001good evening if we could please quiet down we get ready to start the board meeting now calling this meeting to order at 7:17 p.m Miss chus can you please do a roll call student director K La is excuse this evening up director Jennifer shinoski here director Laura babit here director Mike Chang here vice president Kadija Brown present presidenta an thank you Miss ches we will now approve the agenda for this evening's meetings are there any requested changes yes I'd like to pull item 12.6 and 12.7 for Action is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended and a second to approve the agenda I move to approve a second uh the motion is made by director shinoski seconded by director babbit all those in favor all we will now report from our closed session
002vice president Brown please report out this evening's closed session as well as a special close session meeting held on March 4th good evening everyone the March 4th meeting uh close session meeting of the Berkeley Unified School District uh was call to order at 6:03 p.m. for item 4.1.1 the board heard an update and provided direction for item 4.2 the board heard an update and provided Direction and for item 4.3 the board heard an update and provided direction for this evening's close session for the date of March 6 2024 uh close session began at 5:40 p.m. for item 3.1.1 the motion to agree to the proposed settlement was made by director babbit and seconded by President basudev director shinoski Chang babbit and basudev voted in favor vice president Brown voted in absentia for item 3.1.2 the
003motion to agree to the proposed settlement was made by director babbit and seconded by director Chang all directors voted in favor for item 3.2 the motion to agree to the stipulated agreement ma was made by director shinoski and seconded by director babbit and all directors voted in favor for item 3.3 the board heard an update and provided Direction and for item 3.4 the B board heard an update and provided Direction this concludes the notes from today's close session and from the special close session held on March 4th thank you vice president Brown now we will hear from our superintendent Ena for Mara thank you president badf uh good evening the USD Families First oh there we go good evening B USD families first of all I want to thank you all for showing up this
004evening I say it every time I see a large crowd and I'll say it again I hope that you stay for the duration of the meeting as we have a lot of topics that I think will be of interest to you on tonight's agenda I also want to thank those of you here tonight and members of The Wider Berkeley Community for showing up for our schools and students at the polls as you are hope as you all hopefully know Berkeley schools had a very important measure on the March 5th ballot measure H or BP the measure focus on the renewal of critical funds that currently make up over 20% of our District's budget providing a range of essential and enhancements to our schools like our amazing arts and music programs our CTE programs smaller class
005sizes providing one and three of our teachers interventionists instructional coaches and so much more Alama County Register our voters is indicating that The Unofficial final results of the March 5th 2024 election show that The Bu usd's measure BP or measure H has passed though still preliminary this election result is a testament to this community's generosity and support of our public schools and because of you we are positioned to continue our work in achieving our District's Mission which is to enable and Inspire our diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and make positive contributions to the world now there are so many amazing things happening in our schools as a result of BP which stands for Berkeley schools Excellence program by the way and we know that our students need to be in school to access
006this Excellence aware of data that shows march to be a very challenging month for attendance we have officially kicked off our March Madness attendance Challenge on Monday all of our K through 12 schools began participating in the March Madness challenge each week during this month our schools will be competing to see who has the highest attendance rate in a bracket style tournament it's separated into elementary middle and high school Levels by the way I have no idea what a bracket style tournament is lots of folks have tried to explain it to me so if you can I would very much appreciate it but I anticipate that it's going to be lots of fun um in a great way for our students to get engaged and refocused on attendance at the end of The four-week Challenge
007winning schools will be awarded a first place gold trophy a second place silver trophy gold silver they're all good things um and a third place plaque or certificate for other standings there we go I love an interactive crowd um it's important that all of us support student attendance this month and every month throughout the rest of our school year um I start off by thanking you all for showing up and asking that you stay wanted to tell you a little bit about what we have on our agenda tonight to incite and incent you to do so but we have no trophies this evening for your attendance um tonight our staff will be presenting the second interim report it's a very important presentation you all and we will be sharing and highlighting some very critical information
008about our budget or our fiscal Outlook staff will also be highlighting some midyear data and then I wanted to take a moment to point out two items on our consent uh calendar uh they're noted as resolution 24-26 and 24-27 these resolutions as some of you might know are part of an annual process that's often referred to as the March 15th notices the law requires that um march by the way March 15th is my birthday I just thought I should say that and and I and I'm saying that also saying that these notices have been um occurring on March 15th for years it happen not just in bu USD but across um all school districts in California so every birthday I got a notice um but again these are just requirements for the law and it's
009actually an opportunity for us to give notice to our employees of possible changes in duties and assignments um insufficient time so that if they decide to make some choices they have time to do so um they come to our board in the form of a resolution and again like I said I've gotten one every birthday so this is not new or uncommon to B USD or other districts across our state that said it's important for you to hear that the action that the board takes this evening does not actually mean that the positions listed will be reduced or eliminated there are no final decisions made with regards positions listed on tonight's resolutions I'm G say that again there are no final decisions about the positions um listed on the list and the action that the
010board takes this evening does not mean that any position will be reduced or eliminated we I personally value every B USC staff member I know that each of you plays a critical role in supporting our Collective mission to serve our babies and our families here in Berkeley and so this practice of the March 15th notice though I know it can be confusing and concerning exist to protect our employees and make sure again that we have ample notice I do encourage you to stay not just for our fiscal presentation tonight but to learn more about our budgeting process going forward um and I want you to make sure that you know that we will be engaging in a very thoughtful and collaborative budget process before making any changes to our school programs or Personnel finally I
011want to address the national attention that our district has been receiving this past week about a Department of Education Office of civil rights complaint filed against Berkeley Unified School District while the No No we don't do that y'all here we go I said good evening family when I started so going to act like a family while the district has not yet been formally notified of a complaint file we do take all allegations presented in the media reports very seriously the office of civil rights complaint process and this is important for y'all to understand is a civil rights protection mechanism aimed at supporting districts Across the Nation and ensuring anti-discrimination protections of our students we continue it ain't new we continue to be committed to ensuring that our for E for all of our diverse student
012student bodies students exist every day in our schools inherent in any commitment to equity must be a willingness to listen to reflect and to work in community as such we consider an office of civil rights complaint as an opportunity to further examine our practices procedures and policies and to ensure compliance with federal laws and to make sure that we are truly advancing towards our mission and our values for all of our students so what I'm saying to y'all is this is not an adversar process the district will fully engage with the office of civil rights to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the allegations presented I thank you for your time and your attention and again I thank you all for being here and I'm G watch you I'm G see who stays and who goes
013I might have some extra trophies thank you thank you superintendent we will now move to the public comments component of our agenda before we begin we'd like to remind you of our decorum expectations during this and all parts of tonight's meeting can you hear me without the echo hello can you hear me okay great thank you thank you Liz um before begin I'd like to remind you of our decorum expectations during this and all parts of tonight's meetings no person shall disturb the order of this meeting such Behavior includes but is not limited to booing hissing creating or participating in any physical disturbance speaking out of turn in violation of applicable rules preventing or attempting to prevent others who have the floor from speaking preventing others from observing the meeting entering into or remaining in
014the area of the meeting room that is not open to the public or approaching the dice without permission as Miss chus 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 to comments or questions made during the public comment period board members the superintendent and staff do take notes during public comment and may follow up with the speaker after the meeting these are hybrid meetings so we have public commenters in the boardroom and online we have designated 20 minutes to our in-person
015speakers this will be followed by 10 minutes for any speakers online anyone online who wishes to make public comments should raise their virtual hand now so as Miss chus can organize each public speaker will have up to one minute to speak depending on the amount of speakers please note that the microphone will shut off at the end of each speaker's lot of time so time your comments accordingly I will call your name in order of the speakers per agenda item to keep things moving I'd like to ask that the speaker who comes next in line come forward and wait near the mic I apologize in advance if I mispronounced someone's name incorrectly we'll begin with our public comments and those in person and we'll start with our student commenters so I'm going to call zaro
016Koffman marou shabir and noin please remember RJ cor aric cor rules thank you my check all right good evening everybody my name is noin Zada and I'm an eighth grade eighth grader at Willard Middle School me and my friends have made a club called the watermelon Society we made this club in order to teach people about the history and culture of Palestine and to support and to show our support as someone who stands with human rights many of many of you might have heard about the complains about this club maybe many parents and students think that the club and the members of the club are anti-jewish and anti-semitic but I can assure every parent and student that this club was not made to offend anyone or for it to be against anyone during our meetings
017we watch movies play Cahoots do art projects and things like that we've also done a bake sale to fundraise for the Middle Eastern Children's Alliance and are hoping to do that again any student is welcome to the club we as the club leaders will make sure that it's a safe environment where everyone where everyone's opinions are heard thank you so much thank you now I'll have zaro Kaufman and marou shabir okay um hello my name is zaro Kaufman and I'm a senior at Berkeley High as a member of Berkeley's Jewish Community I know many of those who stand against our liberated ethnic studies uh curriculum and I am disappointed I will not stand for the anti-Semitism which we face sorry being used to silence voices calling for peace we are currently W witnessing the dangerous
018compion of anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel make no mistake if you are currently uncomfortable with your teachers and peers being pro Palestine it is not because they are anti-semitic it is because your views on Israel on Israel clouded your ability to see the genocide which is being committed um because under no circumstances the genocide of 30,000 people ever J to not teaching about Palestine does not mean that students will not learn about the conflict if you are concerned about anti-semitic rhetoric spreading then be concerned about what your students are learning on so from random social media sources and not um from our thank you zaro thank you so much next comment hi I just hello if we could please adhere to our deorum rules that'd be great so we can get through all the speakers
019in the aot of time next we have Mar shabir hi my name is mAh shabir I'm a ninth grade at breley high and I'm here today to support the Palestinian movement recently we learned about palestin Israel in class and it was going so well until until I heard about their them trying to take away this this lesson recently I saw that there was a man in Palestine who was zip tied to the ground and ran over by a tank how can you justify this how can you let this go and how can you say that this is okay Palestinians are humans too and they deserve their rights the more you hide the truth the more ignorant you become and we have seen this time and time again especially in America that they keep on trying
020to justify this and hide the truth from us we read in our history books about what happened with Native Americans and African-Americans and we all know that is wrong and we say that this is never going to happen again and we it's happening right in front of us right now and it's for some reason it's it's okay for people and there's people here who support that and that is not okay free Palestine thank you thank you please adhere to our decorum rules now I'm gonna call Ida Marshall lape followed by Anastasia followed by Ali Ali sorry if I mispronounced that so Ida Marshall lape Anastasia hello my name is Ida Marshall Lee and I'm a freshman at Berkeley High taking an ethnic studies class in learning about the Israel Palestine conflict I was able to
021hear the voices of Israeli victims and Palestinian Palestinian children through videos and data points I know this is a subject that no one wants to have to learn or teach about but I think school is the place we need to be hearing about this from I know know most students have gathered ideas about this conflict prior to learning about it in class whether from Friends social media or news as is as it is a major current event many of these sources may not be presenting facts or rather have told biased perspectives learning about this topic was extremely necessary and helped many students like me learn about this conflict in a way they hadn't before not teaching students about Israel Palestine isn't going to stop them from hearing about it it's just going to prevent them
022from learning about it in a way that promotes a ba balanced understanding thank you thank you now I'd like to call Anastasia followed by alali oh um hi I'm Alani I'm an eighth grader at Willard Middle it is so appalling that outside organizations are trying to prevent us from learning ethnic studies and now there's a complaint that our Educators and a club my friends and I created are anti-jewish me and my co-leaders are here today to show you what our club is really about the watermelon society's sole purpose is educating ourselves and our peers about not only what's happening in Palestine but also their culture and history our activities include Cahoots bake sales videos and learning about other genocides when the world also did nothing but watch no activities of ours include being anti-jewish we
023have Jewish members that come weekly this means that all of us regardless of religion are coming together because we are heartbroken over the killing of families just like ours in Palestine I go through five periods of day without with everyone acting like over a half a million Palestinians are not starving to death that feels like real brainwashing to me the few Educators that who try to teach about Palestine are being silenced and placed on administrative thank you thank you for your comments next reminder we'd love to get through all the comments please ad here to the torn RS next we have Anastasia followed by Hannah statley Weisberg and J me Nassar hi my name is Anastasia I go to Willer Middle School I think it's so appalling how people can sit here and say that
024our club that's supposed to teach about peace and what's going on can call us anti-jew and anti-semitic when we have never ever once said something like that we have been open to everyone coming and it's so crazy how people can just sit there and say that okay I can't thank you next I'd like to call on Hannah statley wise Weisberg and Yasmin nasier hi my name is Hannah slider Weisberg and I'm a freshman at Berkeley High as well as a youth commissioner for the Berkeley youth commission I'm here today to voice support for the ethnic studies program at Bickle High I found the curriculum to be very informative and open-minded and it has contributed so much to my understanding of the Palestinian Israeli conflict I think that it's very important to teach these things in
025school because most teenagers other main informational source is social media which can often be biased and full of in misinformation learning about the conflict through class has allowed me to really understand different perspectives spe specifically ones that I hadn't seen before in my family or in social media although I understand why it may be controversial to be teaching this at school especially as a Jewish student I think this is the best way to have a safe School environment thank you thank you now I'd like to call Yasmin Naser hello my name is y Nasser and I am in sixth grade at Willard Middle School I am palestin at school we are told not to talk about Israel's war on Palestine because different people believe different things I Believe In Truth education is based on fact
026not belief I want to be taught the truth even if it's hard for some people to hear the history of Palestine and Palestinian resistance to Israel should be taught in schools just like the history of Native Americans and the history of African-Americans this is a history that needs to be known Israel can wipe away girls like me but they can't wipe away their story it lives on in me long live the truth Long Live real education Long Live Palestine thank you thank you if if we could please keep the noise down I can call on the other students hi just a rem reminder of our decorum of our decorum Norms Miss ches I think you might need to increase the mic hi a reminder of our decorum Norms so we can get through all the
027student speakers we have four students from the Jewish Student Union at Berkeley High so you have four minutes for the four student speakers our names are yeah our names are Ley Novo and Nia we are current BHS students and we all participated in the Berkeley High ethnic studies program during our freshman years and our current members of the Jewish Student Union at Berkeley High We believe that the school curriculum should include accurate honest and balanced content history and Social Studies classes should include opportunities to learn accurate facts consider multiple perspectives and lived experiences learn how to evaluate the evidence presented and access the credibility assess The credibility of sources responsible ethnic studies programs need to focus on Building Bridges ethnic studies should Empower students to confront discrimination by coming together allowing us to share common
028ground and move Beyond hateful stereotypes it should support us to fight isms cultivate respect for all pursue social justice teach critical thinking and cultivate empathy and understanding we as Jewish students are concerned that the material being taught in the lesson sets taught this week in the ethnic study classes do not meet these standards we are concerned that the inclusion of biased and inaccurate materials this year will set the president for future materials to do the same here are just two of several examples of inaccuracies included in these materials that are biased against Jews in Israel um first on the definition sheet given to students on the first day of the lesson set the definition of Gau includes false information about Gaza rather than a definition the detail about 5,000 Jewish settlers is false there have
029been no Jewish settlers in Gaza since the Israel's withdrawal in 2005 on the slides from the second lesson the second slide implies a false and harmful dichotomy that you must believe that either Jews or Arabs have historical claims to the land the fact is that both Jews and and Arabs have deep connections to the region a 1500-year period of Arab presence was preceded by a 20 or 2,000 sorry year period of Jewish presidence the basic fact that both people have deep history in and rightful claims of the presence of the land is critical to understanding of the conflict and these are just two of many inaccuracies in this weeks lesson sets we are worried about the message that inaccuracies like these and conclusions and biases that result from them sent to our Jewish classmates but
030we are even more worried about the lessons being learned by our non-jewish classmates there needs to be Integrity in what we are taught as BD develops an ethnic studies curriculum it should be an unbiased and accurate depiction of realities and histories while also sharing a balanced view of the perspectives on the issues we all think ethnic studies is a critical part of our education and you owe it to all students to create an accurate and unbiased curriculum that respects values and includes our experiences as American Jews thank you thank you for your comments please adhere to our decorum rules everyone so we can get through the student speakers next we have Amaya Dorman McKenzie who's here to speak about uh students Sunrise Sunrise Brickly High hello School Board um my name is Amaya and I
031along with many am pushing for a green New Deal for schools and also to protect trans rights however it would be foolish to separate out the green New Deal for schools from the intersectionality of the issues faced by this District I am here on behalf of Sunrise Berkeley High but I'm also here to fight for teachers rights to free speech and to combat the fabrication of hurtful stories which have been used to scare teachers into not discussing the history of Palestine and which may have also contributed to the removal of a big-hearted um a dedicated teacher who I miss a lot it is not right and I feel betrayed because the truth of what I experienced in the classroom is not the story which is being put out into the world I I None of
032the lessons that I have experienced about the history of Palatine have been targeted or disrespectful Fe taxes such as scapegoating and lying do not belong in a school district and it and the same way that they do not belong in the government or in Industry I will not accept this none of us will I stand for a ceasefire in Gaza and for a green New Deal for schools thank you next we have Ava diasi and R Markham speaking about uh consent education and you each will have one minute to speak Ava and then Ru um good evening school board and superintendent my name is Ava daasi and I'm a senior at Berkeley High I'm also a part of the leadership for Berkeley High School stop harassing last year you approved a new full-time position for
033BHS a prevention coordinator that would provide consent education for the high school and help coordinate Green Dot unfortunately we did not fill that position last spring it is now March this is the time of year where teachers start signing contracts so right now we have the best pool of candidates to fill this important job our question to you board is this why hasn't this job been posted can you post it this month the position is fully funded BHS has a history of both procuring funding for positions like this than never posting positions or or hiring please don't let this happen again our students deserve and need prevention strategies they need to understand consent in meaningful ways and they don't superintendent would you please ensure that this position gets posted and filled thank you good evening
034SCH boarding superintendent my name is R Markham I played on the Berkeley High soccer team for two years and now play on a travel team I also serve on leadership for Berkeley High stop harassing I know that you all know that that young men on Middle School sports teams are more likely to engage in sexual harassment assault than boys who do not play on those teams approximately 600 male athletes play at Berkeley High and 100 more play on non- Berkeley Affiliated teams as you may remember in the past we have founded but not hired a full-time coaching boys and the men coordinator which middle school and high school sports team need we spend huge amounts of money on the apath the sexual harm and have not funded prevention in any meaningful way this is an
035ethical and issue and something that young men and young women need and want thank you for your consideration thank you very much now I'd like to call on Sydney fair then Nikki Rafe so student Nikki fair is the last student speaker I have and you will have one minute I seed my time to Emma kis Baka I'm Emma I'm speaking on behalf of the trans students at Berkeley High and when I look at that flag I see a legacy of every trans kid every queer person who was killed in America because their schools their states didn't make them safe and we are terrified the trans students at Berkeley High and in B USD because we are not safe at our schools because you have not made us safe we've been here almost every Schoolboard meeting
036and nothing nothing has happened nothing you haven't made us safe so audience raise your fists if you think trans kids deserve to be safe raise your fist if you think this board should make us safe right now today make us safe keep them raised if you think this school should teach a parde because Palestinian students deserve to be safe em thank you thank you and please stay for gak's presentation thank you thank you and a reminder to all speakers please adhere to our District's dequorum rules next we'll have Nikki Rafe to speak about campus security gates um hi I am here tonight as a parent and a teacher in our Berkeley unified preschools we are grateful that the district has tried to include our three preschool sites in the new security gates project project unfortunately
037this project has caused our campuses to be unsecured for 4 months as has led to specific concerns related to safety and education the latest update we have is that our gates will not be completed for at least two more months the threat of a stranger entering our preschool sites is deeply concerning to all preschool teachers as well as parents in a district that is requiring lockdown drills for our three-year-olds it is beyond absurd for our gates to be left unsecured for anyone to walk through them there are families and staff who have um active restraining orders against other people uh we have students who elope and strangers walking through our neighborhoods delivery people and sometimes even random strangers asking to use our restrooms as public restrooms um the long-term goal of these dates sorry it's
038okay thank you thank you so much if you could please email the board of directors your full comments that would be great thank you that goes for for every speaker who didn't get to finish um next I'd like to call on El n nain kelman followed by Yos Yosi fendel hi my name is Elana Na and kman been here before thanks for offering me this opportunity to speak today I have three kids a recent graduate uh of Berkeley High School who's on a gap year studying in Jerusalem a 10th grader at Berkeley High who spoke a few minutes ago in a sixth grader at King my sixth grader participated in a field trip yesterday with all the middle schools in BD and they walked from King to zerbach which I thought was a long walk
039but they did it and loved it to see a performance it's one of the things we love about Berkeley UniFi the opportunities are endless for our students but yesterday morning before he left he said to me IMA which is my ver in Hebrew when we're walking through the city today I'm going to put my foot on over my kop over my Jewish head covering that he wears all the time I he said to me I'm scared to wear it while we're walking through the city today I'm going to put it this is the world he's living in in 2024 in Berkeley California we created a you're done but please send us the rest of that comment thank you so much for being here next we have Yosi fendel followed by Hillary kilman hi my name
040is Yosi fandel and I'm the parent of a Berkeley High nth grader so months ago I learned that bud teachers were putting together classroom materials related to the Israel Palestine conflict behind closed doors and in contravention of State guard rails that have been been put up to prevent sensitive topics from being taught in an insensitive way and since then I have been pleading with teachers and administrators including the school board to review these materials before they were put into play however those materials were deliberately withheld from me until after they were used in the classroom this past week as of this morning I have now finally seen these materials and I can report that they are indeed infused with unbelievable levels of anti-israel prejudice bordering on M propaganda this District had an opportunity to engage
041with the pro-israel Jewish Community to teach this topic with sensitivity and they chose not to so not only have our children been subjected to this but an atmosphere of anti-israel bigotry has thank you very much next we have Hillary kilman is Hillary here hi beautiful hi I'm Hillary I have three kids in BD two at Berkeley High and one at King I'm here tonight to urge BD to terminate its contract with Lees and put an immediate hold on the Israel Palestine lesson and uphold its responsibility to adhere to the California Ed code and its own teaching guidelines both of which is in Wild uh violation right now the Israel Palestine lesson being taught at BHS varies from being factually incorrect such as asserting that 5,000 Jewish settlers live in Gaza when in fact they all
042left in 2005 and the only Jews there today are being held hostage by Hamas to intentionally misleading such as characterizing the October 7th Hamas terror attack as simply being Rockets attacks over a border wall willfully admitting the violent home invasions widespread incidences of rape genital mutilations and binding of bodies all of which has been widely documented and confirmed by the UN I'm not insensitive to the situation of suffering in Gaza the curriculum though is unacceptably incomplete unbalanced and misleading not only is thank you Miss K please email us the rest of your comments next next I'm going to call Moose Stevens followed by zayane Mo Stevens followed by Zayn to speak about ethnic studies I'm seing toada uh good evening my name is l kwani I'm the executive director of the Arab resource and organizing
043Center I believe somebody just seeded their time to me so I'm curious about the time on the clock so you have have one minute each speaker has one minute no matter if they see time well did the other person see time too I called Zane and both speakers see the time yeah just one minute just one minute I'm also on i al okay thanks we can't combine time I'm sorry those are the rules but another speaker the other speaker has another minute too that I called Zane so my name is l kwani I'm the executive director of ack I first want to just give a huge shout out to the brave students who shown up today you guys have an incredible student population um I am on the ethnic studies advisory I also teach ethnic
044studies at San Francisco State University I represent the Arab Palestinian Muslim Community both who are here in addition to those who are too scared to be here those who are criminalized um and those who are invisible in this district and across the United States I want to give a shout out to our Jewish allies and um I want to name that as an Arab organization I also represent Arab Jewish people including Palestinian Jews um and I just want to stop there and say for the minute the last 15 seconds that I have that I hope and I recognize some of you here that I hope that you hold the conversation tonight and the needs of your students in their collectivity and their Humanity despite attempts to dehumanize them by sumon this room thank you and
045and the next speaker the next speaker is Zane uh hello board I simply ask you to read the room um if you are pro watermelon Society please raise your hand if you are anti-water melon Society please raise raise your hand there's like five of them there's more Jews against the watermelon Society than Jews for it I see I see the remainder of my time to can please adhere to our decorum rules no hissing thank you I'd like to seed my remaining 45 seconds to Christina harb 28 seconds there there is a second opportunity for public comment if you weren't able to give public comment there is a second opportunity at the end of the meeting oh are you gonna take the 28 seconds yes I'm CHR uh well whatever uh I'm just here to voice
046my vocal support for the ethnic studies curriculum um Berkeley has a long history of standing up against apartheid as evidenced by their stance against apartheid South Africa and I hope to see Berkeley uphold their values in their Legacy by continuing to teach ethnic studies in the district thank you all very much thank you and then our our last public speaker for inperson comments uh during this portion of the meeting will be Josh Austin Josh Austin here you have one minute or you've seated your time to miss harb for one minute please adhere to our decorum rules so we can hear from our speakers over the past five months the state of Israel has brutally assaulted Palestinians in Gaza causing a textbooks textbook case of genocide Israel has either partially or totally destroyed all of the
047universities in Gaza over 300 K through 12 schools and 13,000 children have been killed and 177,000 have no surviving family and tens of thousands more are being starved to death so this is a war clearly on palestine's entire existence and a parallel war is happening right here in our district because a small group of very entitled parents uh who are uncomfortable with the reality of what's happening are trying to conflate the issue of Palestine with the issue of anti-Semitism undermining the seriousness of both issues they have been systematically harassing intimidating punishing our teachers and students and attempting to silence our Collective opposition to genocide and we're here as teachers to stand with Eric Norberg and urge you to defend us to defend us thank you very much for your comments you did not get to
048finish your comments please email them to the board of directors next thank you everyone next we will We hi everyone if you could please adhere adhere to our deorum rules we can move on and hear from our the folks that have been waiting online to comment we're going to move on to the folks online we have 17 hands raised um we have 10 minutes of online public comment each online public commenter will have one minute to speak again the microphone will shut off after your allotted time so plan your comments accordingly and I'm going to start off with our student speakers online so the first student speaker I see is Miguel Isidro Lopez hello hi we hear you Miguel okay hello my name is Miguel is Lopez and I am a sophomore at Berkeley High
049appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight I'm here to thank you for the support of the [ __ ] program I'm one of the 75 student students on the weight list and I'm hoping I can explain why this program is so important for me I did all right my nth grade year but this year the work got a lot harder and I fell behind and I have realized that I need to have a place where I can work every day and feel comfortable to get help I have a couple good friends on the bridge program and they have told me about how helpful the twitterers are there and I've also gotten to know Miss luxord because I go to her office often to hang out at lunch with my friends friends and I see how she and Miss
050Hamond cheen with students and helps them get better grades I also feel that with the support of the [ __ ] program I could get A's and B's and it will help me be eligible for my four-year College which is my goal thank you for your time thank you next we will hear from student Anthony Beasley hi everyone my name is Anthony Beasley and I am a senior at Berkeley High in Bridge I want to thank the board and the district because I am grateful for the support I received from this program specifically some things I have found most helpful about bre is that I have a place to be comfortable doing homework every day a teach a teacher who follows me and keeps me on track making sure I am doing everything right like keeping my
051grades at a SE higher and making sure I finish assignments that are missing are due I also got all the support I needed to apply to colleges and all the steps to go with it I applied to four CSUS and I have heard from three of them and I was accepted to all three I also applied to Clark Atlanta unlb Arizona State Louisiana State Michigan State sou University of New Orleans and Xavier and I am looking forward to hearing back from them I am great F that I have had people who have invested and believed in me and I thank you for their support thank you Anthony next we have student asusena followed by student mark hi my name is Azu Senna a junior at Berkeley High and I'm here to advocate for teachers to
052have the right to talk about Israel and Palestine it is crucial that we don't let people's discomfort be the reason that we don't educate others that is the exact reason why we need to teach about this issue many people have been confused about what's been happening and they don't know who or what sources to believe I was one of the very few classes that got this curriculum I was feeling lost in having a teacher explained to me what was going on presently and the history was very important because this is a new curriculum there will be problems and that is where community and experts input come in we can learn from our different perspectives and that is exactly what we need in our world this issue is more prominent than ever and people are hearing
053information around them whether we teach it or not this education can help us come together as well informed compassionate people to work together for a better world we our BD where we have ethnic studies cult thank you very much next we have student mark good evening my name is marand and I'm a senior in the bridge program I'm excited to share that applied to 23 fouryear colleges and I've been accepted to the University of Oregon with $100,000 scholarships also got accepted to 14 other schools and I'm waiting to hear back from the rest of the schools including Harvard prinstone e and and the US Brides help me stay focused with school workor which also help me connect to my peers and my teachers this was really important important to me because he created a foundation
054between me and my teachers and great friendships with students who have the same goals the first two months of senior year I was in a mess because I wasn't sure how to write about my life story for my college ucation by Bridge connected me to a personal essay reader and she focused with me nonstop I'm grateful for the opportunity to have been in Bridge and I want to thank you for making it possible thank you thank you so much next we'll move on to our um our non-student speakers we'll start off with Natasha beri followed by Marita kintan good evening my name is Natasha Bei and I had the honor and responsibility of serving as your DOR director and of BP and community relations for many years I want to thank our superintendent I want
055to join our superintendent in expressing gratitude to Berkeley voters for having passed BP measure H which currently has over 84% of the early vote count our schools are trying with a crucial help of BP funds to not only teach academic subjects but also support our students growth in becoming caring constructive creative healthy responsible articulate thoughtful inclusive people who can make a positive difference in the world such as the student speakers we heard from tonight I want to thank Berkeley voters volunteers board of directors superintendent and Leadership district and school committees for upholding Our Community Trust in the thoughtful use of these crucial tax dollars I've been involved with four special tax measures and I've raised two children who graduated from Berkeley schools I'm now happily the grandmother of a 14-month-old who I hope will become
056part of the Berkley High class of 2041 that is probably two BP measures from now I hope to be here to see him graduate and to volunteer for the campaigns again thank you all Berkeley for your support thank you now we move on to Marita Kia followed by Elana Koffman hello my name is maraia I am the mother of Freddy and s caronia who are on n and 10 grades right now in Berkeley height I am here tonight to thank the board and district for making the B BHS bridge program as an auction for the student who need extra support in high school and who wants to go college my younger son is a brid right now my older son has been on the waiting list these years and I can see the struggl he
057has doing homew at home um um I would like to respectfully request your consider to expending the program for the sake of those who are on the waiting list we we specifically we specifically feel feel breach is the right program for our children offer after school classes every day of of in high school superity Bridge teacher who stay with my children's and our family for four years High thank you very much for your comments next we'll move on to Elana Kaufman and then I see Miss tyes thatone has identified themselves as a student Isel F so we'll do miss Kaufman and then Isel yes I don't see Miss Kaufman either yeah move to the student and then maybe if Miss Koffman joins again we can call on her okay hello do not disturb the meeting
058please please you have sir you cannot Shout at the board meeting it's in violation of our decorum rules please please step outside if you're going to be chanting thank you hello have the student speaker sorry go ahead Isel thank you my name is Isel Palestina I'm a senior at Bridge uh I'm a senior in the bridge program uh as we approach difficult funding decision times I hope you understand there should be no Berkeley where the issue of bridge funding and demand is met with not further investing in the incredible program I'm privileged to have a team of women miss luxford miss skos and miss Hammond so dedicated to students and families who show me this every single day I'm going to college out of state on a full tuition scholarship because of the long hours
059and diligence of them in their respective positions superintendent and board members Berkeley students of color need more and were worth it you can make Futures more accessible by continuing to fully fund the program and expanding for the 75 student weight list please don't close the doors on your students and I'll add we deserve an education that teaches truth and that teaches Palestine and these struggles are connected please don't let your students thank you appreciate your comments next we have IET IET farara IET farara representing the Equal Opportunity Now by any means necessary caucus I'm also a teacher at Berkeley independent studies I stand with Eric Norberg and all the teachers who've had the courage to teach about Palestine and the Israel Palestine conflict we have to fight for free speech and to teach Palestine in
060my close to two decades teaching in Berkeley it is incredible to me still that here in the home of the Free Speech movement the right to speak out against ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza is being censored that is unacceptable Educators and students should not be silenced especially in the case of standing up against the atrocities that are taking place thanks to Netanyahu and his invasion of Gaza two million people have lost their homes a 100,000 have been killed or wounded children have lost their parents half a million people are starving this is the truth that needs to be taught and it should be taught in our schools thank you miss farara our last speaker for the evening on the on for the online portion of this part of the Schoolboard meeting will
061be Sherry duer sure hi good evening good evening we can hear you great I'd like to seed my time to Laura kiswani is Laura present online M rer uh no I I don't believe so does she have to be but this is the online portion of public comment oh okay well then I'll if I can't see my time to hear I would like to make a comment then yeah if you can make a comment in one minute that'd be great okay great so I've been an educator for 30 years um I first want to applaud the students who have come out I can't believe how eloquently and um beautifully they've spoken in terms of both free speech in terms of understanding the dangers of conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism and and um I really
062support an ethnic studies program and teaching um the curriculum about Palestine and Israel in the school I think they all made excellent arguments so those are my comments for this evening thank you thank you very much now this concludes this public comment period thank you to everyone who came to speak if you did not get to speak please remember that there's extended public comment at the end of the meeting Additionally you can always email us at board ofed berkeley.net or you can contact us individually now we'll move on to committee comments Miss chidas do we have any committee comments I think we have gack and then the ethnic studies advisory committee is that correct I have two so I'm going to call the ethnic studies advisory committee first because I have their cards and then
063we'll call gack okay good evening School Board directors administrators and everyone else here present my name is Carol Perez I'm a parent of two bu buusd students and a resident of Berkeley I'm also a member of the ethnic studies advisory committee we are a diverse group made up of students community members caregivers and teachers who have been meeting for nearly two years to help the district develop the best ethnic studies curriculum possible for our children we enthusiastically recommended the liberated ethnic studies model curriculum Consortium be because they are hands down the best in the field liberated ethnic studies offers a true collaboration with our outstanding Berkeley teachers to develop teacher-driven curriculum we ask that the district extend the liberated ethnic studies contract into a multi-year contract one year of collaboration is not enough to end
064the contract now would be a huge setback for all of our students teachers caregivers and staff who believe in the transformative potential of ethnic studies recently I had the opportunity to listen to a documentary interview with revered local black Elder Betty Reed saskin in the interview she stated that to not know the stories of people of color in the United States is to truly not know America stand strong Berkeley and let us all tell our stories thank you thank you and next we'll hear from gack um okay both of you I will I will uh while I'm when I don't tell you to just hold up the QR code if I tell you to hold up one of these hold up that one to the audience I'll hold them up to you want me to
065uh yeah sure okay okay hello School Board my name is October herstein and I'm here on behalf of GA the gender expansive youth activist and gack to present on the state of gender neutral restrooms at Berkeley High a month ago GA reached out to Diane Arona the director of mental health at UCF at UCSF boff's children and Adolescent gender Center for statement on restrooms at BHS I will now read a section of that letter the negative effects on TR students at Berkeley High are both medical psychological and educational many students withhold drinking any liquids throughout the day or simply learn to hold it in in extreme cases we have seen patients end up with urinary tract infections or impacted bowels psychologically the lack of accessional bathrooms results in what has been termed gender noise preoccupying
066thoughts on what one's gender on one's gender and how it is not being supported in the school environment down to the basic need of toileting educationally many students atly High have been forced to travel long distances to one of the few single stall bathrooms across campus in some situations only to find them locked and unavailable and in most situations requiring them to miss class in order to attend to their bathroom needs for everyone who has ever been in the situation of having to hold it in uh you can identify with the difficulty if not impossibility of being able to concentrate on task at the hand in the classroom for the rest of her letter along with any of the other data I talk about today and more is available at the QR codes that people
067are holding up as well as the packets that I have printed out for the members of sco however it is not only students wellbeing that has been ignored but also district and state policy BP 503 .3 of District poity states that the governing board of the Berkeley Unified School District believes that a healthy learning environment is one that is not only safe clean and wellmaintained but one that also supports and promotes a positive psychological climate and respects the diversity of the student population I would like to share with you two photos taken of the state of bathrooms here's one of a broken toilet this was left like this for multiple hours during the school day and then the bathroom is locked and students were not able to enter and this is one of a sink
068handle this sink handle has been missing since October a multiple reports and complaints have been filed and none of them have been answered this photo was taken two days ago um as you can see from these and additional photos online Berkeley Hive restrooms restrooms especially dinner neutral bathrooms are not safe clean or wellmaintained Article 1 Declaration of purpose 202 in the California Education Code states that under California law California schools must create an equitable and learning environment where all pupils including lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer and questioning individuals feel welcome when next Benedict a non-binary high schooler in Oklahoma was murdered some students wrote messages of support on the walls these messages reading anything from next Benedict will not be forgotten to stand up fight back have been covered in slurs and in hate speech
069they have been defaced how can we feel welcome when our schools turn a blind eye to such bigotry I would read the slurs written on this paper but there are children present please read them online this issue is not only about students needing to pee a study by The Williams Institute at us at UCLA School of Law found that transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization including rape sexual assault and aggravated their simple assault due 2011 report of national transgender discrimination survey found that 12% of transgender youth report being sexually assaulted in K through 12 settings and lastly the American Journal of Nursing found that the risk of assault is higher in schools that restrict students from using bathrooms and Walker rooms that align with their gender
070identity your students are unsafe and while GA realized that you as individuals are not able to handle all these issues someone needs to Brooklyn Unified School District has a desperate need for an lgbtq coordinator we desperately need someone to take accountability for these issues please reach out to us the contact information for GA along with the student leaders of GA including myself are on the packet we made you and online we would love to sit down and work together to solve the problems that b USD faces audience please scan the QR code or contact me after the meeting to educate yourself using the data GA has collected over the last few months we need your involvement to make progress and the data that I have shared today barely scratches the surface of what I have
071in this document we have accounts that students have submitted of what it's like to use the bathroom we have articles and studies on sexual assault rates and transgender individuals we have more photos way more photos each of them captioned entitled with what the graffiti may say what's happening in the photo and why it connects we have so many more code violations we have pages and pages of code violations please reach out to that thank you thank you very much are there any more committee comments seeing none we'll move on to Union comments Miss chus do we have any labor Partners either here in person or online I believe bcce is here if you are can we start with bcce comments in person and then we'll move on to the online comments thank you excuse good
072evening uh Berkeley Council of classified employees has always had an interest in working collaboratively with the district and forg many strong relationships unfortunately there Comes A Time to understand that if you don't stand for something you will fall for anything now is that time for us positions 74 positions 74 position 74 positions before bcce positions are eliminated there should be no no contractors working in any bcce positions as it is stated on page 111 in the back of our bcce contract we do not support contractors doing our work what impact does laying off 74 classified staff going to have on the students for example school campus AIDS instructional assistance family engagement and Equity special student welfare and attendance Specialists Etc without campus Aid School service assistance instructional specialist and instructional assistants the safety of our
073elementary schools is is at risk these positions monitor our students in the classroom on the yard and after school Channel 2 just reported an incident with a child walking home from ru acti and was approached by a man trying to lure the student in his ban what is more important to the district saving some change or eliminating bcce School staff from our elementary schools or the S or the safety of our students instructional assistance also known as IAS not only benefit the teachers but are crucial to Student Learning retention and have a positive effect on student experience not only are they right there every day in the classroom supporting student learning but on many occasions they are the actual teacher we should be trying to make these positions more attractive and increase their salaries rather
074than eliminating or reducing them family engagement specialist family engagement and Equity Specialists also known as Opie assist families in crisis individualized need legal issues just to name a few Services provided many parents would be lost if it were not for the expertise and the support and navigating through these difficult Waters which which support their student I mean I'm sorry which support their children our children our future it is unimaginable what their job entails and to deny the students and the families this resource is devastating to our Bud Community what is the point of having a director of equity and belonging if there are no classified staff to support the position the district is constantly creating administrative positions while bcce positions are continuously being reduced or eliminated it is almost as if the district banks on
075targeting classified to balance its budget how about collaborating with us to look at alternative Solutions versus automatically identifying 74 classified jobs to sacrifice we should take the money from the top and put it where it truly is needed like the cooking and gardening program that is for students what is really needed more managerial positions or the cooking and gardening positions that are teaching and educating our Future Leaders BHS is our biggest school in bu USD and with that substantial enrollment comes many challenges it is question questionable to eliminate 12 positions at at high school who have a direct impact on students I'm concerned by the thought process that eliminates needed positions without considering how this will affect students and other staff although we know it is not 12 positions at the high school we would
076like to convey that the convey to the board that bcce will not stand for such injustices some of which may seem retaliatory in nature by using the layoff process as a means to Target classifi I have been told that we are not topheavy and that's a false statement if you do your research you will see how vusd has a greater number of directors managers executive directors and other districts in Alam County but will eliminate 74 positions this is definitely something wrong with this message thank you so much and if you could if you didn't finish your comments if you could email them to us that'd be great next we have comments from Berkeley Federation of teachers hello superintendent Ford Morell in the Berkeley School Board I am Matt Meyer president of the Berkeley Federation of
077teachers I believe that we all need to recognize the challenging work our Educators have in front of them it wasn't too long ago that public health orders moved our classrooms into virtual spaces then we lost critical interventions because we couldn't staff our schools or find substitutes the year we went back to full inperson instruction right as we were getting back into some sense of normality Global events have shaken our community at the hyper local level I want to reaffirm what I said last November our students want to engage in Dialogue on events occurring in the world around them in fact they expect it our Educators want to teach even if the topic is controversial Ed code and board policy protect this notion this includes teaching about the current conflict between Israel and Hamas our educators
078are not just making it up as they go they've been working with their administrators and the district office to make sure the lessons being delivered are based in research inquiry diversity and dialogue there's not going to be a perfect lesson and our students are going to ask hard questions but our educators are out there every day doing their best to engage with their students in a humanizing way our students have also been active politically as Berkeley students typically are this is their right and really what sets them apart from some of their peers we may not all agree with the causes our students take up but they do have a right to exercise their freedom of speech at school our district has given clear guidelines to our Educators on what kind of support they can
079give students engaging in political speech the Berkeley Federation of teachers and buusd are about to enter contract negotiations our theme is Educators deserve dignity our district needs to be seen as a destination one where people want to build a career as it stands now people can't afford both being an educator and supporting a family it is a huge disservice to our students to have high turnover and it makes it difficult for the district to take on ongoing and new initiatives that occur over a multi-year period our current policies and priorities push Educators out not invite them in we are hoping to achieve through collective bargaining contract language that will keep us in this profession in the classroom serving students and stop the revolving door of new hires and resignations thank you thank you very much
080now we'll move on to board member comments thank you again for all of you who came to speak to us uh before we start the board member comments I'd like to remind my colleagues uh to review our governance team agreements our full list of governance team agreements can be found in our board meeting agendas let's be the best role models that we can for our students and with that I'll turn it over to my colleagues for their comments this evening go first vice president Brown good evening everyone and thank you for joining the Board of Education this evening thank you to those of you who spoke tonight in support of a ceasefire those who made comments tonight regarding the liberated ethnic studies Green New Deal consent education specifically advocating for positions uh to be posted
081and to be filled thank you to those who spoke in regards to safe and accessible restrooms for our transgender students those who spoke for the need for secured preschool sites supp those who spoke in support of the bridge program and support in the for the continuation of classified positions I'm thankful to hear from some from so many people tonight uh regarding many different comment many different topics but I am proud and remain always proud of some of the most important speakers tonight and that is our student speakers you can give our students a little bit more love than that I believe that we heard from the largest group of uh P student public speakers tonight than we've heard from in a long time and despite um what is happening in the world and despite um
082how folks are responding to it you cannot deny the Brilliance the intelligence and the passion that our students spoke with tonight and every night leading up to tonight and so and so from this seat um regardless of us as adults if we get it right or don't get it right I know that our students are and in many different movements um that have happened in our lifetimes and lifetimes that have even exceeded ours we know that it is because of young people that movements are LED and and so thank you to our young people for instilling that fire and passion back in us I would also like to say congratulations to our students who through their comments tonight announced that because of their hard work and support of and through the support of the bridge
083program they've been accepted to an impressive list of colleges and universities that is something to also be proud of our bu USD Mission talks about enabling and inspiring our students and in fact tonight um we saw that all of the inspiration that we provided to our students is not reporting back to us in vain but our students are going to make pos positive contributions to their society I am happy and thankful to our school community and overall Berkeley Community for the overwhelming passing of the Berkeley school's Excellence program measure better known as measure H it was definitely a joy to celebrate this amazing Victory last night with so many Advocates and supporters of our district and so many Believers in our District's Mission Vision and values I would like to thank the BP campaign manager
084Mark and all of the dedicated BP committee members and campaign volunteers including our very own director Jennifer shinoski thank you for all of your hard work and for your commitment and we know that it is because of your work that b set past I'd also like to thank our superintendent B Bud faculty and staff and a group of people who sometimes are not included in this conversation but I would like to thank director Kathy Fleming and the P committee for your dedicated work and oversight of one of our District's most critical measures the collective work that was done by so many members of our community helped be set to pass once again and we are incredibly grateful thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and I will turn it back over to you president
085B thank you uh director Chang would you like to speak next sure I've been bin selected I thought you were going for the mic I will speak now um wow so uh I felt like I was hanging out in the Village Square with you all tonight uh so many folks lots of energy and as they say it takes a village to to raise each other um good evening and thank you for sharing your hearts and Minds again um I continue to be impressed by the amount of energy that you bring to this room and to our community um in a community of Highly intersectional identities as represented by the many students um parents and community members here we are classmates friends uh family neighbors and colleagues um I am happy that brookley continues to model
086active listening even as we continue to disagree on very challenging issues um thank you teachers staff administrators parents and in particular students for navigating these challenging times um there are many speakers here I'm going to try to keep this short as possible because we do have a pretty packed agenda today but thank you all ethnic studies uh students uh teachers Etc um bringing your views and your concerns around the important value on liberated ethnic studies and the organic development of critical knowledge um a green New Deal uh for school Sunrise teacher speech rights climate um stop harassing consent education um lgbtq students on safety concerns associated with bathrooms Etc um and again uh and Bridge students of course and and congratulations on all these students who are now hearing on their uh College admissions outcomes
087I know that's a um can be an anxious time in the spring as you're waiting for uh your school admissions and congrats to you um ethnic studies committee thank you for speaking gack Gia Etc um so again um I want to keep this short but thanks again the the I know these are um challenging times but as as a community as a family here in Berkeley I think we really show up as a village and how you know it's so important to do so as a model not only for ourselves and for our young people but across the country where um there are lots of um very challenging uh politics uh around speech rights around the important value of maintaining a safe and comfortable environment for all of our students and each other and to
088be open-minded about that even as we navigate uh lots of disagreement um and I continue to meet with folks in office hours um uh please continue to reach out to me you know again all you have to do is email me at my email and I've been meeting with folks on on a range of issues so again thank you very much for bringing your hearts and minds and I look forward to the rest of our evening together thank you director Ching do we have any additional comments from board directors tonight director shinoski yeah I have just a few um just a few things um I'm assigned to the ASAC committee so I've been attending the ASAC meeting um and I've really appreciated the robust conversations we have some really hard budget decisions ahead of us
089and um I really enjoyed the framework of those meetings um the way that many voices are are heard and many many folks from different areas and different perspectives um really show up and and speak up so um we're really just setting the tone right now um for those budget cuts and I'll keep youall posted as we get into more of the meat of it I also had the pleasure of meeting with Mr George Ellis today um at uh UC Berkeley um he is um overseeing a lot of the literacy work that we're doing um as part of the dyslexia lawsuit settlement and I was just really um excited to hear his perspective on the great work that is happening around our district especially in the tier 2 and tier three interventions um and so I
090want to um applaud the team um for really engaging in that work in a real and robust way um you know I I hope one day we're we're saying all the kids can read um with pride um I also want to thank Berkeley voters for passing Bap passing measure H um this funding fills in gaps that uh the state of California has left um in the wake of Prop 13 and so that funding is really um integral to the mission to our values and to many of the very special programs that um we offer here in BD um I want to announce my office hours next week Thursday from 3 to 5 at Casa Latina uh please come and see me and lastly I just want to thank all of our teachers and all of
091our Educators for the difficult work that they do day in day out um that's work that we are educated and we are trained to do and it is often sort of minimized and so as one teacher to another one educated to another I see you and I'm grateful for you um and I see your commitment to our kids and our community so thank you that's it thank you director shinoski director babit um well I'll keep mine really short just wanted to thank everyone who came tonight just for your public comments and Echo what my fellow director said I really appreciate the amount of students that came out tonight because we're here to serve you we're elected for you and so um it is wonderful just to hear the diversity of opinions that you have about
092how we can make our campuses better better for transgender students better on ethnic studies better for our gack better for so many reasons so thank you so much for coming and also want to Echo my appreciation to Berkeley voters for ensuring that we um secured uh our BP funding for the future because again that leads to our making sure that we can fulfill our Equity Mission uh with programs such as our Universal Music program so thank you very much to all the Berkeley voters for your vote of confidence in us as a district and I know that that a lot of that voted confidence happens because of the hard work of our staff so again thank you to director Fleming to the pno committee and to all the wonderful staff that help us stored those
093funds and with that uh it's now timing our agenda to approve our consent calendar with the changes made to items 12.6 and 12.7 which have been moved to action items at the end of the meeting can I have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar with those changes I'll move do so move by director Changs there a second I'll second seconded by director shinoski all those in favor please say I I I I thank you very much and now uh motion passes we'll move on uh to our first discussion item uh item 13.1 our midyear data presentation and we have 60 Minutes for this item m chus thank you this one no but we have to snuggle up around the microphone yeah all right um we'll go ahead and get started good
094evening members of the board members of the public um I'm Jill hog andik associate superintendent for the educational services department and I'm excited to have the team here um and uh they will introduce themselves as we present um but we're here this evening to share a buusd a midyear data present ation um as always we want to make sure that we're grounding this presentation in our District's mission that we enable and Inspire our diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and make positive contributions to the world in order for us to hold ourselves accountable to that District Mission and that commitment we need to make sure that we are paying attention to the data measures that we have available to us not just the summary measures as you have seen in um our uh end
095of the year uh uh data reports that we shared in the fall um with the summi of data from the state assessments um but we do want to make sure that we are coming to you with midyear data reporting and tonight we're going to be sharing midyear data both on attendance and suspension alongside of literacy and math and we will be taking a look at our Benchmark data um for the winter and the fall and winter administrations of those assessments want to remind um folks as we haven't seen this slide um in a little bit um but our superintendent through her listening and learning um a tour last year really called out a need to focus on organizational Clarity and these four components of identity infrastructure identified focal populations and implementation there's a lot of
096work that this team has been doing really to address the infrastructure and implementation components that are necessary to serve our B USD students this includes um an assessment protocol administration of Assessments on a regular basis using those assessments to be able to make decisions to appropriately identify students for intervention um and as always having um High uh High attention to our particular local student populations in including our African-American students our latinx students our students um with IEPs and our students experiencing housing and security as we go um oops I'm missing one we're missing a couple of slides so before before we get to the enrollment information I I just want to um remind folks that as we're looking at this midyear data we're going to zoom in and we're going to zoom out we have
097um our aggregate data which talks about um our student groups uh as a whole um and then we're going to be looking at specific focal uh student information um for our identified student groups I think Miss CH is is reloading thank you okay thank you okay yeah okay thank you all right there we go um just because we do want to call out that this notion of zooming in and zooming out like you might do on a on a camera or on an iPhone um is particularly important when we're looking at student data because we want to make sure that we are paying attention to the details particularly for our identified focal student groups um because all of our students matter um so as we're looking at data we also want to remind ourselves that
098um while we are sharing numbers there are very real faces of our students in B USD these faces across all of our schools are the why of the of the work that we do we take this responsibility seriously and we know that while we're making progress in some areas we still have work to do particularly with regard to our focal student groups in order to accelerate outcomes for all of our students want to share some demographic data as we get started um so that we have this to contextualize our numbers on the Le hand side of the slide you'll see our ethnicity breakdown um so by race and ethnicity um the populations in BD for our our 9,000 students and on the right hand side you see the numeric count for students participating in our
099um special programs so our multilingual language Learners or English language Learners uh our Spanish-speaking Els uh students with IEPs um the SED are students who qualify for free and reduced price lunch Foster students and students experiencing housing in security and in some cases um we have students that are in multiple programs so I want you to have that context um and with that I'm going to turn it over to Dr Shelly who is going to talk with you about attendance and suspension okay all right thank you Jill uh good evening uh superintendent governing board and Community uh again my name is Philip Shelley I'm director of student services and I will be going over our attendance and suspension data for semester one okay so on this particular slide you'll see a breakdown you see two
100different things but you'll see uh the majority is a breakdown of our current attendance or attendance race through semester one um and you'll be able to see that all levels of our uh a grade to cross are all at 94% or higher with our highest uh grade being the sixth grade which is at 96% additionally all of our uh subgroups and by grade subgroup and by grade are also all at 90% except for one uh Group which would be African-American first graders everyone else is above uh 0% um and this is there's some encouraging things about this particularly when you look at some of the months such as uh uh November December which are typically challenging months because of all the breaks that we have um but the district was able to um you know
101encourage families and then they brought their kids to school um when we look at Chronic absenteeism rate chronic absenteeism rate for the district was 12.2% um at the semester and to put that in a little uh context Alam County finished last year's chronic absente rate at 27% and the state is at 25% and so um a lot of work still to do in that area to bring it down even further at our focal schools our vision schools have shown decreases in chronic absenteeism rates in five of the six Vision schools however when you look at uh some of our focal Target groups um you can see some of these have decreased just a little while some have have increased in The Chronic absenteeism rate so for example you'll see that African-American students uh decreased by
1021% from last year s students are down 3% however mckin vento students students with disabilities and Foster youth have increased uh The Chronic ACM rat so there there's a lot of work to do in supporting these student groups to bring the chronic absenteeism rate down um obviously it's too high when we look at these numbers um so I'll go to the next slide all right so this next slide represents our discipline uh suspensions outter school suspension numbers and as you can see by the the bar graphs you can see that our numbers are up from last year the number of suspensions and while I think that the number that you see on the screen is 88 that represents less than 1% of the student body suspensions that's still too high our goals are to bring
103suspension numbers down they were down last year they've risen this year so there's a lot of work to do in that area and also our suspension numbers are disproportion disproportionate we disproportionately suspend African-American students and students with disabilities and students uh who are free and reduced launch which I think you'll see in the next slide so also you'll see that our our special education student suspensions are also up and again s is up uh uh 20 about 20 suspensions and again half the suspensions are students with IEPs and two-thirds of the suspensions are students on free and reduced lunch so again there's disproportionality and those numbers as well so again a lot of work that we need to do in bringing our suspense numbers down okay so for this for this last uh slide I'm
104going to go over a few of the bright spots so far from semester one and then also uh some areas for continued Improvement and so in terms of the bright spots of we've increased our communication and our vision schools uh specifically with families of students who are chronically absent or who are at risk of becoming chronically absent which we uh designate as 5% missing 5% of the school U we sent out 25,000 text messages and 7,000 individual letters um to students in our vision schools as well as our mckin vento students and students with disabilities we've had more than uh 5,000 families have responded to our text messages and some of the resources that they've uh requested assistance with attendance support Community Resources Transportation uh Wellness just to name a few things um the district
105has anticip uh participated in our attendance awareness month we celebrated our 100th day of the school year and we're currently participating in the March Madness attendance challenge um and then there are incentives that we've uh uh contribute to our vision schools which also has uh contributed to our chronic absenteeism rate uh reductions at those particular sites there's the use of edgy climber and we also participate in the AC Cee Network called basis is an acronym first letter of several districts that collaborate together on uh addressing chronic absenteeism best practices we share what each district is doing in bringing the chronic absenteeism rate down and we received a grant uh through that uh collaborat that collaboration now a few of the areas we need to continue to focus on is uh focus and continued support for
106our focal uh student groups including coordinating and support Vision schools collaboration between offie and student services uh specifically providing support for tier three students and their families um providing Clarity and consistency in the documentation of our Behavior data and consistent use of our positive behavior Matrix and then also continuing to work with our our VPS we meet uh bi-weekly um and uh and go over topics such as behavior and attendance and clarifying and documenting referral guidelines so those some areas of uh growth fors that we will continue to improve upon as we move forward good evening board um my name is Rose James and I am the literacy coordinator for BD I'm going to be presenting to you tonight some of our um midyear literacy data so both the Dibbles and the star assessment I
107can get the clicker to work there we go so starting with um Dibbles which stands for dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills um this is our fourth year using this screener um it's given three times a year it's administered oneon-one and it assesses an array of early literacy foundational skills um on the next slide you're going to see the bands um that you're going to see reflected on the next few slides um and it's important to note that for Dibble specifically whereas not for the star the um grade level expectation or Benchmark changes across the year so for example a first grader at the beginning of the year needs to be able to read 10 words per minute but 39 by the end of the year so um those expectations are moving up as
108you go across the year and so when kids are moving bands or when they are making growth it means they are making accelerated progress so um this first slide is our um overall kada 2 fall to winter progress um you can see that progress was made within each of the four performance bands um all of this Dibbles data is by match cohort only so only students who took the test in fall and winter are included um just for a little bit of context last year we went from 65 to 70% of students out or above Benchmark this year we moved from 68 as our starting place to 74% of students at or above Benchmark um I think it's also important to name that the composite scores don't tell the full story and there are many
109cases where a student is below proficiency on one composite on the composite score but above in some subtests and um you know it's important for our teachers to be looking closely at this data to determine where to focus instruction um so breaking this down by grade level we see um for kindergarten 53% of our Kinders were proficient on their composite score in the fall and 65% um in the winter oops it looks like we lost the slides um which is an overall Improvement of 12 percentage points um first grade began at 66% should I wait hold on okay okay there we go um uh first grade started at 66% and at the midpoint um now we're at 74 which is a growth of eight points for second grade we started the year quite high at
11081 proficient which is what we want to see you know kids growing in proficiency across those grades um and mid year we're at 83 also having moved 22 students from the at Benchmark to above Benchmark category um now we're going to move on to our um demographic group so overall on composite with K2 combined in these demographic groups we did not see large groups of students moving up in proficiency levels into the at or above category um but it is worth noting that there is a positive trend especially given again as I said earlier that these benchmarks move at each Administration um this has a sort of an overall picture for our black students and our latinx students and we see um some stagnation in in these focal populations that we really want to address
111um we also see some positive gains that we also want toay pay attention to what is working um this is by program where again we do see uh some positive Trends among these groups um but we know that we need acceleration um and now we are Building Systems to screen students we're starting to really use and understand the data in more refined ways um and really just improving our systems around the delivery of the support from tier one all the way to tier three um so making sure that our processes are aligned and again this is broken down to see that change from fall to winter and we do see and on this screen you can't see that it's green but quite a bit of green here um and change but still needing to focus
112on some of our populations for example our latinx multilingual Learners um so now I'm going to move into the star assessment um this is an Adaptive online multiple choice test um taken by our third through seventh graders three times a year um we also going to look at star math but I'll let Chris talk about that um The Benchmark definitions are a little bit different so we have our at our above Benchmark are on watch which are above proficiency but just barely and our intervention and Urgent intervention um so for reading excuse me one second B to Winter um there were positives for our students moving into from third grade so we saw 3% decrease in the number of students who scored at intervention or early or urgent intervention so 7 we're at 77% um
113for broken down by grade level we see the biggest change in third grade and starting to flatten out at fifth grade and this is by race and ethnicity so again we see some you know positive Trends but we not as much growth as we want to see um and by these are the broken down by from beginning to middle of year and again we see some positive growth and looking at specifically at our African-American fifth graders and that decrease we want to look into that more we did see a marked growth for our um Latin X English Learners um for our middle schoolers so this was sixth and seventh grade only um Ruth is going to talk about the NWA pilot which is what our e graders took um we saw that 80% of our
114students scored out or above Benchmark so that was a growth of 4% um specifically had more growth with our sixth grade um and 2% for our seventh um this is again broken down by race and ethnicity and we definitely see a need to continue to focus on our on our focal populations our African-American students and our Latino students but we do see some positive Trends in students moving up bands on the star and especially um with our black students there was an 11% growth from fall to winter um and 4% for seventh grade 133% for our sixth grade latinx students 3% for sth um and by program again we see positive Trends but again need to focus in on on those students and we are currently working on so the mtss systems that are middle
115school again we see more green than red so that is good but um we're we're we want to see more and more growth I'm going to hand it off to Ruth to talk about nwaa thank you and good evening so previously we've used Star as an assessment for eighth graders and this year we've been piloting something different but similar in terms of the fact that it's a literacy and math screener and we're actually using it with both eighth graders and ninth graders for the first time because one of our goals is to try and improve that transition from 8th grade to 9th grade in terms of information as students move into the high school so it's a a pretty well established assessment there's a little bit of information about it on the screen it's a
116little bit longer than the star assessment and more closely aligned with Casp and it takes students a little bit longer to actually complete the assessment and we're in the process of trying to decide whether we keep it for next year or whether we revert back to Star so we're getting feedback from the school sites and teachers to try and figure out which assessment gives the best data the most useful data and um the best opportunities for intervention with that data one of the challenges um as you heard Rose talking about some of our performance gaps is that these are all screening assessments so they're given three times a year and they give you performance level information on students but there are other types of Assessments that should be used in between these as formative measures
117to really um understand where students are struggling and where they're succeeding so this is a piece of the puzzle but it's not the whole the whole puzzle so um the NWA data for e8th grade follows very similar patterns to the K through 7 data we tend to see the largest improvements from fall to winter in our lowest grades as students come into our system but by the time students are in eth grade some of those gains are a lot smaller um and at the high school level because we've only done the assessment once we don't have full to Winter data for them it's just the full data so what you're looking at right now is the eighth grade um overall data it's got five performance bands which are named differently but they reflect the same
118performance levels as both Dibbles and star and you can see that progress across from Fall to win to is fairly flat in those bands which typically has been what we've seen in previous years with star so that's not a different pattern than we've seen previously and you see similar um highs and lows in terms of the performances by race and ethnicity and by program and as Rose has already shared there are some clear areas where we need to understand how to better serve certain student populations because those gaps are persistent as students move through our system from K through 8th grade and Beyond so there are some highlights similar to some of the ones that Rose had shared um with black African-American students and with latinx students but they're much much smaller percentage increases when
119you look at the eighth grade data um this shows our program data and there are um markedly large gaps in some of these populations also and one of the biggest struggles is as kids move up the grades how do you intervene with an eighth grader who's reading three or four grade levels behind it gets harder and harder as they move into the high school program and one of the things that my team and I really working on is trying to help schools figure out how to actually use this information to try and provide those interventions for students because in a perfect world those gaps get closed K2 while they're tiny and smaller and you have more time as kids get into um Middle School it becomes really tough to remediate those gaps and help sure
120that kids catch up so this is the high school data and again the patterns look familiar unfortunately because those gaps often aren't getting closed by the time kids reach high school um they're in they're going to be doing their second assessment round in the near future I think um by the end of April because it's quite the undertaking to assess an entire grade level at the high school along with everything else that they're doing but we're really excited that for the first time they actually have a screener this is the first year that Berkeley High has had any kind of a literacy or math screener and uh that's really come from the site team wanting to work to move in that direction um and in addition to the NWA data we've actually got um large
121groups of teachers working on using star with 10th 11th and 12th graders so um most of the special education teachers are piloting that along with teachers in the multilingual program so we've got little pockets Beyond 9th grade where there's there are new assessments taking place as well so the hope is that we can continue to partner with them um using my path which is a program that provides um leveled intervention um because that's one of the biggest challenges you have kids moving through six classes a day where do you find the time to put those interventions in place so again you see similar patterns in terms of race ethnicity and those programs and um just a reminder that for the high school this is just one data set because they haven't done the second cycle
122yet the other thing that we are helping the schools to look at is not just proficiency level data but growth data in terms of how quickly kids are improving their skills so as we use educ climate to help sites with this work we're also looking at the rate of growth students are demonstrating as well as the level they're actually performing at all right so I think this is back to you so um you know as we talked about in our literacy presentation at the end of February um we really believe that the foundational work that we're doing to train teachers um and then the curriculum adoption to provide really high quality instructional materials in tier one will improve outcomes for our focal populations um and we also know that supporting the good intervention work that
123is happening um especially at the elementary level with OG with that strong first teach in tier one is going to support all of our students so some bright spots are the core reading Academy that we've been engaging teachers in this year um as well as site leaders um three this is going to be our third round of Orton Gillingham structured lit training we're going to be engaging some of our special education staff members in um right now over 275 students are tagged in educ climber as receiving Orton Gillingham um their progress is being monitored and they have goals set and those are all in the system and as of the other day when I checked 46 students have met or exceeded their goal and been exited from Intervention um some areas for continued work obviously
124are curriculum adoption process um and really thinking about this next year for our teachers who aren't piloting and what their our literacy program will look like for them um and then also continuing to just refine our processes and our instruction to accelerate our students who are below Benchmark um we are also engaged in some deep work with our Middle School intervention system to really make sure that we're assessing the effectiveness of the current interventions that we have um and that we're selecting some new evidence-based interventions that we are hoping to Pilot some of this spring and Implement in Fall of 2425 Ruth is this back to you yes this is mine um so there's always this tensional difficulty between data and intervention and I'm really excited that we have Ed of climate as a place
125where that data can live side by side and one of the the real bright spots as Rose was describing is that for um five we really do have great information now on which students are receiving which Services how they're progressing um they're being progress monitored every 3 weeks and we literally upload that Dibbles data every single day to make sure that site teams can see exactly how students are doing and that's really become the foundation of kind of the broader Data Systems and the model that we're trying to use as we look at doing similar things with math um as we scaffold up through the grade levels so it's um the ch challenge as I said earlier is ensuring that as kids move up through those grade levels you have intervention programs you can also
126use with them it's a lot simpler K through five it becomes a lot harder in middle and high school so we've really been spending time with the school teams helping them to use those tools and those resources to look at that data together and I also have the RTI coaches um as part of my team so we're helping them to look at how the cost Team Works in terms of being proactive with data and find ing students who are struggling and intervening as quickly as possible not just with academics but with behavioral interventions attendance interventions and social emotional learning interventions so we've noticed as we've done that work that there are quite a few areas for continued Improvement and actually we spent this morning with the principles doing some of this work so trying to
127really ensure that we have comprehensive data in our systems is a continuing challenge but we're getting closer and closer to having everything lined up so we we've really been looking at behavioral data how to get that into our systems consistently and are potentially building some seal screeners that we'll be using with students as part of that cost teamwork we've also realized that one of our challenges is communicating with families and homes so they understand how much work is actually happening with students at the school sites because often it seems that um parents don't always know if interventions are being used or put in place so that's something that we're working on as well so as we build coherence across that system amilies are truly Partners in that work and understand exactly what is being done
128to help their students until it becomes um a gap that uh we can't Bridge so that's the end of my section are we handing back to you Chris good good evening Board of Education uh the next piece of this presentation will be about mathematics and we'll be focusing on the star assessment and the NWA assessment one thing to note is you will not see a dibles assessment for math for we do not use a dibles assessment for math in our k one and two we are using District benchmarks and those are not a part of this presentation so we'll be jumping it right into the third grade piece um also that's an opportunity for us to be thinking about is what we are using for our Universal screeners and our um Universal benchmarks at K12
129but we'll talk a little bit that next um about some opportunities all right so the next piece is is just getting back to these bands and the bands that the star uses that are at Benchmark above Benchmark on watch intervention and urgent intervention so the first slide that you see before you is the math for grades 3 through 5 from fall to winter and how our students progressed um from Fall to to to Winter 63% of our students performed at or above Benchmark and our winter results show a 4% decrease in percentage of students scoring in Urgent intervention so you'll see on the uh lower right hand corner that above Benchmark went from 37 to 38 8% at Benchmark from 22 to 25 and then some decreases in the Urgent intervention so that is the
130trend that we want to see however it is not the advanced growth that we hope to see and that we expect to see um in B USD uh the next slide that you see before you is broken down by the grades so we do see some positive trends for our third graders um we saw an 8% increase um 69% scoring at or above Benchmark for our fourth graders we saw 3% % increase and for our fifth graders we also saw a 3% increase so in previous presentations we've always looked at those sort of students that are about to change grade spans from 5ifth to six from elementary to middle or from middle to high and sometimes we see some decreases at that phase so that's something that we're always considering keeping our eye out and
131thinking about what is the alignment between those grade spin to ensure that those students um whose School experience might feel different right um but ensuring that that trajectory for them and that coherence between those grade spans is aligned so it is positive to see that those fifth graders and hopefully those seventh graders when we look at them are seeing that um but that's something that we are regularly thinking about as well as they transition from one grade span to another the next piece that we are looking at here is based on R race and ethnicity um and from our winter results we show a decrease in students scoring in Urgent intervention category far below grade level across all ethnic groups so we are seeing some positive Trends there um and the next piece right here
132is looking at two of our subgroups on black African-American students and Latson X students um so for our third grade black African-American students we saw a 15% increase in Fall we are at 22% at or above Benchmark and in Winter we are at 37% so that is some nice growth that we are that we see there for our third grade students for our fourth grade African-American students we saw 11% in increase in proficiency but getting back to those fifth graders thinking about them going head into Middle School we saw a 3% decline in their performance so thinking about for those students at fifth grade what additional support can and should be provided for our Lattin X students we saw an 8% increase for our third graders we saw a flatline for our fourth graders and
133for our fifth graders we saw a 7% increase in proficiency for those subgroups the next data that you see uh before you is by program um so our winter results showed an increase in the percentage of elementary students at or above grade level across all programs so Trend that we want to see and the results also show a decrease in students scoring in Urgent intervention category Which is far below grade level across all programs um data broken down in table form for our students with special needs our third grade students we saw an increase by 19% in efficiency from 27% to 46% so nice growth there our fourth graders show 2% and those fifth graders declined by 2% for our multilingual Learners we saw growth as well at third grade by 11% our fourth graders
134declined by 3% and our fifth graders increased by 3% and then our Latin X students El we saw a little bit all over the place third third graders increase 10% fourth graders decreased by 10% and then fifth graders going up by 9% so uh third grade looking relatively strong across the board um so nice growth for our third grade um fourth and fifth grade uh varying back and forth depending on the category now we're headed off to Middle School um in our middle schools over 50% of our middle school students scored at or above Benchmark in Winter and 40% 46% of four sixth and seventh graders performed below grade level in winter so not much growth there a little bit um but some work certainly to do at our Middle School level this next slide
135that you see here is by grade level so broken down by Sixth and by sth so sixth graders showed positive growth in all performance bands and among seventh graders the data shows a decreased percentage of students scoring at or above Benchmark there are also fewer students in the Urgent intervention category so not much growth or decline here 3% for our sixth graders and negative -2% um for our seventh graders this next slide shows the data broken down for our middle schoolers by race and ethnicity in Winter the results show a decrease in students scoring and Urgent intervention across all ethnic groups so a trend that we want to see we want to see less and less students in the red and then the orange and more students in the blue in the green and the
136percentage of African-Americans scoring at or above Benchmark declined in Winter however r results also show fewer African-American students far Bel go below grade level comparison to fall the next slide is in table form so for our black African-American students we saw a 2% increase in six and a 9% in decrease in seventh so certainly um an opportunity and work to be done for our seventh grade students and for our ltin next students we saw both positive increases of 2% and 3% by our program our winter results showed a decrease in the number of students in the lowest band across most programs including students with special needs our multilingual Learners students experiencing homeless and our soci economically disadvantaged students and in table form our students with special needs at sixth grade increased by 7% 7eventh grade
1371% are multilingual Learners at 0% for six and a decline at 5% and our latinx uh English language Learners at 6% at-10 and a group too small to report for seventh grade I'll pass it back off the roof to talk a little bit about NWA thank you um so this is 8th grade NWA data which actually shows decreases in those lowest performing bands which is a definite positive the English assessment was fairly flat but the math assessment definitely shows progress in those two categories as you can see on this slide and then when you break it down by um race and ethnicity you see similar decreases in those lowest performing groups which is a huge positive um you can see that that's consistent across almost all of those race or ethnic groups um particularly on
138this slide you've also got the highlights for our black or African-American students and latinx students so that's a significant Improvement across fall to winter if you look at programs you can see the same Trends so this is positive data in terms of the improvements happening in math um I can't speak to why the improvements are happening but um it's great news that they are because that's definitely an area of focus as we move forward and again you can see on this slide that for some of our programs you see those increases for um special students who are receiving special education services it's relatively flat for our English language learners but then there's an increase um in proficiency for our latinx English language Learners and at the high school you see um no Trends because this
139is just that one static data point but we're hopeful that when we get that data in a month or so that you'll see similar improvements across math at the high school um those same gaps are present as you look at the data for racial and ethnic groups and uh there's been a lot of discussion about how to support math classes at the high school and how to help students ensure that they're passing those classes because typically what you see is if students are struggling on these assessments they're also going to struggle to pass those classes as well and I think I'm handing back to Chris so looking at some of the bright spots and areas have continued work as it relates to math so some of the bright spots are around collaboration so we have
140some strong collaborative structures that already exist and continue to exist in bud so all of our um k through eight grades have stien in math teacher leader positions um thanks to BP so thank you on measure H um and our our math teacher leaders are coming together twice per month in collaboration in a PLC um to be talking about ongoing work as it relates to K8 math so this is a structure that we believe is benefiting our students it is creating coherence across our district and it's allowing our math teacher leaders in our district to be coming together to be having conversations to be looking at this data to be reflecting on this data and to be thinking about tier one and tier 2 practices that are going across the districtwide um to ensure that
141we are supporting our students so we're feeling very positive about the collaboration that's going on at for our K8 math teacher leaders another bright spot at the middle school is really focusing on curriculum centered professional learning so oftentimes there's we have many different professional learning opportunities throughout the district we are fortunate to enough to have um dayong PD day we have uh Wednesday release PD days and we have other professional development opportunities as well and our Middle School um Math teachers have really been focusing on the Desmos curriculum and thinking about how the Desmos curriculum can be applied um so really investigating the different components of the curriculum what parts are some of their colleagues using which parts they are not um and learning from one another but really being the learning is really centered
142on the curriculum that's being taught every single day in the classroom so that is very strong um another opportunity and bright spot for us is intervention in tier 2 uh we are uh following some of the work some of the great work that our ly team has presented and really thinking about how we can create some alignment and coherence as it relates to intervention we know the students that um some of the students that ended up in uh the red and the data that you just saw before you often end up in intervention classes we know that these classes um are are taught intentionally we know there's a lot of resources going into them and we also know that sometimes uh the classes can look different and we think about which students enter these classes
143um how do we determine that what is the curriculum that's provided in these classes and how is it progress monitored so in math following suit and ensuring that we have a a strong idea of what's happening in these intervention classes and that we're also creating some consistency between them to ensure that our students are benefiting from these classes uh another opportunity in bright spot is this is the first time we can say this we have common assessments being administered K through nine so that's a an opportunity for our district to be looking at common data rather than different data sets and then another bright spot around Personnel is we have all of our math teacher leader positions filled we have a district math TSA uh coach now those positions filled and that position was vacant
144for several years so those are some bright spots um areas for continued work uh the state of California has um come out with their California math framework and this will guide a lot of the work for years to come so we have some work to do around building foundational understanding of the cmf while constructing a BSD um vision for mathematics which will start in the fall so we're excited about that I'm excited about bringing sort of that K to 12 Al together in alignment and thinking about what USD what math means for B USD so that is a um areas for continued work and something that we feel very excited about um another area of continued work is the is around the collaborative structure so although we have our math feut leaders and we have
145strong collaboration really thinking about that K to 12 right so we have our elementary math teacher leaders meeting twice a month we have our middle school math teacher leaders meeting uh twice a month we have our un9 math teacher leaders and really thinking about how can we potentially reorganize this so that all of them are in the same space for at least several times a year thinking about that vertical alignment what is this what did my what did the student learn in elementary school what are they learning in Middle School what are they learning in high school what uh what units are being prioritized and then really looking like well does that make sense is there something that our eighth graders are are learning and then our nth graders are learning but there's something missing
146in between so some of that deep investigation is something that we're excited about doing and we think would be a benefit to our students and our teachers as well um another area of continued work is around coherence and pacing um not so similar to to some of the literacy stuff that we've been talking about we are many years into our our use of Eureka at the elementary school um so there is a little bit of that implementation drift so some of our work to do is really defining the Scopes and sequences of what's supposed to be happening in each grader level there is scope and sequences um out there but we will be redefining them all the summer and getting them out to our teachers and making sure that our site leaders have them and
147our knowledge about them so they can do the monitoring um and really that's around and coherence of ensuring that what's happening over at um Oxford is the same thing that's over happening over at Emerson um and ensuring that our teachers have the same thing to be collaborating on and to be thinking about that tier one instruction so some opportunities there around cerence and pacing and then the last um opportunity for us is really increasing our professional learning as it relates to Math teachers um focusing on scaffolding and differentiating the math content as you saw on the data that we just spoke on there are many students in the classrooms at various different levels and we know that if we just teach one lesson straight straight down the middle we're going to be missing a lot
148of students both on students that are maybe outperforming and students that are not yet at grade level proficiency so really thinking about giv our curriculum giv what we have how do we scaffold our instruction and how do we differentiate our students to make sure that we meet the needs of our multilingual Learners or students with special needs and how can we come together on some common practices as it relates to mathematic instruction so those are some of our bright spots and areas of continued work and our believe our last slide yes we're just going to close out with our last slide you'll see there a quote from Pedro noera but just really in the context of the work that we have been doing um over the last year last year and a half so I
149want to acknowledge um both the work of this team but also our site leaders our teachers are Specialists who have been leaning into learning new processes and routines if we're going to be continuing to apply a continuous Improvement mindset that really needs to start with the infrastructure so that we have the data that's available and accessible so that we can understand not just how our students are doing but what interventions are being applied that we can better assess those interventions so with educ climber and with our growing proficiency at using the tools that are still new right we're still in the middle of a change management process um we are identifying areas where we can better strengthen those routines um how we are looking at data not just individually but together so that we can
150understand um what's happening in all of our schools and particularly for our identified focal student groups um and so that we can take a look at the interventions are they being applied right how are they happening yes or no um how often are they happening because back to the attendance um component at the beginning of this presentation if students aren't here then they're not getting the intervention we need and so that might be where we need to apply um more attention and then how well are they happening right so we are getting a to a place where we can better answer those first two questions um and then start to assess um the effectiveness of those programs so all of those things are happening at the same time but I think we're building more consistent
151routines and while we're seeing some good acceleration in pockets in terms of the data that we presented to you tonight we know that that's not consistent right so we're not satisfied with inconsistency right like that's our goal is really to achieve um equity for all of our students so with that we'll take your questions well great thank you very much we have 13 minutes left for for this item wanted to thank the staff for your presentation um colleagues do you have any questions or comments than vice president BR good evening everyone thank you so much for uh this robust presentation tonight um I'm actually really thankful that you took the time to share uh the dible star and map data and um it's fabulous to see specifically around Ela um it's fabulous to see the
152number of students who are meeting and who are above the Benchmark and um you know obviously as always we still have so much work to do um especially as it relates to math but the positive Trends um have really excited me and inspired me um and I hope that our communities inspired by it as well I am happy to hear about the collaboration of our math teacher leaders and the ongoing professional learning um opportunities however I'm very concerned and I'm sure you knew this was coming very concerned about our math data specifically for our black and African-American middle school students in grade six and seven so can you shed um some light outside of our bright spots that you shared can you shed um light on the district's response to this data um including our
153instructional intervention and engagement shifts for that student focal population so one thing that I can share and I I think we all sit before you and agree that there's certainly a lot of work to be done um for our students um not only our black African-American students but for all of our students who are scoring below grade level at the School level um very often they are placed in an intervention class right and in the Middle School level um it's a different than the elementary school level so in the elementary school level oftentimes it's pull out of the regular class in the Middle School level um often times they're losing an elective right and as a former site leader I would always have to be making those calls and call the families and be uh
154and and talk to families like you know this is where what we're seeing in the data and this is where your student is um this is the options that we have um and one of those options is always going to be around our math intervention in our math intervention courses um and and through those conversations you know a lot of families would really have that same um feeling of like well if my students not getting that their elective then they're they're losing out on something specifically at the middle school level as it relat to social emotional um and then we would have to do a lot of conversations around what the intervent course was and what it entailed um and I share all that because one of the one of the bright spots is really
155around this Middle School intervention inventory and really making sure that if we're taking if we're in if we're taking our students and we're putting them in an intervention classes ensuring that we're seeing Advanced growth right like I think we saw it in the data we are not seeing that advanced growth um right now specifically as a for things St black African-American students so really this dive is really really around making sure that what our students are are receiving is evidence-based it is effective that we are have those mtss processes in place at the math um the same way that we do currently at the literacy um to make sure that the curriculums that are being used are aligned are responsive um to student needs and that we are um ensuring that when students get to
156the place that if they're leaving intervention that they are being supported else elsewhere outside of that intervention class so I don't know if that gets to your whole question I think there's a whole lot more work that needs to be done but I would say that this is one of our first really um not one of our first but one of one of the most recent headways into ensuring that if students that are not succeeding end up intervention that they're having an experience that is supporting their academic development rather than a class that they are just placed in because they're because they're not at a grade level um well I appreciate your response um and and definitely understand the purpose of intervention um as a former interventionist but my question is more so around the
157student population who years after like intervention is what we're doing for all of our students but what I'm or all of our students who are who are needing support but what I'm asking is about the specific student population who for years and years and years have shown that even with intervention even with um additional uh cultural emotional support that's provided this is still what the scores and so for me that's a direct indicator that we need to make a different shift like we there's something else that we need to do and so um if the if the answer that to that question is that we have not yet figured it out or that we're working it out or trying to figure it out my direction would be that we need to intentionally focus on that
158sixth grade and seventh grade um black and African-American student population for math especially as we move into the spring so that's my direction I hope it's well received my second question before I turn it back over to director vasudev um director still Brown mentioned um that we should be assessing our students using multiple assessments that help to yield uh the most accurate and present levels of our students and um another important summi of data set uh that can tell us a lot about our students current levels is the inim comprehensive assessment the icas um and it also um serves as an indicator on how students will perform on the spba and can be a tool that's used to uh inform standards based instruction for our teachers um Berkeley hasn't always used icas um and so
159I think I'd like to learn more um about why or if there is a path um that we can take to incorporate icas just because it's it's an important data set to have in addition to um our star and addition to the map um and it also really helps it is the test that is the most aligned um to our state assessment so a response to that would be helpful thank you so we do have pockets of Staff who are using them we call them the iabs ICA so same the the interim assessment blocks or are you talking about the different um I iabs and icas are are actually different so they are all a part of the um the Casp system but they are uh different so we do have staff using the I
160iabs as as formative measures and it's not something that's required but we encourage site teams to use them um in preparation for Casp and as formative assessments so it's kind of hit and miss some sites are using them some aren't and because there are issues of the pacing guide alignment at this point it's really difficult to put them in certain places across the year so I think as the pacing guides are built out there'll be a much more robust opportunity to actually Place those assessments within those pacing guides because they are so powerful in in seeing discrete skill development and also in preparation for Casp so I that's something that Chris and I will be able to partner on as those pacing guides are built out yeah and I can understand that um specifically for
161iabs because iabs are unit specific right and so they um they show what Stu where students are based on that specific unit so PA and guides aligned to that icas is a more comprehensive test that talks about all everything that a student should be learning in a specific grade level so I guess my direction if we are not using them currently is to maybe think about them and um and um decide if they are worth using decide if um there an assessment that our teachers would be interested in adopting if we have the space and time to use them um and what the benefits are of using them and then finally just to the audience um I know it's a long meeting but it's a little difficult to engage when a lot of folks are
162talking as at the same time during our staff so I just want to remind everyone of that thank you for answering my questions great thank you and I just have a follow-up question to vice president Brown um I also noticed that for on the star math test for our seventh grade African-American students sixth grade latinx als's and seventh grade als's that the scores had gone down and one of the things um that you mentioned director Al was like the scope and sequencing that's happening at the elementary school level to make sure there was like consistency like how things were being taught in the different elementary schools but is that also happening at the middle school level because I know that when director Steele Brown sometimes has presented this data but broken out site specific we
163see variations like at from Willard to King to Longfellow so what kind of scope and sequencing is happening particularly for our Latin X's LX students and African-American students yeah um thank you for the question I think I think there's opportunity to improve that work as well and I would confidently say um coming from a middle school background that there is a lot more alignment already at the middle school than there is at the elementary school and I would say that the reasoning for that is um they're currently using a curriculum that they all really um buy into and believe in and um really feels in benefit of our of of the students so that's always a positive thing I would say one thing that I would say to your question though is that um there's
164a lot of Standards to cover throughout the year and at least back when I was teaching in the CST there are these things uh the the power stand standards the ones that we knew there were going to be a lot more questions on than than the other standards and I think as it relates to some of the pacing and I was speaking with the math uh coach today about this is really ensuring that our pacing is prioritizing those standards that we know are going to be most important as the student trans uh transitions to the next grade level so if we're thinking about eth grade we know that algebra is coming in and it's coming in strong as the students head off to high school so how can algebra be um for lack of better
165words taking up the most of that eighth grade class we know that geometry and there's other there's other pieces that are of course important and their standards to be covered so as it relates to the uh scope and sequencing and the pacing it's really I think one some of our thinking is ensuring that whatever we're prioritizing is the right things to be prioritizing um not to say that that's not happening now but I think there are some tweaks that we can make to ensure that if they're getting to a test you know if they if the standardized test is the the star the standardized test is the spa which is data that we're regular regularly looking at um to ensure that the St the the content that's being assessed in those is is being primly
166taught in the classes and I just had a followup question again to that PO specific population the Middle School population I know you were talking about with the secondary schedule it's hard to it's different like how you provide intervention you can't pull them out the same way that you would in elementary school but are there after school options for intervention for these focal po ations where we yeah we need additional support for these students yeah there's other I mean there's organizations that we partnered with before like we we we used bridging Berkeley for a long time which was an amazing program I know different middle schools have different programs we also are seeing some impact of some impact some advantages of high impact tutoring at the middle school level so at two of our middle
167schools we have a pretty Innovative model where um our eighth graders are pulling some of our sixth graders and the younger students and you know eth graders who um are very advanced in math and working with some of our students very intensely on Thursdays and Fridays so different models of of tutoring and of intervention that's different than the traditional like class or pull out with their with the math coach um and I know different schools are um utilizing different pieces and I know B volunteers are also a part of that as well so I think there's many different programs going on and specifically I know buring Berkeley has been one those are folks that come from Cal down to the middle schools um and work with our students thank you director shinoski and then director
168babit thank you uh I have a few questions one is um on the suspension so I think it's slide number nine but when I looked at when I saw slide number nine um you can see that the increase in suspensions this year isn't entirely due to an increase in suspensions of black students and I just know that in the past there had been an over identification of black students for discipline I'm wondering if we've checked that um if we're like checking in if we understand why that's happening I mean it's a pretty significant jump in suspension so yeah no absolutely and I mean each year is a little bit different um but when we look at the data we we know where the suspensions are occurring most suspensions are occurring in secondary and so is
169about uh going back in refocusing our efforts on looking at alternatives to removing students from school um and then what approach are we taking uh for corrective uh you know correcting behaviors as opposed to removing students and so again I meet regularly with the secondary folks and it's it's just about us refocusing again um the the things that we see are not that dissimilar um from things that we've seen in the past P past couple of years but again it's about really refocusing on alternatives to suspension interventions um and those type of things and I think that's where we can begin to bring these numbers back down again um but again our our goal is to uh is to eliminate the disproportionality so we still have a lot of work to do direct B oh
170sorry did you have a follow question director sh well I just had three questions oh yes go ahead sorry wor I also wanted to ask about some of the data with literacy so we have been doing all this work on tier two and tier three interventions and I just wonder if we have any data that's sort of Compares comparing the gains that we were getting before with interventions and now implementing all of these shifts with literacy how that's changing is that question makes sense like we we've implemented so many new strategies for tier 2 and tier three interventions with literacy so are we seeing that in the data so last year was when we launched edge of climber it was last January so we and we sort of piloted like documenting the interventions last spring
171but this is really the First full year that we have okay collected this data so we are definitely progress monitoring and so we can definitely see growth we can pull up any kid who's receiving intervention and see their growth from the beginning of this year to now um and they're being progress monitored as I said approximately every three weeks um so that that's the the tracking we're doing but next year then we'll have this year's data to compare it to I think well I think oh sorry that was yeah go ahead well I guess the only the other thing that I would add to that is that we're refining our Focus particularly on that tier two intervention so we trained our first cohort of um education Specialists so mostly our literacy tsas and RTI um
172tsas last May um and as uh we shared in this presentation we're on the third cohort so what that means is we have a set of folks who've completed the training right and and will be in our implementing OG but we also have a set of people who are just starting the third cohort of training so we don't have full implementation across the board um for that Orton Gillingham and so we're we've been transitioning away um from interventions that do not have high effect rates into Orton Gillingham and so we'll have more comparable data as we move through the next school year I I just as connected to that still um it would be really cool if like we could look at the data like School site to School site and see like where there's
173more effective implementation of these new new tier 2 and tier three you know interventions and then also um find ways then to share best practices right so that we can do some coaching in classrooms where we're not seeing the gains maybe it would just be I think really interesting to maybe see see that data um and then lastly I just wanted to also sort of mention what vice president uh Brown mentioned I mean that math data to me we should all be that seems like a crisis to me um that our the number of black students in BD in sixth and seventh grade that are reaching you know standards in math is so so low yeah thanks director bab thank you uh thank you so much for that presentation thank you for uh not only
174showing uh overall data but for being intentional to show the disaggregated data um also want to give a shout out for the pictures of the kids I saw the year in town play by Berkeley High School and I saw you guys used one of that in your uh slides and so it was definitely a joy to see um our students perform with such passion and skill in year in town and and make us laugh and and feel their joy and shout out to their teacher because that was the first musical brought back to Berkley High School in many years um so definitely a great um undertaking with great results also we can see why we have our March Madness going on with our attendance data um so looking forward to seeing how that um helps
175and also creates some fun and excitement as we uh know pressing toward Spring Break um gets pretty tough um with regards to uh to the data and to the assessments um what I like personally around about Dibbles is it really allows uh teachers to see um more specifically especially first level instruction teachers to see how they can um improve and exactly where the strengths and the weaknesses are in more real time and in your slides around and in WEA and Renaissance it's more data driven to see who needs intervention so I'm just wondering how these assessments um compare with uh the information that uh dibles provides in its assessments as well and then I have two more questions so Dibbles is very much a screener in the diagnostic because it tells you where kids are
176at and the struggle with staring NWA is that they are much less so so at the high school they have programs like Lexia that they're using so they have other programs that they're using to try and do that diagnostic work and actually something we're also doing is moving dibles up through the grade levels so we've recently been assessing sixth graders and even some um upper grade students using dibl so that we can get that data around exactly what their Skool gaps are so so what really is the the out come for NWA and um Renaissance around improving first level instruction well it gives you information about skill buckets so you cannot use it to design lesson plans specifically that's where your formative assessments really come in so that teachers have really discrete information about skills
177so it gives you an idea where they're struggling but it doesn't give you that really specific information so it can help in if you're putting students in groups and using intervention tools it can help you differentiate to a certain degree but it's really that formative level data where teachers are doing tests and quizzes and exit tickets on a daily basis so they can really truly see where students are struggling so why have we chosen to to use these screeners so I can speak a little bit to the to the star literacy um especially at the middle school level it's helpful with a screener to be able to give it quickly to a lot of students because really it's sort of like a temperature check right we want to see it's like a litmus test of
178where kids are and then for kids that are scoring below then we have to do a deeper diagnostic dive of what their needs are um so for example as Ruth was mentioning at the middle school after we give Star then we can break down to see like which kids are below and do something like an oral reading fluency or a phonics inventory to find out what their specific area of need is and pinpoint that but those assessments are hard to give at the middle school level to all of our students right and so the screener um while it is not super informative for teaching it is a very highly valid screener in terms of its predictiveness of later reading achievement an achievement on something like esack um so we really do use it as sort
179of just that first pass that screening tool and then we do a deeper dive for students who we know are below and even some students who are sort of on the cut I don't know okay is this creating an additional administrative burden and and taking away from improving first level instruction yeah I I think where we are right now so we have a a number of Assessments that our teachers have been administering some that have been associated with the current curriculum tcrwp and we're really moving towards star and dibles um we are using dibles as a progress Monitor and so you know those routines are new and I think some of the feedback that we've been getting from the field is that there is still a lot of time as we're trying to navigate this
180new landscape of Assessments um but I think that we're also figuring out ways um to make that more efficient so um Dibbles again is a universal screener and so all kids get it three times a year um and then for students who are in an intervention we're using that as a progress monitor um but most specifically we're looking at the delivery of the oral reading fluency which is about a one minute am I remember one minute oral assessment um research says that that is a high predictor and correlation of students uh success in reading so um the the inputs and feedback that we've been getting in from our consultant on the literacy work is really that that's an area that we need to focus on and that one minute screener can give us a lot
181of information about uh where where we need to uh pay our attention for students who are having difficulty in Reading thank you I guess in my head I thought we were moving towards um more screener type activities at all grade levels especially for Math and um Ela as well so to see um these these new more assessments versus screeners um I just hope that we could get to a point a place where we're really thinking about how all of this drives first level instruction immediately because um we continue to know which students need intervention and as you said anyway I won't go on so the other thing is um with the suspension data and with all of this data um there was a time in BD where we would actually see this information also by
182school and so if maybe in an appendix we could also see this by school and also as we look at grade level bands with um increases and decreases you know where are those best practices coming from we can see now thanks to educ climber and thank you for showing me how that works you know right down to the classrooms by different schools and you know how are we um finding that information out so that we can roll out best practices or or share this information more broadly in our professional learning um communities um that would be my my real hope um and I know specifically when we showed this data by school it helped parents really have better conversations with their principles with their you know parent organizations or parent groups so they can really
183think more about what's happening at their school and uh and really be that Community Support that is needed um I do have more questions but given time I will ask them offline so thank you so much director Chen yeah thank you so much for your comprehensive um data review we're swimming in data lots of nourishing data um I do want to uh follow up on the um suspension question that was was raised um I think it's a great opportunity with educ climber running now uh to you know focus on Trends and you know I'm uh appreciate Dr shell um speaking with reference to the uh uh large uptick in the black African-American uh suspensions um looking at Middle School um I'm I'm looking at also the special ed um suspension kick up of 40 to
18460 um and just one quick question about that uh number one these numbers with regard to um suspensions in general are they unduplicated counts meaning um onetime students or are they duplicated counts duplicated unduplicated counts unduplicated counts so I think it's an amazing opportunity with this amount of data and and I believe educ climber started last school year does that mean 22 2023 was educ climber data starting in January okay so and there's a you know you're starting it's like a year year whatever a year and a couple months so there's there's some issue with the Fidelity of data I understand that but um I think with you know the the drill down in terms of a qualitative and a quantitative review of the data of itself and then some of the practices that are
185in place to look at how from 21 to 22 you had 51 then it dropped down to 21 then it po back up to 45 and then with special ed students you had 45 and then 40 and then now we've popped up to 60 where we have you know three more months of the school year some of the the the focus on say middle school for example what are some of the systems that are in place that may have been different in 2122 and 2223 to the current time with restorative justice and PBIS um is there anything changing there in terms of Staffing you're talking about the importance of looking at how we can provide intervention so there's no loss of classroom instruction as all of you guys know you're experts in this loss of
186classroom instruction has a pretty widely um studied and vetted uh impact on achievement outcomes so that's going to have an outcome on your you know your bottom line of course and I know you all know that um so just drilling down on those this I'm really curious how you're going to use Edge climber use mtss and then do your kind of um investigation analysis what's going on at the middle school level well educ climber does allow us to be able to look at data and break it down um but then also the use of the positive behavior Matrix so last year was the the the uh the grand opening of using the positive behavior Matrix and so really being able to go back into that and providing guidance on what other Alternatives uh that we
187can take to removing students based off the different air Co violence ations right so you have a range of of interventions and while it's not an exhaustive list there is quite a bit of uh interventions that you can take uh for corrective Behavior so again looking at the trends looking at the three-year Trends um we're closely resembling uh 2122 in terms of data um but again the goal is to decrease not to increase um our data yeah um thank you so much and and you know I would appreciate continuing tracking of this and I appreciate your your efforts on this as well um you know this is a long-term issue with um reduction of disparity and disparity mitigation thank you and one final comment by director babbit I couldn't resist sorry um but I do
188want to um definitely thank all the teachers who who really do work with the parents because I firmly believe that it's the parent the teachers and the students working together that help change this data and just want to just point out that when kids increase dramatically because teachers are sending those remind notices and teachers are telling us as at home specifically what we need to do to help support our child and we actually you know it makes it easier for us to do those things and to really be a part of the process um I know I experienced this at lot for the teachers at Longfellow Middle School so I definitely want to um thank them for for all of that kinds of communications because as parents we are seeing that growth in our students
189um through those details that they provide us um and I'm also saying that because at the uh African at the area conference the regional Educators Alliance conferences there were teachers who um admitted that they felt uncomfortable reaching out to parents of color and so when we talk about cultural competency uh it it really does matter it really does matter to gain the comfort that you need to reach out and reach to to work with people at home those caring adults at home need to know and and really need to be a part of the conversation lastly to my board colleagues um as you know I'm part of the governance uh meeting for the African-American success framework and one of the things that they look at of course is our data and our math they're working
190quite diligently with um unine math teachers and uh of course our middle schools as well and have really identified that uh we need to really be thinking strongly about Summer Bridge programs for math from 5ifth to sixth grade and 8th to 9th grade and so I just wanted to to share that with you as we look at this data that is already a proposed solution last comment grading for Equity I I really want us to get serious about how we make sure that our educators are grading for Equity how are we identifying which which educators are um actively pursuing in those and then how are we making sure that our most vulnerable students are really placed in those classrooms so that they can experience that those grading for Equity practices thank you I don't know
191if you wanted to address any of director B questions but just comments all right well great well thank you so much for this presentation board colleagues will take a 5 to 10 minute break no more than 10 minutes and we'll come back and then we will have to entertain a motion to extend the meeting when we come back [Music] thanks morning please he did [Music] of [Music] basic that's everything goes up yeah they were yeah yeah you can take CR for start getting his brother years [Music] know outside don't know C and that helps no plenty of time for that yeah 10:30 is by that time and 6:30 is I up yeah like that take he board colleagues we'll get started momentarily fix it there yeah I think we're just waiting for director shinoski we'll
192get started started I think they her outside okay well colleagues before we move to the budget update uh think we're going to have to extend the meeting like to entertain a motion to extend the public meeting to 11:30 pm can I get a motion and a second uh okay um can I can I get a motion to extend the public meeting to 11:30 p.m. I'll move to do so is there a second I'll second to extend the public meeting to 11:30 p.m. all in favor I I any and Readiness exensions or no [Music] votes is that an eye passes the ey s i all right motion passes thank you um and now we'll move on to the budget update agenda item 13.2 associate superintendent fenby will you be introducing this item superintendent would you like
193to introduce this item this evening we're going to hear a budget update from our assistant superintendent of uh fiscal Services Pauline phany so good evening uh you guys hear me yes we can hear you now so this evening I'll be presenting an update on our budget and um I'm just sharing with you our budget cycle this is a time of year and we're actually in two fiscal years so right now um we've already received the January the governor's January budget um February through June we'll be re providing the board with updates dates on our budget and our reductions February through May we'll actually be developing our budget March this is when I'm now presenting the second interim and I'll be using the information on the on the multi-year at the second inum to inform you
194on the 2425 budget of course then we have the May revise and the governor approves the June budget after we have closed the book so if there are any significant changes we will have a 45 day rice so again this presentation and all our presentation is grounded in our mission and in our for EAS and we take this into account when we're looking at our resource allocation as well so for this evening I want to review the a the budget development process with you let you know where we are in the budget develop process itself and what's next sorry for the interruption associate superintendent if we could keep the talking down please so that we can hear the presentation that would be great okay you can you can continue and then um I'm also going
195to do a brief overview of the general front projected revenue and expenses I'll also be sharing this when I do the interim the second interim update as well so the bosd development process we're informed by our calendar so we have a board approved calendar that highlights the significant um milestones in our budget not only for our budget but also our partners BPS budget when are we going to be meeting with our various budget Partners like esac and um and we have this laid out by month for um for our Milestones that we need to do um and then um linked here is the actual budget development calendar that was shared with you earlier so in terms of our step and this is something that we do every year when we're developing a budget um so
196on our before June 30th uh we're required by law to pass to pass a balanced budget and before that happens we start we there's a six-month process which I've explained we started this in January so um the governor's the governor's budget um informs our our projections for developing the 2425 budget and we talked about the May Revis which comes um in May and the governor gives an update to his January proposal and then staff drafts uh budget recommendation for the superintendent based on the January budget as well as updates so several voices um inform the process and um and the resource allocation um method that we use these Partners include um the superintendent executive leadership team the extended leadership team um the budget leadership team which is an internal group of budget leaders in the
197district office the superintendence budget advisory committee and then we have representations from our various budget Partners listed there as well our planning and oversight um committee um Bap and ver and of course our Board of Education um you actually approve the final recommendations for budgets um at the June 12th meeting so again um when we're drafting our budgets we're informed by these these um guided these these core values of resource allocation and um Equity transparency Excellence engagement sustainab ility and stability and Equity is obviously um one of the key F key areas that we focus on um just to make sure that we're not being um you know um we're not allocating resources inequitably so where are we um in the budget process I already stated that it's based on the January's um the governor's
198January budget um and we use a multi-year in the second inum and we're working with our committees we continue working with our committees so we've had several meetings of esac with the me other members of other committees um attending and we're we're being very intentional in terms of building a process that's going to um meet our needs for Budget reductions and budget priorities so um we are still in developing reduction strategies um we still have to collect feedback from some of our committees um our principles and the community but we have a Target to bring the reduction strategies to the board at the June 12th meeting and of course um we're going our goal is to achieve a balance budget as required by law we have to set aside adequate resources to reduce the structural
199deficit and other mandatory increases we also have to maximize the use of one time and alternative funding sources and we want to eliminate avoid eliminating filled positions as much as possible so when we're looking at this multi-year projection and this will be discussed in more detail when I present the second interim the the there is a line budget adjustments it's $6 million in 2425 and an additional 2.6 for 8.6 reduction in 2526 so we have theer DET that without these reductions we would have a negative or a qualified opinion so it's important that we're all on board in terms of these budget reductions and um and this is actually due to the cola that we got in the January budget which was substantially lower than the um than the than the projections that we had
200when we when we had the enacted budget so again without the $6 million in budget reductions in 2425 we will have a negative or qualified certification which means that the district will not or may not meet its Financial Obligations in the budget year so currently we do have a b a balanced budget the 2425 budget is presented as being balanced but that's only after budget reductions and additional budget reductions will be necessary if we um trying to address the budget deficit that we have a structural budget deficit in our budgets right now so our next steps um we're going to continue to work with our community and our budget Partners we obviously will be updating our projections as we get additional information um we're going to be looking at our District programs to identify budget
201inefficiencies or savings and we'll also review administrative support near needed to support our expanding programming um again our our budget assumptions will be updated and our cut Target will be developed and what I presented before was the cuts that were necessary to balance the budget and as I mentioned earlier we're going to obviously be um addressing the structural deficit in our budget as well so I think that's it for the budget update um and it doesn't go any further can you board colleagues this is a discussion item do we have any questions vice president Brown uh no questions just an appreciation for um associate superintendent bensby um I think that and a comment I think that as I look at many neighboring school districts who are being impacted um by the governor's May revise specifically
202around um the cost of living adjustment stien um or the cola rather there's so many districts who are having to make humongous cuts um and I you know although cutting is never cutting is always a daunting task especially for us on the board I'm very grateful that we are not in the double digits of cuts like our neighboring school districts and so um that is a testament to um the fiduciary responsibility that the board has set out but also a testament to the work um of you and your office and uh the superintendent with applying those uh principles um that were on the second screen in terms of how we approach um Equitable funding for our programs and our schools so thank you for that we will March hand in hand as we get ready
203to make these cuts and I really look forward to uh the list of groups that were on the third or first screen third screen rather um our esbat groups our dlac groups our pack groups who will also provide a to the board direct recommendations um around those cuts and the reductions that we have to make so thank you for this information and for all your work so thank you director babit thank you um I also want to um echo my gratitude for the pillars and the strategies by which we make these cuts um making sure that uh in this budget process making sure that we think about things furthest away from the classroom and really thinking about these pillars um which means that data presentation we just saw should really be at our Forefront the
204Forefront of our minds and really understanding what's driving the improvements and what's not um as we go through these line items U so that we can make the right priorities um when I saw Pedro Nera on that last slide I immediately thought yeah he was a board member many many years in bu USD having this same conversation that we're having so so we really do have to get to what is it that we're going to um hold people accountable for as well in whatever we continue to find so thank you for this process director shinoski I just want to Echo that and also add that you know maybe we can look at this as a little bit of an opportunity um we've talked about organizational Clarity quite a bit and so maybe this gives us
205the opportunity to really look at um what is effective what is redundant right and how can we really clarify um the use of the resources we have for the needs that we have thank you um director um vice president BR um I I agree with um what was shared by director bid and director shinoski especially on organizational uh Clarity and so as we move forward I would like for us to to think about that move forward with reductions and specifically just seeing this data presentation that we saw tonight um as we think about what will be potential reductions um I want us to ensure that uh we are definitely protecting uh spaces positions and programs that will help us uh to get the gains that we want to see in our data um so this
206is our time to kind of provide Direction around that and so I want to ensure that what the direction I gave earlier my board colleagues gave earlier doesn't fall on death ears but we can absolutely see that um in see that our data and our support for our students will not be uh touched as we get to our um reductions I'm exhausted so hopefully you understood what I was trying to say exactly what you're saying director CHS sure thank you um it goes without saying but uh number one thank you uh associate superintendent fby for your separating of um complicated um budget scenario and of course you know we want to ensure that programs and services are all protected so that um students have um Equitable access to education and and the best education possible
207world class education that's what we're all going to be doing here as we make these um difficult have these difficult conversations and make difficult decisions about what can be trimmed or or not thank you okay you're welcome hey thank you very much assistant superintendent fenby I know that you're here for our next item which is an action item uh agenda item 14.1 the second inim okay so um I'll be presenting the second interim for approval and I'll also be asking the board to um formally accept the budget reductions that we're proposing um and that's a recommendation from our County Office of Ed so so um oh I'm doing this now too um so again we're grounding our presentation in our mission of for ease and as we allocate our resources we're enabling and inspiring our
208diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and make positive contributions to our world so our first objective um we're going to review the unrestricted general fund and that's um interims that I present have an unrestricted general fund Focus um we're going to look at the budget summary and highlights we're going to look at the variance report and the variance report looks at our last measurement date which was first intrum and comparing it to the second inim so that was October and this cut off is actually in January so we've had a few more months of data to look at Trends and to make recommendations um the multi-year projections were required to present the current year and two subsequent years and as I mentioned when I did the budget update the second year in our multi-year
209projection informs our budget for the 24 25 year which we're currently developing and then of course we'll have our next steps um where we we have a um a plan of action for what we're going to be doing after we um adopt this um approve the second interim and again um we do need formal recognition of the board um of the budget reductions that are included in this presentation and ultimately I'm asking you to approve the second interim presentation okay Liz can you help me it doesn't seem to all right here we go so again I mentioned it's an unrestricted General fund focus and we look at the activity from July when we started the year through through January and of course this is how we think um our best guess as to what we're
210going to be doing for the rest of the year so even though the cut off was January 31st we're projecting our activity for the rest of the year and the governor's proposed budget for 2425 informs the assumptions that we've used for this budget Pro um projection um again and I don't know how many times I have to say this second inam highlights the need for Budget reduction we require board acknowledgement we do have a positive certification so we're we're presenting the second interm as being positive but that's only if we have implemented the budget reduction in the subsequent years and not going to mention it again but I will Aluma county is requiring formal recognition of the budget reduction by the board um and as I mentioned when I did the budget um update we
211had a Target that was to essentially balance our budget but we still have a deficit so we will need to look at additional um budget reductions if we're going to address the structural deficit and um the other significant change that we did at first at second inum we now have the calpads data which informs our enrollment and it also informs our enrollment to 88 percentage so you'll see the impact of that at the second impa the second interim we talked about the budget cycle so I'm going to just quickly go through that not going to repeat that so the variance report as I mentioned um this is an opportunity for us to look at the two measurement dates the first first inent the second inent look at the variances so when we look at our
212LC FF Revenue we can see that there was a slight change and that slight change was mainly due to the fact that we're now using calpads data for on duplicated pupil count that's our more most vulnerable students and our supplemental funding um is geared for our our um our unduplicated students so we saw slight increase um however our enrollment did dip quite a bit um so there was a slight um correction of that as well when we look at the um at expenses on the next slide if I can get there here we go so when we're looking at expenses this is a time that of year that we kind of look at Trends expenditure Trends and if we don't think we need the budget that's in line items at this time we will reduce
213the budget um as a onetime adjustment it goes back in in the following year so when we look at negative variances that means we're um spending more than we had projected at first interum and positive variances means that we're spending less so you can see on this chart there's a combination of positive and negatives and each one has us um an explanation which is listed on the um on on the slide um the savings are predominantly us taking unspent balances or looking at expenditure Trends and changing the budget to kind of match the trends um we did see an increase in our operating expenses and that mainly has to do with our our utilities went up significantly and we have to project for that um in the out a and then we come to our
214other financing sources and uses and this is where their transfers in and then their are transfers out the significant change from the second inum is that we're contributing more to our special education program and that's because of increased Services um that they're doing at the second intrum but there's also we also took the opportunity of a one-time funding source to transfer some of our expenses to another funding source so even though we're only showing a variance of 600,000 we actually relieved um we transferred $245,000 to another funding source so we're looking at an overall contribution of $900,000 and we're evaluating this program in terms of um additional need because as additional needs come up we have to meet them I have to do this AE special wh is oh here we go so um so
215the the um conditions that I mentioned before accounted for overall change so um you can see that that um the number in the Box um the net increase or decrease in fund balance at first interm where deficit spending by 1.8 million now we're up to 2.5 million it's planned deficit spending because you can see we have a significant beginning balance of $7 million be beginning balance so we want to spend some of that but of course we can't continue that Trend because we'll be exhausting our savings account there we go and that's just more of the um the the um variance report so let's look at our average daily attendance as I mentioned earlier we're looking at our seabeds number so in 24 23 24 we're looking at a ceds number of 9077 and we
216kept that actually flat and then if you look at the second bar down that's what we're actually being funded on when we plug in information into our lcff calculator um so we're still benefiting from the threeyear averaging for two years but you can see in 25 26 the second um Row the third row down equals like the the two other rows down so we're actually being funded at our um our actual Ada so that's actually um um contributing to the need for us to um to spend more um to to reduce our budgets more so again our multi-year projections it's important to note that there are no in no um increases for salary no estimates for salary increases in our oute so um even though we're doing this cut we haven't looked at the neither
217neither column includes um salary increases and it's based on on assumptions in the governor's proposed 2425 budget um we have changed the assumptions for the cola based on the governor's um enacted budget our Ada funded has changed somewhat because now we're looking at the ada8 to enrollment ratio at first interim at the P1 reporting period which is a little bit better than we had previously and then our unduplicated pupil count went up as did our percentages so you can see for total revenue we're looking at 118.7 in 24 23 24 it dips because of the reduced coola in 2425 goes up back a little bit um because of the increased Cola in 2526 so when we're looking at our expenses and um reducing um taking out the fact that we had one time savings and
218onetime expenses in 2324 I already mentioned that we needed budget reductions of 6 million in 2425 and additional 2.6 in 2526 what does that do to our change in fund balance or are we still deficit spending yes we are deficit spending in 2324 planned to to reduce that fund balance down from 7 million but we're still deficit spending in 2425 even after making reductions so we still have to address that change in fund balance and only if we add another $2.6 million to the budget reductions will we have a somewhat positive um Surplus so we're not spending more than we're actually bringing in so with with these reductions um it leaves us with an undesignated fund balance which is a fund balance after we've set aside our responsibilities of 0.9 in 2425 and 1.9 in
2192526 so again the multi-year plan shows a need for ongoing budget reductions and again without these budget reductions the district will have a negative or qualified certification next steps so we're going to continue to work with our budget Partners um we have um several meetings scheduled with esac that includes a lot of other budget and a lot a lot of other um groups that we work with um we are going to be um work looking for the Governor's May revise and seeing what that does to our our projections and we are continuing to review our programs to identify efficiencies and savings and also we have to make sure that if there's a new program introduced that is properly supported administratively and we will be bringing back budget reductions to the board at the June 12th
220meeting so of course we have our near and long-term challenges the state budget the revenue forecast is always somewhat dubious in terms of the government was projecting at Jun at January that we're we're performing a lot better than the Legislative Office says so when the May revise comes um the Legislative Office is projecting that we'll be performing even worse than we're performing now which will which will actually need um additional reductions um so we have reduced Ada we're no no longer benefiting from the state mitigating and we also have expiring grants even though those are mainly in in restricted programming it also impacts our programming and of course our challenge is to develop comprehensive plans to maintain fiscal solvency and preserve the Integrity of our educational programs and I'm open question everybody looks half asleep
221I'm all excited [Laughter] now thank you assistant superintendent BBY for your presentation colleagues do we have any questions before we take action okay does anyone have a motion to approve the second inter room I'll move to approve the second interim with the acknowledgement that uh we recognize we need to make these cuts to behold is that specific I'll second the motion okay uh Mr going to call the r director shoski yes director babbit yes director Chang yes vice president Brown yes president vev yes all right thank you assistant superintendent FS me and now I don't know superintendent will you be discussing the the items that were pulled from consent consent items 12.6 and 12.7 which were pulled from the consent calendar and we can start with um item 12.6 which is the approval of resolution
22224-27 to eliminate or reduce classified positions I don't know director babot or superintendent who would like to introduce it yes thank you so much I was I pulled this item mainly so that we could uh really be clear with the community around what this means and around um what the what the memo said initially did not really um identify that these were just preliminary identifications in case we needed to pull and it also didn't really talk about how we came up with these lists so um with the with the list of classified staff so um thank you for adding that clarification for the community as well so I'm going to have assistant superintendent um Samantha deas espanosa um more information around how this list was created I appreciate uh you director babbett for noting that
223we did uh provide some update and clarification to the board memo to make it clear that these are preliminary notices and that no decisions have been made in terms of elimination or reduction of positions and that none will be made without engaging um in some of the components of the process that uh assistant superintendent phany just mentioned in her presentation but also without making sure that we are engaging um our community and our board along L to the core values of resource allocation which were also noted um so with that I'm going to allow um assistant superintendent to explain more about the list itself and how folks how positions got on the list thank you um so the um the list was created based on um what is sometimes referred to as um soft money
224so there's two reasons why we do a um what is termed off is a layoff list um or an elimination or um reduction um of Staff um in the classified World um and those two reasons are either lack of work or lack of funds so when we refer to a lot of things as soft money it means that the money either has an end date or has a um time period where it's going to expire or the district receives it as either like a donation or a um Su from an outside organization such as is the PTA um and so these positions were identified as positions that were either on soft money or um that was having an end date or uh monies that didn't have a plan that had been board approved for next
225year yet um or it was based on a lack of work um there um I not going to get into the details of each individual position but that that's how they were determined and again these are not per um decisions at this point this is a potential list um in order to give um a notice to potential um positions that would get um cut if this money is not resolved in a different way director ch um thank you assistant superintendent um do you know what portion or how much of our budget is composed of soft money money if you don't have that it's okay we can pull it next time but I don't have that um I'd have to get back to you okay that'd be a important piece of information thank you well well
226part of that answer would be things within our lcap plan right so our lcap we don't have a plan approved at the moment um for lcap so that is um part of it uh anything that's PTA funded Grant funds that are ending or expiring um those type of things so when when's the general time frame just for the public to understand like those type of numbers may be more um concrete or soft money um so that'll be through this whole process um we'll be looking at um through the lcap planning process um we'll have a better idea of what monies will be there available um and then um through the pta's um voting on their own budgets um and what they're going to want to um pay for for next year um and then also
227and communicating that to the district um as well as looking at um other funds and what we we can and can't do um with our funding and and how the all budget process works okay thanks colleagues can I get a motion uh to approve item 12.6 from the consent calendar one more thing I just want to um I'm sorry before you call for the motion I just want to acknowledge also that this is new to Berkeley this year where we have to give this kind of of heads up notice to our um classified staff in the past we have been able to literally go through our entire budget process we've been able to use a 60-day notice to uh terminate our staff um as needed and um so that was another reason why I was
228hoping we could have an actual public discussion about this stuff if we're going to do there are new things happening we haven't seen it done this way before in the past I think it's important for us to have that level of transparency and discussion and conversation uh with the community to ensure they have the same understanding that we as board directors have when we approve these so thank you Dr Chain did you have another comment no well uh thank you director babit can I now get a motion to approve uh consent item 12.6 president V I'm sorry really quickly just in in the spirit of continued um and more transparency appreciate you director uh babbit for starting that off and clarifying that this is a new process for B USD I want to add to
229that that it is um a new process that is required of all school districts so it's not that bud has decided to do a new process but that um state law requires us to go through this process and what we appreciate about the process even though it is new is that again it does give our classified staff the same um kind of heads up if you will or same amount of notice that is afforded to certificated staff and again as director babett said that was not always the case but wanted to make sure it's really clear this is law that we have to follow um in creating these notices for our classified staff thank you superintendent um colleagues is there a motion for approval I'll move to approve it I moved by director shinoski is
230there a second I will second second by director Chang Miss chares can you call the rule director shoski yes director babit um director Chang yes vice president Brown yes president basev yes so motion carries on a 31 thank you now we'll move on to consent item 12.7 approval of resolution 24-28 for the reduction of discontinuance of certain of certain certificated particular kinds of services for the 2024 2025 school year again I'll allow assistant superintendent um sorry assistant superintendent Samantha explain um want to just note for the public and for those who are here with us in the audience uh that the difference between this resolution and the one that was previously explained is that the one we just discussed was around classified staff while this one is certificated staff um and as noted just a
231few minutes ago certificated staff um the process to and the requirement the legal requirement to notify of any possible changes or reductions to position um is not a new process that has continued um and that those folks need to be notified by March 15th consistent though with the classified um notifications again I want to say and make it clear that no decisions have been been made these are preliminary um notices and final notices come out later after the budgeting process has taken place and again that that process is going to include thoughtful and has started already and includes thoughtful engagement of Our Community Partners um including our various labor unions as well as um staff and just a whole bunch of folks who represent different advisory committees as well as the board and we'll be
232engaging Folks at different part of that process are providing updates apologies in board meetings as well but I'll let um Sam tell us more about how folks got on positions got onto this list so um this list is very short um there's only one position on it um and this is a particular kind um well this is a certain type I should say to not use the same language twice um a certain type of uh layoff in the certificated World which is a layoff of um our particular kind of service so okay so a particular kind of service um layoff has to do with whether or not we are going to be using that specific um either credential or license that is required for a staff M um and um in our program moving forward
233and so we are looking at whether or not this particular credential is going to be needed moving forward we only have one credential um and there is also a lack of funding for that position um due a r so um we're looking at that piece as to whether or not we need to um how we're going to address that need um for our students and um with our program um we also could do low layoffs um as a result of U strictly for um a lack of funds but it has to be to the point where we make that sense for a certificated off that size um I hope that s po all the mic sence please bear with us as we get our technology and can anyone try turning their mic on there you
234go leave them all right um we have to leave our mics [Music] on right thank you we're going to start um yeah try to keep as far apart from each other as possible so that there's no feedback he um so weird sorry we're going to hear 15 minutes of public comment we'll start with our in-person speakers uh Miss tus can we let people speak for one minute and I'll just call the cards as they've been given to me we'll start with Joseph glatzer followed by Samira K and then Cheryl former council member Cheryl Dava so yeah Cheryl has her hand okay um then call her onum let's start with uh Mr gler and Then followed by Samir K what's the first name I want to see they're on zoom we're starting with inperson comments for
235Joseph glatzer with Joseph gler is that person here nope Samir k not in the audience um how about Aster okay Aster you have one minute good evening you guys I know that it's late we're still here we're still here standing up to Advocate to continue teaching Palestine in Berkeley Unified School District it's so important um I am a Palestinian American I'm also a perspective parent I'm originally from Los Angeles I came up here to go to Berkeley for school and I stayed in Berkeley thinking that it would be safer for me as a Palestinian to live in Berkeley in the Bay Area than in a very Zionist West LA where I come from however I'm really sorry to say that as of right now I would not send my children to a Berkeley School the
236fact that this is even still a contentious topic really breaks my heart and there's so much rich amazing history to be learned about Palestine just a few maybe 20 minutes ago we were doing some do do key outside the Palestinian traditional dance these are all really really truly important things to uphold and it just shouldn't be controversial thank you very much for your comment if you have additional comments please email them to the board next we have Stephanie shell followed by Camille chbani and I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name good evening I am speaking as a BD parent and as a Berkeley High teacher and as a fellow human being academic freedom is a Hallmark of a free and critical thinking society and our students are hungry to discuss World issues and look to
237their dedicated teachers to provide the space for them to do that the fact that Berkeley teacher is trying to support our students to understand the context for the Kamas attacks of October 7 and Israel's daily attacks on Gaza ever since have been slandered harassed and publicly targeted for doing their jobs is a stain within this District such attacks on academic freedom freedom contribute to a general climate of disempowerment alienation and El lative safety safety for our entire Community but the most marginalized among them at the top by not standing up more clearly for teachers we allow ourselves to be open to more attacks that we know will come because if they can succeed in censoring classrooms in Berkeley imagine what is possible elsewhere in the country I Call On The Board to vociferously oppose text
238and publicly demonstrate thank you very much thank you very much for your comments next we move to Camille jabami followed by Sarah Lewis greetings um I had not meant to um it wasn't my plan to speak to all all of you today um but I am very concerned and worried about the the silencing that is uh happening not only here in Berkeley even in Oakland Unified School District the board is not willing to even bring up uh any discussion about um not only a ceasefire but um the the genocide that's happening in uh Palestine so my name is camil jbril I chose to speak today because I believe that silence is complicit complicity are you complicit all of you Berkeley has had a long history of free speech it's ironic that the teachers are being
239silenced and punished in Berkeley for teaching about Justice for any oppressed people this particular case the Palestinians teach Palestine thank you very much uh now the next speaker will be the final speaker for inperson comments tonight will be Sarah Lewis she was yielding her time to me okay yes you may go Miss Briget um good evening board members I just wanted to say as um one of the teachers who was named in the complaint I have um what can I say I I have struggled to convince my students that what we're doing together is is not criminal that the desire to understand Palestine the desire to understand the the roots of the conflict and the desire to speak freely are not criminal actions but the impact that this is having on the students is is
240is I think devastating you know we spent I've spent 20 years in this District teaching tolerance and peace and human rights and to be maligned publicly in so many ways to be maligned as a as as somebody who's abusing children or somebody who is is is anti-Semitic we need more help we need a clearer statement from the bo thank you m now I'll move on to on comments Miss pis we give one minute to the six speakers we're going to start with ambera and end with Lily Hal so uh we'll start with amria hi uh members of the board I really appreciate all of your hard work I see why you invited us to stay to the end to see um how much goes into all of this I am speaking today because I'm so
241inspired by the student commentary I'm inspired by the W uh watermelon Society um inspired by the teachers I Echo that that the criminalization of standing up for Palestine is very clear it's very apparent and there's a difference between feeling that your child is unsafe versus knowing that they're criminalized um I am in neighboring Albany and the silence here is deafening and so we actually look to uh our neighbors for um how to have these discussions and I just support the students and I'm very inspired by the pro um you know for the uh teaching Palestine and keep keep the ethnic studies that that you have thank you give the next hello my name's Tony Wilkinson can you hear me my name's Tony Wilkinson can you hear me um I'm gonna read my statement I'm not
242sure if if uh I'm on or not but I'm going to uh hi I'm not getting any message I um anyway I would like to read my statement um if that's okay the friends of Adeline takes pride in and supports the work of the ethnic studies committee the I'm sorry supports the work of the Lees MCC we believe in light of recent events the history of Arab americ an and Palestinians including the 76-year fight against Colonial occupation unequal two-tiered apar system must be discussed and analyzed in classrooms the plight of Palestine is connected to the civil and human rights we fight for here in Berkeley we stand for a long list we stand with a long list of anti-racist educational organizations led by and centered on black indigenous and other peoples of color which begin
243right here in Berk began here in Berkeley in 1968 UC Berkeley and in San Francisco State with the third world Liberation Front strikes these student faculty and community-led movements led to creation of the African-American Cho Asian and a studies am I on um okay I can't tell if I'm on or not hi I'm gonna talk my name is Juliana fredman I have in seventh grader at Willard I'm a Jewish a BD alumni as well I'm here tonight representing a growing group of B USD Jewish parents for Collective Liberation we support the thoughtfully developed liberated ethnic studies curriculum and the right of our teachers to talk about and teach about Palestine and Israel without censorship or fear of reprisal criticism of Israel or Zionism is not anti-semitic feeling uncomfortable about criticism of Israel does not make
244Jewish kids unsafe the reason complaint against BD is an attempt by a small group of extremist parents who have a track record of harassing and intimidating those who show support for Palestine in order to censor the voices of Palestinians and those who support them they don't represent the Jewish berele Community falsely charging anti-Semitism against Israel's critics is a well-worn Playbook stop bombing babies ceas fire and free Palestine are not anti-semitic statements as Jewish parents we oppose anti-Semitism anti-arab racism and islamophobia and we know that it's Palestinian Arab students who are the most impacted by the genocide okay it's asking me to unmute but I already spoke hi um Cheryl D former council member um for the city of Berkeley and um you know Zionism is equal to racism which is equal to hate sadly we
245see that zionists are trying to equate and um you know anti- Zionism to anti-Semitism and they are not equal um and you know no one should feel unsafe but you know black people people of color have always felt unsafe Palestinians have felt unsafe they they they still feel unsafe even though the room was packed tonight um there was talk in the room about how Palestinians feel unsafe to come into the room and um but it was a beautiful event there tonight hi my name is Lily Howell I'm a b USD parent and staff and while some allegations of the office of civil rights complaint are alarming others are questionable and we need to tease that out so I stand here to say that it is not anti-semitic to be against War it is not anti-semitic
246to ask for peace for pause for a ceasefire it is not anti-semitic to tell the truth of the very real policies of police movement and access for Palestinians it is not anti-semitic to say Palestinians exist was it anti-semitic of my Israeli father-in-law to be a conscientious objector was it anti-semitic of him to hunger strike will in jail because he believed in peace weaponizing Descent of the Israeli government as anti-Semitism is dangerous will you next weaponize my descent for the US government for local politics for this very board in front of us I know the current conflict heightens discom in fear but silencing dissent does nothing to bring a safer Society open and honest dialogue does as a mixed Jewish and non-jewish family we say teach Palestine stop the war tell the truth want to thank
247everyone for coming out this evening colleagues do any of you have extended or member [Music] comment yes