001good evening everyone welcome to the May 1 Special meeting of the Berkeley school board if you want to follow along on our online agenda the agenda is posted on the district's website uh we recognize this meeting was posted and properly noticed but for my colleagues we didn't vote pursuant to our bylaws and we'll acknowledge that in the future I'm now calling this meeting to order at 7:41 p.m. Miss chidas please call the official role for this evening's meeting student director kaiton La present director Jennifer shinoski here director Laura babbit here director Mike Chang here vice president Kadija Brown presentas great thank you Miss chus we will now approve the agenda for this evening's meeting are there any requested changes colleagues seeing no changes is there a motion to approve the agenda I move to approve
002is there a second I'll second uh directors um all in favor say i i i i i president who second it I did oh no and we'll now report out from our close session vice president Brown please report out from the close session good evening everyone uh this evening close session began at 5:35 p.m. all of the board directors are present for close session for item 3.1 the board heard an update and gave Direction and for item 3.2 the board heard an update and provided Direction This Ends the reading of the notes from close session thank you he thank you vice president Brown and now we will hear from our superintendent Ana Ford Morel good evening bu USD family y'all getting better at that thank you uh so I want to say welcome to may
003v USD today we kick off two important Heritage months um two important Heritage Month celebrations actually that further uh highlight how richly diverse and unique Berkeley unified is I'm loud today for the third year in a row bu USD is celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month another opportunity to collectively honor the Traditions experiences contributions and beautiful diversity of the Jewish Community today go ahead today our staff and families received resources for celebrating Jewish American Heritage resources that affirm Jewish identities and promote cultural awareness this month is also an opportunity to continue to denounce anti-Semitism in all of its form and we as a community continue to stand against all forms of hate we are excited to announce that on Sunday May 19th we are inviting you all of you to BU USD day at the Museum
004is at the UC Berkeley's Magnus collection of Jewish art and life this will be an opportunity to learn about Jewish art and history from diverse perspectives admissions is get ready admissions is free and this event though it is targeting elementary students and families is open to everyone in our B USD community on May 15th I will be joining our 10th grade students at a presentation by a woman whose parents alongside with her grandparents and Aunt survived the Holocaust by going into hiding in an attic in Amsterdam for two years and we will be engaging in conversation with her and I'm inviting you all to our last board meeting of the month but we will also have our students from B USD themselves here to talk about their experience and highlight again some of the amazing
005of the Jewish Community here in Berkeley that's just one we are also celebrating in the month of May Asian-American and Pacific Islander heritage month it's a chance for Berkeley to recognize and appreciate the invaluable impact of our aapi community locally and historically we have again created Family guides resources and reading list in honor of this community and speaking of reading tomorrow May 2nd in this room we'll be hosting a special family literacy event featuring a collection of award-winning stories of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander experience so you guys are here tonight where's it gonna be tomorrow where you gonna be tomorrow right here um and what's so exciting about this night besides the fact that it's going to be uh family members and students and community members coming together and engaging in reading but we
006actually have a special chance to hear from our local graphic novelist theen fam and they will be here to talk about their latest young adult graphic Memoir called family style Memoirs of an American from Vietnam you're going to get to hear live from the author and if you are one of the first 30 it's gonna be a packed house I'm telling you now if you are one of the first 30 families you get to get a book for free is it going to be autograph I wonder if it's going to be autographed come on see I want to thank our BD librarian and our Opie staff for working with our aapi community to put on this event and to host this event both of these events um and both of these celebrations like all of
007our heritage months are a chance for us as a district to counter actively racist and harmful ideology and other examples of intolerance against our diverse members of our community with our greatest tool you know the greatest tool is education come on we're a whole school district we continue to reiterate our stance against all forms of hate and othering on May 13th from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. B USD will host a community webinar on Zoom that's entitled recognizing preventing and responding to islamophobia anti-Semitism and hate this webinar will provide an opportunity for our community to engage with this important topic and to attend to our Central goal of our heritage month and belongings which again is addressing all forms of hate you guys have been coming here here for a while so You' have been hearing
008about the bathrooms at BHS and so I am happy I've been having to hold it in for so long I'm happy to share that in alignment oh I didn't get that okay in alignment with our commitment to inclusivity and providing Equitable resources for all students and in response to so many of our students who address our school board we have converted the Berkeley High School multi-star girls bathroom located on the M building first floor you guys don't know where that is just know that we have made and increased the number of gender um neutral bathrooms at Berkeley High School as of yesterday and the the the students made a really cool video I wish I can show it uh about the bathrooms and so they're excited we did this work in collaboration with our students
009of course but also in collaborations with our Gchat committee that's gender Equity sexual harm advisory committee the decision was again just made to ensure equal access and convenience for all students regardless of gender by transitioning the space into an all student bathroom we aim to address the gender neutral bathroom shortage on the BH sorry the BHS campus as well as to provide access to a gender neutral facility in the M building to be clear students are not required to use the all student multi-star bathroom they can continue using the other facilities available to them in other parts of the M building y'all should clap for that because that was a big deal okay and you got to clap again because I'mma let you know that we want to say congratulations to John M Elementary School
010for being recognized by the state of California as a bronze level green ribbon school what go John mure John mure Elementary is one of only 20 you guys one of 20 schools throughout the state of California to receive this recognition California green ribbon school stands as beacons of innovation that showcase pioneering approaches towards enhanced indoor air quality the implementation of outdoor classrooms and comprehensive Environmental Education initiatives finally I said it's May y'all and today May 1 is National School principal day in which we recognize and appreciate our amazing B USD principles and leaders who guide our schools with passion vision and commitment to Student Success thank you for your time thank you superintendent we'll now move on to public to the public comments component of our agenda before we begin I'd like to remind you
011of our decorum expectations during this and all parts of tonight's meeting we want our meetings to be a safe and welcoming space for all to feel comfortable to share their needs and concerns with the board most recently an increasing number of BD stakeholders are asking that we do more to create a welcoming environment during these board meetings as such we need your help if everyone would direct their comment to the board and refrain from insulting members of the public here to share that would be a great start as our students are our greatest treasure they participate in these meetings at home and view online we are asking that we as a community become uh become more intentional to ensure that we are not modeling bullying or any type of insulting or intimidating Behavior as per
012our normal protocol dorm also includes not disturbing the order of the meeting by booing hissing or cheering or making unfriendly comments we ask the participants refrain from creating any physical disturbance speaking out of turn or preventing or attempting to prevent others from speaking or observing the meeting entering into or remaining in the area of the meeting room that is not open to the public or approaching the dice without permission as Miss chid 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 to 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 your comments at board ofed berkeley.net the board does not respond directly
013to comments or questions made during the public comment period board members in the superintendent and staff do take notes during the public comment and period 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 minutes for any speakers online please do not raise your hand if on online if you are here in person to speak the online portion of public comment has been reserved to create equity for those who are unable to attend in person anyone online who wishes to make public comments should raise their virtual hand now so that Miss chus can organize and I'm going to say if you're online and you're a student
014please indicate student next to your name so that uh we can we can call you first each public commenter will have up to 1 minute to speak depending on the amount of speakers we will allot additional time for fol that may need translation please note that the micro that the microphone will shut off at the end of each speaker's allotted time so manage your comments appropriately uh please keep in mind that giving time constraints everyone may not get a chance to speak especially if a comment is not related to an agenda item we'll call the speakers based on agenda items first to keep things moving I'd like to ask the speaker who is next to come forward and wait near the mic I apologize in advance if I mispronounce your name please pronounce it correctly
015so that I pronounce it correctly the following time and uh now we'll move on to our comments in person so I'm going to start with our first comments from the student October um herstein I'm sorry if I mispronounce your name October and then uh we'll move on to agenda item so we'll call Carol Perez and Lily how after October hello School Board um as a super attendant mentioned yesterday morning an email went out to the students parents teachers and other staff of Berkeley High School announcing the opening of a new gender neutral bathroom while I've been working with yasmina and I've known about this change for longer than a day it's hard to put into words what it's like to walk past a newly installed all student restroom sign my life as well as the
016lives of many others have been dedicated to this issue for the last seven months we've been at almost every school meeting since November 15th of last year the differ your action makes the difference the action of students makes is phenomenal thank you to yasmina to jennif f schanowski to the board to miss superintendent to my fellow gay to my fellow gaay leaders and to every parent and admin who has helped us in this process this fight isn't over but for the first time while I've been at BHS I have confidence that change will continue to happen thank you again and thank thank you to our students for being here next we have Carol Perez followed by Lily how and then Melina Landry [Music] and sorry I was about to seed my time but then you
017called I was who I was going to seed to so we have four speakers for this item okay good evening my name is Carol Perez I am a resident of Berkeley a parent of two B USD students and have worked for BD through the office of family engagement and equity for over 10 years I'm here with my Opie Family um to urge you to vote to use lcap reserves and any other funding to maintain a fully staffed Opie office we are a critical resource to our school communities and El cap unduplicated students we work directly with our most marginalized and vulnerable populations and provide essential support so that families can fully engage in their children's education the lcap focal students and families need more support at our school sites not less they are the students
018who will be disproportionately impacted by the elimination of our positions thank you next we have Lily how followed by Melina Landry and then Mor hi my name is Lily Howell and I'm an Opie specialist I'm urging you tonight to maintain ofie Staffing as ofie staff we provide intense target targeted Outreach and support to our most disenfranchised families these marginalized families are families that are unhoused in crisis don't read or write don't speak English are experiencing domestic violence and are struggling with the most basic needs we engage equipped and Empower family and Empower families by building strong personal relationships parental capacity and a sense of belonging we collaborate and coordinate with site staff District Personnel County Services and Community organizations we cultivate families by enriching their soil and tending their development through the resulting flow armed
019with the tools to navigate Advocate and Empower I want to acknowledge the warranted discussions that ask for data to measure and evaluate our work in fact we haven't had a system for centralized data ction since we transitioned from illuminate to Infinite Campus while there has been development of measurable goals we need the tools to track the data that informs our work however I do not believe that is the role of the Frontline worker please keep a staff to do this very important work and give us the tools and structure that is so needed next we have Molina Landry followed by yesan hi my name is Molina Landry and I'm also an Opie specialist um I've been with the district for 14 years during the 2022 23 school year I applied for ofie and it was
020a long arduous and demanding road to finally join this team I've never been so happy excited and fulfilled coming to work every day before joining this team I have directly supported students and families with the most basic needs such as navigating food and security homelessness the school system mental health support access to clothing for students and much more in just the short eight months that I've been with Opie this is only possible because of the trust that I have fostered with families and students over that eight-month time frame before this promotion I was Ser seriously considering leaving the district allog together I urge you to approve the use of the proper funds to keep Opie staff so that I can continue to wake up and do something that I love and also support families to
021build the capacity to become Partners thank you and next we have Miss and then a after Miss Moran we'll have Peter B my name is y and I was gonna see my time to them but sure yeah you can seeed your time to somebody else to one more commenter on this item I'm okay thank you thank you next we have Peter B followed by Matthew hir all good evening everyone first of all I support them support everybody uh my name is Peter basam I'm a p teacher I've been in the district for a year and a half I've noted three things one lack of p teachers at the elementary schools there's only a few schools that have them two is independent study at for p credit at middle schools I'm not sure why that is
022there that shouldn't be happening number three is my biggest concern I think it's a lack of compliance at the high school level especially a school of over 3,000 students there's only four PE teachers please explain that to me because that's could be my job there plus for plus other teachers all ninth graders are supposed to be enrolled and PE and they are not they need to be enrolled they can only be Exempted if they pass the PFT as a nth grader too many students are not enrolled at the high school that is a big concern next we have Matthew HS followed by uh Laura Gman hey everyone uh Matthew hsch I'm a fifth grade parent and a second grade parent at Oxford Elementary School I'm here tonight on pretty short notice um we had a
023uh a cyber bullying incident in the fifth grade at Oxford recently um I believe this incident affected all the fifth grade families uh in one way or another and uh obviously um I'm I'm going to limit what I'm saying here tonight um in part because I'd prefer to speak with the parents at Oxford also I want to uh uh talk more with my fifth grader before I speak publicly about the issue um but the most constructive thing I think I can do here tonight aside from one voice support for some other parents who I think you'll hear from tonight I want to do that I want to voice support for um somebody I believe is a very capable principal who's working through this issue with us lastly um please start collecting some data and monitoring
024and figuring out how to enforce no cell phones and connected devices in our ele schools thank you next we have Laura Gman followed by Ena Cabella good evening Schoolboard members my name is laara Gman and I began teaching ESL at Berkeley Adult School in 1990 I have also been the coordinator of the ESL department for the past 13 years I'm going to be speaking about some issues important to the adult school we are hourly part-time employees at Berkeley adult and for years at the bottom of the pay scale of the adult schools in the surrounding ing area we recently made gains in compensation that brings us closer in pay rates to our neighboring adult schools we still have a ways to go to be aligned with the median level of pay offered for adult schools
025in the area when I started in 1990 I was rated as a firste teacher despite having accumulated years of teaching experience and service before that meanwhile K12 bsud SD uh teachers had their experience rated in this is simply inequitable thank you m presman next we have Sabrina Cabella followed by daur hi I hadn't planned on speaking tonight but I represent the subs here for Berkeley unified and for bft and I would like to speak for our subs who cover for teachers when they're sick or and they're an acquired IEP meeting we need more subs in our district and we need to pay them better we're competing with a lot of other districts and we have a hard time retaining them because they're going elsewhere I'm am the site sub at Oxford and I fill in
026often for when we can't get a sub and I know that when I was teaching at Washington when we didn't get a sub kids would get farmed out to other classrooms which is just a disaster and it suits nobody and very little learning gets done um so we I'd like to encourage us to work harder pay subs more keep our sight Subs because we fill such vital roles in our district and yeah that's what I want to say thank you thank you next we have D soy followed by ardan and Sheila good evening my name is Diana soy and I'm here representing BC API a group of community organizers representing parent caretakers teachers and staff we are here today to voice our support for our superintendent as she prepares to testify in a congressional hearing
027next week a group was established in 2021 to address Rising xenophobia and racism in BD our group Works in solidarity with others who share our commitment to cultivate an inclusive anti-racist learning environment in the BD community in our time working with the superintendent we have found her to be a champion for many communities not just ours that have historically been marked marginalized our superintendent supports our vision that every aapi child leads vfc with a rooted sense of self that has been intentionally nurtured and affirmed and we know that her work extends to supporting not only aapi students but all students in our district superintendent we thank you for your leadership know that we BSD API wish you well give you strength to stand up for what we know is right for our babies and we
028have thank you next we have ardan followed by Sheila and Louise we have three speakers on this side okay okay so this is my spot okay so you it's just one minute and then three three more speakers are left for this item so it's yourself and then two additional speakers okay good evening superintendent mortell and board members my name is Janette and I'm alumni of B USD class of 1988 I have a large Berkeley extended family and we are are a family active in local and global politics with many decades of work in the Berkeley Community we are a multi-racial family and we are Jewish I have been an educator for 29 years and counting I am in my 18th year as an administrator I am disappointed in the recent lawsuits against the district I
029do not believe those lawsuits represent a majority of the people in Berkeley I hope you will not be discouraged I hope you feel our support and know we are with you as you uphold and maintain the Progressive Movement in Berkeley being bold with our support of students of color and all marginalized students is crucial at this moment and all moments with everything going on around the country we must stay steadfast in our anti-racism work and in the work thank you we have two more speakers on this item My Louise is seting her read the r we're right here okay I want you I just want you to know that you have a lot of support as you are called to Washington DC we see you joining with the voices of the Justice Seekers who have
030been called to testify before such committees throughout history many of us stay here in Berkeley because of the belief The Hope and the promise of a different kind of City we are targeted by those outside our community who link up with a few within our community because they know we are progressive thinkers and movement shakers as an educator and Community member I wanted to reach out and share my support for you we must tell and teach the truth even when it is difficult and possibly uncomfortable in a developmentally appropriate way the Berkeley teachers as you know are overwhelmingly fantastic we know how to do this please adopt The Liberation ated ethnic studies curriculum respectful hello I'm seeding my time to my daughter Sheila eating it to Z yeah she has one minute thank you hello
031superintendent and BD board members superintendent we wish you all the best luck in Congress I went to BD schools from K to 12 for many of us who grew up in Ally the politics we learned from our parents and Educators to be right and wrong usually were morally right and morally wrong Humane and not Humane so when I would hear peers talk about Israel and Palestine a topic we could only learn about from our parents or our religious sanctuaries I was under the impression that Israel was morally right and subsequently Palestine was morally wrong that's all I really learned about Palestine in a formal setting until College in high school we learned about the Native American aloney people whose land we stole South Africa and entire history of their apartheid Cuba and the revolutionary leaders
032Haiti and their upsetting of the European continent with their revolt and Uprising and more our history on Liberation movements in BD high schools were far from perfect all of these topics being heavily watered down by teachers as per the curriculum though imperfect I'm still glad these movements were taught oh thank you you did not get to finish your comments you can email us at Board of Ed berkeley.net you can email us your comments that you weren't able to finish thank you you next I'm going to call it mati tum followed by siai deit sure so you have two speakers on on that item on the item of anti-Semitism i s my time to uh Elman sure yes come ahead and then miss Pearlman if you want to come close too if you're in the boardroom
033I just start anytime oh hi uh I'm elad ziv I'm a uh Berkeley uh parent um and um had two children go through the high school and one more child hopefully going through the high school soon um I want to talk about the topic of the liberated ethnic studies curriculum um I viewed some of the slides I found that they were exclusive in many ways one particular story that I think they were exclusive of is my own families uh my father was born in Iraq he's a Jew um most of the Jews in Israel have same stories uh these people were um uh many of them left uh under duress uh were ethnically cleansed from their lands they live in Israel now they are not comfortable becoming a minority in an Arab majority country and
034um none of that was represented in the liberated ethnic subject curriculum I think that's unfair and I think it's not teaching uh the one of the essence of uh the conflict thank you thank you so much then I think somebody seated their time to miss Pearlman followed by duret Doren and Faith M so after our speaker just spoke somebody in the back made a farting sound which he continues to do and I just I cannot tolerate that I want to call that out and name that he does that every time and it's just thank you please stop okay please stop making that sound thank you m my name is Alana and I've been a buusd parent for 10 years this has been the saddest most divisive and painful school year my family has ever experienced
035it is demoralizing to share stories of anti-Semitism at these meetings amongst the backdrop of laughter and jeering by those who seek to undermine the lived and true experiences of Jewish students at B USD and it is worsened when community members repeat anti-semitic tropes that leaders fail to condemn in real time while we celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month Jewish students across our nation are being physically and emotionally assaulted under the guise of being anti-war and Jewish Americans like HH Goldberg Polland born right here in Berkeley remain hostage in Gaza at just 0.2% of the global population Jews are truly a minority deserving of protection we're an incredibly resilient people and we will continue showing up until every child feels safe in school My Hope for the remainder of the school year is that BD acknowledges its
036blind spots believes Jewish students and actively eradicates anti-semitism thank you Mr Perman please feel free to email the rest of your comments to the board next we have dur Durance followed by faith M good evening I'm a Jewish resident of Berkeley and I support ethnic studies but I do not support the liberated version of ethnic studies that Governor Nome refused to sign this is because it contains political propaganda and it supports the idea of critical race Theory there are teachers at US USD who are promoting propaganda in their classrooms because of the training they have received from the teacher you ired to teach the liberated version of ethnic studies this version doesn't include a long history of the Jewish people as a persecuted minority the teacher's promotion of ceasefire walkouts and support for Palestinians has
037promoted anti-Semitism on our campuses it's your job to make the usad a district that is a safe place for learning for all students anti-Semitism marks the demise of a pluralistic democracy you should be teaching the enormous value of a democracy that respects all people and doesn't turn one group against another you have knowingly gone against federal law to the detriment of our students it's time to change thank you Mr R you could email us the rest of your comments appreciated next we have faith M and followed by Jeremy and the last speaker will be Ella Z thank you for acknowledging Jewish American heritage month which aims to promote greater understanding and appreciation of jewi history and culture and acknowledges the challenges that American Jews have faced and overcome condemnations of anti-jewish hatred are the first
038step encountering false and inflammatory narratives against Jews hatred of Jews predated the Holocaust and were fueled by vicious lials about Jewish cultural practices many of which we've seen in Berkeley Beyond just teaching tolerance and respect factual histories including lessons on Israel must serve a c role in the education of children and adults despite attempts by anti-zionists to undo the centrality of Israel and peoplehood to Jewish identity Zionism remains a core component of Jewish identity and it must be taught that way thank you next we have Jeremy followed by a Ze and I'm sorry if I mispronounce your name thank you um my name is Jeremy I've got three kids in Brooklyn Public Schools a second grader and a fifth grader at Ruth acti and a King Middle School student and I wanted to speak a
039little bit about their experience I wanted to speak a little bit about Lees I wanted to speak a little bit about psych psychological safety and what I know that does to the learning environment I think we all understand or have seen some of the research on psychological safety and that when you're feeling threatened your ability to learn plummets um my own children over the course of the last SE several months uh have had the experience of being in a situation where because they don't renounce their people's right to self-determination in their own indigenous land they feel very othered and tokenized and afraid to speak up about how they actually feel with the very people who they've grown up with we love the teachers and the community of Berkeley but I know that this is my
040own family's personal experience with it and from what I've seen many of the feelings or ideas presented in LS don't okay if you email us the rest of your comments that' be appreciated and then the last comment for for in person is Ella sure thank you Mr tum has not spoken I think I called him first yep we just SW um good evening um you say that we're against hate and you're United against hate uh that does not go along with supporting enabling and allowing anti Zionism verto anti Zionism uh Zionism is the belief that Jews like all other peoples deserve a land deserve a land if you approve accept a narrative taught in classrooms that says that it's not correct you are allowing hate against me against my people most Jews Judaism at its
041core it's tied inal cord with the land of Israel it's one of the same read your Bible read the history book where it's one of the same yes there are some Jews and I'm happy they're not experiencing anti-Semitism who who don't are not interested in that but the majority of Jews thank you Mr T get email the rest of your comments that' be appreciated now we're going to move to online comments and so I know that some folks online have requested translation so just so we can accommodate for translation Miss ches let's start with Miss Marina Cruz marol Frisco family engagement [Music] gracias hi my name is Marina Cruz and I graduated from BHS in 2001 I'm making me the eighth BHS graduate in my family as far as I know only one classmate and
042my senior cohort went on to college today I am proud to share that my daughter is one year away from completing her undergraduate degree at SF State I am grateful for the support we have received from the office of family engagement and Equity who have assisted me in navigating the educational system had it not been for op's bilingual staff I don't know if I could have if I would have been able to support my children to excel academically today I want to use my voice to speak on behalf of those of us who have cleaned your homes cared after your children and prepared and served your food at your favorite restaurant thank you for your time Miss chus I just noticed that one of the online speakers included in their name student They just added
043student to Sid if you go down the list so we promote that speaker next and then continue down the list am I going now okay yes um hi my name is Sid I'm a Berkeley High student and um and I just would like to say that the liberated ethnic studies program was far from equal I noticed a lot as a person who is quite involved in her Jewish identity and quite involved in um my Jewish practices and knows a lot about the history of Israel and history of Zionism just like to say that the perspectives in the videos that we were shown and the Articles we read were far from equal um a lot of the stuff did not make sense a lot of the stuff not did not add up and it was far
044like a lot of propaganda which I would like to say and um and my cousin would like also did say something okay um hi I'm sash I'm seventh grader at King and um I would like to say I love all my teachers except I know some of my Jewish friends are scared to go to class because of what they've heard in class and I know this one teacher played an an Zionism podcast that said Israel stole its identity from Palestine and I do not think that is equal I do not think it is fair so yeah we would just like um teachers to educate themselves before trying to Poe their ideals on other students especially when it's hateful towards Jewish people love Israeli Brothers thank you next we'll move on to Lee Barnet followed by
045former council member Cheryl dava can you hear me yes okay uh my name is Lee Barnett I'm the parent of a fifth grader and a second grader at Oxford Elementary I'm here to express my concern for the safety of the children at Oxford Elementary I am also here to express my concern for the lack of safety that is felt among some of the students some individuals at Oxford had taken photos of other students without their consent and posted these photos on social media along with defamatory comments of a sexual nature without about these students my child was one of the individuals targeted in this incident and we have also been made aware that several of other children were T targets of posts that included photographs and slanderous and transphobic comments um the individuals who made
046this post have been identified by other students who learned about these posts at school and reported it to their parents the individuals who made these posts are also known to have engaged in various forms of bullying and derogatory Behavior toward many adults and children at Oxford um I want to strongly encourage thank you so much Lee if you could email us the rest of your comments that' be appreciated next we have former council member Dava followed by lb thank you um yes um also I just wanted to state that may is also mental health month and um we have to take that into consideration when we know that we're living in a genocide and that Palestinians lives are being murdered and we need to teach Palestine we need to teach ethnic studies and we you
047know please consider that Zionism is equal to hatred and equal to bigotry Berkeley is supposed to be a city that um is United against hate and that comes in all forms so please don't fall into the um anti-zionism is equal to anti-Semitism that's they're not equated they're not equal um and please thank you former council member next we'll move on to lb followed by by Jamie Davidson hi my name is Lori and I'm a BHS parent and I'm seaing my time to Diana is Diana with you she's on the zoom weit list I believe NE yes what's Diana's last name I think it's Diana n yeah thank you can you hear me yes okay thank you so much technical difficulties I'm a Latina at parent in bu USD and I'm here to speak about my
048experience with the censorship that is occurring in our community specifically around any form of solidarity with Palestine one of Mexico's most beloved celebrations is de los noos day of the children celebrated every April 30th at syia Mendes we bring that tradition yearly to our kids thanks to the loving work of our staff and Latina mothers for this year's celebration we co-created a banner that read solidarity with all children of the world the letters were colored red black and green one parent claimed the message and colors were too political and took the banner down without our consent I was devastated that our message of love for children all around the world including in Gaza would be attacked and smeared as political our school syia Mendes is named after a girl who braved the color lines of
049the 20th century our community celebrates gender fluidity and has given space to address other social justice matters including allyship with the undocumented I'm asking the school board to protect the rights of all parents and children and stand up against sense sship thank you next we have Jamie Davidson followed by Ned sah new Interiors think you're muted sorry hi my name is Jamie Davis and I'm a first grade teacher at Washington and I've taught for 13 years in B USD I'm also having a baby in July I find it insulting and honestly ridiculous that anyone in this District finds it acceptable to offer teachers 25% of their pay during childbearing leave if I didn't have sick days to use I'd be leaving this job because 25% of our pay is unmanageable where we live but using
050my sick days means that when I'm back at work and my little one is sick and needs me I have less days and time to give him it should not be one or the other paid a quarter of your salary or deplete your sick days I consider myself one of the lucky ones because I've saved my sick days for exactly this situation but our newest teachers do not have that option if teacher retention and the mental well-being of your teachers matters to you show us by giving us more than 25% of our salary while we care for our own children it's the very least you can do considering we give so much of our time caring for our school children thank you thank you next we have NS s new Interiors followed by Gladis ampo
051and the last public commenter online will be Sahar Habib gazi there you go hi can you hear me yes we can hear you okay hi um my name is Nar s I'm a Berkeley resident and the mother of two fifth graders and fourth grader at Oxford Elementary I'm here today to express my deep concern for the safety of my children the safety of all the children in Oxford Elementary as some of you may know last week multiple fifth grade students broke School community and meta user agreements by engaging in non-consensual photography of fellow students and then posting those photographs in a public domain with slanderous inflammatory and dangerous commentary including but not limited to the insinuation of sexual acts and transphobic commentary the nature of these posts also infringes on individual laws around right the
052right to privacy breaking of the rules and laws is the in is the danger these posts um place on the classmates by clearly using their names showing their faces and again the insinuation of sexual act by 10-year-olds which is bordering on sexual harassment and child endangerment these types of posts are a type of violence and must be addressed immediately with consequences to those responsible I strongly encourage the board and the school district to re-examine their policy IES around devices in the elementary school involv thank you next we have Gladis oampo and the last public commentary will be Sahar Habib gazi point of order I just wanted to acknowledge that the agenda has approved for 30 minutes of public comment and we are well beyond that time thank you we've had technical difficulties but I uh
053appreciate your comments thank you Miss chares can you promote so comp thank you good evening my name is glad oampo and I am a buusd parent and I'm here on behalf of Latinos unidos of Berkeley to ask you to please not only maintain the office of family engagement staff but to add to the Staffing we are also asking for additional 05 Staffing that was originally designated for a full-time Spanish speaking position at the district level a few weeks ago you will heard the testimonials the Spanish speaking parents who are being trained to be leaders at their school sites and Community this work could not have been done without the Opie staff this type of work is crucial in expanding our net of Outreach but it is unrealistic to expect all the work to be done
054at the district level at a point by position our district constantly talks about addressing the needs of our most vulnerable and neglected communities and OPI is at the heart of the work all of our Opie staff do some of the hardest work of their District requires to cut the Staffing and to limit it to where it is now is unfair to our communities we hope that when you vote on your budget priorities that this is at the top of your list we also want to let the superintendent know that you have our support and we stand with you in solidarity this week thank you thank you and our last uh public comment of the evening will be from zahar Habib gazi hi my name is Sahar abazi I'm a parent with Berkeley families for Collective
055Liberation there have been many mentions of hate today I wanted to remind everyone the greatest act of hate is killing the greatest act of hate is bombing a people into Oblivion there are no universities left in Gazza children if they aren't one of the 177,000 whove been killed or maimed or orphaned or those who have Sur survived have not gone to school since October the Israeli state has robbed a million children of education for a year and it has was funded by our tax dollars the same ones that fund our schools our schools that also educate Palestinian American children after Spanish Arabic is the most spoken language in our district we cannot deny the existence of Arab American Palestinian American Muslim American children who have been suffering throughout this genocide funded by our tax pay
056pay money for decades the Israeli state has Justified its vient violent clamp down of Palestinian protest in Israel West Bank and Gaza thank you you did not get to finish public comment please feel free to email Bard ofed berkeley.net now we will hear comments from our district committees each committee has five minutes to address the board on issues under its purview Miss chyz do we have any committees here to speak PTA Council and PAC okay we'll call in that order PTA Council and followed by the representative from the PEC good evening superintendent school board members I'm Rita Smith this is Diana soy two members of the Berkeley PTA Council executive leadership team this is the first time this year BPA Council has come to report out at a Schoolboard meeting we're here to highlight some
057of the issues we as a collective PTA have been discussing and working on we'd like to begin our report out by acknowledging that superintendent Ford Merle has been asked by the United States Congress to testify about the impact on our community events sorry on the impact on on our community of events that have occupied the national news lately in the current national political environment we believe this poses a challenge not only to our superintendent but also to our community as a whole from the unpredictable press and social media repercussions of Our Testimony whatever they may be our school district has so much going for it and much ongoing work to continue improving for all of our students we call on our community to come together in support as she leaves for Washington and more importantly
058unified and strong after she returns B usd's enduring commitment that all schools welcome and work for all students and their families under renewed leadership of our superintendent is in keeping with the national pta's mission to make every child's potential a reality now our bpta report though it should not be a dominant activity of a PTA our PTA spend most of our time fundraising collectively we've raised approximately 1.4 Million last year and are projected to raise closer to 2 million this year as a point of comparison a few years ago a 900 student Elementary School in a wealthier district in Fremont raised some $30 per student annually B USD PTA raise up to more than 20% times that amount with these monies we pay annual we pay for art music PE teachers Spanish math and literacy
059tutors and administrative staff as with all private funding we have had long concerns about the potential for inequity and unfairness especially as we see significant fundraising variables across elementary schools this focus on fundraising has led our PTA leaders to report the heavy lift typically held by a handful of volunteers to put on these fundraisers auctions readathons wons and direct ass campaigns by the end of their Elementary School years these families become far less engaged in our school having burned out volunteers are essential for maintaining this level of fundraising holding community events to say nothing of the importance of the role of advocating for our students including School site councils P hacked uh esac Etc we are happy to report though that post pandemic families have returned to the classrooms and schoolyards engaging with their school
060community and volunteering for events like Heritage Month celebrations ensuring drop off and pick up tra traffic safety and reading to students in the classroom pte members continue to find find this level of fundraising inappropriate to the purpose of ptas next after school programming um after school programming continues to be a major concern for our elementary school sites uh PTA report working with their principles to fund and plug holes again in after school programming we appreciate the openness of the Extended Learning staff chrisy rosino and brazel McIntyre who came to our council meeting to present and listen to our members and their continued participation with the PTA collaborative working group in this area bears and learns weight lists need to be assessed to determine the true need in the community our school ptas are looking to
061the district to provide more comprehensive and Equitable after school programming Solutions including providing late busing Services ptas continue to partner and support this work but we cannot adequately address the Afterschool programming challenge without the district's leadership and commitment next curriculum we appreciate that director Chris albach LED our speaker series to present the district's current objectives uh objectives and progress with math literacy and social studies curriculum our members have many questions concerning how the new curriculum will address the academic needs of our students particularly addressing the widening learning gap finally um BP the Berkeley PTA Council endorsed um and our School site PTA supported the B set Bond measure prop H we thank board member Jennifer schanowski for sheering this initiative and being a consistent attendee to our monthly meetings finally our next meeting on May
06222nd will focus on the transitions to Middle School to high school Omar gini Gino senior psychologist from the child MIND Institute will lead a short presentation about developmental norms and expectations and for those here it's actually Elementary to middle and middle to high school thank thank you so much if you weren't able to finish your comments please email Bo of education and next we have comments from the pack good evening everyone peace of blessings to the audience and to the board my name is Nasha sandord I am co-chair of the parent advisory committee pack on the local control accountability plan also known as elcap tonight on the agenda as item 14.1 the board will vote on the use of an lcff Reserve please know that because this was brought to the budget committee aspac the
063day before our pack meeting and after the sbac meeting had been extended past the 6 PM official ending the pack has not reviewed the use of these funds and is unready to advise on this action last week the pack submitted its annual feedback to the district since November 2023 the pack has been building knowledge about the lcap our role and its development the lcap actions programs services and effects in Berkeley we are lucky to have a highly engaged community of families teachers and students who actively seek out opportunities to reflect on strengths in areas of improvement the pack presents the work of seven months in our feedback document submitted to the district and board on April 25th 2024 I'm here tonight to give a board overview of the content of the document however it is
064not easy to summarize the hours of discussion and collaboration that resulted in 25 pages of detail in a single committee comment because next year is the start of a new three-year cycle the pack focus on Forward Thinking recommendations its feedback is mainly on what changes um are recommend amended rather than whether or not goals were met in the past year we began and ended our committee year working through specific themes number one the urgency to address the achievement Gap the pack sees the need to focus efforts on Early Education preschool to kindergarten grades one and two where intensive in time data driven support can prevent or offset the need for support in the later grades this need is in addition to the mandate to help those who struggle later on in school with effective support
065number two Center academic achievement and build strong foundations are our core curriculums effective do they serve our most vulnerable populations well have we created a coherent sequence of learning across grades and schools Berkeley does not need to be an an early adopter of every new idea or create something custom for our community we can wait for evidence of success before experimenting on our children number three more structure and accountability funding fewer projects overall will allow for deeper work and more comprehensive funding for projects for the projects we do fund funding should not continue for projects that do not have evidence of efficacy all projects using lcff supplemental funds need to be directed um directly linked to supporting local populations number four create belonging and opportunity in every spaces um everyday spaces of the 604 students
066who took the elcap cap survey this year 362 more than half reported not feeding feeling connected to school we must investigate the root causes and Target those reasons with direct action we have been benefited from outside support but B USD not contractors must do the heavy lifting of this work in Integra into the school day making sure to combat bias in our core systems our students require cultural competence as well as systems that do not presume ability or interest based on race ethnicity opening up opportunity for all the pack has been appreciative of the effort um from BD and enlighting plans and systems in a strategic way we are hopeful that next year's plan will be measurable and coherent in response to the board presentation on elcap this past April 7th the PC has included
067feedback on the proposed new goals within our document there is rationale for the recommended shifts in language in our opinion the suggestion of combining goals one and two results in an unwi wildly goal that would be challenging for committee and staff to track and measure therefore we recommend four goals for the 2427 lcap cycle goal one provide high quality classroom curriculum and data um informed instructional practices that promote College and Career Readiness and eliminates the achievement Gap to implement an mtss framework work that screens monitors and provides necessary timely and effective interventions or evidence-based support at every tier to eliminate barriers to Student Success um my time is running out we have three more goals um okay hi you can email us the complete list Board of Ed berkeley.net thank you and now we'll move
068on uh to Union comments you have any labor partners that are ready to make comments Mr ter um Miss Char do we want to take bcce first since they're here in person and then we'll do is is Matt ready it's record it's recording so we can hear you first well thank you so good evening board and superintendent first I'd like to acknowledge the hard work that everyone has put in to resend as many layoff notices as possible the union is aware of notices that were even resented today of course we would like to see the recision of all classified layoff notices and continue the goal to try not to disrupt programs and Personnel however our work isn't done tonight we have a 1.0 FTE being cut that is the storekeeper position Our concern is this
069is the only position that delivers from the warehouse to various sites throughout the day this position does surplus pickups moving transcripts at the end of the year and move the Science Program from school to school if this position is partially laid off where is the work going to go I'd like to share some light and provide you with an answer previously this position would receive all purchase items for various departments and put the items on the surplus auction Vehicles supplies equipment tools Etc this position previously tagged all items over $500 with tags kept asset numbers in a folder and would also engrave equipment the storekeeper would work as a certified forklift operator for various departments including but not limited to maintenance custodial and operations Zero nutrition services as well as delivered the PPE for covid
070and different items for various schools or departments they used to collect Surplus books and and other Surplus items from various schools and sites this person will also be the backup delivery driver due to the fact that one delivery driver is half purchasing and half nutrition services this position also maintains the delivery of computer cards and computers for the technology department this is a district-wide position with essential duties that support all work sites it's recently been brought to the un's attention that this employees work has been absorbed into other classified positions which should not be happening the union stance is that you cannot reduce a position for lack of work and then give the work away layoffs are supposed to happen due to lack of funds or lack of work we truly hope that what we
071said will be taken into consideration and the district will resend the layoff notice for this position another important matter not that it's not many but I will stick with these two topics for tonight nutrition services is a program that is state and federal funded through reimbursement this is known as the cafeteria fund cafeteria funds can only be used for meal service for students it is extremely restricted as it is considered benefits you can't use benefit money for other programs that do not directly benefit the meals program with that being said nutrition services has their own funding and is willing to upgrade the salaries for the lowest paid classified classification that is at a range 29 and at a step one start at $198 an hour their funds for this program cannot be assessed and can
072only be used for purposes that I have already stated why is that that the department cannot receive the requested support in helping to retain and recruit Good People by upgrading the salary we cannot say it is due to lack of money because the money is there especially for this program this department is what fees our students on a daily basis and during summer break in conjunction with the free and reduced lunch program we need to support the director in getting their highly dedicated staff adequately compensated correctly when the money is there the union is asking that the salaries for nutrition service assistants nutrition service satellite operator and nutrition service cook is immediately supported for those who do not understand why we are asking for this support during a time of layoffs and budget cuts please
073understand again that nutrition services has their own budget that is restricted to this department only thank you thank you very much to our labor Partners oh we have a president Meer thanks I almost forgot thank you mes hello superintendent Ford Morel and Berkeley Schoolboard directors I am Matt me president of the Berkeley Federation of teachers this evening you will hear from a sample of our members highlighting the the issues we Face getting paid correctly although the district has put in place various systems not enough has been done to ensure that workers who are legally entitled to Accurate And Timely pay are in fact paid on time although the majority of issues occur at the beginning of the year there is not a pay period that goes by without a situation needing to be corrected people
074are generally underpaid because their FTE is not correct stiens are not correct or time sheets have not been processed these payroll errors cost our Educators both money and time it's more important than ever for our Educators to get every dollar they worked for the hours we spend writing emails and leaving message could be much better spent there are lots of reasons why the mistake occurred but regardless of the reason it is the district's responsibility to pay employees within five business days the correct amount we've had situations where it's taken months or years to be paid accurately our proposed contract language around payroll errors is necessary to rebuild trust and accountability without some real language specified in our contract there will continue to be a lack of agency let's hear from some of our B USD
075employees my name is Addison fona and I am a school counselor at Berkeley High School two years ago I substituted for another counselor who was on maternity leave I did not receive a response or payment for my work until four months after I completed the work hi I'm John Gomes and I was working a long-term sub job at John Mir Elementary that started in April and ran through October 2023 I informed payroll on October 27th that I had not been receiving correct pay on December 15th I receiv received back pay of about $177,000 my name is lelle McDaniels and I teach at Malcolm X Elementary this year the district has not paid me my SDI reimbursement this money was wrongfully taking out of my check for over 9 years when I transferred from a classified
076employee to a certificated employee I was told that the matter would be resolved in a timely fashion and I still have not received my refund hi my name is Tiffany Liam school counselor at Berkeley High School who's been with the district since 2021 in my brief time with the district I've struggled to get paid for U many jobs from coaching to substituting to attending Affinity based events at some point it was about 10 time sheets that were not clearly resolved and these time sheets added up to thousands of dollars money which I had already worked for hello my name is Lindy Olen I teach first grade at Ruth acti eight years ago I was placed in the wrong column on the salary schedule and have been underpaid I was notified of that in October it
077has been 204 days and I have not seen any of $12,000 I am owed the district recently sent me an email saying on May 15th I'll be reimbursed that will be a total of 226 days that it took to reimburse me what I am owed hi I'm Gwen Rogers I teach kindergarten at John M elementary and in 2021 I was paid the wrong salary I sent an email May 25th and it took me 6 months uh 28 emails and um in order to be paid the correct salary October 22nd my name is Liza I joined BD in 2021 and was not placed at the correct column rate for my units that I had turned in uh via a spreadsheet and also all of the transcripts they placed me two levels below where I was supposed
078to be paid um which had a huge impact since we were a single income family at the time and it took numerous emails and phone calls um starting in August September October and finally in mid October I was told that the issue would be resolved and I would be paid at the correct rate hi my name is Robin I'm co-athletic director at Berkeley High School um my most recent pay issue that took a long time to resolve was regarding the stien um for my position um it was not paid to me at the beginning of the year took a month to resolve to get the right amount of pay and then inexplicably was taken away again the following March and I had to go about the similar steps in order to get it back as
079you can see these are not isolated cases there are dozens of situations just like these that couldn't fit into a five-minute Union comment BD employees deserve dignity and respect which means we need to be paid for the work we perform correctly and on time thank you so much uh Miss chus for those Union comments seeing that there are no additional Union comments we'll now hear from our board members and before we start board member comments tonight I'd like to remind our colleagues to review our governance team commitments as we also strive to be the best role models we can for our students and with that we'll start with board member comments uh colleagues I know I norly call on everybody first I have some comments that I'm going to start and then I will resume
080with the normal protocol and I see our vice president will go right after um so thank you everyone for coming for your public comments it was great to hear from our Educators students and families who are deeply engaged in our work to ensure that all our students can thrive in our schools I want to um start off by congratulating our amazing middle school jazz band students who played at Yoshi's this past Monday a special shout out to Mr Roland Brown for coordinating the concert and to all three middle school jazz teachers for preparing our Longfellow King and Willard students for this really professional musical experience um I was there just as a proud mom but it was wonderful to see the students uh really feel excited to be in such a professional space so um
081thank you to all our teachers who worked hard to make that experience happen for our students I'm also excited uh to announce my board colleagues that next week on May 8th we know we're all it's a very important date for our district I for many reasons but one of the reasons why it's also important is uh because I'll be attending the fluent English proficiency celebration at Longfellow and we'll be there to celebrate the progress and success of our amazing English language Learners I just want to acknowledge that many folks have written to us with inquiries about the superintendent testimony before con Congress so wanted to say that I have tremendous confidence in superintendent Ford morell's abilities to represent our unique and diverse Community I also know that these Ms are shared by many of our
082wonderful affinity group Partners who came here tonight and so thank you for for your support for our superintendent um I know that our superintendent will publicly show our country how we and Berkeley work together to stop incidents of anti-Semitism and any cases of hate in our schools my expectation is that our national leaders will hold a conversation that can result in a constructive outcome to continue to protect all students in our schools and I think our superintendent for courageously representing our district next week and with that I'll turn it over to my board colleagues and first uh I think I saw vice president Brown's hand go up and then we'll go around good evening everyone it's so great to see all of your faces uh during this may 1 meeting uh as you know this
083is a special meeting of the board so thank you for um adjusting and for joining us this evening I'd like to uh thank you all for your dedication and your advocacy that you provided tonight speaking on the following topics uh our success that we found uh around our gender neutral restrooms at Berkeley High School uh those who spoke yeah go ahead and clap for that those who spoke um in regards to the funding for ofie the lack of PE teachers independent study uh for PE credit at the middle school the presence of a cellular devices in our elementary schools The Adult School compensation substitute need and pay liberated ethnic studies experiences of anti-Semitism censorship at Sylvia mendz ongoing compensation needs in the district uh the impact ongoing impacts of cell phone devices and finally uh
084support for our superintendent as she will be taken away from the task of being an on-site superintendent next week and will be um in place testifying in front of Congress many of you um have emailed us called us and stopped Us in grocery stores some of you scared for our district and for our superintendent some of you sharing your fears that this will only further divide our community some of you sharing your concerns about how you bu USD or our superintendent can manage such a heavy lift given the lack of resources staff and time while we are in the middle of lcap goal setting budgeting season State Testing alongside our regular duties and responsibilities in the district some of you even approached us angry that Congress has turned a blind eye to other experiences of
085racism uh that has occurred but the majority of you who spoke to us spoke to us and shared your support and solidarity as we are the only and I'm I'm going to say that again the only K through2 School District who has responded to such a call as a member of this board I too stand in solidarity with our superintendent and appreciate this board's decision to show our support in many ways uh but not including but not limited to cancelling our May 8th board meeting and holding this evening special board meeting in its place we stand with our superintendent earlier I was uh taken aback by a comment or rather a suggestion that was made uh to you superintendent when it was suggested that you read your Bible and I am unsure if the uh
086comment was made in an effort to pick at your religion or if it was shared in good faith and because I always assume the best intentions of people I'm going to say that it was shared or made in good faith no no pun intended but it was made in good faith and um since the comment was made I do encourage you to uh to read as you already know where your help comes from and as you read know that we are with you and we trust that you will represent our District's ongoing commitment and values to Stand United against hate and all of you out there please know that the people United will never be defeated on a happier note I uh do have a few happy comments uh tonight addressing many local and national
087uh holidays and events and so please allow me to wish you all a Happy Asian-American and Pacific Islander month and a happy Jewish American heritage month and as identified by former council member Davila happy mental health month to all of our principles in B USD happy National principal day it has been said that a great principal builds character inspires dreams encourages creativity builds confidence instills a lot of learning touches our hearts and changes our lives and schools forever and because we won't be here next week I would like to wish a happy Teacher Appreciation Week to all of our dedicated and hardworking teachers one of my favorite quotes says that teachers uh weren't just born to teach they were born to inspire others to change lives and the trajectory of lives and to never ever
088ever give up even when faced with challenges that seem impossible everyone who remembers their own education remembers teachers not methods not techniques But the teacher where the teacher is the heart of our educational system thank you thank you vice president Brown director shinoski cute you can go first I didn't see you okay hi everyone first of all happy API Heritage History Month and happy jewi History Month um I just want to say as a proud tese American student a Berle High I'd like to appreciate the aapi community and education that I've received I'm really grateful to have been taught API history and stories throughout my years at Berkeley High in my English classes in my history classes we've studied the works of API authors and Poets and learned about the history and um yeah so
089with all the diversity at burgle High I'm just very grateful to have felt seen and heard as I know that this isn't reflected in all school districts around um the country and to have my identity reflected in the curriculum that I'm taught um next I'm in honor of the new opening of the gender neutral bathroom in the M building at Berkeley High I just wanted to acknowledge a couple of my fellow peers that I've talked with worked with over the past few months um these peers are October um James aarya and all of their friends and supporters um my peers have shown the utmost resilience and passion for their basic needs and I not only respect all of their hard work communication and patience with Administration but I'm also extremely proud of them I know
090that this is the this um is only the first step towards a much larger problem but seeing the work that you've put into this important issue gives me lots of Hope for Change to continue at Berkeley High after I graduate this year lastly I just wanted to highlight a very amazing production that our students put on annually it's called our monologues and the production is focused on the intersections of identity trauma sexuality race gender and so many other topics that are covered basically students submit their stories and those um stories are chosen to be a part of this production and the goal is to diversify the voices in our community and reflect um like the diversity of our community um and our students put tons of hours of work into running this every year and
091I can say personally that the performance is absolutely beautiful and so emotional so if you're in interested in seeing this production there will be three showings one this Friday at 7 p.m. this um Saturday at 3 p.m. and this Saturday at 7 p.m. and the tickets can be bought on the Berkeley High online student store or at the door that's it thank you thank you student director um I forgot to mention something my board comments but director CH is going to mention it um and some good news about you that we're g to share with the public and then uh director shinoski did you want to go next and then I don't know who else wants to go sure um I guess I'm GNA start by by not trying to say what's already been said
092so um eloquently and clearly so I I really want to thank president V Vaso and vice president Brown for their comments in support of our superintendent I like you stand in solidarity um beside you with you behind you uh next week so thank you for your work a couple of updates um I'm really excited um to see the resolution in support of the y1 initiative on our agenda today and the consent calendar um this is the youth vote uh we promised that our 16 and 17 year olds were going to be able to vote in Berkeley Schoolboard elections next year and the ball is really moving it's moving quickly um the city of Oakland and city of Berkeley uh along with uh BD we're working on anou um to try and Hammer out the details
093hopefully that'll be done by this summer um and then will come before us in June uh so that everybody can start getting educated and ready to move forward um on the election uh for November um I want to once again thank our students and thank Yas me for all of the work um getting those gender neutral bathrooms uh to be a reality um it's really great to see how we can identify a problem we can see a solution and we can make it happen um for our students and by our students so thank you uh finally I want to mention that today is MayDay it is international workers day and I want to thank all of the workers within our District I have to say I think it's kind of ironic that it's also principal's
094day so principal's day is on boss's day is on the workers day I don't know but um I especially want to shout out all of the bft members and our bcce members um who make everything run every day um who show up to drive our kids to school to teach their classes to take care of them after school to feed them breakfast lunch and snacks to do all the things you do all the time so happy International workers day happy Mayday um and lastly I want to congratulate all of our graduating seniors who in the last couple weeks have accepted um and chosen their colleges um for all of our College Bound seniors it's a really tough decision to make it's I know very Frau um and it feels like it's the rest of your
095life um I especially want to give a shout out to our very own Caitlyn um who will be studying philosophy politics and economics at upen we're very proud of you so we're going to wait and see how you change the world um over the next four years and then beyond oh thank you director shinoski thought you're off the hook director Shane but we are very proud of you Caitlyn directors who would like to go next I know we have two more directors I don't know if director bab or director Chang like to go director Shang all right thank you so much um good evening and thank you for joining us um congratulations again to our student board member Caitlyn for your amazing uh hard work on the board and your efforts have paid off and
096I I know you will be um contributing greatly to our society in the future and and have fun out there um out in pen where I'm assuming you're going um I know these are challenging times but here as uh in Berkeley I think we still stand as a community um here in Berkeley unified we are a diverse and intersectional tapestry um in that context this is a really good month to reflect on what we do share in common for example this month is Asian American heritage AG month thank you B USD API Group for your efforts raising Awareness on the important value of inclusivity just last month we celebrated our swana community and this month we also celebrate our Jewish American Community both months reflect some of the core members of our community the proximity
097of these three Heritage months on the calendar is for me an opportunity to reflect on how we intersect what common areas we share finally I'm going to keep this brief today again this has been said before but I want to voice my support for our superintendent's efforts and her service in leading this District as she heads to Washington to testify before Congress I know she'll do great and will be Mighty proud of her and um we are in solidarity here in support of superintendent for ML um thanks for um doing so uh thank you everyone for your public comments our colleagues have my colleagues have gone through the list but everything that you've raised is so important and thank you to continuing to come to the board and exercise your speech rights and Advocate um
098and educate us um thanks again and for those who um continue to want to meet with me don't forget to just ping me an email we'll we'll meet uh via Zoom or for coffee thank you again and I'll turn it over to uh my colleague for her book comment thank you director bin hello I will try and be brief so we can move the meeting forward but I do want to um acknowledge Berkeley Public Schools fund and the wonderful Community block party that they had it was so nice to see all of our students perform so nice to see all of the offerings in bosd which Berkeley Public Schools funds directly uh support and to enjoy the sunny day with lots of smiling faces and proud parents and donors thank you Berkeley Public Schools fund
099you truly do make a direct impact to the joy of the students in bosd secondly I want to thank Sylvia Mendes PTA and the reading for Berkeley for the dyslexia simulation that they held on Monday I would strongly encourage everyone to attend one because I as well as all of the other participants developed a deep understanding and empathy for the needs and resilience of our students who um continue to learn and persevere while um gaining the tools needed for dyslexia and lastly I just want to um comment that as um our board policy 15.5 notes uh we do aim to try and end these meetings by 11:00 a.m. and so I'm hoping that we can do better in agenda planning 11: p.m do better during agenda planning uh to make sure that we we reach
100that goal because it is unfair to our staff and to members of the public as well as to us to be making hard decisions later at night so if you're going to have a longer public comment period then we really need to think about shortening the business of the meeting as well so thank you thank you colleagues uh now we it's time in it's the time in the agenda where we approve our consent calendar can I have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar I move to approve move by director changer second second seconded by director shinoski and Miss Tyrus can you call a rooll for this vote director La I director shinoski yes director babit yes director chain yay vice president Brown yes president vasev yes yes and now we will
101move on to our first discussion item agenda item 13.1 and uh associate superintendent Hogan will you be introducing this item great I'll give you some time to set up I believe we have 20 minutes for this item but we are um planning on a a brief 10-minute presentation and 10 minutes of questions so good evening members of the board I'm Jill hogendyk associate superintendent um and here with me today are our climate literacy TSA Miss Ellen McClure and our director of curriculum and instruction Mr Christopher albeck um and they are going to be sharing an update on our BD climate literacy work thank you Jill good evening BST board directors uh my name is Chris albec and I'm the director of the curriculum instruction Department in BD tonight am joined by my esteemed colleague BD
102climate literacy TSA Miss Ellen McClure tonight I'm proud to share with you the strides Berkeley unified is making in the realm of climate literacy in USD We Believe deeply in our purpose statement to enable and Inspire our dver student body to make academic achievement and make positive contributions to the world tonight's Focus revolves around critical necessity of nurturing climate literate and climate focused students the imperative to develop climate literacy aligns seamlessly with usd's purpose by equipping our students with a deep understanding of climate science environmental justice and sustainable practices we are preparing them to navigate and contribute positively to our rapidly changing world as part of our Department's cause we're deriving meaningful change and fostering inclusive learning environments that Empower every student whether through adult learning opportunities like our climate literacy teams are working towards
103Universal instruction on climate science in Bud climate literacy is not merely about understanding scientific Concepts it's about empowering students to engage with the complexities of our environment recognize Global interconnectiveness and advocate for Sustainable Solutions in doing so we are not only advancing academic Excellence but also instilling a sense of agency and responsibility in Berkeley Unified School District students as we dwell in to the specifics of our climate literacy work tonight I invite our community to consider the profound impact that this works has on our students our community and our Collective future through collaborative efforts across departments and with your esteemed support we are Paving the way as Regional leaders in this work for our diverse student body to excel academically and emerge from BD as informed engaged Scholars poys to make meaningful contributions to our
104world thank you and uh I'm really excited to share some highlights of our climate literacy work this evening from this school year um but I wanted to start just with a brief overview of our timeline of climate literacy here in bu USD um so just to remember that our climate literacy resolution which is entitled an educational response to the climate emergency was passed in November 2021 and it committed to graduating students who well-versed in climate change science issues Solutions and climate Justice and environmental justice as a civil rights issue and um I think that we know um I want to highlight really that the resolution was called an educational response to the climate emergency um because we know as a district that now is the time to be educating our students about the world that
105they're living in and empowering them with the tools to address this Global emergency and particularly being well-versed not just in science and issues but empowered with Solutions and action and this resolution was co-written by a BD student student and a key part of the initiative continues to include student leadership um and the goals of the resolution clearly align with BD's mission to enable and Inspire our diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and make positive contributions to the world and as we go through um the presentation this evening we'll be pointing out um just some highlights and connections that the resolution committed to um and how that's showing up in our work this year um but just moving on with our our timeline in April 2022 after the resolution was passed we surveyed staff and
106BD to learn more about what's already happening with climate literacy what staff need um and um who would like to be more involved in this work and that helped us establish the climate literacy working group um in August 2022 um which has continued this year and then of course this uh past summer the climate literacy TSA position was created um and so um in tonight's presentation you know one of the overarching goals that we're looking for this year is building a culture of climate literacy in BD and so kind of looking at the big picture for the school year just bringing awareness to the BD community that this is a priority and something we're actively working on as a district and really inviting participation from the community and staff um and just thinking about that
107this year um presenting at staff meetings at the beginning of the school year not all uh staff were aware of the resolution and of the work and now when I present at staff meetings everyone raises their hand that that they're aware of the climate literacy work that we're doing in the district um so I think that really kind of shows how we're building this culture in our district um and as I share throughout the presentation um some of this looks like uh growing the working group our climate literacy working group this year bringing in Community Voices through meetings with student groups and establishing our advisory committee for climate literacy um sharing sharing Resources with staff and event showcases like what you see in this photo which is our um climate fair that just happened on
108April 20th really bringing the community together around climate literacy U so I'll start by highlighting our climate literacy working group which is a core piece of the work um in climate literacy this year and that group um has been a professional Learning Community for teachers so we have an elementary team a middle school team and a high school team and these teams meet monthly um there's also a space for resource sharing and professional development it's a space for teachers to plan and collaborate around climate literacy lessons um really starting to think through in teachers subject areas um and expertise like what this work looks like um and teachers on this group have also served as site representative so sharing about the work and connecting with their school sites about climate literacy opportunities um and I
109also just want to point out that um this team is a passionate group of Educators that really go above and beyond and um you know the work that I'm going to share in just a moment is really a reflection of of those teachers and the work that they've put in this year um so I want to just go through our elementary some highlights of our elementary team um middle school and high school um so starting with Elementary uh one of the focuses in the working group we had a couple themes that teachers were planning around this year so zero waste was one of the themes um Food Systems and then climate science fairs um so te so teachers could collaborate together around some of these themes and in the photos you'll see um at Sylvia
110Mendes our lowc carbon cooking contest that was um a special contest after students learned about food systems and climate change there were 30 students that participated um and it was really joyous celebration um there's also a collaboration with with the garden program in that curriculum um you can also see you know you heard from our students that learned about plastic pollution and so that was one of our waste projects this year and at Oxford our climate buddies peer learning between kindergarteners and fifth graders um learning about food system and plant-based Foods as just another example of some of the projects that happened and uh this week and last week I was actually able to visit Washington Elementary and um Malcolm X where students were engaging in climate change experiments um that really demonstrated how climate
111change works and then teaching those to younger students along with Solutions um and that was just a really powerful peer learning activity that has shown up a lot in the elementary that's been a theme of peer learning um I also want to highlight that um many sites participated in Earth month activities you can see in the photo one of our um Earth month activities from Oxford the climate March um and another photo highlights you know that there's been a lot of collaboration with the garden program especially at the elementary level so this is a native um beneficial plants planting outside of Malcolm X Elementary and one really um nice thing about the climate literacy working group that we've noticed of we have classroom teachers science release teachers and garden teachers that have time to come
112together and collaborate in this dedicated space for collaboration um that's been really fruitful um another thing I'd like to highlight at the elementary level is um addressing AB 285 which is a climate change in science instruction um California Assembly B assembly bill that passed in October so um was that 10 minutes okay and um that states that next year um of California climate change education will happen uh needs to happen in science instruction for grades 1 through 12 and so in preparation for that um I've been meeting with um Elementary School science teachers and and TSA to really look at what is already in our curriculum and where we need to improve or supplement um in our science curriculum to prepare for that legislation um at the middle school no maybe okay we can go
113to the next slide I'm not sure what's happening oh okay thank you um at the middle school um level one um success this year was um at Middle School collaboration working with departments like the math department Science and History Department um and that was something that really eliminated that we need more time for teachers to work on this during the workday and and normal hours the working group is great and teachers get paid but that's um after their working hours and so being able to collaborate during department time was really helpful and uh one project that came out of that a couple actually are are um displayed here in the photos in our math department uh teachers were offered projects that covered their um data standards so there was a sixth grade math project where
114students actually got to audit the waste on their campus and use data visualizations to communicate that to what their findings to the school community so at Willard and King so that's pictured here um the working group this year um really was interdisciplinary so we had teachers um from science English history art that were on that that team developing curriculum and really showing that this work happens not just in science but across um across subjects and that was displayed at the climate fair so a few of the projects that you're seeing here um are from art classes English classes um one pictured here was the intersection of climate change and redlining really um you know showing the commitment to climate Justice which is three of the resolution um and the climate Fair itself was our second
115annual climate fair and really um brought together uh you know was mostly a middle school project so our Middle School team worked on that project um but it brought together Elementary and high school as well and was just a celebration of of this work and we can we also had a similar um work addressing AB 285 at the middle school level as well um at the high school level um we didn't have necessarily one team that met together all the time but smaller teams that worked on a lot of projects and so um one that I really want to highlight is the green career fair which um connects to some of the the green New Deal goals especially around Green Job Pathways um and was also something that students asked for last year at our
116BHS showcase a climate showcase and so we wanted to make that a priority that was a collaboration with the sustainability department and the BHS Green Team and BHS um College and Career Center um so we brought in about 15 um presenters from different career fields in sustainability um and students were able to come with their classes to see those presenters um another thing to highlight is um the garden program so BHS is one of the only sites that doesn't is the only site that doesn't have an active Garden program and we've gotten feedback from students that we want a garden space our advisory committee has talked about how part of climate literacy is having a living learning lab for every site and so this year we've taken um steps to bring a guard and program
117to BHS so you can see in the photo here um I think two weeks ago our first student work day where about 30 students came out to help transform that space and I wish I could have all the photos of like how it was transformed but there's just one um and then that was followed up with um in in the climate conference which I'll talk about in a moment a ninth grade Workshop where nth graders actually helped plant the garden um so building up to next year having a community conversation about how we bring that that that program um to BHS um a collaboration with the library was an event bringing Rebecca solnet in conversation with three BHS students um who did an incredible job um interviewing Rebecca solnet about the book not too late
118so it was um a book about climate action and hope and um that was a community event in collaboration with uh Berkeley City College and yeah just the students did an incredible job um in conversation with her um another thing to highlight from the the high school there were so many things um is the unine climate conference that was really the project of a nth grade English teacher um Zia Gman Vendo who brought in 16 presenters um for students to have Hands-On workshops um on the on Friday April 19th and before that the week leading up to it students learned about climate change in their subject areas in um in their hives I think five of the seven hives participated in that um later in the month there will be a climate action Showcase from
119the biology department and one other great thing about um the high school is just meeting with students to hear more about what they want to see in climate literacy and green jobs okay so I got two minutes and I'll go try to get through three slides um one thing I wanted to highlight was that doing this in in this work um we built a lot of community and District Partnerships so one partnership is with bosd sustainability I really think that um to achieve whole school sustainability you need um the sustainability department and climate literacy working together so that students are educated about these initiatives and they're strengthened um so some of the initiatives that collaborated on this year are are reusables roll out so one of the images you see as an assembly for students
120to learn about the importance of reusables at Cragmont which is one one of the sites that now has all reusables instead of single use um and we've also collaborated on um safe routes to school and transportation education um of course collaborating with the gardening cooking program which we know is a key part of climate literacy and you could see that in the working group and also in um the work in the BHS Garden uh we were also supported by Community groups like Community Resources for science who support our climate literacy working group teachers um shabos Bas in science and stop waste who have all worked with us this year to help with programming and curriculum um and the last thing I want to highlight for um Partnerships is um that I've connected a lot with
121the few districts um in the state who have climate literacy resolutions and one outcome of that was our uh first annual Bay Area climate literacy exchange um it's something I'm really proud of and it began as a collaboration with Fremont unified because they also have a climate literacy resolution we wanted to get our teachers together to collaborate and what started as an event with maybe 30 people um expanded to 130 people from nine school districts across the bay area who heard about the work and wanted to be involved and so we had a a collaboration and PD day at shabo Space and Science Center um and hopefully it's the first annual and we'll have many more um but it really eliminates I think that bosd not only um that b is really a leader in
122this work and that connects to point six of our resolution that says we're joining a team of Educators across California in this work and then just a few other highlights um we've established a climate literacy and sustainability newsletter to share news updates environmental um leaders across the district and resource teaching Resources with staff each quarter um we've developed the climate literacy advisory committee which connects to point 4A of the resolution um that was something that I felt strongly about to bring in staff parents students and Community Partners all in conversation together um and our last meeting of the year is next week and we're working on a vision statement for climate literacy program um and then I also want to highlight that we fundraised um $33,000 in Grants and donations um this school year to
123support climate literacy programming for this school year and and primarily for next school year and then last I just want to share some updates of looking forward for next year so from what we've learned this year we're thinking about um you know where to head next year and how to support staff with climate literacy um one of those things is professional development offerings so a few of those would look like um climate literacy foundations um teaching about climate anxiety with students um knowing that that that's something that comes up in the classroom and an introduction to climate Justice and environmental justice which really ties to point three of the resolution um we also want to start mapping out our curriculum and seeing where we're having successes and we're um where we need to supplement the
124curriculum but also to just map out what climate literacy Concepts we want students to learn from K through 12 because we know what climate literacy looks like at can kindergarten is very different from what it looks like in high school and because this work is so new there aren't a lot of guides for what that looks like so bringing together a team of teachers to decide what that looks like and figure out where we have holes in our curriculum that we need to fill um and then last to keep things Hands-On and active um part of our working group will work on climate action projects next year that tie into some of our sustainability goals so um two of those themes will be waste so how can we learn about um waste and then also
125engage students in projects on their campus where they can Advocate or improve systems um and then the other will be around green schoolyards um so that's something I'm excited about for next year and I think that's probably been my 10 minutes so thank you all for listening thank you so much Miss McLure I'm excited to hear about um best sharing best practices with other districts very great work and uh board colleagues we have any questions I see director shinoski then I'll and um director babbit yeah just two quick things um first well before my two quick things thank you so much for all of this work um and really meaningful work um the first thing I wondered is I see for your projects you have waste and I'm wondering if we have some plans to
126incorporate um some of the zero waste breakfast ideas that were brought to us by the Thousand Oaks um classroom at the I think it was the last board meeting um so I'm I'm hoping that that is going to be part of it yeah definitely and that project I think is really great example of expanding these climate action projects for next year and using that as an example of how students can um you know practice their academic skills by advocating and learning about climate literacy at the same time yeah and then hopefully making the change as well yes as much as we can support it yeah yeah great um and then I just also wanted to comment I know we've had students um who have brought us a green New Deal resolution which um I think
127just augments this work and includes some of this work as part of what students are asking for so I look forward to engaging in that um so that we can expand on this work in some meaningful ways as well so thanks thank you director babbit thank you I just want to say how um much pride this giv gives me as uh one who helped to author and co-write this climate literacy resolution uh to to to work with people and have a vision and then see it implemented so well and so quickly um is is really speaks to uh the Dynamics and the power of the work that you all have done so U thank you for that and then also want to say around the climate literacy fair um that it was really a whole
128thing in my house like we had to compete around who was going to get to go and this was just the second year um and so from the first year everybody wanted to go back so I got stuck Grand babysitting I don't know if that's really stuck but I went ahead and did the babysitting um but was so excited to see the pictures and to see all the learning and to see uh them all come home so excited about um just that that one act of the climate fair and to see the growth with the Berkeley High School because I was there last year and to see it um so this is just really great work and that's really all I want to say and I'm just so proud of this update and that and
129all that you all are doing to make this a reality thank you thank you colleagues anyone else have any comments no thank you so much for your presentation thank you colleagues I'm gonna ask for a five minute break before we get to our next item and we'll give staff a chance to set up e e e that top have a fancy yes you got it thank you Sean thank you where's match need one for mat I don't know I thought for some reason oh 20 minute clock is for the discussion to they what the m [Music] no it's love d it's new no that's why he l e e I he so know all right directors looks like uh our presenters are ready so we're going to get started soon all right I see corm
130director nosi and then we're waiting for vice president Brown I think she'll be coming shortly right thank you very much to our presenters and Associate superintendent Hogan dij will you be introducing this item I most certainly will thank you president vasad up all right I think your mic is off is it off but can you hear me I can hear you okay all right uh good evening again um I am here with a a a different segment of our ed services team and we are here um to share a brief P presentation about compliance and Improvement monitoring for significant disproportionality otherwise known as SIM for sigus you will notice an asteris here because the state is uh making an name change to what had been formerly known as comprehensive coordinated early interview Ving services or
131cace so we are going to now be using the terminology of SIM for sigus uh next slide thank you um related to our District's mission to enable and Inspire our diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and make positive contributions to the world we also have a SIM for sigdis Mission which includes transforming the conditions in bosd that are currently contributing to the significant proportionality in the representation of black and African-American students in special education um other health impairment specific learning disability and intellectual disability um The Sim sigdis uh process although the name has changed the process Remains the Same it involves a four-step process of reviewing our uh of gathering and inquiring looking at data to uh inform a root cause analysis and then identifying actions toward a plan for improvement and then implementing
132that for tonight's presentation I'm sorry I don't not know if it's me that's that feedback um for tonight's presentation uh this we're does that work testing okay tonight's presentation we're going to share a brief overview of simf for sigdis just so that we're all all on the same page we are going to review our ongoing SIM for sigdis pro uh progress sharing a few highlights and some growth opportunities and areas for next work um and we are going to preview the development of a 2024 plan um and with that I'm going to turn it over to miss Carla good evening my name is Carla Gayden and I am the cace uh coordinator and just wanting to thank associate superintendent Hogan for uh giving us an overview wanting to build on that to just ground us
133in our root causes so the slide that you see here uh would be the root cause summary and just wanting to uplift that the summary um is really just an overview really about um the root causes the actual language of the root causes we don't want to miss just wanting to make sure that we say that because our stakeholders our Ed Partners definitely put a lot of thought and input after looking at qualitative and quantitative data to be able to um come up with the root causes and so with that just wanting to uplift the root causes are really focused on our black and African-American students um so that we can inform systemic change and those root causes are rooted in implicit and explicit biases the lack of authentic trusting relationships with our black students
134uh looking at culturally responsive tier one core instruction and curricula really stratifying our data systems and thinking about the absence of a clearly defined mtss um system and work that we can uh think about implementing consistently and then really honing in on the institutionalized racism that is um upholding some structures of tracking and isolation bar black and African-American students um you will find on the link that says click here the focus group uh data and presentation that was presented at our Ed Partners meeting as well as at our cace uh Summits our SIM SIM for sigus uh Summit um to give kind of a background on how that came to be next slide and so just wanting to highlight that with the root causes we are looking to make actionable uh steps to to remediate
135the root causes and to address them so that's why you'll notice that we have measurable outcomes and the four that are listed there are looking to have implementation uh through September 2025 and they are grounded in academics attendance appr improving attendance and looking at Chronic absenteeism as well as our behavior and social emotional learning as we know um that discipline is a gateway to special education so that is definitely highlighted there as well as our cultural affirmation and sense of belonging and I will pass it next to Sean uh so this slide um I'm Sean maner the executive director of special education uh this slide uh really just um lays out who our students are so you can see from that first call column uh our long fellow students um we have Malcolm X Washington
136Elementary John M Elementary Oxford Elementary and Berkeley Technology Academy BTA um and these are um uh sites that we've chosen as Vision sites um and we do have some criteria for that um for example enrollment um we need to at least have 19% of students identified as black African-American uh Behavior meaning they have to received at least uh one in school or out ofo school suspension or two plus office referrals uh academics meet indicators for ELA or math tier 2 and tier three interventions on benchmarks like Dibbles and star um and then attendance considered chronically absent um 10% plus absences um so these we at least need to have two of those criteria in order to identify as a vision scholar um you can see on the right there that um we have the percentage
137of our students even though uh our black African American students are the focus um what we've um um it doesn't it it the plan still allows us to work with other students um our Hispanic latinx students are um second um in line in being overidentified for special education uh but we're not at quite at the levels that the federal government um is monitoring for us but we want to make sure that those students are being served so we don't get into that um into that place all right thank you so just kind of looking at the process here we get root causes that we're addressing we target them with measurable outcomes and actions and then we have our Target group our vision Scholars that we're working with to remediate um some of those goals and
138so with that I just wanted to highlight some of the current work that we are doing uh with our vision Scholars and I'll do that by measurable outcome uh so for measurable outcome one which we are academics we currently have an FTE for what we call the vision school program coordinators at each Vision school and so we work and have been training them um consistently this year with monthly meetings to look at how we can support them um and working with the individual Vision Scholars with data driven goal and purposes for their individual learning plan so each Vision scholar has an individualized learning plan and we've been looking at this year specifically how to work with our vision school program coordinators who are primarily our RTI um team members and teachers um at the vision
139schools to be able to provide that individualized support um and we've been looking at really how to focus in on making smart e goals for um those Vision Scholars and of course we're doing a lot of mtss guidance work in uh collaboration with the uh literacy action implementation team and then for chronic absenteeism we have partnership and work uh collectively with the student services department and one of the platforms this year that we've really looked at um to think about chronic absenteeism data is the everyday Pro platform and so we really drilled down to look at um some of those uh data points for where our vision Scholars are coming in in terms of their chronic absenteeism and also exploring that with sites um and the vision school program coordinators and principles uh we know
140that there are definitely a lot of attendance campaigns that are happening that have happened this school year and we're really excited about that collaboration um and what the data is helping us understand about how we can get kids to school um and have some incentives for them to be there as well and then also partnering to learn about uh the family Communications um as a part of that and then just thinking about the behavior theal component as well we are really standardizing those practices for our cost team and our SST team um and working also we conducted a case study file review to really understand the pathways of our students who have been identified in specific learning disability and other health impairment and understanding their Journeys um into special education and throughout their uh matriculation
141through the K12 experience and so we're really honing in on that data to be able to get more information about next steps and interventions um and then lastly for measurable outcome number four we have um made an intentional effort to review our sypes um with our vision School uh teams and um also we mentioned in the last I think it was two weeks ago um in the the uh preview we previewed the African-American success framework implementation team alignment work with cace and how some of those events have taken place this year um and our partnership there and how we're looking to continue to build as well as some of the culturally culturally linguistically responsive inclusive practices Workshop that have happened for many of our staff including our school psychologist and our Equity teacher leaders all
142right so um the the good news is that um we are seeing progress um the this cace timeline shows us where we were in 2021 um where we were um significantly disproportionate across three different um categories uh intellectual disabilities other health impairments and specific learning disability um and by the 2023 plan this last year um we were uh ident no longer identified for other health impairment and then this year in the current um designation we were uh no longer identified for intellectual disability so at this point we are um currently significantly disproportionate only in specific learning disability um which is certainly the direction that we want to head um and uh this is a particularly uh critical um designation because we recognize the importance of tier one literacy instruction on uh students that have been
143identified for specific learning disability and how important it will be to um prevent um over identification there as we uh part of the monitoring process is to um maintain uh a progress monitor progress towards our measurable outcomes um so in terms of measurable outcome one um our our goals are to look to see if our vision Scholars are making um significant or accelerated progress uh in particular in literacy because that's where our resources as a district um are being focused and we are seeing at least in terms of our star reading throughout this school year um significant increases outpacing non-vision Scholars um which is um promising and that's part of the part of the measurable outcome we recognize that we want to continue to be thoughtful about the range of different metrics we can use
144so we're actually exploring this use of map the map Reading um test especially for our secondary students as another metric um we also want to pay attention to math um uh although that's not been our Focus districtwide um it is certainly an area of need and we're not seeing the same same progress for vision scholars in math as we are for literacy um part of the other piece is that while we have been focused this year and last year on uh completion of the individualized learning plans which is a central part of the vision scholar program um and our completion rate is around 80% from the first ILP um up from last year uh the next step is actually to work on quality and so we've developed a tool and um in our working in
145those regular meetings with our vision scholar program coordinators to improve the quality of our um plans our goals and our our interventions um when it comes to Chronic absenteeism we've SE seen a significant change again um decreasing our chronic absenteeism for All Vision Scholars as well as for African-American uh Vision Scholars although not at the at as high of a rate as the rest of the group um part of our next steps there is to look for Trends in um through barrier analysis um that our everyday Pro platform allows us to do to see what are some of the root causes of absenteeism to um to best pair them with interventions for attendance um and then creating those shared resources that are matched to each of those specific barriers so that schools across the district
146will have um the able to identify uh although every case is unique there are some uh common trends and they'll have a bank of resources that they can leverage um when some of those common reasons are are popping up and then finally for um measurable outcome three and four we have uh seen a reduction in our um suspensions we haven't had a large suspension rate um to begin with but we did see this is the same cohort of students last year where for example six of vision Scholars um were suspended uh with a total of 13 incidents um this year only two students have of our vision Scholars have been suspended um for a total of two incidents um you can see the decrease also specifically for black African-American Vision Scholars um we've also increased
147opportunities and participation in our African-American success framework family events those are events that are um uh uh were part of the African-American success framework broadly but we have um this year done targeted and specific Outreach um all of our vision Scholars uh in this process and seen um not only increased the number of events but also a number of attendees we recognize though that there are there's work to do for one we're still refining our collection of office referral data um which is a a critical precursor to any suspension work um and um we have also conducted a really powerful case study file review VI for students that have been identified for other health impairment and special specific learning disabilities to understand their Pathway to that designation and all the things that happened before that
148so now we are reviewing the results and implications of that and how that might play into um the ways in which behavior is a critical factor in those identifications and then finally we're um standardizing some of our processes for cost teams and our SST that's a a a collaborative goal uh including the leadership of um our director for Brea Ruth as well as our um director of schools uh Debbie Dean our principes our RTI Specialists um all contributing to that um again those are infrastructure pieces that are critical for this to happen and part one of the root causes and then um for uh belonging and uh cultural affirmation we know we need to um we're uh initially we thought we might be able to use the data from the C your healthy kid survey
149but as the format that it comes in being anonymous and um not being across every grade level we are uh in the process of developing our own instruments um to create to collect some baseline data that we think will not only benefit be important for um cace or Sim uh for sigis plan but also help us monitor um across our sipsas um our family and Community engagement plans our lcaps and be a great data Point um broadly um and we know um our Focus has been on transition plans for our vision Scholars um from from one school to the next to continue their um focus support and we want to um uh be we're going to be thoughtful about that as we transition into the next school year and just to wrap up I want
150to acknowledge the work not only of this team but also the synergies that we've had with the African-American success framework work our literacy action plan work so there's been a lot of cross coordination to get us to this place on the last slide we just want to we wanted to be able to provide a quick update here um because we will be developing the 2024 plan um which will come to the board for approval um and we will have our last educational partner meeting of the year on May 21st you are invited to come uh Dr Mary bacon will be sharing a report out of the file review and with that we'll take questions thank you so much colleagues do we have any questions director babit and then director shinoski thank you I noticed in
151the root causes um I don't know if you've rephrased it or if this has changed but it used to be one of the root causes was a lack of political will to address um systemic racism and um many of the barriers to success that's just implicit bias and um disciplinary issues that um are leading towards students um being overidentified um can you tell me how that has changed those have those that has not changed that language is there this is just the short version if you go to the link um you'll see the longer text there we we just we Consolidated it for the slide for space that we could see it okay well my Hope was that the lack of political will had changed because yeah we're still we're still working with the current
152set of root causes we will be able to up to consider that as we do the 2024 plan do you um okay um and then can I noticed um a lot of the African-American success framework actions have been tying into uh the Seas haaste plan as we um hoped it would and designed it to can you just kind of coll elaborate more on how that collaboration has helped to uh be successful particularly with our vision schools and our um overall goals and hopefully in changing that lack of political will that's right yeah one of the the biggest um ahas I think in the implementation especially the last school year was how many wheels were spinning in multiple directions when really there are some common goals um uh and our African-American success framework is setting the
153groundwork for uh the broader groundwork is really the umbrella work for us to be able to address the uh inequities and the significant disproportionality affecting our black and African-American students and so um this year being really thoughtful in particular about how we are aligning that work partnering um with our um African-American success framework facilitation team across uh bringing in a lot of different department ments um broadening U the collaboration across our vision school network which we call them which was used to be two different groups our cace group and our African-American success group and now it's one group and that partnership um all of those pieces are are have been critical and certainly Carla um has been leading a lot of work to be really thoughtful about um where are their action items that overlap
154um and as Jill mentioned um not just with the African-American success framework but with a lot of our initiatives um uh that um are impacting our black students disproportionately if I may add um this idea of uh political will um it doesn't mean there's not uh a lot of people working really hard on this I just think until we see systemic change um from our whole system then that you know political will likely be a a a section of these root causes at some point so when we get to the point where we feel good and the opportunity uh Gap has closed even further then you know then we can have a discussion about that for our root causes and we'll definitely have that conversation as we're developing the 2024 plan by looking at the
155data and doing more qualitative focus with a lot of the families as well as students and having more um you know data to review as a part of looking at those root causes and if they're still Rel for this upcoming plan I'm director chanowski and then vice president Brown thank you so much um so I have a question on slide nine if we can do mind if you put it up um so just on the data I'm just wondering so um one of them said a 4.9% increase in the in all Vision Scholars for the reading assessment and then uh um I wondered yeah so looking at the vision Scholars versus the non-vision scholars that 4.9 versus the 3.2 so I'm just wondering if it is a statistically significant increase because I know it's a
156small number of vision Scholars so and I'm just asking because I think it's important for us when we're highlighting the positives to make sure that we understand if it really is a positive and if the interventions or the changes that we're doing are making a difference so that's my first question and also on this slide The Chronic absenteeism there's just not a reference for the non-vision scholars so I wondered if we know what that number is just as a reference point so similar kind of thing yeah um so for The Chronic absenteeism if Dr Shelly um does have a sense of how our chronic absenteeism districtwide is happening certainly it's decreased as a matter of fact we were in um um uh what is it called the um different differentiated assistance for it and we
157are no longer in that districtwide um but I believe Dr shelle will be able to share a little bit about the difference that we're seeing in the vision scholar schools specifically um but real quick just to the point of the um star data so the we're looking that's um based on average composite scores to see uh from um beginning of year to end of the year what what is the TR rate of impact it is a significant amount um what we're what the the uh the overall rate of uh or overall scores for non-vision Scholars are much higher but that's because our vision Scholars are identified G mostly because they are uh scoring lower in literacy to begin with and so what we're looking for is closing that Gap with a a accelerated rate and
158so um since they are outpacing at a significant rate that is something that we're we're monitoring however each test is so different in terms of the way the scores are reported so one of the things that will come up with the 2022 24 plan is in the measurable outcome right now it's just kind of a blanket 10% increase because we're kind of guessing when we didn't we we're still kind of early in um implementing all of these new uh benchmark assessments ments and now it might be um looking for percentage increase um vers uh that is U might vary depending on the assessment and then another thing to look at then that your answer prompted me to think of is that it would be interesting to see what the increase from Fall to spring for
159non-vision Scholars who had those low assessments initially right rather than just all Scholars um again I'm just trying to see if we understand what's making a difference um you know that's why and then my other last question is about Opie actually so we know that our Opie staff is is beloved and they are very connected to our families they're also in the audience um but I'm just wondering how we're integrating the work of our you know site based Opie um staff into this particular work okay thank you did you want to do Dr shell first or maybe let's have Dr shell respond okay Dr shell can answer that attendance question really quickly and then we'll have uh Miss Lydia answer the op question okay um just real quickly then um the the changes across our
160vision schools is is similar in line to the uh decreases that we've seen across the entire Vision schools all of the vision schools have seen decreases in The Chronic absenteeism rate from last year and those those ranges ranged from you know four to 5% decrease to uh seven and 8% decrease um and part of the focus has been on those tier one supports for all students um which has impacted uh the attendance so those for those students who would be in tier two moving down to tier one those in tier three moving down to Tier Two And so there's been a lot of targeted uh uh Outreach to the to the families of division uh Scholars through our communication platform and our partnership with everyday labs to to show those reductions I can get more
161numbers for you for the entire District as well as for division schools specifically we can send that in Friday notes yeah I can do that um to address the Opie question um the family engagement specialists at the vision schools um were have have uh lists of all the different Vision Scholars and are connected to their families they make phone calls to all the families and are connected with their individual learning plans um and they also join um the professional development um sessions that we have for um our vision Scholars and um work really closely with their families in order to make sure they're integrated and not connected with their their individual learning plans okay vice president Brown yes good evening thank you all so much for uh your presentation I um am really happy and
162excited to hear that we are trending in the positive I know that when this first um was brought to the district or even before then um we were in a pretty bad space with overidentification of um our black and African-American students in special education so much so that there is a lot of um public record out there about it and so I'm very grateful to hear that we are trending um in the positive for this I wanted to ask a question around um the reduction of uh or the yeah the reduction uh in suspensions uh for our vision schools that you alluded to um director Espinosa and and um I wanted to know specifically um what are the bright spots uh that kind of helped us to get there um more so thinking about is
163it that there has been um a reduction in um or decrease rather in suspendable behaviors or have we adopted um more restorative practices um in our schools and so if you could take the time to answer that right I can share uh one major thing which is the work that's happening um specifically at Longfellow as well as at BTA uh Longfellow um what last year in terms of our vision schools was the uh had the highest number of our um suspensions um one of the things that happened this year was an emphasis not only does the individualized learning plan allow for some proactive work both to build relationships to set some Behavior go goals for all of our students and um and set up some interventions before ideally before they're needed um from the beginning
164of the school year but also uh Long Fellow as part of their um kind of uh design of their um kind of equity approach to this work um has uh identified uh connected each of the uh Vision Scholars with an individual Mentor um across the campus so every single staff member is is uh connected to a vision One Vision scholar and um doing followup and check-in and so um when it comes to seeing the impact on Behavior we think that's one of the main um uh reasons for that is that um both proactive work and goal setting but also the regular check-in and the connection with um with a supportive adult thank you I appreciate that um next I wanted to ask uh Jennifer stole my question um about family uh communication and the role
165of ofie but if there's any other like that you can share on um how communication has just helped to increase um our ability to move in the positive if there's anything that you didn't get to share please feel free to share it down so I can feel like it's still my question to ask thank you well I didn't get a chance to ask questions presentation so I'm G take it on one of the um one thing that I will mention is that we've been working with um chrisy with the summer school program to create a webinar to support our vision Scholars and their families with signing up for summer school and that's actually scheduled for this coming Tuesday um May 7th um and so this is like really just uh very specific to our vision
166Scholars and their family and making sure that they have access to the resources and the summer opportunities that other students also have and making sure that they're also able to enroll in summer school and have their questions answered and this is only able to be done with like direct Outreach to the vision Scholars and their families thank you for sharing that that's great to hear as we know um summer school is a major opportunity for our students to um to not just um relearn maybe what was lost or not learned uh during the school time but to also step up and prepare for next academic year so thank you for that and then finally um I I don't want to stay too long on the political will conversation but I am interested to know um
167what codes of um Behavior are we adopting uh within our um within our staff um that will continue to help uh with the reduction of over identification of black and African-American students in special education and when I say the overidentification I mean the unnecessary overidentification and I'm sure you all know that but just for the record um making the differentiation between behaviors and what's culturally appropriate and what is it um what is is not accessible to students in the classroom and so on and so forth uh I'll speak to one aspect of that and that would be our school psychologists um so our schools psychologists are U often you know hold the space between um and they do testing with students um and they meet with IEP teams and and have conversations and work closely
168with the case managers around their you know their performance uh so one thing we've done this year is our school psychologist had a a black psychologist come and do a couple different um uh PDS with them um and say thank you Dr Ayah Holman yeah um and then we actually uh they um this year this whole year they've been doing a b a book study with the culturally um uh Cally responsive teaching in the brain um Setta Hammond um so and they're going to be continuing that work next year um and the reason why that's important because um the psychologist sits on the cost teams um since we have increased our ft in the district with our school psychologist we're able to do they're also doing counseling with students um we have some work that's
169happening where there's counseling happening with uh students that don't have IEPs yet in order to avoid them um um having IEPs later on potentially um so there's a lot of work on that end um and then we did our work with Dr sahili um with uh his uh Su sessions that we did um but you know we recognize also that there needs to be um more work done across our district to ensure that um these conversations are regular at our school sites especially when we're looking at data at school sites that we're naming um the students we're not serving and what are the behaviors that we're going to change in order to serve them better thank you thank you colleagues are there any further questions director CH uh I'll make this quick thank you so
170much um I'm very pleased to hear some of the improvements um following up on measurable outcome three um from the vice president's uh question um with with regard to the reduced Vision scholar suspensions um what are some of the district's plans to scale up and um uh scale up the in the strategies uh that were utilized at div Vision with div Vision Scholars to reduce um existing race disparities based upon suspensions districtwide thank you the um one of the core things as you know of uh that that drives the um design of our C SIM for sigus uh Vision scholar program work is the idea that we have these these int these individual schools that are doing some really um uh trying to do some Cutting Edge or leading um the the work that um
171could form the rest of the school district and so as as such part of it is to provide forums um and I I believe that we've shared with you um in the next couple of weeks we'll be having an equity Symposium which is one of those forums where our vision schools are able to share some of the highlights some of the pr things that worked some of the things that didn't work and thear and through a really a thoughtful learning lens um as um we can um consider what we can bring to other schools as as well as um to share districtwide and that's another reason why folks like um Dr Shelly are key parts of our C S SIM for sigdis um work um in uh thinking about um in his work with the
172vice principles and with other um groups um where there might be uh more connections to M be made in terms of what's making that impact um yeah if Dr Shel wants to add anything uh yeah so and and really a lot of the work is in um working with the the administration on looking at alternatives to suspension uh interventions again it's it's a lot of work around tier one and then uh as you progress into tier two but really it's it's about looking at alternative to suspension restorative practices and also uh corrective uh measures that you take with students thank you director rabbit and just one other data point I think would be helpful is um when when the number of repeat suspensions for the same individuals versus um is the overall number for other
173individuals as well going down great um did you want a response to that or any no I'm just in general like in the future we could have that kind of data included in these presentations it would be helpful great thank you director babbit all right well thank you so much for the presentation and hope you have a great rest of your evening if you're not here for the next item uh associate superintendent I think you're introducing the next item right 14.1 I am and then uh before we move on to that uh colleagues shall we move to extend the meeting till 11:15 we wait till use closer 11 can we wait till use closer sure we'll wait um yeah we'll wait until we're done with this presentation okay um all right uh so good evening
174um I'm here to uh present the action item on a proposal to use use the local control funding formula general fund reserve for onetime expenditure um as always we're going to grab around that in our District's Mission and as you've seen in some of our budget presentations before we really are trying to Anchor our budget and resource decisions um in our District's Mission recognizing that we are in a uh a challenging uh budget year with the budget reductions that we need to make um and so uh you know that's all part of the context uh for this presentation uh didn't realize I have the clicker now okay um I do want to Anchor this conversation in the in congruent timeline that we are dealing with um we uh this action item along with the action
175item that follows it um there is a final notice of layoff a statutory requirement that those um happen by May 15 um we are anticipating in the next couple of weeks that we'll hear from the governor about the May revise um which would be any adjustments on projections for the budget for next year at the end of the month we will have our lcap and budget public hearing um June 12th is the last board meeting of the Year where we will have elap and budget final approval um after that meeting sometime around June 21st the governor will release the final budget I think that was the date that uh we confirmed and then all through this process we're also doing strategic plan development so we're trying to navigate some um unique unque a unique situation
176in a challenging budget year um we have elcap a supplemental budget um as you heard uh earlier from the presentation um from our from Miss Natasha our pack representative um this is just an overview of the expenditures on the lcap supplemental budget um almost entirely uh that budget is on on the staff members that you see here so we have a projected lcap supplemental expenses of about $5.8 million um but going into to next year we have a projected supplemental budget of 5.6 so there's a difference there of about $180,000 additionally in the 2324 lcap we used carryover um to support um some additional lcap actions and those are the ones that you see bullet pointed here um the red ones really came out of our advisory recommendations and so while we want to hold
177all of that together we recognize that the the the difference between a projected budget and projected expenses in addition to the additional services that we were providing on this year's lcap um that totaled about aund $791,000 and we know that we don't have the capacity to be able to support that um along with trying to navigate a budget Target of $7.1 million we've been trying to navigate this target as well in in our general fund uh we have identified some alternative funding sources for some of those items that are currently on the lcap which you can see here um so about $336,000 which is leaving us a gap of $455,000 um at the same time uh new this was new learning for me um uh not because we have any legal obligation or requirement as
178a component of our existing board policy 046 Zer under the local control accountability plan we have a provision um regarding an lcap Reserve um and that Reserve fund is an lcff general fund Reserve that can be expended if there's projected year-over-year decline so you can see that year-over-year decline has been happening since 2122 um where we had $6.2 million and now we've got a projected um uh budget of 5.6 that board policy also indicates that we um might designate the use of that lcff fund Reserve to be spent on one-time actions or services that are listed as increasing or improving services for unduplicated students which are those actions that we've identified in the supplemental um in those supplemental funds so um y uh yep so the the reserve set aside is equal to a million
179dollar which is what we have now um and what we are coming to you today for discussion in action is the approval of the use of the L lcff general fund reserve and an amount not to exceed $500,000 in onetime expenditure we do recognize that what we're asking for is expenditure for Staffing on one-time funds which is not an ideal situation but it would provide a bridge into the next year um and we were really looking we recognize too with the lcap development we we did get the um last at the end of last week we got the recommendations from pack and we are anticipating getting the delac recommendations within the next few days and we're going to be using that to um help us uh finalize and formulate the draft elcab um but we
180would like to be able to preserve those expenses that are on our lcap um and recognize that there are some considerations that need to be part of this discussion um in order to keep the current elap supplemental expenditures full for the coming year um we would need to identify additional funds and the lcff reserve could potentially be that funding source to use that um the other consideration is that we don't yet have a 2427 lcap that has been approved um and while we would be adopting a new threeyear lcap um we do we re we want folks to recognize that those lcap actions can be updated and are revised in any annual updates so just because we name them in a three-year plan we can for any number of reasons decide to amend or the
181language we've been using is adopt adapt or abandon which could be inclusive of any form of budget reductions so with that I'll take questions thank you I see um vice president brownson uh thank you associate superintendent uh Hogan DJ I I do have a couple of questions um before I begin I just would like to um I identify that it does not uh really feel good to spend um lcf funds on Staffing um and E even though this is um incredibly important and the and the positions are are really important I just want to put on the record that it doesn't feel good um to to do that especially because the money wasn't intended uh for that specific purpose and so to help me get to there um can you identify or help us understand
182um the ways in which some of these positions and maybe you can only share two or three I already know which ones you'll probably share in my mind but the ways in which this will help us get to the intended purpose or goal of uh these funds uh so are you asking for me to uh make a connection with the existing funded positions and the current goals I just want to make sure I understand that that question yep okay um well we have a a number of positions and so I'm going to name a couple of them so in it in addition uh to our Opie staff which provides uh services and supports to our families which you've heard tonight um the lcap supplemental fund also um uh supports our ELD tsas um which provide
183designated ELD in coaching and support for teachers specific for our English language Learners um we have uh the support in part RJ coordinators at the middle school and high school um which are intended to address um what is our current lcap goal number three uh around um uh actions that support wellness and belong wellness and belonging and a safe and welcoming School climate um we also uh support a manini vento counselor which helps um deliver services and connect our families experiencing housing and security um with resources that they might need to help to navigate the school system in life those are a couple of them thank you and um in doing this can you talk about uh the total that will be left in the reserve um so the recommended action is to use up
184to but not to exceed $500,000 so that would automatically you know if if approved in that way would automatically leave half of that in reserve um so that would be the Mac that would be the the minimum if we didn't use all of it okay and um knowing that we um because we're in a financially um a a year of some pretty incredible cuts um I am nervous a little bit because we are already uh reducing our contribution to fund 20 and so I worry about uh the financial future of the district to be able to um to to put money in reserve and keep money in reserves um for when we may potentially use them again and I know that isn't a question but that is a statement that I would just like to
185put out there um and then finally um finally I I want to also um alert the board or understand how what happens when we're in this position again next year and so we know that this is ha some of this is happening due to funding the reduction of it um from the state due to the reduction of um grants that we were getting from the state like all of this is happening um all at one time and so I worry about the um our ability to be fiscally sound um in the future and so I don't know if that is a a question for you or associate superintendent Fallin be um but I do want to just kind of alert my board colleagues and I'm sure they have probably similar questions but I I would
186like to know your thoughts on that um and not just thinking about this year but thinking about next year and years moving forward right so I could um respond to that so some of the um things that we're thinking about because this is an unusual year and we're actually talking about 2425 we're thinking about using one-time savings if you if it will from fund 20 so that was one of the things that the board uh approved um when we came to for the $6.9 million this is another approach because we are pretty much in bar fiscal um situation so um using a reserve um in a fiscal emergency is prudent it's one time but it is I think an option in instead of making budget reductions to staff if we could use um our Reserve
187our savings account on a onetime basis so thank you I understand and agree with you um I I I do want us to put our heads together and to think about the future if this happens to come up in the next budgeting season again next year what is it that we are going to um to do other than making Cuts I guess is the only thing that we would be able to do and so um how much harder is it going to be to make those cuts next year uh knowing that we may be in a deficit and so right so I think um having a year to kind of look at our operations and to look at our programs in more detail I think we'll be able to gain efficiencies somewhat um from looking
188at our programs just based on the benefit of having um another year to evaluate so we'll give ourselves some time to take a deeper dive and to hopefully hopefully come up with ongoing budget Solutions as opposed to onetime budget Solutions so thank you thank you both colleagues are there any additional questions yeah director B thank you I just want to can you further clarify in this memo it says um towards the last two lines of our policy and I do want to also say that policy 0460 was put into place because we could forecast based on the cost of living that our number of unduplicated students would be leaving bosd um to move to other places where it's more affordable to live and so this Reserve was really set up to to make sure that
189when that happened we didn't use it to supplant general fund spending but we did use it to make sure that those um services to our unduplicated students were able to to live and so we're kind of jumping into that Reserve before our numbers have truly um I would say declined based on the lcap supplemental funding and its own deficit um so I I just want to acknowledge that this is kind of using it outside of the intent of the policy and then I also want to say that um this last sentence says These funds should not be used to satisfy the requirement of lcap increase or improve services for unduplicated peoples for the MPP but may be used to increase or improve services for unduplicated pups beyond the MPP while not requir ired by law
190or regulation so I'm trying to figure out how this move of the reserve is going to help us go beyond the MPP when really we're basically supplanting from the general fund um so I guess what I would say that uh the we have been using that supplemental the supplemental sorry fund expenditures um to support a set of actions so this wouldn't this wouldn't be increasing those services but would be able but would be allowing us to maintain those services so does it fit within the policy or or no because the policy says it may go beyond well the the policy I mean as I'm reading it the funds that the sorry I'm trying to uh so again so um I could I could probably um jump in so um the the use of these funds
191will actually be um in accordance with the use of our lcap um or or lcap Provisions so we're not saying that we're going to be using it for general fund expenses these were expenses that actually lived in the lcap and without going into the reserve we would actually be um will be reducing the services that are offered to our um specialized students so um the whereas um the up has fallen in recent years um the what's driving this is actually the reduction of the cola CU um our supplemental funding was actually impacted by that as well and then um just a follow up on that point uh my understanding is that by using these funds we'll be able to maintain services that would keep us in compliance for example like ELD Services right so we
192don't use them then what you know then what happen well I think you know again we have a we have a PO of funds and we would need to prioritize those services to our English language Learners was what we were able to cover with that carryover um if we didn't have them that meant that would mean that we would need to deprioritize other services which is why on this next item you see a reduction I mean there's a there's a lot of overlapping factors here but because of the timeline with the layoff notice um what is on the next item would be to uh to uh issue layoff notices for 4.94 FTE for the proofy staff um which you know is not necessarily something that you know again I think we are all committed particularly
193on this Labor Day um to acknowledge the hard work that all of our staff members want to do um but without having any final decisions and then there's some moving budget targets that we've been navigating both within uh the general fund as well as some of our restricted resources um we would want we would need that flexibility to um be able to make those harder decisions and I'm gonna move to I saw director shinoski I know you had a question did you have a um and then vice president Brown and then we should call for a motion soon or so we can extend the meeting vice president Brown you don't have a comment no she said no um thank you uh so that's a perfect um segue into my question Jill associate superintendent hogen dij
194um so I I completely hear what you're saying and and um align with what you're saying and I'm and so what I'm wondering though is is because that puts us in a difficult situation right and it puts us in um a situation where we have to then go into our next item um and do whatever it is that the board the will of the board will be on that one but it's almost coming to us with um like one solution or one resolution to this uh versus giving us um multiple um things to to discover and identify for example um coming to us with a potential $250,000 um reduction or borrowing rather from the lcap reserve and um cuts that will come along with that but this does is just allows us to take that
195$500,000 price tag or reduction rather from the reserves and not entertain any Cuts or even leave time to have conversations about what that would be like because we are rapidly moving towards that May 15th deadline so um I know that that may not be a question to answer but I do want to identify the challenging um spot that that puts the board in and I'm not sure if my colleagues would like to speak on that or agree to that but but it is it's kind of a difficult spot to put us in director B yes I definitely want to to weigh in because again we're we have not heard from the parent advisory committee because there is no final plan right U so we don't know what other priorities they may or may shift that
196won't require us to use this reserve and we don't know what other priorities you May identify as you finalize the LC lcap plan and as we do other um shifts in our budget and so I think as long as we're still at the point where we're just giving notices why are we at the point where we have to move our Reserve funds because even if we give the notices in the next action if the plan is finalized we can then still move the the funds so it's we we actually do have time to do better due process I think with the parent advisory committee with the daac committee with the lcap plan before we tap our reserves in my opinion dorowski did you have a question no I I mean I agree that it limits
197our ability to sort of shift things around I I agree with your comment but I don't know that I I I don't have a particular question I yeah all right colleagues well this is agenda as an action item do we have a motion are we willing to table this until we have a final lcap plan and and live with that we're giving notices that can be rescinded or if you could before we move to a vote if you could maybe speak to the impacts and do to doing that um so we are required by Ed code um to provide the final notices by um May 15th actually midnight on May 14th um and we can still resend them it's just going to be um a negative interaction with both our labor unions as well as
198our the employees who are impacted by this who will receive these layoff notices um confirming that they don't have a job we also put ourselves at risk of these people deciding to go find other jobs and not having the um well highly qualified uh people who actually know Berkeley and have worked for us for years in some cases um still being our employees director shinoski I I will say while I do think that this could have been done in a different way and I I have similar concerns and I appreciate those being raised I I do not feel comfortable [Music] um responding by giving layoffs to people and you know putting individuals livelihoods and Futures in question as well as the really meaningful work that is done that we just heard is integrated throughout so
199many of the plans that we have in the district but we have said are vital um so I want to be clear that while I think it could have done been done better I am not interested in tabling the this and you know I I feel ready to vote one second team I know we have more discussion but I'm goingon to call for a motion to extend the meeting now it's pretty late so I move that we extend the meeting to 11:30 knowing that we can in earlier if Poss if we need to thank you is there a second I'll second great seconded by director Chang all directors in favor I I all right to 11:30 and then director bab I know you had a comment right after director shinoski yes and and I don't
200think any of us disagree with you director shasi that we do want to find ways but I do think it is um it is putting the cart before the horse to not have the lcap plan finalized it is we would not do this to the pno committee in my opinion they would have had ample time to weigh in to give us decisions to give us their advice and their advisory and I think we are all saying that we we as a board have a commitment but we don't want to um interrupt process because this is really a legal requirement of notices this is not a our intent or our heart um and so I think that we should do the due diligence work that and and we should extend the PAC the grace that we
201would suspend send extend thank you to those who don't serve our underserved communities like their primary focus is to give of their time to give us recommendations and advice on spending for our most underserved students we struggle to get them in these rooms and then we're not going to have them weigh in before we take their reserves I'm just saying the Ripple effects to me are serious and it's going to reinforce year after year what parents say there's no reason for me to be on this committee at all I just gave all my time and you didn't even have enough respect to tell me you're going to take the reserve and use it however you blanketly want to use it before you even actually look at the ACT in the service and again I don't
202see I'm still not convinced that this is in line with our policy I I I do not I appreciate your answer but I still don't see that we are not violating our own policy as well yeah and I just want to respond to the fact that um we we definitely respect the partnership that we have with both pack and deac we did pretty extensive stakeholder engagement in the context of the inperson and virtual sessions and we've spent a lot of time analyzing additional stakeholder feedback that we received in the survey um we are looking at the pack report and we're looking forward to hearing from the daac there's actually some alignment with um the direction now remember the the pack makes recommendations our responsibility is to respond to them formally um some of those recommendations
203were we will you know we are definitely considering and some of the recommendations might not might might be a not right now but we can tag them for future so I just I I don't want the the image to be that we are uh disregarding the very impact and the work that the pack team has done but they haven't weighed in on this they have had no conversation about this reserve and what it's going to be used for well this is true because my understanding was that this Reserve was general fund so that's why we went through through the S we went through the sbac um the sback uh took another vote tonight um so I am remiss in not having said that in my talking point so I apologize I'm trying to remember multiple
204talking points um so it was uh uh all to utilize the lcff reserve as a onetime measure I think um all the participants except for one voted yes and the and the pack members abstained y director B I was there and I clarified specifically are you saying you're okay with us using the reserve they said yes most people did not say that they wanted to circumvent the rest of the process to not have the lcat plan or the parent advisory committee weigh in but do they want to use part of the reserve to solve our financial crisis that was a solid yes so that's two different things that's not saying they were like yes use it for and circumvent the parent advisory committee or the whole lcap plan in the process I understand thanks all
205right directors um looking around see if there's further discussion if not this is agendized as an action item wanted to know if there was a motion director shinoski I move to approve I second Miss chus can you call the vote director la oh it's on the first oh there all noted uh director babbit no no director Chang I yes director shinoski yes uh vice president Brown no president uh basv yes motion carries on a three to two to one thank you very much and thank you ass associate superintendent Hogan for your presentation and um for the thorough discussion colleagues now uh we will move on to our next agenda item 14.2 Mr Tobias Espinosa will you be introducing this item apologies if I'm out of order uh directors I just want to clarify the vote
206that just took place what staff was bringing to you for Action was a motion to move 500,000 up to $500,000 from the uh lcf s Reserve uh the the how and the what it would be used for was not specified in the the presentation and so you do have the Liberty Tax does have the Liberty to have input of how that money will be used I just wanted to clarify because I think because the action that was coming next maybe there was some conflation but it was and is possible for the board to have approved the possible use of that Reserve without making uh any giving any clear Direction around what to use it for so I don't know if that's a point of clarification that will help but I think it's important particularly as
207we go to this next item and I think there was some connections that made sense to be made but doesn't necessarily have to be true it's vice president Brown asking if he could restate that again superintendent the whole thing and no just uh restating for the public because I don't want anyone to walk out of here thinking that the vote that uh some of us on the board made was not in supportive staff or not in support of Staff positions it was the vote that we took tonight was about moving the funds from the elcap reserve to be able to be able to use it so I don't want anybody to walk out of here with a false narrative so thank you for the opportunity to say that again ready okay so um we have
208a uh resolution um to eliminate and reduce classified positions unfortunately um and this would be for us to do our final notices by um the end of the day on May 14th um Liz do you have the presentation all right in the interest of time I'm going to um skip over the mission uh but we definitely do root ourselves in the mission um so we have been able to resend things off of the list that you originally approved um for the initial um potential layoffs in on March 8th um so we have been able to remove the BHS BP site discretionary positions because the SSC at um BHS did vote to confirm the funding we've also been able to remove a number of PTA positions because either the PTA or prop 28 funding was confirmed
209we have also um have confirmed some funding to remove some lcap positions from the list as well as some cooking and gardening positions um I want to remind everybody that this is a required process by Ed code um and that if we don't do these notices by May 14th otherwise these positions are um considered continuing um for 2425 and the district would need to figure out how we are going to fund them um we can still res resend after this notice is given um but these will be um notices that do say that they are final notifications so first group um in line with the conversation you were just having is um lcap funded positions so on March 8th um on the red side of the slide you will see what was on the list
210at that point uh which included the ofie supervisor The ofie Specialist 6.94 FTE the positions at Berkeley High School which included two restorative justice coordinators as well as the well one of the student and Welfare attendance um staff members we may first list um this is version a um includes Opie specialists um 4.94 FTE for the PTA funded positions um again these are positions that the PTA um has been committing to pay for um over this last year and we've asked them to recommit um for this next year um the list you had on March 88th the notices covered over 11 School sites um it represented 5.17 FTE um and that was spread over 17 positions including instructional assistance both bilingual and um not clerical 2 position um some instructional Specialists and one instructional technician
211um and all of these positions as a reminder are created above the Baseline Staffing of a site um the May 1st list um we've been able to reduce it so now it only covers six School sites um and only represents 2.53 FTE or nine positions and we are hoping that we will continue to resend these as we get commitments from the PTA or plans to use the prop 28 funds for cooking and gardening positions um on May uh March 8th um on that list um the positions covered 17 School sites um included instructional Specialists um 9.12 FTE um instuctional technicians 1 122 FTE and the supervisor 1.0 the current uh list May 1 list um is still spread over those 17 School sites we have not identified which school sites would be impacted but we
212would need to um still um lay off uh 1.73 FTE of instructional Specialists we are waiting to hear about a possible Grant um that we are hopefully going to hear about next week um which would allow us to resend these layoffs um there are a couple of categories which no changes have been made to the list between March 8th and now um and those include um a purchasing position um the storekeeper point2 FTE um that was mentioned in um the union comments earlier tonight as well as the at BHS the um High School plant operations manager uh the only positions on this list that are actually unrestricted general fund um are are positions that are based on enrollment um so these are positions that where we have a formula that we use the um enrollment
213of our students and how many students at which site to determine how much Staffing for school campus AIDS as well as school service assistance um and this again no change has been made between March 8th and now um so it would be a reduction of 1.51 FTE spread over six Elementary sites for school campus AIDS and 2.22 FTE spread over six Elementary sites for the school service assistance um this chart that is very hard to read because iiz it's tiny um the last two columns show what FTE we are um planning on allocating for next school year based on the enrollment formula um for school campus AIDS and for uh School service assistants and the sort of cut off for the formula is um 399 and below is one rate um one set of FTE
214uh 400 to 5 499 is another uh level and then 500 and above is a different level uh we have two Elementary sites uh that qualify for the 400 level and then we have one elementary site that has a slightly different model because of the how their um plant is set out how their facility is set up um in terms of supervision um so they have a tiny increase in their um school campus AIDS and that concludes my presentation thank you so much um we have vice president Brown questions thank you assistant superintendent uh Tobias espanosa I wanted to ask about the cooking and gardening um program and um the potential uh layoff notices that are along with that earlier it was mentioned um by um bcce um and by vice president mild that the
215cooking and gardening program have their their own budget um could you respond to that could you inform the board so there's um there's two different programs that sometimes get um I think there was a little confusion so nutrition services has I'm sorry nutrition services yeah nutrition services has their own budget um cooking and gardening is funded I think there's four different uh budgets that um are covering cooking gardening uh it's mostly grants um the soda tax from the city of Berkeley um strong Workforce Grant from the city of Berkeley um and um some other money um one of the things that you previously approved during the um 6.9 9 uh budget balancing Solutions was a move um to fund instead of from general fund but from nutrition services some of the positions in cooking and
216gardening and that Still Remains true um that's why we've been able to reduce the amount that um we are looking at um is that funding as well as carry use of carryover funds and um looking for an additional Grant and there isn't enough um money or we don't want to tap into the nutrition um budget again to cover the other recommended so um actually the um the nutrition services was um was not brought with the 6.9 because esbach voted to have more discussion so it wasn't formally approved but it was something that staff had brought to esac and we had discussed um we have since change that amount um instead of it being a $300,000 B budget balancing solution it's now 200 because we um we were going to um fund 100,000 for the um
217the cooking and gardening program so it was it was 300 and now it's 200 oh your mic is not would be um that would go to the um to the cooking and Gard we're proposing to fund them um 100,000 plus any unspent funds from this year that's the proposed general fund um funding for Nutri for um cooking and gardening you welcome director shinoski yeah I I have a number of concerns about the list of positions that are on this list um you know I look at these and it's you know instructional assistant school campus Aid instructional assistant bilingual and I feel like these are positions and people that have very direct relationships with students and impacts with students and so when we talk about cutting positions we always say that we want to cut as
218far away from student experience as possible and I feel like this is not in alignment with that um and I know that there we've discussed particular um Revenue sources and the elimination of particular Revenue sources and that that's why some of these positions are on the list as they are but I feel like we need to do a better job or maybe I need to do a better job of understanding why it is that we are using that as the rationale for eliminating these very student facing positions right there are possibilities just because one you know pot of money is gone that doesn't mean that we necessarily eliminate that particular position um and we talk about organizational Clarity a lot and feel like this is this doesn't feel aligned with that organizational Clarity to me
219that's one thing um the other thing is I'm I'm concerned about our Reliance on outside Consultants you know a and at the same time the elimination of people that um we know are in our community and of our community and you know potentially can be here for a long time um so in terms of the position I that you mentioned um the funding is different for the school campus Aid versus the instructional assistant bilingual um the instructional assistant bilingual positions are created by the PTA and funded by the PTA um and um are considered positions that basically every year have to be renewed um because of that outside funding um which the district does not have um the complete control over the the PTA funding um that being being said um it has been um
220a practice for years of doing um the PTA um layoffs um unfortunately and trying to resend them so that we don't have to do final notices um the change in the Ed code um regarding classified layoffs that made this May 14th deadline um has greatly impacted that it used to be a simple 60-day timeline that could happen at any time during the year where we could wait until um we had gotten through this budgeting process before we had to do the layoff notices for classified and we can't do that any longer um so um that does have an impact on this process um in regards to the student facing positions yes unfortunately some of these positions are student facing um and um it was not used as a determining factor in this case um it
221was based on funding um and so that's how we identified the positions that needed to go on the layoff list had to do with funding um and I think that uh this has been a learning experience and something that we will continue to look at and improve in the future I just want to chime in specifically around oh there's no the slide that's on my screen is the PTA funded positions but specifically thinking about those and just to your point um director sh one of our core values for resource allocation is sustainability um and what we know um is that uh it is not best practice for ptas to fund um positions that are necessary needed and we know the people who are at our sites are amazing and do great things for our students
222um unfortunately that this time is a time that um we are not just having to think about and restructure what we asked ptas to fund or we even allow ptas to fund but we're also doing it um against the backdrop of a $7.1 million cut that might actually be growing um I'm sorry $7.1 million uh budget balancing that might actually be growing because we have not Incorporated yet new um or required uh expenses right and so I just want to name that you know this is a very hard and unusual time and something that's really new for Berkeley um we have very generous um community members and have typically had a rather you know overflowing but a pretty healthy budget um and so I just wanted to name that that we know that even Beyond
223this season of budget balancing strategies there's a larger conversation that is around around organizational Clarity that speaks to what is the base funding we'll make sure that all of our what are the best base positions and supports and services that all schools have and then what's the role in PTA right now we know is kind of what's reflected here is that ptas get to pick and decide um Our Hope though with this particular side of PTA funed positions I think um associate superintendent um espanosa said is that we are still waiting PTA are still coming in confirming their funds and submitting their funds and so our hope is that at least at the very least this particular list will change as they are still uh positions that our school sites think are important and want
224director B thank you for making that um added Clarity superintendent I just want to say um that slide around the 23 campus Aid I'm looking at 251 students have 23 all the way to 404 still have 23 um I think you're looking at the wrong column okay um it's the last two columns um Liz can you put the last slide of last night I'm glad I ask because I'm like change a policy it's 153 kid difference uh so it's the last two slid uh columns there the first three um the First Column um that has numbers in it um not the location number but the enrollment is the enrollment and then the per pupil allocation that's a separate Financial thing that has nothing to do with layoffs um or positions um and then that's the
225actual application next to it and then we're looking at the school campus Aid and the school um service assistant the last two columns are the Staffing pieces okay so where I see 1.07 full-time campus aid for Oxford it's actually probably about five people working um small tiny FTE um so the majority of our school campus AES work about a02 or a 0.25 FTE and then I see 1.33 or Berkeley Art's magnet yes that's because they have over 400 students that that doesn't very still feels like berth R magnet would need more was my overall assessment of that variance but I just wanted to clarify thank you may I ask for um some clarification around the 1.33 for Rosa Parks that has 371 under 400 uh it's because of their physical plant um have um additional
226supervision needs that um our other sites do not um Washington is another one that has additional needs but they have actually a school um safety officer um who serves as their um crossing guard protector during the day of that little area of street that they cross hi team I just want to be mindful of the time until 11:21 we have 9 more minutes left in the meeting um and this is an action item so I don't know if there are additional questions before we call for a motion all right team uh I'm going to call for a motion just want to make sure I understand here is action to approve the recisions uh the action that we're recommending is approval of version a of the uh resolution which are the positions that still need to
227receive final notices um if the board wishes that's what we're asking for are are you sure because the slide had version V uh version a is the one that includes the um 4.94 lcap positions the uh op specialist can can we just pull up the slide oh okay my apologies I thought that was version B no okay so now that we've obviously passed the lcap um action item we're now on a so I move to approve version a version a uh I don't have it linked in the presentation I think we another question director shinoski version a has the larger number of yes layoffs yes um so the difference is we didn't want to pressure um the board into making a decision um based on the last um item that specifically it was going towards
228those ofie specialist positions if the board would like to amend and do version B that doesn't include those positions the board is welcome to choose that um the staff currently is recommending U version a think take some time to understand yeah so yeah I may need to withdraw my initial motion and then should we have a conversation about looking at a versus B well we have seven minutes we've already extended meting till 11:30 confused oh yeah director shoski tell me if I'm wrong version a includes layoff notices final layoff notices for all of the positions that we're going to have to get layoff notices if we didn't pass the resolution we just passed version B version B removes those positions because of the additional resources that were just approved in the last resolution correct superintendent
229can you please clarify because that's against what you just said so what you voted on in the previous vote was to authorize staff to use up to $500,000 from the lcff reserve you did not direct staff or vote on the use of those funds what you're looking at now and voting on is um the list I think you should just not do versions just this list that includes the 4.94 FTE um oie Specialists the board did not direct staff to use the $500,000 Reserve towards these lcap positions so they are listed on here until and if uh funding from elcap I'm sorry until and if the cap plan is approved and approves those positions and in that case then the 500,000 or funds can be used for those positions but for now that 500 is
230pending um lcap plan finalization thanks for that Clarity superintendent again director sh ask another question then why do we have a version B you had a version B because uh the the original conversation was to use the $500,000 reserve for these positions however to the point made by um some of the directors here one the lcap is not finalized and two pno and daac need to weigh in and might have different opinions or ideas or U input as to how they would like uh Monies to be spent or what positions they would like to continue in the upcoming lcap and so to respect their advisory capacity we are doing that we're going to be able to tap into the reserve if needed but we're not going to make any uh designations to how those funds
231will be used tonight and yes we're hitting up on 11:30 but so again just to confirm based upon what the superintendent just described to allow for that flexibility the district is recommending version a correct okay colleagues is there a motion to approve version 8 I move to approve version 8 is there a second I'll second seconded by director babbit um Miss chares can you call the for the vote director shinoski no director l no director babit yes director chairing yes vice president Brown yes president vasev no so motion does not carry on a three to2 vote excuse me that was three Nos and two yes right can you excuse me can you re resay the votes yes I have not re askk for the votes but can you read out the votes of each director
232before calling the if it director Str and director babbit yes uh with um director shinoski and director Lao and vice president I me president with a no yeah so the motion does not pass on a three to two three opposition and two in favor three and three you supposed to say the motion pass yeah the motion did pass she's just asking for clarification got you yeah okay no worries so there were three yeses and two NOS okay great um all right well thank you that concludes all the agenda items for today's meeting please colleagues note the informational items 15.1 to 15.7 me look to see if we have any online public comments I do not see any online public comments um I don't know if there's a public comment in the audience no thank you
233and now we'll move on to uh extended board member comments and then we'll close the meeting director shinoski sorry I forgot to say something earlier um I just wanted to um make the comment that I have asked to appoint Janette mcneel to the peace and Justice Commission as my school board appointee um Miss mcneel is an educator 30-y year long educator the nearby District lifelong Berkeley resident um two kids that have gone through BD and I um look forward to having her serve us on the commission thanks thank you colleagues this concludes meeting at 11:29 p.m. thank you