001like to provide you with a brief overview of tonight's meeting after a few procedural items the board will hear 30 minutes of public comment at the end of the meeting there will be another opportunity for additional public comments so if you do not get to speak at the first call we encourage you to stay to request to participate in public comment click on the participants button at the bottom of your screen and select the raise your hand button to request to speak when called upon you will be unmuted to comment by phone you will be prompted to raise your hand by by pressing star n once again when called upon you will be unmuted the board president will call our students first so if you are a student who wishes to speak please write student
002at the end of your name once again if there are a lot of people who wish to to make public comments not everyone who raises their hand will get to speak during the first call so we do encourage you to stay till the end of the meeting the board president will determine whether to set tonight speaking time at 2 or 3 minutes minutes per speaker and on an individual basis also has a discretion to allow for extra time for those who need translation or have other speech needs when your time has elapsed you will hear your time is up or you will see vice president Alper hold up a sign saying you have 15 seconds left um there are really important issues that the community feels very passionate about but in order to be fair
003to all and to hear from as many of you as possible the board president will ask you to please stop once your time has elapsed for thank you I just want to also clarify one thing is that this meeting today is going to be a little bit different because we have um I think we have an item before public comment so I think that's a little different from do you want to translate that thank you all all right um do I have a motion to approve the agenda for today are there any changes actually um director Sinai is there anything you need to I need to um I don't have the number right in front of me I need to recuse myself from the um Rose Parks kids village item on it's on consent all
004right so let's let's um vote on that after the consent calendar um is that okay to incorporate that into your um your Mo so that's um we'll move item 12.26 to action great uh yes so I'll make that motion do I have a second second seconded by director Brown um do you want to take the vote uh director Sinai yes director Brown yes director Lea Cutler yes director Miller yes vice president Alper yes president Nel yes thank you everyone um now um vice president Alper is going to report out on Clos session do you want to quickly vote on item 12.26 president Appel one that we just the one that we just pulled no no we'll we'll vote on it later oh okay that's fine um sorry about that yeah so I'm will now report
005out from closed session um item 3.1.1 um anticipated litigation B USD case number 20202 1-18 there's a motion by myself second by director laa Cutler to approve the staff recommendation all voted in favor and the motion passed five to zero case number 3.1.2 BD case number 20202 1-19 motion by myself second by director Sinai to approve approved the staff recommendation all voted in favor and the motion passed 5 to zero item 3.2 existing litigation 3.2.1 oah case number 202009 0310 motion by President Appel second by myself to approve the staff recommendation director Sinai recused herself all their members voted in favor and the motion passed four to zero with director Sinai recusing item 3.2.2 oah case number 20200 8773 motion director Brown second by director laa Cutler to approve the staff recommendation all voted in
006favor and the motion passed five to zero item 3.3.1 um Conference of real property negotiators the board heard an update item 3.4.1 collective bargaining Berkeley Federation of teachers the board heard an update and gave Direction item 3.4.2 Berkeley Council of classified employees the board had the board heard an update and um we did not um get to item 3.4.3 or 3 3. 4.4 and that concludes the closed session report thank you very much vice president Alper and I'm gonna turn the agenda back to you because I think you are going to lead the next item I am thank you um president Appel and um thank you everybody for being here tonight um this is a a bit of a Bittersweet night for all of us because it's the the final board meeting of President Appel
007and director Lea Cutler who have collectively given 20 years of service to this District um it's incredible achievement incredible amount of of service um to this District to the children of this District um and we wanted to take a moment even as we have all sorts of important issues to discuss tonight um and for the rest of the year we wanted to take a moment to really celebrate um Judy Appel and Beatrice Lea Cutler for for what they have given to this District um and we have a number of people who have um graciously agreed to be here to say a few words about um both of our colleagues um and I'm going to call them up one by one to um to the sort of virtual Podium to offer a few words of of
008recognition and and honor for um for Beatrice and Judy um first and so those of you who who know raise your blue hand so that you rise towards the top of the participant participant list which will make it easier for um for as to um allow you to speak um the fir and I'm going I'm going to try to do the this is not in any particular order except to some extent based on some people's schedules um but we're really honored everybody who's not speaking on this item to lower your hand you can raise it again when we get to the general public comment period yeah and they should be able to pull people out too but um our first Speaker were very um fortunate always to have in our midst which who is um
009Senator Nancy Skinner um Senator Skinner I see your hand is raised and you have the floor Senator Skinner thank you for being here thank you um it's very good to see you all superintendent Stevens I don't think we've met formally but great to see you uh assistant superintendent fenby president Appel of course um director Alper director Brown director Cutler director Miller who I also haven't met and director Sinai um thank you all for your incredible commitment and dedication to Berkeley's students and Berkeley's classified staff and the teachers so thank you but tonight really as director Alper pointed out is the night where we give our real tribute to director Lea Cutler and director Appel and uh let me start with uh Beatrice because um Beatrice you've been on since 2008 and uh you had the
010both I suppose fortune and Misfortune to get elected to the Berkeley Unified School District at the point where the revenues to the school completely evaporated and here you were charged with providing for our wonderful children our wonderful students the incredibly dedicated staff and teachers and yet you had you watched money evaporate and there was no Capital but I mean it was beyond the pale okay beyond the pale and uh and created a lot of pain for many many people but the uh BD I think is again this testimony to the resilience of both the board and the staff and the community as a whole BD survived it well our students survived it well I hope we can say the same thing after distance learning with this covid situation uh I it's hard to say which
011one is more challenging but anyway Beatrice just phenomenal and the perspective that you brought as a bilingual board member as a board member who had provided services to children in West Berkeley for years for years and with your um not only passion but your professional training in early care and education it's just it's invaluable Irreplaceable and I know that b USD will still Thrive but you really are irreplaceable so thank you for that incredible work um and there's much more I could say about you but I know there's many other people who want to speak um our the state senate has a beautiful resolution for both you and director repel I think they were mailed and delivered already to the district so I can't hold it up myself to show you but you will have
012them in your hands very soon and uh it is only partially uh it is only a partial honor to you you deserve much more but at least you will have it forever now director Appel um you were fortunate to get into to the school board at the point where money was starting to come back into our uh our districts California's Revenue was in better shape however we also had the situation where with the adjusted formula that Governor Brown did the uh [Music] which uh Senator Skinner you muted yourself I think okay apologies anyway the um with the local control funding formula and the change in demographics in Berkeley while Berkeley schools were getting better funded we were all of a sudden having potentially less than we had hoped because we had fewer kids kids in
013the uh in the lowest income categories so that also put a challenge and we know that our kids have such great needs so I know Judy that that was one of those issues that was frustrating at the one at on the one hand it was something that was clearly needed Statewide and on the other hand did it really address the needs of our Berkeley students and of course the students that are in uh for special needs our kids with various different types of what we I won't call a disability but I'll say challenges that some other kids don't have they were put at particularly uh difficult circumstance and I know that those are kids that have always been near and dear to your heart and that you have paid very close attention to to serving
014but you brought to the board your wealth of of incredible knowledge I mean you you had a great background in civil rights law in Criminal Justice Reform in so many of those issues but then you ran an organization that was designed to specifically serve the unique needs of lgbtq families and while some people might just think okay well what's an why is an lgbtq family have any different needs than any other family but in fact because of many many reasons and because of prejudices that still exist in our culture and Society lgbtq families do have and less now but definitely and and the our family Coalition that you founded and led for so many years played such a pivotal role in families throughout the Bay Area this diverse set of families which of course as
015we know is a large population within our buusd school district so Judy you are also completely Irreplaceable and uh while B USD will Thrive it will it will survive it will had be losing a very valuable perspective that you brought and then I I just have to say that that you came back to the board after suffering basically life-threatening injuries which are still you're still uh challenges for you now but that you and Allison persisted survived uh recovered still recovering I'm sure and came back and gave your all to the public service that you were dedicated to it just we we have to thank you and it was a it was a huge burden it was a huge huge burden but we really do appreciate it and the entire Community appreciates it and Judy you
016are loved and we as I said we will miss you and the the resolution tries to give as much of history about your good work and whatever we missed forgive us but I hope that is just a a small token of the honor that you deserve for the incredible service that you have given thank you so much thank you so much you're welcome thank you Senator Skinner certainly um I'm there's there's a couple people juggling other things including our former colleague Josh Daniels who is currently running the um ousd Zoom meeting right now so I'm gonna let him but he's able to step away so um could we give Josh the floor there he is can we see him is that possible we just have to hear me director Alper all right I'll settle we'll
017settle for hearing you or excuse me vice president aler well good to see everyone um uh it's it's it's really wonderful to hear your voices and just see your faces in this context um I am very excited to be able to appreciate and acknowledge the work of President Appel and uh director L A Cutler I'm we had the pleasure of working with her so many years um I'm sure a number of people will Express various tributes um but I just wanted to convey my appreciation to you both having been your colleagues um my appreciation for everything that you taught me and other board members about um how to represent the needs of our community the way in which you approach the work um the dedication the thoughtfulness the passion um you know each board me
018member brings their own unique set of experiences and um uh perspective and you know that the both of you certainly did that um both in ways that you know one might expect and one in ways that that not and you know the board that we sat on um was uh um you know so aligned on the goals and yet we had strong and passionate and I think good disagreement about how to get there and I came away from that experience um you know a better person a better board member um and just truly appreciative of of what you gave uh throughout the time that you started on the board to the to the families and the students of Berkeley um uh B I mean you you started before me and you continued after me um
019and you know having maintain that experience on the board is so critical um you know Judy having servor board president I'm bringing the wealth of experience that you brought um I just I I I I know that well not everyone will always understand H um because it's just it's different being on a board um but but the difference that you have made for kids and for families not only now but for the future including my kids um you know one of whom is in the district and another of whom will be in the district uh shortly so I just want to uh thank you from someone who has been in the seat that you're in um and you know just just know that you have truly made a difference um and that you can carry
020that with you for uh forever um thank you all very much Happy Holidays and um congratulations on a good eight 12 years thank you so much much Josh thanks Josh thank you Josh um next we have Lupe gyos Diaz oh yes Wes yeah thank you soas noes my name is Lupe Galos Diaz and I'm a resident of the city of Berkeley since 1984 and I come today as a board president of Baya uh on behalf of the thousands of thousand of children and their families from Baya the Baya staff latinx communities here in Berkeley and the Baya board I come here to give thanks and honor to you be our champion and our leader uh in the community W getting emotional I first met beis as a graduate student in 1984 working in the community
021via Mr Muro also another Advocate and Legend in our community who brought me to a board meeting uh for the first time and here I am 25 years later still working with Baya in the community and also with the city of Berkeley we Baya and the community want to thank bees for her dedication and commitment for the last 12 years on the school board but over 40 years of leading in the communities all around not only Berkeley but in the Bay Area Beatrice isun that she is the heart of our community she has been and continues to be a warrior standing for those who can't either speak or talk for themselves and we and she also invites others in to work and create and change what is needed for our children and our families VI's
022beautiful white hair reps represents her wisdom and understanding she carries with her via her lived experiences as a first generation bilingual bicultural Chana from a low-income family which has really grounded her in how she helps our individual students and our children and our families in the community graas for and your dedication to you are a true Advocate with a big old a that has made feel children me feel safe and the families assured all these years that they have a place and they belong both in Berkeley and in the community Beatrice's teaching reminds me so much of Pablo F's work around teaching and pedagogy of what it really means to work with Children and Families he says what an educator does in teaching is to make possible for the students or hear the children to
023become themselves and I would add not only to become themselves but really Bloom as individuals of who they are supposed to become and so tonight again we thank you for all this work Beatrice and we are we are with you in the new phase of your life we love you and honor you today and always uh Lupe and the community in Berkeley from Baya and the latinx community thank you beat thank you thank you so much Lupe and now we have anhela gagos Castillo the mayor amen the mayor come I'm coming I'm coming there I am everybody got the Shue out that was beautiful board um superintendent uh mayor everyone here I'm very proud and happy to be here representing Latinos unidos de Berkeley um I am I myself am a resident of Berkeley um
024resident for about 20 years but have been living here since 1990 when I started grad school at UC Berkeley and I've had I had one daughter go through all the public schools in Berkeley she's a buusd uh product and she just graduated with her ba we can all be happy about that she's thriving and my son is currently a sophomore at Berkley High um I'm representing Latinos Unos at Berkeley as you know is a community Grassroots organization here in Berkeley working to ensure that the lens of equity and uh the voices of latinx families Cho Latino IND families are represented in uh various spaces in our community on behalf of Latinos unidos we want to celebrate Beatrice's tenure on the Das she has been a beloved advocate for Community courageously fighting for 12 years are
025you the longest board member ever viatri no I don't think so well certainly you have left huge Mark both uh in the school district as well as the community I think my sister did a wonderful job of sharing how much you are loved in our community who can say that there's uh an image of their uh face on a mural in town right um you know people say that there there are diff three different kinds of leaders uh the Risk Takers the tradition holders and the bridge builders I think VIIs your leadership style encompasses all three knowing when to be the tradition holder uh protecting and helping those that want to ensure that the cultural roots of the Latino Community are represented in all facets of their schooling and their learning risk taker when it's
026time to make sure that we create Partnerships so that we think out of the box and we create a new so that we ensure that no child is Left Behind and the bridge builder what great Partnerships you've been able to develop over the years to ensure that everyone is is is um represented and every voice is heard so on behalf of all of our Latino NEOS members the entire latinx Community we honor you we celebrate you we know that you're not going to be off in the Limelight somewhere and disappearing we're going to continue working together and I want to thank the whole board um vatri you're you're awesome you're you're loved and you you've done such a great job and uh president Judy you are also very much loved and valued and we want
027to thank you for your service as well felices to both of you gracias graas Angela thank you so much um and next we're honored to have mayor arain with us thank you president Alper it's a pleasure to be here on behalf of the city council to recognize um the many years of service that both director Lea Cutler and director Appel have provided the Berkeley community and just sort of reflecting on what I was going to say today I just trying to remember when I first met both of them and I first met director Lea Cutler um I think it was before you were elected to the school board and you were very actively involved in United action and the equity work that um Latinos unidos and um um African-American parents were involved in and you
028ran on a platform of really making Equity um a focus of this district and I think if you can look back where we are now and the board that we have and and the the 2020 initiative and the lcap and all the different initiatives that have been launched it was due to your leadership the leadership of director Appel and uh director hemp and everyone on the school board and it is really making a difference and we know we have a lot more work to do particularly with distance learning and the digital divide and the gaps um that uh black and brown students and low-income students are experiencing and we have a lot more work to do when we transition back to inperson instruction but um you have made such a tremendous lasting impact on not
029just the district but the city of Berkeley and I I too have proclamations which will drop off to to all of you I'm not going to read them because I think you know uh Senator Skinner touched upon all the great work you've done but this is work that you've been committed to your entire life uh with baj and Central Vita and you came to the district with that commitment to helping um kids and particularly bilingual education and it really made that a focus and make made Equity a focus of your work and so you know on behalf of the city of Berkeley thank you for all that you've done and I know that you're going to continue to be involved in our community um and we just are so deeply appreciative of your service and
030then um also to my friend uh director Appel it's with great sadness to see you leave the school board um but you have just made such an incredible impact and it's been such a pleasure to work closely with you um over the past few years um I know you will also continue to be involved in the Berkeley Community but just the work you've done on the board and outside of the board um supporting LGBT families to work around Criminal Justice Reform and and Equity um is is really deeply appreciated and specifically on the school board um you've been a real advocate for ensuring a quality education for all students uh with a particular focus on Equity supporting students at color students with disabilities and English language learning students and so thank you for for your
031work and and your service and your dedication to our kids to our families and to our community um we will miss you in this role but I know that you will you'll still be in our community making a difference and so I will make sure we get these proclamations to you from the city council but I did not want this moment to pass without just giving my deepest thanks to all of you you will be you'll be missed um know that you're leaving the board having made a huge impact um I know the new directors that are coming on will also do a great job but they have huge shoes to fill and um thank you from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of the Berkeley city council thank you thank you Jessie
032thank you so much ma'am thank you mayor um next we're gonna hear from William Rogers the former deputy city manager of Berkeley Mr Rogers you're muted William you're muted you know I always think I'm not going to do that and I always do that so my apologies so good evening everybody um my name is William Rogers I'm the president and CEO of Goodwill Industries San Francisco which is everything in the West Bay prior to that I served as a deputy City Manager for for the city of Berkeley and also had a 17-year tenure with the city um I want to just first thank Julie Sinai for inviting me tonight to say a few words about Judy Appel um I also want to take a quick moment to say hello congrats and thank you to Beatrice
033for over four Decades of service in Berkeley and I got to say um two of your preschool students um Tasha Henman and Tanya Moore um have work at Goodwill so uh they told me to tell you hello so um I have known Judy I have known you for about 15 years um and you have been consistently and effectively a social justice Warrior an advocate for underserved communities before you ever got onto the school board you were a parent you you were active as a parent serving as a community representative on the superintendent budget and advisory committee um you were president of the PTA for two years and you chaired the school governance Council we first met when you applied for a job at our family Coalition which is an organization for lgbtq families and I
034was the board chair of ofc and we hired you as the executive director and it was really the best decision that that we ever made in that organization your accomplishments in that role were tremendous you created a sense of belonging for lgbtq families at a time when there wasn't you created a safe space you created a strong Network for lgbtq families you led the welcoming in inclusive schools initiative so that schools would be more welcoming and accommodating for lgbtq families you successfully included lgbtq history and issues into the social science curriculum and adopted um that that were adopted in the Berkeley schools and throughout the state and you also work tirelessly to pass AB 2344 the Modern Family act to simplify adoption and protect the rights of non-birth parents and I personally will never foret
035get when you called me and told me that you had been invited to the White House by President Obama and asked if I'd be your date and I didn't want to know why you didn't ask your wife I was good to go um so I we went we had a great time I got to shake Obama's hand that day we had so much fun together and it was an experience I will never forget you've been a role model for so many and in 2012 you were the first out lesbian elected to the Berkeley School Board you have been tirelessly and successfully creating policies that champion equity and inclusion and I just want to say the Berkeley Community has been so fortunate to have you as a leader the LGBT community within Berkeley and within the
036state of California has also been fortunate your perseverance your tenacity and your leadership has made a real difference in this community thank you for leaving such a beautiful Legacy thank you William thank you so much Al couldn't come to DC I'm not trying to get you in trouble um next we're we're honored we're honored of a former bft president Kathy Campo Kathy um good night everybody I mean good evening everybody sorry um it's the fatigue talking so um I'm Kathy Campbell I'm the former president of bft and I'm currently a seventh grade English teacher teacher at Longfellow Middle School and I'm really happy to be able to be here tonight on behalf of bft um all the officers and all the members of bft to thank uh directors Lea Cutler and Appel for their incredible
037service to our schools and our communities and I'm going to read parts of this so I don't mess up um I first met director Lea Cutler sometime in 2006 as part of bf's work with United in action her love and dedication to the education and well-being of our community's youngest students our preschool students and her humility around community service were evident from the start in addition to providing critical leadership around closing our Equity gaps and supporting our preschool program students and families director Lea Cutler was a huge advocate for bilingualism and biliteracy in our programs and students and for the needs of English Learners and always director Lea Cutler has has been a staunch advocate for parent voice and parent engagement in all that we do the challenges are Limitless and the problems complex in
038public education thank you director Lea Cutler for your dedication to our community for these past 12 years thank you my earliest memory of meeting director Appel came when she asked to meet with bft regarding the upcoming implementation of welcoming schools in B USD judies can do Spirit collab approach respect for the people who do the work and the unions that represent them clear recognition of the importance of our classified employees and a deep commitment to positive School climate at every site for every family were evident right from the start director Appel was a leader in the idea that our lcap should be our roadmap for closing our achievement gaps and increasing racial Justice in our district and of course director Appel has has been a leader and a Visionary in the area of restorative justice
039and decreasing racial disparities in discipline in bu USD the role of this approach in our lcap the restorative justice counselors at our middle schools and high schools our great strides in reducing suspensions and providing restorative opportunities are the result of many efforts but director appel's principled and persistent advocacy played a big role director Appel on more than one occasion you would remind all of us that we do the work we do and we are here to serve students and families out of love have to breathe thank you director Appel for your love and dedication to public education and our community thank you thank you Kathy thank you so much Kathy um we have a few more speakers lined up up um next we have Barb Wanger Barb hi there hi H good evening um so
040I would just like to uh spend a moment talking about Judy um when she was deciding to run for um Schoolboard her question to herself was where can I make the most difference where can I make the biggest change in the world and she had been working in our school system she saw the needs of students she saw the needs of teachers and of our community and she decided to to run for school board uh her past eight years I've got to say like watching her as a friend and as a teacher uh from the school formerly KN named as Jefferson soon to be named Ruth aty hopefully um um just watching her from those two perspectives um I have nothing but admiration and respect and gratitude for the incredible amount of work and dedication
041and smarts that have gone into um into your service to our community um I got to work up close with Judy on the W welcoming schools um curriculum when that was being implemented and um for a year or so on Judy's initiative around restorative practices which has already been mentioned has has led to counselors in the high school and the middle schools and to a different way of thinking about discipline and um and also around the the name change for our school and Judy has always tried to think about every single perspective students Administration community members parents teachers and um taken all of those voices and tried to figure out what is the best what is the best for our entire community and so um thank you and and um director Beatrice thank you as
042well um as a teacher as a parent from bosd and as a community member your service is is something that has made a change and we are very grateful thank you thank you Barb um next we have a name that I just love to see um and that's our former colleague Karen Hempel Karen's Karen where'd she go there no she's not there oh Karen are you there you're on mute am I unmuted now oh there you are we can hear you now okay well everyone has said most of what I would say um uh talking about Judy's um dedication to our our student especially her work with um not just the uh lgtbq Community but with restorative justice uh and working alongside uh vatrice and I and the rest of the board um around Equity
043issues um and certainly I think it is clear that the um district is a better place than it was with Judy and of course with Beatrice um Beatrice and I started off knowing each other through United in action um at that time um as many of you know uh there were very few programs in this District that uh addressed the fact that black students were not succeeding in the district uh in fact it seemed um that we were going backwards uh we were in fact um had the infamy of having the widest achievement Gap along racial lines of any school district in the state of California and that is about the time I think that came out when Judy came on the board um and so I really appreciate all that Judy has done and
044Beatrice not just what she's done but the fact that when times were tough she was always someone that would calm me down or build me up uh I miss our walks along um Cesar Chavez park I hope to do that again uh once the pandemic is over um and I really just appreciate Beatrice in terms of she was always even though we're the same age she was always wiser than me and and always more patient than me and always more centered than me and oftentimes uh talked me off of a ledge when I needed to be talked off that ledge and also encouraged me when I was maybe a little afraid to be bold and so I really want to thank uh Beatrice for being there for me and um helping me to be a
045better board member so the only thing that makes this okay to the extent that it's okay at all is that Beatrice and Judy will be replaced with or not replaced but U the new board members Laura and Anna I have absolute confidence uh will take up their mantle and do well and um I don't know about you Ty you're gonna have a a board full of women and it'll be just you I'll be all right yeah so but anyway just want to say um enjoy the rest of your life it is a little bit different to get used to life after the board though I cannot say I miss some of the board meetings that went till midnight and later um so enjoy your retirement I know that it's just retirement from one sphere of
046social activity and you'll be involved in the community again so thank you for your service thank you Karen thank you so much Karen it's great to hear your voice and you're welcome to stay with us all night long if you want I'll put on lipstick for the first time since March we can't even see you we can't see you um well thank you so much for being here um we I wanted to let you both know director Lea Cutler and president Appel that um assembly member Wix um wished that she could be here tonight but um had um some unavoidable issues come up and she couldn't be but she she and her office and Senator Skinner's office worked on the resolutions together that um that are in transit I think to the district office and
047will be delivered to you all um but she wanted to be here thought she could be here um and then wasn't just wasn't able to be um I want to thank everybody who who who we uh who just gave their um their thanks and appreciation to our colleagues and I want to turn it over now to to my colleagues um to say a few words and start with um director Brown director Brown there you are thank you um vice president aler um dear Beatrice and Dear Judy there's so much that I could share and so many things that I have to say so I guess I better get to it um 20 years is a long time in preparing for um for denight I did a little bit of research about the number 20 and
048in my research I found um that the number two represents partnership and the number zero represents wholeness um so it's no surprise that the number 20 represents teamwork and respon responsibility and for the past 20 years you all have exemplified teamwork and responsibility 20 years is a long time and in the last past 20 years you all have been champions for justice champions for families and champions for Equity 20 years is a long time in the past 20 years You' have been a voice for latinx families in the latinx community a voice for lgbtq students and families a Voice for English language Learners and a voice for families of colors Across The District 20 years is a long time in the past 20 years the two of you have been advocates for inclusion advocates for
049financial responsibility advocates for academic intervention advocates for Meaningful professional development advocates for affordable mental health care for our students and families and advocates for student attendance knowing that students cannot learn if they are not in the seats 20 years is a long time the past 20 years you have been leaders in policymaking both here in Berkeley and across the state leaders in curriculum development and districtwide curriculum adoption and leaders in restorative justice 20 years is a long time it's a long time of late Wednesday nights a long time of some sleepless nights a long time of reading through board packet and Friday notes a long time of sacrificing family moments to prioritize moving the district forward 20 years is a long time no we are not perfect as a district but we as a district
050are better because of the two of you I would say that your shoes are too big to feel but I know that Anna and Laura will walk in their own pumps so instead I will just say thank you thank you for Paving the way thank you for shattering glass ceilings everywhere thank you for elevating the voice of the voiceless thank you for showing the world what it means to be powerful strong and smart women you are appreciated you are loved your influence has been felt and you will truly be missed thank you thank you thank you Gish thank you director Brown um now I'm gonna ask director Miller to say a few words hi um well Dr Brown covered a lot of what I think all of us are thinking in our heads so um
051I'm going to keep this a little briefer um director Lea Cutler you're um the first thing I noticed about you when we started um when we started on this board when I started on this board working with you was your presence um it's demanding it's powerful you know exactly the directions you want ahead with what you do and as um a younger person I can see that and it's fous on the work that everyone does on this board and um yeah it's just incredible and I really want to thank you for that and being a part of my opportunity as a student to be on this board um and representing so many unheard students in this District as well it's incredible and I know you're going to take those skills and continue that in the
052world which is exactly what we need right now um and president npal I want to personally thank you in case you don't remember um well I was actually running for this position um president Appel actually um agreed to meet with me um when we still could meet before the pandemic at a um local pets and talk about what this position would mean and like what skills I would have to take with me and I'm internally grateful for that opportunity I didn't actually think the president of the board would respond to some students email asking to meet so that was um truly incredible and prepared me exactly what I need to know for this position so thank you also for your endless work representing other groups of unheard students and um really going to miss you
053guys and yeah keep doing good in the world thank you thank you director Miller director Sinai so this is going to be a little bit repetitive because a lot has been said but as Educators say if you don't hear it a whole lot of times you may not absorb it so uh consider repetition a good thing and um something that just exemplifies all the work that you both have done I too I'm going to read this because it'll keep me focused so president Appel and director Lea Cutler Judy Beatrice you will be sorely missed on the school board youve taught and mentored so many of us on this Das you are and I'm confident will continue to be champions for Berkeley's Children and Youth and who have a Keen Eye and will continue to have
054a Keen Eye and commitment to equity Judy and Beatrice have Champion championed our kids and families long before they campaigned for office or reelected to the school board as active parents and Community leaders they stepped up to advocate for safe and welcoming schools and education that respected the needs and the rights of lgbtq families English Learners immigrants and African-American students both Beatrice and Judy have worked to make sure all of our students especially our students of color are treated fairly and are provided the resources that they need Beatrice is probably the most consistent School Board director ever to participate in the student attendance review boards uh uh review boards the sarbs always seeking to understand the root cause of a family a student situation and to make sure that decisions were fair and to benefit
055the growth of the family we're always able to count on Beatrice to be the conduit or the voice for parents and Guardians with over 40 years in leadership of bilingual Early Education and after school programs she you beat have a deep understanding of our native Spanish-speaking families and you know thousands of students and families whose first formal educational experience was influenced by you in your program over the years Judy LED much of the work to improve our discipline policies as it's been said to take away the racial disparities and to Institute restorative justice programs across the district Judy your resilience and unwavering commitment and dedication to this community to this school district has been demonstrated in a way that no board member has ever had to demonstrate in any of our current experience everything you
056have done and returned to do is a inspiring you and Allison have contributed so much to our community your leadership has carried this District to through good times through hard times and a once in a-lifetime pandemic and you've always steered us to stay on course and keep students and families at the heart of our decision making Beatrice I am so fortunate to have your influence and passion in my life you you and all the Bia staff have shaped The Early Education of my children we work side by side for over a decade to implement the 2020 vision for Berkeley's Children and Youth where we maintained our commitment to eliminate racial disparities in our district and without hesitation you stepped up to lead us in the period of Judy's medical leave without without complaint without hesitation
057a brand new superintendent and you kept us moving forward the district is better for the influence of the two of you I will miss you both and I hope that this will move into a new stage of partnership and friendship and I can't thank you both enough for the contribution you've made uh to my life my experience on the board and to the district and the community as a whole so thank you thank you Julie thank you so much director Sinai um I'm gonna say a few words and then turn it over to Dr Stevens um as as director Sinai said it's hard not to be repetitive um I'm so happy to both of you Judy and betri I'm excited for the next stages of your lives for your careers and service um and I
058know how much we're going to miss you both as as director Brown said 20 years of service to the district is a lot of time it's a lot of experience that we're losing um we lost 20 years years of experience when um Josh and Karen left the board and it's daunting and it's going to challenge us um to not have you here um it really is you've both been my colleagues on the board every minute of of the time that I've been a board member and I've relied on on both of you in so many ways um and I'm sure I will be continuing to be calling you in the coming months and years um I had the great privilege of serving twice as vice president when Beatrice was board president and I got to
059see a side of her that not everyone gets to see I got to see how her commitment to equity and her Devotion to the families of BD gets operationalized um because it's one thing to say what you believe in and it's another to have the vision and the skill to make what you believe in come true um her leadership got the sustainability plan over the Finish Line her leadership led to our sweat-free purchasing policy her leadership led to our award-winning student attendance review board as director Sinai alluded to her leadership is push us to better and more effectively evaluate how we're serving our English Learners those are just some examples um her Legacy on this board is both Broad and deep Beatrice is dogged she's persistent she has a very clear moral compass and she's
060not afraid to ask questions that upend the status quo and her attention to detail is staggering I pride myself on being able to catch typos but I am not in her league and it's not just typos she cares about the details of implementation how is this actually going to work how are families going to be notified why did that go wrong what lessons did we learn that will enable us to avoid that same mistake next time I've personally learned so much about good governance just from watching Beatrice ask questions batrice I'm so grateful to know you as a colleague as a friend and as someone who you've mentored thank you Judy was my first president and I'm so grateful for her leadership and friendship over the years she welcomed me to the board she mentored
061me too she made sure I knew what I was doing and has always been there for me and for all of her colleagues the one time she was not there during her recovery from her accident there was a gaping hole in the BD one that was felt throughout the district and the night that we welcomed Judy back to the board was one of the Great Moments of my time on the board Judy always puts students first she's a Pioneer in the development and maintenance of a welcoming School climate for all children as many people have settled already tonight she's a fierce advocate for racial Justice for student mental health she's championed restorative justice creating a legacy and a model as as Kathy Campbell said that would not exist in this District were it not for
062her leadership she is herself an experienced manager she knows how to navigate the complications of a large bureaucracy she's Savvy with budgets she has a nuanced approach to Union negotiations she has professional experience as Senator Skinner said in so many areas that touch the lives of all of our students Judy you are the complete package and we're going to miss you so much Judy and Beatrice both love this district and they've devoted so much of their lives to it and as a parent and a fellow board member I'm deeply grateful thank you to you both thank you Ty thank you Ty Dr Stevens I'm gonna turn over to you and then we'll hear from from our um from our colleagues patri and Judy great thank you very much vice president Alper um I um unlike
063many of the speakers who pered me um don't have the long history with each of you and yet in the roughly 18 months that I've known you and have been working with you um I I think we've each developed a bond sort of tested by fire at this point um I'd love to talk a little bit about each one of you you know it's notable to me um uh the number of accomplishments that each of you um um can sort of point to in your time in the board and the number of ways in which you're participating getting to know the community and surfacing the community's needs um uh president Appel I'm going to begin with you um I know you remember our very first meeting um uh we sort of snuck away into the
064corner of a hamburger shop um and were meeting each other under those circumstances at that point you had um been out of the hospital only days um and it was really remarkable to me that that early in your recovery that you were taking time um to come out and to support the district um to support me but really I think what you were doing was wanting to make sure um that the trajectory of the district in the sense that the new leader had been selected was was sound um it only became more remarkable to me that you found your way out of your home and into that little hamburger shop um because that's exactly the way that you did your job over the entirety of the year that we've worked so closely together um there's
065never been a time where you've um held back on your efforts uh never been a time when you've done your homework or reached out to a constituent to a family to a student um who had something to say whose perspective you valued and whose perspective you wanted to carry into the the decision making that we were all facing um over and over again what I found about your leadership especially through the trial of the pandemic is that you value Clarity for the community you want full transparency uh you want the district to be accessible and you want to make sure the district uh is um being clear about the decisions that it faces being diligent about collecting the perspectives of everybody who cares about these decisions seeing that they're presented in the full light of
066day uh and then really making sure that that we were debating in a rigorous way the best direction for the district um and everything that you did to push for that Clarity that consistency the transparency I think has um engendered a sense of faith in the district that we've so desperately needed uh over the course of the pandemic and I attribute that to your leadership as president through this very trying time um and I go back again to the moment meeting you and the way that you express such commitment um to the district and coming out so early after um in the course of your recovery um and again you've just you've you've shown that commitment over and over and again over the course of this year for that I feel uh a deep sense
067of gratitude a sense of friendship and deep respect for you um and thank you for that um and I say that on behalf of all of the District staff we've needed it we've benefited from it and we are grateful for it um and then Beatrice um there I'm not sure exactly how it's also how you do your job I think that makes you such an exceptional board member um I can't tell you how many times the public how many times um Beatrice is come to me with the story of a family um and and not just that she's concerned about a particular family but that she knows their needs their circumstances uh in great detail uh because she's working with them in the context of her own work because she's listening constantly um and understanding
068um where the system as it's been designed to support families may be following short uh and where advocacy at the highest level is going to make a difference um you know these things because you spend time in places where it matters uh not only in your own work but I see that in your commitment to the student attendance and review board um I see that in your persistent attendance at the district English language advisory committee uh and in other settings where um so many folks bring concerns hoping uh that those concerns will find their way into policy level discussion and you've always served as a bridge in the time I've known you to be sure that in fact those policy level discussions are informed U by the very needs of families that you know so
069well um and there's really no replacement for this this bridge into the board um for the community is something that's of of such great value um it's something that I value personally but for you to embody it for you to make it real for all of us is just so meaningful um and then I also want to just um uh commend you and thank you um for your ongoing commitment to English language Learners in the Immigrant Community here um you consistently find a way to point out these needs to staff to raise these questions and to ensure that as we think about the full scope of needs here in the district um that we're excluding no one um and so thank you for that for that Championship um it is just such a meaningful contribution
070at the board level um and to all of our families I'm going to miss both of you very much um but please do count on uh me reaching out uh we need your Council still we need your experience and hope very much that you will consider yourselves Friends of the district and know that you have many friends here as well thank you superintendent thank you thank you Dr Stevens um and now we'll get to hear from director Lea Cutler and president Appel um even though you have the longer tenure director Lea Cutler I'm goingon to start with you because the president is the president so we'll we'll start with you and let the president have the the last word in this um recognition period okay well um I well first of all I want to
071thank everybody for your comments your your thoughts your your Reflections on the time that I've been um School Board member um I want to thank the Berkeley community and the voters for their support as a school board director these past 12 years it's inspiring that BD will have two newly elected Schoolboard directors Anna voso and Laura babbit that were elected during shelter in place and what was indeed a challenging campaign in the history of Elections Anna and Laura are dedicated improving Community leaders in our district I want to congratulate them and wish them the wisdom as they launch their first term with utai Julie and kadisha and our superintendent I've learned so much from being an elected official I've learned to respect and hear the public comments read and understand the issues before the school
072board to understand the importance of the superintendent leadership and the role that school board school board has in providing Direction I tried my best to always hold in mind our students their families our teachers and the district as a director I never have taken lightly any discussion night any discussion or item or decision or vote as I get closer to this day I've been asking myself did it make a difference that I was on the school board member for 12 years I think in a small way I've been a champion for many things in our district and I trust that the new school new board of directors will continue to not lose sight of equity and how it shows up or not in our school district the following are some of the things I've been
073engaged in and I work to shine the light on and I hope my fellow board members will also continue to shine this light but even brighter than I was able to please keep in your sights our child development programs at Franklin King Hopkins and our after school learns and bears program be their Champion it would be great if BD vision would include being the prek to Adult School District these early and school age years are most important and the foundation work Learning Happens also continue to partner and acknowledge the community agencies that support Bud students during non-school hours of course English language Learners dual language learning bilingual education reclassification of our students thousand OES bilingual program the seal by literacy to immersion deac dreamers immigration population translation services the master plan for English language Learners
074non-english speaking families it's no secret that I'm an advocate for dual language Learners and their families continue to protect students and their families from the exterior for forces that are contrary to the district's vision and work to build a Cadre and a pathway for dual language Learners in our district plan for ways how BD can provide physical personal safety of students from violence sexual harassment and hate how to educate respond and address violence sexual harassment and hate Beyond policy support this work through funding and training of our students our teachers staff the school board and parents and putting a priority on all students and genders knowing they are always valued welcome and safe in Berkeley unified and the student attendance review board our sarb committee taught me how to be a better board director that
075looks to understand beyond the percentage and the numbers in a report in sarb I heard personal experiences barriers and the missed opportunities students have had in the district how falling through the cracks can be so easy and no fault of the students or their families the men mental health issues of our students from elementary to high school the generational mistrust of the district and the disparities and insecurities of housing transportation and food and its impact on our students during this covid period attendance has suffered and needs to be address chronic absenteeism and treny are where where as a district we can rally resources to better support our students their families and help students start over and not continue to fall behind in this committee board members and staff look for how the district can respond
076build Bridges and resources for students to succeed the policy committee is where a district can we can create change to better meet the needs of our students guidance in our practice on a district-wide basis and create policy that is not punitive but transparent clear and restorative as a board member is here where we can work with the superintendent and staff to provide the district with the guidance that is just balanced and inclusive our office of family engagement is a critical part to Berkeley unified protect this office and the lay is on that play a critical role in the engagement of family in our schools and in our Student Success My Hope Is that the district continues to expand and resource its office to serve middle schools the 2020 Vision promoted the welcoming of families and
077ofie has involve evolved to be an integral and important part of the district and the school sites and then there's a Berkeley Adult School is a place is a special place for adults that were failed return and find success in receiving their High School degree learning English or another skill at age 17 and sometimes well into their 80s independent studies and BTA our Berkeley Technology Academy are schools that also give students a respit away from the big school and the space Define their voice and re-engage in learning we know that high school is not a one-size all and the support of the adult school independent studies and BTA is just as critical as a TK to 12 schools I hope this next leadership also begins to move towards how ethnic studies can be a districtwide
078and how high school level at the high school level and how BD can have an ethnic study small school that houses chano black and women's in culture studies I'm sure there would be support for a robust ethnic studies department and connecting it to Berkeley City College and Cal Berkeley annually our students never disappoint us in coming forward to oppose immigration laws support supporter dreamers immigrant families opposing gun violence sexual harassment me to movement and coming out to support black lives matters young Advocates and leaders cut their social justice teeth in Berkeley schools let BD continue to Lead the Way by focusing on equity and social justice through an ethnic study small school bring across the district bring the Sor Travis and Dolores WEA committee also brings across the district teachers staff and City to support
079the value of community service please continue this collaborative work it unites our district to the city-wide vision of community building finally as a district we have not addressed the issue of disproportionality of black and brown students in special education and issues of equity in our classrooms and our schools and District it's my hope with that that Schoolboard cabinet principles and teachers all will work together to identify and dismantle systemic barriers and patterns of racism and take authentic and meaningful actions to improve ways to support our special education students and their families I'm hopeful as tonight that there's an item on tonight's agenda that shows promise of addressing this very issue there's so much more that the Schoolboard director that that a Schoolboard director does these are just a few things that I believe in my
08012 years I've been consistent in advocating for I want to thank parents students Community the staff my fellow board members over the last 12 years for this opportunity and a superintendence also I truly been honored to serve as your Schoolboard director which gracias thank you so much director Lea Cutler president Appel that was amazing director Lea Cutler um so I wanted to um Echo the thank you the appreciation for everyone who came to thank both myself and recognize the work of director Lea Cutler um it really means a lot so um I guess what I want to say is you know I've been on this board for eight years um and during this time I've been working with Incredible and Incredibly committed people and these are people who are created committed to creating a positive
081learning experience for all of Berkeley's kids and I think one of the things that has been really a gift is that in a lot of ways we share a lot of like underlying goals and um priorities although we might disagree on some some details as we go along I think Josh was talking about that I think that everybody who's been on the board since I've been on the board has been deeply committed to furthering the equity in our district and so that means the present board members um Josh Daniels and Karen hemple who spoke tonight the many students Representatives who've been on the board and I've also served with two different superintendents Donald Evans and now with um Brent Stevens I do remember that first meeting although I can't believe that I went to meet
082with you I think it was more that I wanted to make sure I met with you before you started um but your your reasons were much more you know gracious um anyway I've been I've been really lucky to serve with so much talent around me um and I think that the thing that I have learned I mean I've learned so much since I've been on the board it's been a huge gift to me to be on the board I feel like one of the things that has been really impressive for me is how even even even when we disagree we're super respectful and I feel like how we've how like the process of our board and I've sat on a lot of boards I've been in a lot of groups and I feel like the
083basic underlying like kind of principles of respect which didn't always I think always exist on the board but have certainly in the last eight years and then I think that that has really helped us make a lot of decisions and and move the district forward even when there have been differences um and I feel like I'll always you know I'll always I'll always come back to that because I've learned I think they're invaluable lifetime lessons um excuse me I think people here have mentioned a couple people have mentioned my time off when after I had my um my accident I was hit by a car and I guess I really want to thank all of you um and largely directa color for just stepping up and and like saving my space for me you know
084I think it would have been very possible to just you know decide that you were going to get another person on the board to share the the work but I think all of you decided that you were G to hold my space and do the extra work and I really really appreciate it because being back on the board has been really rich for me um so I just want to thank you for that and um I'm not going to spend a lot of time doing this director leel Cutler but um Beatrice you have been such a huge I don't know like icon for me you just I've like learned so much from you and it's been such a pleasure working with you and even though you know I I noticed a lot of people talked
085about your work with um English language Learners and my work with the lgbtq community but I feel like you have been a great great Ally in issues around the queer community and I hope you feel like I've been a great Ally on issues related to this English Landing English L language learning community in our schools and I feel like it's not just that everybody on the board have been really good allies to one another and that's really really a beautiful thing so I was GNA now I was going to spend some time talking about the many things that I'm really proud of or some of the things that I'm really proud of um but I actually realized when listening to people that it's kind of repetitive like the work that I did with restorative justice
086the work that we did to get on the office of family e family engag in equity was really important um the movement to like bring in restorative justice and then really have it take hold something that we have a lot more work to do in all of these areas but I think we got a really good start um and then of course also bringing in the perspective of lgbtq community onto the board um but like I said it's the thing that's been so great is that I I feel and I I hope others feel this way too that we all kind of represent the communities that we're a part of but we also stand as really strong allies for one another's communities and that is one of the things that you know sometimes that's that
087other perspective is also really really important to passing good policy and we've really I just really I feel like it's Priceless um I also um you know we we've done a lot we've really focused a lot over the last eight years on closing the opportunity Gap um and you know there's still so much work to do but I do feel like bringing that perspective in consistently has been really really great for the district and great for our kids um and I've noticed that also actually in our facilities work you know we we've done a lot to build our facilities we've raised a lot of money that we're putting into improving our facilities and when we have those conversations just like when we have all conversations we can consider all of our students and that's really
088amazing I don't know I don't know how unique that is but I feel like doesn't really matter if we're the only ones but we're we do a really good job at it and I as I said I know there's a lot more work to be done and I feel really confident that the board that is um that's going to start next week so the three of you plus Laura babbit and Anna Vaso both of whom I think are here tonight is going to be a really strong board and you know and those two members will bring in their own skills and their own gifts to add to the um you know to the richness of the board um I think um when I first entered the board um the 2020 Vision that um doc director
089Lea Cutler talked about was pretty new um and I think that when it was I mean it wasn't brand new but it was pretty new and when people were working so hard to build the the 2020 Vision um I think part of it was because there wasn't this existing like like priority and underlying um commitment to closing the opportunity gap for students of color mostly for low-income and students and students of color um but I feel like that has really shifted and um I think it's shifted in a large part because of the 2020 vision and because of the the like the fact that the communication the um the messaging around that really impacted people in the community so then they voted in people who all kind of share these um values um but I'm
090really really proud of the work that the 2020 vision is doing and I'm very also very proud of the work that we've been doing to further those goals and the way that um we're hopefully going to continue to grow the work with the city and the university and the City College um so I just wanted to end by saying that I've spent my career doing social justice work and I consider my work on the school board to be one of the most impactful social justice efforts that I've ever done um so I'm G to miss you all and I look forward to seeing where the new board takes the district and please know that I'm available to anyone whoever wants to call with any questions or even just to like want somebody to kind of
091bend their whose ear they want to bend and um who isn't actually kind of caught up in process but can offer some perspectives so please know Laura Anna and everyone in this in this room that um with this virtual room that I'm here for you and um and I'm really excited to see where you're going to take the district next next yep Count Me In thank you both so much thank you thank you everybody um president Appel I'll turn it back over to you for public comment okay well I am um I I have to shift gears now um so if you are somebody who wanted to speak on public comments and maybe you took your name off when I asked you to do so before please add your please raise your hand again so
092I have a nice sense of how many people want to speak looks like there's a lot um well I think what I'm going to do is I'm gonna oh there's a lot of people um do you want to do 90 seconds say that again oh go ahead no sorry I was gonna say a minute and a half what do you think that's what I said yeah oh okay so I'm gonna go ahead and start with Fanny G G gagi and um you're gonna have a minute and a half and then if everyone else can also kind of plan to your to narrow your comments to a minute and a half that would be great so fonnie hi can you hear me yep great uh thank you so I'm a parent and I have a fourth
093grade grader at Oxford Elementary I'll try to be fast first of all I want to give a shout out to my son's teacher Miss Rachel Martin She's a rockstar teacher I hope my son has an opportunity to be in Miss Martin's real classroom at some point this year I was very disappointed with the hybrid model proposal and Survey you shared a few weeks ago a 4K through five why only four hours a week at this point the science is clear that young kids are not super spreaders speaking of science it would be great if at your next meeting you invite a local medical expert from UCSF to speak about the data they have on covid and young kids and mitigation strategies we can Implement to protect our teachers superintendent Stevens please consider including a link
094to the December 3rd UCSF Grand rounds discussion on schools it's very Illuminating the other thing I want to say is that at this point the inequities are growing every single day students from affluent families have switch to private schools or they attend camps they go to after school programs they have tutors with all these supplemental and highly curated experiences these kids are thriving the rest of the USD students are disengaged and glued on a screen I know a safe School reopening is not an easy Endeavor but I also know that buusd is a district deeply invested in equity with hundreds of talented and experienced Educators and administrators please be bold creative and restore our faith to public education thank you you're muted president P You're muted I was wondering why I'm sorry Funnie um the
095thank you for your comments and I think we forgot to say that that vice president Ty Alper is going to be lifting up uh sign when you have 15 seconds left to speak and then when your time is up so kind of keep an eye on his Square all right thank you funny and Katherine W hi thank you for this time I have three points to make first um I think that your hybrid P plan is lacking and it will be luxury for anyone that can actually make it work there are those that are further away from school parents who are working or have their children in other um longer time frame circumstances such as all day care or in camps that do not allow membership and other bubbles will not be able to participate
096what I want to know is how you're going to judge what success of the in-person school hybrid program is going to look like for example if participation is not high as a result of the difficulties that I've mentioned what will happen to the inperson program second I would like someone to address how the BS bu USD will send out less bias surveys going forward the last one we filled out was very confus confusing and leading in its words do designed only to show support to the proposed plan and assumptions and lastly I hope that bud is actually really ready to open for our schools in a safe manner at the earliest time possible I truly expect that there are no more going to be no more delays and doors are going to be open for
097our children at the earliest time possible so their children will not have any further missed opportunities thank you thank you very much um next I'm going to call on Kobe Appel Bernsen who I know very well go ahead Kobe uh hi I I hope this is working I don't know if you can see my face or not um uh I just um I'm just gonna add to uh the people that uh have spoken in about Judy and betri um and I'll try to make it quick uh I I mean I Judy is is my mom as you may have guessed um I'm actually above her right now uh in the house but uh uh she had I I I don't know how much about about like who you are your colleagues know but um and
098I don't know if this has any effect on your work but I I just occurred to me that um there is uh someone who is who was important in both our Lives who uh always had a a very difficult time in school uh and she's sadly no longer with us and um I I think that uh I I don't I don't know how much uh your efforts to really make school more accepting for everyone and make it so everyone could succeed I don't know how much it came from her but I know that uh she would be very very proud uh that you did so much to try to help uh kids like her and anyone else who is a disadvantage uh and I I love you very much and um batri I you are
099one of the people that my mom has like loved so much and spoken so highly about and thank you very much uh thanks good night good night thanks coobs um Alex bovie okay um so I'm a parent of a third grader and a seventh grader we were at Thousand Oaks and King um distance learning was just so miserable for our family it was daily tears daily fighting daily frustration and um we actually were so miserable that we ended up moving to Florida for the school year and I just want to share our experience um I don't know how they did it they moved mountains they put in lots of mitigations but here in Duval County Florida schools have been open and safe since August they gave families and teachers an opt in to either full
100remote or full in person our kids have been in person and we've just been so impressed with the education that they're getting and everything that the school district did to make it happen and I want to just say it watching this play out in Berkeley and all of our friends and loved ones in Berkeley it seems like an almost intractable problem but at this point there are models that you can look to there are models that are working and I really encourage you to please check out what's working around different parts of the country and Implement what's working um yeah that's pretty and let me just throw in a little bit of something here too this is Alex uh Melissa's husband I I mean I think what's frustrating to us is that we're Berkeley residents
101we'd love to be back in Berkeley and it's disappointing that Berkeley claims to be such a leader in education but like why are we not opening schools back up this is not an intractable problem Duvall County had kids back in school in August there are models here be a leader get kids back in school thank you and now I'm gonna call On Jonas Lamie Brownell good evening everyone I serve as BD's heric Hospital teacher and currently also support students and their families in BD's assisted homeschool program I'm grateful for this meaningful work we lost nine people in our County to covid today and three yesterday one of the worst covid-19 outbreaks in our nation recently occurred here in Berkeley striking 340 of some of our very most marginalized and hardworking neighbors every one of them
102a Berkeley I no less than you or me living and laboring in the horse Stables of Golden Gate Fields and it happened before any official organ of our society acted to consider them to protect or intervene I wish we could fully hear their stories and I pray they be okay I have a colleague who once delivered school supplies to a b USD student staying with family in those horse stables and so we should remember that these Golden Gate Fields neighbors of ours are indeed also a part of our BD Community our Phase 1 programs are still open right now with no mandatory testing of all involved despite our West Berkeley zip code now averaging 43 new cases per 100,000 population per day for the past week and Rising which is over six times California's widespread
103risk County designation with no mandatory testing for all in Phase One and asymtomatic spread being key to covid spread how can we say that we know none of our Phase 1 programs are contributing to community spread without our even knowing thank you thank you very much um shelene Stein and next is little oh wait oh sorry shelene Stein here can I speak is that okay y yeah okay um sorry I'm a physician I care for hospitalized covid-19 patients and I want to acknowledge the difficult moment that we all find ourselves in with the surge with the fear and uncertainty we've been feeling all year and continue to live with as a physician I'm also compelled and committed to use evidence and science to guide my decisions in patient care in the midst of a pandemic
104these along with shared values should be what guide the decisions of our leaders as well it was clearly laid out in the referenced UCSF Grand rounds last week in the SF Chronicle this week and has been witnessed in private schools throughout Berkeley and public schools in Marin and across the country and schools across the world what data we have does not show teachers and children to be at increased risk in schools taking precautions in comparison to General Community risk it's important that we model to our children our ability to shift our understanding and perspective as we learn new information now that we understand this when will Berkeley offer a viable in-person learning option to Elementary children in this District I understand and agree that it is important that teachers and families who do not feel
105comfortable with the risk of any person activity be supported in continuing distance learning but for those who cannot support distance learning like essential workers working outside the home like myself and my husband and children who are not thriving in distance learning a viable in-person option is essential Hybrid models that simply tack on additional Logistics to distance learning like the one Berkeley has proposed do nothing to address the needs of either of these groups I understand the fear that some feel about going back I feel that fear daily when I go to work and yet I suit up every morning along with my many colleagues and all those who staff our stores our gas stations and all of the other services our community relies on call L sindler now Lana sindler thank you Dr Stein and
106then Melissa cor even um I'm with Berkeley for assessment tax Equity um like I know the main focus of this group is that education of Berkeley school children as it should be um You probably see it as a mere annoyance that there are folks in the community who dispute the school square footage taxes for their home but to us it is important that you treat us equitably right now you are not doing that even though it would be so easy to do we are pleased that you are preparing a substantial refund to one of the 11 harmed homeowners but what about the rest of them they are the they are victims of the city's inaccurate tax database too you see the city uses little 4x6 building cards from the 1950s to charge us for our
107taxes that database of values is not public as it ought to be we have proven using the city's own records that you unjustly charge charge us for reduced height dirt floor and unfinished understories and one inaccessible attic other folks in each of our neighborhoods have similar underst stories that are not charged uh it's between 62,000 a year extra that we have to pay the Alam schools just passed some square footage taxes to support at public education um and they are using the Assessor's role for their values the assessor has the necessary protocols to update building square footage after permitted construction the city of Berkeley does not and that is also why you are losing so much money thank you Miss bendler um I'd like to call on Melissa Corgan [Music] as a member of The
108Bu Community I value all members and accept that each of us is unique one in a million that's what makes us special how is it then when we discuss statistics of covid transmission the human being disappears perhaps we feel safe because the statistical chance of death is so small yet lives are lived in those small statistics what are the chances that both of my parents would die when I was I know what it was like to blame myself for their death as a child even though I played no part and those small statistics are real lives so now which gravestone is okay here lies the child the parent or the grandparent the child with learning differences or the English language learner which parent would put the burden of blame on the Child Left Behind as
109promised the second wave of the pandemic is worse and the number of cases continues to climb as hospitals become overwhelmed with the rise in cas cases the chances of death and long-term physical damage increase we are consistently told that BD cares about Equity but where is the equity in putting Children at Risk I am legally responsible for reporting evidence of child endangerment I am telling you to continue with the premature opening despite widespread outbreak puts children families and the community in danger thank you thank you very much um and now I'm going to call on Hoku Jeffrey hello hi parents teachers students and community of Berkeley schools have a right to know that there were two infections of of uh two infections at Malcolm X Elementary which is part of phase one reopening when these
110infections occurred before the break before Thanksgiving break families most of the families were not immediately notified until Thanksgiving break and and neither was the site members of the site Council even though they're expected to make future decisions on possible reopenings did that infection come from a student we don't know the community has a right to know if these in infections can occur when there are few students and staff on these campuses in phase one it will be far worse if there's further reopening being a leader for educational rights and equality for our most vulnerable students the Black and Latino majority and immigrant students who are part of this phase one reopening requires bilingual education online it requires economic assistance for fam so they so they don't feel like they have to go to work so
111they can stay home and care for their and you know keep their keep their children safe we are one community and we must make the decisions that are best for student staff Etc to do that to do that the community has a right to know the information the board does not have a right to only give the information to the public it finds convenient or only the facts that it that it feels are convenient to themselves it's all thank you very much um Sarah bus hey uh I've got an eighth grader and a second grader and my kids hate online school it's a total failure for us a complete lost Year my second grader tells me every day uh he wants to drop out of school and my middle schooler has been having mental health
112challenges from the isolation she's an awesome out gay kid with some learning differences and school closure is just making her life a lot harder than it should be and at this point in the year I honestly feel like I'm getting kellyanne Conway by the district about why we can't reopen school as it was with masks and social distancing UCSF doctors say it's safe to open kids should be back at school for learning for mental health for Equity the safest place for kids is back to school you're not staff to deal with with the mental health problems you're creating by keeping schools closed and overall online school is just failed school it works for the neurotypical the able-bodied and the privileged and you're choosing to Center privilege to prioritize privilege by keeping online school as our
113core offering I know everyone's got like 2020 PTSD and there have been so many moving Parts about how we learn about how to manage covid but we need to shake it off and look at all of the successful and safe School reopenings across the planet Berkeley kids deserve to have their schools back thank you um Benjamin Lynch and then I wanted to say the last person who's going to speak in this round is going to be gladus o compost Stout Benjamin Lynch uh good evening uh my name is Dr benjaman Lynch I've been a research scientist at UC Berkeley for the last 15 years I'm a Berkeley Community member and and I'm a civil rights activist and organizer with bam tonight I'd like to speak to the question on the phase one reopenings of the
114elementary schools in Berkeley look we all want we all want what's best for our kids but given the level of covid infection out there right now including these new outbreaks in Berkeley the reopening of schools isn't safe it wasn't safe a couple of weeks ago and it's definitely not safe now I'm about three blocks away from Malcolm X Elementary the fact that there's face-to-face instruction going on right now means my neighborhood has the potential to be a covid hotspot now okay I know everyone's trying with the masks and social distancing but it's not enough this virus is really contagious it's Airborne it spreads easily and there's so much we don't even know about it yet long-term problems with respiratory systems cardiovascular systems brain functioning no amount of temperature checks or self-reporting can stop this thing
115BD needs the infrastructure set up to implement mandatory testing for all staff students it should be the absolute bare minimum this District needs to meet before any face-to-face instruction continues or goes forward now that California's back on Statewide emergency locked down it makes absolutely no sense to have an exception for schools that are already open what do we think the pandemic's just going to skip elementary schools okay it's great that statistically children aren't dying but we need to do better no one should go back in any capacity until it's safe for everyone to go back thanks very much um David schroer uh wonderful board members and staff I appreciate your service to our students and District uh consider two competing approaches risk management and harm prevention risk management implies political expediency it means splitting resources
116to limit transmission maybe if possible but also to set up School site reopening somewhat in contrast harm prevention takes the Long View to maximize health and safety so harm prevention means like getting everyone sheltered in place making sure we're funded and served equitably and cared for while a vaccine is implemented please choose between risk management and harm prevention there are no take packs in the lethal pandemic thank you thank you very much Al Al okay Al's not coming on let's move to Bri Fon hi um I have a second grader at Rosa Parks and I just wanted to Echo a lot of the sentiments the other parents were saying about distance learning not working for my child and for our family um and the hybrid option that was proposed isn't feasible in fact I think
117it increases risk by having kids only there two times a week if they're in other situations where they're exposed to people then they're bringing that in and I think the option that needs to be presented to us is people to opt in for fulltime which means they're there all the time they're not off at other groups and they have a stable cohort or if people don't feel comfortable with that then the distance learning option could remain viable for them and the same for teachers um no one wants to force anyone back to school but if people do want to go back to school make that an option and let the others stay home um please give us that option thank you thank you very much um um IET forar oh Al Al did you are
118you gonna try to speak Al okay David schroer oh no IET farara IET farara I'm a teacher at Martin Luther King Middle School and I'm speaking on behalf of the Equal Opportunity Now by any means necessary Ian bam cockus we demand Berkeley unified immediately shut down the phase 1 reopen schools at Malcolm X Jefferson and Rosa parks's elementary schools all necessary necessary resources time and energy should be focused on providing quality online education for struggling students and families who are struggling financially should get immediate economic relief so they they can stay home safely with their children there have already been two confirmed covid infections at Malcolm X during this phase one program but Berkeley failed to immediately contact every parent of children in the program there there are parents of children in the program who
119weren't notified of the covid infections at the school until a full 10 days later after Thanksgiving holiday Gatherings Equity is being used as a pretext to support corporations and businesses staying open and the schools are providing free child care to then pressure parents or for businesses to pressure parents to go back in and work when it's not safe the school board and superintendent have downplayed the actual dangers presented by reopening schools in this pandemic school board meeting a Schoolboard member said that we're not surging or spiking in Alam County but this was blatantly false these phase one reopen schools should shut down immediately thank you Evette um all right so that's the end of our public comments I want to thank everybody for um speaking tonight and also for being so patient GL so to
120stop yeah what I I thought your hand was down why don't you wrap us up hello I want to start off by thanking um Judy Appel and director Lea Cutler for all the work that you've done um director Lea Cutler um my my we had definitely interactions in our little and our little ones were um in your program and I just want to thank you for all the work and the dedication that you've given um to the program and to the district um thank you um I also want to just thank the superintendent and thank the school board for the hard work that you've all been putting into um this plan I know that it's been really complicated and trying to appease thousands of families um I am a person that would choose to elect
121to keep my child at home um and I know that the percentage is extremely high is is is um the majority of people who want to return to school but there are a significant amount of families also that would like to have that option of also still remaining distance learning in this process um and I appreciate it how complicated is no one's going to get their ideal um and I appreciate this model um it's not my ideal either I would want things differently in this model um but I appreciate the fact that it's um people want the same teachers people want their their kids with the same cohort people want the option of being able to stay distance learning but also want the option of having their kids go to school um and so I
122I find that this compromise um is something that I understand and um I appreciate everybody out there um teachers and staff I know many teachers too who are willing to come back as well um when it is safer and the rates are lower right now it's dangerously High um I've had me family members who have um been sick with covid it's scary and it's frightening um and so um I I've also have neighbors who have kids um in private schools locally who have who have all the resources and the space and the abilities and much and much more flexibility who have had to go back um or or flip this um their model so I just want to say thank you I appreciate everything thank you very much and I'm sorry I almost skipped over
123you um we're now done with the per period of public comment um and so I'm going to move to Union don't do anything I ask you if you to un are there any union members here to speak tonight I know we have a bft commentary do do you have that Liz do somebody have the bft I do I'll be sharing that momentarily just a second weird does anybody have the bft gladus I think you're still you're not on mute um oh yeah if whoever is controlling the back door if you can have to take glattus o compost Stout out of speak talking permitted also Al there okay so now we're waiting for the bft comments good evening board members and Dr Stevens I'm Janine okay wadell vice president of the Berkeley Federation of teachers I've
124also been a longtime Washington Elementary teacher I'd like to start tonight by enthusiastically endorsing former bft president Kathy Campbell's remarks in appreciation of departing directors Beatrice Lea Cutler and Judy Appel we are so grateful for the incredible service that they have given to our schools and to our community and we wish them all the best as their terms come to an end we are certain that their experience wisdom and commitment will continue to benefit our entire community in the future we'd also like to thank the board and especially director Alper for bringing forth the resolution calling for teachers and classified staff who will work in person with students to be prioritized in the first tier of essential workers to receive the covid vaccine after healthcare workers and residents of long-term care facilities this will help
125remove a significant hurdle to returning to in-person instruction we hope that vaccines are provided to our students and their families promptly as well we'd also like to report that we have been meeting extensively with BD leaders to negotiate the schedule in terms of a possible return to inperson learning learning we have held many meetings with members and we are sending a very comprehensive survey this week to gain even more detailed information we are a Democratic Union and we are committed to representing the various needs and views of our nearly 900 members our goal is to agree on a schedule that meets the needs of two sets of students those who want to return to in-person instruction and those who will choose to stay home while accepting the fact that teachers can't do two jobs at
126once hard choices need to be made about how much distance learning to preserve and how much inperson time can be offered BD families do not all agree on what the priorities should be and how the balance should be struck we are trying to figure out how to provide the best possible educational experience to as many children as we possibly can given unimaginably complex factors we continue to believe as we have stated publicly for many months that a plan for covid test Tes in of students is an essential part of a safe reopening of schools we acknowledge that a lack of resources may make this a difficult demand to meet our federal and state governments have failed to provide adequate resources or guidelines for many aspects of school reopenings including widely available testing for students schools
127have simply not been a high enough priority before or during the pandemic teachers unions District leaders and school boards across the state and country are asking for more resources to support costly and complex reopening plans we welcome Community advocacy for these resources at support as well thank you thank you very much um is there anyone else here from a different Union if so can you put your little hand your little blue hand up so I can know you're here all right well I'm going to assume that there is not and if there is anybody then go ahead and text somebody so I can let you speak a little bit later but for now I'm going to turn to committees are there any committee representative oh wait I'm sorry oh yeah are there any committee Representatives
128here all right let's move on to the board um board members and superintendent comments so I'm going to go ahead and start with you director siai um you know I'll thank everybody for coming out to to speak on behalf of the items tonight I'm looking forward to the presentation from Jefferson I'll save my comments on the reopening until we do the presentation on that great cadesa oh director Brown I'll pass thank you director Lea CER I'll pass thank you director Alper vice president Alper I mean um I also just want to thank everybody for coming out and thank um Miss wadell for her her comments and her appreciation for the resolution which was um actually the initiation of my colleague director Sinai and also um some parent members of the community who wrote to us
129as well so I wanted to thank them for their efforts and putting that resolution together um and and now I will say um thank I'm also going to thank everyone for coming out and I also wanted to mention that um on the consent calendar tonight is the approval of our new um transgender and gender non-conforming policy and I'm very excited it's a very very strong policy I feel like it will be a model and I'm really I'm really happy that this is one of the actions that we're taking on my last at my last meeting because I think working to support the identity and safety and feeling of safety of all of our students including our transgender and gender non-conforming students is super important so I'm really proud of the district and I'm really looking
130forward to passing the policy all right superintendent Evans I mean I'm sorry superintendent Stevens oops maybe I should pass or or I can give him a call I'm sorry go ahead no no worries I also just want to say thank you both to the uh community members who are here this evening to express their viewpoints but over the course of the last several weeks we have again issued a number of surveys um we really appreciate everybody taking time to fill those surveys out we get lots of feedback about the surveys and we appreciate that Ser that feedback and we really value the results um so um thank you we will uh continue the discussions as we go on through the meeting but please know that we are listening and listening closely thank you superintendent Stevens
131um also wait president Nel sorry um oh I'm so sorry yes I realize tell just now too actually so no worries um yeah just like um I'm also going to say my comments on school opening to that subject but I also want to do a quick thing about Jefferson I went to Jefferson personally and always felt a little awkward with the values we held at the school being named Jefferson that always just felt a little off to me as I was going through my history education there so I'm very happily we are taking this Monumental step and hopefully it can be reflected in other actions takes AC taken across USD that's all I say thank you student director Miller I appreciate your jumping in does anyone else have something to say all right well um
132a lot of times I have the other members staff members introduce themselves but I'm actually going to ask you if it's okay if we don't do that this week because we are running a little bit late um so um I am going to see if do I have a motion to approve consent items 12.1 through 12.25 to approve the consent Cal okay so a motion by director Brown to to approve con consent caler 12.1 to 12.25 do I have a second second seconded by director Lea Cutler um Miss CH do you want to take the role director yes director Miller yes director Brown who did you who did you say director Brown oh yes sorry I couldn't hear you director Lea Cutler yes uh vice president Alper yes yes and president Appel yes okay now
133I'm going to make a motion to um approve item 12.26 and I think director siai is recusing herself from this yeah I need to recuse uh due to my employment I'll second it president all right director Brown yes director Miller yes director Le C yes vice president Alper yep yes sorry yes okay so um excellent um now we're going to move on to our action items and um we're going to start with 13.1 which a couple people have referenced approve the recommendation for renaming Jefferson Elementary School as Ruth AI Elementary School great um I'm going to jump in president Appel and I'm I'm very proud to be able to uh um just share the names of the folks who have been working on this and who will be presenting this evening um so so uh
134a number of folks have been um instrumental in leading a community engagement process over roughly a six-month period um this process was launched with the passage of the black lives matter resolution by the board over the summer uh included in that resolution was an action item calling for the first daming and then renaming of both Jefferson and Washington Elementary Schools since that resolution uh group has come together um from the school community that group consists of parents and community members uh they've been artfully uh facilitated by two people that's Natasha Bei who is on staff with B USD and Grace Kong U they're here tonight to present as well as two of the members of the school's uh renaming advisory committee uh they are Angela Reid and Nick Williams we thank them for staying late
135this evening and being a part of this presentation the principal of the soon to be named Ruth AC Elementary School Mary casan is also here this evening and then Jessica Lopez um who is also a District staff has um lent a hand at many stages um with the complicated Logistics of all of this work so I am now going to uh turn it over to Natasha Bei and she will walk the board through this presentation thank you and good evening everyone and I'm just going to share my screen so we can walk through this six exciting presentation one moment oh you know what I've got the host disabled participant screen sharing thing so could I get I may need to be made co-host in order to share um no when that's ready still not there
136oops Liz are you able to do that just a sec worst case if that can Natasha I'm I'm happy to jump in and I can I can make little ding sounds with the changing of the slides I'll try to respond to the okay if you would please superintendent Stevens thank you Natasha you are now co-host just just just in case would would you like it back then um it still says disabled so why don't you go ahead superintendent Stevens it's all right okay and this first slide is yours actually superintendent Stevens um but you've pretty much done it and on this one yes I think so and H Grace Kong is uh with me as well and I believe this is your slide Grace hopefully she's where' Grace go I hope are you do we
137see grace in the panel I was getting messages that some people were getting um uh booted off unfortunately so I you know what I'm just going to take this and and hope that Grace can join us um so um this evening we oh are you there Grace she's on the list can can somebody make her grace can you oh there she is oh am I can you hear me now this is Grace yes thank you Grace hooray thank you so much I don't know what happened um thanks so much we're really excited to be here with you tonight to share this recommendation um we hope to walk you through a very brief review of our timeline in process we want to give you a summary of input on the top seven names um kind of
138how we engaged the community and got various um feedback on those names to come up with our committee recommendation which is Ruth acti Elementary School um you'll hear a lot more about why in a minute and uh then we'll follow up with what the implementation steps are and an idea of carrying the learning forward and lastly um we'll be followed by board discussion and decision and with that I will pass it back to Natasha thank you next slide please there we go um because we've had multiple presentations going over the um timeline in process most recently October 21st we're not going to um recapitulate the entire process but really just pick up where we left off which um was um when we were in the midst of um engaging on the top seven choices we'll
139have a brief review about that but really tonight is all about the recommendation to the board and then of course we'll be looking forward to further steps after that uh in the interest of time however let's move on to talking about um what what happened at the school um and I'm now going to ask um teacher nick uh Williams to um speak to us thank you Natasha Nick Williams here first grade teacher at the school formerly known as Jefferson and future parent at the school as well um this is I was uh very exciting to be a part of this committee and the teachers the staff that were on the committee it was our charge to really make this an engaging and exciting process for our Community um so what we did and what I'll
140be explaining is how we did that um we had a team of eight staff members make seven different slideshows that each taught about each of these seven uh names and fabulous important people and groups of people and um what we did is over three weeks the teachers at the school taught about each name and it just so happened to coincide with the election we week so the third week was our election week and so on Election Day the students at our school got to vote on their top three names we asked the kids and the community to think about the top three names because as we learned about each name of course every name we learned about kids were like yes that is the name for our school this is the reason why so after
141we learned about all seven names then we asked them to think carefully about the top three names and then after the students voted we then passed it off to the staff and the families and I'll show you some data thank you um so we voted as as I said the students voted staff and parents and of course with these seven wonderful names the results were varied um TK voted acti as their number one choice Ruby Bridges as second and mo Malone as third the fourth and fifth grade um had almost opposite results with Ruth Bader Ginsburg moving into second place there the staff actually tied uh between AI Maya Angelou and moek Malone and then the parents were varied as well um with maak Maloney as their Top Choice Ruth Acy as second and Ruby
142Bridges as third and then you can go ahead and look based on race and ethnicity um below that as well so the so our committee then looked at all this data and after a lot of consideration and long conversations um we decided that it would be Ruth acti as our recommendation next slide please and here she is the first black educator in Berkeley who worked in our district for over 50 years opened up doors for other black Educators and other people of color to work in our district and you're about to learn a lot more about her thank you and on the next slide we'll um have we're we're going to barely scratch the surface of um this incredible life um an absolutely remarkable woman they I want you all to know that they're um
143our archives and I want to thank the Berkeley Historical Society for sharing their archives there's also an African-American Museum and Library which has um substantial archives um about Ruth Ai and so all we're going to be able to do tonight is share with you just a few highlights about um uh her uh life and career and accomplishments and also a little um insight about how she crossed um important times in Berkeley history and really uplifts a number of stories connected to her own this first slide which was um is an adaptation of one that was done for a slideshow for the students at the school um it's kind of the adult version that talks about her um initial uh vision of always wanting to be a teacher inspired actually by the first black teacher in
144Oakland Miss Idol Louise Jackson um and she set her sights on that goal she had multiple um uh obstacles including the early death of her parents um when she was in her 20s leaving her with two uh sisters to help take care of um she um however um persevered uh got College multiple college degrees multiple credentials teaching credentials and yet could not find a job and this first slide um talks uh includes an article in which she talks about that um on the next slide you'll see what changed for her and that is um that um at Berkeley unified um which was one of the first places that she applied she really wanted to teach there um but was told that they were not ready to quote hire a negro and this was um an
145area of uh huge contention in in Berkeley um Berkeley was uh had been essentially a mostly white um Town up until the late 30s early 40s the time of World War II when there the city began to change fairly rapidly and there were some phenomenal Community leaders I hope people know the name Francis Albright as in the community center she was a a leader um in multiple areas but one of them was insisting that there needed to be um black teachers hired there were 5,000 taxpaying residents and yet not one single black teacher um this um article um talks about the Board of Education finally in 1939 affirming the uh in alignment with the 14th of amendment um that there should be equal opportunity um and that hiring should proceed without regard to race or
146Creed and Ruth AI had been held up along with um a few other really Stellar um accomplished teachers as um possibilities for hiring um she was put on a su list a couple of years later meanwhile had found a job in Southern California um and then on the next slide you'll see that she did eventually make her way to Berkeley and this uh is a picture of treasured picture actually um outside of my office um but uh also in history books 1943 she came back to breley at the request of the then superintendent and the board who felt that she was the one who could Blaze that trail with her exceptional credentials and ability um she's shown here with her kindergarten class at Longfellow which was then an elementary school Longfellow was chosen because it
147um was one of the more um diverse schools in uh we had uh de facto integration simply by the um neighborhood in South brookley being more integrated so Longfellow and Lincoln were the two School where she taught um where there were more children of color and it was also felt that those um the children and the parents there might be more accepting of a black teacher um she excelled and opened the doors for um additional teachers to follow behind her and on the next slide is um a uh overview which I'm not going to read through because really even this does not do her justice um her exceptional um accomplishments throughout her career uh as a lifelong learner um accumulating degrees and languages and um she also um uh opened uh doors at um the
148secondary level she went from teaching kindergarten um up to being the first black teacher at um Junior High there were also two other teachers of color I believe they were Asian uh Americans who uh joined her in 1955 so quite a long time afterwards um she continued teaching on through the 40s 50s 60s um 70s uh began teaching at Berkeley Adult School English as a um foreign language another thing for which she had a credential taught speech at UC extension and she was well recognized she was not just a phenomenal teacher she was a a community organizer involved in the NAACP involved in a number of community groups um with a wide variety of purposes always um centered around the health of children or around the Arts um and she was recognized um multiple ways
149again I won't read all of these but the board of education recognized her um a couple of different times the brookley Historical Society um commissioned uh an oral historian and that is part of a publication um which is available um there and I have a copy one of the few copies uh uh of it um and then in 1998 really importantly the Board of Education recognized her the year she passed away um uh she after having taught for nearly 50 years and many of the tributes to her then um noted how it um would be appropriate to name a school facility about her uh after her so here we are 22 years later and I'm going to turn it now to um to the wonderful teacher um Angela Reed who's going to uh oh no
150sorry it goes to Grace then to the wonderful teacher so please yes go to the next slide and it's to Grace and then Grace you'll bring it to Angela we wanted to remind you of the criteria that the committee and our community used to select the names and and we feel that Ruth AI is really an exceptional um an exceptional person who really meets so many of these criteria as being inspiring and enduring um having a local connection and really upholding our values around community and inclusion and diversity Etc um as a woman of color she expands the type of names we have in buusd of school names um she would be the only uh Ruth acti Elementary School in the world very unique and um lastly as an incredible educator really exemplifies um what
151we're trying to lift up in public education and with that I'll pass it to Angela thank you Grace Angela Reid here third grade teacher um at the school formerly known as Jefferson um The Story of Ruth AI a local hero um still inspires us to this day um especially someone like myself a female black teacher here in Berkeley um and therefore the naming advisory committee is pleased to recommend that we name a buusd school in her honor next slide please so here is a quote by Robert Haynes um the senior curator for the African-American Museum and library that was made in her honor after her passing Miss Ruth AC's significance in the history of the Bay Area is unparallel she represents the best in excellence Elegance refinement commitment determination perseverance and persistence she was a
152superior mentor and role model for planning and reaching goals despite the odds and I will pass it back to you Natasha thank you Angela and um so we are in um bringing forward this recommendation on behalf of the naming advisory committee and the superintendent not only intending to uplift and recommend the name Ruth acti for the school but also recognize that this renaming um process provided an incredible opportunity one that has really inspired U the school Community to learn more about our um our history um as a city and um and and more generally in the area about um what kinds of people that um we have right here in our own backyard who really made a difference and there's been a a desire to um learn more about Ruth acti um but also to
153um learn about each of these names and about the many intersections that they share and actually if you'll click I think there's a little list here of suggestions um that uh the first one is um that um there be a Local Heroes curriculum uh the Berkeley Historical Society is excited about partnering with any teachers who would like to um do that whether um at the the proposed Ruth act elementary school or any other school in our district um that that's an exciting possibility and there's an interest um that teachers have for doing that at the school itself having displays about um these Local Heroes the next suggestion um is that um there was excitement about no again as as Nick was saying teacher Nick was saying um you know everybody liked every name um and
154um didn't want to say goodbye to them and one suggestion was that there could be a mural at the school as there is for example at Thousand Oak School recognizing many inspirational people um and then the next um uh suggestion that came out of the um this process was also um incorporating the history of past attempts to to name uh rename the school and you I believe the board um has heard on multiple occasions about the 2003 2005 um efforts to rename the school there was also an effort in um 2018 um but that 2003 2005 effort um had lifted up the name sequa as a possibility and on October 21st we um suggested that the board might also be able to take action such that uh the school could be renamed but then also
155there could be recognition um as well for Sequoya uh and then the last um suggestion is about um the uh I believe you'll have to click again superintendent um the last suggestion is um has to do with um Mo Mone so um there was a lot of interest and excitement um about partnership um with um local tribal Representatives um having had the permission of this particular Tribal Council to consider the name m Mone was um an exciting opportunity um however as we um as a committee discussed this further and with superintendent Stevens um the uh decision was to um press pause on that in order to go more deeply into um a discussion with multiple tribal Representatives about how indigenous history and presence is taught not just at one school but across our district um
156and we have additional possible naming opportunities but most importantly um we need to um recognize that naming a school is a powerful symbol but it is um it is just that a symbol and it needs to be um connected to um other kinds of commitments um and all of these names you see here um yoshiko uchida um Maya Angelou Ruth Bader Ginsburg Betty Reed sasin Ruby Bridges each of them has a story to tell each of them has a powerful intersection actually with Ruth acti I didn't get to mentioned for example that Ruth AI while working as a teacher didn't get paid enough to pay the bills and was also working in the shipyards um of Richmond during World War II um and that's a story told by Betty Reed sasin she was also um
157a writer and a poet um like Maya Angelou and an activist um like yoshiko uchida um whose family suffered um incarceration and forced removal during World War II um she suffered um from the pernicious effects of Prejudice and like um Ruth Bader Ginsburg and like Ruby Bridges she took um courageous steps forward um to open the doors for others uh so there's really a desire here to um not only um have a new name for the school but really to carry this learning forward uh so um now with that there's just one more thing before we get to the board um discussion and that is um or actually two more things and I'm going to turn it to um Jessica Lopez Deo for the next slide good evening um so we am going to talk
158about um pending approval of a new name uh from the board uh what are the next steps for implementation and the first one as you see is the official uh change with the California Department of Education uh our facilities department will also be uh engaging in new signage for the school um our buusd departments and systems such as the student information system illuminade will need to change um the district and school media will need to change um and the notification to the city of Berkeley as well as the community and of course finally um a celebration uh of of a new name if approved by the board and now I will pass it on to principal Mary Casten who has a few words of thank you to the community hi good evening um I just
159wanted to thank the advisory committee for the the heartfelt and challenging work uh in leading our community s to such an inspiring name I also wanted to recognize the staff for the curriculum and lessons that supported the students voices in a very meaningful way um and to the Ruth acti Community for their participation and ongoing support as we moved forward in this very challenging year I think this experience um and process is is actually a light um in in 2020 and so again just a heartfelt appreciation to to everybody and this pH is yours Dr Stevens thank you very much Natasha and again my thanks to all of the many participants who have taken us up to this point um so at this point we we turn the matter over to the Board of Education
160uh to take up two recommendations uh first that the board rename uh the school Ruth acti Elementary School uh and approve a recommendation to uh place the name s Hall um on the cafeteria of the school as a sort of commendation to the folks who uh LED A3 2005 effort to rename Jefferson School years ago um and then finally should we staff eventually continue engagement with tribal of Representatives regarding indigenous representation in our curriculum and our schools so with that we turn this matter over to the board of education for discussion and uh and to consider our recommendation sorry are there any questions or comments from board members I have a quick question yep Julie um director beer um or any of the committee members thank you for your presentation are there any members of
161Miss AC's family still in the area there are not um she did not have any children and her neither did her two sisters um so unfortunately not but I did notice um that in stories posted online number for former students um one of whom I I reached out to a few of them and heard back she's 78 years old but remembers warmly Miss acti oh she's 78 anything else any other oh I have a I have a comment um first I want to give it appreciation to all of those who worked um to present this to us today and worked really really really um diligently to uh make sure that you dotted all your eyes and crossed all your tees to get us here especially um director berer who doesn't need anything else on her
162plate but um helped to lead us through this process um my heart is really really full uh sitting here receiving this presentation um especially in response to the black lives matter resolution while watching the presentation um I saw a really great comment about um uh naming the school Ruth acti or or Ruby Bridges um in the spirit of black joy and I just want to give a huge appreciation for your hard work on this um I know it was not an easy process um as we received all of the emails that came along with this but thank you thank you thank you for your work thank you for working hard on this and for bringing this to us as a board I appreciate it and I'm sure that all of my other board colleagues appreciate
163it as well thank you director Brown is are there any other comments I I too just want to thank um the naming committee the advisory committee um the students the teachers and director Barry who helped lead this a second time around it's been and also just the takeaways of also how much more we we we need to to learn you know and that our students are open to hearing more and building a curriculum around um these other important figures in our lives and that children need to know about and parents need to and our community needs to know about so I really appreciate the the hard work that's gone into this and you know and I also appreciate that you know there was um another voice other voices that also spoke up to what happened
164in 2003 and 05 we needed to hear that we needed to also acknowledge that things were wrong but we tried we've been trying and our district is trying to make it right um and so I definitely uh I like the the word ex she exemplifies the right to public education and for all and so I I totally support this and thank you very much for everybody's work and for Jessica too thank you Ty did you have something to say yeah I had a I had a question and and then I wanted to make a comment about the name my question was about the um I think it's from Miss casden actually if she's still with us um I am Miss kin on the um the the seoa hall recommendation is um I fully support the
165and and I want to say a few words about renaming the school Ruth AI but I wanted to ask you um whether you feel like the um the community of of of Advocates who wanted the name seoa um are want the want the cafeteria renamed seoa Hall um or or whether more work needs to be done to find out you know whether that's something that the community really wanted I didn't get a sense of you know how how strong the feeling is about that aspect of the recommendation um that's that's actually a very good question I I don't think i' I'd be qualified to speak for for the the people who are representing the um the the Sequoia contingency um it it it could be very fair to say that some more work could could
166be done on that um I have to say I was at the school during that time um um and I really want to respect and honor the work that was put in at that time I think um the the folks um that were Advocates at that time are responsible for helping us get to where we are today so I I really do want to honor the the work that they put in that's a very I think that's a very genuine heartfelt um sentiment from from people who have been around long enough to remember that um but I wouldn't I wouldn't dare speak for for um all of the people that are advocating for the for the sequ name okay well I appreciate that um let me say what I was going to say about Ruth
167Ai and then um and then I guess give my thoughts about the seoa hall name um and and so I wanted to first it's really not possible to thank Natasha Bei enough for her leadership of this name change process it's worked it it's timec consuming it's sensitive um it's so important and she's done it now with two schools in the same way that she approaches everything she does which is with passion attention to detail and a real regard for allowing all voices to be heard um she and Grace Kong who's um ex also has done this with two schools now who expert facilitation of the process we all appreciate so much um you all are quite a team and um we're all in your debt and thank you director beer and thank you Miss Kong
168um I for the reasons you've you've made really clear in the presentation I think the name Ruth AC is a perfect new name for the school I'm thrilled to vote in favor of it and I appreciate the recommendation and I want to thank director Brown for drafting the resolution that spurred the name change this year to the parent and staff committee at the school who worked under really less than ideal circumstances to gather and vet the names and research them deliberate and come up with this outstanding recommendation um and I would just want to say reiterate something Miss Casen just said which is um I think it's fair to say that we really would not be taking this action tonight we probably would be not taking this action tonight permanently removing the named Jefferson from
169one of our schools um if it were not for margarite T Hughes and the members of the Jefferson Community who who she organized and led 17 years ago um we're doing the right thing and it's never too late to do the right thing but we are doing it far too late um we have and and we have a lot more work to do to eliminate the structural racism that lives in in this district and in all American institutions so we can't director Brown made this clear when she brought forward the resolution in the first place we can't Pat ourselves on the back for this particular action and call it a day um but at least we can get back to work that work that we know we need to do knowing that our children will
170be attending Ruth AI Elementary not Thomas Jefferson Elementary and that to me is Meaningful that's the that's the moral Arc of the universe bending very ever so slightly towards Justice um so I'm really proud and and excited to approve the recommendation I'm kind of reluctant to to appr to vote in favor of the recommendation to change the name to seoa hall now um I the last thing I would want to do is impose that name on a on a group of community members who feel AG grieved by the process 17 years ago and still do today and so um if if the purpose is to name that Hall in recognition of their efforts um I would at least want to know that they wanted that and and I'm not sure that we know that so
171I'm not sure I I'm curious to hear what my colleagues think but I'm um I don't feel an urgency to to do that in um but I but I'm very supportive of changing the name to Ruth acti so I'm gonna call myself next um I Echo a lot of what Tai just said um so I'm not going to repeat it um I also want to make sure to thank Natasha I mean Miss Berry and Miss um is it gong for their work on renaming this both schools and just like creating a process that really got lots of input and involvement and engagement and came up with a recommendation really in in really impressive time so and I'm very excited about the name Ruth acti I think it's it will it's amazing that we are going
172that we selected a name that um you know that represents the first black teacher in in the district but also that teaching about Ruth acti will give us an opportunity to teach our kids about the racism racism in Berkeley both historical and current and I think that our teachers are I mean I think the idea of coming up with curriculum that's not just taught taught at Ruth AI elementary school but also taught throughout the district about Ruth acti and like you know that the board had to pass a resolution in 1949 saying that we could hire black teachers I mean I think most students probably are raised feeling like Berkeley super cool and um particularly white students and that Berkeley super cool and hasn't faced these kinds of OB um barriers and I think it's
173important that we have a name that allows us to talk about that historical racism and the current racism so I'm I'm very very happy with the name um I do differ with you a little bit Tai about um the sequa hall recommendation I think that seoa Hall maybe we should come up with a way to make that motion so that it says something about continuing to work with the people who people who are interested who were involved in that um process you know 17 years ago and I think that there have been some voices who have been very vocal and they were very important in helping to bring this forward but they they also don't necessarily represent everybody who was involved at that time so I want to be careful that we don't um like
174put the the main spokesperson for the process in 2003 2005 and like mistakenly act like they represent the invite the voice of everybody who was involved in that process so that's my only concern about about holding off on that um so I would support um because I think now we're talking about it so the likelihood that the board would come back and um vote on that in the future you know it's it's more likely that something will happen if we vote on it today Julie did I see you have your hand up yeah I um earlier it was just my quick question so I just want to make a a couple of comments about the name and also um following up on that um I'm really excited about the name and I think it's an
175honor to be able to to name one of our schools after our first African-American teacher and I think it's actually a reminder not just of the past but the need to have more representation in our current teaching um staff and that it's an ongoing presence that um we need to be attentive to and um as role models for our kids um I think it's it exemplifies what I think um a lot of us and and Kad and director brown with the black lives matter is we want to elevate um that joy and representation and it's not a oneshot um deal that but it's done I also wanna um I mean I think direct vice president Alper I think I'm I am um actually pretty uh excited about the idea of seoa Hall as well because
176while I know some representatives of that um the constituency that really catapulted this forward which I'm so appreciative of feel like it was um a a a disservice I actually feel that our multi-service centers our our our our cafetorium our Halls they are where all of our families come together and build community um so what I would hope is that um in the naming of the hall it is it is um substantive and how you see it it's not just like little letters above a door um and that there be a plaque or something that explains where the name seoa came from yeah because I think I wanna I want to honor the folks who were here in 2003 to 2005 and I want to honor the committee that came up with this recommendation um
177because they took all those factors into consideration and this is what they're coming forward with and so I think that um it was well vetted I feel like it was well um dialogued and represented by a very diverse group on the on the um Formerly Known soon to be Ruth AI campus um and that um it's a good representation for um the naming and the communities that have been involved in it so I would actually support a motion that that supported vot great I I I also hang on one second director Brown because I also there was one thing I forgot to say and that is that I'm also very excited that we're that we're probably going to name this school after somebody who was a fairly recent teacher because I think that you know
178a Berkeley teacher because that's really an amazing way to respect and show our appreciation for our teaching staff Kadija yeah thank you president um I just wanted to Echo um director Sinai sentiments around um naming the fellowship hall um sequa and she said everything that I would have said um so I just wanted to thank thank director Sinai for for stating that point um specifically around making sure that there is a plaque that identifies where the name seoa come came from um especially because the 2003 to 2005 Advocates are the reason that we are here and the reason that we are even able to make um this decision today so it's important that we recognize the shoulders that we stand on um and that this idea was or that this opportunity wasn't just an idea
179from us but something that uh came before us that allowed us to to be here in this moment so I think it's important to honor the school um in that way and I also want to take this time to give an appreciation to our superintendent um superintendent Stevens and I worked um superintendent Stevens was my thought partner on um this resolution and doesn't get enough credit um for that and it's rare that you have the opportunity to work with a a superintendent who is as busy as he is um on a resolution um and so superintendent Stevens um thank you for prioritizing this thank you for ensuring that the process went smoothly um and thank you for ensuring that we are having the opportunity to to vote on this today so so thank you I
180just wanted to give you an appreciation so that oh I'm sorry go ahead thank you kadesia for also acknowledging that in terms of the work that went behind the scenes to get us to this point I just the last point in terms of engaging the tribal representation and teaching of indigenous uh curriculum I think that's a fabulous idea that's long overdue also in our community um I think you know however we can kick that off that would be wonderful and um long like I said long overdue in terms of recognizing the tribal land and community that we're in and honoring that so perhaps we can make a recommendation that that get moved to the policy committee because maybe we want to have a policy around that policy around teaching like a rich a teaching of
181the Native American cultures I don't know no you don't think so I think we should leave that to to if that's if that's curriculum yeah it's curriculum okay so do I have a motion I think the question on the slide was do are we directing the superintendent for staff to continue dialogue with the tribes I think that's that's the question what we incorporate in the motion in an effort to provide indigenous curriculum to our students or I thought is that what it said authent it's more authentic local to our our our city and the land that we're we're sitting on in as I understand that third recommendation the committee really is um you know inspired by the contact that was established um as a result of this naming process would like to continue to explore
182um those connections between the district and local tribal Representatives um both for the purpose of enriching our curriculum but also thinking about um naming processes and other opportunities um that that might come from a deepened connection superintendent Stephens do you have anything else that you wanted to add before we vote no I've expressed my gratitude to the committee and to everybody who's been involved in this process and that is very sincere on my part and thank you very much for your leadership do I have a motion are are we to approve the whole all the three or just that right now we're just going to make a motion to change the name and I was looking to oh I I'll move to rename the school formerly known as Jefferson to Ruth AI Elementary School kadisha
183um if you don't mind I think that Miles was gonna make the motion actually um kadia can do it because it's her resolution I'm sorry that's what he just he just mentioned that so all right so we have a motion from kadesia and do we have a second I mean director Brown do we have a second student director I can second and I can say I'm happy now be a proud alumni of Ruthie act Elementary School and not Jefferson great so we have a motion by director Brown and a second by director Miller um will you take the vote of course uh director Sinai yes director Lea Cutler yes director Brown yes director Miller yes vice president Alper yes and president of pal yes yay that's so exciting um okay so now we have a
184second um we have a proposal for a second motion to rename the cafeteria Sequoia Hall is that the motion I I'll move that all right so I have a motion by director Sinai is there a second convince me I'll I'll second that or I'm going to vote for it you what you said was very compelling um president pal director sign good so I mean I I actually heard director Lea Cutler first that's fine I just wanted to explain that I was going to vote for it second Alper okay second from direct from vice president Alper um can we take a vote on that sorry president can you clarify who who made the motion and who seconded yes the motion was made by director Julie Sinai and seconded by vice president Ty Alper got it director
185Miller yes director Brown yes director Sinai yes director Lea Cutler yes vice president Alper yes director Brown yes again oh sorry and president Nel yes okay that just means I I really really mean it really really oh that's great and so then the third thing was that's can you read that to us also superintendent Stevens that what the third thing on that slide said yes I tribes just one moment please uh this question should staff eventually continue re-engage or engagement with tribal Representatives regarding indigenous representation in curriculum and our schools so I think I mean I just think maybe we should talk about that I I mean I would really really urge the continuation of this conversation especially since we're kind of Midway through it um so we're not going to be having the conversation
186about naming a school but building a relationship is that a vote or just a recommendation to as they move forward I think on this one we appreciate the board's direction we imagine that that that we will receive it um but we appreciate hearing it nonetheless so I don't think we need to vote on it right I think we all the recommendation that was amazing I'm sorry kades I didn't mean to take that away from you I was just I thought that as a former Jeffers I mean Ruth AI student he he might have felt about that um that's okay no offense taken oh great so um 13.2 approval of coordinated comprehensive earning inter intervening Services plan great and if I may before we jump off I'm I'm going to excuse all of our guest speakers
187who were part of that panel presentation to the board so my thanks to all of you who stayed up late um teachers get a little bit of rest before class tomorrow and staff thank you very much as well for all of your effort on that item um and in the meantime um we are going to uh invite the next group um to make their way to our virtual dis uh and they'll begin to um queue up the presentation um so leading this presentation this evening is executive director of special education Sean maner um he's been with the district for about five months now and they've been very interesting ones uh included in his portfolio of work has been um a key leadership role in develop uh plan to address significant disproportionality in a number of
188elements in our special education plan um so uh Mr maninger and his team uh will walk us through the development process of this plan and talk about key features of the plan as well so Mr maner thank you Dr Stevens let me get this loaded up right good evening board memb members families Educators and community members the ed services team is honored to join you in presenting the uh Berkeley Unified School District's comprehensive coordinated early intervening servfaces or cace plan to address disproportionality of our black African-American students into special education uh our presenters are myself Debbie Dean director of K through 8 schools uh Dr Philip Shell of director of student services and our uh uh professional development cord coordinator adalita Martinez uh so first and foremost I just want to talk about what is
189comprehensive coordinated early intervening Services uh the individuals with disabilities Education Act idea is the law that ensures that all children with disabilities are entitled to a free appropriate public education to meet their unique needs and prepare them for the future education employment and independent living a component of ID law requires that districts that are disproportionately overidentifying certain cultural racial groups into special education or by discipline set aside 15% of their funding from the Ida Grant funds to improve the academic outcomes for this identified group and general education in order to decrease the over representation into special education or discipline uh the C plan is a process um you CI plan um is engaging stakeholders developing root causes and strategies and its progress monitored over a 27mon window uh BD has been identified along with other
190uh 140 other districts in California for disproportionality so Ed Services uh will now present the process that we uh participated in over the last several months to engage various stakeholders in identifying our root causes and chosen strategies for addressing significant disproportionality so as you can see uh we have uh been in this situation before um the USD uh from 2011 to 2016 was identified um in sigus for emotional disturbance for African American students uh we are no longer under that um how um however we are three years disproportionate in a row for African-American students in special education other health impaired specific learning disability intellectual disability and overall and again just a reminder that the goal of the cace plan is to improve the outcomes of our uh black African-American students in general education this is
191the process that we went through um through through our uh programmatic Improvement uh we uh through these four phases we apply a cultural lens throughout the entire process to to ensure that Equity is up front and center for our students in phase one we uh started uh getting together our leadership team and our stakeholders we started Gathering data um to help us start um analyzing the root cause uh we held multiple stakeholder meetings um with different groups and we dug deeper into the uh data in phase two and developed our root causes in phase three we uh applied uh strategies um to the root causes in order for us to start addressing them and uh once uh we get board approval and the California Department of Education approves the plan then we will move into
192the last phase of imp implementing it um evaluating it and sustaining it along the way over the 27-month period all right thank you Sean so the data collection process utilized a mixed methods approach which includes collecting both quantitative and qualitative data uh qualitative data was collected by way of focus group interviews with various stakeholder groups such as principles teachers parents students family engagement Specialists and other stakeholders quantitative data was collected from the California schools dashboard cow pads and the sa data system next slide please now from these uh uh two different methods of collecting data we're able to come up with four uh root causes so the first root cause is implicit and explicit bias cultural dissonance and low expectations for black students leading to negative impacts on academic achievement the next root cause is
193inadequate relationships with African-American students and families leading to disengagement in the classroom and higher number of office referrals the next C root cause is improvements needed for insur uring multi-tier systems of support are more culturally responsive for tier one and tier 2 academic and behavioral interventions and the fourth root cause is underutilization of Section 504 resulting in some black students being FastTrack to a special education referral next slide after identifying the root causes We examined data from all of our elementary and middle schools we decided to focus on five schools where we will collaborate with the teachers the principal students and families so that each student will experience increased academic and school Success these schools will then become models for all of our other schools in Berkeley next slide please students were identified through demonstrating
194an area of growth in one or more of the following areas absenteeism performing below grade level on the star or early literacy assessment Andor having behaviors that led to office referrals or suspension these students will be case managed through collaboration with their families and the cost teams individual learning plans will be created for our vision Scholars next slide please Adelita I think that's your slide sorry I had it on my apologies so additionally as part of the plan we've identified some measurable outcomes um the first is around student literacy as measured by District benchmarks and so growth around grade level standards in literacy the second outcome is at the instructional level and so implementation of culturally responsive and relevant practices as well as social emotional learning and implicit bias work the third outcome has to
195do with family parent Community engagement and work around um participation and engagement and the fourth um deals specifically with culturally responsible responsive multi-tiered systems of support what you see on the slide are the the outcomes at the end of the 27 months but we are also um measuring progress along the way and and I'm just going to share a few examples of that so there will be quarterly meetings to measure progress around each students's individual learning plan starting in the spring we'll be collaborating with sites to inventory tier one tier two tier three math and reading strategies and um some data collection another example of how we're monitoring progress along the way is we will be revising benchmark assessments and re writing them in preparation for implementation for the next school year and then a
196last example but not limited to all of these are classroom visits that will start next school year and so you can see that we have the end of 20 uh seven Monon outcomes but also progress monitoring along the way next slide so we've lumped um our activities under three broad umbrellas uh student uh chief School climate and systems and infrastructures all of these activities are actually listed under um the different measurable outcomes but um we wanted to um organize them at a way that helped see the the different areas we want to address uh so first and foremost uh we'll be creating our individual learning plans um that our cost teams are um will be leading the coordination of services teams at each site um and they'll be engaging families in that process and developing
197those goals uh then there'll be Central Central modering from the ed services team and support um in in supporting our students that are not responding to those tier one and tier two instructional strategies and possibly connecting them with other um District resources School site resources or Community Resources uh we also want to review the effectiveness of the tier one and two in literacy math instruction at the vision School sites and uh definitely focus on the cultural respon culturally responsive side of um of the uh of the effectiveness of it um and we're also going to engage with human resources um and partner to further examine methods of retaining recruiting more uh black African-American Educators and administrators uh we'll be uh really focusing on uh working on with our leaders of color Network our teachers of
198color Network reaching out to universities uh historically historically black um universities and colleges and also uh hiring earlier in the spring which has been um some concerns from the past uh and we will be providing uh District Pro uh districtwide Workshop series to division School families and other families that want to participate as well as staff on topics related to Empowering Families um for the cost team meetings the Section 504 um IEP process in looking at school Clement we looked at the root causes for referrals to special education we need to change our practices to better serve our students in the general education Pro in the general education classrooms through this work with our vision schools we will shift to activities that will interrupt these referrals to special education we will Begin by working with
199our stakeholder team to create a survey to learn more about how our students and families perceive school and our efforts to support the Vision scholars in each of the vision schools we will establish or grow a black African-American advisory committee where the work to improve school Success will be collaborative and ongoing our efforts to improve the teaching and learning will require us to learn more about our implicit bias as Educators and how this bias can be stopped so that all of our students will feel included and welcome in every class every day we will then expand this learning and train all stakeholders to ex exam in their implicit bias and change their pedagogies so that bias is eliminated finally we will work with improving School culture so that families feel welcome in all settings next
200slide please okay for systems and infrastructures um the activities include the creation of a district task force to support implementation and training of culturally responsive tier one PBIS strategies and including consistent delivery of a culturally responsive positive behavior Matrix next the uh the multi-tier system of support will be further developed in identifying tier one tier two and tier three academic behavioral and social emotional interventions accompanied by handbook and site training next professional development will be provided to Vision schools on the implementation of Section 504 the Section 504 handbook and ensure the handbooks are translated and Community to families additionally further development and training on a culturally responsive Student Success team manual and then lastly training for school psychologists teachers and administrators on pre-intervention Services appropriate use of Section 504 plans and how to appropriately identify
201factors that may impact Student Success in the general learning environment next slide please so this is our total anticipated budget um based on our 201920 Ida Grant um so again 15% of of the special education M um money from 3310 and 3315 need to be uh utilized on the General Ed side of the house and then those funds are backfilled into special education uh so the total amount um for 2020 is $277,200 and we split that up in some different pots of money um much of it is going to be dedicated to uh you know uh extended hours in order to ensure that our certificated and classified staff are able to attend trainings uh there will be some uh Contract Services um for Equity trainings for our family workshops um for our training for our
202school sites um School sites and um and admin and staff um and uh and also possibly um some uh travel down the road to PD conferences um to further um grow our um our sustainability with in and making sure that implicit bias is being addressed in our school district so the next uh steps in this process is uh first of all we're asking um seeking board approval of our cace plan uh once that approval is made we will submit the plan to the CD by uh the 15th and then we'll wait the CD approval for the implementation and upon CD approval we'll begin implementation in the early spring and then again over that 27-month window U we'll be doing quarterly progress um we'll be presenting to our uh stakeholder teams to get feedback um they
203very much will be involved in the process along the way and then we'll be presenting to the Board of Education as well um all and it's important to remember that even though we're focusing on uh these five Vision schools all of the action steps um that were doing will will connect um and improve our districtwide policies um and initiatives um the work will uh a component of the C plan is that um is asking how will the work be continued and extended Beyond um our vision schools and that will be the work that we can incorporate into our lcap um and our syps as our school plan for students achievement at um the different uh uh School sites so thank you very much and again uh we seek board approval of the cace plan thank
204you very much okay I'm going to open this up to um board comments and questions just raise your hand let me see we can use the little participant use oh okay director Lea CER um thank you I and I'm excited about this CS plan I don't remember the acronym exactly but um I definitely appreciate the the efforts that are going to be made and how this will be a model hopefully that we can improve upon and have districtwide um I think my biggest concern in in that sometimes it's not um sometimes the family needs support and and it's more than just the tutoring the additional teacher support in the classroom sometimes there's other things that are getting in the way of the family being able to support their own student and it could be housing
205it could be food insecurity um it could be mental health and so how will this plan and this budget be able to support something beyond the classroom beyond the School site beyond the teacher because sometimes it's more about what's happening at home that the parents and family need uh additional support is are we planning for that outside of the school district and maybe partnering and sharing what we're trying to do with our city for possible resources and connection and support yeah it's important to understand that um the C funds are they don't supplant the work that's happening it should supplement um so I think a a big piece of this work um will be around those individual learning plans and when uh a student is not responding to interventions we should be you know reaching
206out to um Community agencies um and within our district to find other resources that will help support yeah I'm thinking that's something it's it's a it's a conversation to have up front with families in terms of what else is um so that is it'll take time to find what where exactly we can help and who else needs to partner with that was my comment thank you very much for this presentation you're welcome thank you director Lea Cutler do I have oh Julie director Sinai thank you um and I really appreciate the presentation and um kind of the direction it's going around the root causes and um I have one question and then a um I think it's kind of a comment so the quick question is um how were this how were the is the
207vision school is that our term or their term did we did we coin that no we coined that yes okay um how did we select which schools were going to be the vision schools and then I've got a a a comment yeah we you know our our our school district is interesting because it really is spread um spread out as far I mean a lot of districts will say well we're going to choose sites that have U more of the particular um cultural group that's been identified and then um you know bosd it's pretty spread out so we looked at a few different factors but we really Nar on the um the number of referrals for special education for African-American students and you know these sites aren't um it's not that they're way higher than
208other sites we have this is an issue across our district um but we tried to use that as a a barometer um as well as just considering some um different factors around academic performance and attendance um when so it was it was a really it was a really challenging Choice um I will say that our stakeholder you know they some of them wanted a low more focus focus on um on the high school and some more on um early Ed and uh you know I just want to say that those those things will simultaneously be happening um along with the cace plan um and other efforts in our district okay um I I appreciate starting with a concentrated number of schools with a clear intention to take the learnings um I guess my question is
209uh um Mr Shelly and I think with the presentation um and one of the clear root causes being implicit bias and low expectations um and I I am happy to hear that we're going to actually tackle the issues of implicit bias um and I I think we can mitigate it I don't think we ever completely eliminate it but I'm curious um I'm not sure I'm going to frame this right but implicit bias and low expectation actually drive referrals so students are identified for interventions versus looking at or not versus you know I don't see an asset-based model in this of like that that the students actually are bringing different experiences and based on a a lens that might be being used they're being referred for interventions so in some ways um we're not interrupting it
210at the get-go um because the referral in itself is potentially problematic and especially when we're looking at the early grades where we set students on a pattern early on so I I don't know if I've articulated that clearly but my question is kind of it the the plan is like if if if the intervention isn't working then we accelerate you know tier one is the first level of intervention but maybe these students don't need that intervention they need a different um way of thriving so I don't know I see some heads nodding so maybe other people can articulate it better but I'm kind of grappling with that well um if I could just make a comment I think um what I hear is that students might be exhibiting some behaviors and they might have needs
211but the need might not necessarily be oh they need academic intervention there's they're they're giving us information that something's not quite right right and so then I think that that's our job is to do an do a more thorough assessment when we talk about these individual learning plans for the students I think that's where we look at the assets like when the things that I always think about in the classroom if a student is being disruptive I'm always curious at what point in the lesson are they disruptive because they're not disruptive in the whole lesson so let's figure out what's working well because something is working really well for that student at and whatever is working well that's what we have to capitalize on to some degree but I also think um Julie I agree
212with you that we really have to take a holistic approach in looking at students to figure out what is working but then also what is not working and it might not be that academic piece necessarily right like an example is sometimes student behavior is around hunger more than it is around any other issue and so they're distribute they're they're showing us something and we've got to figure out the why and sometimes the behavior is is not something that's conducive to what the teacher is comfortable with absolutely absolutely and I think that that's some of our work around really trying I mean one of the things that we're really trying to do I feel like is to have our Educators be really reflective of their practice of their behaviors and what is getting in the way
213what is getting in the way of success for students in their classroom I think that we all know this too like sometimes we have a student who's really challenged you put that student with a different teacher and they they thriving and then we have to figure that piece out too right so we're asking our our Educators to do a lot of internal reflection around their practice based on some of the data that we see from what's going on in the classroom by way of students yeah and if I could just add one thing when we um did all these different focus group um interviews um from uh teachers to par professionals to amilies to to the children um there was uh absolute agreeance that implicit bias and um not being able to operate with a
214multiple multi lens approach um culturally um was top of the list it was across the board and we know that to be true across our nation uh d Brown Judy I didn't hear you oh I'm sorry I was just apologizing for interrupting you uh but you didn't hear me because I had was muted um I'm calling on director Brown and then I'm gonna hope that we can move on to the next item yeah thank you um for calling on me I wanted to um touch on a point that I think should have been or I wish would have been um uh Amplified a little bit in this discussion um or in the presentation but it was kind of towards the end um and that's just around culturally responsive um pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching and
215so director S I think that's the point that you were trying to bring up um and Debbie I think that's what you were trying to speak to as well um and so I think that needs to be um just as as important for us to look at as implicit bias here's why um when we think about about culturally responsive uh teaching I like to think about um zarita Hammond's um approach to culturally responsive teaching and what that what that looks like right especially in terms of using um an asset-based approach and it would be incredible to see our district um kind of transition to an asset based approach um even thinking about uh Linda delpit's five codes of power right so how power Works in our school in our schools um and unfortunately our schools
216are created and built to serve um those who have access to power right and so um our lessons um support those who have access to power our um organized lunchtime supports those who have access to power how assignments are oftentimes turned in support those who have access to power um and causes those who don't have access to power to um be overidentified and sped to be um unfortunately candidates for uh school pushouts and so I think as a district we we really need to have a stronger focus on culturally uh responsive responsive teaching um especially around um moments where so especially around moments where um identification for sped has nothing to do with what happens in the classroom sometimes also so those um uh lunch breaks or those recess breaks or those um opportunities where
217students are are by themselves and not necessarily monitored um but are still identified for sped um sometimes not because of um how they show up in the classroom but because of how they show up outside of the classroom um and then spec going back to specifically talking about how students um show up in the classroom um I even think about um how how we can can change our approach right sometimes as teachers we get a little bit frustrated when we hear students talking during a time when they should be working independently right why not give opportunities for communal learning experiences especially when we know that a good majority of our students culturally benefit from those type of experiences um and so in in order to address this there needs to be a cultural shift within
218bu USD um to address number one who has access to power and number two how we serve students or how we identify students or think about students who don't have access to power who don't fit in into the box of how we think that the students should fit in so um I I wanted to say that in an effort to to kind of have us I had I had so many this is small because I had so many questions that I was literally able to cross out when you uh were doing the presentation um but that's one one point where I think we are missing um the mark and we can't afford to do that um so just as as we're talking about implicit bias we also need to talk about um culturally relevant and
219culturally responsive um teaching practices um not just for um students in the classroom but also how we deal with students outside of the classroom so and just make one more Point Judy president um thank you uh director Brown I think you brought up the exact points and there's one more thing that I just wanted to add that sometimes most time sometimes it's if we were to do um like an investigative audit how this child came to our attention because sometimes it's not it's not the child it's what the process of it that this child has gone through um and so looking at that first before we think about that it's it's the problem or the issue uh the challenges with the child it might be something else that happened along the way in their experience
220in our schools and so look at that first and foremost I think and then you know then also of course looking and how what's been going on for the family in order to support because sometimes it's not it's not with the child sometimes it's environmental it's something that's going on the experience they had in kindergarten they never went to preschool it's looking at those things first before we start to you know feel like we have to fix the child or um yeah I just wanted to make that point that I think that's an important piece of this all thank you thank you director Lea Cutler well it seems to me like we have two choices now one of them is to approve the plan and then also direct the staff to come back with like
221kind of how to incorporate ideas of culturally relevant and responsive teaching asset based um asset based kind of an asset based Alternatives and then um I think the point that director Lea Cutler just brought up of you know bringing in kind of other influences including the family but not exclusive to the family that could have led to the identification of the student in the first place and so there seems like there's two choices and I guess my inclination would be to move to approve the current plan but then also vote that the staff need to come back maybe in a month with a plan that incorporates these other issues th this has to be submitted by the 15th did I hear that December 15th yeah that's correct that's a deadline established by the California Department
222of Education yeah so I'm fine with that would suggest that we go ahead and pass the plan but then also with a with a directive that these that there be considerations about these very very important and relevant perspectives that just came up in this conversation because I think if we didn't have a time if we didn't have a deadline then we could just request it it go back and come back to us but since we have to approve this plan um I suggest I will make a motion that we approve the plan and direct staff to come back with a presentation about how they want to address these other issues uh vice president Appel I'll second your motion um approving um the presentation but also um giving direction to staff to make sure that there's
223a focus and emphasis on culturally responsive teaching can I make a friendly Amendment yeah um so the time period for this plan is it the next school year or does it go into effect January like what what's the time frame for the plan uh would it would start when the uh California Department of Education approves it and know could be you know hopefully maybe it'll be January um you know it doesn't mean that we won't start um laying some of the groundwork right away and starting to engage if it wasn't going to be till the next school year then that was gonna so I would like my friendly Amendment would be to come back in January with language um that reflects because I think there's culturally responsive um Education and Training in the language now
224I think what we've been trying to identify is is like kad's Concepts around power and asset based and that the that the culturally uh that is happening before a referral is made that is part of the whole picture so if we could I'm I'm okay voting yes if I knew that the kind of you guys were going to come back with some reworking of it in January so that's my friendly amendment I will amend my motion that we approve the plan with direction that the staff come back in January with a deeper discussion about how to integrate culturally responsive teaching um the power issues at which I think are related to the asset-based frame um so and I think um it sounds like either Julie or Cadia could be available to help Define more clearly
225what that would be so maybe one of you can call one of them after after this meeting i' I'd be very happy to work with board leadership on this and I i' just as well like to remind the board while we do have this the cze plan that's very specifically intended to Target the disproportionality in special education we're also simultaneously working on other efforts um that includes elements of the black lives matter resolution and that will include budget discussions over the course of the spring um designed to intensify exactly what we're talking about in our in our teacher professional development so so we'd be happy to come back um it may not it would include this plan and likely include other aspects of the planning that will be taking place this spring corre okay um
226so do I have a second to that motion I second okay seconded by director Brown let's take a vote director s yes director Lea Cutler yes director Miller yes director Brown yes vice president Alper yes president Appel yes all right so thank you very much for that um that presentation it was excellently done um I will um I want to suggest that we switch around the agenda a little bit and that we next do the discussion item because I think there are people of there are attendees who are here because they want to hear about the update on the phase approach to school reopening and so I'm going to suggest that we take that item next and then we can quickly go back to 13.3 and 13.4 after we finish that's great I'm happy to
227jump in and thanks for reversing the order let me um say good night to my colleagues thanks folks for um having gone through the presentation good night and then I'll take just a moment to um set up the next presentation great thank you oops great um so so we'll begin uh this presentation by um uh offering the board some updates on a number of important topics um as it is each time we've been together for the last nine months we continue to offer updates to the community and the board about covid-19 and all of its implications uh in tonight's presentation I'd like to cover this terrain uh some additional uh updates on the local n covid-19 health conditions including the effect of the stay-at-home order on school reopening uh talk more about the impact of
228the current health conditions on our timeline uh for a phased reopening uh review just some summary feedback from parents and staff as we've been collecting it in the survey talk a little bit about where we are in the development of a hybrid learning model and our discussions with our labor Partners about that proposal uh and then talk briefly about covid-19 testing and vaccine distribution uh as I do each time that we've been together um we're reminded that all of this work is informed by our values as a district to um take care of the health and safety of our students and families and staff uh while also uh balancing the complex educational needs and desires of our community uh we've been developing a number of resources to try and make transparent our plans for school
229reopening they include campus safety plans um they also include uh Elementary reopening Readiness dashboard this has been expanded this week to include reopening Readiness dashboards for the middle and high school level uh and as well we publish a covid-19 case dashboard uh in an effort to make transparent to the community the school related covid-19 cases that are taking place if we have a closer look at the covid-19 dashboard as it's currently represented on our BD website um we'll notice that in the last two weeks we have in fact um had a number of cases on our campuses uh in the opening eight months of the pandemic we experienced two cases among staff members uh in the last several weeks in the closing weeks of November and early December um we've now had six cases uh
230in total this um includes uh cases at Malcolm X one at Thousand Oaks Martin Luther King uh and even in the district office um it's notable that these cases so far um are none of which are none of these cases are associated with school related transmission that is none of these individuals appear to have caught covid-19 because of their presence on campus rather they came to campus having contracted covid-19 somewhere else uh in most of these cases there were no close contacts because of the relatively few number of people we have on our staff U at working on campuses uh in all of these cases we followed city of Berkeley um Health protocols uh that means rigorous case investigation communication with close contacts uh as well as general updates to the community that there has
231been a case in a particular school or work location um as the board is well aware we've had a number of changes to the state's um health related teering system including most recently a return to the purple level and now here in Alam County um a stay-at-home order that imposes additional restrictions on uh uh many aspects of our society um uh as it is right now there has been a carveout for schools in the current thinking about stay-at-home orders uh this is language taken directly from the state's blanket stay-at-home order to be invoked by counties this is already been invoked in Alama County um this particular phrase of the stay-at-home order issued at the state level um is very explicit um that the schools will remain under the current guidance as it's been defined by
232the state in previous months uh this guidance continues to permit the operation of cohort-based programs these were designed to be um uh safest under purple level conditions uh and uh Elementary School waivers continue to be um permitted under the state uh notable Alam County continues not to accept in or review Elementary waivers and so here locally this particular provision of state requirements is moot um to understand the the impact of our current transmission um sort of conditions on the probable permission to reopen um I've designed this little graphic that I'll walk you through um in order for us to again receive permission from the city and county health officials um there are sort of two um preconditions that must be satisfied um first um while we're experiencing the spike we have to begin to see
233a reduction in the two key metrics associated with the state's tiered designation specifically those metrics have to do with transmission rates the number of cases per 100,000 individuals and test positivity rates the percentage of tests that are returned positive for covid-19 so when we start to see a decline in those two rates a decline in fact to the red levels um there's about a two to 3-we period in which those metrics must be maintained at the red level uh before the county itself is redesignated in the red tier so that's about a two to three week lag time between the first s um first indications that those metrics are becoming better um and the eventual redesignation uh also included in state guidelines is an additional two weeks in which those metrics must remain steady at
234the red level uh before we anticipate getting permission so in all told uh that's a four to five week delay between the first indications that those metrics are improving and the probable permission to reopen schools so um uh the you can look at the um sort of pink colored box uh if it were the case that by next week we started to see those two key metrics begin to decline uh then it might be the case that we could meet the board's previously established January 13th Target reopening date um it's unlikely though given what we understand most experts are saying about the um spike in um related to Thanksgiving travel um If This Were the scenario um that we started to see an improvement in those two two key metrics at the end of December
235beginning of January uh then we would anticipate that permission to reopen schools would come sometime around the first or second week of Fe February again this is all guesswork uh If This Were the scenario where we started to see an improvement in transmission and tastea test positivity rates in mid January uh which some experts are predicting may be actually the case um we would anticipate then that permission would be given back to districts to begin reopening sometime in late February uh and if this Spike were more prolonged and those transmission rates and uh test positivity rates um weren't to improve improve until the end of January uh if we map ahead five weeks it would be sometime in March uh when we would anticipate to have permission to reopen schools again now I say the
236um the term permission because there are a number other an internal sort of um work streams that must be completed um including finishing touches on campus preparations and really importantly agreements with our labor unions but this graphic is meant to represent what we might anticipate by way of regaining permission to reopen um uh uh over the last two weeks uh prior to Thanksgiving break and then immediately following we conducted a series of town halls that were well attended um each of these had more than a hundred participants um we collected a lot of feedback from the transcript of the Q&A and from live interaction during these town halls and then following these Town Halls um we uh issued a survey um for elementary school families in both English and Spanish uh for Middle School families
237and we are working to um uh produce and then distribute a high school student and family survey in the next couple of days um the surveys returned a lot of information um that is um both helpful and indicates um as we continue to hear that there are divides in our community about what families hope for at this moment um represented here are the responses to one of the questions and this particular question is to agree or disagree um with the idea that hybrid learning should be um disruptions rather to hybrid learning should be minimized as one aspect of our hybrid excuse me I've misspoken that aspects of our distance learning program should uh not be disrupted as we move over to hybrid learning um so you can see that there are um there is a
238level of agreement um and then there's disagreement here as well um in this particular sample um asking families to respond how important is it to you or do you agree rather that the hybrid learning model should attempt to maintain corre class lists um there's a high degree of um um sort of agreement High degree of agreement here um we saw though as we started to look at comments um and there were uh hundreds of comments submitted to us um that there were sharp divisions in the sort of commentary offered by families um some families expressing uh generally um sort of support for the idea that we're trying to balance uh the competing needs of distance learning and hybrid learning uh while other families saying that the model we're proposing simply wouldn't work for them that
239it creates logistical challenges that are not feasible uh and that it's not a an acceptable um sort of balance of the risk related to return with the rewards um of being back in class um so so what I would not conclude from the um survey data is that we have it exactly right at this point uh what's value about the about the survey is that as we're working with our labor partners and responding to ideas um that we have a written set of data from our families that we can use as we continue to refine we do have disaggregated data um as it's come back from our fam so far um I won't attempt to um narrate all of these graphs folks can go back and look at it again but what this does indicate
240although there are great differences in the number of respondents um we're also seeing on a percent basis that there are differences depending on the group of families responding to the survey and then to conclude um just a quick note um sort of update about testing um we are right now in the middle of our second round of uh covid-19 employee testing um we did a first round uh just prior to Thanksgiving break um based on feedback and our own observation of how we did in that first round we've made significant revisions to that testing process um we're now well on our way to completing testing for about 550 staff who are currently working on campus uh or in our departments um and uh We've uh essentially taken control ourselves of the Staffing of the schedule
241uh and are now rotating the testing locations uh this seems to be working better our goal ultimately is that we're testing all of our 1500 employees uh every two weeks uh with respect to student covid-19 testing uh we continue to look around for partners and options that are viable uh viable both from a staffing perspective and from a cost perspective um current estimates about one particular covid-19 screening process um sort of uh would require we think about full five full-time employees and potentially an outlay of as much as $200,000 in order to begin that that process uh so the sort of upshot here is that we continue to look for viable options and of course hope somehow that the state and other organizations with um sort of Greater organizational and purchasing capacity than us are
242able to offer us relief on the on the the student testing front and then finally on the subject of vaccine distribution this evening the board unanimously approved a resolution calling for the prioritization of Educators as the state distributes vaccines um this particular graph is pulled from the CDC and represents what is right now anticipated to be a relatively long period of time uh in which there's any sort of effect from a mass um a mass vaccination program uh we're being guided right now to think that there will no be no discernable effect on school reopening because of vaccines in the next six months uh and that we should really be planning under current conditions all of the reopening um plans so um we hope that the resolution will catch the attention of legislators folks in
243Sacramento um and that it makes a difference in terms of the overall timing of the vaccines for educators but in any case I think it's wise that we're sort of planning for the next six months likely without the effect of a vaccination program so so with that I'm uh going to pause for discussion and questions and appreciate the opportunity to provide the update alrighty so um are there questions or comments for superintendent Stevens well I don't see any have question oh Sor go ahead um thanks for that presentation Dr Stevenson for all your work and staff's work on this can you um talk about the if we're um if the county gives us permission to open again um and it's not through the waiver process but it's just we're in the we're in the the
244lower tier for the right amount of time are there then um do we know what restrictions they would put on on a reopening plan so what what what's the will you remind me what the process is that for getting approval or is it just up to us how we want to open what are the restrictions they're going to put on us uh yeah so so essentially what they're signaling is that all of the um expectations for safety practices as they've been defined over the last several months will remain intact um they're just not impacted by the stay-at-home order um so from a technical perspective we need to submit a reopening plan uh to be reviewed by the alamy County Office of Education in our case that's largely a formality and that all of the writing
245the content and the planning that would need to be submitted to the county is completed in fact we've put it out in many different documents um so we will make sure that we submit that plan in a timely manner uh and that that approval won't affect our ability to reopen but we we know well right now what expectations will be imposed on us so but substantively not to like go into all of them but it's things like social distancing for example right that that students have to be four to six feet away from each other and what about test saying staff testing is that part of the Count's requirements too yeah so um the current County requirement is that districts design a employee testing program uh that would provide employees with a covid test um
246once per month and so we're looking to exceed that expectation with our program okay and so um just as we work through these different possibilities and responding to some of the comments that were made the um uh if the numbers worked out that half the families in the district wanted to stay home and half wanted to send their kids to school um it would am I right that it would still not be Po and and half the and and if it worked out that half the teachers were were doing distance learning and half the teachers were in person um it would still not work out for the the in-person students to be there five days a week full-time because only half essentially only half the kids can be on campus at any one time so
247even the in-person families would not be able to have a full five day a week experience is that right uh that is correct right now yes because of the social distancing requirements we can only have schools at half capacity uh and so even if we were you know theoretically to divide the district in half um and you know Place distance learning families and teachers together do the same within person families and teachers um the most that we'll be able to provide is um you know between two in three days but really realistically two full days per week uh to those in-person families and it's because of that social distancing requirement okay just the last thing I just wanted to um call out because I don't think anyone's mentioned it and it was on the consent
248calendar but um I was really pleased to see the the budget request and allocation for Outdoor Learning and expanding um uh Outdoor Learning capabilities in the district that's something that I know a lot of parents have asked about um and that our facilities and Ed Services team teams have been looking at for a while and um and it looks like we're trying to do as much as we can in that area there's there's a limit to that right but but we're doing what we can is there anything you want to add about that or or mention about that uh yes um so it is true on on consent there was um a budget for um the purchase and then installation of a a number of shade structures um for the purpose of creating outdoor classrooms
249um for a long time we've considered that outdoor space would be an element of our risk reduction practices um not the key element but one of many sort of layered precautions so uh this particular purchase is going to permit us to begin to equip our cohort sites um with outdoor shade structures that are suitable for um learning they'll they'll you know support the group sizes that we're talking about um we're very eager to see how it works um we're thinking that these will be available to teachers on a volunteer basis um and then we'll go from there as we sort of see what works for teachers um it'll give us the opportunity to begin to expand those kinds of spaces thanks thank you so I'm going to call on director s and then on director
250Miller thank you um thanks for the presentation um I uh optimistic news I was in a meeting this afternoon and the state of California is developing its vacine priorities and they do have El Educators in phase two but I still think our res solution to kind of keep pressure on that particularly with funding I think is going to be important um I I have a question and I and I have a comment um my question first is Dr Stevens in any of the research um or discussions you've been having with your colleagues or looking at you know the various newspaper articles that we're all seeing around New York opening you know 100 thousand of their million or so students um what's do you have a sense of what the rigor of um staff and student
251testing is and the and I even you know Dr fouchy talked about yes we want kids back in schools but there he conditions it on rigorous testing and I don't know if you have and I know that we're we're getting better at testing but I don't think you could say we have rigor and we don't do student testing at all so and I actually just the other question is you you on your chart you said student testing but it's really um screening right uh that's correct um and that's it's a great clarification to make in that particular box on the one slide about the cost estimate that's really more of a screening methodology um than it is to actually work with a Clea certified lab um to provide a real covid test it is nonetheless
252very expensive um that's assuming about a $3 per unit expense that's still about a million dollar um if we went with a Clea certified lab I think the best we would do is about $40 per test um so many times greater so do you have a sense about the rigor of testing that's happening in some of these either private schools or districts that are starting to open um I I have some sense yeah I mean locally here um private schools um as I understand I'm following as closely as I can our Contracting with private test vendors um and so they are offering um with their greater resources um tests for both employees um and and students um and as I understand that some local private schools have actually conditioned return to campus for families on
253their student taking the covid test um that that's a you know a condition that a private school can impose um and one that we would have trouble in a public system imposing um to move over to New York City I've been sort of following along as closely as I can what I do understand is that they're relying on a sample methodology um in that they're not attempting to test all 190,000 of those students um on a on a s regular basis um I do think that they have increased that sampling methodology as I was reading about it recently in the times um so that they sampling more frequently and sampling more students um but I don't know that they've moved to a onetoone model for student testing it's also notable about New York City while
254they're getting a lot of press in the last week for this testing program that it's being administered by a Consortium of hospitals in New York City uh and organized by the the city's Department of Public Health um so are different sort of organizational circumstances than the ones we find ourselves in and the with the the Curative we're not getting charged for that because they can bill insurance but they can't bill insurance for children that's correct not essential workers that's currently correct so if we were going to require um any kind of testing for students we would have to come up with or partner with the county or the city or something to come up with resources for that I I I think that's correct I mean what we're really learning through all of these Explorations
255is that that it's going to require a partner uh in order for the district to um organize a student testing program okay so my comment um comes in um the the timelines around um you know when we could potentially open based on moving from purple to red and um I I think I just wanna to stress kind of maybe where I'm at you know because I we can't talk about you know all of the great detail of negotiations here on you know in the board but I I'm hoping that I I I I have a hard time um conceiving on how we could be ready to open on January 13th with a stay-at-home order that is going into effect through January 4th at least through January 4th um and kind of with your your ruler
256module that went through um you know there's best case scenario you know maybe the next week um but we need to see how things are spiking over the holiday so I guess what I would like to urge is that we don't get to another point where when the public health Officer says we're in Alama County we're in red we can open that we're not ready to open that we've gotten all of our eyes dotted and our tees crossed with our labor Partners so that the minute that trigger is is available in a safe way in a way that we've been able to do testing which I think is a big if um and I really still don't feel like we should be uh letting the city off the hook and playing a greater role with
257our testing um that you know but that we're ready to go so that if we're not ready to go you know with everything um clear by December before the winter break is Right Upon returning so that we don't get into that Dynamic of like oh well now we can open but we're still not ready now so I just want to really I know that you guys have been working really hard I know that our labor Partners have been working really hard um and I think as one of the spokes people said in public comment compromises are going to have to be made like you know if you want robust in-person learning and distance learning yeah you're going to answer in the survey I want to be with my my kids teacher but I don't know
258how we can logistically do that so those are just kind of some of the comments I've been thinking about as we've entered into this super purple phase I hear all of that thank you thank you Julie I'm I'm gonna call on um director Miller Next but I do I think because of the time I'm going to make a motion that we extend the meeting till 11:30 um and I'm hoping that will be enough time for you Pauline and for for the two remaining items to be covered do you think that's enough time um superintendent Stevens I hope that it is as well all right I'll second the motion to extend the meeting to 11:30 okay um can we have a vote please director silai yes director Miller yes director Lea Cutler yes vice president Alper
259yes director Brown yes yes president Appel yes sadly but I true so um director Miller why don't you go ahead and say your peace well what do you mean sadly you get to SP time spend more time with us on your last meeting okay um AB I said anyway so I have a um concern and a question and first I want to Echo what J um director s was saying about compromising um and I want to combine with a comment I heard today about um really wanting to work with teachers and parent and teacher communication was extremely important everybody in this situation is going to make their individual decision based on what's best for their family in that moment and what's possibly best for your family with either your students may be very different from
260what's possibly best with an educator or a special educator in that same moment and I think we just all need to be aware of that um and compromise huge and so going into my um first um question or my question about um after school where after school activities fit into the new learning requirements cuz I mean from the town halls and what I previously heard is um after school activities and allowing clubs to possibly meet on campus and those things those are separate from reopening school as a whole and planning hybrid learning so I just want to know um what where that fits into um everything mainly focus on high school activities here but also heavily related to elementary school activities and middle school activities and how that plays into when we can start those
261activities right now sure that's a great question um so so what is per permitted right now is is what the state describes as cohorted support groups um so there's they don't Define that well except to say that there's a maximum number associated with a cohort that's 16 that number must in that includes the staff um there's also um sort of an upper bound on the number of students who can be on a campus that's 25% of the students can be on campus under those particular conditions and generally the program is meant to support students who are struggling in distance learning but they don't Define what that struggle might be like uh or how a selection process should look so those permissions um generally I think um permit a wide range of activities to take place
262on campus um we're using those permissions to um do the atic conditioning program at the high school um and in concept that can be extended to other kinds of activities at the high school as well such as the ones you're mentioning okay thank you and then my other um comment is on the slideshow I'm looking at right now um the table breakup where you have split up um Community groups um answers respons to the survey I just wanted to speak to the public on this I would recommend everyone look at that that is extremely helpful looking for um on an equity lens and I think um if there's a way we could use that information to also help boost our distance learning program I think that'd be very helpful because you are seeing the exact
263communities that are depending most on our distance learning plan so I would just hopefully keep that in mind in the future thank you director Miller all right thank you very much superintendent Stevens and um oh I'm sorry director Brown um as I sit here here and smile I actually don't have to ask my question because director Miller asked my exact question um so thank you director Miller for doing it um director Sinai do you have another I just want to make a quick announcement because I don't know if people all heard this I know that there were some emails going around around why we close playgrounds I heard this afternoon that Alam County um and the state opened up its criteria and playgrounds were now going to be allowed to be open so the city
264of Berkeley and all County are changing their guidance tomorrow so I don't know what that means for you know our schools but that's something that was a lot of consternation among families that were using the playgrounds for their kids outdoor activity yeah I got an early alert about this change just today and so I've already communicated with our pH facilities Department to be sure that playgrounds are reopened great thanks for bringing that up um director siai it's very helpful um now now I think we're going to close this item and move on to back to 13.3 and do the approval of the first interim budget report great um so let me introduce my colleague perhaps weary now at this point in the evening Pauline Fallin who's our assistant superintendent of Business Services um sometimes Pauline
265there's a disadvantage to being the headliner in in in a gig and you're learning that now um so uh a requirement that twice per year we present interim reports to the Board of Education about our spending um uh so miss Fallin us through that interim report sh Show us what's called a variance report uh and then is also U going to let us see uh new state requirement called the um lcff parent report which is meant to be just an accessible two to three page report on our overall spending um I'm going to offer one quick caveat to all of this and that is that board members may remember um just at the close of the last fiscal year we were facing a negative 8% Cola in fact wound up closing the year in June
266approving a budget with a negative 8% Cola um we were able only a week later to resend all of those on paper cuts um but because of timing and requirements that we submit a balance budget um our budget for the year actually shows that 8% cut so you'll notice several times Miss Fallin be is going to refer to a restoration of funds that's not new money that we got um that's just accounting for the fact that we didn't have to cut as severely as we thought we might so it's a a very odd interim report in that respect and I just wanted to flag it for board members so with that I'm going to uh turn the show over to miss Fallin be and I think am I am I sharing my slides or are
267you able to do that now um wait one second I have a question um so are you combining 13.3 and 13.4 presentation combines them but they're two separate action items okay I think I can share my screen let me see [Music] uh can I share my screen I cannot if you would share um Dr Stevens that would be okay thanks okay so um as Dr Stevens mentioned um we're going to be looking at a first interim which is a very unusual um budget um at adoption um we were basing our budget on the governor's May revise and at first inim we're basing it on the enacted budget um so um before I start I just wanted to say thanks to the team they pulled this together in a very short time um in particular our
268our interim um phys um fiscal director Liz carum and her senior budget analyst Ben Zohar they worked all weekend to get this done so I just want to to thank them especially during this challenging time so if we go to the first slide um okay so the outcomes of this meeting we're hoping um we're I'm asking the board to approve the first inim as well as the budget overview for parents the lcff budget overview for parents and if we look at the um the agenda um we're going to be looking at the unrestricted general fund the highlights the variance report and the multi-year projections we're also going to spend a little time on the restricted general fund um just um briefly going over the special education an update where as to where we are with
269our learning loss mitigation funding and lastly the lcff budget overview for parents so on the next slide um we talk about the first interim budget um again um the diff this the differences we're going to see is based on the May Revis versus the enacted budget um so we were we actually rescinded um budget reductions since we got in almost $7.5 million more in funding and on the the last Slide the next slide not last um and again just to reiterate most of the significant increasing increases in expenditures will be based on the fact that we um we basically um eliminated a negative almost 8% Cola um from adoption to First interim and I'm I keep repeating it because it is pretty unusual situation so on the next slide our budget highlights we do have
270a positive certification which means that we have a balanced budget for the current year and the two subsequent years we are deficit spending um $1.1 million and we did end um the first interim with a fund balance of $2.3 million of course deficit spending at a $1.1 million rate will not um a $2.3 million fund balance will not subst will not um support ongoing deficit spending um again mentioning the significant budget reductions at adoptions were were um rescinded and this deferral of state revenue um from 1 to three months this is something that was in the adopted budget and this is how the state basically is um able to for the recision of the cuts and the um elimination of the negative Cola the we will be get getting our funding it's not a cut
271as such to districts but the timing of our funding will be delayed so it will impact our cash flow but not our actual physical balance and of course um as as with adoption our bear tax um or bear parcel taxes included in funds 1 through eight summary which which is in our budget book so the next um page has a link to our unrestricted general fund variance report and this is when we look at what what we our um funding position and our financial position at adoption versus first interim so if we click on the link um it goes it takes us through all of our significant changes um I'm not going to spend a significant amount of time here um it was it's in our budget book on pages 20 through 24 um the
272dramatic swings at 7.5 million um a that's because um the cola was um went from 8% to zero um we have lost a little bit of local um Revenue um at adoption we had reduced our rentals for leases because we didn't think we were going to recognize all of that and um it turns out um we had to take um reduce this further by 164,000 just based on the current um um projections so if we go down um if we can scroll down to um to see that swing in our in our um operations and our expenses um when we rescinded the when we got additional Revenue we actually resined the cuts which meant our expenses would go up so most of that is due to That Swing but I do want to point out
273that we did have new expenses in here um so it's this is the the net um the net movement of resending which increases our expenses and further spending um um additional further costs for new expenses so this was um in our on our certificate in our classified salaries we had um a negotiated payment of um a vacation payout and that that was about 200 sorry $200,000 and then we also had um one-time expenditures and ongoing expenses for services um one of which is our um service student information system we do have onetime ramp up cost this year and then we did also have an increase in our insurance which is an ongoing increase in our transfers out this um we transferred $800,000 to the cafeteria fund you may or you may not remember at adoption
274we thought we could reduce the contribution to the cafeteria fund for 300,000 because we thought we were only paying for Staffing that would actually be working but our nutrition services staff they're actually in a protected class that we had to pay our nutrition services workers so in addition to Res re restoring that 300,000 we had to contribute an additional 500,000 so in the end we ended up um contributing another $853,000 to our cafeteria fund on the next page when we scroll down um this is our contribution to our special ad um we've done a lot um more work in terms of projections however when we looked at our SVG contract um we realized that we weren't going to um we weren't going to get the savings that we had projected based on St on the
275change in the Staffing model um so we ended up contributing $360,000 um to our to our NPA um account and then our mental health um Services we had passed um invoices from the past year that we're vetting very closely um because we um we are now trying to make sure that the services that we're being built for are actually from the IEP so this represents additional cost um most of which is from the PRI year um we're expecting that we're going to get some savings um when we go through our bills um in particular from Alam County um Health um for our mental health services so if we scroll down um a little bit further um our contribution um I think I mentioned it we actually passed it earlier but this was um with the
276recisions we also resined the amount that we were going to transfer in from fund 20 so we had thought we we needed $6 million and we ended up with only3 million so um you can see um we were um projecting to deficit spend by 1.3 million we actually ended up deficit spending by 1 million so we actually had a positive variance of $320,000 so with that um we can go back to the actual presentation thank you um this just goes into a little bit more detail about what happened with our special education and I mentioned that um our SVG cost as well as our cost for mental health um cause us to contribute another $800,000 to the special ed program um on the next slide so on our multiyear projection um you know this is
277a chance for us to look at the current year and the two out years and of course this is when we remove our one- time spending um and as as well as our one-time revenues and then uh when we looked at um all the variances we kept our Revenue flat there was no Cola for the out years our Cola our revenue is flat our expenses are going up um we would expect um there to be a budget shortfall and there is in fact a budget shortfall of $2.8 million ongoing um in 2122 uh when we adopted that number was significantly higher and then um an additional adjustment of 4.7 that should be million not just dollars in 2223 so I'll walk you through that in a little on the following slide but um the only
278way we're going to eliminate this um need for either budget adjustments they could be budget reductions or increase um transfers in will be um funding additional state or federal funding so um the next slide we go into the three um into the graphic representation of our multi-year um the cola is zero Gap funding is no longer news I could actually take that out um we're getting 100% funding you can see our revenue is essentially flat our local funding um went from 2.4 million um to 2.7 that's because we're anticipating we'll get back the funding um for rentals and leases in the oute so our revenue is essentially flat for the three years um when we look at the following slide um for our expenses um our expenditures um are going up or our um step
279and column costs or um our stirs and purs in the third year in particular um the reprieve that we got from the state that is that is totally gone in 2223 so whereas our increases for S and purs is pretty significant in 2122 it's it's really significant in 2223 so this is what I was talking about um balancing the budget ongoing budget reductions of 2.8 million and an additional $4.7 million in the oute um sources and uses I go through that um there's another slide that explains that but explains what line item is but the swing in that is the transfer from fun 20 or um or um I'm drawing a blank anyway um that is going to be um instead of it it's just one time for 2021 so the $3 million so that's
280why we have such a swing in that number we're deficit spending um one $1.1 million it gets compounded 1.8 in 2122 and and um deficit spending of 02 in the third year but that's of course if we take into account um the budget reductions that's needed to balance the budget so we're ending the year um $2.3 million this year and barely positive in the out years um we can move on to the next slide Dr Stevens um we can move on to the next slide I explain that one so with that um I thought it would be helpful for us to just um to provide an update with our um our learning loss mitigation funding this is actually our learning loss mitigation funding which is the first three columns as well as our SAA funding
281which was funding we got in 1920 um we we already talked about um the plan for spending this these um additional funds that we received um in terms terms of spending the one that expires first so that would be the corona Relief Fund um that one the expiration date is actually the end of this year and as you can see um we have fully um expended $3.9 million for million um and that that's predominantly on additional Staffing and PPE and other um costs um add an additional nurse among other things um so we will we um have to show that we've spent the funding for us to get reimbursed so we're hoping to get our funding um uh after December for um Corona Relief Fund the other funding sources um those three those four funding
282sources are 5.9 million we've spent $5.3 million it wasn't difficult to get to that point um we're spending them predominantly on Corona relief um um well on corono um relief funds um purposes for of for the um for the virus and um we have a balance of $600,000 so this is an interesting chart because we um fiscal and Ed Services we're working very closely together we work on a Shar Doc and um we're tracking expenses and making sure we're spending them within the correct categories as well as within the required timelines so we're um with the S SP 117 funding we have a total of $600,000 remaining but we expect that the um the inventory that we have for PPE we think that will last us for quite a substantial time because we've been stockpiling
283or pping um on the next slide um this is just talking about about our next steps um for the first interim so we bring back the second interim um in March by then we'll have more of an update in terms of where we are with funding and expenses we are going to start our budget um cycle in January and um there is indication that we're expecting um higher state revenues um they're coming in larger we don't know what that that means is is it going to um reduce the defer s um we'll have to wait and see we have the governor's budget um in January and I go to the I think the um meeting is on the 15th or um by the mid mid January we'll have another a meeting where we'll get more
284information on this um the budget advisory Committees of course will convene and um we'll be working on addressing um our projected budget shortfalls or budget adjustments um it's important to note that in the m M projections that we do not have any salary increases in the out a so this is just working on the information that we have at this point in time so I think that takes us to the end of the first interim um I could go I could continue um to the budget overview for parents or I could take questions now whatever you prefer why don't you go ahead and finish your presentation and then we'll okay just keep in mind that we only have about I think 15 minutes 15 minut okay I'll be quick this is this is actually extremely
285quick as Dr Stevens mentions this is a um a fiscal report that the state is implementing um that has to be um completed by December 15th and um we are required to actually post this on our website and this is an attempt to provide fiscal transparency for our stakeholders so if we click on the link it's a four-page document that um basically covers um our funding and our expenses um and this is a this is a very definite template not a lot of room for interpretation they tell us what we we need to um to explain and what the issues are and what the um um what we're planning if we haven't spent all our funding for um carryover for 1920 so this is on the webs it and um and it was included in
286the packet so if there are questions about this I can um respond to it but there's um it's it's a template that requires specific revenue and expenses for 2021 so that's the end of my presentation fabulous thank you very much and I'm wondering we have about maybe 10 minutes for questions and comments um because I don't see anyone who wants to speak during public comment so um is does anyone have any questions or comments for I just had a comment in terms of the thank you very much for for the numbers my last view of numbers budgets um I was curious in terms of the cafeteria Fund in terms of the enrollment of students uh a free reduced and and base um because looking at the the amount of money that has been spent because
287we've been providing meals to families um to children have we seen um that our um participation rate is the same it's more it's less because oh sorry it's actually less um our participation rate which is partly why we have to backfill um our expense our federal funding we're not getting as um our meals that we're preparing um they're not cover we're not um preparing as many meals so our reimbursement rate has gone down but we're we're paying we have pretty much we're saving a bit in our food cost but we're paying the same in our staffing costs right right so expect that to be ongoing for into the next year also to 2122 right and and we're we're it's good that we're able to provide lunches on the seamless summer so we're we're feeding um
288kids who need it we don't need as much um you know documentation to prove that we have to feed all our kids so we're getting our food where to our children who are needy thank you director BR thank you assistant uh superintendent Fallin B for your presentation um can you please go back to or superintendent Stevens can you go back um to the slide in regards to um The Learning loss mitigation funds okay thank you so much um can you um speak to two things number one the purpose of um these funds and also how these funds are used um directly to uh support our most vulnerable students well these funds are actually for the EP for the um pandemic so um we got funding from the state and the federal government to cover our
289costs um our covid related costs so um I don't it's um we're using them for um our PPE or we're we're um compensating staff for the 5% um we're we're um we're getting additional nurses so I don't I don't think it's particularly targeted I don't know if Dr Stevens wants to jump in but um we're we're paying for the bubble groups for the kids Village um our cohorts so yeah that's I might pick up there so um we are um you know funding the expenses with our phase one program through this re these Revenue sources um I think the board knows right now that all of that phase one programming is through partner organizations there are three of them in total U we were also able to expand summer programming by working with a few
290different partners including um area including uh edmo the science organization uh and then we're also planning uh for a tutoring program using some of this funding in fact um one of the contracts approved by the board in tonight's consent calendar will provide additional math and English language arts tutoring for students through RT Fisher uh and then as well we're planning ahead for expanded summer programming and that's both with these funds and then with other board set asides including the covid Equity Fund that was established by the board back in the summer okay thank you uh for speaking to that because it's my and and my follow-up question to that is what percentage of these funds are used to support those programs you were speaking to superintendent Stevens and the reason I'm asking that is because
291it's it's my understanding that these funds oops sorry it's my understanding that these funds um are supposed to be used um specifically for people um academic achievement and also to do exactly what the title of the funding um program is which is to mitigate learning LS um I'm not sure that I could speak to the percentage without actually going back and doing a little bit of homework um you can hear that there is a mix of expenses um generally all of these funds were were considered to be uncategorically they're unrestricted funds um and were meant to be used by districts to just support um operations through the pandemic um uh it's particularly in this category of the learning loss mitigation funding that they were making allocations um specifically for targeted um student groups including students
292who are English language Learners or who are unduplicated or who are um uh receiving special ed services so as we've been thinking about that that we've been looking particular to Target those student groups um with some of the the additional Partnerships that I just described okay I'd like to see um if you ever get a chance um you and Associate superintendent Fallen spe i' like to see um the percentages around um how much of that is used to um do what its intended purposes um and how much and what our um what our spending is especially um our our yeah es the percentages around our spinning sure we could provide that breakdown for you um I'll ask my question after someone else my second question well um why don't you go ahead and ask your
293question now and be brief because then director Sinai is up and then we're gonna wrap it up uh director sign I can go if that's okay with you president yeah of course Dr s I just have a quick question U Dr Stephen is when will the esac start to gear back up is it in January uh yes that's correct so at the special meeting on December 16th we'll be bringing the budget planning calendar um to the board for approval that will include all of the dates for sbac daac Pac EAC um and that's correct we'll begin the the budget building process as soon as we've got some numbers to work with from the governor's January budget great director Brown um that's okay thank you oh that's it is there does anyone else have any questions
294or comments do we have a motion do we have we have two items to pass one of them is an approval of the first interim budget report and the second item is the lcff budget overview for parents to approve that so do I have a motion on the first move the first interim moot by vice president Albert do I have a second a second seconded by director Brown um can we take a vote Yes director s yes director Lea Cutler yes director Miller yes director Brown yes vice president Alper yes president yes now do we have a motion to approve the lcff budget overview for parents I'm move that too okay motion by director I mean vice president Alper do I have a second second second by director Sinai can we take that vote director
295Brown yes director Lea Cutler yes director Miller yes director yes president Alper yes yes yay that was great you guys we made it through a very ambitious agenda tonight yes that was your last vote know it doesn't appear that there's any anyone who wants to speak to the Open Session the second open session of public testimony so is there anyone who wants to make an extended com I mean I know you kind of were I just want to thank everybody and the the board members and the staff for all your support as in my 12 years as I fumbled through questions and um you know just as and as a school board member so thank you for your patience and the Camarie that I have with all of you it's you know I take it
296with me I'll be here not leaving so thank you very much thank you thank you e a little bit of what director Cutler said and just really thank superintendent Stevens and all of the staff for all of your hard work and all of your support and your understanding your patience with all of us or with me I don't know um and I'm really gonna I'm really gonna miss you all so don't be strangers it w me okay good night by good night everyone byad bye bye Kad bye everyone good night everybody good job Pauline thanks thanks thanks you