.5% meaning that's going to cost your taxpayers a lot more in interest if tax exempt financings go away from municipalities so we're trying to be thoughtful about how we are issuing debt although nothing has been decided and nothing is concrete this does provide the district with those dollars necessary to to support its measure G program and hopefully we will have more clarity um in 2028 and Beyond on what is to happen with tax exempt financings okay my final slide is discussion on what's next so here
134today before you there is the authorizing resolution which will Empower District staff to do whatever is necessary to eff effectuate the transaction itself because we are looking at a 150 million transaction and trying to make this transaction as marketable as possible to all investors we will be seeking two separate credit ratings which is something that the district has not done in the past this will allow for more investors to have the ability to read the thoughts of both Moody's and S&P in order to make an informed investment decision we'll then receive those credit opinions on Tuesday April 1st and then we will move to a competitive sale barring any changes in the market of course we'll be flexible and Nimble for that but at this point in time April 9th looks like a good time
135for a competitive sale a competitive sale gives an equitable opportunity for all um potential Underwriters to participate in the sale of bonds we've seen great success in this last year the district's uh competitive sale was on par with the pricing results of school districts that were AAA rated which is one rating category above the districts so we've seen a lot of success there uh we will then move to close the transaction April 23rd which is two weeks after the competitive sale at which point the underwriter who will be known at the time that the sale takes place will wire the bond proceeds to the county on behalf of the district and then assistant superintendent kisi has his piggy bank to go ahead and build those various measure G projects so that is all I have
136for the board any questions uh thank you so much for your presentation I think the board does have a couple of questions I have a question not related to what was presented tonight but more so um about the history of our other bonds pulling that um I hope you can answer um and I just want to First preference my question by saying my question is really uh just rooted in ensuring that we are um you know maintaining our fiduciary responsibility and so as it relates to our other bonds um that don't have active authorization so our other bonds that have no other money um in them anymore do we know um and you could also get this to me later if you need to do we know um how quickly we depleted um or sold
137those those bonds um and how long we held them for um I would have to get I'd have to actually get that information back to you okay um because we're just focusing on measure G at this you can absolutely get it back to me um later I just want to make sure that we are um I already said earlier what I wanted to make sure we're doing um so I wanted to ask just a historical question uh but in terms of the presentation everything pretty much makes sense to me and for me it feels like this is kind of the right move for us to do right now and I appreciate knowing um the calendar of uh what comes next um that really helps us in our decision making and so if there are any
138other board directors who have questions we'll entertain those questions and then we'll entertain a motion director shinoski just super quick one question and then one comment um my question is I noticed that the cost of the rating Agency for the L that's because you're doing more than one great um more than one rating agency so it more than doubled the cost of the two um different issuances and then my comment is simply from um the citizens Bond oversite committee meeting that we had last night where the committee members were really happy that we were doing a single issuance um to save the money because we do have so many projects in the pipeline so we know we can spend it so I just want to also emphasize that and thank you for putting that together
139in that way to save us those dollar or to save the taxpayers um those so thanks are there any other questions from the board none okay hearing none um the recommendation that has come to us tonight is that we approved uh the resolution ultimately the information that we were provided with tonight and authorize the district officers and staff uh to take the necessary necessary steps to complete the financing is there a motion to approve I'll move to approve by director shinoski is there a second I'll second second it by director Korn all those in favor please signify with a sign of i i i opposers extensions the eyes hav and the motion carries thank you all so much for your presentation and for your thoughtfulness around this item thank you we have uh surprisingly reached
140the end uh of our board meeting uh but as always uh I want to draw your attention to our information items before we move to the second opportunity for public comment uh there are a number of uh board policies on here and so please um take a look at them the first reading is on there for tonight and the second reading will come on for consent um as well as some attachments on uh that you'll find on gamut for uh measure E's first interm fiscal reports so board members please take a look at that at this time we will move on to our second opportunity for public comment is there anyone who is here for public comment okay I do not have any cards uh that are green Miss charz if you could please promote
141me online so that I will be able to see if we have any public commenters online I'm a panelist now okay thank you and there aren't any hands that are raised online for public comment and so I will close the public comment period at this time are there any any are there any extended board member comments this evening okay hearing none I'll call for adjournment at 9:46 p.m. have a great evening everyone