001all right I am now calling this meeting to order at 7:52 p.m. this evening we we will continue our tradition of having our student director chair their La um chair their last meeting of the school year um okay so um oh I guess okay now miss Tres please call the official role for this evening's meeting director Caitlyn Le here director Laura babbit here director Jennifer shinoski excuse this evening director Mike chain here vice president K Brown thank you Miss ches we will now approve the agenda for this evening's meeting I have a change i' like to request um fortunately I need to pull it up I would like to pull the um Human Resources report I believe it's consent item 13.1 for or 12.1 uh for Action immediately following um oxer's action item um so
002that's my motion to approve the agenda with that Amendment if someone I'll second that motion all in favor all in favor I I I okay um okay so uh we will now approve the J uh agenda for this evening's meeting is there a mo is did we just do that oh I'm so sorry okay okay we will now report from our closed session so she she pulled the item and we're gonna go back to some needs to move it okay yeah I'll help you out okay all right I move that we approve this evening's agenda with the necessary corrections I second okay okay we will now report from our oh all in favor say I all we will now report from our closed session vice president Brown please report on this um evening's Clos session
003good evening everyone uh please pardon us for the delay as you will hear there were so many Clos session items and I'd like to report out on them at this time for item 3.1.1 it was moved by director babbit and seconded by vice president babbit or vice president Brown and all directors voted in favor for item 3.1.2 it was moved by vice president Brown seconded by director babit and all director s voted in favor for item 3.1.3 it was moved by director babbit seconded by vice president Brown and all directors voted in favor for item 3.1.4 it was moved by director babit seconded by President vasudev and all directors voted in favor for item 3.1.5 it was moved by director babbit seconded by vice president Brown and all directors voted in favor for item 3.1.6
004the board heard an update and provided direction for item 3.2 the board heard an update and provided direction for item 3.3 the board provided direction for item 3.4.1 the board heard an update and provided direction for item 3.5 the board heard an update and provided direction for item three . 6.1 it was moved by vice president Brown seconded by President vasudev and all directors voted in favor for item 3.6.2 it was moved by vice president Brown seconded by director babbit and all directors voted in favor for item 3.6.3 it was moved by vice president Brown seconded by President vasudev and all directors voted in favor for items three 3.7 the board heard an update and provided Direction and that includes item 3.7.1 3.7.2 3.7.3 and 3.7.4 this ends the reading of the close notes uh
005the report from Clos session rather I'll turn it back over to you Madame chairperson thank you director Brown now we will hear from our superintendent Nia Ford maral thank you madam president for the night H good evening B USD family it was a wait I understand but let's do that one more time good evening B USD family I expected more excitement because I don't know if you know but this is the last board meeting of the 2425 school year oh wait wrong wrong year look that's how far ahead I am this is the last board meeting of the 2324 school year and I am glad about it I am going to miss sen your lovely faces every other Wednesday night but I trust that you have other things to do um typically at the end
006of the year we say farewell we say fair farewell to our graduating seniors we have beautiful ceremonies um at Berkeley High School and across our district for our students in bis BTA and BHS we've said farewell to some of our Educators and staff who are retiring we just hosted last week a beautiful farewell brunch to those retire that uh culminated about 200 plus years of service to Berkeley students and families and we were able to say farewell to six seniors who are awarded uh $3,000 each from the Berkeley retired teachers Federation who gifted them to go and make decisions with what they want to do with 3,000 whopping dollars as they transition to College and Career um we also this year tonight are saying farewell to two of our District staff members who are not
007present but we definitely wanted to honor and acknowledge their service in B USD BD is known for lots of things cool and magical y'all but we are definitely known for our music and arts program and so much about the beauty um and the renowned of our uh Arts and Music program is a direct result of the hard work the passion and the experience of Mr Pete gitlin y'all know Pete Pete is actually moving on from Berkeley Unified School District after serving our district for 21 years um Pete was the manager our Visual and performance arts program and we appreciate the Legacy that he has created here in BD uh the strong Arts and Music program that he has built that has a clear Equity Focus but has also exposed our students to a number of
008different forms of Visual and Performing Arts and we are sad to see him go but we are excited for the students who will Embrace him as the new principal of Dayton Elementary School in San Lorenzo Unified School District I also would like to acknowledge and honor the work of Dr Matthew Espinosa Castro who was our director of equity and achievement and belonging that was a new position created so he was only here for a year but boy what a difference he made uh for students and families during this year he was in charge of all things Equity achievement and belonging in charge of bringing together our very Affinity groups Our Heritage months um the latinx framework the African-American success framework and many other of the equity initiatives in our district he also was the supervisor
009and support staff for our OPI team who was our family engagement specialist so we wanted to appreciate and applaud Dr Espinosa Castro for his work and bid him farewell as he moves on to be a professor actually um a whole professor at a whole real college with grown folks like you uh at Sacramento State University so thank you to Dr Espinosa the last farewell that we're going to do and though she's not leaving yet because she is actually the acting president tonight so she has to stay all the way until the very very end of this meeting is our own student board director Caitlyn Lao if y'all could stand and give her a big round of applause I mean it takes a lot it takes a lot to sit up here and be up here
010and I don't know what you all were doing when you were seniors but the furthest thing from my mind was to be a board director and sit and learn the business of the district that I was a part of but Kaitlin has taken that on wholeheartedly and not only does she come and sit but she actively has engaged in so much of the critical work that happens on this day um and behind doors that you all don't see I appreciate and celebrate her not only for being a leader but for being a passionate young lady who has actually brought about some positive change to our district and who has challenged us in our thinking um as the governance team in many ways she's also been a leader at Berkeley High School where she is on
011a number of different committees and actually was a key part of not only the work that we did to get more gender um neutral bathrooms at B USD but our work around consent um and education so we got a little something for you that have you ever seen flowers light up only in Berkeley she's going on to continue to be a leader um as she transitions to University of Pennsylvania yes um in the fall so thank you and congratulations and be kind to her y'all she facilitates this meeting tonight thank you so much superintendent for the kind words and the amazing flowers I'm not done yet one second oh sorry sorry told you she was a leader okay so couple things last meeting of the month summer programs are starting so we're excited if you
012didn't know about them find out about them and get your baby signed up but there's also a lot of summer projects that we have going on we are continuing to do our work to modernize Sylvia Mendes I do want to acknowledge that some members of the Sylvia Mendes Community have been hearing lots of noise and seeing lots of dust we're sorry and we trust that we are moving quickly to our um proposed deadline to get this work done and it's a big scope of work and so we apologize for the inconvenience we promise you we are only doing what is required to fulfill our commitment and our promise to the Sylvia mandz community and that does require that our workers work on the weekends so so um apologies for the noise and the dust it
013will go away very soon and I promise you that you will be excited as excited as we are for the beautiful new building that will be housing Sylvia Mendes as a result of it we also are um preparing to host a webinar tomorrow evening for some work that is getting started or being discussed around mhing field as the district continues to look for ways to relieve space issues at Berkeley High School staff has been researching several options to better utilize all available space including some change at moldering field so tomorrow there's going to be a virtual webinar at 5:00 p.m. to hear the options that are being studied and also to give you a chance to offer uh feedback and input and so uh we invite you to come out information more information is actually
014on our web page whether or not your babies are in summer programs at bu USD we want to make sure that you know that we are serving free summer meals um free breakfast and lunch to any student age 18 and under this summer at BAM Rosa Parks in Oxford Elementary School as well as Berkeley High School and at the Berkeley Public Library so please visit our website for dates and schedules finally we want to recognize that June is lesbian gay bisexual transition sorry transgender and queer lgbtq plus pride month in a national climate of don't say gay and ongoing go ahead and clap and National Climate of don't say gay and ongoing challenges against books that represent the lives of queer Trends or gender non-conforming characters BD libraries remain committed to providing access to books
015that celebrate and showcase the beautiful diversity of all of our students and families I encourage you to visit BD's Pride reading list with books organized by grade level that affirm and celebrate lgbtq plus lgbtqi plus identity and voices that uplift queer history and Foster welcoming inclusion for all students and their families we also have a reading list um for books specially celebrating representing and affirming transgender non-binary and gender fluid identities and expressions so check out our website for that and you guys I always ask you to stay I say I'm so glad you're here please stay and you rarely do tonight please stay because we got some really good stuff on our agenda not only are you going to hear our final lcap and our final budget but our reparations task force is here to
016share their work and make their final recommendations to the board in advance of their presentation I want to thank these community volunteers for their hard work and their time and their talent and their passion to our city to our district and to our babies and I hope that you will stay to hear um about their work and to hear their recommendations and I know that I am committed I've seen the recommendations you probably have too to continuing this work work that they started and I um feel honored to be able to uh take over the work that they so graciously started for us this year and feel honored actually at the work that was done and the recommendations that are made so now Madame President I am done thank you superintendent for so much and
017um we will now move to the public comments component of our agenda before we begin I would like to remind you of our de form expectations during this in all parts of tonight's meeting no person shall disturb the order of this meeting such behaviors include but is not limited to booing hissing creating or participating in a physical disturbance speaking out of turn in violation of applicable rules preventing or tempting to prevent others who have the floor from speaking preventing others from observing the meeting entering into or remaining in the area of the meeting room that is not open to public or approaching the dis without permission as Miss chis has already explained there are two opportunities for public comment at each meeting now and at the end of the meeting if you do not get
018to speak at the beginning of the meeting we encourage you to stay and speak at the end of the meeting you may also email us all your comments at board ofed berkeley.net the board does not respond directly to comments or questions made during public comment board members the superintendent and staff do take notes during public comment and may follow up with the speaker after the meeting these are hybrid meetings so we have public commenters in the boardroom and online we have designated 20 minutes to our in-person speakers this will be followed by 10 m minutes for any of our online speakers anyone online who wishes to make public comment should raise their virtual hand now so that Miss trz can organize on Zoom each public commenter will H have up to one minute to speak
019depending on the amount of speakers please note that the mic microphone will shut off at the end of each speaker's allotted time so time your comments accordingly I will call your name in the order of speakers per agenda item to keep things moving I'd like to ask that the speaker who is next in line come forward and um wait near the microphone I apologize in advance if I pronounce anyone's name incorrectly so now we will begin our public comments with those in person our first speaker speaker will be um Yari and our second will be Ria Nolan got one minute hi my name is yeti and I am at Long Fellow Middle School I hope next fall when I start seventh grade my teachers are not scared of telling the truth or teaching us the
020truth as they wear this past year I want to learn the history of the Israeli occupation of palestin of Palestine how it relates to our history of colonizing the indigenous communities of the land I want to learn our government how our government could find a genocide that has murdered 40,000 of Palestinians I want to learn how our government can do that and not get and get away with it long live the truth long live the real education along the Palestine our next speaker will be Ria Nolan good evening my name is Ria Nolan and I a member of reparations task force I'm also a recent alumni of brookley high school as I just graduated this past week thank you I am here to show my full support for the movement for reparations and urge you
021all to do the same over the course of a little over a year the taskforce has engaged in meaningful community outreach by holding three well well attended events with food and Spanish translation provided research existing reparations Frameworks and historical examples of reparations consulted with multiple experts in the field to help craft and refined recommendations administer a rebirth Community survey that as that got over two 000 responses which is a lot more than a typical BD survey and a lot more but I don't think any of these events that I just named is more evident of the need for operations in this past school year as a few of you may know I had the immense honor of co-organizing the May 3rd brookley High School sitting my bad thank you and you can email us for
022comments um our next speaker will be John Williams followed by by Carrie and gray um and Robert cier as a descended of enslaved Africans I can tell you that our very existence is a miracle to be a black person in the United States of America means to exist in a state of anxiety depression and paranoia the Pains of ression folks and guys that know all too well even though our black men and women and children labored for free they endured this the horrors of slavery and were promised 40 acres in the mule but after Lincoln was assassinated that land was returned to slave owners who were then able to continue to make money separate but equal never happened our equivalent of chinatowns such as Tulsa our spaces of Black Liberation like move in Philadelphia were
023bombed and destroyed black people during the rec instruction era knew that because it was illegal for them to read they had to prioritize schooling they set up the first public schools and were the main ones experiencing the school to prison pipeline Berkeley let's show this nation how it's supposed to be done we know that Berkeley's not perfect but we're here hello my name is Terry gray I'm part of the uh reparations task force and I'm deferring my time to Camila Dear honorable members of the bud Board of Education I'm Camila Moore I'm the former chairperson of the first in the nation California reparations task force I tra I traveled all the way from Los Angeles to support us usd's reparations task force recommendations two of my other task force members state senator Steven Bradford from
024the 35th district and San Diego supervisor Monica Montgomery stepp also submitted official support letters to you all our state report showed California's early government supported slavery also enforced the Fugitive Slave Law and slave people were brought here for their skills but also faced severe punishment if they attempted to read or write the impacts of slavery also include to this very day racial Terror disenfranchisement segregation California is the sixth most segregated state in the country and black students face um deprivation and in equal educational resources the B usd's uh task force recommendations uh we definitely support and we urge you to support these crucial recommendations as well thank you thank you next we have Robert cier followed by Dr Ashley Adams and den hi my name is Rob Collier I'm the proud father of a uh
025recent WF graduate graduate and Rising nth grader at Berkeley High I'm here to comment on the reparations task force um the task force members should be commended on their long hard work um but uh this is a difficult issue which is why as the report noted uh cash reparations probably would not receive the necessary 2third um voter support to succeed as a district supported uh parcel tax there's several issues I want to flag um the report didn't analyze why several decades six Decades of hard long proud BD work on uh racial inequities have apparently not um followed through not had success uh why did the 2020 Vision fail why is the African American success framework allegedly not working uh the harm report uh is this going to have any analysis of the uh failings thank
026you good evening V USD school board members my name is Dr Ashley Adams and I am a fourth generation descendant of formerly enslaved people and my ancestors survived the 1921 TOA race Massacre only to be robbed of their entire community and home just today the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down a lawsuit from the last two survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre both 109 years of age this extremely disappointing decision only further denies the Deep Injustice and the long overdue Justice that is due to these Elders into the black community I'm a public policy professor and serve as director for the black reparations project I stand here today as a descendant first and foremost in support of the recommendations put forth by the BD reparations task force and these recommendations including a harm report which is
027crucial for recognizing these historical injustices building curricula related to these historical narratives and providing Financial payments for educational po purposes thank you you can you email the rest of our comments um following Denisha we will have Erica Weisner and Daniel Perez if you guys could please line up that'd be great thank you so much oh I'm gonna give my time to Erica hello my name is Erica weisinger I am a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and a co-director of the black reparations project it was my absolute honor to serve on the Berkeley Unified School District's reparations task force after centuries of enslavement racial violence separate and unequal education and redlining too many black families now experience shorter lives and profound wealth inequality when we compare life expectancy from from my historically Redline neighborhood
028in West Berkeley to residents living in the Hills the difference in life is 16 years most reparation ISS agree that Federal that the federal government is responsible and needs to make right on these harms but today only about 30% of Americans believe that the federal government owes this debt so we have to start locally and it's local effort local efforts like we have here at B USD that will spread up and around to other jurisdictions next we have Danielle Perez um that will be followed by Meer and Adina isi I'm Danielle prz and I seed my time to Paula Phillips good evening school board members and to our listening public my name is Paula Phillips I'm an I'm an employee of the district I'm also the former president of the Berkeley Council of classified employees
029I am also the proud aunt of two Berkeley unified students who attend Long Fellow and in my spare time I'm an amateur genealogist in my spare time I've been able to trace my roots all the way back to 1860 where my one of my great-grandfathers was working on this on the plantation in Louisiana so um I stand before you because I believe reparations are owed to African-Americans because the United States government riged on its promise of 40 acres and a mule when President Andrew Johnson rescinded field order 15 and return and returned 400,000 th000 acres to Confederate owners and that our country has created additional barriers of Economic and academic success of its African-American population good evening my name is David mayor I'm resident of Berkeley a parent of two graduates of Bud and tonight
030I stand here before you as the co-chair of reparation generation a National multi-racial Organization that is creating and modeling various forms of repair and healing I want to first thank the BD task force for their countless uncompensated hours and their expression of talent in putting together this proposal we as a community members owe them a great deal of gratitude the task force report provides to you the board and the district evidence of the harms caused within our city and our district District that have resulted directly from the effects of the legacy of chatt slavery and the many vestiges and afterlife thereof time goes quickly so I will skip to the bottom line they've given to you a list of potential recommendations for you to consider whether you take an move any of those forward or
031not is less important than you move something forward today I call upon the world to take notice of Dr King's dream that is still alive and well that reparative Justice for the crimes against African-Americans can thank you you can email your restler comments to uh board ofet berkeley.net you can email the rest of your comments if you'd like um next we have Roberta mofin Jim mlin and Paula Phillips please no we can't go speaking time sorry sorry she tried it hello my name is Roberto mlin and I want to thank the reparations task force for the work that they have done it's been wonderful for us to have this I've been working on reparations and as an entryway to reparations we have been doing the racial wealth Gap simulation and we showed this to my
032granddaughter who's in the Berkeley school system with her sister and she said I've got to show this to my teacher and she brought it in and the teacher said yes please come we went next week the next weekend facilitated a session with the students and then another teacher asked us to come because there was a good response and it's so important as the teacher said but the students have a historical analysis so they can counteract the biases that they'll receive in society so I urge the board to please consider putting the whole issue of the the policies the federal policies that led to the racial off gab on the agenda my name is Jim mclin and uh we have two granddaughters one who just finished uh Willard Middle School and is moving into to Berkeley
033High this coming school year we believe very strongly that teaching uh the information that's in the racial wealth Gap learning simulation can really prepare uh students for knowing why it is that reparations are important and and the raal wealth Gap learning simulation covers 13 Federal policies from the time of reconstruction until the president and people have mentioned here that uh formerly enslaved people were promised 40 mules and 40 acres and a and a mule there are so many other things that African-American people were were promised in this country and our students need to know about that they need to understand why it is that African Americans live under the circumstances they presently experience thank you thank you our next speaker will be Lindsay Noel and that will be followed by Russell Bates and Liz Jackson
034hi my name is Lindsay nelt I'm a member of reading for Berkeley commenting on agenda item 19.1 educational Justice is only served when all children can read Berkeley has the resources for Success so I have high expectations for Berkeley we can be a model for others but only if we go above and beyond I have expectations that the Board of Education will prioritize the nitty-gritty of education and scheduled time to ask questions in a public setting this presentation on literacy marks a year of reports left undiscussed I expect that we should celebrate our great progress toward literacy justice but also recognize that these big shifts require more support than what's possible in the time allotted for PD thank you thank you my name is Russell Bas I'm a SE in my time to Chris goway
035what test okay chat go there we go still don't have a right this person right here all right um hi uh I'm here speaking as a Jewish parent of a Berkeley Unified School District kindergarten student um as I'm just entering the Berkeley School District I am both extremely happy with my child's education so far but also Disturbed to hear the older students speak about their teachers being afraid to speak out against social justice issues that matter to them in my family we believe in in acting with those who are most in need at the top of our minds um my and I believe that Berkeley was a place that shares those values um my Jewish American children are not the people we need to be worried about right now we have Arab Americans in this
036community not to mention people who are uh Black Americans in this community um and people obviously in Gaza and around the world who are facing extreme prejudice um extreme violence and I would hope that we as a community speak um and lift up those voices and that we do not censor anyone who is looking to lift up the voices of those who are in Greater need than we are thank you next we will have Liz Jackson and Janice t uh tanura I'm actually seing my time to a r uh dear board members my name is Aron fifth grade teacher at Ruth AI support the reparations task force and I'm here today to encourage the board to renew the contract with liberated ethnic studies model curriculum Consortium let's be clear this fight in the district is
037because liberated ethnic studies will Empower and allow teachers to teach about Palestine this is in direct conflict with the Zionist mission to push watered down curricula on our kids that erased Palestine by completely ignoring its name its history and by failing to mention the harm done to Palestinians over the past 75 years they fail to celebrate teach honor and uphold the beauty of its culture and its stories anti-palestinian racism is its own brand of Oppression and it's urgently uh it urgently needs addressing teachers Nationwide are being silenced by cowards knuckling under to censorship and that has never been my Berkeley uh knowledge is power and renewing this contract allows us to empower all our students towards making Collective Liberation a reality so renew the contract bring back Eric Norberg free Palestine next is Janice tanura
038um I would like to see my time to S hi okay uh then um Mariam kashani hello I'm Dr miam kashani I'm a associate professor at the University of Illinois um I'm also a scholar on education race and religion and specifically actually in the Bay area I'm actually here for a conference but I thought it was very important for me to be here there's nowhere else I would rather be because I'm who I am because uh Eric Norberg was one of my earliest teachers as a teenager he's only a couple years older than me then but he is an institution um in this area um every time I come back to the Bay I know the bay is still the bay I remember because he is here my nephews and nieces uh work his students
039at Berkeley High that was one of the proudest moments for me as an aunt um I teach my students that classrooms are not safe spaces but they are brave spaces and there are no classrooms I would rather have children be brave in than Mr norberg's classrooms he is the kindest most generous person who cares about everyone in this world thank thank you and next we have Robin Henderson I don't really have um prepared remarks I'm um former Berkeley school teacher uh two children who graduated from Berkeley High and I am here to support the teaching of Palestine and the um the the the work that Eric Norberg has done as an excellent art teacher in Berkeley High a Humane generous person who um has been really unfairly treated thank you we will now move on
040to our public commenters online there are um a number of hands raised so we will start with um tongo and um no this is not so let's just uh end with Yeet oh can I be heard yes my name is tongo Martin I'm the poet La of San Francisco as we try to function in a Time where children are charming and Brilliant before they are killed and God dies there too running among them running under a genocidal Consciousness whistling towards heavily populated grounds as the ear becomes just a Melting Pot for various graphs of mass murder we cannot have an education of control of disposal of social death can't have roll calls for Monday persecutions Eric Norberg is the best of us a loving seeker of Truth who for decades has worked tirelessly helping to
041bring our kids to their power please lean on your sense of the interconnectivity of all things and see that actually every teacher every school every school system belongs to Gaza do with that what you will and in the meantime let Eric get back to work thank you thank you and our next online speaker will be juette yes hi I'm yielding my time to hatm B is hatam in person or online he's online can you please provide the spelling of however uh their name is showing up online I think it's h a TM if he's not online then I will yield to Christina harb I don't believe they're online I can't not look it Christina harb is though just a moment hi there can you guys hear me can you hear me yes okay so my
042name is Christina harb I'm one of BD's only Palestinian teachers I'm here today to support the reinstatement of Eric Norberg the renewal of the liberated ethnic studies contract and reparations in BD I'd like to speak to the Joint struggle uh Liberation struggle of Palestinian and black folks which has really deep roots black Americans and Palestinians both face brutal State violence at the hands of militarized police American police in the United States use weapons that are manufactured by the United States and tested on Palestinians in the West Bank in Gaza the tactic that killed George Floyd was taught to that officer by the Israeli military and during the BLM protest in 2014 Palestinians tweeted advice to protesters and Ferguson on how to defend themselves racist revisionist curriculum is threatening our ability to tell the truth in
043public schools all over the country Educators can't stop the genocide but we can ensure that kids learn the truth and learn to stand together for Collective Liberation free Palestine thank you thank you and our next speaker will be Janice schroer hello my name is Janice schroer and I'm a retired Berkeley teacher I'm speaking tonight in full support of the reparations task force recommendations my only concerns are that after we do proceed to adopting all of these recommendations that the priority goes to the descendants of slaves who are the poorest the students with special needs the most vulnerable descendants of slaves should get the funding and supports they need for stable and safe housing access to healthy food money earmark for Quality ongoing tutoring access to Quality internet connection and computer and access to ongoing mental
044health support for both students and for their families thank you thank you and our last online speaker will be uh Kathy Moka hi uh my name is Kathy masoka I'm calling in from Los Angeles a retired continuation High School teacher that is part of Nik progressives and Nik for civil rights and redress that both organizations fought for reparations for Japanese Americans I speaking in support of the Berkeley Unified School District's reparation task force and their recommendations because we know that we we did not win regress by ourselves we are part of a multi-racial coalition here in California that was formed by some of the members of the California repres task force and the California black power Network and we really believe that it's important to build that Coalition solidarity in California and we commend what
045you're doing we also think it's very important to teach about Tulsa right now because of the urgency of the last two survivors Seeking Justice now so thank you very much thank you that now concludes this public comment period thank you to everyone who came to speak if you did not get to speak please remember that there is an um Extended public comment period at the end of the meeting Additionally you can always email the board directly at Board of berkeley.net and and you can contact us individually as well our information is posted online at www.berkeley.net school-board now we will move on to committee comments Miss trz do we have any Union comments um are there any Union comments comments here to speak I was UN oh you said committee or Union okay Union first we
046love you madam president okay yes H that's you oh okay oh gosh it's the end of the school year you know thank you for it's a wonderful year everything that everyone has done we're just happy that it's over right but you know it it was a um a very interesting year you know um we were just talking and and for the next year we're just looking for and excited to see the goal of organizational Clarity come to fruition you know our members will be able to do their jobs with Fidelity and strengthen skill sets and build stronger relationships amongst admin and staff continuing work on this goal will produce the accountability that we all are seeking as our mission states with accountability and Clarity we can accomplish this Mission we have set to provide to
047our babies I'm going to end this quote um I'm going to end this I want to say this quote that I heard from a very powerful um and very smart woman I recently heard this quote it's just it's it's really good but what it says is what we need is consistency of purpose policy and practices structure and strategy are not enough the solution requires the individual and Collective ability to build shared meaning capacity and commitment to action when large numbers of people have a deeply understood sense of what needs to be done and see their part in achieving that purpose coherence emerges and Powerful things happen that's us but however I want to say this as a district we have failed on our promise to reduce the achievement gap of our African-American students that dates
048back to the work of the 2020 Vision The Bu USD reputations task force is recommending that we in the form of recreations at how we have impacted our students who are descendants of slaves to creating a harm report develop adopt and deploy curricula and or provide Financial payments for educational purposes I'm asking you to show us that leadership matters action matters and reparation matters in B USD matters thank you thank you next we will hear comments from our district committees each committee has five minutes to address the board on issues under its purview are there any committees here to speak today all right we have the cboc committee here hi my name is Eric Weaver a member of the citizens uh Bond oversight committee I was delegated by the committee to come and make our
049annual report only have three comments to make uh the first is we were were very happy to uh inform the board that the audit and the performance audit of both the financial audit and the performance audit of both of the bonds uh came back with a very positive report there are no issues uh it shows that the the district is both spending the money properly and Performing its duties in the construction projects properly so our committee author uh urges that the board accept the financial audit and the performance audit of both of the bonds measure I and measure G the second thing we want to say is that uh we're very happy with the work of the uh facilities staff both in the handling of uh the projects that are ongoing in the city and
050also with the work with respect to our committee uh our committee sometimes is a little bit demanding but the uh staff responds with uh Grace and provides us the information we ask and that actually makes our work uh a lot easier so we want to thank the staff for that the final thing is we do have a problem with our committee uh this State Education Code recommends that there be seven members of the committee from various uh different uh interests sectors in the city currently we only have four members uh we haven't had seven members for several years uh I was on the bond oversight committee years ago and at that time the board members took an active role in recruiting people uh for membership in the committee that hasn't happened in recent years the
051staff has tried to recruit people without much luck so we members of the uh committee urge the board members to actively recruit people for membership in the committee so we can get back up the full strength uh which would require three more members unless you have any questions we want to thank you very much and I think the city of Berkeley appreciates the work that the district does on its facilities okay thank you thank you um thank you again for all of you who came out to speak to us we will now hear for from our board members and our first board member is uh that is here to speak is actually Jennifer who is online with us today director shinoski sorry Hi good evening um I'm participating remotely tonight because I tested positive for
052covid today I'm attending from my home and there are minors here uh I want to start by apologizing to the drummers who attended our May 29th board meeting I understand that my reaction that day was silencing to them and I deeply deeply regret that I'm sincerely sorry and I hope that we have the opportunity to connect in the near future I want to remind the community that we have a um Community engagement around mhing field tomorrow via webinar and the link is on our website and lastly I just want to give a big thank you to Caitlyn uh I've enjoyed sitting next to you all year getting to know you and learning from you you've really impressed me again and again with your intelligence your work ethic your empathy and your engagement uh I promise
053to keep up your good work and Champion the many ideas you're leaving behind including mental health and I hope that you'll promise to stay in touch so that we can follow all of your adventures and maybe I'll see you in Barcelona uh last announcement is that my office hours um tomorrow are cancelled um due to illness but if anybody wants to connect please email me and I'll find an alternative meeting time thanks you have any board members that are ready to speak I'll okay director Brown uh good evening everyone thank you all uh to those of you who spoke this evening in regards to teaching Palestine and speaking out against social justice issues thank you to those who spoke uh in regards to liberated ethnic studies and for support for the movement of reparations yeah
054that is the class additionally thank you uh for the comments in support of reading for Berkeley and as always we are grateful to receive our committee um committee comments and the comments from our labor Partners community members um I must always thank you for sharing your viewpoints with us your ongoing emails and your comments that you make here during public comment uh do not fall on death ears but provide the feedback necessary for us to make critical decisions in the best interest of our district and most importantly in the best interest of our students so thank you for sharing those viewpoints uh it is not our typical practice uh to respond directly to public comment however I must address the comment that was made earlier that Iden IFI the African-American success framework as a failed
055effort with all due respect I must ask anyone who thinks this way where have you been these past few years clearly you have not been here in our board meetings hearing both the qualitative and quantitative data that exemplifies the robust work intentional shifts and commendable strides that the African-American success framework has made in service of our African-American students Berkeley Unified School District is the first school district to adopt and interventions such as the African-American success framework and has been a model for many school districts not just here in the state of California but beyond the African-American success framework is anything but a failure and I must go on record tonight to State this and I appreciate all of the head nods in the audience that say you are ALS so in alignment with this uh
056idea but to use that as an idea to um to do away with uh reparations and the movement of reparations is absolutely horrendous on a happier note I would like to wish you all a Happy pride month and today I'd like uh to yes go ahead please clap and today I would like to uh highlight Audrey Lord a self-described black lesbian feminist mother poet Warrior who made lasting contributions in the field of feminist Theory critical race studies and queer Theory through her pedagogy and writing among her most notable Works were Cole the black unicorn the cancer Journal um and so many others in her words she said I write for those women who do not speak for those who have no voice because they were so terrified because they were taught to respect fear more
057than ourselves we've been taught that silence would save us but it won't work so thank you to Audrey Lord for her incredible contributions and to many other strong black lesbian feminists who are continuing the work in our communities thank you director tonight I am oh sorry I was just waiting for the Applause to die down tonight I am happy to receive the report of of the final recommendations from the diligent hardworking thoughtful and community-based reparations Task Force if you are a uh current reparation if you are a member of the current reparations task force and or the original Community work group can you please stand at this time to be recognized I would like to express my deepest gratitude uh to each and every one of you all for your efforts to make repar reparations
058a reality here in USD you all this is a historical moment for our district and so I want us just to take a deep breath in breathe it all in and exhale we are at a pivotal time here in our district and I could not be happier to receive your work support your work and tonight uh verbally give my uh support and approval of this work there are so many community members leaders and elected officials who also support this work and support your recommendations those include but are not limited to former California reparations task force chairperson Camila Moore who we received tonight in addition to that Senator Steven Bradford San Diego County Supervisor Mona Monica Montgomery step Alam County Supervisor Keith Carson Berkeley mayor Jesse adige vice mayor Sophie con council member Ben Bartlett and
059the list goes on and on and on as you heard from many of our public commenters this night public commenters tonight supporting the reparations task force their work and their final recommendations so I am looking forward to that presentation and I'd like to uh finally announce that my final office office hours for this year will be held virtually this Saturday um June 15th at 9 a.m. thank you so much and I'll turn it back over to you chair thank you director Brown for your comments um are there any other all right director babit good evening everyone I am so excited to wrap up uh this school year with tonight's board meeting uh due to circumstances Beyond My Control I did miss the last board meeting before all the graduation celebrations but I would like to
060take time to wish all the graduates and promotes of BD a very special congratulations at this year's black graduation for the high school I acknowledged how proud I was of the black students who took the time to organize a sit in to remind the community of the struggle black Scholars and black Educators face at Berkeley High School yes a struggle that continues to plague our nation and even our own superintendent who was called to congress with only other black and brown leaders an invitation that came with the promise of a subpoena from a congressional leadership who supports the most publicly racist person of my time during his presidency and his reelection people who will fight tooth and nail against against truly repairing the harm of chatt slavery on this nation's soil I want to thank
061the repar the reparations task force and all of those who sent letters of support to the board which includes those that director Brown mentioned but our own mayor and vice mayor mayor Eric green and vice mayor Han I appreciate the public acknowledgement in their words which says for the work of this task force to heal historical wounds and promotee equity and justice for all along with BD's many Equity initiatives I want to acknowledge the hard work of Aaron rhods the executive director leaving Berkeley Public Schools fund after 11 years of dedicated service our community has been so enriched because of her true Focus the work be Berkeley Public Schools fund has done on Equity it's added layers upon layers of support to students who needed Most Aaron Rad's career at Berkeley Public Schools funds exemplifies
062the message that I gave to students at the Berkeley High School black graduation with time comes ability with time comes possibility with time comes opportunity with time seeds are planted and rewards are harvested what you put into your time how you manage it will determine the Harvest so I encourage you to be mindful of time time as your greatest asset and distractions as your greatest enemy be the one that uses time to master ability to create and to take advantage of opportunity under her leadership time was never wasted Berkeley Public Schools fund hit its $1 million fundraising Mark BD families were supported immediately during covid with the edhub services and direct grants to families in need were made Berkeley Public Schools fund increased CTE programming dramatically with meaningful Partnerships from the Bayers foundation and the
063weham development so to all of our students you have excellent leaders all around you who have demonstrated excellence and used their life's work to ensure you our future will be prepared to make positive contributions to our world leaders who also serve as educators support them every day thank you to so many of our Educators who went above and beyond this past school year for our kids at Longfellow Middle Schools the promotion ceremony the latinx and the black graduation the students spoke about how much they loved and appreciated their teachers their counselors and principal I literally have never seen so many kids pour out that much love to staff and that love has has translated into academic success it shined through at the Longfellow black graduation 71% of the students graduated on the honor row many
064of them talked about math as their favorite subject so Berkeley High School get ready for the Long Fellow Scholars please keep the love for school and the joy for learning going because I was able to witness that Longfellow is sending them there prepared in conclusion I want to thank all of our schools that nominated students uh from Berkeley unified to the African-American Regional Educators Alliance Awards this celebration of 20 years was held at Zellerbach Hall and they were acknowledged in the categories of academic Excellence Civic leadership and Performing Arts I want to thank specific ially bam Berkeley art Berkeley High School BTA Emerson Longfellow with 33 awardees King Rosa Parks and Sylvia Mendes these are the schools that took the time to nominate our kids and they won next year I hope that more of
065our schools will participate and that we can find ways to integrate these kid these kinds of free initiatives which promote our students success into our programming thank you all for your time thank you all for being here and I can't wait to hear more from the reparations task force thank you director vit um next do we have another speaker I'm happy to go okay thank you everyone for being here um I'll keep my comment short because my my fellow colleagues always have such wonderful things to say um just really quickly wanted to again show my appreciation for all our graduates and our um amazing Educators who help put on our different graduations I really enjoyed passing out diplomas at the BHS graduation with director Chang and director shinoski so big shout out to our BHS
066graduates and um I also wanted to wish everyone a Happy pride month as the author of our lgbtq pride month resolution I'm proud that this month on our campuses we proudly display our rainbow Flags however as we've heard from our transgender students at many of our board meetings displaying the pride flag is not enough and so we know we have more work to do and continue to do um to fight so that our lgbtq students really feel a strong sense of belonging across all of our campuses so that work is ongoing that work is every day that work is not just inun I also wanted to thank the public for all of your great comments tonight particularly our parent leaders who are members of all of all of our various committees um it's great to
067hear from the reparations staff task force from the cboc and from our Union partners and um just wanted to say thank you thank you for stepping up I know that's time away from your families and you're doing it to make us a better and stronger School District so thank you I also wanted to Echo my appreciation for Caitlyn Le and um another round of applause for Caitlyn I will say I am really enjoying not having to facilitate the board meeting so um but uh you know I've just been so impressed with all of your thoughtful questions and what one of the things that I'll miss the most is the many times that I always you know pause for break and I tell you Caitlyn you can go home now you can go work on your
068homework you can go study and she says no I want to stay till the end of that presentation and so um just thank you thank you so much for caring about your school district for going above and beyond and uh for pushing us to be really student focused because that's why we're here right those are those are the people that we serve you know we have to be focused and Laser focused on our students and you've done such an amazing job representing a third of our district that's what BHS is it's a a third of our district and so I'm having one rep uh and doesn't feel like enough but uh thank you thank you so much for all your service and I can't wait to follow all the great things that you're going to
069do and run your campaign when you run for office so thank you Kaitlyn thank you um next we have director CH thank you madam chair um wow good evening and happy pride month um I'm going to try to keep this short uh while thank you for coming to our last meeting um even after the end of school um we are so lucky here to have beautiful weather but who has hey fever yeah cor yet I am I do and I'm loaded on antihistamines um I had so much fun at bhhs graduation last week seeing so many kids I have known since they were babies and realizing I am old um I want to take some time now however at the end of the year to reflect on our year uh this this year was a
070challenging year uh we were challenged by the impacts of War which included our superintendent being called before US Congress but I'd like to point out that despite It All We upheld the important Berkeley value of not shying from controversial issues and agreeing to disagree we have come out on the other side of this school year and we are still standing here together uh what did we learn from each other I know that I learned from all of you of the import of listening and there certainly has been a lot of opinions and viewpoints expressed to the board this year but that's such a critical foundational value to why we are different and why we are unique and why we continue to be an important role model for other school districts and so thank you for
071all of your efforts many of the folks who are here in the audience right now um are the same folks who've been coming to the board routinely for months and months if not years and um pressing their concerns and making sure that we are aware of of not only your concerns but your interests in what shapes uh Berkeley and Berkeley unified so thank you again um there are lots of folks that we need to thank you that I need to thank you um students teachers families and staff supporting recommendations for the rep reparations task force and the hard work of the task force I thank you for um uh their work on their well structured report built up after an entire year of Engagement with Community um students teachers family supporting critical knowledge for our
072students and liberated ethnic studies um bcce on the important value that classified employees bring to our district and on reparations um CB on this annual report I'll make sure to loop back with folks on cboc and other board members um regarding recruitment of additional members that was raised and finally and of course um thank you to Caitlyn for all of your service this year um I'm so excited to hear of your future future efforts and amazing service you will provide and I I I look forward to forward to you also being able to rest this summer and having a great summer uh director schanowski might see you in Barcelona maybe I'll see you in taipe we'll see um thanks again everybody and again if you have office hour requests continue to email me and we
073can set them up thank you all right thank you director Chang um I am traveling to both taipe and Barcelona which is why they said that by the way but um um although I don't really have any new updates today I just do um want to congratulate each and every one of our graduates in the class of 2024 in our district um whether that be high school or middle school or even Elementary School um I know that the road to graduation was not easy especially for us high schoolers so but we did it and I'm so excited for all of our futures and so yeah um and it is my last meeting so I would just like to take the time to thank both my colleagues and the BC Community for being such a memorable
074and crucial part of my high school career it truly has been an honor serving as Berkeley High student Schoolboard um director and um sitting here every other Wednesday night even when I had our of homework waiting for me at home has truly been so rewarding I really feel like I've learned so much from our community by listening to all of your public comments interacting with all of you this school year thank you for teaching me about the issues and inequities within our district that I didn't know about previously and thank you all for inspiring me to strive for change um I did speak at um my graduation in the afternoon ceremony at Berkeley High and one of the quotes that I used during that was won by James Baldwin that said not everything that is
075faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced and so I just wanted to thank our community members for being so willing to face the hardships that lead to change cuz um that is definitely something that inspires me and I'm going to carry with me into the future and of course thank you to the superintendent and all of the board directors you are all such amazing leaders in our district and I've really enjoyed building relationships with each and every one of you um thank you um for all of your mentorship during the school year it's really greatly appreciated um and thank you all for making me feel so welcome at every single board meeting starting from the very first one you've all been so welcoming and being so willing to support
076me um in every sing and you know answering all my questions and everything and so yeah the lessons of leadership policy and advocacy that I've learned this past year will definitely most definitely guide me into my college Years and Beyond so thank you all right it is now the time in our agenda to approve our consent calendar can I have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar I move to do so I just want to make sure we understand is with the pulling of the first item on consum can I'll second that motion with the understanding that we pulled something from the original part of the agenda yes all right all in favor say I all right director chain made the motion director Brown seconded it and sorry we need to make
077a roll call because director shanan is joining us virtually so we'll just go ahead and do that U uh director gr hi director shinoski hi director chain hi uh director babbit yes vice president Brown yes and president BB yes all right our first item this evening is a request to approve Oxford Surplus plan um this is an yeah are there good evening board members uh I know we're definitely running a little behind so we'll definitely try to keep this brief um if we can pull up the presentation Miss chidz and I am joined this evening by Jessica Johnson from dwk one of the law firms that helps the district and she's been guiding us through the entire process of 7-Eleven so we've brought this to the board uh many times over the last 202 months
078or so give or take now there's been a lot of questions a lot of back and forth a lot of great conversation and the hope tonight is that we will able to get approval so that we can continue to move this forward I've asked Miss Johnson to join us tonight uh since we are seeking action at this time that if the board does have any questions that maybe are beyond my skill set I can absolutely lean on her as this is an incredibly convoluted and complex process uh so in a moment when Miss chidz is able to pull up our presentation we'll run through okay so tonight uh Surplus property options this is all a rehash of the presentation that you've had in the past so in the interest of brev I am going to
079fly through a little bit of this but then uh we encourage a discussion by the board and then recommendation with action by the board so in recent meetings this this clicker just does not like me so this was the timeline that we've used we began this process back in August of 22 I couldn't update it anymore just because the slide will go only go so large but we were back again in May of this year so the surplus options are are the sale of property the it once the board declares the property to be Surplus uh the board can sell the property lease the property potentially redevelop the property consider a land exchange or other partnership opportunities so these next three slides I do feel like we can probably jump over two or three and
080what this was was really the pros and cons or opportunities and challenges as related to many of this to many of the different options that the board has in front of you next one please so with this I'm actually going to pass it over to Miss Johnson and she can speak a little bit about the key actions by the board so the way the statute works is that I'm apologize the way the statute works is a tier step process and so you have to complete step one before you can complete step two etc etc the first act action that has to be taken is a 7-Eleven committee which that box has been checked but in order to proceed with anything further with the sale or lease of the property the the Board needs to declare
081the property to be Surplus and that means it's Surplus to the district's educational needs is part of that the properties exempt Surplus land under the Surplus Land Act which is a whole other set of statutory requirements because the district did a 7-Eleven committee dat the district doesn't have to comply with the Surplus Land Act so but it still has to comply with the Education Code T step process um so those are are are the three it I'm sorry the two items that need need to occur um in order for the district to move forward with having further discussions about leasing or selling the property and to be clear on that there is no um there is no timeline in terms of if you declare it Surplus there's not a timeline where you have to sell
082it or lease it by there there are districts that declare a property Surplus and then do nothing with it for 40 years so um there are there are um there are no timelines in terms of when you need to do uh an actual transaction buy however currently Senate Bill 820 until July 1st 2024 allows the district to simultaneously issue the priority offerings and this is the first step after you declare it Surplus you have to first make the property available to eligible nonprofit entities and public entities and so the way it usually works say you send out a um a notice to the city and then you wait 60 days and then you send out a notice to city parks and then you wait 60 days and so it's it's this very long process right
083now um the the law has has allowed for all those offers to be issued simultaneously so that you can can expedite the process and and find out what the the true interest is and selling or leasing the land from public and nonprofit entities um all at once so with that um and to Miss Johnson's Point again there's no clock associated with it but I know there was incredible interest by the board about have we had conversations with the city have we explored different opportunities of s sale or lease and really what it comes down to is we need the board to discuss and take action to declare Surplus to allow me to legally have that conversation whether you choose that to be myself or a superintendent or whomever we're not supposed to engage with these
084agencies prior to having it declared a surplus so with that we'll open it up for any questions that you might have um and we'll try to answer them for you it didn't work I think it's a distance director Brown yes thank you all so much uh for your presentation and ultimately your update um as you mentioned uh executive director clis we have reviewed this many many times uh and so it's good to be able to come to this point I did want to ask about Surplus I heard you say earlier make mention rather um that if we decide to declare it Surplus there aren't any time limits on how long it can be declared Surplus and I want to make sure that I'm correct in hearing that right so if once you declare property Surplus
085it remains Surplus until you bring it back into educational use so if you were to reopen a a you know Elementary School at the Oxford site that would be bringing it back into school use and so therefore it would no longer be considered Surplus and you would have to go through the process again but once you complete each step that step that box is checked and you don't need to repeat that step so once it's declared Surplus it remains Surplus until it is no longer Surplus okay thank you I don't have any questions or concerns but I'm happy to make the motion to approve this item to be considered for Surplus I'd like to second that motion all in favor say I roll call yeah director uh Leo I director babit H yes and council
086member H's office has already reached out so get back to director shasi yes director Chang yes vice president Brown I president Bas yes so thank you and my apologies Miss Johnson just just point out that there is a resolution attached to this so the Surplus statute actually requires that the board formally formally adopts that resolution as well I apologize yes that was included in my motion but do you need us to say the words if it's included then we're good I just wanted to make sure we are all on the same page okay thank you so much thank you thank you okay um all right next uh because item 12.1 was changed to an action item superintendent would you please introduce this item thank you thank you madam president so 12.1 uh is approval of
087Human Resources report rep s um just to be clear consent items are action items but are typically taken all at once and this was requested to be pulled and so I'm going to have our assistant uh superintendent of Human Resources Samantha Tobias espanosa introduce the items and engage the board in any questions that they might have hello um thank you um so these there are two reports that are attached to the um one item on the consent agenda and these are reports that share information on hires separations and transfers and promotions that have happened one of the reports is classified staff and one is um certificated staff thank you thank you for that introduction I I pulled this item because it includes the separation and new assignment of two of the after school program site
088coordinators we've received a lot of feedback from uh the community even the principles at these schools asking that we not um approve this kind of uh separation and demotion to um a a different position um and so with the removal of Aaron Grayson and Jared Tony Tori Sanders I am happy to approve this um but I I definitely want to make sure that the um investigation and that the work that I've asked to be done to respond to the community concerns around these two uh specifically blackmail employees as well as the other um employees who have also uh said that this coordination program isn't working well we even heard from our unions that uh we as a district have had some problems with it and so I don't want to get kick this down the
089road in which they are now in the Personnel Commission process and we're doing all these other things to reverse it if we can investigate it fully now before we approve this these demotions so what I understand you're saying director mavit is that you are approving uh this classified report as well as a certificated report but specifically asking that the approval removes two um employee names that are mentioned under separation is that correct yes they're under separation and with the new ass assment so respectfully you are one board director so we would need to hear from um other board directors as well and I will also say that after hearing from the board directors I won't make any comments on Personnel matters publicly but I am definitely open to following up with board directors in terms
090of any next steps and any implications of any decisions that might be made around this report um after this vote is taken is information it is my understanding that director babbett's uh question was uh for there to be an update provided to the board specifically around um these positions is also my understanding that this update has been um asked for by a few board members um multiple times and asked for this information to be shared publicly and so to that end I'd like to support uh director babbit's ask and join her in asking the same thing so again the ask is heard and has been responded to and I'm happy to respond again with more detail of additional information has been is needed um but I am still not going to be at Liberty to
091speak about personel matters publicly here on the day is but definitely have no problems responding to you all as individual board members or a collective in response to next steps and what has happened to date and then is your privy to decide what you do with that information but just wanted to clarify and make that statement to the public because I know that to your appoint director ABAB there have been um public request for more information or some additional neeps and I will not be able to share that publicly at the data so that was that point of clarification but I'm happy as always to respond to you all and provide any additional information that you need either to be comfortable with approving um those two or again informing uh staff on next steps I
092can I can understand and and respect that totally um your second ask was for additional support from or to hear the the um to hear the oh I'm having sick brain I can't even think of the words but to hear the will of the rest of the board and so uh that was an effort to provide um my will well I just have a question can I ask Madam chair um question superintendent what's the implication is there a timeliness issue in requesting that additional information is there like what's see implications um the implication um would be that these things have already um happened um and that changes have already been made as well as um changes in terms of salary um that we would need to undo and redo um in terms of these positions
093um we have um so there would be implications due to to make any changes to what's already been done on this report um point of point of clarification if I may mam oh were you going to finish I just have one more statement which is that um these were also had to do with the fact of of probationary status um and so if we were to um not approve this um they would automatically become permanent well isn't that the help well point point of information or point of clarification rather um we the ask is specifically for two employees on this list not all of uh the employees on this list and so I'd like for the board to keep that in mind uh as we move forward with our vote that we are speaking specifically
094to to employees the ones who you all have received hundreds of emails in regards to and not to everyone that is uh on this attached list um so with that this isn't now an action item so I can make a motion to approve this removing those names uh and so I'd like to do that primarily because as representatives of the community it is actually our job when we hear hundreds of emails to respond and to say hey stop District look into this issue and make sure that these people have not been treated uh unfairly and terminated or demoted unfairly and so um that is why I'm making this motion um and I hope that uh more at least one more besides director Brown will respond to the community's concerns and join me in uh approving
095this item with the removal of Aaron Grayson and Jerry Jared Tory Sanders my motion i' exate that motion all right all in F or roll call director ra i director shinoski yes director changen hi director babit yes vice president Brown I president basev yes up next we have an update from the reparations task force e that's good evening thank you for having us Schoolboard I just want to open with a definition what are reparations the making of amends for a wrong one has done by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged we want to thank you for allowing us to be here I stand here with the uh reparations task force who have worked tirelessly for over a year and we are here to um present our recommendations as commissioned by
096our superintendent and to uh bring you our reports for this evening next slide our mission is indeed aligned with the school board's mission to enable and Inspire our diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and to make positive contributions to our world we also stand by the four EAS Excellence we want to highlight Equity engagement and enrichment next slide I will thank you our presenters um I'm actually on slide three thank you I want to introduce to you our co-chairs for the task force and we'll just give a little bit uh about who we are and why we are here uh I want to start with that my name is Tanisha Walton I'm a Community member I'm the founder of black girls United that is in all three of our middle schools here in Berkeley
097UniFi School District I've worked in and around B USD for over 20 years and I'm one of the pastors at the way Christian Center right across the street from the school district we start service at 10: a.m. if anyone's interested um I want to just talk really briefly about my why my why is to take up the mantle given to each generation to continually cry out for justice for our ancestors we will continue to cry out until we the descendants of those from Shadow slavery are in some way compensated for the Blood Sweat and Tears mixed with abundant sorrow given in Free Labor to this nation to this quote qu unquote great nation I'm going to now pass it over to our other um task force co-chairs to introduce themselves good evening everyone my name
098is Chip Moore I um have the honor of serving our community as a chair of the police accountability board I'm a planning commissioner right now I'm a reluctant student at the Goldman School of Public Policy I have a pay- Perdue at 9:00 am so want to make sure that we get this taken care of tonight um that being said um I want to go into a little bit about why this is important because I am also a in the most important role I hold as a father of two buusd students and it is very important to me that I make sure that I relay these stories not only for uh my children not only for my community but for Bly wide and in doing so I wanted to share with you my story um I
099am a descendant of yearly basy yearly basy was what you would consider a stud or a buck and um he was in the state of Ohio the state of Missouri and the state of California so when I say that this really touches me I have the receipts and I was gonna ask Anna if she could pass him over to you this is a book of my family's Legacy of Catt slavery all the dirty Tales the only reason that we could and you know I'm blessed to be able to share the tragedy of this gift because most African-Americans can't the only reason I can is because there was so much profit within my ancestor that the records the business records kept tight so as you look and as you hear from uh my colleagues and and
100now friends and family please understand that this is still affecting the people we are today I stand here before you as a descendant of a man who they took away his dignity they took away his self-interest and today I'm trying to get that back thank you good evening my name is Adena isi I'm also one of the task Force's co-chairs of the reparations task force I'm also a former president of the League of Women Voters of Berkeley Albany Emoryville and I'm a descendant of people who were incarcerated during World War III's Japanese American incarceration camps and um my family received reparations from the United States government for that incarceration and it's one of the reasons why I'm here today I think it's so important that as a Japanese American as an Asian-American that I stand
101here in solidarity um and I'm very grateful to be a part of this task force it's not easy to get 15 people into a room and unanimously AG agree on something and it has been a Herculean effort so I want to say thank you so much to everyone who's been part of this task force and the committee um of people of members who did the work to get us here in the first place so thank you all so much for hearing from us this evening I'm honored to be here uh good evening members of the school board my name is CAD Smith uh I am H class of Berkeley High 2009 uh I grew up actually three blocks uh away uh here in West Berkeley um I was raised by my grandmother um and as
102a facilitator of this task force it has been a tremendous honor to be able to work with so many committed members of our community who are invested in the descendants of slaves who were still in the Berkeley Unified School District my grandmother was an educator she worked at Craigmont and as a black woman and my great-grandmother was actually one of the first uh African-American teachers AIDS in BD um my family has a long commitment to education in the city of Berkeley and my why is connected to the fact that we have to invest in our children now more than ever um so that they understand that this commitment in a shrinking population where descendant of slaves are few and far between that Berkeley is committed to their Futures I think that reparations is one of
103the promises that we need to intend to keep I think someone earlier in the audience said um they remarked on Dr King's reflection that the America gave us a promiser note that actually turned to be written on a bankrupt check right something to that effect I think the school district has an opportunity in this particular moment to show that we intend to keep our promises to the students who are uh descendants of slaves and that's why I was very delighted to work with this task force we will now walk you quickly through our agenda what you can expect to find tonight uh first we will talk about the background of our task force by giving you an overview we'll uh also let you know about our task force activities that took place within our community
104and thirdly we will uh present to you the recommendations and potential next steps this is our ask of the board um this is an item uh this item is a presentation and a discussion no vote is scheduled today I will repeat no vote is scheduled today but we ask board members to commit to fully exploring the task Force's recommendations in the fall that is our one ask and we're that's what we are presenting to you today and so as uh my colleague uhor Walton Tanisha excuse me she don't like when I call her pastor Walton all the time uh but she just uh you know highlighted is that we intend to to try and make this as concise as possible but we want to be very thorough and letting the board and also members of
105the community know that these efforts didn't start with this task force in fact these efforts uh preceded the task force by several years several committed community members got together and explored the possibility of reparations over their period of two years um in the wake of George Floyd's death and also as an honoring and the continuation um of what the school district has expressed in the past in terms of its commitment to black children um I would also argue that uh in terms of continuing the work that we've been able to do prior to the task force being commenced we want to acknowledge that there still will be work to be done after next slide at every single task force meeting we return to these three questions and we understood that these three questions worked in
106harmony with one another um what is it that reparation look like how do we fund reparations and then we decided based on the scope of our work and the time that we had to return to you all that we would come back with considerations around implementation but strongly encourage the district to think about a plan towards implementation based on how you receive our recommendations um next slide this is just a brief overview which I'll go into more in depth um so we can actually advance to the next slide um when I say this I say this with the utmost sincerity um every single member that you see um listed under the task force membership um they had no absence of care no absence of commitment and no absence of consistency they showed up every single
107month and they did work in between those months as completely volunteer efforts and that should be underscored and overstated and honoring just how serious the support is here for reparations among a very brilliant group of people with various backgrounds next slide I really want to stress that we were diligent and outlining what we wanted to do we started with intensive research we started with building the ability for 15 people to get into a room and to collaborate with one another it's not an easy process I've been facilitating groups for the last nine years of various nonprofit and socially Progressive spaces um it takes time it takes Trust um and when it clicks it is a worthwhile investment and that's what we did over the last 14 months next slide from pages 4 through 16 I
108really want to highlight in the report um you can see the extensive research that we engaged into which is specific to um Berkeley and the district and I think that all of the members of the board have had the chance to review our recommendations but I would under score that the community should also do the same next slide we had extensive consult ative efforts with experts that included scholarly experts legal experts experts on public policy and even experts in in terms of cultural commentary next slide and I think as this was alluded to earlier we had uh several points of community engagement over 2300 plus respondents to a survey um which we thoroughly um vetted and looked at in terms of thinking how should Community input guide the recommendations we knew we would be bringing
109to you all um here in June of 2024 um next slide and uh we started off you know with our learning and our building trust process but also knowing that we didn't want to do it in isolation or do it in a vacuum so in September of 2024 we spent significant time listening to community members with a goal of having you know robust discourse engaged in Community Learning and then also doing some ideation and some generation of what it might look like to actually come up with recommendations um that would be responsive to community needs and last but certainly not least in March of 2024 we honored our commitment to the community members who poured a labor of love honestly into that survey by saying this is what we heard from you and that is
110I think the kind of ethos and spirit that this task force demonstrated is this balance of the ideas of the brilliant folks in the room but knowing that it wasn't about just those ideas in that room but actually what community members want from The District in implementing recommendations that we've put before you and so in going into that deep dive and all the intentionality um we we came considered 15 different possible types of reparations can you imagine trying to get 15 people to decide on these many types of reparations but as we collaborated we eventually came up with three recommendations that we want to share with you tonight the first is a harm report second to develop adopt and deploy curricula third provide Financial payments for educational purposes and we will um briefly describe each
111one next slide almost two-thirds uh firstly number one is a harm report I think you heard someone speak about that earlier tonight almost two-thirds of respondents to the community survey supported uh including the documentation of harms that BD has caused The Descendants students highlighting that much of this history has been forgotten devalued or misinterpreted and stress the importance of having it properly and publicly documented in this way we may heed the words of Spanish philosopher George santaana who said those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it our second recommendation is around developing adopting and deploying curricula there were two different curricula related options on the survey and all respondents and descendant families supported these options our task force in particular believes that it's critical to teach about the legacy of child slavery
112on both the state Federal and local levels um information from the California task force report and the BD harm report that was previously mentioned could be incorporated into our ethnic studies curricula and we've had conversations with folks um in our ethnic who work on our ethnic studies curricula so our other recommendation type was to provide Financial payments for educational purposes this um received the most support from descendants family and from the overall public um but our task force agreed that for us to dispense this money it should be for educational purposes because uh B USD is an educational institution so our funding sources how how is the question um so we consider 12 possible funding sources but we are here to recommend three versus solicit philanthropic corporate giving second initiate a lawsuit third propose a
113tax measure via initiative and we will briefly explain uh all three of those next Slide the first is to solicit philanthropic and corporate giving for tax purposes donations would likely need to be made to local Foundation Progressive it would be Progressive as it comes from foundations and corporations uh thirdly generate one-time revenue and could be collected quickly our other funding source for this recommendation is to initiate a lawsuit I want everyone to take a deep breath we're not saying a lawsuit against BD what we're trying to uh bring forward here is something that is revolutionary in its scope and scale we're saying that bu USD is a plth that because of red lining and the um other historic and systemic um impacts that we can say hey our tax base was um you know because
114of systemic racism hit and that money that should have been going to our children and to this District wasn't there due to uh forces that were institutionally racist um we believe that this is a good case and we believe that we can uh draw the harms and make sure that uh there's a a a through line from what happened who did it happen to and how we can repair the harm yeah we heard from board members before about concerns around making sure that we're having the right Representatives the right uh people look at all of these um all these different methods of funding and so that's why you can see we're we're recommending things that we'll need to look further into right not us as a task force but the district um I also want
115to make sure it's clear that we're recommending for this third funding source that it's a new tax and not to use a current source of funding um we understood that using the general fund and beep funds was not an option I know that there were some concerns about that so I just want to be very clear um we're recommending an initiative because this the method only requires a simple majority as opposed to of course you know this but for the Community if the school board voted to put something on the ballot then we would need 2third support this method can also be Progressive if we include exemptions for low-income taxpayers and minimize the impact on descendant ta excuse me descendant taxpayers through reimbursement or other means this is something we were particularly concerned about because
116we wanted to make sure that descendants weren't paying for their own reparations and as I alluded to earlier we've offered some considerations around implementation and I'll try and make it as succinct as possible there are additional Staffing considerations that the district should take into account there are consultative supports that we would encourage the district to to explore and to think about the right Partnerships there and then there's also the necessary type of legal council both from legal council already available by way of the the current legal council for the district and also external counsel particularly in expanding um a legal theory around a lawsuit um that chip just highlighted you know would be unlike um you know many lawsuits of its kind but we do think that there is a legal basis that should be
117explored so your next steps our work is done as a task force and I'd like everyone in the task force to give yourselves a hand Community this was hard work and um just so glad that we've gotten here and we get to present to you all today um so we just wanted to say that you guys these are all could bees you know if you guys want to solidify tonight I'm okay with that but these are all could bees the district could contract with outside experts to create the harm report the district could hire or contract with experts should include the Senate bu USD staff to develop the curriculum the district could hire staff to write submit Grant proposes and and or to apply pressure on attention to corporations and even though our our work
118is done as a task force I just want to say that I know that we're all very committed to following this and to make sure that everything is seen through um and that will be engaged throughout the process um I think many of us will continue to be engaged um some other potential next steps could be uh Consulting with attorneys to more thoroughly analyze legal theories and options to pursue and as I mentioned for either tax no actions needed as the district wouldn't be the the person wouldn't be the people to place the ballot um put this on the ballot um it would be a community-led initiative and again our ask of the board this item is a presentation discussion no vote is scheduled um we're just asking that board members commit to fully exploring
119the taxk task Force's recommendations in the fall we want to also just say a huge thank you to hearing from us multiple times in our reports for uh directors Chang shoski and babit and vice president Brown for attending meetings and also our events and just generally engaging with the public around these issues and um now we will take feedback or questions from the board thank you direct B yes wow reparations task force thank you all so much for this uh phenomenal presentation it is definitely um a timely one as we are uh getting ready to celebrate juneth and um director bab is up here crying about to make me cry um but there is a a a t-shirt or a saying a quote rather that says that I am my ancestors Wildest Dreams um and
120tonight we are seeing uh the evidence of those wildest dreams of our ancestors who both uh were the unfortunate recipients of Shadow slavery and the harms that were caused of from Shadow slavery uh all the way uh till now the harm that we are still impacted by and uh experiencing and so we know that there isn't anything that will actually re repair that harm but we know that this is a a step in the right direction uh towards uh towards reparations or towards repairing the harm that was caused um to our people here in the United States and Beyond um I don't have many questions but just really appreciations uh for your work first I'd like to begin with the survey Rah in her public comment mentioned that there were 2300 respondents to a survey
121and she also shared that this is one of the uh largest and most supported surveys uh that have gone out from the district and I could not agree with her more to receive 2300 responses is absolutely amazing and please let's pause and celebrate that and uh what is really uh interesting to me is that the majority I think you all mentioned in your presentation two-thirds of the respondents understand and identify um the harm that was caused by um by uh slavery here in the United States and um are interested in a harm uh report based off of that and so uh that was really really interesting to hear I also appreciate the detail uh that went into uh identifying uh what a lawsuit could do to bring uh reparations as a an actual movement here
122in B USD and not a lawsuit against the district for once so thank you for that and for the opportunity uh to to breathe on that and for the recommendation about how we move forward uh with the third and final ask of the re recommendations uh which is to provide a financial pay Financial payments um and I did want to ask uh about these Financial payments specifically for educational purposes I know that you all are offering a recommendation uh to us today but um is the uh reparations task force really uh holding on to this idea of using it for educational purposes or have other options been explored so that's my um my question and then I after you answer that I have another followup and if it is the will of the the board
123to explore that more um then that's absolutely uh what we shall do um I guess I'm gonna I'm Gonna Fill this question for the group here um let's see how how would I best describe this um the cash payments that we uh have subscribed to we're taking our lead from the survey and the respondents from the community the community um had a big push to make sure that buusd was in its Lane and that there was education now at the same time I want us all to recognize that no other group has had parameters or uh um safeguards within their reparations um so I I want to make sure that that's a point that our community needs to grow with and I'm okay meeting I'm meeting the community where they're at and bringing them along
124and and that's where there there's that Comfort level so we stayed within our community but there's a gap here for education and we can we can fill that Gap and say hey we don't need to um treat our community members like they can't balance their own checkbooks yeah can yeah offer one quick thing just a reflection of the the discourse that was going on in the room when we talked about educational purposes there was storytelling involved and we actually thought about community members stories that we were invoking as we were discussing what that actually means so I think educational purposes it would be prudent for the district to broadly Define that if someone's child is sleeping in a car before they go to school getting them housing that has an educational purpose so I I
125think it's really important for us to consider the broad scope that educational purposes entails but the district does have choice and I think that's important we recognized how important it was and mirroring that based on what chip said in terms of respondents survey thank you I I really appreciate those thoughtful responses and it was right on the heels of what I was thinking um I get a little concerned about the micromanaging of um specifically black people and as especially as it relates to money and spending and knowing that no other group has been micromanaged in that way is really important to me to uh know that we are of course receiving your recommendations but we'll have the flexibility to uh meet the needs as we see fit and allow our community members who will be
126recipients of uh reparations to meet the needs in their uh in their lives as they see fit as well so thank you for uh your recommendations and for the flexibility to be able to do that uh and finally before I turn it over to my other board colleagues your number one ask for this evening which was re uh iterated twice was that you want the Board of Education to commit to fully exploring the task Force's recommendations in the fall and tonight I and hopefully uh the rest of my colleagues will give their verbal agreeance to um fully support uh exploring the rep the recommendations uh in the fall and so I'm happy to be the first board member to publicly make that statement and really call on my board colleagues to do the same thank
127you all for the presentation director bit yes thank you uh I was fine until CAD talked about 2009 and um in 2009 that was the first year that I started learning about being an advocate for equity in Berkeley and AI school district and what it really meant and how we could change the outcomes specifically for black students within Berkeley UniFi school district and so then roll that forward to now being when I was the president of the board is when this reparations task force um was announced and and began and started and so thank you superintendent for Morel because not only did it come at a huge political risk to me it would also Implement a black woman superintendent uh our vice president uh well yeah she was president or vice president somewhere in there
128that time um and so just thinking about when you put yourself out there for Equity what greater Equity initiative would reparations bring for our students uh with specific Ally within bosd and so I then I became emotional immediately and then I I'm hearing uh chip Mo statement and I think about how I teach my children that you are the hope and the dream of of an enslaved and you have a responsibility so when my kids get 4.0 in middle school and graduate UC Davis at 19 with 3.77 GPA is because I've instilled in them right that's right that we stand on shoulders and that we have no excuses not to succeed because perseverance is in our blood as uh public commenters said we shouldn't even be here by most means of the harm that has
129happened uh to African-Americans on this nation's soil um so I want to thank the reparations task force because again it's not often within bosd that uh your vision goes out a call goes out and people respond so well and so timely we gave you a charge you Ste to the plate this is above and beyond anything I ever expected you definitely have my support and my commitment to uh to bring this forward in the fall uh with true um expiration and in closing I would like to say that I think um our mayor arene and uh vice mayor Sophie hansl really do say it best so instead of Reinventing that will it'll take me two minutes to read this um I write as mayor and vice mayor to express my our strong support for the
130recommendations set forth by the Berkeley Unified School District reparations task force the taskforce report is an excellent example of what local efforts at reparations can look like and lead to the task force is a cross-racial cross-generational group of committed members of the USD Community who took it upon themselves with the support of the district to explore what reparations in a school district could be the task force engaged in thorough community outreach consulted with experts thank you experts thank you so much our California reparations task force what that survey that you heard of that survey was was done by professional experts and all of this again volunteer the task Force engaged in thorough community outreach consulted oh I read that part consulted with experts and research existing reparations Frameworks and historical examples of reparations after considering
13115 different types of reparations in 12 different funding sources the task force is recommending three types of reparations which you've already heard and three funding sources if implemented these recommendations which are in line with the work of California's reparations task force put forward some important and necessary ways to address the long-standing effects of the legacy of chatt slavery in public education as public officials again to my colleagues we are public officials one of our fundamental obligations is to heal historical wounds and promote Justice and equity for all the district demonstrated in 1968 when it decided to voluntarily desegregate its elementary schools and in 2003 when it decided to eliminate neighborhood schools to offset the impact of housing segregation the task force work and its recommendations inspired by these prior decisions offer BD a chance to
132demonstrate the same purpose once more leadership matters particularly in these politically disc ordant times therefore I ask you to join me in supporting the task force recommendations that concludes my coms director okay yes thank you so much um thank you so much for your work and the great presentation and I I really appreciate the written report as well that the lot lot of work went into that and kudos to you for your substantial public Outreach across um members of the community Through the survey and also through uh our local elected officials too I think it's really important to have done that work and to really have shown all of us how significant this issue is as a Berkeley value um you know as a ethnic studies instructor teacher and also as a civil rights attorney
133um uh reparations for chattel uh labor slavery is uh something that uh is very important to me as a um as an equity issue um and it's also important as a remedy issue uh uh just in the context of civil rights and civil liberties uh it's very important and I'm so pleased that we're uh that you folks have put together all this effort and the structure to have this conversation and have come out in a very rapid amount of time actually a year a little bit over a year is a very quick amount of time to have um this type of structure and so I really appreciate the the um the structure of your recommendation as well you have the sources and the funding the funding sources as well as the types of reparations and
134I think it's really helpful for the board members as we roll back in in the fall um to have a complex conversation and a detailed conversation about um uh taking these um recommendation seriously and to have that type of structure to understand how would we Implement um so uh you know one one quick question I have for you is um with regard to the the initiate a lawsuit so I'm glad you you put initiate a lawsuit not just lawsuit lawsuit against the district or initiate a lawsuit um and I really appreciate the uh the background you've provided um and Mr Moore uh who I've served on with the police accountability board before who I know and I really appreciate it service is there and also here um uh that's a really interesting uh legal Theory
135and I'm really interested in it in terms of um looking at potential um uh defendants in the private sector um I'm I'm curious if uh you know you've done a lot of work in a short amount of time and of course this this burden is not upon you per se but um have you sought out like U pro bono um orgs Etc to provide feedback on this important legal Theory potential novel legal Theory such as NAACP legal um yes we have we've actually contacted a uh professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law who happens to be a um expert in redlining and also has a background of uh historical content for South Berkeley he came to one of our engagements and he was so moved by the work that this group was
136doing that he came all in and said whatever I can do to help let me know and he came he spoke with the group as a whole and he has been in contact with myself as a chair trying to develop all of the um Baseline information needed to and it yes Dr or not Professor leis Rodriguez um but trying to put get put together all of the information that we would need to move this forward and let me just say we did say to um Implement a lawsuit and the reason why is uh and this also goes to harm report and that a lot of these private sector entities who know that they have benefited from child slavery will come to the table willingly we have learned this in our research we know that if
137we put together a harm report that says hey we know you're responsible for these bad actions and you know I don't don't want to go into any of these private companies right now but we have a list and and and in doing so I would love to bring them to the table and we don't have to go uh to court what we can do is sit down and collaborate and Community benefits and saying hey this is what is due or this is what is owed or this is how we're going to build together we can work that out at a negotiating table yeah I I also director Chang just to respond to this is a rising 30o at the University of San Francisco School of Law one of the things that I'm learning about the
138the practice of law right is um at every time in history there are novel legal theories right that we might say we haven't seen a lot of precedents for but what the district supporting these recommendation does is engenders excitement across the legal field and that I think is an invaluable um thing to latch on to as you talk about the complex conversation the school district and the Berkeley Unified School District puts out The Feelers for some of our brightest legal Minds to come together and say what would a legal basis look like to hold bad faith actors accountable for their complicit behavior and institutional racist practices I can guarantee you that you'll see a wave tital wave of excitement if not just from local practitioners but from people across the country and I think that's
139the opportunity that the district gets to sit with is um you know how much do we want to be able to Resource the time and effort and energy in holding that container um that that will be the next step right yeah well thank you so much um I can feel the excitement here and I'm very excited myself and and congratulations on being a rising 3L not necessarily congratulations being an attorney but it's a challenging field but it's a uh very rewarding field and I'm glad you're in it um so I also just want to note I do appreciate the scope of the sources and your reference to the potentiality of um private actors without naming them potentially coming forward voluntarily or without not allow a bunch of effort to um one of the prongs you
140had here was soliciting philanthropic and corporate giving um so some of the expert um information that you know I'm assuming that in the fall we'll have and in the fall and the winter of um both not just the professors but also groups such as the n CP legal and other organizations who had had some experience with with impact litigation or um this type of Engagement around um reparations uh such as folks from Evanson I saw you had Corporation Council from City of Evanson which is great that you engage with them um and if we could have further conversations I'm really looking forward to that because as you all noted in your report um Evanson was the most recent modern um reparations uh program that came out of that city council there tied to redlining and
141that's a town I used to live in it's very close to where I grew up as well um so uh thank you for your efforts and and I certainly support having a robust conversation your recommendations and pushing that forward to the fall thank you so much thank you thank you director Chang uh next we have director V thank you madam president Madam chair um yeah I just want to thank the committee so much for your dedication as I said I know this is a labor of love and that you all have families you could be spending your evenings with so I appreciate you giving us your time and your expertise and um really enjoyed my meeting earlier this week with Mr Smith and Mr Mo and Miss deas in the audience so thank you for
142taking the time to answer some of my uh more one-on-one questions so I won't repeat those all tonight because we had a robust conversation earlier this week but I do just want to Echo what you know some of my board colleagues I'm excited by the by your recommendations and look forward to that deeper vetting in the fall and particularly around some of the legal concerns that we talked about earlier this week um Mr Mo I want to look at your list I'll connect offline um but I but I think yeah that that that deeper vetting is important and you know just biger in the broader you know picture of the district but um I really enjoyed our conversation and look forward to learning more and and and looking more closely at impact litigation and so
143um you know director Chang has his own expertise and I'm glad to see that you're engaging also and continuing to engage subject matter experts so I know that your work on the committee might come to a stop but I hope we can continue to discuss this into the fall as we also learn more and what it would mean to operationalize some of your recommendations for a school district so thank you um I think that director schanowski is on to speak thank you um I just want to Echo my board colleagues uh gratitude to all of you uh thank you so much for the work you've put in and the recommendations you're bringing to us and I'm excited to engage with this all uh further in the fall um I just want to say thank you
144as well I mean I think this is really amazing work and really um crucial in our community and Beyond and um even though I won't be here in the fall to see this follow um follow through I will be following it from far away so yeah um okay so is there any other questions or comments just say another thank you to superintendent Ford Morel thank you yeah for just for your support and for your willingness just thank you you thank you all all right I think we're going to take our break now e e e AP can I see likeing all right I think we're gonna start back up so next up we have um we we'll move on to the first of two public hearings this evening I called to order a public hearing
145on the developer fee justif justification study and adop of school facilities fee at 10:31 p.m. is is there anyone here uh to present in person or uh present in person or online to address the l cap or budget if none uh this public hearing is now followed by a vote to approve veler fee justification study and resolution 2445 for the adoption of school facilities fees can I have motion and a second to approve the consent calendar so moved can we just make sure that that motion was correct the motion to approve exactly which item to approve item uh to approve 16 point uh 15 .1 it needs to be a public hearing for [Music] this director we need to we need to call a public hearing on the develop rep justification study and resolution number
146what you call yeah great I heard the L no no not the this this yeah okay but um so so it's action 16 that we're approving 16.1 which is the resolution for the same public hearing uh the school facilities fee yes the developer fee justification study and resolution 2445 for the adoption of school facilities fees so moved I was second all right all in favor say I I um director well I director babbit I director train hi vice president Brown is excused for the remainder of the meeting and president basad yes director shinoski yes motion carries okay this public hearing is now uh well there's sorry um wait there's two 17 public yeah it's not said on it's not on the screen the public hearing isn't on script oh it's here is it yeah I
147now call to order this evening's public hearing on budget reserves for the 20242 fiscal year at 10:34 p.m. is there anyone here present in in person or online to address um the lcap or budget if none um then I wait CL sorry is there anyone here to address the budget Reserves I don't know okay it's probably EAS just to look at the agenda yeah okay but yeah seeing none we can close it okay if none um up next our our remaining have to close the hearing at 10:34 and then go next okay if not I will close the public hearing at 10:35 p.m. and our remaining action items for this evening um up first we have an approval request the 2024 to 27 elcut plan um do we have any questions or comments for this
148plan I think um associate superintendent will introduce okay we're ready right uh good evening members of the board uh superintendent uh we are here tonight to seek a action to approve the 2427 lcap plan we did want to give you um an update um from our uh first reading of the lcap yep you can go to um somebody took the clip okay yeah um back back one more this yeah um we uh so the requested action for tonight's agenda item is to approve the 2427 lcap but we did want to provide an update um that had a a an addition of a goal that we did not share at the May 29th board meeting um just really quick to remind members of the public um the lcap is a three-year plan um with intended focus
149on our focal student uh populations um we have a timeline the next slide please um that involves uh presenting the lcap to Partners and seeking board approval um we presented uh the first draft of the lcap at the May 29th meeting and as we shared at that time um the next day we met with a staff from the Alama County Office of Education who also conducted a review of our lcap and next slide please in the context of that review you can see the categories um that they they um provided uh that they reviewed and provided feedback on there was a review status that indicated either meets requirements technical changes or required actions in other words required changes that needed to be made to our elcat prior to final board approval for the vast majority
150of those items we U met requirements we had a couple of technical changes uh technical adjustments those were things like we did not yet have the parent overview for the budget the budget was still in development that document has been attached to this board agenda item there were a couple of um items on the 111 pages that the fields were blank and if uh the indication was that if it was a zero that we needed to put something in that field to resolve those technical um changes we resolved all the technical changes but the most significant shift was the requirement of the equity multiplier Focus goal um of of equity multiplier to add an equity multiplier goal I'm sorry um next slide please uh just some background on the equity multiplier um Equity multiplier is
151a new identification um uh in in California um schools are eligible for Equity multiplier funding based on a calculation that includes a non-stability rate and a percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged students students um we have one identified Equity multiplier School in BD that's Berkeley Technology Academy or BTA they are identified in the area of College and Career preparedness um and there is an allocation of State funds attached to that next slide please um You Might Recall at the May 29th presentation that we had shared with you that we had included an equity multiplier action for BTA U but we have learned since that AC e review is that it did need to be a specific goal um so on that next slide you can see that we have added a fifth goal um to our elcap
152to include um the equity multiplier uh requirement um our director of of categorical programs Dr Lisa stupin has worked with principal Weber we have aligned those actions um two actions that they have already identified in their school plan which was already required um so unlike some other districts that have multiple schools identified for Equity multipliers were unique in that we have one um so uh while it is a little strange to call out a single School in a in a District's LC cap that is the requirement and that's been the most sub that's the most the single and most substantial change since you last saw the ELA um and then that's that's just the overview of what has been updated and the requested action is to approve the elcome the 2427 alcome okay thank you
153do you have do we have any questions or comments colleagues director babbit um yes thank you for this uh presentation and I definitely look forward to us updating our um actions and services within the lcap plan specifically around our family engagement um goal as we've already discussed because I think often times we ask so many people to um show us their their measurable results right how do we know this is working how do we know what's happening and so um in my opinion in the vagueness of those actions as currently listed we definitely need to Define it um we we know that they came to us and asked for us to make sure that they had measurable goals and measurable actions and services and so I just want to highlight um that as we go
154into next year even though that's not currently in the plan it should definitely still be in the scope of uh of their work because as we come up on budget balancing priorities next year um I I don't want to have the Pac and other committees saying how do we know this is working how do we know this is effective or not since um we haven't given a clear charge and it is a large percentage of those supplemental funds so thank you and thank you to the team for all of your hard work on this lcap plan um and I hope that as we move forward we can definitely make sure that we have um more presentations along the way uh to the board um with the specific actions that are going to to come to
155us thank you any other questions or comments all righty can I have a motion and a second to approve the 2024 to 27 ALC so moved a second all in favor say I I director Le I director shasi yes director babit yes vice president um I'm sorry uh director chain yes um president vas yes okay moving on to the approval of the 2024 to2 budget and the 2023 to2 24 estimated actuals director should we extend the meeting do you want to call for an extension oh yeah do we have a motion to extend the meeting p 11 um yes I have motion to extend the meeting till 11:30 and hopefully we'll finish earlier can we get a second I than you director shinoski yes director L yes director babit yes director chain yes president vasev
156yes so um good evening everyone kind of trying to get started um we'll be presenting the adopted budget for approval this evening um at our last meeting we presented the preliminary budget so tonight's presentation we have a few changes that we're going to take you through pretty quickly and the first thing that we're going to look at is the variance report so we'll just so taking a look at the variance report there's this is what's highlighting the uh major changes in the unrestricted general fund between our estimated actuals so what we are projecting to spend for 2324 and our proposed budget that we are asking you to adopt tonight for 2425 um most of these slides are the same as the preliminary budget that was presented a few weeks ago so we're seeing a decrease
157in our revenues uh overall our expenditures um over uh decreasing and due largely to the budget balancing solutions that the board uh put into place uh some amount of um continuing our transfer to our self-insurance fund the item to call out is the uh transfer from fund 20 into the unrestricted general fund of $2 2.12 million which was a one-time budget balancing solution and again this slide is unchanged from the presentation of weeks ago the area to call out is that overall our contributions uh in and out are um net to pretty much the same as what we presented last meeting we did break out the numbers a little bit more because we'd conflated uh two items in the presentation last time uh we had benefited in 2324 from a one-time transfer from the Arts
158music and instructional materials block grant of $800,000 that was one time and so is not continuing in 2425 so a reduction in that contribution of$ 800,000 but that was had been obscured in the presentation last time by a decrease in the contribution out to special education of about $700,000 and so we've broken those two out so they're easier to see but it Nets out to uh a net contribution change of about $100,000 um overall in terms terms of our ending balance We are continuing to deficit spend in 2425 but at a mucher rate than in 2324 and we are projected to be ending the 2425 year with an undesignated fund balance and the unrestricted general fund around $2 million one item to call out in the overall fund balance for the unrestricted general fund is
159that the uh lcap reserve of $1 million in 2324 will be drawn down slightly in 2425 and so that ending balance is projected to be $820,000 uh that is due to the a board approved budget balancing solution to continue some programming uh into 2425 um but overall you'll see what we meet our our 3% reserve for economic uncertainties and and like I said it's um the bottom line is in changeed from what we uh discussed when we presented the preliminary budget a few weeks ago and I will turn it back to uh resp this um so thanks Emily um so as Emily pointed out we did have one slight change in terms of how we presented the uh it was actually a clarification of how we were looking at the transfers in and out and
160we provided some clarity on that slide so the next slide actually is our Ada and attendance there was no change from our presentation that we um me the board earlier um and this is a new um requirement that was actually um the public hearing that um that was done just before this meeting we're now required to actually look at our reserves um and do it in a public hearing which we've already um complied with and this was in conjunction with Senate Bill 858 and a requirement that acoe had after we had um we received that after we had done the preliminary so we're adding it as part of the of the adopted budget and the next slide has the information if I can get there was going so well ah there we go so the
161um so this shows um the makeup of um the amount over the 3% cap we are required to identify the what that was and what's causing it um but a part of this all so um I need to remind the board that the partial tax balances are committed so we don't have to recommit them every year but it's not um assigned or just designated it has a formal um we we took a formal board action to commit These funds so um and that's just that we're saying that the balances in the parcel tax are actually reserved for the for the use in of the parcel tax or to be used for the purposes in the parcel tax all right so next slide and we also added a slide um in terms of our other funds
162and this is just only our other general fund so we're looking at the share of the unrestricted general fund which is the focus for our presentation usually but here we've actually looked at the other general fund the parcel tax funds so you can see that the largest section is still the base funding but you can see the significant contributions that we um that we're thankful to our voters of Berkeley to to um support our parcel taxes and you can see that the BP is another significant um slice of the pie no change no significant change in our multi-year projections so um and no significant change in our conclusion either so um so with that um if there are any questions we'll be happy to answer it and again we're asking the board to formally approve
163our adopted budget tonight director Baba well thank you so much it has uh definitely been my pleasure to um sit on the audit committee and to have these detailed discussions with you all and to ask many of the detailed questions and to uh hear from our very thoughtful audit committee members and partners around our budget also want to appreciate you all because with all that we had happening this year I just knew we'd be having another board meeting at the end of June to get this done but you did it you got it done uh the cuts we had or the balancing that we had to make uh this has truly been impressive outstanding work and so I just want to acknowledge you for for all of your hard work and for getting us to
164this point uh where we can go on vacation any other questions or comments can I have a motion and a second to approve um this the 2024 25 budget and the 2023 24 estimated actuals I will move to approve I'll second director shinoski yes director Chang yes director La yes director babit yes vice president vev president VV yes lastly we will receive okay lastly we receive an updated uh update on bsd's literacy plan he e e e uh this is the is that better okay all right well uh this is the fourth monitoring report uh which marks the end of the second year of the literacy Improvement program and we're two3 through the dyslexia settlement agreement all right well let's begin with is there any way you can get that into slideshow mode okay well
165we can just look at it that way if you could make it a bit larger so just a reminders uh there's 30 37 actions in the literacy Improvement uh program and these actions are evaluated using a rubric and you can see on the slide there uh that there's four evaluative bands all the way from substantial progress adequate minimal and progress not evident and so take a minute to pause if you could see where Berkeley unified currently is so the graph on the right hand side you could see 18 of the actions are now at substantial progress 13 have adequate progress six minimal progress and zero have progress not evident so um you could see the clear growth right there we can go to the next slide so you'll also recall hopefully that uh the structure
166of these reports classifies each of the 37 actions into one of five crosscutting themes and so let's take a look at the First theme which you see on the slide accountability there we go thanks so in this theme of accountability it continues to be an area where B USD consistently demonstrates growth uh in the second half of this Academic Year it's continued to transform how Bud writes its IEP reading goals using Dibbles and star and is also increased the two-way communication efforts with the larger Berkeley Community around how it shares progress towards achieving the goals of the literacy Improvement program in addition to how it elicits feedback from community members and what you'll see on the right here are some recommendations and you can see the first one is about really expanding how IEP reading
167goals are written into the middle school much of the progress started with elementary school that's where they had to start um and so continuing that great work into grades 6 through eight and the second piece is really about accountability with the community and posting these reading diagnostic plans in a place where parents can access them and I'm going to talk a bit about what those plans are uh in a few slides so let's go to the next theme uh theme two is assessments and so you could see there on the progress report we have uh four actions is substantial one with adequate progress and one with minimal progress which I'll talk about um so in the area of Assessments uh the implementation team that BD's assembled focused much of its efforts on deepening the use
168of star and dibles for Universal screening progress monitoring and setting uh goals for students who are in intervention groups under the leadership of the new curriculum and instruction team led by Chris albeck Rose James and Erica Carter uh BDS enacted substant stantial changes to the district's protocols for administering assessments uh which is culminated in two major shifts one the discontinuation of the Running Records for screening and progress monitoring and two uh restructuring the assessment guidelines um at the Elementary grades and that will probably come right back up soon you want me to press something here oh gotcha there we go thanks I think we're on slide four right there Perfect all right so um you see the recommendations for assessment um that one action that has minimal progress is in alignment with that first recommend
169ation um and that has to do with middle school once again providing training for the Middle School language arts teachers and how to use the reading data system as part of their comprehensive diagnostic assessment plan so much of that work has taken place in K through 5 and in the middle school it's happened in the intervention pullout programs and in sped but not necessarily in the language arts classes so it would be expanding that work there and then um the second two goals are more about sustaining the growth that's already happened at Berkeley unified you all are in this stage now where you've implemented many of the policies and now we have to make sure that there are policies in place that when new staff come in they're aware of uh the protocols and that
170we make sure to expand um to all the teams that are currently using the protocols when it comes to progress monitoring for students so those are those final two recommendations so there we go um I had mentioned in the uh earlier sections these diagnostic reading plans I know this is a little bit small you have a larger version in the report uh but this is an example of some of the work that the district's done around assessments and uh I'm just going to give you a brief overview of this tool so uh this is a first grade reading diagnostic plan if you look at the top left where it says start um this is the screening process that you all have in a flowchart so all first grade students when they come into Berkeley unified
171will be administered the Dibbles assessments um and based on that quick screening assessment you see the arrow to the right in the green if they're at or above Benchmark they're just going to continue with uh their tier one instruction however if that screener shows that they are below in either the composite score or multiple of the subskills then they're given the diagnostic assessment and that's that image of the core uh blue Source book and the purpose of that is to really find out why the students having difficulty um and with that information then it's determined what type of instruction they would need and if they need some type of an intervention as well and what's important about this work is not only does it provide guidance for teachers who are new to the system and
172how to go about triaging for students it also clearly shows parents and caregivers what they can expect when a student is in Berkeley unified when it comes to Universal screening progress monitoring and then individualized supports for reading too so one of the recommendations I had earlier was that these plans uh be made public because they're in the draft format right now and that they're really easily accessed by parents so um school websites on the bud literacy websites a place where parents can find this information quickly so the third theme um is in the area instruction and a highlight here has been the work of the new English language arts curriculum adoption most of this second part of the year the curriculum and instruction team focused on uh figuring out how they're going to set up
173their pilot for the new language arts curriculum which will be happening uh at the end of the year uh sorry at the beginning of next year and so you notice there's two actions that are in the minimal band um and so to improve the progress on those two here's the recommendations I have um one is to actually develop a instructional coaching plan and then the second is just to complete uh the language arts curriculum pilot to replace the current Ela uh reading program that you all are using and that is on track to happen by Spring 2025 so this is nothing uh really new there so in that minimal band I'm just going to go a little bit deeper into the two action items you see uh those are 13A and B if you have
174the report handy if not don't worry I'm going to put that up here uh so here's uh action 13A I'm just going to pause to give you a moment to read that both 13A and 13B are one of the actions that has multiple subtasks so it can be really helpful to break it down into the task so first we have begin a targeted professional development program and Berkeley did that they chose core learning this year uh second would be actually to provide it to the teachers uh and have it be in alignment with their language arts curriculum which they did particularly around FastTrack phonics the third piece here you notice it says through coaching and observations to provide feedback on implementations so I've seen evidence of the first and second tasks here but it's the
175coaching and uh observation piece that I've not seen evidence of um so that takes me back to the recommendation I made that there is some type of a clear coaching plan for gened teachers uh both at the elementary and middle school level I wanted to read a little from the report around uh coaching so there's been little evidence that the core instructional practices from the professional learning have been implemented across most general education classrooms this may be due to the limited amount of instructional coaching that buusd provides to its general education teachers although each school has an on-site teacher with the title of literacy coach who's an expert in reading instruction the major of their daily schedules when I looked at them were dedicated to providing direct instruction to students very little of their time
176was dedicated to providing coaching for teachers and I'm talking less than 10% uh for almost all the coaches whose schedules I saw so it really appears that these uh literacy coaches for B USD effectively are functioning as a second intervention teacher because they're providing intervention services and less like an instructional coach so so the major shifts in Reading instruction and assessment required by both the literacy Improvement program and the upcoming um pilot and Adoption of the new curriculum are going to require considerable instructional coaching uh therefore it's recommended that buusd work with its current literacy coaches uh to review the district's instructional coaching model including exploring and learning from other school districts on how to best structure their language arts coaching uh to better support tier one instruction in General Ed so I think that's
177something unique to be USD is uh these literacy coaches are at each School site they're doing wonderful work however they're not doing as much coaching as we would see in most other school districts so reaching out to other school districts surrounding Oakland Hayward West Contra Costa pedmont what do you do with your coaches how do they spend their time um I think could be helpful because currently in the bud culture coaching means something that doesn't mean typically in the outside world so I think it would be helpful to hear from other people so the fourth theme Here is in intervention um there's also been much progress here um and so for this particular piece I visited all 11 elementary schools uh and the three middle schools the meeting intervention that was taking place as well
178as a special ed intervention so it was great to be in the classrooms see what was happening um it's a little different in this role as an auditor to not give feedback and leave a little smiley face note for the teachers uh but there was some great stuff I saw going on um there was also some areas of improvement that I shared with literacy coaches um so that information is there moving forward that's where I'll be spending the majority of my time is doing the classroom visits um to see what exactly is being implemented and how it's being implemented so for intervention um it's clear that the tier one language arts adoption is happening in the elementary um and Middle School the piece of the implementation plan is to look at a new intervention system
179so BD is on track to do this um so the recommendation is that they have a clear curriculum for tier 2 reading intervention at the middle school second ly this is really more for students and for parents creating a course description of the different types of interventions offered at Middle School what's unique about the middle school is the interventions that take place typically uh are during a certain period in a different classroom whereas at elementary school they may be push in or pull out um so providing clear guidance I've heard from many uh parents uh in bu USD that they're not very clear on what is the difference between the reading support class the reading intervention class what materials are used how it's in alignment with their children's needs um so the recommendation is to
180create a document that just details that so students and parents know exactly what the course is what materials it's using and what's the aim of that course and then this final recommendation goes back to this instructional coaching model that seems to be missing in BD um as I said I saw some wonderful lessons and one of the best ways to have buyin and to improve instruction is to have teachers watch other teachers so identifying who those Superstars are in the district who are providing these interventions and doing some pure observations uh that's one way a coach can help is by doing some release time taking over a teacher's class so they can go watch another teacher uh co- teing together uh looking at different options uh to help improve the delivery of the structured literacy
181that's already taking place uh finally theme five is around systems of support and from the start buusd had solid growth in this area um the growth continues particularly around the underlying protocols and policies to connect and support the long-term changes resulting from the lip for the future that lies beyond the settlement agreement so this is a key piece to make sure that everything that's happening with the current changes stays beyond the settlement ofre that final recommendations here are um around one of the more complex actions it's action um the recommendation here is to have the special ed Department really look at what other California districts are doing to use mtss multi-tiered systems of support for identifying the determination of a specific learning disability that wording is called out in the settlement agreement um and I
182think since it is such a complex task reaching out to other school districts that have already done this work can be helpful in saving some time and also learning from some of the mistakes that they uh experienced and going through that process because using mtss as um a criteria for determination of sld is very complicated um and so it shouldn't be taken lightly and a lot of homework should be done on that particular task so I'm to end the report here and not sure you can see the colors here but by laying out the progress of all 37 actions um by the five cross cutting themes you just uh saw me review and so this is currently where we are I don't think I need to highlight um the progress because you could see it
183there and um the positive thing is it's across all five of the themes and um if you look at the trends from the first Slide the amount of substantial inadequate progress has grown substantially uh since we started this work that's all I have okay thank you so much for staying so late and giving us this great presentation um that concludes all of our agenda items for this evening's meeting we will now move to 15 15 minutes of extended public comments is there anyone here for public comment okay you can come on up hello good evening and congrats on finishing this Academic Year and for your labor and you know protecting our students my name is lesie kintan I'm a professor of women and gender studies at San Francisco State my bachelor was in ethnic studies
184my Master's was in ethnic studies and my PhD was in ethnic studies and so I'm here just to comment on the importance of renewing the contract for liberated ethnic studies as your colleague um especially with aligning our K3 K through6 curriculums and the importance of what this historic moment uh in the world means for our students to be able to learn critical thinking skills through ethnic studies methodologies and so I really wanted to urge you all um to protect uh our students from violences that include epistemic violence and the silencing of critical thinking methodologies that are coming from ethnic studies and really urging for you all to reinstate uh our colleagues in ethnic studies like Mr Norberg that are continuing to express the the urgency of our fields of study across communities thank you thank
185you um just to reminder that uh public comments have one minute to speak um and yeah um we have three online speakers the first one will be sh Dava former council member um thank you I just wanted to State how important it is to um Contin to teach um liberated ethnic studies uh the previous speaker said it much better than I but um we're in such a Tipping Point right now and um I can't imagine being uh in a b USD classroom and being um not being able to talk about the current um State of Affairs and and not being able to to have the teach teacher you know teach that it's just it was it's just a disservice um for me I feel like it would be racist and we have to teach ethnic
186studies and um on that that thank you and our next speaker will be uh e hi can you hear me yes um my name is Eliza no I'm commenting on the court mon report on the literacy Improvement program um the court mon report stated that is imperative that the same level of intensity and focus brought to year one and two of the lip remains in year three ensuring that these larger program shifts outlive the broader dyslexia settle settlement agreement is essential to achieving the primary goal of this work which is to create and maintain a high quality evidence-based reading program for future generations of birly students end quote I hope the board appreciates the heavy lift that sustaining the lap requires of our teachers Specialists and coaches and therefore how much continuing support they need
187in terms of professional learning and coaching for example the report recommends training for Middle School teachers and using star or dibles it recommends developing instructional coaching plan for k through eight teachers as well as additional coaching for tier 2 and tier three interventionists thank you can you email us the rest of your comments at Bard ofed berkeley.net our next speaker will be Craig Gordon can you hear me now yes yeah hi I'm Craig Gordon I'm a Jewish parent of a former uh Berkeley Unified School District student and a current and a longtime teacher in Oakland um and when it comes to palestin Israel I see two neighboring cities who Pride themselves on being among the most Progressive communities in the nation in a way that's indistinguishable from towns where books are burned and teachers are
188fired for teaching about social justice it's the old Progressive except Palestine I grew up with in my liberal Jewish Family it has to end opposing genocide of Palestinians criticizing Isel even being anti-zionist is not anti-semitic I urge you to honestly reflect upon uh you know what this district is doing the McCarthyism essentially that is being imposed upon a dedicated beloved veteran teacher um and I'm hearing tonight about the beauty and magic of music and arts program uh live up to that reinstate Eric Norberg now free Palestine okay thank you um seeing no other public comments we will move to extend board comments colleagues do you have any extended board comments that you would like to share I do um I'm looking at the policy information items and um when we're talking about changing High School
189graduations we're talking about changing our um board meeting kind of structures and and practices I would like to say that I think these needs to be um high level discussions especially brought forth to the public and I definitely would also appreciate um a private meeting to get a better understanding of of of the root causes and needs for these changes and I think that these are things that um the community needs to be a part of um especially when we're talking about changing graduation requirements and and all of these other different things that are very different from our normal experience in bosd um and so that is my extended board comment and thank you for receiving it thank you director bit anyone else all right I want to thank you all again for coming out
190this evening this meeting of the Berkeley Unified School District Board of Education is hereby adjourned at 1119 PM great job great job kayn feel better directa shinoski thanks good night y'all good night