001hello my name is fer P hello my name is Cadence Luna hello my name is liette rendoza hello my name is G car hello my name is s s next we have Butler Elementary Representatives hi my name is z am I my name is Samantha and we're both in fifth grade and go to Arthur C Butler some things I like about Butler is that old students are treated fairly everyone always tries their hardest and students treat teachers with respect what I like about Butler is that everyone gets along teachers are never rude to students or other adults and everyone is kind now we have the Mary sukamoto element Representatives hi my name is Mary I am a student from maroto we have brought four new sports cheer football basketball and volleyball Mary tooto is a
002special school because we have student campel fundraisers and movies as well as pep rallies we also have caring staff and we have our winner single Along coming up we love Mary sukamoto hello my name is Kaye I'm here for Miss pawns hello my name is Kaylee Perkins I'm here for Miss Pawn's fourth grade class at Mary sukamoto Elementary I would like to tell you a little bit about what makes our school so special sukamoto is full of wonderful and welcoming people sukamoto also offers a wide variety of interesting extracurricular activities such as team sports MTS news broadcast and learning about modern technology such as 3D printing this is what makes school one of my favorite places to be thank you next we have the fight Elementary Representatives my name is Annabella good is I have
003attended fight since kindergarten one of my favorite things about fight is how it offers many opportunities not only in learning but in friends extracurricular activities and more my name is my name is Derek I have attended by in since preschool but has helped so much people build up confidence and try new things and improve social skills and academics and finally the representatives from TR Smedberg hi my name is Grace bang and I'm in eighth grade at TR smbg Middle School I'm in ASV and as Smedberg we shall grit we show growth mindset responsibility integrity and thoughtfulness as meber we have ASB book art wood shop theater and various music electives students who earn a 3.0 GPA or higher are rewarded with something we call Pop meaning Pride of the pack it's a thing that gives
004students coupons to use um before the end of the quarter over 600 students receive honor roll last quarter and receive pop hi I'm Riley poong I go to tr Smedberg middle school and I'm an eighth grader in ASB tonight I'm going to be talking about sports clubs and big events at Smedberg clubs at Smedberg are during school hours and we have many clubs for students to choose from examples of clubs we have are Asian Pacific Islander also known as API we have games Club crochet club and many more now let's talk about sports sports we have at Smedberg are basketball volleyball wrestling and track and field everyone is invited to a home basketball game to hear our Wolverine pep band now big events we have are dances Club fairs celebrates medur rallies and the eighth
005grade barbecue thank you for listening to tr Smedberg talk at this time we would like to present a video that highlights what has been happening throughout the Sheldon region a special thanks to our Sheldon teacher and co-producer of T TV Mr Scotty Fernandez for creating this wonderful video for what and that's h for we would now like to introduce two Sheldon seniors Denise Gianna Salazar and Natalia Mahar Nunes as they lead our feeder schools and a chair they created as part of the senior project hey parents as they get organized if you can Crouch down you're welcome to come up to the front of the room parents friends supporters great job thank you Denise Natalia and students lastly thank you board members and remember today is a great day to be a husky every day
006is a great day to be a husky on behalf of the board I'd like to thank and congratulate all of the students for their reports and their performances today you did a fantastic job thank you so much before you go I'm going to introduce the principles of These Fine schools so that we can recognize them as well miss Paula Duncan Sheldon High School Richard wall TR Smedberg Middle School uh Lynn garick myola bitel Elementary School Sharon Hamlin Arthur C Butler Elementary School Diane sanding uh Robert J fight Elementary School uh Molly sangalang Mary sukamoto elementary school thank you principles as well thank you students you are dismissed we're going to allow minute or two to clear the room for our next recognition okay Mr Edmonson are we ready okay we're ready whenever you give me
007the thumbs up okay so our next item is academic recognition of fall athletes and coaches which will be led by Mr rod edmiston and my colleague Gina Jamerson is going to assist with handing out the certificates yep go ahead okay president charz espanosa members of the school board superintendent Hoffman Miss Avalos this evening I'm honored to present to you the fall team GPA champions of the El grve Unified School District these student athletes not only Excel in their athletic activity but they are also outstanding students in the classroom the following teams had the highest grade point average at their schools this fall at this time I would like to introduce the coach and the captains of our GPA fall Champions consum Oaks High School women's tennis 4.1 GPA coach Chris Wall captains zou Chen and
008Jamie Fong elgrove High School women's golf team GPA 3.8 and unfortunately they couldn't be with us tonight they had another commitment that they had to attend so next we'll go to Floren High School men's cross country 3.64 team GPA coach Kevin Jacobson captains Lucas Lou and Leo Lang Franklin High School women's golf team GPA 3.81 coach Matt englman captains Miranda gong and Cynthia uu Laguna Creek High School women's tennis 3.94 team GPA coach Sanji van rol captains Jasmine ear and Michelle Wong so if we have any supporters in the audience that want to come up and take a picture you're welcome to do so sometimes when we have a large group we've got to break them up right let's give him one more round of applause you may be excused thank you mon Trail High
009School women's golf team GPA 4.9 coach Jennifer Fritz captains or Captain Ro uh robier amid Pleasant grow High School women's tennis team team GPA 3.85 coach is Linda Shepard and accepting for her is Coach Jeff shin and the captains are Emmy mikami and Jeanie Zang Sheldon High School women's golf team GPA 4.4 coach Brian Hartman captains Leila Nelson and jolly Zoo Valley High School cross country team GPA 3.89 coach James malland captains Arturo moso Lopez and Cynthia Dominguez and again family friends you're welcome to come up if you want to grab that picture thanks Right congratulations again to all of our student athletes great job thank you board are we ready for the next one okay our next recognition is for the California PBIS Coalition recognition and I'd like to call on Vern Anin and
010thank you to my colleague Miss albiani for assisting so good evening H board president chyz espanosa members of the board superintendent Hoffman and Miss aalos uh the Board of Education is asked to recognize the 55 schools that were recognized by the California PBIS Coalition for successful positive behavioral interventions and supports PBIS implementation at the gold silver and bronze levels positive behavioral intervention supports is an evidence-based tiered framework for improving and integrating all systems and practices affecting student outcomes every day and creating an atmosphere in which all students feel welcomed and successful the California PBIS Coalition also known as as CPC initiated the first Statewide effort in 2015 to implement and recog and a recognition system to acknowledge schools for implementing PBIS with Fidelity to the National framework the CPC and egusd School Board would like
011to recognize the commitment and the success of these schools and H they have in building a school community that is positive welcoming and meeting the exemp exemp exemplary implementation standards established by CPC and I'm going to turn this over to Mr anen he's going to do a brief presentation good evening uh as Mr Ross said my name is Vern a and I'm the program specialist for the office Behavioral Health I oversee all of our PBIS coaches and our elementary school counselors and it gives me great pleasure tonight to be presenting to you 55 of el gr UniFi School District's pres prestigious schools for their recognition uh and PBIS implementation as all things in the district we align everything we do with our strategic goals and PBIS specifically is aligned with our Wellness goal that all
012students will learn in an equitable culturally responsive physically and emotionally healthy and safe environment now each year the California PBIS Coalition recognizes schools for successful PBIS implementation PBIS stands for positive behavioral interventions and supports the recognition criteria is is pretty stringent it involves team composition team procedures behavioral expectations the teaching of those expectations Behavior definitions discipline policies professional development classroom procedures feedback and acknowledgement faculty involvement student family and Community involvement discipline data database decision-making Fidelity data used annually and annual evaluation report it gives me extreme pleasure to show over the course of the last three years we've seen a sign significant rise in the number of schools that have been recognized for for positive behavioral intervention implementation you can see in 2021 we had a to of 22 schools recognized in the 2022 school year
013we had 47 and this year we have 55 schools recognized with 44 being recognized for gold 10 being recognized for silver and one being recognized for bronze of our numbers continue to grow we look forward to having more schools recognized last year or next year and at this time I'd like to bring our schools up you can see these are our gold schools 44 total 10 total for silver and one for bronze and I'm going to bring them up we're going to bring the we'll start with elementary schools we'll bring our bronze and silver schools up they'll come up and take a picture and Shake Mr Hoffman's hands and then we'll dismiss and we'll bring up the 44 schools being recognized for gold recognized for bronze level of PB implementation Sheldon High School recognized for
014silver PBIS implementation starting with our elementary schools Mayo bitel John aart and David Reese Elementary schools for our middle schools we have Haria Eddie and Samuel Jackman middle schools recognized silver PBIS implementation and our high schools we have calvine William dlor Elk Grove Floren and Valley High Schools recognized for silver PBIS recomend recognition and we'll take a quick picture there and now I'd like to recognize our gold PBIS schools for PBIS implementation Arnold adriani Edna batty Arthur C Butler Carol Raymond case Helen car Castello cons consum this River CW Dillard alitha Donner Elk Grove Elliot Ranch Ellen fiker Robert J fight Lauren hulks Ranch Arlene Hine Roy Herberger Isabelle Jackson Samuel Kennedy Anna Kirchgater Herman limbach Charles Mack Florence markofer Robert J McGarvey James a mcky Maran mix Miwok Village Barbara Comstock Morse Pleasant Grove
015Prairie John wath Joseph Sims Sunrise Mary sukamoto Union house Irene B West and zinder Ranch those are all of our elementary schools and let's see if let's see if we can we can fit our middle schools and high schools up here as well for our middle schools being recognized for gold PBIS implementation Katherine L albani Ed Edward Harris Elizabeth Pinkerton TR Smedberg and now our high schools consum this Oaks Monteray Trail and Rio cazadero high schools these are our gold PBIS implementation Award winners thank you very much go ahead Lisa feel free to direct I think we're creating a third row friends feel free to self sort by [Laughter] height [Music] let's give them another round of applause thank you for the great work here okay while we finished clearing the room that concludes our
016presentations and recognitions for tonight our next item is the request for student expulsions Miss leaster do we have any public comments via zoom on this item there Madam President we have no public comments via Zoom for this item thank you Mr Jamerson do we have any blue cards on this item we have no blue cards on this item thank you I'd like to call for a motion to approve the recommendations for student expulsion so moved second moved by Miss albiani seconded by um Michael I'm sorry I'm having a brain fart Mr Vargas all in favor please signify by saying I I opposed that is approved unanimously next we are moving to public comment Miss Lasser do we have any Zoom uh comments for items not on the agenda yes Madam President we have two public
017comments via Zoom for items not on the agenda Steve can we turn the projector back on thanks thank you first up is Elda o hello can you hear me yes go right ahead yes hi um I just wanted to bring to Mr Hoffman's attention and the board members um there's always this talk about inclusiveness and and so forth but I you know this school year I was able to see a lot of uh special ed children in tear years because they were being turned away they had been moved to different schools I got to talk to some of the parents as well and I just think that it still needs to be out in the open that General ed students are not treated this way and I don't see why special education children still have
018a long way to go because they're not treated equally and it's really disheartened to see that again you know during several board meetings it it keeps coming to the Forefront you want inclusiveness and you want every CH child to have the same opportunity and you don't want to treat one one way and not treat the other but then you go to the schools dropping off our children and we're seeing the special children being treated unfairly so I just want to keep bringing this up the please please do something to give the special education children some stability they deserve also to grow up with strong friendships uh you know I don't know what's being done about this because it keeps coming up that yeah they're working on it they're working on it but every school year
019I mean I talk to some parents their kids were being moved seven to eight times and they're not even in fourth grade yet so something has to change I don't see how that can be fair and that's all I have to say thank you ma'am hey next up is Balera or ballerina Lopez if you can hear me go right ahead hi uh I think it's Miss Lopez Mr Lopez if you can hear me can you go ahead okay that appears not to be working we can see they're not muted okay can move on to the next one I have a question Mr chairman um can we call these individuals up now and then what's the proed dur on that if they don't answer can we give us one of our staff people to call them
020up to see what's the issue with the not connecting this this is an issue that's ongoing I'm very concerned about is that the people in our community or is it over here at our district office regarding the technology like I said before um we need to get parent engagement 100% good thank you next one so what is it we we just said we can follow up after the meeting we we do help people you know make the technology work for them but do we have that on our website probably do we have what on our website the information I like to suggest on our website how to contact maybe a film or video and also maybe one of our staff Mr Bettis Mr Bettis yes this is a great conversation to have offline not in
021meeting time not in the middle of public well like I said I'm very concerned about this issue noted publicly heard that I'm we hear that you want to do that in front of an audience thank you you may proceed Miss Lasser for the par that was the last public comment via this item Madame President I'm sorry I didn't hear you that was the last public comment via this item thank you very much Miss Jamerson do we have blue cards for items not on the agenda yes we do I have Ashley Arnold followed by Kirk excuse me you're going to call up people who have want to speak to items on the agenda now not on the agenda sir no I thought I heard you say on the agenda if I misspoke thank you for letting
022me clarify this is for items not on the agenda hello um my name is Ashley and um I am speaking on be behalf of my girls um the problem I'm having with is bullying at Roy Herberger Elementary um it has been going on since their fourth grade and my girls are now in the sixth grade um I've talked to the principles and the vice principles at the school and all they have done was tried to separate students by placing them in safe zones and that's not working so I have reached out to the district and I feel as if they have not helped as well because the situation has still continued um my girls have been a victim in all of this and there has been no suspensions on on either side of the situation
023to the point where I've had to get a restraining order on the child um what I want to happen is a major change on how the school handles bullying since their po they have a no tolerance policy thank you thank you I have Kirk followed by Joel Boyd hi I spoken to a few of you privately and increasing the transparency of the school board came up as a reason for at least one of you to decide to run for school board but it is generally a goal stated by members of this board however I know now that this is a blatant lie I don't think anyone on this board gives a damn about being open and honest with parents Mr vargas's voting record suggests his parent his views on parents rights he views them all
024as homophobic and he has stated he actively wishes to limit parent input into controversial subject matters in school President chers espanosa we now know thinks any classroom material she's never heard of is necessarily anti-lgbtq and that is the bias with which she makes decisions on curriculum to paraphrase your own words Madam president you are not supposed to be only representing one particular Community you are supposed to be representing this District as a whole your actions show this is not what you're doing this board's decision to try and hide controversial topics like the instructural materials policy under the consent consent agenda so that you can lump it in with school roof repair and fire restoration shows a hostility to transparency and a level of corruption we expected at the federal government level not our local school
025board this kind of shady tactic isn't new to these members of the school board one of the first complaints I heard from parents was how you all decided to move the sex ed policy discussion time around to make things difficult for working parents to attend the meeting and voice their concerns on at least one other controversial topic this board has delayed discussion to a later date which I would normally approve of except that delay in my opinion was only to give certain members of this board a chance to organize local activist to show up some of who use that opportunity to try and intimidate and harass concerned moms who attend these meetings since this board cannot be trusted to be consistently transparent and this meeting's consent agenda provides another data point to back up that
026assessment I'm calling on this board to remove item one from the consent agenda and put that as a standal load andena item at a later meeting and if you are all unwilling to do so it just shows you're not equipped to take the heat for this position and as my dad used to say if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen I have Joel Boyd followed by Dr jazar all good evening Madame President board superintendent Hopman Miss aalos 21 4516 just want you to remember those numbers I'll come back to them in a minute I have to be upfront with my bias before I make my statement one of the many things that my wife and I have in common is the profession that our mothers chose my mother-in-law is a retired
027School librarian my mother is a retired librarian uh it was through the love of books and the access of different variety of books um has uh G G me a well-rounded opinion and global view of people and keeps me from being judgmental and biased and uh we need more love in this world and because of people who they choose to love I I just can't it just can't wrap my arm around by people being mad about who people love um we've heard a lot of shock statements to come through this board meeting of people taking comments out of context and uh doing it for the shock factor of it all and board members should be above that and shouldn't stoop to that level of getting shock factors from the board uh desk uh I was
028concerned about the change in the elections where trustees uh had the the members of their area voting for them that that could lead to people pandering to their uh to their votes instead of what's good for the school district so I state that now the 24516 that's the time that I recommend a lot of people to roll back the last school board meeting and listen to the comments of Isabella Seagal the student School Board member and I'm paraphrasing you so excuse me if I get some of the words uh incorrect but as it comes to this issue on the books she said it was a parents issue this is not an issue with the kids it's not an issue with the kids she further articulated very poly during her presentation at the special board meeting
029that the issues that the kids are facing are Mental Health Resources restrooms discrimination and hate uh communication transparency uh disciplinary process on provision of certain amenities didn't mention books at all it's not any lcaps so can we put this to rest you know if you need to get a a rating system do it get in the room and do it but having this comments about you know these books and every time I hear you know comments about uh these books and the inflammatory remarks uh is just proven point that we need to have more books in school instead of less so you know board this this let's put this to rest let's get this together let's start addressing these issues that the student School Board member brought because these are the issues that are important
030to the students your time is thank you Dr Jazz carard followed by Gary Hickman good evening board I was really pleased to see all of the great recognition and especially the um PBIS Coalition recognition unfortunately there was a school not mentioned that's Franklin Elementary and again I feel like you know uh it's serendipitous my timing of coming to this board meeting um I'm kind of picking up from my dialogue or the last time I came to this board in June so first I want to say thank you I always want to recognize the effort and the work and the progress that takes place I did for the most part get a lot of my questions answered and so I kind of picked up that dialogue in August and I do have something I want to
031leave you guys with because I know I'm not going to have enough time and a part of it is um I've been ceasing Gina you on all of my communication Nancy I cannot get the correct email for you I've emailed you Gina to get nany's email I'm not getting a response so I don't know if you're not seeing my email so I'm a little frustrated with that and I'm being transparent I'm not trying to be disrespectful you know you're my I'm in your District but the school is in ny's District so that's part of the problem so help so I've been working with Mr Ross and he's been helpful there's been some progress made so I want to recognize the progress that has been made so I don't want that to go un notice we
032finally have a School site newsletter which is great so we know what's kind of happening at the school site um the website has been updated with a link to with mental health support services um the parent handbook has been updated to highlight on page eight the school counseling resources information so that is great now I particularly want to know what is going on with Franklin you know with all of the resources there um I requested for the research and evaluation Department to be in engaged I was told that is going to happen then I want to know what data they're going to collect what reports are going to be available I make several requests to Mr Ross and I get tidbits evasive answers and that's not acceptable okay and I do have my communication threads
033here what questions stand that that remain outstanding I mean the my last communication I I I did not get a response for over a month that's unacceptable okay our students are held AC accountable we are held accountable and also the I asked if this information is available to the public that's the question I'm trying to get answered and if so what's the process if not why not and I was told the board has access to this information upon request so I it raises the question are you guys even looking at this information so to get more details I would like to leave this and I would like to leave by getting Nancy your your correct email so I can Loop you in because I'm sending it to the superintendent office I don't know if you're
034seeing it Mr Hoffman your is thank you we'll be sure to follow up okay will board members each get a copy of those uh questions yes thank you yeah board secretary will make sure uh Gary Hickman followed by amolina Good Evening in last month's board meeting Miss sherz espanosa and I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name uh stated that there's been a characterization that via their book selections Librarians are attempting to groom students for sexual abuse I haven't heard this particular character characterization but I may have missed it but nobody that I've communicated with uh that I I believe would have said that I do believe that she was conflating the statements that explicit content of some library books has the potential to make students susceptible to Grooming by Predators the ACT of having books
035available with pornographic details is the danger that we are concerned about in the last two meetings I've heard complaints about the reading of these books and their material in these meetings and again I ask if you find these books and the content so offensive why are you willing to allow them to be in our school libraries now I agree with Miss espanosa that every book cannot be expected to meet the need or the want of every student the divers of our libraries is incredibly important to the growth and the development of all of our students within the school district however we must also be realistic I we are here because we are concerned about sexual content obscene Prof uh obscene profanity depictions of sex acts in our school libraries regardless of the subject of the
036book The majority of these books that I have personally seen that have had explicit cont content were not lgbqt related um however because some books do have that theme it's labeled or we're labeled as being homophobic our concerns are labeled as being homophobic rather than staying focused on our concern which is the content of these books our concerns are not the subject but rather the detailed descriptions of these events because our concerns are misidentified as being anti- lgbqt both sides have stopped listening to each other what could have been reasonable discussion has become shouting matches where everybody's just trying to score points rather than resolve a real issue please let me state it again I don't care about the subject of these books I really don't fiction non-fiction historical poetic whatever it is it doesn't
037matter I'm here because these books have detailed sexual content profanity depictions of sex acts regardless of the theme of the subject these D details do not belong on our schools if there's a literary gy that has explicit content that's fine let's deal with it but where to hook up how to do it how to do these acts they have no place here if we're offended here then our students also should be offended and that's my concern thank you amolina followed by h can you touch the base there you go there uh I'm not seeing the light one second there there you go there we go hello so um about two meetings ago uh during the discussion here um about the pornographic books in a school library uh Gina Json um mentioned that parents can opt
038their kids out of the out of reading these books so my question is um how can parents opt their kids out of something that they not even know that they're exposed to because most parents does not know about the content of this of these books as far as I know um schools are not sending letters or notice to the parents about um pornographic books being available to their children uh as they do with sex ed classes they send out a notice and the parents can opt out that's not an option here um Michael Vargas refused the idea of including the word profane in the policy because he thinks that there are people out there that use this word lightly um it is obvious that all the books being challenged contain excessive profane language and Mr
039Vargas completely biased towards keeping these books in the library for children to read therefore um um having this detail um pornographic image obscene and profane vocabulary in the policy well these books would be would fall under that c c category and perhaps be removed from the school libraries and and you know Nancy chides and that meeting also was caught you know lying again to me it's not a surprise because you lied to me before so um you know when she was asked about by Carmine uh why she's not interested in having other uh book ratings associations including to guide the the process of ordering books for the library and according to K Mel she said well since I'm not familiar with them they must be anti lgbtq so some of the board members are uh
040have made this L this an lgbtq issue when it's not um the issue is the inappropriate books um some of you have tried to embellish your intention to keep these books in the school libraries by distracting the issue with libraries being harassed and lgbtq youth uh being discriminated abused and suicidal uh when you know full well the real issue but you continue to ignore it and refuse to resolve it you have come up with a policy that does not address pornographic obscene books why after nearly a year that concerned parents have have been coming here to these meetings asking you to remove the pornographic books from the school libraries and the best you can do is produce a policy that not even address the the issue is just unbelievable thank you thank you Heidi followed
041by Rett penel this on okay my kids and I were recently perusing Barnes & Noble when my daughter found two novels that she wanted to buy I suggested that before she buy them that we check to see if they were available in her school library at pghs I pulled up the online catalog on my phone to check the library catalog and guess what neither of the novels were available at the school library I guess that means the librarian is a book Banner for months we've been called book banners for being concerned about pornographic books that are being purchased by Librarians and teachers without oversight we've shared about books where the entire theme is pedophilia described in horrific detail we've shared about books that give details of how to have sex how to use dildos how
042to hide secrets from your parents and most concerning how to elicit sex with strangers through sex apps we've not only asked for them to be removed but we've asked for you to create a policy that required oversight and checks and balances over Librarians and teachers so that these types of materials would be provided would not be provided to minors in school without parent knowledge at the October meeting four of you wholeheartedly shared your support for librarians and teachers calling them professionals who did not require any oversight at all I appreciate that you support your staff but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't Implement accountability for them professionals and a variety of fields do in fact need oversight as one example nurses and other healthc Care Professionals have their charting regularly audited Professionals in a variety
043of fields have supervisors and systems to ensure that they are executing their responsibilities in a professional manner at the pghs Cam's library the librarian has set up a band Book display this of course is to encourage kids to read pornographic books and show shows clear disrespect to concerned parents it's also been reported that a fourth grade teacher ban read a band book to his class and then had them write a paper about why the book was banned and proceeded to teach fourth graders about transgender surgery I've had a parent tell me her seventh grader was provided a pornographic book by a theater teacher and in fifth grade my own daughter was read a book telling her that she should feel safe with boys in her bathroom after I emailed the teacher the teacher cornered my
044daughter telling her that she doesn't always have to listen to her mom my daughter came home in tears both days these are just a few examples of instances where your stuff was clearly not professional every professional requires oversight account accountability and checks and balances it's a shame that your new policy does not address this important issue it does also not include any criteria to properly assess the appropriateness of books if you vote to pass this instructional materials policy today as is you will prove that you care more about protecting staff and that you do not care about protecting kids which should be your primary focus thank you thank you Brett panel followed by Charlotte uh my name is Miss rat um I'm going to be very honest you don't have to like it or agree
045with it but I'm brutally honest today I'm angry too that's why I'm brutally honest today that PBIS positive behavior intervention support I read the list and heard what PE what they were reading I'm GNA be honest our school doesn't they may be met two or three of them but the others well um sure doesn't work at our elementary school that my grandson is in school is not safe and the explicit material books that everybody's talking about to me it doesn't have to be gay or straight it doesn't matter it's explicit reading pictures Etc that's not right for any child as far as I'm concerned of course that's my own opinion may not be your opinion you evidently agree with um and in our school the principal is nothing about bullying I've been there I've seen
046it I've heard it and I've heard other parents um that aren happy with the bullying there it's been going on and on and it still hasn't changed the principal doesn't really care she doesn't pay any attention and I've seen the bullies get bully or do something and no repercussions about it that's lucky for the bullies I guess I've seen them be mean to kids call some girls calling girls names because of their weight or oh well you shouldn't be wearing that I've heard it and they get to do whatever they want with no consequences and um our school just I guess has double standard if the principal says it's okay and she doesn't do anything I guess it's okay that's two-faced as far as I'm concerned I don't agree with that but I'm not the
047principal and the kids that do positive I don't see much going on for those kids that get um you know some recognition for the positive things they do the bullies get more recognition for the negative than the positive kid and it's really sad because the school does not have good standards I mean it just really literally makes me sick because we came to the school about 10 or 11 years ago it was a wonderful school a lot of positivity and everything no complaints but now we're downhill about as far as you can get thank you thank you Charlotte good evening so you all were elected to your position to represent parents and school and students you were elected parents should be able to hold you all accountable because you're representing us so accountable is subject
048to obligation to report explain or Justify something responsible or answerable the right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children has long been upheld as a fundamental liberty interest under the 14th Amendment as far back is 1923 in Meer versus NE Nebraska if the Supreme Court ruled that parents hold this protected right to control their children's education the founding fathers recognize the importance of the parent child relationship and The Limited role of elected officials Thomas Jefferson asserted children do not belong to the state but to the parent the state's interest is secondary to the natural right of parents legal Scholars like Joseph story and James K emphasize that common law or establishing parental authority over child rearing is an enduring natural right proceeding the Constitution schools act in local parentis which requires
049parental oversight the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that parental Liberty interests in directing children's education as a right is older than the Bill of Rights itself parental oversight in of school boards is the model that aligns with the founding ideas of local government reflecting Community wishes school boards are not autonomous platonic Guardian entities ruling over us but Representatives bound to represent parents interests Supreme Court Justice mcgrs encapsulated the Court's parental rights Doctrine the child is not the mere creature of the state the rise of centralized school boards exercising unchecked power departs from the parent driven model direct parental oversight provides checks and balances against partisan capture which this school board has a lot of partisan issues parents know what is best what is the best interest of their children any Civic servant that believes that
050they know better for the child then the parent is a tyrant the same world view can be seen in communist China Hitler's Germany a person gets elected the power goes to their head and they seek to become unaccountable as they force their ideas and again on us against our will thank you thank you madam chair that is the last of the blue cards thank you that concludes public comment for items not on the agenda um and a quick time check I think we're good on breaks let's proceed the next item is our consent agenda I do have a request to remove item one from consent agenda so sorry I'm jumping ahead here miss sylvas do we have public comments via zoom on the consent agenda Madame President we have two public comments uh on consent
051agenda okay let's hear those first up Stacy excuse me uh did you remove item one from the consent item I start I started to but we're not there yet we're going to do public comment first you started to but we're not there yet but the question was we'll go back to that not yet we'll go back that's it that's it yes sir we'll go back to that okay can you hear me yes go right ahead hello I am Stacy the librarian I wanted to address some of the points from the last meeting 80% of respondents approve of the library documents in process the only reason offering more time would make sense is if the numbers were closer however since 80% of respondents agree with the library materials selection process we can accept that a majority
052in egusd support their school libraries second when I hear others say certain books or topics are not age appropriate I think of the case Ginsburg versus New York which stated that in a place where there is a mixed age group of minors like a school library the material must be viewed from the perspective of the oldest minor so if you're in a k36 library the material stays if it is deemed relevant for sixth graders this was again upheld in a court in July 2023 when a federal judge cited with the fact that restricting materials in a library because of age would have jeopardized the essential First Amendment rights of all because if we remove books for lower ages then we are restricting access for older ages infringing on their first amendment rights third I agree
053we can and do use a variety of sources to review books but please note that these must be reviews from reputable sources and professional organizations not from websites whose contributors are hired because they have quote decorated their bedroom with a Harry Potter theme like one of their reviewers on Compass book ratings the sources should align with The Fair Act and be fair accurate inclusive and respectful of our diverse ethnic and cultural populations if the review site only represents one Viewpoint they are not fair to our students finally I have asked myself one simple question what happens to these book complaints now well AB 1078 prevents book bans in schools this law also prohibits school boards from Banning instructional materials or library books in another District in October 2023 a judge dismissed a lwuit that sought
054to ban 14 sexually explicit books those titles are a court of Miss and fury out of Darkness all boys aren't blue gender queer Beyond magenta The Bluest Eye and Lawn Boy their superintendent stated that not every student reads every book in our library but what we want is to have a variety of material so the books stayed on the shelves another example is in the Tula Valley School District here in California in September where that superintendent did not want to have any book referencing Harvey Milk the first openly gay elected official in California a violation of the Fair Act but a school board should be able to pass its own judgment on books and have autonomy right nope the governor publicly blasted the school board's vote and threatened to find the district $1.5 million so
055they put the book back on the shell I urge you to vote Yes on passing these 80% supported Library materials policies we need to continue to work together as Educators and partner with families to to support an inclusive education for all students thank you thank you next public comment Elda Ortiz Miss Ortiz go right ahead can you hear me yes ma'am go right ahead okay I'm going to go ahead and read Matthew 18:6 but who so shall offend one of these little ones which Believes In Me it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he was drowned in the death of the sea um I did email you Mr Hoffman and you responded yesterday thank you for doing that but you referred me back to the board meeting
056that you all had October 17th which I was aware of that but did you and your board members play that back because there was a lot of questions still not answered uh Nancy you tried to disperse the fact that Mr Carmine was asking you to provide um a Minority Report you indicated that that was a a new process why would it be a process if he has questions and as a board member he should be entitled I want to thank Mr Carmine and Mr Perez for voicing your opinions and asking questions because that is why all of you are there this isn't about treating anybody different it's about inappropriate books and Mr carai made some very valid points and the questions again were still not answered so Mr Hoffman you're referring me back you're saying
057you're giving Apple of time that survey that you sent was very biased because who created it who commit who who selected the committee because from what I'm what I heard from you all was that Nancy you were in the subcommittee that is biased you need to have parents in these committees and what criteria you using because now you're interviewing parents to see if you want them in specific committees when did that change I've had I have a 30 year-old daughter and I've never I anytime I asked to be in a committee I was allowed as a parent teachers and Educators were more than welcoming to have us in the Committees and now you're interviewing so no there is still a lot that needs to be answered before you proceed with all of this you're saying
058a a percentage has decided this who were the percentage because you you broke it down but I don't believe that you have shared enough information I thought from the survey you were going to gather information instead you created all the laws and rules and everything that is already cited but you steer geared it to what you want and now you've elected yourself to be the ones to be able to approve these books that makes no sense I don't agree with this and you need to listen to the parents you're here for the parents and the Guardians not just because you say so and Nancy you need to be more professional with the other board members you continue to tell them to just take it the way it is when they have every valid reason to
059question and that's all thank you that was the last public comment via Zoom okay Miss Jamerson do we have blue cards for the consent agenda yes we have blue cards I have Gary Hickman followed by emilina come on up folks it's the next person um could also stand here at the edge of the DIA so we could move through these a little quickly I I'd appreciate it good evening again so I took some time to look at AB 1078 Following last month's uh meeting uh during the discussion of the instrumental I'm sorry instructional materials topic uh so this bill would revise the list of culturally and racially diverse groups to include uh in addition I'm sorry to include lgbqt folks which it should um other ethnic and cultural religious social economic groups great uh it
060includes adoption of instructional materials that accurately portray cultural and racial diversity great I'm sure you guys already know this um section one 202c must create an equitable learning environment where all pupils including lgbqt are included great no problems there um going through this uh anti-bullying great including lgbqt terrific uh includes anti-bullying for based on religion great uh Mental Health and Family Resources will be made available to the community excellent no problem there so what was not protected what was not mentioned explicit pornographic sexual content that the school district expressly prohibits I'm glad that AB uh 1078 provides protection to classes um of people it provides forther safeguards I'm really glad to hear that however I don't see how it has a bearing on the conversation of instructural material and library media policies the books that
061we have been discussing that I have personally seen and objected to were not lgbqt topics okay the books were extremely graphic as I have already said and from what I see are a violation of our school district's own policies so again I request that this instructional material policy be taken back to committee and revised to include additional guidelines that address our community's concerns about explicit sexual content profanity depiction of sexual acts graphic sorry depiction of sexual acts such materials must be age appropriate with the community insight and input why do I say that because the school board and the community members have stated their disapproval of the reading of these books during our meetings as again I've already said if they are not appropriate here then they cannot be appropriate within our school libraries therefore
062the policy must be further revised to close this Gap within the policy thank you again for your time thank you emilina followed by Heidi okay um uh item 61 in the uh on the agenda I am asking it to be pulled out of the consent agenda why well because first of all the item is not even properly titled and it is a controversial um item and the consent agenda items are supposed to be non-controversial items um and it does not this uh uh policy does not address the issue that is expected to solve so why are you trying to pass this under um as a a hidden agenda item not even properly titled the the policy once again you have demonstrated your lack of transparency with the public you mentioned that you have taken into
063account the staff the teachers the administrators and and the parents input well have you together with other concerned parents I have come here to almost every meeting for nearly a year and I have emailed numerous times in regards to this inappropriate pornographic and profane books and this is how you respond trying to pass a medior policy under a Pudo uh title in the consent agenda is this how you respond you have got to be kidding me uh to behave like this you either have a malformed conscience or you have suppressed your conscience to do what you want to do and not what you supposed to do what is the right thing to do I say to you do the right thing pull this item out of the agenda revised and produce something better something that
064addresses the issue that have been brought to you for nearly a year here um so you know I'm you know we must ask what is the purpose of of this policy um you have the evidence of the problem in front of you you and then you make a policy that does not address the problem or to how to to go about the problem how is that so to me it's a waste of time money and everybody else's time and in regards to to AB uh 1078 it does not pertain to pornographic books and I don't know why you you shielding yourself with that oh yeah you know AB 1078 pass so let's close the chapter and move on excuse me it does not pertain to pornographic books and 80% approve of the policy which was
065like so overwhelming I I I am part of that uh survey and 80% of what tell me the number how many parents participate in that service and that survey does did not address any pornographic books so to use that to say hey we got everything here parents looking put in all your time is up it's not right thank you Heidi followed by Charlotte I am requesting that you pull item one one from the consent agenda why are you hiding this important policy regarding instructional materials and library books within the consent agenda not only have you hidden it within the consent agenda but you gave it a different title from the October 17th meeting where you specifically labeled the policy as instructional material and library and Med library media center policies update and the title on
066today's consent agenda says approval of board policies and exhibit so it's very vague I would like to think this is just an air made and over it or a well-intended mistake but I have a hard time believing this after you have previously placed items on the agenda without a working link or provided links that only provide outlines to proposed curriculum but not the actual curricul curriculum you've also put important items such as STX Ed and Facilities updates on daytime meeting agendas um when it's nearly impossible for parents to attend it's clear that once again you deliberately lack transparency and seek to eliminate parent and Community input you state that you sought out parent input but your so-called survey was really just hitting parents with pages of policy and then asking for their input many parents
067shared with me that they didn't have time to sitp through the policy and felt overwhelmed to look at it I completely understand their feelings I spent more than 4 hours carefully Reading and Responding to the policy it was not presented to parents in a way to elicit a realistic response or participation but you already know that don't you uh you just want to be able to check the box that you collected parent input and by the way I'm pretty sure it was mentioned that that was less than a 100 parents and we have 60,000 kids in our district so that's shameful during October's meeting Michael Vargas shared that a1078 really put a wrench in his desire to eliminate parent input he and Nancy chairs esposa falsely cited AB 1078 and case law to support their
068corrupt policy a1078 does not pertain to pornographic sexually inappropriate and obscene books and regarding case law the Pico Supreme Court case ruled that public school can bar books that are pervasively vulgar or if they lack educational suitability I would also like to point out that Gina Jamerson proved one of the points we've been making all along when she shared about her Superior parenting skills she mentioned that as a parent she would have conversations with her children when they wanted to read pornographic books she said it's important to have conversation with your kids but she was saying that in the context of books that she was aware of and choosing to provide to her own children this policy that she and other board members support does not afford other parents that same right you are providing
069these books to minors without informing parents or seeking their consent how can we have these conversations with our kids when we don't even know what material you're providing to them and you refuse to accept our input to safeguard children and I would also like to add that um Junior derson also does not answer my email so that seems to be a common theme so thank you thank you Charlotte I am also asking you to pull um the consent agenda for approval of board policies and exhibit so I think the Committees need to be reestablished completely so let's go over a list of needs of that are parental approval registration in school par participation in sports notice to use the internet use of library to take medicine on campus the California youth survey and sexed but
070we are also notified if our student gets hurt for conferences with teachers and we're supposed to be notified when our students get bullied but that's another another topic topic so let me now inform you of the district's double standards deceit and deception about sexuality sexually explicit books on page 14 of the district handbook you follow the MPAA ratings for movies to be shown so one comment was no movies rated X or nc17 by Motion Pictures industry are are shown at any grade level so these pornographic books probably meet those expectations and R-rated videos are not assigned as homework or extra credit in grades 9 through 11 so why is that policy oh we don't want rated our movies at homes so under student use of technology is you stated ultimately parents and guardians of miners
071are responsible for setting and conveying the standards that their child should follow each student student authorized to use an egusd technology services and network and their parent and Guardians shall sign this acceptable use agreement as an indication that they have read and understood the agreement online via Synergy so page 57 in your um handbook on social media a person cannot write anything obscene vulgar or sexually explicit but we can have books in the library that are sexually explicit H so and under keeping our learning environment safe wow page 85 has all the listings for sexual harassment unwelcome visual conduct such as drawings pictures or gestures or sexually explicit it has emails but it should have sexually explicit books so why are these standards in the handbook yet you want to adopt these board policies with
072these standards in your handbook thank you thank you there are no more blue items blue cards on this item thank you m Jamerson uh that concludes public comment on the consent agenda at this time I will note that I have had a request from a board member to remove item number one from consent so I would like a motion on items board person that was Mr forina and I would like uh a motion to approve items two through 25 on the consent agenda so moved second moved by Miss Al biani seconded by discussion no no no what no we can't have discussion after before we vote not before I take a second sir what what what do you want to discuss you have a second what item do you want to discuss on two item
073we're talking about right now this motion the motion is two the motion to approve items two through2 no okay then then you're off topic again so can you hold off you're off topic sir so uh we had a first and a second all in favor can we discuss the issue for items two through 25 sir not yet we are not talking about item number one sir two through 25 on consent that that to pull some items two through 25 yes okay what do you want to pull there try to quick when I'm in no okay um I was GNA pull I'm pulling one already been pulled as you've been notified 12 18 and 24 can you repeat those I heard 6 12 18 and 24 were there 6 12 18 and 24 okay I want
074to discuss item one okay well now is not the time and it's already been pulled why not because I'm trying to take a motion on the rest of the consent calendar which is our practice so we'll come back to that okay all right um I would like to entertain a motion on items I'm try to do this the simplest way possible it's 2 through 25 except 6 12 18 and 24 so move second mooved by Mr Yang seconded by Michael all in favor please signify by saying I I I roll call post no sir measure passes with uh Mr betus abstaining I did yeah uh okay you heard me say up stain no you you did not you chose not to participate and we're not going to let you hold up the proceeding so with
075that um I am going to go to item number one and I'll go first to Mr fortina because he requested that it' be pulled from consent thank you um I'd like to uh begin with uh making a motion that item number one not be voted on tonight and be brought back uh at the subsequent board meetings so that we can discuss what a number of us thought we were going to be discussing tonight and that is the responses that were developed by staff to the questions that were posed at the last meeting so with that I make a motion to move item number one to the next regularly scheduled board meeting we have a motion on the table do that is a motion on the table I'd like to amend that to include the questions
076that were brought out today from the consent presenter ERS that brought to our board they were very influential very astute individuals out there that very concerned about our parent I mean our students that that does not sound like motion sir those were the questions that I want to include on this next report okay Mr Mr for's motion made sense he's talking about specific action amend it Mr for are you interested in amending your motion to include the Pres today's questions if so you're going to have to understand and they're well documented through our secretary over there let's let Mr Fortuna respond please no Tony if we if we um have a positive vote on bringing it back I do believe all the questions will be answered are you sure yeah I'm pretty sure well I
077they'll be brought up I I I I should correct myself I'm I'm sure that the questions will be brought up again that's not the same as saying that the questions will be answered so I have a first I still have yet to hear a second I i' like to respond to them we are not in discussion sir we are not in discussion there is there is a motion on the table there's a motion on the table second on the motion wow okay there is a motion there we are not in discussion at this time so there is a a motion by Mr forina second by Mr Bettis all in favor please signify by saying I hold on I'm going to do a roll call actually so let's go down roll call so I'll start with
078you Mr Yang can I make a comment uh we're not in discussion at this time make a comment why not all right make a comment Miss Alani no M Jamerson no um Isabella no that is a no Mr forina hi um Mr Vargas no Mr ptis no I okay okay I have five no to three eyes that motion is defeated so that tonight yes that motion is defeated okay then I have comments comments to um hold on let me think about this so procedurally um yes yes go right ahead sir just checking myself I'm going to make a couple of comments um uh and and then give a more thorough uh uh response uh in making a a request of my colleagues um first of all I want to say that at the last meeting
079um board members asked uh a number of questions wanted to see changes my full understanding was that staff was going to respond to those they were going to come back and we were going to discuss them again that did not happen I can give you one clear example I made a request to uh for consideration of um out utilizing outside sources and making decisions that had rating systems and I gave examples of that what we got back without any information was a staff response uh adding three additional resources they are not resources that give ratings and one of them is is an affiliate of the American Library Association so you really can't technically uh count it there so I I would say they came back with two but I don't know I don't have any
080reason I don't know why those particular resource were added why there was no thought or if there was thought why it was uh uh ignored within their their own decision-making process with respect to having resources that had rating systems there were many other questions that were asked and as I said my understanding was given the direction of the superintendent that staff would look at look at all the input they would come back and instead what we got was that uh we got some revised documents came back but came back via the consent agenda which allows for with for no thorough discussion um and I and I think I think it's it's it's um very seriously and I I know my colleagues some of my colleagues don't like the language I use a lot of times
081but it is explanatory I think it's selective transparency um with respect to that that survey um I don't think anybody should be too proud of it because if if you if you do just simple math the responses versus the school sites we had a response rate of 1.6 six seven responses per School site and I really don't see that that's a whole lot to get excited about it it brings up so many other issues uh in terms about our whole survey process and and what we do to really elicit uh parent input if you want input there are ways to go about doing it to get that input if if if you have a purpose for doing it other ways then then I suppose you get those results as I was saying at the last
082meeting last regular scheduled meeting um I think it's a shame that we put this kind of time in an issue that really didn't need to have the time put into it while at the same time we make no time to do things such as discussing our dismal test scores again we choose what we want to talk about at no time in my 53 educational career have I heard parents indicate their desire for or approval to co-parent their children with the government however that is exactly what the proposed policies and administrative regulations and protocols would do while at the same time placing burdens on the parent I do believe in the inclusion of books in our school libraries that are free of pornographic pictures obscene language sexual exploitation and methods for soliciting sex while at the
083same time providing children information that expands their understanding of themselves and the world around them those two thoughts are compatible with each other and there are many books that do provide the information however many people including members of this board have attempted to divert people's attention from the truth with claims that those that have spoken out against such books are somehow against the lgbtq community community and the recent legislation and therefore should be ignored this theme has and continues to be divisive these claims are without Merit and have nothing to do than being more than a diversion tactic information about the beliefs and lifestyles are expressed in literature without the crutch of pornographic illustrations and Other M obscene material to make their point and those books are readily available I do not accept that it's
084necessary to exploit our children in the name of free speech or hide behind the banner of censorship in order to promote one's social agenda it is difficult for me to accept why this issue should be so divisive we're talking about our kids unfortunately it is just one more example of our polarized governance on this board and Community we are supposed to be here for the same reason to provide all children with high quality instruction we do not not provide sexually graphic and obscene material in our classrooms and for good reason why should those materials be included in the school library with or without Supervision in a few minutes we will be voting I ask my colleagues to please look closely at their beliefs and into their hearts and have the courage to vote no to
085the proposed policies administrative regulations and protocols I am I am truly saddened that that this issue is one that has taken 11 months to deal with countless hours driving white wedges between communities when it could have been handled in a very simple manner that conclude prise no just just was deciding how I was going to say something Nancy since I apparently offend a lot of people in this board I wasn't trying to rush you I finished thank you Mr forina um Mr Bettis expressed an interest in in speaking to this item I'll go to Mr Bettis and then I'm gonna go to Mr Yang um excuse me it's the it's the chair is running the meeting so Mr Bettis you express there is no willing of time here sir what there is no willing of
086time here your opportunity to speak on this item is right now right now yes sir thank you very much Mr comments I I agree with them 100% there's other issues you know like you said somebody said there's no time to discuss achievement Gap learning loss 11 months on this subject and and countless hours from staff and even board members dealing with this it's that's to me it seemed like a diversion to deal with this this learning loss achievement Gap issue that we we have in this C in this District Nationwide it's an issue that it's so bad that our graduates are going to graduate schools and they're not they're not testing very well they're taking Bolding thee head uh subjects to keep on power on power power on you know to P to to other
087students what I'm saying is Mr Bettis hold on please don't insult our students from the Das yes it's it's well document if you want the document and so and it's going to cost our parents more money for these students to graduate it's going to take not four years five years so that's that's one of the many issues that this this District board does not want to talk about can can we talk to this item please yes I am okay you you need to get back to it otherwise it's not your I am okay you don't want to hear I know that I'm asking you I'm just I'm just paraphrasing some of the things that Mr fora said this issue my solution is parent engagement funds districtwide we spend zero Money Hold on here the par
088engagements our district to empower them to deal with these issues at each school and to organize PTA meetings to organize onsite committees Mr we spend zero less than one% of our budget goes to PO for parent engagement parent engage I apologize we're going to have to recess this meeting for five minutes thank you good thanks all for your patient we are on consent agenda item number one and Mr Bettis has the floor go ahead sir as I was saying starts with par engagement which is parent rights it is the parent Teachers Association PTA at H School site okay we need you to tell the Nexus to the policy School committees who are appointed by principal to discuss these items of curriculum development and this is a curriculum development Mr ptis this item does not is
089not related to curricul not have porographic material and what I'm going to give you one last opportunity to speak to the actual item on the agenda that we're on if you do not do that I'm going to proceed with somebody else okay okay okay and I and these comments that were made regarding uh these legislative what is it AB 1078 you're absolutely correct I did you think that that I received the this language the legis AB language given to me in the package no I had to go do my own re research and study this how it affects this school system and you're absolutely right regarding AB some d8 it was good input on all those parents that said that they want to pull the agenda that the parent handbook page 16 page SE 57
090P page 85 all our parents throughout our community need need to look on that handbook and maybe request an amendment to that handbook just like the individual mrtis the handbook is not on the agenda tonight I support that item include Books thank you thank you Mr Bettis Mr Yang floor is yours well first of all I just want to apologize for my uh my voice um first I just wanted to uh say that my colleague uh Karm finina has made some very valid point very uh neutral and to the purpose of improving a process or processes in this item that we have pulled he said all the things that need to be said actually but I just wanted to also add on to those points we we live in a democracy World um from the
091local government to state federal that um every elected official uh has been voted in um by young adult 18 years old and up and that includes parents and grandparents all the above that that are registered voters and um for school board we are elected by those people as well not by kids but but by the adults but to serve the kids and to serve the staff that's the fact now I truly feel that this topic that we have heavily been involved for very lengthy time as alluded to 11 months kind of lost count of the months but if that time is correct it's it's pretty long now from all the public comments to the information I read provided by the staff and hearing from our board members including our student board I just felt like
092as a Collective group we missed the target we miss our task we miss our job and our job is not being extreme like if we're making a a change or two to Remedy Our process to better that doesn't mean we Banning the books that doesn't mean the extreme of doing something and I think that because we have that in mind we neglect our job our task to use our experience our intelligent to make the process better and I feel terribly bad because I am a parent as well of four kids that go to the school district and that I just can't wrap my head around it to me it's such a common sense thing but because we push it to the extreme of banning books it's not about banning books it's about exercising our duty
093to make sure that our procedure our process is the best it could be and when we have lines in our process saying appropriate vocabulary and then we don't have anything listed as out of bounds that we cannot have it to me that's absurd that's like we could throw anything in the ocean and and I just don't get how we don't get that part I just don't get it and and you know we are vote by the parents one voice of a parent parents already mean enough if it's the right thing to do we don't need the 65 or 63,000 uh students parents come upon us to rush down in this school board room to tell us then it will matter no if it's one parents but if it's the right thing to do that should
094be an urgency that should be good enough for us to do the right thing for our school district which to serve our kids okay let's not have shouting and and for me this board is exercising democracy which is by the majority vote and I respect that because I live under democracy system as well but I want all of us to think about exercising our duty the fact that we are vote by our constituents who are 18 years old and above think about that do our job better thank you thank you Mr Yang do we have any other board members wishing to speak before we call for a motion on this I would uh for one board member well you you already have sir you spoke when you made the motion when you pulled it I
095went to you first I don't get to speak again uh we're not going back sir no you you've had your opportunity wait wait a minute wait where where in Robert's Rules do to say that I cannot come back and speak again or is it just you're going to exert uh your your power as the president to shut me down I'd like to get this meeting going sir you've spoken amply I've statements that you have read so I'd like to know what I was gonna ask I I would like to know why why four of my colleagues think different um I I invited additional comments sir and if they don't want to make any then you know we're we're not going to force them right so so much for Trans transparency and responsibility okay so having
096had multiple discussions about this topic including a very lengthy one a month ago I have not heard any additional questions from the board that have not already been addressed if they were not addressed to your satisfaction I am sorry I am not hearing anything new so I'm going to call the question do we have a motion on item number one on consent move to move I move to pass item number one on consent move by Miss albiani seconded um by Mr Vargas all in favor please signify by saying I okay okay folks I I heard it I heard it like all four times so uh you're good everybody calm down I'm happy to do a roll call vote Mr Yang what what is your vote on item number one so we voting to do what
097item number one yes I know too many people talking at once I hear you um item number one on consent we have a first and a second is your what is your vote so yes is to bring it back to approve it to approve it absolutely no okay Miss elani yes M Jamerson I uh Isabelle Excuse me yes we have yes and Mr ptin acting in my capacity as a responsible board member I vote no I think we've had enough speeches today Mr Vargas yes Mr Pettis Mr Pettis votes no because the pornography issues because of pornography Can't Stop I'm here you don't need the because I'm here for the health and safety of our students I've got your name okay that includes pornography you have concluded your vote thank you I myself am an
098I so we have um the opportunity for me to explain some technicalities here um it sounds like a 44 but statute says that the student vote cannot be a deciding factor did I miss one yeah 53 yeah oh pardon me in that case I counted wrong the uh item is approved um on a five3 votes excuse me since it since you thought it was 44 you were going to point out the fact that that is a Bella's vote doesn't count even though it's an important vote but since she voted yes it does count now and because you you know you oh you set things up just the way you want to have them Mr fora yeah in either case regardless of what her vote would have been statute says that the students vote cannot be
099a tiebreaker I think we all know that apparently not okay so we have dispensed with item number one on consent Mr bet are we gonna respond to the community's requests tonight and when we have we have responded already sir we have responded every question that was brought up today's meeting Mr ftis we'd like to proceed with the meeting you yourself asked to discuss some additional items on the consent calendar I heard a lot of new questions would you like to discuss item number six now or are you going to Forfeit that opportunity hold on folks folks hold on Mr fettis hold on before you go I'm just I'm hearing a lot of conversations in the room we really need to have one conversation so if you need to have a conversation please Take It Outside
100all right go ahead Mr Pettis all right that's number one we lost oh yeah good Mr ptis are you ready to proceed yes hold on Mr Bettis if you're not ready to proceed we need to move on wait I'm just organizing things things it's not the time s 12 12 18 and 24 six all right here you go um six is approval of First Amendment ground ground lease between el Gro Unified School District and El gr Adult Community training Incorporated I spoke to the executive director he's willing to come to do a presentation on that issue to this board and what does that have to do with approved vill of this ground lace to educate our fellow board members and our community out there about how we have a job training program and it' be
101he mentioned that and then we both agree that be good for the Outreach of this program what they are doing out there that's not what's on the agenda yes number six that that is not what is being asked of us first amendment ground leas that's what I'm saying okay I did not hear any comments on the ground leas does that conclude your comments on number six okay I'd like to number 12 Mr Bettis I need you to pause so we can take an action move to pass item number six on consent second uh item number six on consent moved by Miss albani second by Mr Vargas all in favor please signify by saying I I opposed item number six is approved unanimously Mr Bettis can you speak to number 12 please number 12 expanded learning
102opportunity program change order now this is this change order number one is from CT Burton and Suns Incorporated and this is we're talking about expanded learning opportunity program and this program funding is for after school and summer school program projects at five sites and he's returning looks like to me approximately $186,000 $564 to the district and I'm wondering uh we do not have information what were those sites that he service nor do we have any outcome studies and I want to know what fiscal okay uh funds and why did he return those funds there's no explanation from our staff and this report so um I'm and and doesn't sound like like he's a provider of Social Services sounds like he's a contractor to me I like what is that okay and is there an evaluation
103reports coming from this contractor you need to pause like to know that you need to pause so we can actually try to answer okay okay um and and of course obviously we try not to do gacha with staff this is the kind of it's not got this is the kind of question we accountability of our funds it is holding them accountable when you ask accountability of buy responsibilities where the go money goes okay let's let's not let's not make excuses for lack of preparation thank you very much these are construction we're where as we expanding opportunities for kids we're having to move Portables and we're doing work what you doing we're bringing in let's not interrupt Please Mr bringing in Portables and making other adjustments to classroom spaces so that we can have space to
104be able to do the elop programs which require kids some of our our kindr where we do half day we have to have a place if they're going to stay with us if they're a morning and they want to stay with us in the afternoon well the afternoon kids are in their classroom in the afternoon so we have to have another place for them um to be able to get the services um in the afternoon session so there's a number of projects that we're doing that have been brought to the board already and approved this is the close out piece and every once in a while you get a change order where it cost you less than you thought it was going to cost you which is usually when we bring you change orders it's
105because something costs you more so that's that's what this is regarding Portables now are we going to have Porter for for prek uh uh students we're we're going to say on this item on the okay so that's what I'm concerned about we on time to have services we have to adhere to the agenda we have to adhere to the agenda I would like a motion on item number 12 on the consent agenda so moved mooved by Mr Vargas second second by Miss Jamerson all in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed uh number 12 is approved unanimously Mr Bettis can you speak to item number 18 please this is a very important program but it does not um and it's an item that I I seriously feel that this should be a discussion
106item and a presentation item to our community that states that we have approved a contract for students staff property and and for what do you call it um disaster emergency management issue and that emergency alerts Anonymous reporting and student parent uh unification this information should be uh discussed and presented here so our host school district is familiar and knows what we're doing in in the case of of emergency alerts that I feel that that is very important to our community yes it's a good report but yet I think that we need to have it done you know in in discussion okay part of our thing not just approve a thing Mr very important you you don't actually have to pull an item from the agenda to make that kind of request the other question I
107have nope right now right now we're talking about this item yes okay this still go ahead and uh and I'm wondering why we have again I'm going to bring out this software esri it's a mapping software and why is let's stay on topic yes it is on topic they they are Specialists emergency disaster training and and planning but yet we do not use those services for this type of issue Mr Pettis it is inappropriate for elected officials to weigh in on Contracting matters all of California state Contracting law is designed to create a firewall to prevent undue influence so that line of of discussion is entirely inappropriate I'm going to call the question and ask for a motion on item number 18 go ahead move second item 18 consent okay I got Miss Alani for
108first and Mr Vargas for a second all in favor please signify by saying I I I post uh that item is approved unanimously Mr Bettis you have item number 24 as number 24 developer fee annual report yes sir last page six it says U there's some of these projects I'm wondering about they are they in tuned or they they are part of the school facility needs assessment because I was wondering on number five Grant Line 208 Elementary School planning was that discussed on that facility that is literally the site that we we recommended to the board for the next Elementary School in the Rancher Cordova area okay we literally talked about that specific site so good that's what I thought but on that on that issue why don't we who are the contractors are we
109paying for this we are not to that or this inhouse because you know at one time we did mostly our facility planning inhouse versus Contracting out is this I was wondering is this in-house who who we paying $100,000,000 too Mr Hoffman do you want to take that or um M coat Miss coat it's the architect what it's the architect yes is this a new process that we're going through now no we always bring on an architect to uh help us with the planning fost before we start construction construction itself it's about an 18mon process so the architect is actually doing the planning versus the build design the building yes it's called preconstruction there's a lot of work to be done at this phase so what I'm concerned about that I I like to see another
110line who and a column you know for each dollar we spent who are those contractors and I'm going to ask these questions okay Mr ptis that information is available to you upon request no that's pror to or after every single meeting this is the second time I discuss this problem yes not asking at the appropriate time keep them accountable where the money goes I hear you but you also have to be accountable to ask at the appropriate time right yes let's have a motion for item number 24 please so moved second moved by Mr Vargas second by Mr y all in favor please signify by saying I I oppos item 24 on consent is approved unanimously we have dispensed with the consent calendar um yes so we had some technical difficulties earlier today during a
111public comment for items not on the agenda and um we are actually going to allow this person to come and deliver their public comment now in person they took the trouble to come down so if you are here miss bana Lopez please come up and Miss Jamerson will get the clock ready um hi my name is valeriana Lopez and thank you for allowing me to be up here so I have a black Asian son but when Society sees him they see a black young man a month ago on October 13 my son was suspended with the recommendation of expulsion um with the evidence that was presented to me on October 20th at the student Support Services student support department it is to my knowledge that my son is a victim of um discrimination a student
112made a racial negative comment against the black community and my son received harsh punishment um so you know I want further investigation because this was um the school district and the middle school was very much aware of the transcript before I saw it and I just want to bring awareness and I want further investigation September 7th there was a letter sent out from the Department of Education to replace uh discipline with support and these I feel like these practices are being ignored thank you thank you Department of Education um yes on September 7th I found a letter online I would like to have a copy of that please Mr ptis we're we're not having a back and forth during public thank you okay I think all board members should have it that's you don't speak
113for them so they can speak for themselves so um we are uh I would like to receive a copy of that letter so I can see what the uh concerns are that's lovely folks um I'm going to pause right now at 8:33 I'm going to do a five minute break and then we're going to come back to bargaining units and our report and discussion for the evening thank you okay folks we're going to proceed with our meeting if I could get board members back up to the Das and if everyone else could take their seats I would appreciate it next item on our agenda is bargaining units do we have any bargaining units who wish to address the board tonight all right um and with that we're going to move on to our family and
114Community engagement update Miss Lasser like that this I water okay good evening kind of feels like it good evening Madame President members of the board superintendent Hoffman and Miss Avalos behind we are really excited today to present a update uh from the Department of Family and Community engagement So today we're GNA just do a quick overview of what all the things that the face department does but we're really going to focus on a couple couple of highlights that are new to the department you're going to hear um about our ftap program you're going to hear about our amazing Family School Community liaison and you're going to hear about the Fantastic work from some of our newcomer and Refugee support So this should be familiar to you our egusd strategic goals today we're going to mainly
115focus on goal four family and Community engagement but you will hear throughout the evening about how we collect collaborate with lots of other departments that meet all of these goals and this I also hope is familiar to you this is our face our family community engagement foundational framework the the big bubbles in the middle in the middle are our foundations that's what we base all of our work on and of course we start with relationships they are the base they are the foundation of everything we do and then around uh the language around the big bubbles are what we do and how we do it I'm now going to turn it over to our incredible director of family and Community engagement Miss leet lame who's going to talk a little bit about our Focus good
116evening Madame board president members of the board superintendent Hoffman and Miss aalos thank you for another opportunity to share about the impactful work the dynamic Fai team is doing with family engagement our Focus for family engagement is in ensuring that caregivers are equipped to support their students and knowing how they're doing currently at any time during the school year knowing what their students are expected to learn and most importantly how to help their students academically behaviorally socially emotionally and with School attendance to this end Dr Steve Constantino reminds us that family engagement is a process not an event or a series of events to support this Focus we Implement strategies and practices that are are holistic in nature that promote both sorry yep sorry that promote both Community Building I'm ready to go promote both
117uh community building and student learning and at the foundation as Lisa just said of all of this work is building trusting relationships with all families that make the work that we do possible the face department has various services and supports in place and this list highlights um some of those but again tonight we're only going to highlight a few of them specifically our family focused mental health therapists our family school Community Liaisons our family teacher Academic Teams and our newcomer and Refugee supports for families and students so I'll start with the strategy that we call ftat or family teacher Academic Teams the purpose of this strategy is to provide families with the tools and information needed to support their their students in learning at home it uh supports two-way communication between home and school and
118school and home and it also promotes community and connection between families who attend the meetings the strategy also ensures that collaboration um between school and home is what's driving student learning because again our focus is making sure caregivers are able to support their students learning at home as well as supporting them behaviorally academically socially emotionally and with attendance so let's talk a little bit about family teacher Academic Teams so we are in year two of the pilot and so fat is happening in various grade levels at our pilot sites and what we're most excited about is the expansion because I'll get there sorry the expansion of this strategy into the Floren region last year we had a total total of nine ftap meetings that happened so far this year we've had 13 ftap meetings with
119several more scheduled throughout the year so that speaks to the impactfulness of this strategy and the way that it is expanding not only um amongst different grade levels at the sites but also expanding to other sites who are now learning about the strategy so what does this look like in action so it starts with a personal invitation from the teachers who will be hosting the meeting to the families inviting them to one Central meeting spot that might be the multi-purpose room it could be the classroom once there teachers are sharing data with families in a in an anonymous way so that the effective filter is lower um we're not you know worried about being shamed or embarrassed and in looking at that uh data families are able to see where their student is performing compared
120to the class at large with that teachers then introduce families to an activity or a game something fun that promotes the learning of the strategy that they're focused on based on the data after families are taught this uh game or activity they have a chance to practice with each other that's where that Community Building comes in there at you'll get families who this is their first time meeting is here in the FCAT meeting and suddenly they are playing a game together laughing and talking and exchanging uh strategies after practicing they're able to create smart goals with the assistance of the teachers who are hosting those smart goals are specific measurable achievable realistic and time bound and basically it's asking families when you go back home what's your goal for practicing this strategy with your students
121until we meet again so they practice the activities at home they come back a couple of months later they review that particular skill to see how students are doing and then they can uh add on and add on to that skill and by introducing the next skill that they want to focus on this strategy in and of itself is our Focus making sure families are able to support their students learning at home we're able to gather uh feedback and input from from families teachers staff admin and uh sometimes the students in real time and what we're hearing from them across the board they find this strategy to be helpful they appreciate the community building aspect of it and they really appreciate learning how to help their children learn at home again that's the focus so
122with that we're going to do a slight um slight shift and I'm going to call up Antonia slagel who is our program specialist leading our family and community support team and she's going to highlight the work of our uh family focused mental health therapists and our Liaisons hi good evening Madame board president members of the board superintendent Hoffman and Miss Avalos I'll be sharing the work of two amazing teams that I get to support who are dedicated to connecting families to vital resources information and uh support in our district and out in the community uh the first group is the family school and Community liaison team shout out to the back in July 2022 after spending the late spring meeting with school sites to learn about their community's needs around family engagement Bas hired our
123first five Liaisons and the final four started in September connecting to sites and uh starting to build trusting relationships was first and foremost on our minds activities included taking a tour of the entire District family engagement meetings with the new re Regional liaison and the admin team of those sites introductions to staff and families through talking points emails and tabling and participating in meet and greets with other District teams and departments our first work was really spreading the work about what we could do so through all this in year one we established uh four main goals to guide our work and um first and foremost is build capacity we are in a very large district with lots of resources and so our team has been dedicated since day one to learning about the things that
124are available both uh um within our department across departments and of course within the community and regionally second build relationships uh people work with people that they trust and so um I will quote Steven cvy and Adrian mie Brown to say we move at the Speed Of Trust uh on our team and so even though it felt like it might have been slow going at the beginning it was for the purpose of making those connections three uh to increase transparency and access to equitable opportunities for families in other words removing barriers for our families to access um any um enrollment uh attendance understanding things that were going on at the school um and um basic needs those sorts of things and finally to increase access to information and resources um so that came through personal
125invitations increasing two-way uh communication Flyers phone calls all sorts of things um in an effort to be able to reach our families um through targeted messages in short our mission is to offer an empathetic ear and a source of support for families to connect to services information and opportunities now year two has begun and um as lazette mentioned family engagement is a process not an event or a series of events in year two the quality of support that leaon have been able to provide and the activities they have engaged in already this year are evidence of moving at the again that Speed Of Trust that we did in year one the team at this point provides direct service to 50 sites um so um we increased a few um and um think some of the
126the activities that we're participating in our Workshop facilitation and co- facilitation um tier one and tier 2 membership um within our mtss structure uh supporting with two new M ptas excuse me uh one that has already formed and one that is in the process of forming uh increased communication uh phone calls talking points again Flyers all those sorts of things and increased cross uh Department collaboration um in particularly with the office of Ed Equity student support and Health Services and special education to name just a few and finally Our Community Partnership work um I am grateful for some members on our team who are incredible Navigators and are able to um talk to a family or talk to a staff member identif ify what the need is and next thing you know there's a bicycle
127um for that family or for that student um there's food at family's doors um there are meals um there's connections to healthcare Etc and so uh in relation to that um our big deal in October 22 of last year was uh that we tabled uh 22 events that was a big deal for our team and so uh in O October 2023 alone our team help School sites reach 57,8 29 families through talking points announcements and direct messages they attended 36 tier one and tier 2 meetings and facilitated or co- facilitated a number of cultural and wellness workshops all across the district family and staff members are also reaching out to the team for support um as we expand um into the community and we look forward to um moving um further out into the community
128in 2024 and another um amazing Duo um uh is our family MHT support team I'd like to highlight their work as well because they work in um intimately with our uh our Liaisons as well as other members of our department and also partner with other departments in order to support um families um so we know that our site mhts social workers Etc support the support students and so our um family mhts are there to support the families um for um for holistic care so um it is a very large district and so we have landed on a few few different folk eye one of which is um psychosocial education for family members so through workshops and um and spreading the word about Wellness um through a couple different Endeavors also site based workshops we've also
129um started uh uh trauma informed uh targeted support groups for family caregivers and then um providing clinical consults to sites and then also I also want to highlight something too which is short-term support for caregivers to connect Services um so we know that when families um are in need of services oftentimes the navigation and the social emotional support that they need in the meantime um is critical um and so um our two District mhts are um work with families in the in the short term um to get them connected with long-term support services so um very excited for them as well um and now uh with that I'd like to introduce Lucy Binger our thank you good evening Madame board president members of the board superintendent Hoffman and M aalos uh one of the teams
130I'm fortunate enough to be part of is our face newcomer and Refugee support team with our newcomer Refugee coordinator Jenny Smith our staff who I lovingly refer to as our our welcome dream team is made up of our multilingual colleagues many who have lived the refugee experience thank you multilingual colleagues many who have lived in the refugee or immigrant experience we see our team as cultural concierges just like when one goes to a fancy hotel and a concierge is there to meet the needs of the guests our team goes above and beyond to exceed the expectations of our newcomer and Refugee families from navigating the line at the DMV providing food and hygiene kits explaining the regional busing services to supporting communication between home and school we know it is not family circumstances that determine
131engagement but rather a response to those circumstances that will make the difference over the last year we've seen the years in the making dream of our newcomer welcome centers come to fruition based on Space resettlement Agency data populations we serve and ease of transportation we have four locations which serve the entire District Two in shared spaces at Jackman and Floren High School and two Standalone Portables at Monterey Trail High School and Laguna Creek High School we continue to develop them into resourcer Community hubs based on family needs our resources are enriched with our Community Partnerships such as La Familia MOS the Muslim American society and Care the Council on American Islamic relations partner partnering for no your rights trainings student leadership and Muslim student associations one of which just started today this year we have
132PRI prioritized visibility and communication about our services and support to sites and families from brochures to professional learning to presentations at sites and in the community we continue to honor the assets our multilingual newcomer Refugee families bring to our district each day our team finds opportunities to say yes to the newcomer Refugee families and sites we support while this is not an exhaustive list these are some of the main supports and services we provide this year our team has started a variety of ongoing caregiver groups each session building knowledge of the English language us school system and building relationships amongst the caregivers our current groups include Cantonese caregivers and moms from Afghanistan collaboration across District departments is also Key to Our Success such as partnering with English learner services in building Collective ownership and welcoming
133newcomer students with their welcome inclusion process pilot working with student support health health services to partner with Sacramento Food Bank for monthly food boxes and an upcoming bimonthly Farmers Market style food distribution and Partnerships with Community Health Works formerly covered Sacramento to have a weekly staff person at a newcomer Welcome Center to support with medical applications renewal and navigation of the health system and appointments with all these inputs we are continually evaluating our supports and services which director L will speak to now so as Lucy mentioned we uh always want to make sure that the family engagement practices we are implementing are effective So to that end we continue to partner with our research and evaluation Department um to determine the effectiveness of our programs and positions we continue to seek feedback from families uh
134from using surveys as well as Workshop evaluations and all of this is in the spirit of continuous Improvement to make sure that we are um hitting our targets what we're most excited about moving forward is continue to continue expanding our family teacher Academic Teams into additional grade levels and sites um providing our family school Community liaison supports and and looping our high schools into that into those supports Lucy mentioned developing our resourcer newcomer welcome centers that happens by deepening Our Community Partnership work and overall continuing to offer all of the face supports and services that we have in place sorry thank you and with that thank you very much for listening thank you for the presentation colleagues do we oh were you done I am okay just wanted to make sure yes thank you very
135much for the reminder um that concludes the presentation Miss Lasser now wearing your other hat do we have any public comments via Zoom for this item Madame President we have no public comments via Zoom for this item thank you Miss Jameson do we have any blue cards for this item Madame President we do not have any blue cards for this item thank you so now I can ask if board members have questions or comments about about the presentation um I started last time I think when I yes I'm going to start over here okay yeah maybe it was a roll call but you say I pick on you too much so I'm gonna give you a break now Mr Bettis do you have any questions or comments I you don't have to are you taking
136a phone call hey um this morning or it was yesterday morning on channel what three Jim Lutz Lutz just received some grant money to work in the floring districts and parts of Sacramento County for what very similar what you're doing to help different marginalized communities so I want to let you know um that's happening and um I'm not sure it looks like there's committees that's going to work with the counties working on these these same objectives medical mental health the and doing the assessments also and so apparently he has uh has committees going on right now but as far as as today nobody knows well I don't know anybody from El Gro our district office or anybody even the floring area who he sits on that committee so we need somebody to sit with him
137on that committee and it says okay neighborhoods becoming blue zones that's a new thing that he's doing and the flooring area Meadow View Parkway those are very uh Parkway as you know it makes the papers I call it uh killer alley there was a lot of crime and and let's not let's not disparage parts of our community okay it's a it's a fact we need to deal with it don't skirt issues like that I I have no intention of skirting issues we want to be respectful of the community they doing that so anyway lot of public health issues promote prevent and protect that's the go of what they're doing so I start with that very important that we uh collaborate you're doing a really good job as as far as I'm concerned but it should
138have been done in 2012 when we received Community engagement monies parent engagement monies but we're doing it now because I think well I don't think I know the legislative body wants this to happen and you have a lot of support at the at the state federal level to do this um questions I have okay total funding what is the total funding for this program I didn't see that total staff I'm and you could you don't have to answer these questions tonight I'm just going to throw a lot of stuff out there you could return with a board communic ation system because I don't want to think that like my fellow board members I got you I'm not like that but I need information and data okay a lot of information it says that you're doing
139some of that and but yet I have not seen it so like I like to know what staff totals you have total funding and and by school sites by board region by board region because I know there's a there needs to be a priority of funding in some of these issues because we have problems here and there that are greater than other geographical areas uh you said fa pH Family School Community LS on supports now how many do we have a a phase person at each School site yeah you know and and and again I know for the mental health component we had you know one site uh person representing or responsible for the Valley High another one also for the floring high school and sometimes you know good programs like this you're spread out
140too much you need more staff I just you know right and so um and since uh and I noticed that also you brought up the pl issue Place yeah is that an issue uh you needed uh on school campus a place on each school campus we just been uh uh informed that we received $168,000 plus uh from this uh contractor that's doing re relocatable or the Portable Buildings let's use that money for this program you know you know I support that let's let's take this board to a vote and try and get one uh that that going I support that 100% you know 168,000 I don't know how many reportables can we get and in the these areas but we need to use that money for for you because looks like you have a place
141issue is that what you're saying to meet or to you mean facility space facilities we don't have a facility space issue yeah exactly that's what I thought not for okay does not she said so what were you referring to place somebody I'm not sure I'm following exactly yeah somebody said that there was an issue regarding place to me okay I cut on that really good a Shar there was there's two sites that are using a shared space and two well it should be Spar Shar space I think you need a dedicated person uh place and persons that e School site because the the the issue the funding's there it just needs to be allocated for you and and support you 100% not doing this you know halfheartedly which I feel like we're doing but we
142need and you know and also you're I know that you're growing in stages one too but me like I said we needed this yesterday years ago each site should have this um yes I'm glad you're talking about school community leaz on support you're dealing with School site committees uh Title One committees I didn't see that in here are you dealing with them also uh see they committees at each School site now I'm glad you also mentioned uh ptas you established to so are you saying how many ptas are there you know I'm wondering are and also are they uh they say there's ptas but are they meeting monthly well I don't know that you know and I kind of feel that they're not you they're not the giving support and empowerment and funding not enough
143people they need to feed them feed and they care for their children during those meetings you know takes all that you're getting there families are equipped to support their students okay our Focus I like your focus students is currently doing okay and you need yes are expected to to learn I heard this saying tonight again we need to keep those students accountable to learn keep pressuring them uh what do you call it and we got to you know just don't let them slide through the system you know that's what this person was saying today you know we got to keep an accountable to learn and and and and and number one show up to school and you're doing that there's too much absence absences at school attendance problem you're dealing with that I'm glad you're
144dealing with that on page five um there's a big issue I have I'm not sure if you addressed it you know a lot of people are not back in school and that's why our numbers are student body number have gone down and I think a lot of those students are socioeconomic uh issues with them and and they're so far behind achievement Gap and learning cap they're ashamed they cannot handle the curriculum or and also language barriers so I think you're you're you're um you're on par with that page five issue again all those issues that you you talked about on page seven uh all those groups again I like to see family empowerment workshops how to empower these parents to advocate for their students so they will not be afraid to speak up a lot
145of our parents out there they're afraid to come to our board meetings they're afraid to speak up be and advocate for your children I just heard that just that today they're afraid of Retribution that but that that the system might have on those students so encourage them Empower them okay that's the solutions to a lot of pro problems teach them to teach you teach a a parent a teacher I mean a a mother how to teach to read solve a lot of problems so you know reading skills and which is literacy I guess you got Latino literacy but we need to the parents and and here's another one i' like for you to make a a recommendation or do you recommend that there should be a par professional in each classroom to help teachers with
146those uh those low achieving students and who have lost a lot during the the co Mr I think I think that is the scope of of the family and Community engagement Department okay you know i' like to surve on that and I like to see a survey on that because I like to see moreare Professionals in those classroom topic let's stay on topic or we move to somebody else Mr well this a solution I'm talking about Solutions okay we're talking about face and that's a solution that these people these our staff is is striving for so that's one of my Solutions I like to see or you know what and how how we're going to deal with this okay how are you sharing uh student data this is Page uh nine I like to see
147some of those uh data reports teach families activities tied to data I don't understand what that means so if you could possibly expand on that later on or give us a a board Communications on that issue I like to see because I like to I'm I like to see data make my decisions on data outcomes data outcomes um I'm on page 11 again site visits how many site visits do you have you have data on those contacts by sites you know please share them with my fellow board members and myself um how many hours per site do you are you uh uh is your staff ad and and you you hit it on the light who who said trust that is number one once you have trust with those communities those parents and you could
148go home and they will invite you home to have dinner and and do recreational things dancing and all that stuff so yes that is one of the biggest things that you need to develop in your in these School sites because you know if they don't trust you they're not going to open up to you they're gonna and they're going to keep everything you know what who are you why you you asking these questions and I'm glad you said that that's a very good excellent uh thing and now come you mentioned now comes attendance I'm glad you're doing all that and teaming up with all those other uh people and I understand this is the new okay we talked about PTA I skip that one again um like to hear what are your recommendations I like
149to hear what you need how do you need more funding do you need more staff because you know I don't want be spread out just doing something for show I want you I want some uh actual work done I mean know at each site you know every every Monday through Friday you know every every hour of the school and after school also um I'm on page 14 I'm glad you you mention Spanish speaking Family Wellness series I need you need to there there's many Asians communities there's the the uh other community bong Chic communities that are they need this training so you know think about in phase three how we're going to do that I like to see a plan you know involving other uh non-english-speaking parents and how you going to do Outreach to
150them and I'm glad we're doing newcomers of refugee work I know we received Federal funding for you know a lot of these refugees Mr Bettis we don't have to comment on every slide or read every slide so if you can wrap up you're over 10 minutes now thank you so what your colleagues are imp the same questions my fellow colleagues might ask so when they when they're up that's entirely possible so so give them a chance to ask them right so so you know just like Mr forina he spoke right 100% I agreed with him so I didn't have to speak no 10 minutes that's great let's stay on topic h s Jackson Middle School Floren High School La Counseling Center I'm glad you're doing Outreach to a variety of cbos Community Based organizations they
151have talent working in and they have trust they have a track record within the communities and a lot of these uh um nonprofits out there evaluation that's the most page 18 let's see your evaluation coming and and this is very similar to school climate lcf funding you are doing you're improving School climate so whatever they're doing those reports and school climate of the schools you're improving School climate as a group in your program so you almost collaborate with their report and research because once you improve School climate you know and people feel safe the health and safety of those individuals they have better outcomes their studies are done a proven fact no bullying that's it thank you Mr Bettis Mr Vargas you have any questions or comments on this topic sure um so uh just
152starting with General comment thank you um I think this was a great presentation in particular one of the things that I appreciated about this sort of set of programs that we're talking about um is it seems like you are trying really hard to focus on hard to reach high need families in particular um you know and that comes out in uh the use of trauma informed parent support groups um home visits a lot of the these items um and these programs sort of are are geared towards getting in you know getting in front of parents who really need that attention and support um you know and at the end of the day you know to the benefit of the kids who you know who come from families that are often harder to reach uh and
153so I think that this these particular programs are incredibly important um for for that particular purpose uh you know um and so I guess the I have a couple of questions that I will ask later um so as not to uh be a nerd during board time um but one of the questions I I am curious about is we are uh at our last meeting we were discussing um you know funding reductions in certain areas um and some of those reductions come from um face in particular and the ftat ftat uh program that sounds like a Star Wars name um and only the other Star Wars nerds in the room are going to understand that um but uh so the question that I have related to that since we are talking about some of those
154being one-time funding um and coming from one-time funding sources is did you get what you needed out of that um and is that um are there is there anything else um that you're going to need from either one-time funding or um ongoing funding um that we haven't anticipated yet so yes uh we have gotten everything that we needed out of one-time funding um we are very much supported the face Department um ongoing funding we are looking at that right now and analyzing what we might need in the future great that was will add it will come to us their recommendations will come to us through the budget process yeah great that was it for me thank you thank you Mr Vargas Mr Pina any questions or comments yeah I have two questions on uh can
155we go to slide 18 18 you got it yes good with respect to the first bullet um there's there's there's three three items there and so is it is it right for me to present those are just the those are the three things that you're working on with research Val okay and for those what are your target questions that that you've developed for those so great question our our Target questions anytime that we're evaluating anything is what what are the inputs and what are our expected outputs and that's what red helps us to um to look at whether we're looking at logic models home visit logs the way um or the program and continuation implementation Continuum because that's a mouthful the pick um we're that's what we focus on what is the intended outcome and
156what are we doing to get there you want to add anything yeah I'll add a little bit I'll add a little bit to that in the pick it was developed based on a couple of um little factors so one uh the if you don't mind we go back to this so years ago when red started developing picks they came to face and said what should we evaluate at school sites how the programs are working at school sites so we used our five pillars and created questions research-based questions from Dr Karen map and the US Department of Ed and their um uh work on how you build relationships with families how you collaborate how you develop families and staff because you have to do both um how you interact with families and community and then how
157is all that linked to learning so we base our questions on that and schools fill that out School site councils fill that out our elac our leadership teams at school sites and then the one other area in the pick are questions focused on welcoming School environments what does it physically look like what is the language look like that goes out to families those types of things and have have you completed data for previous years that you've utilized for this year yes so we start so we started and then Co hit so we paused for a little bit but now we have picked that back up and all School sites are filling out the pick currently okay uh second question uh bull says you continue to survey parents Guardians and staff one one the topic we've
158spent lots of time on and I've spent time with you Lisa so what is fa doing and or doing differently than what the district has done in the past to ensure that you get a good response rate question start it's a great question a couple of things one in the hiring and expansion of face we made sure that we hired a very diverse group of employees we wanted the face Department to look like our students and families so that was one uh by doing that creating these Family School Community liaison our program Educators in our newcomer centers um we're surveying families in different ways for example at the Immunization Clinics we meet with families any family that comes to a clinic meets with a face Department employee we get them on parent view we ask
159them questions about how we can best serve them so that's one way we also are at school sites working with families we always survey families after each Workshop an event that we put on what works for them what could we improve on what do they want to see in the future we do this in several different languages because we know that our families don't just speak English um one area that we found out in a survey from a particular School site was that our DEA and heart of hearing families were not getting what they needed so what our job is to do is to meet the needs of our families so we created a program to help that that miss slel is leading in the monter trail region um I could go on and on
160talking points has been G changer and how we communicate with parents and how we can put in links to get that out surveys out to families as well um we know that this generation of families prefers text message and prefers social media and Mr frina you know we've met with the Communications Department which is a beautiful collaboration between face and the Communications Department to work on that so for example we are working with red and uh Communications and face to create video for upcoming for our lcap survey what did we ask uh in the past what did we do with that information and then here's the survey coming up in the future so we're exploring different ways because we know families taken information in different ways yeah that's that's a good point that you just
161brought up be because I do believe that a key factor in low return is that parents say to themselves why should I bother uh I have said such and such and nothing ever happened or they don't know what happen so here's another survey and uh so that's important Lisa thank you thank you Mr Fortuna anything Mr Gala um I just have a couple comments um I just want to say the work that you have done and are doing is amazing um I'm part of of a club on my campus that has received enormous support from the face Department uh so thank you for the work you guys are putting in every day thank you Miss Jamerson any questions or comments I just wanted to say thank you so much for the presentation I love your
162philosophy of um Family engagement is a process not an event or a series of events because that really just um goes to the transformational work that takes place with family engagement versus transactional so I just I love that um that statement um I had a question about the ftat let me go back to my slide really it was just questioning um when the teachers are holding these events and they're inviting um the parents to come how is the turnout like in you know because I know that it's difficult to get parents parents there after hours or guardians or or supporters um so how are they being successful in having a strong attendance so a couple of things um great question by the way I think U not I think I know two things one the
163sites are have already conducted home visits they're practicing home visitors so they've already done the first step in building the trust and the relationships with families and then the invitation is personal it's a personal invite to come to uh the meeting it's made explicitly clear why you need to be here what you're going to learn how it's going to benefit you and your student um and so we've seen amazing turnout um if you don't mind I'll go to this picture those are actual pictures of FAP meetings happening at our sit um Lucy leads the team of resource teachers that facilitate and host help teachers host the fap meetings and they send us pictures all the time during the meetings and it's amazing to see multi-purpose rooms and classrooms full of diverse families different languages sometimes
164we have interpreters on site to make sure families can access the information um so the turnout is is great and then families come and they have that experience and guess what they do they go back and tell their neighbor their friend their cousin right if your teacher invites you to this this is why you need to go so it's building the relationship and the trust first and then it's the personal aspect of the invitation with an explicit understanding of why this is important love it thank you thank you and then um just I mean uh Mr Fortuna touched on it a bit in terms of the evaluation and continuous Improvement you know knowing that you're collecting that information and that data is so helpful for us when it comes to budgeting and looking at where
165we place that money so I just I appreciate that you're thoughtful about trying to collect that I know again it's sometimes it's hard to collect qualitative data and and really show the impact and especially when you're doing transformative work it can be slow sometimes seeing you know these huge impacts but incremental impact is so essential to being able to grow that so thank you for your commitment to that thank you J um most of the questions have been asked I just want be um I don't know a witness to some of these things um I have gone through the home visit training and been on home visits and the the the the the positivity of that and um Michael um I just wanted to they're not a targeted visit home visits are for everybody and
166and it's just it's amazing I was able to go on three and go through the whole training with new teachers and and I think that is a huge trust Builder okay so then we went there and then I was was able to um participate and attend my first fat the other night and oh my goodness they they figured out how to budget it had food they had carrots they had you know cucumbers for kids who aren't eating anything else they had salad for parents they had pizza for people it was a huge win and they gave their they said where their child is in a very discreet way so they know what they're doing two interpreters were there the staff was there the principal was walking around holding someone's baby for the majority of the
167time you I mean they're giving you their infants I it is just amazing the amount of support the secretarial staff came and served the dinner the janitor came in it it was it's very impressive and they don't do it once a year they do it three times a year and so you you you get that and then they don't give up on you and they teach you how to make a smart goal and I didn't know how to make a smart goal when I was 17 years old or and I mean I think I learned it in college but it's just it's an incredible skill for every single person in the room not and you're helping everybody and and making that connection with your child it it was it's really it'll blow your socks off
168um but here's one thing I just have to say you know I'm I'm an education geek so they are doing literacy with second language families by using barcode scans to teach them and have an example when they work with their children that can make you cry it's amazing they can do literacy training with kindergarten first grade and second grade students and they have in their materials where they push on the barcode and someone explains it and does it with them and then they can do it together and the the this team supports our teachers to want to do it because they send the invitations and they take the RSV piece and they take that second layer that says you do a lot and you just need to do a little bit more off the pressure
169of our teachers and they're so excited to be there and do the part they love because you teach because you love teaching and it it's just obviously I'm very wound up about the fat thing went to my first one it was great and then I also want to thank the liazon that I've met and seen at the food bank I know you've come to to learn about some of our resources there and I've seen you there as I spend a lot of time there so um thank you for the work you do and it is um it's really great work thank you you miss go ahead Mr I just want to start off by saying thank you thank you thank you um seeing this presentation and hearing it is really uh making me really happy
170uh because I wasn't I was not too long ago on the receiving end uh being a refugee myself um coming to this country 1989 as a 12 and a half year old boy so these are a word of love passion and uh work of progress uh for the people that are much needed and that are um adapting to new language country and ways of America so it's very very uh important work you you folks are making a difference um for a family and a many family out there so thank you so much that's just uh great work um you know when when I think think of this I think of you know um how I was what I need and how our family need and the things that you guys are working on like you
171know working on trauma U cases uh providing food providing lit literacy all of that stuff you know definitely matters and um I saw the uh Evol evolving these programs evolving and that's great and uh you know I got nothing but say thank you um and add on to maybe just couple things you know um uh the Daya that's important as you know my colleague has alluded to um and I think we wanted to support um the program for sure so that we could change more lives and make more impact on lives um I think that important to um maybe bring some uh reliable speakers that could um talk to the family uh especially when you guys have event um I think you know having the same background like refugees or whatnot that is reliable and
172see they see and they hear you know the struggles that they're going through right now but also success stories I think that could really you know have some healings and you know motivation uh in their journey of struggles of uh uh assimilating to this country so thank you so much I just wanted to add that our program Educators that we've hired that Miss Binger said earlier yeah all of them have a kind of experience that either being second uh English as a second language learner or the newcomer Refugee experience and absolutely that's great and you know and so so what I'm saying is maybe in the platform of more people you know have have a presentation you know to to the group yeah thank you so much thank you yes sir less than a minute
173um I was sending a clip this afternoon regarding U the Drew show the talk show this morning or the afternoon regarding the Teacher of the Year miss Morales uh from 2023 I would advise you you get a clip of that and what this woman has done in her community as a teacher she was uh what sixth grade now sixth seventh or eighth grade grader she was going to commit suicide she went through training I mean U you know mental health uh Institute something like this came back became a teacher and she this is 16 years ago she came back to be a teacher and she still has oh she came back to that school and she um hooked up with a teacher you know they hooked up they you know like you know partnered and
174and and and they she was obessed she she was she found somebody could would hear her and you know talk to her and this and that so it's so remarkable you get the inspiration and some of the things that this teacher does in the classroom she has a uh I forgot what she calls it an area with all these students and parents need to come to school you know like a a a health kit you know a variety of things just see it or you know I I swear to God man I was so amazed I had tears in the outcomes of this teacher as a result of the I you know a student student teacher I mean a relationship with a teacher and when she became a teacher because of her and then what
175she's doing in her community and and and very and the model she has is very similar you could promote within our school district and she has a not she develop a community nonprofit very doing the same thing here and let me know thank you Mr thank you for a wonderful update and presentation we are all eagerly you know awaiting the next steps that you're going to take um you know clearly the work that you do directly is very impactful and very exciting but I'm going to add to the things that I I would like to highlight which is um your what did you call it your cross Department collaboration the way that you affect the way others do their work is also tremendous and you know maybe you don't take as much credit for that
176right because it's it's it's expanding excuse me expanding your reach um I was able to participate in one of those um span one of the sessions of the Spanish speaking Family Wellness and I got to say just oh my gosh did they hit it out of the park um it was fantastic um and you know I understand it's it's it's been a year of first there's many things we're doing the first time so you know don't take this as a criticism that is certainly something I would love to see rolled out to other language groups because it is just so incredibly valuable um and and for my colleagues and and for the members of the public um you know I forget what it was called but it was essentially you know the idea that we
177need to be able to take care of our own mental health as parents in order to do that job as parents in order to support our kids and you know it was um it was phenomenal so you know we need need to do more of that we need to do more of that for other folks and I'm just so grateful for what you've been able to do so far and so excited to see where you take it in the future thank you so much go ahead Mr Hoffman just real quick um I want to say this is um you know this is the work coming to fruition from years and years ago um where the board you know made a decision to you know have an office of of family and Community engagement and and
178when we did that went out and looked for the right person to to do this work and um a logical thing would have been find a principal who's really good at getting parents to show up at school because that that was kind of our definition of parent engagement um and Lisa and the the capacity she's built within within this team um and now under Miss L um and and everybody that's here we appreciate you so much but but the the basic concept of parents knowing what their kids are supposed to learn knowing where they currently stand and what they can do at home to support them that's the definition of parent engagement and then showing up to events and doing all those are all great things too but in the end if our parents know
179how to support their kids and those relationships exist that's where we're going to make uh make hey and that that's where we're going to make a difference and that's what these folks are doing every single day so thank you very much thank you thank you all with that we have a couple of housekeeping items so under action items establishment of the annual organizational meeting of the Board of Education yay um so under Pro under the provisions of the Education Code section 35143 the governing board is required to set an annual organizational meeting between December 1st and December 20th 20123 it's actually more specific than that even um Miss leaster do we have any public comments via zoom on this item Madame President we have no public comments via Zoom for this item thank you Miss
180Jamerson do we have any blue cards on this item Madame President we have no blue cards on this item thank you I'm going to close public comment and I'd like to call for a motion to establish the annual organizational meeting of the board of education at the regularly scheduled board meeting of Tuesday December 12th 2023 at 6m move by Miss albiani second by Mr Vargas all in favor please signify by saying I I I post none that item is approved unanimously next item is the appointment of a representative from the elgrove Unified School District to the California school boards Association delegate assembly and Miss Jamerson is going to present um Nancy is currently one of the district's appointed delegates whose term expires on March Mar 31st 2024 and she is still interested in being El
181Gro unified's representative Miss Lasser are there any public comments on Via Zoom for this item I thought say Madam president but there are no public comments for this thank you um and there are no blue cards on this item um i ph call for motion so I would like to call for a mo a motion to reappoint Nancy chus Espinosa to the csba delegate assembly so moved second I like to nominate another member okay hold on one second there's a been a first and a second on this Mo motion so I need to take a vote first so um that's how a motion well did you ever thought of maybe opening up to other board members yes so a motion has been made and has been seconded you can vote no board member if they
182had anybody else in mind you can vote no and then you can nominate someone else if you choose so the motion on the floor is to reappoint Nancy chus Espinosa to the csba delegate assembly uh all those in favor roll call roll call vote I will conduct a roll call vote Mr Yang no Miss Alani hi Miss chus Espinosa hi Isabella I Mr fortina no Mr Vargas yes Mr pz no that is and myself I so that gives us five to three and the motion passes congratulations thank you oh can I nomin how can I nominate somebody then after the fact I can't believe it's control it's control I know it's control yeah okay folks yeah next item on the agenda is board hold on here hold on here hold on here I have an
183issue here yes regarding this is region nine representation correct I mean six uh yes sir okay um it says here if you look at the report sub region 6B Sacramento there's a vacancy for 2024 now I would like to nominate Mr foren for that position um don't have we don't have another vacancy sir we've act we've acted on the vacancy that we havec correct I don't know what you're looking at but well if you stop yelling at me and let me answer there there may be other vacancies in region six but there are not any more seats for elro Unified School District re sub region 68 Sacramento that is correct is that correct not us there are other regions that correct please stop shouting I need you to sit down and stop shouting okay can
184you please take your seat is that correct Mr Bettis I need you to take your seat thank you yes Mr Bettis is alluding to the fact that there are other vacancies for region sixer than for other school districts that's what I'm reading here yes sir yes sir having concluded that item I'm going to move on to board member and superintendent reports do we have any board members or superint or does Mr superintendent wish to submit a report on organizational and committee meetings relative to the district and its operation I don't know that we've had any recently so seeing none um we have no items under consideration of future agenda items I'm going to adjourn this meeting at 9:43 p.m. SCH