001course good evening and welcome uh before the board re before sorry I lost my place here I would like to provide a brief overview of tonight's meeting a few procedural items will take place and then the board will hear 30 minutes of public comment at the end of the meeting there will be another and final opportunity for additional public comment so if you do not get to speak during the first call we encourage you to stay until the end of the meeting to do so to request to participate in public comment click on the partic ANS button at the bottom of your screen and select the raise your hand button when called upon you will be unmuted to comment by phone you will be prompted to raise your hand by pressing star n to request
002to speak during public comment uh when called upon once again you will be unmuted the board president will call our students first so if you are a student who wishes to speak tonight please add student at the end of your name the board president will determine whether to set tonight's speaking time at two or three minutes per speaker and on an individual basis also has the discretion to allow for extra time for those who need translation or have other speech needs when your time is at is has elapsed you will hear your time is up or you will see uh vice president oper hold up a a sign indicating that you're you have 15 seconds left and if you are still speaking you are allowed to finish your sentence but please try not to speak
003beyond your time thank you for for thank you thank you very much um now I'm going to very quickly go over what we're going to be covering tonight my name is Judy Appel and I'm the president of the school board and um so first we are going to get um a little report on our Clos session and then we're going to hear um Union comments committee comments and then public comment and then we have some items on our consent calendar um and then I think what perhaps there's the approval of a student new the new there's a new student information system which I don't think will impact most of you directly but it might um and then um we're going to have an update on the school reopening and then we're going to discuss um
004some policies and then an up update on our black lives matter um resolution passed a couple few months ago so um with that being said let's move on um and let's go ahead and um report out on the closed session I'm G to call on vice president Alber to do that um thank you do we do we need to call do we need to call Ro first or or is that did we did I miss we should call sure I was gonna do it afterwards but we can we should call the RO Liz can you do that of course um please of course director Lea Cutler director Lea Cutler present director Miles Miller presid director Kadija Brown pres director Julie Sinai here vice president aler president Appel president J Appel I'm here thank you very
005much Miss Titus now um why don't you go ahead vice president Apper all right thank you president Appel this is the report from closed session in item 3.1.1 BD case number 20202 1-16 there was a motion by director Lea Cutler seconded by director Sinai uh to approve the staff recommendation um president Appel voted in favor and the motion passed three to zero director Brown and myself were absent case number I mean item number 3.1.2 case number 21-17 there was a motion by director Sinai second by director La Cutler uh to approve the staff recommendation president Appel voted in favor and the motion passed three to nothing um myself and director Brown were both absent in item 3.1.3 ah case number 9637 the board heard an update and gave Direction in item 3.2.1 um District negotiation
006um or conference with real property negotiators the board heard an update and gave Direction uh collective bargaining um 3.3.1 Berkeley Federation of teachers the board heard an update and gave Direction 3.3.2 Berkeley Council of classified employees the board heard an update and gave Direction item 3.3.3 Local 21 the board heard an update and gave Direction and item 3.3.4 Union of Berkeley administrators the board heard an update and gave Direction and that concludes the report from close session back to you president Appel thank you very much vice president Alper very soon well we'll see but um so now we're going to go ahead and move to public testimony I said the order wrong before and we have a lot of people who want to speak tonight so I'm actually GNA suggest we give everybody a minute
007and a half um will you time that um vice president Alber a minute and a half and at 15 seconds you will give everyone a notice okay have several students here um why don't we start with Austine Salu president Alber Appel yes can uh did we do a motion to approve the agenda I'm sorry oh I'm so sorry oh you know I'm messing up my last meeting so much okay so let's approve the agenda and I think we need to PLL item um consent item 11.1 Z out and vote on it separately because I think we have a um Julie s might have a conflict on that issue so um I'm going to make a motion that we approve the agenda with item 11.10 being voted on separately under consent I'll second have a second
008I'll second seconded by director Brown okay um Miss Titus do you want to take rooll director hler yes director Sinai yes director Miller yes director Brown yes vice president Alper yes president Appel yes see we all do this together it's a beautiful togetherness opportunity um all right so let's go ahead and do Open Session and I'm gonna give everybody a minute and a half to speak and Ty is going you should keep your eye on vice president Alper window because he will hold up a sign do you want to hold it up to show people at 15 seconds and then he's going to tell you sign hold up another one when your time's up all right so moving on I'm gonna call on Austine Salu and then after Austine Spencer pul Pike I really want
009to go back to school because I miss my friends my teachers and all the field trips I don't like being in front of the computer almost all day my little sister sister who is in kindergarten always ask ask when the zoom is finished and we and when we we go to Bam I think we should go back to school because I'm used to wear to wear a mask all day and my little sister who was five can wear a mask all day too thank you that was excellent um public comment um our next student that's going to speak is Spencer Pike and then I'm going to go to Charlotte Thornton hi I'm Spencer I'm a Berkeley High School student um my experience of distance learning has been you know not as good as I expected
010it's been really difficult to keep up with the workload especially since content is going twice as fast and you know half the time um I know my teachers are struggling as well it's definitely an adjustment for all of us and um I know a lot of my friends are struggling as well because of the stress the social isolation uh as the previous speaker just said it is hard to not see your teachers it is hard not to see your fellow students uh and a return to school would definitely benefit all of us obviously you know we should be safe and all that but I would appreciate it if the board would um consider making a plan if possible um to return to school thank you very much right thank you very very much um Charlotte
011Thorton hello hi my name is Charlotte Thornton can can you guys hear me okay perfect uh my name is Charlotte thoron I'm the senior class president at Berkeley High School I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you about the concerns of the senior class while we recognize these current conditions are extraordinary and uncertainty is something that we are trying to live with we as a class are tired of situation I'm here tonight because I've received some questions from the student body since covid cases are at an all-time high for Alam County will that affect berky High School reopening is there a possibility just upper classmen could return to campus and is there a plan for independent study students since they are a smaller group if the school board doesn't intend for seniors to go back
012to in-person school is there a plan to explore in-person social events at graduation it's clear that the seniors are unhappy with our current situation as we all are and we would like to see the school board support Berkeley High as much as they can I look forward to learning your responses later thank you so much thank you very much um I believe that's our last student um oh no ad Weber oh no let's see there's ad Weber and then ultraviolet Schneider hi can you hear me yes okay um so I'm a sophomore at Berkeley High um and as much as I think we all can recognize that this is a very difficult time for everybody um if we can go back to school or have like a hybrid plan in some way I think that
013would be really really effective because a lot of people are tired of distance learning and we can't be as effective as we'd like to be I know a lot of my students my fellow peers um aren't doing so well academically and they don't feel like they're learning too much and um AP courses are going very very fast um and it's very hard to learn and have connections with teachers um communication is very difficult um some teachers don't have the time to email back um all their students and create bonds that are really necessary in order to have um a productive class so I think if we can push um a little harder and try to have a hybrid plan I think that would be really beneficial for all Berkeley High students so thank you thank
014you so much okay well seeing no other students I am going to go to Linda Clark and you have a minute and wait um president Appel ultraviolet Schneider is still the last student oh I'm sorry Ultra slider I'm sorry go ahead that was my fault no worries can you guys hear me yes okay um hi I'm ultraviolet I'm the associated student body vice president of Berkeley High and I also an independent study student and I really just wanted to make my message on here that I think that a hybrid plan would be the most suitable I have witnessed firsthand and I'm also experiencing trouble with distance learning and I do want to speak on behalf of the independent studies program that I think it would be you know remotely safer for us as a group
015to go back as well just because we have individualized schedules we have less um we have less people in our classes and it overall could be safe and I see it happening I also want to speak on behalf um of the art students and Performing Arts students at Berkeley High um I am in afro Haitian dance this year and I would love to see if we could get music classes and dance classes back and mainly just arts classes as well um on campus in some way I think that that kind of contact contact is really important even though it doesn't require physical contact by any means um unlike Sports um unlike physical contact Sports so if we could get the arts classes to somehow be on campus or even remotely that would be um great
016so that's all I wanted to say but thank you thank you m very much I'm sorry I almost skipped over you so now let's go to Linda Clark Miss Clark hi good evening everybody I would like to um first acknowledge that this is not an easy time for anybody obviously it is causing multiple different difficulties for everybody however having said that I I really want address something that was said at a previous board meeting where um somebody said um it's always the same people speaking and they're always saying the same thing and this person was exactly right um I am always saying the same thing because I truly believe it's too dangerous to go back to school I read a lot of stuff from all around the country and different places in the world and
017schools that open close down again because the people in those schools get infected ected and I also read studies about different illnesses that are happening through covid and even though children do not apparently get as sick as adults but what they are getting they found in a study in the UK that um most of the kids that were uh tested in fans have type 1 diabetes had also tested positive for covid the numbers of type 1 diabetes and children doubled this year so there are multiple of these studies and understand people want to go back to work but it's it's too much of a risk even if you don't get sick and die you could have a lifelong disability to me that's just too serious to even risk going back thank you thank you very
018much um next we're gonna have Jonas lamerie Brownell and then Jose thank you good evening everyone my name is Jonas lamry Brownell and I'm BD's heric Hospital teacher teaching psychiatric hospitalized Adolescence in grades 6 through 12 in multiple subjects and I also now serve first to fourth grade students in their families in BD's assisted homeschool program I'm so fortunate to have such meaningful challenging and inspiring work I humbly suggest that we B USD as a whole listen to Public Health Science by making it clear to ourselves and the community the community spread of covid-19 must come down to a low level or an end before we engage or continue iners contacts and that in the meantime we must focus on continuing to responsibly improve and enhance distance learning and BD services to all students and
019families particularly those hardest hit through this extraordinary pandemic in less than a year our nation has lost more than three times the American combat deaths in the entire n-year us war on Vietnam let us step off the roller coaster of rising falling and then again Rising Community spread of this killer disease let us remind ourselves that until our authorities do enact the real solutions that other nations have achieved we must support each other be creative and prioritize the most vulnerable and most needy thank you Jonas thank you okay now I'd like to go to um Jose and then Emily apt and then Melissa Corgan good evening everyone my name is Jose and I am a member of the community teachers and students caucus ion bam that has been protesting the reopening of schools and I
020do want to Echo what the last speakers have said today America crossed the line of over a quarter million death in the country New York City closed uh schools tomorrow effectively because the numbers of covid cases around the country are spiking all over California is not the exception Berkeley is not the exception either and children are not the exception two out of five people according to the CDC are a symptomatic that number is higher on children we don't know the long-term effects of Co it to be placing children on classes even if it's a small groups it's irresponsible it's dangerous this board should not be aiding it is not your job to help businesses and corporations you know have free daycare in the schools so that parents can go back to work it's your job
021to provide quality education for students and that means improving the quality of Education black and Latino students are not as privileged to be calling for reopening of the schools they need resources online education by lingual education safe education thank you thank you very much Jose um now I'm gonna have Emily up and then Melissa Corgan and then Jack Harris hi everybody um on behalf of all Berkeley's kids I want to personally beg bft to publish a list of objective measurable conditions that would enable them to support the reopening of schools they've been asked multiple times for this but so far have not given any if they genuin genuinely want to reopen as soon as possible which is what they say they should make it Crystal Clear what that would involve what bft has said so
022far is extremely vague and basically the the goal posts could shift indefinitely for example bft often mentions testing as a stumbling block but what what how how do they want testing done exactly how often and for whom other times they mention the vaccine but when the vaccine is released well they then say we have to wait until X perent of the population take it this is not good faith negotiating this is just stalling also lastly in regards to middle school and high school kids they've been shut out for eight months now and have gotten zero information about reopening plans why the silence these students already devastated by months of lack of social interaction deserves to at least be given some hope in the form of a reopening Target date thank you thank you very much
023um I'm gonna turn now to Melissa Corgan thank you um Berkeley parents teachers and caregivers all care deeply about Berkeley students and we want what's best for the entire community looking at the superintendent's plan and the preparations for reopening I can understand how a well-presented plan gives hope but because we care so deeply about each student we must acknowledge that plans on paper don't equate to Safety in real life for real human interactions with children those who attended the district testing event recently may have seen that the district's plan for testing did not translate into the perfect reality that was hoped for now the learning will commence now we are told next time it will be better this would be enough if we didn't care so fervent for every child but the number of cases
024is rising the virus has also mutated is more contagious than it was when we first closed the schools schools set the tone for the community by continuing to open prematurely we are sending the wrong message I am not willing to stand by while plans are tinkered with mistakes are made at the risk of lives lost because people are tired of staying the course closing the schools only sheds light on the problems facing families unemployment lack of affordable housing ins efficient Child Care systematic racism providing food counseling we are not capable of addressing every social problem please turn your attention instead to your state and federal reg regulators and legislators who have allowed these problems to continue instead of looking at getting back to normal let's focus on getting it right thank you Miss Corgan I'm
025gonna go to Jack Harris and then Claudia Ira Ziri and then Matt Weber hi um our daughter attends kindergarten at Sylvia Mendes and we love her teacher and support staff um but it's heartbreaking to see her miss this crucial year of inperson schooling most importantly because her Social Development is stagnating and we had gone to Great Lengths to limit her screen time and now she's experiencing her first year through a computer screen um I hope these youngest kids will get at least a small Taste of the kindergarten that all of us experienced when we were kids we understand the risk of family members and teachers but the harm to students particularly the youngest students is real cumulative and ongoing the city of Berkeley Public Health officer said it was safe to reopen on October 13th
026if ready and my wife and I were extremely disappointed to hear that the bosd was not in fact ready and we hope you know that the school district will stick to the targeted January 13th reopening thank you thank you very much next I'm gonna call on Claudia isir and then I noticed there's a student who just signed up and his name is Matthew GTI I'm gonna put put him in after um Claudia can you guys hear me yes so my name is Claudia as I am a parent I'm a Latina parent not that I like to self identify but we hear people mention that so I have a sixth grader he is considered a success and he is online he is checked in he has his camera on but he is looking at 10 pranks
027that went too far on YouTube and he is watching Minecraft and that's because I'm working during the day because I'm a working mom so he's one of your successful distance learning students he's at he's at Willard where the teachers are doing the very best they can and I have a fourth grader syia mendz so she was assessed last month for re at a second grade reading level at the exact same level L that she was assessed at in March now actually I would be devastated by that as my fourth grader yeah but I know actually she reads better than that because she has an IEP and she doesn't read well on screen so she was read in person she'd probably be end of third grade but this is what's happening under distance learning we all
028know it's not working and it's not the teacher's fault it doesn't work and what really I have to ask you here everyone on the board is for the public for the opening the schools should be a public health decision Public Health officials we need to listen to science so we're not going to let parents decide when to open the schools we're not going to let teachers who are professional Educators decide when to open the schools we're going to follow the science of you know of our County Health officials Doc and Dr Lisa Hernandez that said the schools could open on October 13th and had we been ready our children would have gotten some schooling before we went back into purple and it's highly likely we'll be back in yellow byan January 19th so let's please
029hold to the Target date I love the Berkeley public schools and to tell my CH my sixth grader he's not going back is really heartbreaking thank you very much now I'm going to go to um what I who did I just say the student oh he's up there that's okay so go ahead Matthew uh hi my name is Matthew gady and I'm a senior at Berkeley High um I would just really appreciate the exploration of an in school option because like I would consider myself like successful in this learning environment and I really feel that like I haven't learned much at all Communications with teachers is pretty stunted a lot of teachers of mine are overwhelmed and it's not really their fault but it's just it's a really big struggle trying to learn things with
030like um with a complete lack of communication between teachers and I think a lot of us aren't really asking like to force going back to school but just the exploration of an in school option especially students I can't hear you anymore Matthew can you maybe move to somewhere where you sorry can you can you hear me now we can hear him yeah yeah good um and just like yeah as I was saying like a lot of students are doing a lot worse than me a lot of my friends are struggling even more and I think that like in terms of like since we're all seniors like in terms of preparing for college it's it's just really difficult doing that without any type of communication between teachers and students and any real learning going on and
031a lot of like studying habits and just like basic schooling is kind of falling apart in my mind so yeah thank you very much and um now I'm going to go to Matt Weber and then to um Nova blazz and then to trist ofel bur uh thank you my name is Matt Weber yeah thank you my name is Matt Weber I'm a parent of a Bam um um second grader U and uh I would Echo a few points previously mentioned but just really stress again this is a decision that should be made by the public health official um and has been very strongly stated as has in many other counties uh throughout the Bay Area that schools should reopen there's been a lot of documented uh press uh and reports about uh you know damage
032to brain development as a result of extended screen time and uh you know we're basically using our kids as test subjects to prove uh you know long-term impacts to their brain development because we can't follow the public health officials direction that school should reopen and uh I'm concerned for students that uh um are already part of the achievement Gap uh that achievement graap is growing ever so widely uh you know not to mention the social emotional well-being of our kids and I'll tell you um for myself and other parents I've spoken to the amount of anxiety uh that there are around uh children because they're not having those social actions and you know having time in the social emotional toolbox Etc is really heartbreaking so I would encourage the board and teachers to really prepare
033for reopening as been stated and to not move any uh goalpost uh to be very firm in the decisions that have been made to reopen in January thank you Mr W so now we're gonna go with um to NOA blazz and I just want to say that we will hear from 10 more people in this um sorry in this um public comment and then public testimony period and then everyone else we hope you'll stick around till the end of the meeting so go ahead Nova good evening my name is Nova BL I'm here with my husband Ian Moore we're parents of two Berkeley High daughters and freshman and a sophomore and I'd first like to start off by thanking everyone with the Berkeley Unified School District who's who's working I just tremendous gratitude for everything
034that everyone is doing right now we're participating tonight because we are in favor of going back to school um I want to Echo Matt Weber's previous comments about really following the lead of our Public Health officials and their recommendations and really want to encourage the school board to put out the clear plan a clear plan that has been asked for in the past I also want to acknowledge that right now in particular is a very scary time to talk about reopening given the current increase in Corona virus cases but nonetheless I really want to encourage you in your leadership to be as courageous as possible to move forward to tell our community that you're being courageous for students for and for the entire community and that it can be done safely and that you will
035open I share similar concerns about our our daughters being in front of the screen for hours on end and not to mention the increasing um impact this has on inequity in our community we received email from one of our teachers saying that they're concerned about kids not having their cameras on during Zoom classes I asked my daughter about that and she said that she knows that some of those kids are having family problems and that's why their cameras are not on so as a community we need to pull together please listen to health officials and thank you very much thank you thank you very much next we'll have trissa pel Bernstein and then Evette farara and then Hannah margalis Cassel hello can you hear me yes hi my name is Tristan I'm a Berkeley High
036graduate it and not talking about school reopening I wanted to talk about the uh transgender and gender non-conforming policy just want to put my word in in support of that I'm a gender career student I went through uh kindergarten through junior year I um tested graduated early but um I think that it is really important in Berkeley a community that has so many gender expansive students and I just see that um increasing in you know as we continue to get more Progressive um for teachers to have training in language around gender non-conforming students um I had a lot of teachers that I felt supported me but I also had a lot of teachers that I didn't feel understood and um in such a uh gender diverse Community I think that's really important I also just
037do want to comment on what I have heard about schools reopening I'm no longer in Berkeley I'm in the UC system and I'm living in a county that has extremely High covid cases and it is like terrifying to go outside you can't really go into grocery stores because um the numbers are so high you don't have the kind of trust in your neighbors that you have in Berkeley um and so I really think that we don't want Berkeley to be like that we want to feel safe in our city Berkeley is a great place so um more just to the students I know it sucks but it's worth it in the long run so um have a good night everyone thank you Tris um so now IET and then um Hannah margalis Cassel and then
038Dylan Des desuta Des Gupta IET farara I teach at Martin Luther King Middle School I teach ELD and Avid Excel and Humanities and I'm speaking on behalf of the Equal Opportunity Now by any means necessary on bam caucus um bam has been organizing to stop the school reopenings and we've been picketing outside the three schools that have started the phase one reopening and in talking to parents and families that are going in we found that the majority of the families that we do talk to actually completely agree it's not safe um they wouldn't be sending their kids to the schools if the school district had provided more support for their children including teachers and instructional assistance um technology and technological support or even bilingual support and that's something that this District can and needs to
039do and it's in your power to do it and it has to happen because parents and family shouldn't be set up to feel like they have no choice but to send their children into a situation that's completely dangerous we're being told Now by public health officials not to gather in households Beyond three in any situation each one of these cohorts in phase one is 8 to 14 or more children if the cohorts expand it's completely insane and so the past two weeks everything or month everything has changed in California and to put it as a parent said it two weeks ago after someone said that a parent had died another parent who worked in an ER said it's like watching a slow moving train wreck that's your time Isa thank you very much um and
040now I'm going to move on to Margalit casselle and I just want say that right now we're gonna end with kolina z z zamorano but if anyone before her feels like conceding their time will'll let somebody else talk that's further down the list okay go ahead Hanah good evening my name is Hannah margalis kessle and I've been a kindergarten teacher at Washington and a bft member for over a decade I'm deeply concerned that the district has opened phase one and plans to continue to stay open despite the county and most of the state moving back to the purple tier it is not safe for anyone to return to campus but the specific groups targeted by phase one are espcially vulnerable so firstly USC's special ed and English learner populations are disproportionately black and latinx which
041are the precise groups that have some of the highest covid-19 infection and death rates additionally many special ed students have health conditions that make them particularly vulnerable to the virus and make social distancing and maske wearing impossible and lastly many of our elll students live in multigenerational homes with older relatives who are yet another vulnerable group we cannot ask our most vulnerable children and their families to risk their lives in order to receive an education instead we need to find ways to make distance learning work as a district that holds Equity as a top priority VC can find innovative ways to support these groups in distance learning by offering services like translators joining ELD Zoom classes online tutoring home visits for students with special needs I urge the board to shut down phe one immediately
042and move forward in a way that reflects a commitment to the safety and academic achievement of all students by providing more resources for distance learning rather than asking some of our most vulnerable to put their lives at risk thank you thank you very much so now we're going to move to David schroer and then Amanda Amanda to and then Anastasia sakati oh I probably destroyed that last name I'm sorry David I think it's Dylan disc I'm sorry it's Dylan Dylan is there oh well I don't so I don't I think he must have lowered his hand so Amanda to president he's on the screen Dylan oh he is yeah all right go ahead Dylan love to hear from you hi I'm Dylan des scupa and I am in sixth grade at King Middle School I
043just started my new school this fall for me Middle School was a big deal so I was really excited now I feel sad and depressed whenever I have to log onto my classes when I do I want to cry I've never even met any of my teachers or classmates distance learning does not work for me and many other kids across Berkeley I understand that in March schools had to close but when I heard it I trusted you guys to get me and my friends back to school when it was safe it's been eight months now and I've not heard a word about Middle School's opening so please open the schools as soon as possible thank you Dylan now I'm going to go to Amanda toek and um I I noticed somebody did lower his hand
044so I'm going to go through to Kathy erson um can you all hear me oh I see my name okay um good evening my name is Amanda toric and I teach social studies to the 12th grade classes in both the Arts and Humanities program and multilingual program at Berkeley High School I'd like to speak to you about the logistical realities at the high school the realities of what we are calling a hybrid model of learning would be impossible to implement at BHS with the necessary health and safety specs on a given day I teach about 60 students who also take two other classes a day with different groups of students and teachers a substantial decrease from our sixth period schedule but still quite a lot of context a hybrid model would create an extremely high
045level of bubble mixing and would render it impossible to contain any infections that arise our students at the high school are vulnerable to this disease I've already had students get sick and have complications caution is not just for staff and parents they are necessary for students as well furthermore a hybrid model would mean an entirely new schedule for all of BHS which typically takes our counselors months to make it means students would be switching teachers midyear and placed into classrooms with peers they've never met before as many of our students struggle with Mental Health and Social connection pulling apart small schools and established classroom dynamics would be devastating right now just over a third of our seniors in the multilingual program are not in the B Bay Area and several not in the US this
046board continually discusses making offerings to our most vulnerable students oh sorry thank you for your time thank you thank you very much um n next I have Anastasia Sak s thank you president Anastasia is fine um I would like to bring to the attention of everyone attending that there is an online petition uh for the uh intensification of efforts uh from the district to um prepare our schools for safe reopening once it's again uh Allowed by public health officials it's available at buusd parents.com and I would like to bring up two points about that first of all if we want to talk about huge districts like New York we should see that after eight weeks of uh imp instruction there has been it has been proven that virus transmissions in schools was very low and
047there are no proven links so far to the current spikes which are linked to restaurants and bars which surprisingly are not closing down with um these new restrictions regarding student Co testing that was signaled by the teachers union as a um a a a a hurdle to come over in order to reopen there are doctors at UCSF who have been setting up schools for staff and student Tes all this time and confirming testimonials at the website that there is a workable system to follow so the system is there and we can follow it and lastly I hear that the hybrid model uh is another hurdle and I think as a parent uh speaking I would like to see structure and social interaction as it will be a transitional period for anyone uh the the reopening
048and it will be up to the specific groups to decide how much Conta content and what balance of content will be available at the time thank you very much thank you very much okay next I'm going to go to Lisa fredman and then um karolina zamano and end with Kathy erson thank you so much I just wanted to say for those who are talking about this being about going back to work this is not about going back to work this is about our kids the concerns about being out of school are about the effects on our children and those effects as we all know are educational social emotional Developmental and honestly we're not talking about the Obesity issue kids sitting at home sitting on screens not getting exercise all of these things are major long-term
049long-term health concerns I work with kids and we're going to see the impacts of this for a really long time we should be looking at the science we should be opening when the public health you know Public Health experts in general are saying it is safe to do so pediatricians from UCSF and in New York and around the country are saying it's safe to do so there's districts who figured out how to do it even with numbers than Berkeley so I know we can't do it right now because we're in the purple but I would strongly urge the district to spend this time wisely spend every minute right now to get every single piece in place so that we can open up as soon as we are back in red and we're given the signal
050that it's safe to do so I was extremely disappointed that we were unable to open in October and I see the effects on children around around Berkeley so my urging is just that and two more quick points is one at the middle school level I'm super disappointed that math is twice a week while we're in distance why can't we at least have a meaningful math curriculum I'm going to add that and last thing is is there any way that fourth and fifth grade can have PE because it's not happening and normally it happens at school but from distance there's no PE so literally our kids are getting no exercise that's all I'd say I know it's a super hard time thank you to the district for everything you're doing but more for your comments okay
051kolina zaparo yes I'm kolina samorano I teach Spanish at King Middle School um so first thing when I uh woke up this morning and I read the New York Times is that they're closing the schools and these ghost uh and uh because of the numbers are going up and here we are talking about opening still talking about opening the schools and first I want to say to those children who talk at the beginning I feel I fa you I this is hard guys I I totally understand and and we deal with that it is hard it is not the ideal way to learn it's not the ideal word to to teach for me either I want to see my students I want to be with them but we need to wait because we're living in
052this extraordinary circumstances and we need to be patient and we need to go back to school when it's safe for everyone we don't want to open the schools and then close the schools because there case of cids uh and and then you're going to be devastated because we had to open and then everyone is going to go back to your to home and uh so we need to be patient we need to understand that we we have to do this in a safe way we don't want you to get sick we don't want your family to get sick and please we need resources to to to to okay sorry that's all that's okay thank you very much Kathy erson I'm Gonna Let You Go and then I'm gonna I think with everybody else I'm gonna
053let everyone speak except if you can try to keep it down to a minute that would be great I mean you'll have a minute and a half because everyone else has but you know if you can try to be as to the point as possible that would be great and so um I'm gonna actually make the last person Mrs Amanda cardno go ahead you ready yep okay um I have an elementary school student a second grader and two high school students um I understand the risk the teachers students families communities they're real our whole family has already had covid but the harm to students and families it greatly outweighs the risk as long as you open safely Berkeley UniFi is so disappointing to me that they had no plan on October 13th do not let
054it surprise you again we will be in the we will be out of the purple and I need you guys to have a plan the health department states that schools have had have who have reopened for inperson instructions are not required to close if their County moves back to the widespread purple which is where we are um but personally I expect you to show your plan to expand your current opening that being said I heard the teacher the female teacher who said that a parent agreed with her picketing and I don't believe this represents parent parents who are um they're watching their kids go into school while teachers or whoever that is is picketing them come on um now for my high school students um the fact that there's no plan at all to reopen
055the high school um or any aspects of the high school including small cohorts or sports or other activities is also disappointing I'd like to see that on the docket um and now I have moved my second grader to a private school he hasn't been he cannot zoom okay he cannot do it he hasn't been in school since March he is not failing academically he does find that way he's suffering from anxiety he doesn't sleep anymore you know he he's got all sorts of problems that are really challenging for us and for oh you're welcome um next I'm gonna go to Antoine and then Kathy oh are you and then Katherine W okay hello everybody so be Unified School District you have decided under the pressure of teacher Union to not reopen schools because it's not
056100% safe USD people teachers you have decided to sacrifice or kids education for your own 100% safety causing severe health and mental issues for some of our kids thus be people teachers as you think that personal safety related to covid is more important to all damages it's cing to our society I'm inviting you not to go to the hospital anymore because it's not 100% safe for doctors or nurses on duty I'm inviting you not to go to the grocery store anymore because it's not 100% safe for Cashers on duty I'm inviting you not to order online anymore because it's not 100% safe for warehouse workers on duty I'm inviting you not to call the police anymore because it's not 100% safe for policemen on duty I'm inviting you not to call Firefighters anymore because it's
057not 100% safe for firefighters on duty I'm inviting you not to put your children in any private school preschool or theyare anymore like Mr Meer president of B play Federation of teachers did as it's not 100% safe for teachers and Duty I'm inviting you to stay home during holid days and avo resar restaurants like the ones or Governor seems to enjoy because it's not 100% safe for chefs and Duty finally I'm inviting you to spend Thanksgiving at home without any guest with fresh fully thank you thank you thank you um now I'm going to call on Katherine W and then and shamik and then Virginia grou Catherine can you hear me now yep hi my name is Katherine wski I'm a parent of an Emerson student um I want to encourage BSD to be ready
058to open for kids that want to go back at the very next opportunity we have my first grader is suffering from a lack of in-person teaching and not seeing his friend every day is a new battle we have successfully had our preschooler in person since September and while there has been ups and downs and closures and uh days we've had to take off because he's had a a sniffle um overall has been great those that can't afford it are going to leave to go to other places private schools and cam spring disadvantage to other students now we've gone into the purple and we were're not open already we cannot open until numbers are down I hope this will be in January but there are no guarantees it's very frustrating um there are ways to safely
059open such as holding outdoor classes other places have demonstrated this very successfully I'm ask asking the district to be ready to open at the next opportunity we have and to actually open safely for those that want it for Effective in-person Education on the very first day that we can please thank you next I'm going to call on shika the scupa yeah hi uh this comment is a about uh political polarization actually so I really want school to reopen as soon as possible so I joined this Facebook group uh with that mission and it turns out that half the people there are these like covid denying lunatics who think that Biden and the clintons are coming for your children it's kind of wild they don't trust scientists uh who tell them that Co is real and
060they refuse to wear masks and won't take vaccines and honestly I'm really grateful that our community has no time for that brand of nonsense at the same time half the people at these meetings also don't trust uh scientists when local Health officials said it was safe to open over five weeks ago many people here refused to listen and they talked as if opening is the road to like Armageddon and they're hellbent on keeping schools shut even when they're directly contradicted expert advice so what I want to say is that both these attitudes are completely beside the point public policy should not be guided by armchair epist epidemiologists of which there are many these days regardless of whether they come from the weird alt-right or whether they come from supposedly Progressive circles public policy must be
061guided by scientific expertise and that alone everything else is noise so my question for the board and the superintendent is this are you willing to stand up for evidence-based policy and if so I invite you to commit this evening to reopen schools as soon as as Lisa Hernandez deems it safe thank you very much and now I'm going to turn to Virginia guier and then Katie love and then David schroer and then end end with Mrs cardno hi can you hear me yep okay um I just want to say that you had an opportunity to open and you missed it and now we're going to have to wait months and in the meantime schools that already open can stay open so I have personally lost all faith in the district I have lost all faith
062in public schools here in berley and right now I just wish I had the money to send my kids to private schools like you do Mr Stevens because I recently learned that your daughter Mr Stevens has never set a foot in public school and I understand now more the lack of urgency that you show to reopen the public schools that you are in charge of thank you right um Katie love hi thank you for calling on me I'm Katie I'm a parent of children at Washington Elementary School and I was extremely disappointed that we did not reopen in October we did not move with more urgency as a district when we were given permission from the public health officer our family had been patiently a waiting that moment for months for seven months at that
063point I want to underscore what others have emphasized already with the real continuous negative impact that closed schools have on our children and I'm worried that b USD may not reopen at all this year distance learning is not working for our family no innovation or experimentation will make a material difference in that a vaccine for children is years away we cannot wait we cannot wait for these children I urge the school board to intensify reopening efforts thank you all so much for your support to our children thank you very much now I'm gonna go to David shudder good evening a wonderful school board and staff I appreciate your ongoing work in these very hard times we know covid-19 determines our realities we only control how we respond and I miss and I care about my
064independent study students and we're all experiencing trauma and grief and everyone deserves Mental Health and Social time but not by endangering our physical health being in denial or bargaining despite our grief won't change the facts and the fact is that grouping people together continues to endanger Public Health I know how the conditions at my school would be they're just not safe we don't have the space we can't act on wishes we must not commit to arbitrary reopening deadlines that's been the path to overflowing mortuaries um as the school board continues meeting only via Zoom the rest of us can follow suit until we suppress transmission please keep everyone safe thank you now I'm GNA end with Mrs cardino um you are next and um you will be our last speaker before we carry on with
065the rest of our meeting thank you to the board good evening everyone can you guys hear me yes okay thank you I I didn't have too much prepared but I am a teacher a bft union member and I'm also a parent of two kids um in bu USD uh both an incoming kindergartener um who spent her first year on zoom and an eighth grader who is transitioning to the high school and I just want to be very brief and just say that I want to urge us to reconsider um the reopening plans that we have for phase one it's not safe um I see uh when my eighth grader simply has a cold as she has an immuno compromised system she is in the hospital in the emergency room for one to three days and
066I couldn't imagine sending her or getting anyone in my family six as I am in a multi-generational household I recommend that we reconsider uh putting our kids and our community in an unsafe position to continually continually spread this virus that we do not have a handle on on uh thank you thank you very much and with that um I see that two other people open rais their hands after um I said I was going to take the remaining people and so if you can wait until the end of the meeting we'll have another opportunity for public comment at that point um so now I'm going to move on to the union comments um I know we have a bft we have bft comments um who has those I will be sharing my screen momentarily is
067that you Liz yes okay evening board members and Dr Steven oops I'm Janine wadell vice president of the Berkeley Federation of teachers I'm also a first grade science teacher at Washington Elementary where I've worked for almost 10 years bft continues to work with BD to find models for hybrid learning that meet the requirements of state law and preserve the structures of our distance learning program for students who will choose that option while also meeting the needs of those who Hope to come to school in person however sadly and despite the best efforts of so many people covid infection rates have taken a turn for the worst in our city county state and Nation with Alam County falling back into the purple tier that represents widespread covid infections we need to face some hard facts about
068the bosd timeline for elementary reopenings there is nothing in our current situation to indicate that rates will fall by January 13th people are traveling and Gathering teachers are hearing their students talk about plans to go on an airplane drive for a long time or host visitors from all over the country these cherished Traditions will inevitably result in more infections many of which will become apparent in early January whether or not the January date is possible there is much to be done before we are ready to offer in-person learning we encourage the entire School Community to participate in the town halls and educator advisory groups that bosd will hold over the next few weeks we know that more focused Outreach will be needed to learn about what our least connected students and families need and we
069encourage the district to make every effort to get that input as well we think it is incredibly important to be honest with the community about the tradeoffs that will be necessary and the challenges that remain one of the challenges that remain is covid testing for staff and students epidemiologists recommend a very high rate of testing of all staff and students yet it remains a major hurdle for many districts including B USD as we watch in dismay while the infection rates rise in our area and we we learn of a case in one of our schools the need for a robust testing program becomes even more obvious we appreciate the superintendence agreement to change this item on the reopening dashboard to reflect the current realities of our testing program testing must be easy for people to
070do it must honor their time so that they can keep their focus on the important work that they are doing for students we need testing to be available at school sites we need employees to be able to make appointments rather than standing in hours long lines we need clear and accurate communication about the procedures that must be followed and when problems arise we need prompt responses and assistance from District leaders our entire Community is preparing to put the safety of their children and families in our hands they need to know that we are actually ready to open safely the ability to frequently and reliably test students and staff is an essential component of our Readiness thank you very much Janine well she's I don't know she's on but um I will um I do know
071that we have one committee I don't see any other um Union member reps but I will go ahead and call on Robert Collier who wants to speak on behalf of the PTA PTA Council Robert yeah great good evening everybody um uh I am first i' like to just say what I'm not here to talk about I'm not here to Advocate about reopening because there's no consensus in the PTA Council uh as there has not been for many months this is a time of pain of on all sides uh those who had covid those who can't return to school because of P personal health risks and vulnerability to covid and those who are desperate to return because they have suffered deprivation trauma and educational backsliding in distance learning um parent Community is unfortunately very humanly deeply
072divided by this we deeply respect people on all sides of this issue and also our teachers who are truly on the front line of any and all scenarios and and of course last but not least the BD Administration who are damned if you do and damned if you don't and I personally think you've been making the best of a brutally thankless and impossible job uh we very much appreciate the series of town halls that you're going to be holding starting tomorrow however on formally on behalf of the PTA Council I I do want to Advocate on two related issues in which we do have consensus first of all flu shots uh the flu of course can be severe especially for children and of course covid can be severe or fatal but a potential combination of
073the two is even more dangerous the flu symptoms are very similar to those of covid as we know so the appearance of these symptoms in school pools once they reopen could cause havoc and great uh uh uh problems so we need to prevent the spread of the flu we want to encourage flu vaccinations the flu vaccine exists now it is safe and it works absolutely everyone should get vaccinated children parents grandparents everyone now we understand it can't be made mandatory I've inquired and I'm told that uh the city views it as not not politically viable because there are too many antivaxers in town uh but in any case the PT do want to offer our support to encourage and help families uh get their kids vaccinated especially High needs families without health coverage um so
074I'm here to suggest that uh bosd partner with the city of Berkeley for flea free flu shots for high needs families in some way that makes it easy for parents to do it I'm told it can't be at the Ed hub for various per various perfectly reasonable reasons logistical and otherwise but find an easy location that makes it easy for families to do this to get their kids and themselves vaccinated the ptas will help spread the word we'll volunteer to help with the flu shots at the at the flu stations so if you can work it out with the city on this we'll be more than glad to help the second issue um is Hotspots for families without internet this has been discussed for quite a while to deal with you know the various uh
075families who um you know don't have good internet access um we need to have high-speed internet two houses uh we strongly suggest that BD partner with an internet company for example Sonic fiber uh to houses if there happens to be an initiative all already underway to do this we encourage you to move forward as quickly as possible to get um internet to all the families who need it those are my comments thanks very much all right thank you very much um Robert I appreciate your speaking on behalf of the PTA Council um I don't think there are any other Committee Member reps or Union reps who want to speak so I'm just going to move on to the board member um board member comments and the superintendent comments um why don't I start with you
076Julie director SI I mean thank you um I want to start off by thanking um everybody who participated in public comment this evening um I know it's no small feat to take your Wednesday evening um to be on another Zoom meeting and to share your perspectives and I think as numerous people have already said um there is no consensus on this issue um and things are um often polarized to where um there's the perception that we cannot open until a vaccine is available for everybody to uh Public Health officer said we can open so we should be opening our doors and we should have done it you know yesterday um and the reality is we're somewhere in the middle and we need to do intelligent and intentional work in order to make our reopening safe
077um I want to just say that you know we are in the purple mostly across the state but particularly in Alama County because we're seeing an increase we are not surging in Alama County we are not spiking in Alam County but the state is being extremely cautious in order to keep the curve low and to flatten it so while we talk about abiding by public health orders I really um hope that all of my colleagues all of our families all of our teachers and our staff are abiding by the public health orders of this holiday season because it's really our Collective effort that is going to keep us um with the ability of moving back into red orange and eventually yellow hopefully in January and February uh because we are collectively abiding by public health
078orders um anyway so um I am passionate about following the public health guidelines and I really feel that our school district has worked hard to abide by the public health guidelines because Dr Hernandez said that schools could open October 13 it meant schools could open if things were safe if we had testing if we had the right protocols in place if we had social distancing abilities and I think a lot of our facility work was actually done but I really want to honor our teachers and our staff who work diligently over the summer to create a distance learning program that was not an emergency education program that we put together in the spring but that was a distance learning program that was implemented in August and September that actually had Fidelity and integrity and we
079all said in all of the Schoolboard meetings that followed in the fall that people have noticed a vast difference in our distance learning program and that is much better the challenge for our students is the social emotional and the social contact so the reason our teachers could not turn on a dime when doct Hernandez said we could open on October 13th is because they had been implementing a full-time distance learning program that we all appreciated was actually working for many but not all of the students so now the challenge is to take that distance learning program take the commitment to the hybrid and see what we can do on our school campuses that's safe so I really I want to stay on track and move to the January 13th time frame um and I appreciate
080the time that our staff and our teachers and our staff all of our staff members are making to come up with what are the solutions to provide simultaneous dis learning was simultaneous iners without any significant dollars from the federal government to hire additional staff so um you know I I I'm kind of sounding emotional because it it's it's such a difficult situation and all of our our students are suffering our teachers and our staff are suffering our families are suffering and we're trying to make the best of a pandemic so I want to express my really my support for everybody who's trying to come up with constructive Solutions um and I do urge our labor partners and our Administration to stay on track and I do urge our small group cohorts to continue and my
081understanding is that they're primarily Outdoors except for when they're doing their online um their online classes so we are trying to adopt some of the measures that make it more um safe for all of our community so you know I just just want to express the appreciation of um the frustration the patience uh but really for the students who came out and spoke and let them know that we really are working to try to open as safely and as quickly as we can so that our students can get the kind of Engagement and learning that they need thank you thank you director Sinai um I'm GNA go to director Brown um thank you president Appel I think director Sinai said it best um so I'm going to ask actually just a second what director Sinai
082said and um pass to another board member so that we can allow time for other public comments during the second testimony opportunity thank you thank you director Brown I'm going to go to student director um miles thank you I apologize last name yes Miller um I will not like Dr Brown and I do have um a little bit of lengthy comments hopefully for tonight um starting with concerns I got from students well first of all thank you to all the students who came out to the meeting tonight um you are working extremely hard through all these times as reflecting in some of the comments and if even if you didn't aren't speaking even if you're just here watching while you're doing like your math homework something like that thank you so much we're me we're
083here to serve you and your participation is everything to us um from students who weren't able to comment tonight I've heard some things about the concern about the covid rate jump um especially going into purple tier um that's definitely concerning um considering how big Berkeley High is however there are also some other activities that we believe Could Happen including other after school activities as we all know Sports conditioning has started so we just want to push as hard as possible um options for Club student clubs to meet after school options for art classes to happen um and just any activity really that doesn't require since most activities don't even require physical touching or being near each other we want to emphasize that as much as possible especially this is another thing um distribution of other
084school materials including yearbooks from last year um all of these things can Poss could possibly be safe if we're if we're cons if we were planning a if we were making a plan to open there's no reason that these activities should be deemed unsafe and so I would push on that um I want to speak to the families for a second as well and just say this is a group effort from all of our parts it's our job to um get things moving with our plan and it's your job to this holiday season please limit the amount you're seeing family members and doing other things if it's any help Zoom is breaking its 40 U minute time limit for the holiday for some of the holiday seasons um no matter how you're seeing people virtually
085um just please keep that in mind the more we spread out the more unlikely it will be safe enough for us to return to school um and I want to emphasize that the case may even if the cases are rising the planning shouldn't stop and we should continue just moving full steam ahead um and my last thing is as a student who's had many events canceled from our Public Health Department I fully trust our public health department and I stand by with their discretion and what they say to when we are allowed to open thank you student director Miller um I'm going to go next to director Lea Cutler thank you um director sa you said it all for us um and it was but is very honest and and and authentic and it also
086recognizes um our children our students and and their experience and um I'm was glad to hear from a range of students from both the elementary middle and the high school it's very important I too have a granddaughter in the middle school and one in the high school senior so I've heard directly from their experience too and it reflects exactly what our students are saying and so I deeply appreciate um their voice coming to the board it's not easy um after being um on on zoom in the day and then coming at night we know and we share that uh experience as being especially for children and the younger children um so I just wanted to say that um toight tonight is uh my last long meeting next we only have one short meeting um I
087will share my appreciation um at the next next board meeting to everyone in the district the parents the community and on our staff um I'm really going to miss um coming to these boards meetings and really hearing the the concerns the issues even the anger from and frustrations that parents and students feel in our school district and how a board really really does listen and really tries to best to Garner the best ideas in terms of making it work for our students there really is a commitment of the board um to make that work for everyone so but thank you everybody and thank you every for coming thank you Julie also for saying that for US president Appel you were M I said Thank You director Lea Cutler and now I'm going to go to
088you vice president Alper okay thanks um president P um yeah I appreciate director sinai's remarks and student director Miller's and director Lea Cutler's as well and I I'll be brief but I wanted to um um you know appreciate all the families and and and teachers who came out tonight and one of the parents said that the um harm to some of the students in distance learning is real cumulative and ongoing and I think that's true for a lot of kids and and it's something that we feel really acutely um and it's the reason why I think we we do want to keep our foot on the gas pedal and and um as director Sinai said continue to to work with our Union Partners um so that we're in a position to open if we can
089on January 13th right now Dr Stevens will tell us more about this right now my understanding is that if conditions don't change we won't be allowed to open on January 13th but we want to be um as ready as we can be when um Public Health allows us to and the conditions allow us to do so safely and um one thing haven't talked a lot about but I think director s mentioned it is the facility is work that's been going on the last few months um a lot of money and a lot of time has been spent getting our physical facilities ready for um School reopening that can't happen overnight it didn't happen overnight um and it's something that I really appreciate our facilities Department um for for prioritizing um and I guess um I'm
090what I hope people stick around I assume they will for the presentation about um the hybrid Elementary School um plan and or or proposals that are being worked on right now um and and feel an appreciation for the complexity of it that director Sinai mentioned um and I just want to say give one example that sort of highlights um how sometimes the the the desires of some of the parents and families reasonable desires that we hear from at our board meetings um sometimes conflict with some of the desires we hear from other family members in other contexts um particularly through email um and also reasonable so for example to families that say um the the the families that feel comfortable sending their kids to school should be able to do so with the teachers that
091are able to be in school teaching um what and then the the families that don't feel comfortable sending their kids to school can keep their kids home um I think it it can have surface appeal but what that would mean and I think people need to understand is that that would mean a complete reshuffling of Elementary School classrooms so that the families that say to us my my child is actually doing okay in distance learning and the only thing that's keeping him or her engaged is a connection with their teacher um and I don't feel comfortable sending them to school or they immune compromis what it would mean um to switch to a model where just families that wanted to go to school could go to school would mean that that that other family would
092lose their teacher um and would and and those are the sort of competing harms that we have to weigh when we're in a pandemic as director s said that have that has no good answers it also may be true that the families who send their kids to school um have substitute teachers because of because we're not able to um have enough teachers on campus so um it's just one example but I I hope as we listen to Dr Steven's um presentation um there is an appreciation for how complicated this is and that um folks know that it's not just being defensive although I am defensive of the work that's been put into all to these plans um it's also a reason why there's a lot of work to do to to meet our Target dates
093and why it's going to take a lot of effort on the part of our staff and our Union Partners to get there um so that we're able to open safely when we're allowed to it yep thank you vice president Alper um so now I'm going to say a couple of words um I will join my colleagues in echoing including director Brown and echoing director sinai's um sentiments um I want to Res restate some key points that I have felt were particularly important to me mostly and I think this was underlying Julie's comment is that Public Health guidelines are key following Public Health directives is key and um the numbers in Berkeley have stayed low because so many people are being very careful and I hear that from others and friends and including Trish who spoke
094tonight who lives doesn't live in the Bay Area anymore and it just makes me really appreciate how careful we're being so had we couldn't open in October because that wouldn't have been safe it wouldn't have been that careful I want parents and students and everyone to know that we all want to get our kids we all want to get our students back in school as soon as it's safe for our students and our staff to be there um I'm really sorry that um folks feel that we've not been we haven't paid attention to the requests for reopening because we have um and we have been work been moving with a lot of urgency but we have to think of what's going to be safe for the community that's our job um and you know people
095have talked a little bit about how the schools in New York have been opened um and I just want to say I talked to two of my nephews today who um who are who live in Brooklyn and they've been in school and their schools are now closed as of tomorrow and they're really I mean you know their families are happy that they've been out of the house and they've been able to be with their other students and they've been learning in school but they're you know they're all worried about the access and the exposure that they had to other people during this time so I'm really actually very grateful that the people in this in the central office and the people in this District have taken so much care to make sure that when we
096do open we really are going to be safe for our students and our staff um there are clearly really deep feelings both about um those who want to come back and those who think that we should remain closed and I want to thank all the P people who came out today to talk to speak and mostly the students because I think that your experience is the one that we are your experiences are the ones that we are most we or I I should say are most conscious of and and want I like I really want to hear how it's going for you at the same time I really really have to take the responsibility of making sure that if we open we are safe um so I really do want to thank the District central
097office for working so hard on doing this as well as to our teachers and our students I'm grateful for all of your commitments to doing this right and doing it safely um and you know just know that we are getting things back in order and as soon as it's safe to open we are truly getting ready to be able to do so with safety being key so as um director Lea Cutler mentioned this is also my last full meeting um so I'm gonna leave my departing comments till next week when I will have a chance to share a little bit what I've learned as well as my gratitude for so many people so with that being said um I am now going to actually I'm going to give there's a bunch of people who are
098on the DI so-called who some of you some of you may know but some of you may not know so I'm just going to ask the people who are here to introduce yourselves and and where you work so why don't we start with you Jay you're on mute hi J I'm the director of technology and should know better to talk while I'm on mute thank you associate superintendent Tiara good evening baj Tiara associate superintendent Educational Services thank you samtha Tobias Espinosa assistant superintendent for human resources ass associate superintendent fenby hello I'm Paul fenby assistant superintendent of Business Services thank you Natasha hello good evening Natasha Bei director of BP and community relations thank you Liz good evening Liz chus executive assistant to the school board thank you Miss Martinez you're on mute good evening AA
099Martinez coordinator of professional development glad you could make it um Miss Dean good evening Debbie Dean director of tk8 schools welcome is that you Sean who is there's somebody here who doesn't have a name Tom Tom oh Tom I'm sorry Tom I'm Tom Reinhardt coordinator of research evaluation and assessment welcome um and then an hi Anne cigary supervisor of the office of family engagement and Equity awesome um so now I'm gonna turn it over to you superintendent Stevens for you to say your words your comments thank you very much president Appel um like everybody on the board I want to offer a few words of thanks before we jump into the presentation where we'll talk about a lot of the details um please do know if you're attending tonight's board meeting that everybody here is
100listening very closely um we recognize that there's a real divide in the perspective uh among both our Educators and our families uh and that folks are approaching this issue um with passion with emotion with a sense of wanting to protect loved ones uh whether that's children whether that's parents um folks that we're all taking care of so please don't know that we we recognize the emotions that every body's feeling and we are all um as individuals also coping with those emotions um to the members of the Board of Education I also want to express my thanks to every one of you for the ongoing wisdom um for your sense of community for your sense of um sort of shared responsibility I really do appreciate all of your um perspectives and that you've been hanging in
101there with for so long with District staff um to my District staff colleagues I want to thank all of you for um you know working past the point of exhaustion I watched you all foro your spring break forgo your summer breaks foro vacation plans this fall um just to stay engaged in this sort of ongoing and Slow Rolling crisis and so I really do appreciate every one of you um for the work you're doing and then to our teachers um who are really the ones holding uh for so many um holding our school Community together right now um this experience looking at screens um day in and day out is one that can be um so often demoralizing uh and yet it's our teachers creativity their energy their passion um that I think is really
102sort of offering for so many young people um their thread to a connected School experience uh as weak as that can be sometimes as challenging as that is sometimes um if it weren't for teachers um then our our students truly would have nothing um I want to offer just a a sort of quick personal perspective on all this before we jump into details just a little bit later um you know I am uh myself both a father uh and a son um you know one of the speakers earlier mentioned my own daughter and I have been uh sort of an AG grieved and grieving parent for the last nine months uh my daughter has also not set foot on her school campus since the pandemic started back in March uh and I've watched her suffer
103um really greatly um oftentimes with a sense of helplessness that I think all of us parents are feeling as we know that our children are suffering uh as a son I feel deeply protective of my my parents health my mom is watching tonight um and I also care for her safety and her concern and it's these sort of two perspectives the parents perspective and the child's perspective that I carry forward as a sort of personal motivation into the work that I'm doing along with all of my colleagues um and as an individual I feel this great dilemma I want for my daughter what I don't want for my parents uh and that that is one to move forward and the other to retreat um and this I think is really the Dilemma that all of
104us are feeling it's this great ethical compromise that we've been forced to confront as a community um oftentimes feeling abandoned as a community to make a very difficult decisions without the support I think we all need and deserve so um I I mention all of these things sort of as the human in all of this as the parent and the son of all of this to say only that I connect um to the pain that I hear represented by our families um by our Educators and by our community so we'll talk details in just a moment um but all of the sort of the heart behind the head I think is really important to express because here we are together and we have to stay together through all this thank you my very much superintendent
105Stevens and I am sorry that there was a personal comment about you during the comments I probably shouldn't let that go forward and really appreciate the hard work that you're putting into our district right now [Music] um all right so we are now going to move on to the consent calendar do I have a motion to um accept the consent calendar less 11.10 which is being pulled out and we'll vote on separately make motion let me make motion director Lea Cutler all right director Lea Cutler has made the motion and um I think Ty Alper has seconded it vice president Alper um Miss chidas do you want to take the role yes director Brown yes director Miller yes director Sinai yes director Lea Cutler yes vice president Alper yes yes okay now we have um
106item 11.10 which is a ratification of memorandum of understanding with lifelong medical for Rosa Parks Park kids village and um I believe Julie to recuse herself yeah I will recuse due to a conflict of interest all right do I have a motion to passes I'll move so moved um is there a second I'll second second did you say um director Miller did you say you'll second it uh yeah all right let's take that and um Liz why don't you go ahead and call the rooll hi director Brown yes director Miller yes director Lea Cutler yes vice president Alper yes president yes all right so now we're moving on to our action item which is 12.1 approval of new student information system for 2021 school year um who will be presenting this uh I'd like to
107ask our director of Technology Jay nitki to um I think queue up the slides and he'll walk us through a presentation and ask for Action by the board don't forget to unmute yourself so do you have the side deck or would you like me to do it superintendent Jay are you are you able to do that I do have it here whatever you okay so um here's a brief um presentation on the process we went through to pick a new student information system so uh our agenda for for my e slide slide deck is why are we changing student information system what what was the process what products were considered and what's the recommendation so illuminate at end of life its isi product which is it student information product um and they are choosing to
108focus on their core data and assessment product otherwise known as DNA which the district and many other school districts in California and elsewhere use um so we're continuing to use DNA um but uh the isi product we needed to find a replacement for um so um you know our requirements included many things but a grade book uh interface it's easy to use for all student uh all teachers and can handle our middle school grading scheme California requirements including U cpad sa integration and a long time of success and adoption in California we want to move to an online enrollment system I think the need for that was um uh really emphasized this year and um we were looking at um uh vendors that had success with previous isi districts um we'd been watching uh the
109sis selection processes um over the last two years um uh including those run by Santa Cruz County of Education uh off County Office of Education free unified monre Peninsula and others in almost every um one of these processes identified the same top three contenders Aries Infinite Campus and Synergy which is made by Ed Point um we brought in each of those three vendors for seven hourong Zoom U presentations um the topics were scheduling um Behavior counseling special ed on mind enrollment school office tasks um cads reporting and optional systems teacher grade book Parent Portal and the conversion process from isi the training plan um some database details um Infinite Campus emerged this a selection it was um uh overwhelmingly favored among teachers um the two grade how anbp system that we use for grading in
110the middle schools uh worked without any modification for them it includes an RTI mtss component um some covid features also online payments um free and reduced lunch applications that will um create some efficiencies it's built on a modern database structure and the implementation cycle is a lot um made a lot easier because Infinity campus has an agreement to take the data right out from illuminate Ed so um if you look in your um board packets you'll see it's um somewhat works all the products were more expensive um than the current product we're using illuminate isi but uh Infinite Campus um provided a better value than Synergy um infin campus districts in the Bay Area include San Jose Palo Alto Eastside uh Oak Grove South City Franklin McKinley San Ramone Fremont Dublin Hayward these are all
111the districts that are as large or larger than us um you know 10,000 or more students there's a number of other districts Pont and some other smaller districts and that's what I have for you today great [Music] um are there any questions if so why don't you raise your hand on the panelist list okay I see no questions do I have a motion to adopt this um this sis I'll move it oh so I heard first um director Brown I think director signing will you second it sure can you un share the screen please thanks Miss chus will you take um the vote Yes director Lea Cutler she had to step out oh she had step out sorry just had to go quickly there was sorry uh sorry there's I wasn't part of the uh
112the presentation I had to run down because there's a fire right across the street from my child care center so sorry so I'm gonna recuse myself say director Sinai yes director Miller yes director Brown yes vice president Alper yes and president Appel yes all right thank you very much J um Jay um and now we're gonna go to our three discussion items the first one is an update from the superintendent on school reopening great thank you very much I'll just take a moment to queue up the presentation and we'll jump in uh so as we have um many evenings before um we'd like to offer um a few updates about our phase reopening plans um this evening I'm joined by uh director of community relations and BP Natasha beer she'll walk us through um information
113about the current public health status um this actually merits a slight larger discussion this evening than it has in previous um previous board presentations so we'll linger there for a little longer uh and then walk through um a number of additional updates and then look forward to hybrid learning uh so we'll try to cover this terrain relatively quickly um i' like to provide some background information for folks who are watching at home right now about uh what decisions we've made which decisions we haven't made uh jump into a report on local health conditions talk about our uh time line for phased reopening uh and then discuss um several aspects of a hybrid learning model um we'll talk mostly about the elementary school level but um we will touch on uh middle and high school level
114as well by the time we end the presentation uh we've been uh driven through the course of our planning through our engagement through our partnership with um our labor unions by a set of guiding values um that first and foremost include an emphasis on the health of our students families and staff um we are in a pandemic and so we must above all things value safety we've also been driven by a desire to protect the social and emotional well-being of our students and staff through all of this um through these difficult months uh as well as create opportunities um for Equity as much as we can design for that under these circumstances we've been committed to providing a quality education albe at one that's very new and different from what we want uh and to
115regular communication and consultation with our families and staff as we approach key decisions along this path uh for families who are watching there are three key documents now available to our community on our website um each one is really rich with information and provides I think a pretty clear view both of where we're going and where we are on this journey um over on the Le hand side of the screen is the cover of what is called the campus safety plan uh this is a roughly 20page document that summarizes important agreements that we've made with all four of our labor partners for the practices um that we will put in place on our campuses both for our employees and for our staff um so we encourage everybody to check that out um we've also been
116referring on a weekly basis to something we call our school reopening Readiness dashboard um this is a dashboard that we update on a weekly basis that's uh intended to create more transparency about the lines of work uh either that we've completed or there that are in front of us in order to be ready for a permitted reopening of our schools uh and then just in the last week we've introduced a new tool again designed for transparency this is called the covid-19 case dashboard and this is a look on a school by school basis at the covid-19 school Associated covid-19 cases um that that bu USD has experienced as background information to this presentation uh there are a number of key decisions that the board of education has already made uh including one key decision to
117approach the reopening process in a phase manner meaning a one part at a time manner um the board has approved a January 13th Target date for reopening our prek programs as well as transitional kindergarten through grade two uh and then a week later is the target reopening date for grades three through five uh we have not yet established a Target reopening date for middle and for high schools um so with that I'm going to turn over to director Bei and she'll provide an overview of the current change to our County's health status thank you Dr Stevens uh in past presentations I've shared more specific data about where we are in Berkley and the county uh in terms of case numbers but I felt that for tonight really just need this overview that shows where we
118were two weeks ago which is the map on the left um this uh section of California with multiple uh different colors uh which represent the tier system established in the state of California with purple being the most widespread tier the one that we were in for uh most of the summer and uh we began moving out of it uh rather rapidly actually so um uh and then on the right of course we're uh completely purple and I'll return to that uh in just a moment but I wanted to just review with you that uh in accordance with this tier system which um established for the State of California is driven by two primary metrics there are some subsidiary metrics but two primary metrics are the number of daily new cases um as well as the
119positivity rate um uh for covid test and we move we were in that purple highest widespread section um during the summer under that condition we could only have limited Child Care C uh camps some special cohorts and then the there was a waiver process that was announced uh that was released by Alam County midt a really long process um very complicated um application process simply to open elementary schools on a limited basis we were just beginning to understand what that process um required when we moved rather quickly into the next level down the substantial uh level of spread or otherwise known as the red tier at that level we were issued additional um guidance for cohorts and small groups and uh we began to uh of course we have throughout all of this been planning
120towards an inventional reopening uh but we uh none of us I think including um the local Health officers expected um such a rapid progression um out of uh red into orange just uh two weeks later one level down and at that point uh as many people have mentioned we heard from the uh Public Health officers that elementary schools could reopen just a week later October 13th subject to multiple conditions and there were very very very few schools that actually were able to do so a few Independent Schools um on a very limited basis um however the requirements for reopening were so substantial including um having uh testing um methodologies established having contact tracing um all of that which we had been working on that required umus for example with testing companies and meanwhile as has
121also been mentioned no additional resources being given to us um to uh enact all of this so um while in theory um it would be possible to reopen after October 13th there were a number of impediments uh nonetheless um as conditions continued to um seem to improve we were issued an additional option was was the possibility of uh middle schools possibly opening in early November uh and again um no uh Public School District in uh the county had has been able to meet those requirements and then as we nonetheless continue to move forward as the board made its um decision that we um would possibly be able to reopen in early January we bounced back um into purple and so that's you see that map there and I believe it's 41 uh of the California
122counties are now in purple Governor Nome has issued a put on the brakes uh notification and of course the concern is that um we don't entirely understand why things have gone so badly so quickly um there's some theories about uh Halloween being possibly a factor there is a larger spread uh in uh the 20 to 30 year olds I think part of the theory is that there's also pandemic fatigue people are loosening a bit and ALS you know businesses are opening up um multiple opportunities for people to get together and we are of course now um looking at Thanksgiving a time when we are all wanting to be with our families and recog izing that this is unfortunately the time that we really cannot uh do that uh so meanwhile U we are uh still
123do have our small uh cohorts open at three sides that is still permitted um under uh the purple guidance but it is not clear of course where we will be by January and back to um so just to talk a little bit about what all of this means um for schools generally uh so it is the case under the purple level of guidance the most restrictive level of guidance that these cohort-based programs are still permitted um there are a number of factors um that school districts must um sort of satisfy in order to maintain these cohort-based programs uh including uh size limitations including uh Li restrictions on the selection of specific students uh and restrictions on the overall capacity of each individual campus that's hosting a cohort-based program but they are permitted uh and we
124do continue to um U maintain and if possible uh expand the number of cohorts available to our families during this uh this purple phase um it is also then true under the sort of purple level restrictions uh that schools and districts that have not opened uh will then be required to remain closed um so we are in this category we had not opened prior to the designation of purple and so we must remain closed um schools and districts that had opened um are then permitted to remain open with modifications and as B Miss beer mentioned uh there were no Alam County school districts that were able to open um and so this particular um sort of exception does not apply to any of our public school um District counterparts uh and then finally uh there
125was for a moment an opportunity for schools and districts to apply for what was called the elementary waiver uh here in Alam County the uh Alam County Public Health Department and the County Office of Education accepted waiver applications however never processed those waiver applications never approved any waivers uh and has uh at least as we understand it right now uh discarded the process of granting waivers uh while while schools are in purple um so it may be the case that folks are wondering about the opportunity to write and receive a waiver during this round of our purple designation uh here in Alama County that as best we know simply does not exist as an OP um so what we do know is that um we will not be permitted to open so long as the
126county or city is designated at this widespread level of of case transmission um we have no way of knowing what January 13th will look like um and this is a good reminder to all of us that we are planning for a very public a very Dynamic Public Health environment uh in which we should be expecting that changes can and will take place um as we move throughout the winter and potentially even through the spring what I thought I would um comment on as well is the sort of timing requirements as they're currently established for school reopening uh in order for the county to be designated at the next level the red level um uh the county will have to satisfy those two key transmission metrics um both that's the both the um cases per 100,000
127in the test positivity metrics that Miss be mentioned previously those metrics have to be satisfied uh for two weeks uh and then the county would be redesignated as red uh the county must then sustain those metrics for at least two additional weeks before schools would be permitted to reopen so we're looking uh at sort of a month long or four- week period in which the uh both of those key metrics would need to decline to Red levels before we were permitted to reopen we had in a previous board meeting discussed this timeline um this continues to be the timeline that we are working on Independent of the sort of return to the purple transmission uh tier um among the key milestones in this timeline are the production we hope of a hybrid learning plan finalized
128for a hybrid learning plan by uh the time that we all leave for winter break um we'll have a lot of work to do that's both in terms of Staff preparation facilities preparation uh the design of an employee testing program uh and um substan discussions with our labor Partners about the fine grain details of a hybrid learning plan um if we're able to hit that Milestone uh towards the uh just before winter break then we plan to come back with a series of town halls in which we'll describe in detail that hybrid learning program uh and it would only be at that point that we would ask families to make a decision about which of the two models they would select um we are planning as part of the Town Hall process um to query
129families both who participate in the town hall and to send out the survey um to reug among our families the interest in either staying home in distance learning or returning to an oncampus experience and we do that again because we notice um over time that families perceptions of risk change U the last time we surveyed families for planning purposes was back on October 7th and so we seek to do that again uh with a short survey that will be going out um very soon and then finally we move uh moving down into January with the January 13th uh uh the the continued Target date for our introduction of a hybrid experience for prek transitional kindergarten and grades 1 and two followed a week later by the hybrid learning in grades three and five so to
130articulate very clearly um for all purposes um uh we continue to operate on this timeline uh and continue to take seriously the board's call that this will be the um sort of PL the the planning directives to staff as we move forward uh and then I should note um we have not decided on uh Target reopening date for middle and high schools I'll comment a little bit on that just as we close out the presentation as a very quick update um here are some numbers related to uh enrollment in the phase one program these are the small cohorted support programs that we're now running on three of our elementary campuses um you can see how small these are the number of seats we're offering on each campus um the number of offers that were made
131by each of the school's coordination of services team to families uh the number of families who declined and then the percentage of total families who declined um you can see that the sort of rate of declining was uh varied across the three campuses um but was still significant um considering that this was a small cohorted approach uh and that families were um selected by their school teams for based on a particular set of factors um so that is uh perhaps revealing still of hesitation among some of our families to return to an on-campus environment uh as we move forward into a series of t halls and as we work with the board and our labor Partners to finally articulate what a hybrid learning plan will look like um we're using a set of planning assumptions
132that we shared with um families two weeks ago and that we'll discuss in more detail in our town halls um I will not read all of these aloud I'll only focus on just the red text um some of the assumptions that we think we're hearing um from families and staff that we're carrying with us as a district into our um more detailed planning work uh is that we should be planning a hybrid model that will minimize disruptions to the current distance learning program uh given that such a large proportion of our families are indicating through our last survey that they would likely choose to remain in distance learning at this point uh and of course family's view on this um I imagine will be impacted by the overall health conditions both in the city and
133county uh a second planning assumption is that a hybrid model should permit students and teachers to move as easily as flexibly as possible back and forth between distance learn learning and hybrid learning and this is again sort of a a reflective of what we imagine to be um sort of improvements and then declines in the overall public health status here locally planning assumption number three reads that we uh are assuming that a planning hybrid learning model should maintain current teacher classes and student groups as much as possible um to a point that uh director Alper made earlier in the board meeting we're also thinking that our plans should attempt to present the hybrid planning uh hybrid learning plan to the community prior to asking for a final enrollment decision uh and so we're going to
134keep our surveying relatively light um um until we're able to articulate uh far more details about the experience that families would be asked to choose a fifth planning assumption reads um that we should attempt to design a hybrid learning model that won't lock families into a single point of time decision about which model to choose uh but that would be flexible enough to permit families to go back and forth between hybrid uh between distance learning and an on-campus learning experience if we can achieve this uh and then finally um we are hearing uh the sort of calls among many of our families that a hybrid learning model should account for the acute social and emotional needs that so many of our students are experiencing right now uh and that this model should feature increased time
135for recreation and community building so we'll jump now from those planning assumptions to uh models for hybrid learning uh we will unpack these in more detail in our town halls this is a specifically an elementary model that we're looking at right now one of these models that we think shows great promises um for lack of a better title we we're calling it distance learning in the morning and optional in-person learning in the afternoon uh in this particular model the school day would begin just just as it does now um with a core instruction taking place with classroom teachers through distance learning um that uh 9 to 11:4 block represents essentially the core of our distance learning experience right now with classroom teachers uh the middle of the day would then be set aside for lunch
136a transition to school uh time to screen students as they come on campus uh as well as providing teachers much needed time for Preparation uh and then in the afternoon each day would feature either an a group or a B group uh coming onto campus uh roughly between the hours of 1:15 and 3:15 uh to experience a small cohorted instruction this could look like differentiated instruction enrichment outside physical activity or even PE and then uh followed after that at 3:15 all the way to six o'clock by a reopened after school program um this particular model we think has some advantages and we recognize has some disadvantages among the advantages that we see in a model like this um is its flexibility that it can it can be adapted to a variety of public health conditions
137um that it will reduce the impact on Staffing of the number of employees who will be accommodated to work from home because of underlying health conditions um and we are concerned about Staffing as we move forward into this next phase of school reopening um we also like about this model that we that it would provide a level of consistency for families who will elect to remain with distance learning for a whole variety of reasons uh and this model would permit us to utilize cohorting or rather to maximize the safety impact of cohorting um by having um students working in smaller groups without moving from group to group or from teacher to teacher among the disadvantages um many families will note that it doesn't do a lot to um uh sort of change distance learning it
138still is an element of this model um but please keep in mind that it will be an element of any hybrid learning model that we and any other District introduces at this point um we will need to contend with the challenge of um identifying substitute Staffing for those afternoons if a particular staff member is accommodated to stay at home because of a health condition we may lose components of our current distance learning program U that specifically may be the small group support and the parent Outreach those may not be possible if we um if we move to this particular model and then um we're not quite sure what it's going to look like um to uh both ask families to move students in the middle of the day onto campus um we will have limited
139Transportation available um but we're not sure what level of this inconvenience this will represent for some of our families we have been considering a number of other models I'm not sure at this point that we would identify them as leading contenders um and we are still I'm not quite convinced they're even viable at this point given a number of complicated factors two of those models again for lack of a better title include a hybrid model that would bring students on campus for two days per week uh in an a group and a b group uh that model is represented over on the right hand side of the screen in this particular model um a student might come to campus Monday and Tuesday uh Wednesday would be virtual and then the second group of students would
140come to campus for Thursday and Friday um and then there's another version very similar version of this in which we would divide school days into an AM group and a PM group um these uh are also have been considered they have among uh their advantages um a potential increase in oncampus time uh they have some significant dis advantages and ones that we're not sure we've got solutions for right now uh including a far more acute need as it relates to substitute Staffing um what I mean by this is that as a teacher is accommodated for a legitimate and legal reasons to stay at home because of underlying personal health issues U we would be required to find substitute Staffing um and substitute staff um of course are are not the same as a classroom teacher
141um and are more difficult to find right now because of um the difficulties of the this this pandemic this particular model would um not permit cohorting to the extent that the other one does uh and for some of our staff like specialist teachers um we may not be able to offer cohorting in this particular model this model would be very difficult to adapt um to another surge in covid transmission if that were to take place sometime after we reopen um may also uh lead to the regrouping of students from one class to another from one teacher to another something we're hearing many families would be opposed to and then very likely this model could lead to increased independent work um when students are not on campus they may find themselves with far less online support
142and far more independent work to take care of so we count these among other disadvantages um we've thought seriously about these models and so we share this as sort of where we are at this point uh speaking still in general terms about the sort of direction we think will be taking to um mention middle and high school which I know is of great interest to the high school students who are joining us this evening same as it is to the high school families um it may be this first model that I introduced um sort of represents the best way forward uh for a hybrid excuse me for a hybrid model at the secondary level both middle and high school um just to review this model would essentially um keep intact the current distance learning experience
143um with its three periods per day uh but then feature a transition to school um and afternoon activities taking place um between roughly 1 and 3 o'cl in the afternoon um this would be followed at least at the middle school by our after school program we don't offer an after school program at the high school uh but could be followed at the high school by after school um uh clubs and other types of activities again one advantage here is that it would actually permit cohorting in a secondary environment uh every other hybrid model that we've looked at essentially has students moving between classes um breaking groups moving between different teachers um something which I think is probably could be um defined as the most sort of risky element of any school reopening so we are
144um I think as most folks now know hosting a series of town halls beginning tomorrow night we're looking forward to engaging our community um in this discussion but in far more detail um we're hosting two Elementary level meetings tomorrow night The First beginning at six o'clock that first meeting is taking place in English uh and then an identical meeting for elementary families who are Spanish speakers um that follows the meeting and takes place at 7:15 and we'll end at 8:15 tomorrow night uh immediately following uh Thanksgiving break um we will host a town hall for the families of middle school age students that's on December 1st and then we'll be engaging with high school students at 3 o'clock on December 3rd and with high school families at six o'clock also on December 3rd we're looking
145forward to all of that engagement so we'll pause there um we welcome discussion and questions from the board and really do appreciate the opportunity to uh provide the update thank you very much Dr Stevens um that was very written information so I'm looking to see if any of oh I have student director Miller hi thank you so much that presentation it was I think it was a good amount of information and what the community needs right now I have two concerns just quickly the first being with um the first kind of model where the dist distance learning is intact and then students would come in the second half of the day is that second half of the day instruction or is it just like academic support and just um meeting social needs of students um
146I think it would depend on the level director Miller so at the elementary level I imagine um elementary teachers providing additional instruction um differentiated support uh enrichment activities as well as Recreation and socialization um at the High School level uh that I think gets a little bit trickier you take far more classes at the high school level you have far more teachers and so what I don't imagine at the high school level is that a student could take multiple classes going in person from class to class to class I imagine things more like advisory uh I could imagine something like a term by term Club opportunity um uh things like that um to be determined but I I'm not imagining that it would look like a class schedule at the high school level in the
147afternoons okay and then my second question was act or my second concern was more was about high school levels um um it is very important we get activities like clubs and certain art and art programs that can be safely done and sports that can be safely done on campus but I would has I would be cautious to make that the entirety of the distance learning plan for high school middle school students because when we think of hybrid learning we think of instruction and we think of academic support and think those activities they should just be I mean I feel like they should just be a given like they should be something we should be allowing on campus anyways whether it where whether high schooler hopefully high schoolers can go back by the end of this
148year but if um Health if the health guidelines don't permit it like these should be things that we are doing anyway so I would just be cautious to make allowing these activities to happen the entirety of a hybrid learning plan that was just all I have to say about that yeah thank you for that feedback we appreciate it thank you um next I'm going to call on director Lea Cutler thank you for the presentation um superintendent I know a lot of work and thinking has gone behind this um so I have a question on the dates that were pick for launching they're on a Wednesday um the 13th in elementary schools as you've noted are Tu Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday not Wednesday why why are we picking the 13th and the 20th when children are
149not in school oops I muted myself sorry um thanks for that question so so we did deliberate about the sort of intended T the target opening dates um we deliberately selected the week after um the return from winter break um so that we had sort of um in effect what amounts to a quarantine period um giving ourselves sort of a week um so that folks can be back in the community um and ideally you know if they traveled have an opportunity just to to Ser of stay put we selected the the Wednesday start date um mainly as an opportunity to um provide both training and testing for employees um before folks began to come onto campus um so we're imagining that those two particular days will be intensive on-site training for staff about safety procedures
150uh as well as covid testing for everybody who will be on for staff who will be on site um so that that that's the sort of rationale for the Wednesday start versus let's say a Monday start and in the schedule when you have the schedule of the morning and then the afternoon um the morning ending at 1:15 and then the afternoon coming in at 1:15 there's no time that's being left in between for Stu for cleanup disinfectant for the next group or are they going to be two different areas of the of the site uh that's a great question so um in most of the well in each of the models um we imagine that some of the the classroom space will need to be mo used by two groups in a day um so
151in that first model that would be true the afternoon group would leave the after school program would stay um so there would need to be a period of at least half an hour um in between those room uses um so that those can be cleaned uh we have purchased what are called um electrostatic cleaners these are essentially sort of um they look like jetpacks um but essentially allows our custodians to go in and disinfect a space very rapidly so there would be a Break um I haven't represented it on this this very simplified schedule but we would Envision a a disinfection break between the use of a common space and um and it has happened to me that in a classroom I've had a teacher Out and because we're keeping the stable group what plans
152are there when we don't have that many substitutes to call and we can't mix groups and and we're trying to keep stable both the teachers and the the cohort what is the plan if the teacher is out not covid related but had you know doctor appointment um so what's the plan in terms of who's going to lead that um that classroom and the afternoon yeah um you know I I just to be perfectly candid we're we're contending with this very issue right now as we open up the cohort groups um we're finding it very difficult to provide substitute Staffing um in this particular setting um for a number of reasons including the availability of subs and then the challenge about trying to maintain bubble groups um so in the current model our current cohort system
153if a staff member is out then we have to uh let those families know that they just can't come in for the day um we would hope to do better than that by the time we get to January and actually have an available pool of substitutes and then we'll need to think very hard about how we um prevent substitutes uh from becoming vectors in transmission from group to group um and we don't have a great solution to that right now it may mean that substitutes will have to take a break in between their work with groups thank you all right I'm gonna call on you Julie s director s thank you um couple of questions you um you mentioned a minute ago that the half hour break in between um would be cleaned with whatever
154the terminology you use um by custodial staff so so the teachers wouldn't be expected to clean in between because it seems like to go through multiple classrooms in 30 minutes um of one custodial staff per School seemed a little Herculean so just wondering what the thought is so that I so I've got a couple questions that was the first one yeah so we um we've had uh sort of conversations that you know with our labor partners that all of us together will need to be involved in um some form form of cleaning um and we'll have to specify sort of what constitutes light cleaning meaning just maintaining classrooms clean and we'll we'll have some expectations um I think for our teachers to maintain clean classrooms um while we're also not expecting teachers to be engaged
155in that sort of disinfection of entire spaces um or the disinfection of spaces around common spaces around the school uh we don't have specific schedules worked out yet all of that is still in front of us we offer these models just as a general view about where we're going but it will need to be the case that if there's a change in group between spaces that that has to be cleaned and if we can't do it in the half an hour then we lengthen the Break um so that that cleaning can take place okay so the next question well a comment and then a question is so with the town hall meetings that are coming up I really want to appreciate you and whatever other staff are participating in these five I think Town Hall
156meetings I'm really excited that there's a Berkeley High student one in the afternoon that I'm assuming student director Miller will help um lead that charge um but when you present these these scenarios um for feedback um knowing that it's not necessarily set in stone right so maybe you could you talk a little bit about like what the diet what what you're hoping to get out of the town hall meetings with kind of the these Frameworks that may continue to evolve over the course of the next few weeks and then I'll just ask my last question which is kind of an easy one is um I think in the last school board in the last board meeting you mentioned also having an educator cohort or an educator group and could you talk about where that sits
157yeah um so so in terms of our objectives for the town halls we're hoping to do a few things we we'd like to get feedback on those planning assumptions that I shared with you um uh we think that they will work for a broad segment of our community but we want to want to confirm that you know those planning assumptions are coming from a lot of listening both here at the board meeting lots of email exchanges um and so so we think we've got it right but we want to confirm that um and then we'll be both presenting this model and then asking fairly detailed questions about the features of the model so that we're um equipped for our more detailed planning which will follow the Thanksgiving break with more specific feedback about these features
158um it may not be that we can build every feature into the model but it's going to be immensely helpful for us to have that kind of feedback data about not one model but features of the model that ultimately inform a final plan uh and then in terms of engaging uh staff um we're still working on these things uh today we did send out a first um staff-wide survey uh that includes the information that I just shared with you it's got these models it's got the planning assumptions uh and as a first round of um getting feedback from Educators we're asking folks just to go fill out a survey uh to help us understand how close we are with our planning assumptions and how educators would be impacted by the models that we just shared
159thank you all right I have a couple of I have one question and that is in the models that you showed us um I just I'm a little confused whether um like the a group and the B group are the a group going to be listening in when the B group are in person or are they going to be completely separate uh in the model that I shared when the a group is on campus um like in the afternoon in the afternoon that's right um the B group would be one doing one of two things um so they'd either be working on assignments independently what we've been calling asynchronous work uh and then all of our enrichment our specialty teachers will maintain their distance learning online support and so afternoon enrichment classes would continue to
160be available now those are not every single day um they're interspersed throughout the week uh but that would continue to operate and we have yet to think about sort of another set of teachers including our RTI teachers ELD teachers literacy coaches um who would very likely be um working remotely and being a and would provide support during that afternoon period as well president P You're muted right now oh that's okay um I'm I was just listening to you that thank you very much um are there any other questions yes yes I have a question oh go ahead have we done any checkin with the teachers the parents our students that are right now coming in in terms of how it's going for them uh not a formal check-in I know that the principles themselves are
161talking daily um with the families who are coming in I've been on location about four of the days that have been that we've been open and we've been open about eight or nine days in total um so so we're getting lots of information from staff about what's working what's not lots of information mostly anecdotal at this point about what's working uh but the program is still only in its halfway through its second week right now um and so we haven't sort of you know tried to collect information in a formal way it would be great to have that um when next time you present so that new board members can also see and if there's a possibility without showing them pictures of the children what the classrooms look like I think it would help our
162public also and our community thank you thank you director Lea Cutler are there other comments or questions okay seeing none then thank you for that update superintendent Stevens now I believe the next thing on the agenda is the policy for transgender and gender non-conforming students this is the first reading and I'm actually going to present it um but um superintendent Stevens do you have the the presentation yes I do I'll just take a second to queue it up great and I'll just ask you to switch right nothing fancy um but I wanted to just kind of go through this um agend I mean go through this policy with folks because it's um I don't know it's a little bit different and it goes further than we've gone before so I just wanted to make sure
163people understood it um so it's called the transgender and gender non-conforming students policy um can you switch slides go to next slide please so the purpose that this that the um the policy committee put forward were um that we provide education in an education environment free of stigma and discrimination for all student students regardless of gender identity or expression we've talked about this for other students but this is specifically around gender identity or expression two to facilitate compliance with local state and federal laws cons specifically concerning bullying harassment private pry and discrimination and then third to ensure that all students have the opportunity to express themselves and live authentically um so I think the policy that we put together really attempts in a really strong way to do that so there are a few um
164definitions and I wanted to go through these definitions really briefly because I think not everyone is actually completely familiar with them and the idea is going to be that over time our staff will become familiar with them but I just wanted to tell you all what they are so the first is gender identity um I'm going to read the definitions because I think that's the best way to um communicate this so gender identity is a person's deeply held sense or psychological knowledge of their own gender regardless of the gender they were assigned to birth so everyone has a gender identity and for most of us it is a gender that was assigned to birth but not for everybody second is transgender and transgender describes people whose gender identity is different from that in which they
165were assigned at Birth um and then gender expression refers to the way a person expresses their gender so that usually for most of us we interpret like clothing hairstyles activities mannerisms and then the final term which I think is new to most people is gender non-conforming what this means is a person whose Behavior or appearance doesn't conform to prevailing cultural or social expectations about what is appropriate to to the female or male sex they were assigned to birth so this includes the students who use they or them pronouns um and gender nonconformity includes students identify who identify themselves as non-b binary or gender expansive so I think you might have noticed that trist use the term gender expansive I think in their um testimony and I think an increasing number of students are actually identifying
166is gender nonconforming um in Berkeley and other places as well but I think we've seen a lot of that in Berkeley um can you we move to the next so we've attempted to do to meet our goals in several different ways first of all we have um made it really clear that um students will be hang let me look at this um well that that people that um the district will recognize students privacy and that the records will were possible will reflect their gender identity um and rather than their sex assigned to birth there are some places actually like some official surveys where if they haven't made an official legal transition we need to use um their sex assigned to birth but those are very limited and none of our local um records require that
167and so we're going to be very conscientious of making sure that we do respect students um gender and um pron ouns we want to um really encourage well we're mandating actually staff members to use the appropriate pronouns for students so if they are transgender um then use you know what whatever the pronoun is that a student prefers that they are uses that we will um that those pronouns will be used so for a lot of the gender nonconforming students that is using they them and I know that can be really challenging for those of us who didn't grow up in this with this be a part of our lives but I think one of the goals of this policy is to help train folks so that they are comfortable using students proper pronouns I'm going
168to go to the next slide okay so um one of the things that's very um I think kind of unique about this policy and in some ways far-reaching are gender segregated activities so um if I don't know if folks are aware of this but there are a lot of opport a lot of um times in which during which teachers or Educators or others use gender segregated activities like girl girls and boys line up in separate lines or there's there's many different um examples and this policy says that we only do that when it's necessary so it's not like it prohibits all but it really puts um it really you know like there'll be no reason to line up students in Lines by what we perceive as who are girls and who are boys and make
169students choose when we can choose when we can have another way to have them line up or to engage in different activities if there are activities that are that where it is determined that the gender segre segregated activities is important for the educational goal then they'll be allowed but those are going to be very few and far between and then the restrooms um students will be um permitted to use not permitted but it will be assumed that students will use the restrooms that um conform with their gender identity um if they identify as a male or female and then there will also be gender nutal bathrooms at least one in each school and Judy your sound went off Judy we can't hear you she looks maybe frozen frozen I think she froze I just give
170her give her a minute Ty are you texting her yeah great where'd she go she probably popped out to pop back in yeah it looks like she's gonna have to rejoin the meeting okay all right hold on everyone we'll be back as soon as president Appel gets back stand up and stretch everybody right actually Judy and I had talked about trying to take a moment take five minutes at least to do that with the new board I hope you do that I was gonna say in your almost your last meeting you finally proposed some self-care for us you should but you put it on the agenda next um Dr Stevens can you um take over from for now president Appel is having trouble getting on and she's asked that you continue on oh yeah I'm
171happy to do that I'm sure I'm sure she'll make it back but if you can yeah if you can go for it um sure um I haven't I haven't had chance to review these slides these were prepared by President Appel but um was involved in in supporting the writing of the the policy um there's a number of elements of the policy um that also um would ask our staff um to be conscientious about the way that activities um are organized around gender Um this can look like sports these can look like play playground activities the organization of classroom groups or physical education activities um the policy also asks the district um to be explicit about rules policies and practices that have the effect of um isolating students by gender um or that may be exclusive
172of students who um fall into the categories that we previously described um uh one element of the policy has to do with training for staff uh and this is specifically about the um uh needs of students who identify as transgender or gender non-conforming um helping staff understand that the experience of these students um and others can be very different from their own upbringing or from their own personal experience uh and yet it is the expectation of the district um that all of our classrooms will be welcoming in inclusive spaces uh and with that I can um uh sort of move us over to the um discussion um I'll communic I'll continue to communicate with President Appel as she's trying to log back onto the meeting um director Lea Cutler was is also integral to the
173writing of this policy and we had a number of other folks who helped including Miles Miller other BHS students and then we received a good deal of help from other staff members who aren't here so we're very happy to have had the opportunity to do this work in the policy subcommittee and and bring it here for first reading yesk you you know thank you I want to thank I'm sorry that Judy's not here but this is a recorded meeting so I really want to give thanks to um to Judy because this has been on our policy calendar for a couple of years so we're pretty happy to be able to do this towards the end of our term but nonetheless it's here um and also how it's going to be rolled out uh with the
174district I think it's really important for not not only our students but our families and our teachers to also um really Embrace this policy and this practice that is now before us and also you know one of the things that I had you know and I hope this comes with this policy is also a rubric to to begin to dive deep what is it dive deeper into um how we select our curriculum um with our students and and looking at the curriculum that is bias in gender and in race and this also flows into you know the black lives matter and the the vision that we have for our district that we need to look at those books to argue them but also to push them aside and bring back the bring the voice out
175of our marginalized students and that is by race and and gender so I look forward to how Berkeley will keep moving this forward this is just a baby step in a large process that needs to happen in our school district so I want to congratulate Judy on this um and bringing this force uh to the board thank you director La Cutler Dr Stephens is there any update on President Appel uh she is still unable to log on she has texted to say that it's still not working unfortunately okay um is Miss ches oh there she is I saw her for a second there she is oh good yeah can hear you can you president pal can you hear us can unmute yourself hear you that's so funny that's the first time I've ever presented at
176the board meeting and of course I got cut off in the middle but I'm sure that that superintendent Stevens did an excellent job of completing my presentation did and and director Lea Cutler was just praising you president Appel she was praising you um oh that's nice we bringing this forward to the board oh I was well I well I'll turn it back over to you president film no I mean were you gonna say something Ty go for it okay well I was just so I wanted to thank you too and and I know I was going to say that um when I remember in December of 2013 I wasn't on the board yet I think I was running for school board and and you led the um the pass the creation and the passage of
177our current policy to to um to both honor and protect our uh transgender students and I remember I I remember that meeting was in the old board Chambers and um I mean it's it makes me nostalgic for being in the same room as other people but um there were so many people there there were so many students there celebrating the passage of that policy which at the time was a very and still is very forwarding and Progressive um policy and and um I remember back then that being sort of a signature accomplishment of of yours and and other of course your colleagues on the board at the time um and so I'm really you know happy and and proud that we were able to that you all were able to bring the you and director
178La Cutler and Dr Stevens were able to bring this new policy to us in time to review it and hopefully pass it um before you leave the board and um and that does lead to my one question which is it wasn't clear to me how does this policy supersede our existing policy which I think is 5157 um well that's my question because we do have the existing policy that covers some of the same things well I I think this will supersede that because I think that was that was more narrow in its focus um but I will review that before the next meet before the second to have a definite answer okay thank you and it's funny because I actually found the photos from that um from that meeting and I saw you sitting there
179in the in the audience I was like oh my gosh that's so funny y I was there you were there um Julie who do you want you want to now lead this discussion president oh sure um Julie do you have a a question or comment I have a comment and a question um I also want to extend appreciation for um all the work you put into this and um I remember in 2013 too and all the students who were there and it was it was you know it was Cutting Edge at the time it was really Forward Thinking I don't think any other school district had done anything if I recall um and I think the fact that it's being updated and is getting stronger is uh just a testament to your tenacity around this
180but and your vision around it and so I really appreciate um the work but I also oh not but and I also know that um policy only goes so far as how we can implement it right so um and there's I think a significant amount of training and cultural change that's going to need to happen around this and I don't know Dr Stevens you know what you've thought about I mean it doesn't impact at all whether you know support for the policy is phenomenal but I don't want it to just be on paper I want to make sure that um you know even in the land of Zoom you know that we begin to look at what the cultural changes are we need to make in our institutions and in our community so that students
181really do feel thoroughly welcomed and accepted and for who they are and how they identify so just wondering whether you've had some time to think about how you how you will roll this out um some yes um I do agree with you that the the way that this is ultimately organized um to success is going to make the difference um you know what I do imagine is as we turn the corner into um budget season uh that the board's priorities must form the sort of backbone of our spending plan um the board is really clearly articulated a set of priorities with this policy and so if it were to pass um I'd want the opportunity to work with staff to think about how to uh build some organizational muscle um so that this policy can
182be enacted um so for example um there are resources required for staff training um there's potentially staff resources as we think about the selection and uh use of curriculum um there are facilities components to this particular policy um and I think there's um the need to to um engage students in an ongoing way and thinking about the impact of our organization and its physical settings and its classrooms on transgender students um so all of those things now need to be thought out the policy is the gesture the policy is the vision um and so you should the board could expect to hear from me over the course of the spring about how we actually implement it I will I offer this quick caveat and that that is you know Co covid makes everything harder um
183and the amount of staff attention required to school reopening is going to I think slow most other work um I should mention that but I don't think that it's going to dismantle the work to to do this right so I think also drawing upon um our internal expertise and whether it's through you know an affinity group of of trans folks and gender um you know people who are identifying in different ways and looking at our community- based Partners so that we are actually having people um part of the roll out being folks who really understand the issues I think are going to be really important too so thank you thank you president Appel thank you so much for that and I think you were actually on the board last time I noticed you on up
184on the Das yes I was um I think I voted for it good and I really appreciate that and I will also say that I'd be happy to volunteer after done being on the board helping to get those people together for a training and helping you develop trainings because I agree that that's going to be critical so I think that this item was really just um a first reading and we'll vote on this on the second so um oh Cadia Brown I'm sorry um director Brown do you have your hand up yeah I did have a hand up thank you um and thank you for uh this presentation this evening and for the work that you and director Le did uh to present to be able to present it to the board tonight I did
185have a question around uh the trainings and I was grateful to see um that there were training that you um suggested trainings for our staff but I was also wanting to know uh uh Dr Stevens have you thought about um gender inclusive toolkits to maybe purchase for our students um to see how that or or have you thought about how that would be rolled out maybe similarly to how um how um I can't even remember what it's called now the roll out around cyber bullying and how those trainings happened with our students are you also thinking about or how are you thinking rather about ensuring that our students receive um receive training and information to make sure that our our our our schools are gender inclusive yeah I I see that sort of the the
186work moving forward if the policy is passed I mean first we'll need to begin to think about a set of accompanying regulations administrative regulations that further specify the actions in the policy so that that I imagine is one body of work to take on um a second as I just man mentioned is then to um think about a roll out plan with an Associated timeline and a budget um I haven't had the opportunity to think at that level of detail about the components of that plan uh and that's where we'd love the opportunity to come back to the board when we've had the chance to think more deeply about it thanks I just didn't see that uh student trainings are mentioned and I wanted to be be sure that we included it um as well
187because it would be just as necessary for our students to receive those trainings that it would for our teachers or staff you know that that's a really excellent point um director Brown and I'm wondering maybe you and I can work on a line um to add to the training component that wouldn't be specific because as superintendent Stephen said the the like maybe we need to train our staff first but I do think you're right that there needs to be something in here about student training so why don't you and I put our heads together and we can suggest some language to ask are you suggesting that that would be part of policy or that it would be part of the AR that the staff would develop well I think that um probably the administrative regulation
188and how this I mean I guess I think I'm answering your question I think that um for me me the commitments to student training should be in the policy maybe not how to do it but just that we that we believe we should do it yeah then then it goes then it goes back to policy committee doesn't it no we can amend it we can amend it at the board at the full board okay are you open to doing that kadaa yeah most definitely I I I was actually curious to know uh which venue it needed or Avenue it needed to go down uh as well to make sure it happens so however it works and even if amending the policy wouldn't be the best uh decision also just ensuring that we're having the conversation
189that we're ready uh to to implement at whatever Avenue we need to take to ensure that we can uh vote on it and make sure it happens okay so why don't um we go ahead and we'll come up with a line that we want to um recommend is amended when it's in front of the full board on the second and people can either vote it up or down I mean vote that Amendment up or down okay great thank you all and I have to also thank you superintendent Stevens because you have been a great help in putting this together and I really appreciate your commitment your clear commitment to these students thank you okay moving on all right oh right I'm I'm facilitating okay so we have our third discussion item which is I can't
190find my agenda but update take it away what is it update on BD's black lives matter oh right update on on the black lives matter resolution just take the lead of this are you doing this I'm just I'm just going to introduce um this presentation and then I've got I'm joined by a number of colleagues who will also um sort of take part in this presentation um so just as a little bit of background for folks who are watching uh back over the summer I believe it was in June uh the board uh approved a resolution uh called in support of black lives matter um the resolution had a number of action items associated with it um it also called on staff to present an update to the board on a quarterly basis about our
191progress to implement the resolution um so uh we are of course laboring under difficult circumstances right now to move forward um all work um but we do want uh to provide the board with this uh update um you'll notice as we walk through the elements of the resolution we've organized the slide deck just to to match the action items of the resolution um that that some items have really robust progress some items are completed some items are underway uh and some items have not yet started and so we want to sort of signal to the board exactly where we are on each one of these um I'm joined by a number of folks this evening who will each take a small part in this presentation uh that includes Natasha beeri who spoke earlier she's the
192director of BP and community relations uh baj Tiara who's the associate superintendent of Education Services uh and cigary who is um the supervisor of our office of family equity and engagement uh Tom r who introduced himself earlier he's the coordinator of Brea the Berkeley research evaluation and assessment Department uh and adalita Martinez um who is new to the district this year and is our coordinator of professional development so with that um uh we will jump in and review um the elements of this resolution uh and to start I'm going to turn it over to miss ber thank you good evening again uh so the first item in the resolution was that as a symbol of Unified School District's ongoing commitment to focus uniring on the success of African-American students families and staff members and to
193serve as a visible affirmation of the movement for racial equality in the United States a black lives matter Banner shall be displayed prominently in the chambers of the Board of Education we have done that it is displayed there however we are not meeting there uh except for occasionally executive cabinet has been meeting there but the board is not meeting there so we decided that we would create these virtual banners I have one as my background right now as a zoom background uh there's actually uh a couple of different ones uh here's another one uh and so um that piece has been achieved great thank you uh and then uh I'm going to uh turn it now over to associate superintendent baj Tiara and she'll walk us through uh several more of these elements thank you
194uh in accordance with and celebrating the black lives matter resolution the black excuse me the annual black lives matter school week of action will take place during the month of February to coincide and augment Black History Month while we are in the planning stage of the black lives matter week meetings and discussions are underway teacher Equity leaders at the elementary and middle school levels have engaged in a review and discussion of the re resolution all schools will have dedicated time space activities and celebration of black history black people including contributions to the fields of literature stem Arts politics just to name a few our director of schools Debbie Dean is working with School principles to proactively plan activities for the week of February 1st slide please the ed services department is committed to supporting um
195the black lives matter resolution through ongoing curating of resources use of relevant pedagogy and current issues to develop professional development for teachers and ongoing family support our e Equity continues to be at the core professional development at the October 20 excuse me at the October 12th districtwide professional development day all elementary school teachers engaged in a morning session that addressed Community Building through the lens of identity best practices were presented by our own BSU teachers at this on the same day all Middle School teachers engaged in a morning of sessions focused on abolitions teaching during the session participants identified and learned about the four goals of abolitionist teaching and participants were presented with concrete examples from buusd teachers on best practices for implementation slide please um Additionally the elementary school literacy Network are engaging in
196a book study on Goldie Muhammad's cultivating genius this work started earlier this month the research presents a teaching and learning model through the lens of historical African-American literary Societies in partnership with our office of family Equity family engagement Equity three Family Support seminars have been hosted topics have included building student agency self-awareness and empowerment helping our children thrive in distance learning black families in B USD supports and celebrations featuring Dr Dr khed White I'd like to introduce our professional development coordinator Letha Martinez who will share the next phase of this work that will take place in the coming months slide please Lita yes and so the work is going to continue in terms of we do have a districtwide TKA PD um time with teachers on January 25th where with Middle School our goal is
197to deepen our learning that we already um Eng engaged in in October around the four goals that are identified in the equity framework of abolitionist teaching and again including concrete examples and application and processing time for elementary we'll be introducing abolitionist teaching through the four goals of the equity framework and continuing to build in concrete examples application and planning time for January 27th our districtwide elementary collaboration will continue to reflect on focal student writing which continues to consist of uh teachers bringing focusing on students specifically they have to bring work samples that they reflect on and then plan next steps around at least one africanamerican student or or a student who's an English learner or a student who's Andor who's a student um with an iup and where we're going deep into through a data
198protocol to engage in really reflecting and analyzing student writing with our Equity Equity um lead teams will continue to reflect in plan with regards um to instruction and how they bring learning back to their sites through the lens of equity and abolitionist teaching and engage their site teams around that and also resources um we will provide resources that support black lives matters week and Black History Month in our lit literacy coach network will continue to reflect and plan around cultivating genius and Goldie Muhammad's uh Equity framework in terms of abolitionist teaching and last um we'll continue to support and work in collaboration with Opie around um our sessions we've already facilitated two of them and it's kind of a two of a six-part series in terms of building student agency self-awareness and empowerment for our
199families thank you thank you very much um we move on another element of the black lives matter resolution has to do with designing what's what's called in the resolution of black Joy campaign um we note that this element of the resolution has not yet started um we will plan to get this started once we're back from winter break um and that very likely is going to look like uh search for Community Partners who can help us design this campaign for our classroom students and Educators uh and then we'll turn it over to um an cigary to talk about work that is um coming out of the ofie office and that corresponds with the resolution an uh greetings everyone and so in addition to the Family Support Seminars the office of family engagement and Equity um
200has a joint project with the city of Berkeley uh with Nina Goldman of the city of Berkeley's 2020 Vision um we we jointly believe that building the capacity of the leaders uh in our schools to partner with our black African-American parents is critical to reshaping and building our schools uh success for our africanamerican students so to do so we hired RT fish educational Enterprises some of you know a part of that Enterprise area the African-American Regional Education Alliance uh because that organization is unapologetically uh focused on improving outcomes for our black African-American children uh so far uh we have well first of all we have planned three work sessions we have had two work sessions so far um our first work session took place on the 20th of October uh where we brought parents Guardians
201and our school leaders together the second took place last night uh um our sessions average about 75 parents Guardians and and school leaders and there were these sessions were conversations were facilitated by skilled professionals from RT Fisher Enterprises we just wanted to say that we realize that this project will not reverse the lifetime of inequities uh in just a few sessions however uh we felt that getting this conversation started is crucial to ensuring uh the outcomes that I know that we all want for our African-American students and so we're continuing uh with this project collaborating with Debbie Dean um our director of K8 schools and I did not add before that this is we're starting with tk8 and we're hoping to go on to the high school with this project so I'm really looking forward
202to presenting more to you about the outcomes of the parent principal learning circles thank you very much Miss cigary um and then we turn back to U Miss be can't hear you Dr Stevens oh okay good was it you that time not me um so we now turn back to uh Natasha beer she can provide an update on the renaming process for Jefferson and Washington Elementary Schools thank you so the next item in the resolution was that the Berkeley Unified School Board commit to a renaming process for both Jefferson and Washington Elementary Schools following our current facilities naming policy and we did embark on that um in fact this board heard an update on that uh just in October um so I won't go back through over um those first few steps but just let
203you know that we have progressed since then through um the community engagement process with the school formerly known as Jefferson and uh just this week the superintendent naming advisory committee uh met this Monday to review all of the input and put together a recommendation which I am currently in the process of writing so that this board uh on December 2nd um will have all of that input and the recommendation available to them for a new name uh for Jefferson and then uh the Washington process will begin after that um that'll be a decision to be made as to when to launch that thank you um and one of the elements of the uh board's resolution reads uh that the board will commit itself not only to address the symbols of institutional racism and white supremacy
204but also the proac AC ly identify and address biases practices policies and institutional barriers that perpetuate Injustice and inequality in our schools and Community um to that end we now have scheduled a series of board retreats to begin in December and work our way through March of this next year um uh with an agenda that is explicitly centered um on the role of the governance team and Equity um so we're looking forward to that work as we um move into the new year um and then as well um we another element of the um the resolution asks um that we engage in work to proactively identify class and cultural biases as well as the practices policies and institutional barriers that negatively influence student learning in the interest of time I'll move ahead um and so
205uh we are working right now to identify a partner um who can support the the finalization of an African-American success framework uh and in the process of engaging community partners and parents to develop that framework uh launch an African-American Community advisory Council and we look forward to um starting both of those projects as we turn the corner on the new year uh and then to talk about I think the final element of the board's black lives matter resolution I'll turn it over to uh Dr Tom Reinhardt who again is the coordinator of our Brea Department good evening everyone so um Brea has been doing some preliminary analysis of various academic achievement data as well as Community input and um going a little bit beyond the academic achievement I think it's important to dig into some
206of the um structural and systemic systems that are in place in Berkeley to to determine the discrepancies that exist for black students um so the following list is some proposed topics that um could be investigated as well as some preliminary examples and these are both proposed and preliminary because uh the thinking will evolve the more um information that the department uncovers so for example we have a topic of chronic absenteeism where we could investigate the distance that students have to travel to get to school of course that's not an issue currently but we know that um absenteeism has been a challenge uh for our black students during distance learning as well um second is opportunity and access and this involves the sort of Pathways to Advanced coursework especially at the high school and reviewing things
207like enrollment procedures um parent knowledge of programs so this will this will rely on interviews and um analysis of enrollment data and the third proposed uh topic right now is implicit bias and uh this intersects with some of the other work that's ongoing in the district office to um identify how students are assigned for intervention servic and behavioral referrals um things like special education programs and other intervention um and the effectiveness of those programs so this can be investigated through some survey information as well as uh current behavioral referral processes and data um I look forward to presenting a draft of a more comprehensive investigation to the board of directors at a future date thank you thank you so much uh and with that we conclude um we do want to note that there's uh
208a few other sort of related projects that will be coming to the Board of Education very shortly um they include the presentation of a new literacy action plan um that is intended to support reading development among our younger students uh will as well be bringing to the board in December something called the comprehensive coordinated early intervention services plan or cace um what this plan is is essentially trying to uh root out the causes of disproportionate referral to special education services for African-American students uh and so while not considered to be part of the resolution it's related work and will be coming to the board in only I think on December 9th actually um and then as well as Dr Reinhardt mentioned we'd love to come back in a future board meeting um and spend some
209more time um uh in a discussion about a proposal for buusd Equity measures which was one element of the resolution um so we hope that this update was helpful and we welcome questions um I see Ty Alper you have a question um well really I just had a comment and I wanted to thank um Dr Stevens and all the um members of your staff that spoke tonight and presented on it and it's really um inspiring and and exciting and and um and and I've seen you know I've seen the board and other boards and other bodies pass resolutions in the past that um that and this and director SE I mentioned this with the with the um transgender policy where you the board passes something and and and everybody feels really good about it but
210but then there's no implementation and um and I think what what you've demonstrated is that when the board directs staff to do something that that you'll do it um and that I think um makes our sort of pronouncement so much more meaningful because they actually translate into real outcomes for kids and um and I just really appreciate that and it means that when we do that and when we pass resolutions we have to know what a what a um what we're what we're asking of staff that you know that have limited capacity and I think there's there's no better um there's nothing better for our staff to be to be spending their their precious time on than than the subject of this resolution so I'm really proud of it and and and appreciate all that
211work um and it is and it is a lot of work and it's really important and um and again really inspiring so thank you and thank you to director Brown for um initiating the resolution in the first place and crafting it and spearheading it um it's really it was an achievement for us to pass it but but the real achievement will be in seeing it carried out and this is a really exciting First Step thank you thank you vice president aler director Lea Cutler yes I want to thank everybody who's been involved in in from director Brown bringing this to the board to um to the staff and the superintendent who are really putting some um some action into to the the beautiful words on the resolution that's in it moving it Forward um I
212just wanted to add in terms of an equity measure that it's also um the hiring of our teachers of color our black teachers and where we stand with that that's very critical um and I also want to congratulate our district because you know Julie Julie and I have been involved with the 2020 vision from way back when um and really seeing how it's it's evolving the 2020 Vision to not just be part of our lcap uh a mandate from the state but actually something that we want to live and Breathe by um and that we want to embrace from the onset of when we hire and when we on board our staff um so I you know I congratulate the district it really is a movement towards it's taking us a long time but you
213know it it it takes a whole village of people to make things work it doesn't happen just because of one person so I want to thank everyone for this thank you D director Lea Cutler I'm going to call on director um Brown uh thank you and thank you to superintendent Stevens and all of those who presented um this evening it did my heart a lot of joy to see this um agenda and to know that the work just like director Opa said the work is actually being done um I do have some questions so here we go get ready um so I was really happy to hear about um the Abolitionist teacher training that um happened in the beginning of the year U I would have liked to see um however with staff on boarding
214so either new staff or returning staff um I would have liked to see us use that opportunity to really focus on um the implicit biases that we have uh within the district and I and I heard from you Dr Stevens that um it that it's it's it's forthcoming that's coming soon um but I I would have liked to see us start the year off a little bit stronger with those um trainings so I want to ask why that's why why we didn't start the year off stronger uh with that and then my second question um is in regards to um addressing the gaps that we have in math right so I um was also so grateful to see the liter the uh literacy action plan um but I want to know what the action plan
215um is around um math for our students just because in in our resolution it kind of encompasses the whole academic um uh the whole academic experience of our children so I was happy to see that the literacy action plan is there but what about our math action plan how are we supporting our students in math what do those gaps look like how are we going to address those gaps um third question is around Longfellow right so in our black lives matter resolution uh there's a specific um therefore be it further resolved uh portion about Longfellow um and I didn't hear that mention but maybe I just missed it uh during the presentation but I didn't hear that mention and I have more questions but I'm gonna let the rest of my colleagues um ask their
216questions after me um oh but let me just ask this last really really important question um who is housing all of this information right so we know that um we had a whole bunch of hands in the pot to uh be able to present today which was really great and fabulous because it means that our work is being spread um amongst a whole lot of people which means that it's it's we're doing what we're supposed to do but who is the person the one person that's responsible for all of this work so that's that was four let me know if you need me to repeat any of um I'm I'm gonna I'll try to work my way through this um there there are a number of aspects of the resolution that we wish frankly we've
217been able to do better than we could have um especially over the summer um summer leading into the fall um really it was all hands on deck to prepare for distance um I don't intend to use that as an excuse but we had to really remake ed services remake our entire summer uh professional development um to rewrite curriculum plan for the use of all these new technologies and then 100% of our training days um or to prepare our Educators to use these new platforms to be ready for distance learning um I think it was a credit to the team that they were able to retool um relatively quickly um after the start of the year to begin to introduce um things like patina Love's book but that's really what took place over the summer in
218terms of both our induction program for new teachers and then the way we used our summer professional development um we were in an emergency and so we we sort of had to take care of that um in terms of math um this I think is another one of those temporary casualties of covid you know we were working on a math task force um that had its last meeting exactly in February um and then as it was sort of rounding the corner into March um schools were closed um and so many things um had to go to the back seat um I would love to return to that work I don't actually see that the staff has the capacity to manage that work uh and prepare for school reopening um I'm afraid that one's probably going
219to sit on the back burner for a little while um but we are excited about the literacy action plan um both introducing it to the community next month and then rolling it out over the course of the spring and into the summer um in terms of Long Fellow um what we can plan to do the next time we present is a more detailed um sort of in investigation of what's going on over at Longfellow um you know that there was a a a fairly significant transition of leadership at Longfellow um principal Paco Fon is there now um hasn't yet had the opportunity to even introduce himself in person um to his staff and yet has been getting to know that community and is beginning to lead really important Equity conversations um with the report that
220the district commissioned uh in his hand he sort of thinks about the issues that the community identified that they would like to work on together so we'll um definitely bring that back and in terms of sort of who's got this in their hands um right now it's a shared effort um I can't say that we're sort of organized so that a single project manager is taking care of this resolution um you can hear that there's sort of joint ownership across a lot of the administrators in um in the district and we've been using cabinet level time or sometimes what we call Extended cabinet um to try and circle people around the resolution and sort of rally people to the various action items but I think that it's sort of a step we could take moving
221forward to sort of better identify the owner again we've been so hamstrung um by by by the efforts to reopen schools that it's just been difficult more difficult than we could have anticipated to keep other work going if I I I I recognize that and if I could just say this um superint superintendent Stevens that's kind of why why we need this right because with distance learning and with uh all of the learning lives or the anticipated learning loss that could happen that's why we we need this right now right and we can't really afford to um for lack of better term put things on the back bur burner so for some of those things that have been put on the back burner superintendent Stevens I would like to push you to kind of um
222maybe create a Time associated with things like a math action plan or um things like whoever if we're using the the mocha framework for whoever whoever's going to be the owner whoever's going to be the person responsible uh for this work I'm gonna put myself in here because what I want to say is kind of piggybacks on that a little bit and I totally understand superintendent Stevens why like that there's just been so much on your plates and um distance learning and the Corona virus and the whole setting around it has really exacerbated the equity issues that we've seen so I think that would be what would be really interesting would be to actually use this as an opportunity to kind of delve deeper because it's so much more needed now I mean it's always
223needed but it's just I mean the the current situation is just Illustrated how you know just like this this shift has just exacerbated so incredibly the inequities and um I think that I totally understand you're being overworked but I also would like urge you to um not overworked you didn't say that but like that you've been focusing a lot on opening but I would say that it would be really um it would be very positive for us to like focus a little bit of even the reopening energies on the Equity issue because it's such an important I mean it's just so critical right now and I also I mean that being said I also like really wanted to say that you know it's very exciting and I'm inspired to hear all that you've done and
224that so many people are committed to this I know that there have been people committed in the district to this for a long time and it seems like these are good steps that are taking in response to this resolution and I won't be here but I know my board I know the other board members will hold the district accountable to continuing this work um so now I'm gonna call on student director Miller and then Julie thank you yeah um I agree with director Brown I I mean kind of using what um president Appel said like distance learning is one of the biggest threats to equity or online learning that we've seen in a long time and I think anything we can like create right now to um minimize learning loss including like these programs is
225essential and definitely should have a l special lens focus on it I also want to say um I really like what's going on so far and I think any opportunity see to include um some of our black students from our high school or middle schools in these conversations at the district level would be incredible and I think it would provide um a lot of valuable insight for what extra things we might need right now great um thank you very much um director Miller I want to now turn to director th you um I um I want to thank everybody for all of the work that's happening and director Brown for keeping you know for initiating the uh resolution and and keeping us um on track and the train going whatever the right analogy is pushing
226us forward um I'd like to also really thank Miss Caligari for the in the sessions with the principal leadership and the African-American Community I've heard really good things about it and um you know working together with the city on it I think has been great and I really want to appreciate your work on that um I similarly in the sense of kind of the the the the world of covid and how it's exposed the the inequities and the institutional racism that we all know has been existing uh but now it's like even more blatantly in front of our face is um also I kind of piggybacking on I think director Lea Cutler mentioned it is the issues around the staff um representation and the development not just of teachers of color but we've also had
227a lot of conversations about the the inequities that have kind of surfaced among the differences between our credential staff and our classified staff um and wanting to see um Mr Reinhardt when we're looking at the data that we're collecting that we're also looking at some of our um our staff data around our Hiring Our retention um and also looking at um whether or not we have thought about or can think about you know developing any kind of a groups among our staff of color I know we have our teachers of color Network that's through bft but to actually address some of the discussions and dialogue among our African-American staff and having a safe space where they can raise the issues that they've been grappling with for you know long before covid but again may be
228accentuated with covid um I didn't see that anywhere um and I I know for all the reasons you've already mentioned we haven't grappled with everything in the resolution but I do think a key component of it was around some staff the staff related issues so thank you again you know I can jump in here comments we had not mentioned it in the sort of overview of the resolution you know we have now for um two years and now in our third year been partnered with um with the principal Leadership Institute at UC Berkeley to do um what's called leaders of color Network um this is a grant that we've been writing annually to the chancellor of UC um to support leaders of color including principal central office leaders to come together with facilitation by um
229by P staff including Rebecca Chung um to reflect on the experience of leaders of color here uh both as they lead their school communities and interact in in our Berkeley Central office environment um and both to name the issues that impact leaders of color but also then um the P program produces a report for us each year which surfaces some of the key themes coming from this network of leaders um so we do have work like that including the teachers of of color Network um and I think it can be expanded all right so um director Lea Cutler did you have more comments your oh your hand is oh you took your hand down um director Brown yes I do um I wanted to ask ask and this this next question is going to be
230an audacious question so um I apologize if I'm ruffling any feathers um because I know this is Miss Caligari I know this is going to be a hard question knowing that you don't have a a a full staff of folks but is I wanted to know is ofie working um with our staff or is our staff uh reporting to Opie or how how is ofie working with um our staff to ensure that um that Equity M or the equity block that we have in our schedule is used to uh call parents if excuse me okay um call parents if our our our students are not um in school if they are chronically absent um is that the work ofie or how how does that work Miss so our staff is working in collaboration with the
231schools it's not their role to really um accountability really is not their role however they play a great role uh in uh the cost meetings and with connecting with teachers and staff and the teachers the teachers and staff on a regular basis a consistent basis will contact our staff if they are for example unable to reach families or concerned about you know any issues that that come about uh from their interactions with um with uh with with families uh that you know they find that their additional needs uh that exist that we may want to reach out to support the families so there is definitely a back and forth interaction um we don't have staff like you said at all the school sites so we're not able to do do it at every site um
232I have uh reached out and been in communication with the middle schools where we do not have um staff and the leaders and counselors from those schools are reaching out to me with needs and support and I've done as much electronically as I can so that these schools have access to the resources like funds that we are providing um to our families that are a result of the Birch Public Schools fund uh fundraising um I just like to add also we just received um 30 50 gift cards for uh each School uh this week uh that my staff is giving out to uh families so that has to be in collaborations with the collaboration with the school and I've collaborated with those schools that do not have op staff so so we do our best
233and it's it it's it's rough in this environment um yeah thank question I I just wanted I wanted to to know because I know you know what your staff looks like and I could only imagine how um what do they call it how much of a hay audacious goal that is to to ensure that that that takes place um my it's a he it's a heavy lift and I can can I just give them a a shout out they've been doing an amazing job with um making contacts with I mean hundreds of of parents repeatedly to make sure that they have the resources that they need so shout out to the op and is there data associated with this um with this effort um everything that we're doing I have Pro I have uh done
234forms and collected you know data on you know how many and how much is giving out and whom so I do have lot of of data to go along with the work that we're doing now yes thanks and my final question Tom um in your presentation uh you said um under chronic absenteeism you said something about um analyzing home addresses what was meant by that yeah I think that's just you know a preliminary proposal to to look at some of the various causes of Why students aren't attending classes I think um in a quick glance at some historic data in the district students uh that were in socioeconomically disadvantaged situations who were asked to travel very far seemed to have um um different reduced attendance and I think it's worth a closer inspection to see
235what exactly the trend is more recently and um if that's a thing that we could consider as an effect but I wouldn't make any conclusions right now okay I I was just wondering especially in thinking about us being in distance learning how that would inform any of the information that we were looking for in regards to Chronic atenism um but thanks for clearing that up can I can I say something yes you know and I don't remember what it stands for the ACI the a ASI the in terms of um I think using that in terms of um what is it um using that to filter out the students who are the greatest needs um in our district you know students who are low income students who you know have special ed students who have
236have dnfs it's really looking at those students in in terms of the problems that are involved with Transportation I don't know how it connects to this as much but I think it's more around um and Mr Reinhardt probably being new to the district hasn't seen that that that that scale that's used to identify students who have greater needs all right are there any other comments or questions on this very informative item all right you thank you thank you so much um okay so we're gonna move on to I'll just my colleagues right now they're they're up late so thank you very much everybody for joining us we'll let you all go bye thank you um before we go to the open the second um open testimony Open Session testimony I want to make sure everybody
237draw everyone's attention to the um draft school year calendar for 2122 um because it's in the materials and now I have I have two people who want to speak in uh who waited patiently for the second opportunity for public Testament up three people and so um we're GNA let you speak for um for two minutes I'm gonna start with Lindsay Noel hi can you hear me yes okay great I'd like to Echo director Brown's student director Miller and president appel's disappointment about putting Equity issues like math achievement on the back burner I remain concerned about how the p pandemic has overtaken all discussion about how to improve education in our district I too would like our schools to open however distance learning has opened Windows into how education has not been working well for a
238long time and if you're interested the Atlantic has a really good article about this um administrators and BD staff need to commit to working on more than one thing at a time issues that go beyond School reopening and social emotional needs I appreciate all the hard work teachers have been doing but would like BD leadership to make Headway on simplifying priorities for teachers training teachers on scientific strategies meeting obligations to provide a free appropriate public education and making sure that we take this strange and difficult time as an opportunity to make systemic changes that are so desperately needed thank you thank you you very much now I'm going to call on Sher wasburn and then we'll end end up with Martine De mutas Flores hi um hi so thank you for appointing me to the
239community advisory committee for special education uh it's an honor to serve my community in meeting the needs of students with disabilities in our CPA I want to address something director Sinai said this evening and also didn't say during her comments she spoke about how the Improvement of distance learning programs has essentially made social emotional issues the most challenging aspect of remaining in a distance learning model and while it is true that distance learning has greatly improved since the spring suggesting that social emotional issues are the greatest challenge of our Stu that our students are facing erases the experience of students with disabilities in our district we have students with complex needs in the district who continue to struggle to access their education three months into the school year I'm disappointed and concerned that neither director
240Sinai nor any of the other directors mentioned students with disabilities this evening I've been in special education for 20 plus years so I understand how challenging this issue is and while I don't know what the solutions are for each individual student I do know that not talking about the needs of students with disabilities guarantees that they will continue to face barriers to their education I truly applaud the USD for the focus on Equity that was evidenced tonight by the discussion around uh gender identity and race but students with disabilities must be included in any conversation we have about Equity I'm really looking forward to working with the board on amplifying the issues of students with disabilities in our district and across the Sala thank you thank you very much now I'm gonna call on Martin
241deuta Flores wait wait we're having a hard time hearing you try again how about now go that's good all right um what notes um I appreciate all your work um you know I come to speak on my own experience that I don't think it's safe to open the schools right um and I think your commitment to following the science following the research following those indicators are important I speak to rasa in my community who are afraid to come back to schools I speak to black students in our community and their families and they're afraid to come back to schools because of the fear of the contraction and they see the evidence and the rate of deaths that's disproportionately representing a black and brown people so I applaud you all for staying uh committed to that
242um some things the reflections about what I've heard today is that um you know as a as a father to a daughter who finds lgbtq issues really important to her um she really felt like it was really important to reconsider how we understand bathrooms right um often we point we pick bathrooms that are in some secluded place or have to be unlocked which then make them visible to others when which they we are trying to honor their own personal identity something to rec consider about that and how we talk about that um you know the when we talk about the black lives matter week of Celebration um I think it's really also important to also talk about that you know these structural issues is structural issues of white supremacy and and um institutional racism have
243also painted Targets on our backs right and those things have to be talked about to contextualize the way people see themselves and feel in the community um the other part that I think was really important to bring up today as well is that um research is key to how we see some of the equity issues and I know our Brea Department um continues to be underst staffed and that needs to be an issue that's brought up and highlighted because that is the only way we're going to continue to draw on some of these Equity issues and the other thing I just like to suggest that maybe that the equity the way that we come in equity advancing district is include an equity indicator as part of the way that we think about opening um given
244the pandemic because if we just open to open then we'll never get there in terms of the equity issues thank you for the little sign and yall have a good night thank you very much um now we're going to go to extended board member and superintendent comments does anyone else want to make an extended comment I will just say that I am really I'm I'm actually very proud and um enriched that this was my final meeting because we talked about so many important issues that I care deeply about and I I'm and I feel totally I totally trust those of you who remain and our new board members that you'll continue to push forward with this good work thank you president thank you president sure thank you president good meeting we'll see your good meeting
245everyone see you bye by see you bye bye good night everybody good night