PGUSD Board Meeting October 5, 2023

001all calling to order the regular Pacific gr Unified School District Board of Education meeting Thursday October 5th 2023 as we begin this meeting it's important to pay respect to and acknowledge that we are on the traditional land of the alone costanoan and esselin people and additionally pay respect to Elders both past and present Mandy do you mind doing roll call please president Swanson here Clark McNary here Dr Hazen here trusty otar here trusty Swanson here interim superintendent Jordan here thank you thank you we definitely have a quum tonight all board members are present next up is adoption of the agenda we'll go out see if there's any uh board discussion on this and then go out to public comment board any discussion on adoption of the agenda Brian you're shaking your head M clerk McNary

002yes yes um perhaps we note the changes to the agenda and then I can um make my comment certainly okay so the only changes we have to the agenda tonight is uh revised Item B and that's the minutes from minutes from September 21st we updated the board's comments uh the item was revised posted online and it's in your blue folders thank you Mr Jordan that's all that you have correct okay Clerk n thank you um and looking at the agenda specifically our Clos session items number four um it reads conference with legal counsel Das potential litigation and then cites to a government code um I guess looking at the word potential the item didn't seem right to me so I looked at the code section that we site on the agenda um and it doesn't

003seem accurate to me I mean number one one the code section requires more specificity than we have in our agenda um and it also requires that um the legislative body um it really only lists okay code session lists two things either litigation or pending litigation it doesn't have from what I can see room for potential litigation as listed on our current agenda so in my opinion based on what I'm reading and the information I Reed from superintendent Jord through legal we can't talk about that item so that's where I guess that's where I'm at I I know that was probably roundabout and confusing but um I don't see how the code section provides us to talk about something called quote potential litigation and if it does the code section requires us to site to which

004subsection of the law um the litigation falls under which doesn't appear on our agenda as presented so okay so you're saying that number four on closed session um you would like that pulled and reviewed because you're not certain that it's accurate or should be discussed in closed session or that it's properly cited is that right yes thank you for saying that concisely I don't know if I did but you're welcome um okay so Madam president yes can I defer to legal counsel for a quick explanation related to this matter I believe so sure okay hello Lou do you mind going up to the podium so we can for public record I don't think that microphone is on oh no it's it's red right gotta hit that button it'll come up green there you go okay

005thank you um there is a section in the brown act that provides language that if you use this language in describing close session items you are deemed to have complied with the brown act it's called Safe Harbor language and that language is actually different than what is on your agenda it talks about anticipated litigation rather than pending litigation but the Safe Harbor language is not mandatory it's suggested and if you use it you're deemed to have complied with the law the point of having items descri on the agenda is to notify the public of what you're going to be talking about okay um the section the Safe Harbor would have said or should have said anticipated litigation and the correct code section is it is actually government code section 54956.9 that is cited but it's

006subdivision D2 is the correct should be the correct reference and D2 is a point has been reached were in the opinion of the legislative body of the local agency on the advice of its legal councel based on existing facts and circumstances there is a significant exposure to litigation against the local agency okay uh as you as you may have known I was out of the country for a short time but I was watching the news and paying and having things emailed to me and I did happen to see a press conference that was described in the local paper at which a member of the community had stood up and threatened to sue the school district I believe that's what this item refers to now if you wanted to be absolutely squeaky safe Beyond challenge you

007can defer it to the next meeting if there's some urgency to talk about this tonight I think that there is sufficient information here to communicate to the public that there is potential litigation and that's what you're going to be talking about if if there's some urgency that you wish to talk about about it in close session what about what's your take on um because if I was a member of the public and I read this I would not know what it was about except anticipated litigation and I feel that even trustees looking at it wouldn't know really what it was so are so can you speak to that are we putting enough information in the closed session description we can always do better I'm not saying that it's perfect uh but it provides I guess

008it's a matter of opinion what had it said anticipated litigation instead of potential litigation would that have provided more information to the public and that is a a matter of opinion to me I think that the public would know that if you're saying you're potentially being sued it is not too dissimilar from anticipated litigation so I I think that there's enough basis or communication to talk about it if you choose if you want it to be squeaky clean and absolutely Beyond challenge you can defer it to the next meeting and put it describe it in the in the form of the Safe Harbor language thank you Mr loano uh let's go around board members uh can I ask a clarifying question certainly please since while we have legal I'm looking at the code section cited

009on our agenda subsection D says prior to holding a closed section session pursuant to this section the legislative body of the local agency shall State on the agenda or publicly announce the paragraph of subdivision D that authorizes the closed session I don't see that on the agenda I also have trouble with the language around anticipated and potential because looking at the plain language of gov code 54957 it expressly speaks to litigation and specifies what that is and speaks to pending litigation that's not what reads on our agenda so I don't know that it's clear for myself or the board or the public at this point there is no pending litigation at this time however 54956 Point u n subdivision D2 authorizes close session when there is a threat of litigation it the code section reads

010litigation s shall be considered pending when and then what you citing to it doesn't say what you're saying I'm confused well I can read the code section I have it right in front of me that's why that's where this confusion is coming from because the language of our agenda does not comport with the language of the code section no it does not so would you advise us then as our attorney to continue the matter so that our agenda can be clear to the public and for ourselves what we're discussing that's the safest course possible there would if it is agendized absolutely consistently with the Safe Harbor language you're beyond question Beyond reproach I don't know if there's any urgency to talk about this matter I don't know that Ur no urgency if there's no urgency

011then it could be easily deferred to the next math I think the law doesn't say if it's urgent you can call litigation something other than what this code session says it's clear um I guess I'll just leave my comments at that and say I'm not comfortable approving the agenda with this item as listed currently I don't think it's accurate okay thank you clerk McNary trustees any other comments um if not we'll go out to public comment at this time but I want to go around Elliot please yeah I mean I appreciate your attention to detail trust McNary um I think if our legal council feels that there is a point a point has been reached where there is significant exposure to litigation that is an important item to be discussed I would ask can we

012modify the agenda to make it clear okay if we cannot I I think I would trust our legal counselor and our assistant superintendent as to whether it's something that we need to talk about at this meeting or not okay briefly then Mr Jor the urgency um the urgency component is there an an urgency in your mind for us to discuss tonight I don't believe there's an urgency for us to discuss this tonight um thank you okay um Laura did you have anything trusty atmar and Mr I didn't mean to cut you off did you have further important information or no I just think that um well there's pertinent information that does need to be discussed in close session related to this matter can it be deferred to another board meeting and the answer is yes

013okay got it thank you so much trusty atar my preference is to continue um with the agenda as presented I I guess I'm not I'm not seeing the the pressing issue it does seem a little bit like nitpicking um personally and so I trust legal counsil and I'd like to move forward as is okay trusty Brian Swanson I'll Echo what trusty atmar said it's like I feel like we're safe enough to go ahead with the agenda is presented you know I do think that to a degree it is the matter that we're discussing that nobody's actually saying what we're discussing but we all know what we're discussing is um you know it's like it's it's something we need to talk about and I think we're in a safe enough place legally to do that you

014know without getting into to the nitty-gritty of like you know this one thing and point such and such of the the law I think we're in uh in a safe enough place to to discuss it so I mean I would move in favor of continuing with what we've got in front of us thank you trusty Brian Swanson we're going to go out to public comment now and LS will you check and see if there's anyone with their digital hand up online and looks like we have Miss acur please hi Mandy Akerman executive assistant to the superintendent and Board of Education I build the agenda and the board packets and I just wanted to say I'm sorry I have a cheat sheet for close session items that I use to copy and paste when an item

015is requested so my items are from a time that could be outdated um so that's where that came from it didn't have that that D2 so that was just an error on my part so thank you thank you greatly thank you so much for your public comment Mandy thank you okay um is there anyone else who would like to make a public comment at this time Louis you don't have anyone online okay and I don't see anyone here in person making their way up to the podium uh very quickly board any further comments okay no yeah I do you know time and time again we do see these things come before the board and uh they can seem vague or even completely like I have no idea what this is if you were looking at

016it from just a member of the general public having no idea what it is but it's a Clos session item so I don't know moving forward how we do a better job without disclosing information that we need to actually not disclose it's vague kind of for a purpose too so um I think that's worth pointing out and and worth discussing in in the future how we manage those things but they're they're kind of vague for a purpose too to protect the people that are involved I can't help but think about the recent city council agenda that I was just reading and in their closed session it had a line that actually it you know it had the government code quoted and then it said um complaint by employee of harassment or something like that don't

017quote me but it was something like that now I think that adding one sentence like that not naming the parties not naming any of the details I think that going forward is a discussion that would be really valuable for the board to have can I suggest we put that as a future agenda item because I agree with that but I just don't know if this is the time if we have close session it's not exactly the time we should be going to close session to discuss them in my opinion yeah okay so Elliott are you going to bring that up for future agenda will you make a note at the end of the meeting I would be happy to have okay great I'll make a note okay so now that public comment is closed out

018and the board has discussed the adoption of the agenda do we have a motion to accept the agenda as it either as is or with number four um continued I'll make a motion to accept the agenda as presented I'll second that Mandy do you mind if you're back already to your desk do you mind doing a vote on that please yes all in favor I I I opposed no thank you so the motion passes three in favor trustees Brian Swanson trustees atmar trustees Elliot Hazen um two dissenting uh Carolyn Swanson and clerk McNary with that the adoption has been sorry the agenda has been adopted president Swanson just a quick point of order yes please um I'll just say I'm not sure how to bring this up but if you could refrain from making comments

019under your breath I would appreciate it it's distracting and it's hard to pay attention to the meeting thank you for that point of order okay regarding closed session I'm going to identify the closed session topic that have been approved by the approval of the agenda number one negotiations collective bargaining session planning and preparation with pgta for the 2324 school year negoti number two negotiations collective bargaining session planning and preparation with CSA for the 2324 school year number three Public Employee discipline dismissal relas complaint one case number four conference with legal counsel potential litigation and those are the four items identified in Clos session tonight do we have any public comment on close session topics at this time we'll just give a moment thank you so much Louis we've given a couple seconds it appears that

020no one online has their digital hand raised and I don't see anyone here in person making their way up to the podium at this time so I will close public comment and with with that we will adjourn to close session it is 5:47 ste's back waiting for Mr Jordan and Mr Brian Swanson at 6:31 everyone welcome back I'm going to now report the action taken in close session thank you all for being here it's lovely to have folks in the audience uh number one negotiations collected bargaining session planning and preparation with pgta for a 2324 school year information was received number two negotiations collective bargaining session planning and preparation with CSEA for 2324 school year information was received number three Public Employee discipline dismissal relase complaint one case information received number four conference with legal

021counsel potential litigation uh information was received with that Mr Dr truste Elliott will you do the Pledge of Allegiance will you lead us thank you thank you so much I'm looking now at the next part of the agenda which is written Communications and I'm realizing that I completely failed to go through my emails and make a list of those tonight so I will bring them for the next meeting and we will follow up on those but in the meantime if any trustees have any they want to mention please do I'll go um I received an email regarding public comment on staff support for the agenda item on staff support for inst of race and bullying I received an email regarding the superintendent search um one regarding the mayor's Proclamation on band Book week and uh

022invitation for complimentary AED online training that's all I had from last board meeting thank you so much clerk McNary um Dr Hazen no no additional ones to mention okay trusty atmar um I received some of those but then in addition a question about uh when to make a public comment that's a great question uh trusty Brian Swanson nothing for me I'd uh yeah I could have sorry I did not go through and summarize everything either so okay we can catch up later I in the meantime have pulled up my emails because I just hate the idea of me not um having these for public record at this time so I'm just GNA um summarize them quickly and Mandy um you're listening I will type these up for you so so that it's a little bit

023easier um so I had an email that was kudos to the district office staff I had an email about blocked websites I had um an anonymous letter to the board I had an email from Montery County Weekly a media request I had an email related to shade structure and lunch at Forest Grove an email in support of a staff member an email related to the high school track an email related to prop 28 and music AIDS an email I'm not sure what that one was um an offer of help from the member public with their expertise an email about a student matter two emails about a student three emails about a student matter um an email about local agencies that can provide training on um racism two two of those emails um three of those

024emails another anonymous letter I got um an email related to selecting the next superintendent and and email related to curriculum and I'm sorry but I just don't want to skip this um two more emails related to uh local entities that um specialize in race relations and inner group um um I want to say inner group um kindness and acceptance um and an email about a band books Proclamation so thank you all for your patience on that I just didn't want to skip it um with that trustees any more written Communications did I shaky any Loose as I was speaking about those okay thank you next up is board member comments uh trusty heathan do you want to start sure um thank you and I apologize that I probably will be reading more than looking folks

025in the eye um just to make sure I say what I want to say and I would like to address the concerns raised during last week's board comments first and foremost I want to acknowledge that racism is deeply rooted in the history of our small community and our country it is evident that there are children and families who have not felt and still do not feel welcome within our district this is an unacceptable and demands immediate attention and concerted efforts from our district but we are fortunate to have a wealth of experience among our Educators who I will support and encourage to collectively work on finding Solutions and making this District better I'm I am wholeheartedly committed to ensuring our community understands that racism along with any other form of bigotry has no home at

026all in our district striving towards a district that is welcoming and supportive to all I also want to touch upon the comments made as it relates to board governance because it's an important reminder I think for us all as a single board member myself I have no power or authority our strength lies in our Unity as a board and it is through Collective decision-making that we wield any power at all I've been truly heartened by our ability to come together and confront some of the most challenging decisions however I want to emphasize to the board the district and the public that our best path and only path forward is one where we collaborate wholeheartedly thank you thank you trusty Hazen clerk McNary thank you for those comments um I wanted to highlight a bright spot

027in our district this week um out at the middle school um I received as a parent um their first newsletter for their speakup Weare mental health campaign um and I was dazzled I guess I was really impressed um I loved that the campaign has been a proactive approach to reaching students and families um I appreciated their attention to details and um they included a video that was shot at the school that um the students participated in the staft and it looked like a lot of effort and care and love went into that so um they also had their well their first Wellness Fair recently and I just do appreciate the efforts that are being made especially at that site to um encourage kids to advocate for themselves and also um create a safe space um

028for all of our kids so yeah thank you clerk McNary trustee atar um I have no comments tonight but just to say U thank you for what you said Elliot I appreciate that and I I second that very much thank you trusty atar trusty Brian Swanson uh well I hadn't intended to I didn't have anything prepared but I did want to thank Dr hayen too for for your remarks I think that it's a unifying message you know they're clearly they are things that we need to deal with and um and take very serious I think we do but I I think it needs to be reiterated from time to time to what we do as a board and and we're a board we're not it's just like we're not five people we're trying to ideally

029I believe at least to work as a unit and present a unified message and I hope the public knows again it's like I can't speak for the entire board um but that I I'm certain that the board uh that one of our our primary interest well our primary Interest really is to the students but how do we create Community how do we bring everybody together and um how do we speak as often as possible with one voice so again Dr hayen thank you for your remarks I really appreciate that thank you trusty Brian Swanson and then I have two quick remarks um one of them was actually about the Middle School um speak up weekare program I'm consistently impressed with the efforts at the middle school first the mental health fair that they did on

030a weekend um weekends are a big deal to Educators I thought that was really a demonstration of their commitment to go and do that um and set the whole thing up and then also this newsletter that they sent out I thought it was profession I mean it was professionally made but I thought it came from a professional firm it had a video that had music and graphics and um uh it was a really supportive and and I thought just so excellent um the other thing is uh Forest Grove um lunch is uh an opportunity for children to eat outdoors from my understanding um but also from my understanding families are not aware of that so is there any way that we could get messaging out because at the beginning of the year it wasn't an

031option to eat outdoors and so now um I was talking with the parent today and they mentioned it so I put it in my comments so um that's that's on my mind um after that interim superintendent Mr Jordan please thank you president carine um so I've got a few things to update everyone on tonight let's start with the uh school safety survey the threat and risk assessment we had around a 100 family responses uh for the survey that went out that means that we have enough parents um that have been that have been suggested they would be interviewed uh because that's the second phase of this we do a survey then we do interviews we did interviews with the sites so phase two is to interview the families um the summit of summary will be

032um sent to uh sent to us in November for a December uh presentation by Kimble Kimble and Associates and then I sent out a summit of safety summary yesterday for the month of September what was transpiring in the district related to that Safety project uh the national school public relations Association npra I'm going to refer to them as npra the update I have today is the survey is still being circulated to staff and Community um we plan to perform another pulse survey at check-in right before fall break to try to increase the number of uh respondents uh the scope of the project for npra is a communication review of practices protocols Communications sent by the sites and uh by the district office the carel authors Festival authors and ideas Festival was heavily attended on the

03322nd of September our entire 7eventh grade class 165 students attended uh and they all sent thank you letters to the authors and ideas Festival folks so I think that was a wonderful thing and lastly and most critically I would like to State openly that our district remains committed to encouraging learning in and out of the classroom which includes a dedicated focus on empathy healing and inclusivity to our community of Learners while pgusd has made some progress to this end our educational Community must still do more to recognize and remove racism intolerance and bias from our schools to highlight one area of focus just this week our administrators began a five-part series which will be discussed later under information item a and summarized by director Rogan um also the district's cult proficiency work which began in

0342022 has begun the process of diversifying instructional material looking at grading for Mastery and equity and developing methods of learning that will highlight every culture that contributes to the educational experience here at Pacific Grove unified school district our district will continue to inform the public as we develop and Implement training programs and systems such as the see something say something reporting system which the anonymous reporting tool from Sandy Hook promise will be brought to this board uh for information item on the 26th of the month I encourage our community to stay connected actively involved because we do value all input to support change in our schools and in our community that's the end of my report thank you Mr Jord with that we're going to transition into the part of the evening where we ask

035for individuals Desiring to address the board um to either raise their digital hand online or come up to the podium um I I am going to read this disclaimer it's a little bit lengthy but um just needs to be done so uh public comment on any item of interest to the public that's within the board's jurisdiction will be heard the board will also take public comment on each specific action item prior to the board's action on the item on the agenda any individual wishing to comment on a specific item on the current agenda are kindly asked to wait until that item is being discussed the board will allow a reasonable amount of time for public comment on each agenda item not to exceed three minutes per speaker and no more than 20 minutes per agenda

036item pursuant to board policy 9323 speakers will be called sequentially until there is no speaker coming forward on the agenda item or the amount of time allocated for the agenda item has elapsed whichever comes first this meeting of the board of education is a business meeting of the board conducted in public please note that the brown act limits the board's ability to respond to public comment and the board may choose to direct items to the administration for action or place an item on a future agenda so first we're going to start with pgusd staff comments on non-agenda items so if you have a comment on an agenda item please wait until we get to that item that's on the agend agenda otherwise oh lovely okay wonderful U Miss Zusi please as a mother of a

037black child a veteran teacher and an alumnist of pgusd I do not know how to explain to you all of my supervisors and colleagues friends and mentors and above all leaders of this Beloved Community that generations of my family have served How Deeply hurt that I feel about nearly all of you choosing not to attend nor to even speak to our staff about the recent press conference on the trauma of three young precious children at our school I want you to know how it felt at that Press Conference held right outside my classroom and all the days thereafter to be the only teacher aside from one friend from Forest Grove who agreed to stand at my side because she knows some of my own Sons experiences with racial trauma in our schools a mother to

038Mother human to human she knew this would be hard but if you are one of the approximately 30 pgusd staff members to have served with me on our cultural proficiency team in particularly our district admin team you should already know that too most sports coaches in our region know about our racism in Pacific Grove because they have heard the racist slurs that many of our athletes have indefensibly used against our opponents every African-American Elder who approached my son with concern when he was wearing a pghs sweatshirt at the Monterey jazz festival knows the reputation our community has earned through the historical and actual traumas that many still ignore Andor deny every child and adult who has had to endure and respond to the n-word on Robert DS Forest Groves pgms and PGH hs's campuses knows

039this even the PG Police Department knows how dangerous and terrifying this kind of trauma can be become in our hometown because they have intervened when a pgms student targeted African-American latinx and lgbtqia plus classmates with horrendous racist and homophobic slurs and threats with fake guns Amplified by social media and because this is a kind of trauma that Mel Mason warns quote can be both scarring and life-altering for children unquote a kind of trauma that Valerie Anthony explains quote gets into the bones and the Soul unquote I do not wish to expose my family's most traumatic wounds to the public particularly when there are some here who only Mock and revel in this pain while also denying that racism exists here as two individuals did at that press conference and many of their co-conspirators do at

040each and every Dei task force meeting in Pacific Grove frequently Amplified by the local press moreover I want you to imagine how our families most targeted by racial trauma feel when you do not show up show you care make the time to listen or to learn demonstrate that we all want to do better all while the most Shameless in our community come out and Heckle and deny our heartbreak and our pain how can we have any confidence that as parents and staff members in our school district when our babies are experiencing racial trauma in our schools that we have already reported without our own leadership showing up Andor speaking up about racial trauma and pgsd thank you very much for your comments Lewis do we have anyone online who would like to speak at this

041time okay Alexis Robert are you a staff member if so please unmute and you have the floor if not your time will come shortly I'm not a staff member so I'll wait okay thank you so much it'll just be a couple moments anyone else wishing to comment on non-agenda items tonight and this is for pgusd staff comments on non-agenda items just to be clear okay Lewis is letting me know that he doesn't see any digital hands up and I don't see anyone else making their way up to the podium at this time so we're going to move on now to community members who would like to comment on non-agenda items and Miss Alex sorry Alexis Robert um now is your time Lewis will unmute you okay thanks can you hear me absolutely because I can't

042see you okay great thank you um I wanted to Echo Heather's comments and wanted to share comments and support of Valerie Anthony's press conference um as she raised concerns of the treatment of her three Sons at Robert down um I understand the investigation by the school district found that no rules were broken but I think that misses the point um the harm and discomfort her kids felt were real and I'm sad that they have left the district and Valerie was an active parent who contributed a lot to the school and I'm Miss bonding with her over the fact that we both had three boys at Robert down at the same time I feel like when people raise concerns about racism at schools at at our schools the district and school leaders spend a lot of

043energy defending their comments or their actions as not racist rather than engaging in the uncomfortable conversations we need to have acknowledging the harm our comments or actions may have had even if they were unintentional uh creating a welcoming School environment requires me and other white people in our district listening and taking seriously the concerns that non-white students and parents raise even if those concerns are outside our experience or require us to have uncomfortable conversations or change our points of view um I expect and I hoping that Robert down and the district will create safer spaces for raising these concerns and I will try to spend more time myself contributing to these efforts thank you very much for your time thank you very much for your public comment Alexis Robert hello we have someone moved has

044moved up to the podium um hi parent fourth grader at sixth grader at middle school I'm also the crow Elementary School do you mind starting over your words are so important and lisis can you start the time this part isn't important my intro but every yes please hi my name is Crystal godet I am the proud parent of a fourth grader at Forest Grove Elementary School a sixth grader at PG Middle School the proud sister of a teacher at Robert down Elementary School and the Aunt of a nephew at PG high school so together in our family we've have almost every school covered between 2015 and mid 2020 my sister who was at the time raising my African-American NE nephew in the deep south of the United States would call me too frequently in tears

045to tell me about incidents of racism and Injustice that were occurring at my nephew's North Carolina schools each and every time I heard stories about him being called the nword or physically harmed by his peers at school in North Carolina I would advise my sister that she needed to get out of there she needed to come home to PG she needed to raise her son and my nephew in this amazing inclusive school district and I was a laded in August of 2020 when she heeded my advice and brought my nephew home where I was sure that he would no longer experience the racism Injustice and racial trauma that he had been subjected to throughout his elementary school years boy was I wrong what I quickly learned is that we in Pacific grve Unified School District

046are not immune to acts of racism and Injustice right here in this community that we love so much when my nephew came home from Pacific Grove Middle School saying that his notebook had been stolen by a student only for him to find it in the trash can with the n-word scribbled across it I was in disbelief when he was pushed to the ground at lunchtime and told to take a shower because he needed to wa quote wash the black off of him that was that pgms I couldn't believe my ears and in the three years that he has lived here in PG my family has come to confront incident after incident of traumatizing misconduct on account of his race the accounts of misconduct are not just coming from my black nephew my white daughters who

047we are teaching to be upstanders regularly come home with accounts of racism and homophobia that they encounter at school I repeat this for emphasis we in PG are not immune to acts of racism and Injustice right here in this community that we love so much this is not an anomaly reported so bravely by Valerie Anthony in the NAACP last week we must confront the sad reality that this is occurring repeatedly what I have come to witness is that while we have a staff and administration in this District that I sincerely believe mean well and try to do the right thing they are ill equipped and just not that knowledgeable about how to go about addressing these incidents of racial trauma and abuse so what I came here today to say is that we as a

048community need to listen to believe and learn from what the parents and loved ones of children of color are telling us about the experiences that they are having in this District we need to show them our support and identify concrete plans for investigating and addressing misconduct that happens we need to continue investing in cultural proficiency trainings and resources so that our staff and administration can learn about proper ways to address Injustice in our community please please do not think this can be solved with a single check the box training facilitated by legal council that's later on the agenda that may be a start it may be part of a piece of a puzzle but as a litigator myself I know far too well what it means to check a box for liability purposes what we

049need is a clear commitment from this District to eradicate racism we need to work intentionally and urgently to create a safer and more Equitable environment for our students thank you thank you Mrs godette is there anyone else who would like to come up and speak to the podium at this time we do have an agenda item later that is um information item a staff support for incidents of racism and bullying and um I would like to invite any members of the public who have already spoken to stick around and speak on that one as well if you have time please yes you're on and Lewis is anyone online with their hand up okay thank you Mr Gibbs thank you Bard thank you president Swanson uh my name is Mike Gibbs I stand before you as

050a worried dad and Granddad I felt it my duty to apply for the position of superintendent which you are now still considering I don't believe that Pacific Grove is a racist town nor is the district stricken with systematic bias and hate I don't believe that parents want extreme Progressive ideology or radical Dei Dogma in their schools all parents simply want one thing they want their kids to have a great education that makes them competitive in this very tough global economy right parents want to trust their schools everybody I would just quote from a well-known art author the the biggest Factor driving mistrust and there's a lot of mistrust around this issue is surely the widening cultural gap between people who have led and thrived in our major institutions and the rest of the population the

051past 20 years has seen a rapid emergence of a new Elite expensively educated vers in Progressive nostrums increasingly dist from and disdainful of the rest of America and its values this crowd comprises much of the nation's permanent government classes almost its entire academic establishment most of the people who control this snooze and cultural output and a good deal of the education Elite they subscribe to what has been termed luxury beliefs um they assert Global priorities over National ones on issues such as climate change immigration place outside emphasis on the evaluation of racial and sexual identity and radical ideas about gender and insist on rewriting history to portray the us as an evil nation and some of us in the room have served that needs to be uh expurgo its sing by imposing new burdens on

052non-elite Americans the rising tide of popular distrust in values actions and Leadership of this Elite calls to mind the bit Breck's poem about East Germany many years ago the people had squandered the confidence of the government and could only win it back by redoubled work the people would it not be in that case simpler for the government to dissolve the people and elect new ones to dissolve the parents and bring a new parents anyone who has lost money to a con man believe the lies of an Unfaithful partner are wasted in an afternoon waiting for a repair man who promised to come knows that once forfeited trust isn't easily recovered and there is a trust before any of this happened I've been to several of the school board meetings it's not easily recovered and the

053next superintendent will have a massive job to bring this District together the confidence Americans plac in their leaders has been in steep decline for two decades and won't be repaired overnight last thing I would say to everybody and it's it's kind of my watch word I teach it to my grandkids I have a daughter a granddaughter that goes to school and in her City Oakland everybody's welcome nobody's perfect and anything is possible thank you thank you Mr Mike Gibbs thank you for coming and thank you for always having your comment be exactly three minutes was or a little less s we uh can have staff follow up uh on that for you actually we can cannot have staff follow up I apologize we will have leadership Associates follow up with you on that okay I'm

054just going to have one last call out for any community members uh wanting to comment on non-agenda items thank you so much Mr wax thank you for in in advance for your comments sure uh good evening my name is Mike wax I stand here as an elite uh wanting Progressive ideals for my children uh and I know I seem like an elite in gym shorts and a hat and a terrible t-shirt so pardon me but like in my Elite language uh the rebuttal of Mr Gibbs is that of a total boob like why would you not believe racism exists when someone's notebook is scrolled with the nword that's totally discounting someone's actual history and experience when I was walking down over here because I live up the street I was thinking about 911 which was

05523 years ago and about a month or whatever and seemed so fresh like I remember the cell phone call that my mom gave me she was like don't go on the bus because I was in Austin Texas and that's where George Bush was from whatever it was paranoid it was possibly delusional that uh terrorists were going to Target the capitol Metro Bus system in Austin but it was so real and then for years we've lived with that fear and anxiety and uh we've tried to course correct for that terrorism and that is what people who experience racism feel that is their trauma so for you to say that you are imperfect and then just stop is unbelievable and um this is a horrible Injustice for not only black families and and uh Progressive people but

056I want to be very clear that I don't want to live in a community where you are superintendent and where um these views are just slued off this is a huge thing and it's just perplexing that you would want to live in a world that continues this way of thinking thank you Mr wax and we do ask at meetings that um we refrain from Applause if you agree with the um person who has spoken you can give a thumbs up or a thumbs down quietly but just out of respect for everyone's varying viewpoints we ask that there's um refrain from Applause and so um LS last check anyone online okay thank you so much and thank you all for your comments and all for your patience for waiting for later if you have an item

057you want to comment on later we're going to move on now uh to our consent agenda our consent agenda if you're uh looking at the packet starts on page six this is um consent agenda is a compilation of a variety of routine items that we approve all at once unless there is something that gets pulled by a trustee or a member of the public can comment that they would like something pulled so um at this time clerk McNary is there um any discussion you'd like to have about consent none for me thank you thank you trusty alar um no discussion and nothing to pull from me thank you trusty Brian Swanson uh nothing to pull thank you thank you um I'm next on the Note list I'm just checking my own notes Here I am

058good I do not have a discussion item lastly but not leastly trusty Hazen nothing to pull thank you very much okay thank you so with that we're going to go out to public comment this is again public comment on our consent agenda that starts on page six of our packet our packet is our uh supporting documents and there should be a hard copy out in the lobby if not and you would like one or a copy of the agenda please ask and uh we will get you one tonight okay Lewis anyone with their digital hand up thank you so much and I don't see anyone um in the public moving their way up to the podium for this particular item so at this time I'm going to close public comment I'm going to go back

059to the board and see if we can have a motion on consent I'll make a motion to approve consent I'll trusty otar beat me okay clerk McNary uh makes the motion trusty otmar seconds Mandy do you mind majority vote please all in favor I opposed thank you thank you motion carries unanimously on to the next part of the agenda action discussion our first item item a is a resolution number 1115 proclaiming week of the school administrator and this um doesn't have Mr Jordan's name on it but Mr Jordan do you have anything on this um I have nothing I was going to defer to director thank you it's on nothing it's on I think laano Director of Human Resources for the school district um we know how important it is for the Board of Education

060to recognize the hard work that District administrators and leaders do day in and day out that is the reason why we're bringing forward Proclamation resolution number 1115 proclaiming week of the school administrator so what is a school administrator it is a broad term that is used to define many educational leadership roles which includes the superintendent assistant superintendent principles assistant principles student services educational leaders curriculum and instruction School business officials classified educational leaders so as you can see it's pretty Brad so tonight we are asking for your approval revision and approval of resolution 1115 acknowledging Education Code 4401 15.1 proclaiming the second week in October as the week of the school administrator so president Swanson I would like to ask if you would do the honors and read the resolution I was actually gon to ask

061trusty atar to do it but I didn't expect you to ask me so I don't like saying no so trusty okay next one is yours trusty hmer okay so Pacific Grove Unified School District Board of Education resolution number 1115 week of the school administrator whereas leadership matters for California's public education system and the more than 6.7 million students that it serves and whereas School administrators are lifelong Learners who believe in the value of quality public education and providing quality service for Student Success is Paramount for for the profession and the future of California's public education system depends on the quality of its leadership and whereas School leaders depend on a network of support from school communities teachers parents students businesses community members board trustees district and County staff and resources to promote ongoing student achievement

062and school Success and now therefore be it resolved by the governing board of the Pacific Grove unified school district that resolution number 1115 be adopted to observe o October 8th through the 14th 2023 as week of the school administrator to commend all School leaders for the contributions they make to successful student achievement and that is the Full Resolution so thank you all for listening to that and thank you all to the school administrators for the work that that is done it's tireless sometimes thankless work but very valuable so thank you all um with that board do you have any comments that you would like to make surrounding this resolution item trusty Ryan's want your eyes lit up so I'm gonna start with you of course we have some you know we have some really well

063everybody that's new is really wonderful and but just across the board you when I think about our district and admin you know it's there are so many moving parts and you guys keep them moving um I am really proud of this district and what we're doing with educating our students and I I don't think there's an anybody in an admin pos position right now that does not every day think about the students and what we do with them and as the foundation of a great community and so again I don't I don't I can't even put it into words really other than I I just my heartfelt thanks for all the work that you do and and you do bring it every day you bring your a game every day so thank you for doing

064that you should get a whole month not just a week but you know but uh but it's a start so thank you everyone thank you and um what do we have planned for the week for the week of the 8th through the 14th to recognize our school administrators we do but it's a surprise okay now do you really or do you will find later no I think that's wonderful thank you so we're keeping at the surprise that was my only comment um trusty Hazen I mean just to Echo trusty Swanson's uh words you guys are often unseen except by those that come to the board meetings like this and the amount of work you do to make this District a better place is really appreciated and I'm here as 10 of5 to help support you

065how I can moving forward so please thank you again for all that you have done and continue to do for a district clerk McNary nothing additional from me thank you okay it's all been said trustee atore um all of that and uh I'm just really grateful to be in this District to have my kids in this District you all work very very hard there's a lot of behind the scenes that happen I'm sure there's a lot of sleepless nights that happen um and I'm just grateful to be in a district that is um so prepared for growth and um that you are all here to support that I appre appreciate you very much thank you for all that you do thank you trusty otar did I miss a trustee I don't think I did okay

066I did not thank you we're going to go out to public comment on this item anyone online wishing to raise their digital hand please do so any member of the public who's here in person please make your way to the podium at this time if you would like to comment on this item okay thank you LS we don't see anyone online or in person wanting to make public comments so I'm going to close that portion and we're going to look at the board here for a motion on this item I'm happy to make a motion to approve okay item thank you motion made by DR Hazen I'll second seconded by trusty otar Mandy do you mind doing a roll call Vote for This one president Swanson hi Mary I Dr Hazen I trusty otar I

067trusty Swanson most certainly I yes yeah thank you motion carries unanimously next up is uh action item B contract for services with qual trick uh this is a Mr Jor item so I'm gonna hand it over to you thank you president Caroline sure um so tonight I'm bringing forward to the board a contract uh to finalize the selection of qual tricks to support the district with uh qualitative and quantitative data collection Associated to support us in this District in the following areas Recruitment and Retention they're going to be building out an elcat public facing dashboard for the district uh they'll be performing a district uh climate survey and the forward- facing dashboard both internal and external Community uh relations survey as well as the dashboard uh a professional development dashboard again housed on on the

068web and an employee experience dashboard for the district so a lot of public facing information where we can uh take our aggregate data and show it to the public uh at each and every one of the sites as well as as the um District office's site as um as well so all of these public facing dashboards accompany surveys as I mentioned uh they're going to be gathering a lot of information from the community as well as our staff um and it will all be compiled in our public facing dashboards uh at the end I hope that um we don't end up with survey fatigue I know that our district has been going through quite a bit of surveys right now but it's really important that we get that information back from the public um it

069helps us do our jobs better and it helps us um build the information that needs to be public facing that we don't currently have in existence right now so I'm bringing the contract forward it's an annual contract for one year and then we will reevaluate at the end of the year if the board so desires to approve the contract um moving forward into the second year thank you so thank you so much Mr Jordan I have a question um about this so I know that the district uh is having a Communications professional team come and do a Communications review not an audit but a review for our district and so when I was reading this um I was just curious um I guess I kind of thought that we would have on pause any advances

070or um any kind of action on uh Communications until we got the communication review and then we could um have a plan and then Implement that kind of um procedurally so um can you just tell me like how does this work with us having a communication review um in the pipeline sure so I mentioned the nspra review under superintendence report um that is more of a lengthy process um we've just started the survey process it's followed up with interviews they're doing data collection from us looking at every one of our Communications from uh a Media communication to website postings and actually how we utilize our websites for communication as well as our uh catapult connect how we how we connect to the community and to the uh and to the school district folks so um

071that process as I'm told and for will be bringing their findings to the to the board sometime in January or February um that's a little bit behind kind of what we needed to get our lcap information up on the web we had planned to bring qual Trix in actually last spring under the previous administration and and it did get deferred because of turnover um but we felt like it was important to bring this forward right now specifically associated with our lcap forward- facing dashboard which doesn't currently exist within the district so um there are quite a few things that they can do for us qual trick can we can toggle some on and off if need be we can push this out if need be um but the lcap uh public facing dashboard was one

072of the most important components for us now sorry I said thank you for differentiating that for me thank you so much I just want to make sure all of it gets on public record so we're recording um trusty Hy in any comments nope thank you for bringing forward okay are you in support of it you are okay yeah I am it's a bit clunky if you have to use it we've had to use it for work but it is a very good tool and one of the best in what it does I I am aware of that so okay thank you clerk McNary I had a similar question regarding how this flowed with the communications plan so thank you for answering that it sounds like this is information that we really need to get out

073to the public sooner than later okay thank you perhaps are required to do yeah we would like we well there's not a requ well there's a requirement to post your public facing information on the web related to the lcap and we we actually post a copy of the lcap it's just not a very accessible document when you're trying to look at it online so we're trying to move forward to more more accessible viewing websites and I will mention that if we do approve this contract tonight um n will will be reviewing the data that we receive from the qual trick surveys and the public facing dashboards that we Implement from the qual trick survey so okay it's actually going to be part of it just because of the time frame that enpr is going to

074take to do their so in a way it could maximize the communic review even further okay thank you so much for that uh trusty upar no I don't have any additional questions thank you trusty Brian uh no questions thank you okay we have discussed as a board so we're going to go out to public comment for this item leis anybody online with their hand up and anybody here wishing no uh point of order for myself but not really but um is everyone warm enough or would you like us to turn on the like turn down the AC because we had it cranked up today so I just I saw someone turn it down hey Mandy and um I'm hoping you're listening you did okay little little more warmth would be fabulous okay back to business

075apologies um and it I was also buying time for our public to be able to raise their hand so oh it's in here oh okay now we know bring it up to 70 68 okay okay Lewis anyone with their digital hand up no okay great and I don't see anyone not great but um I don't see anyone here working their way up to the podium at this time so we are going to close out public comment for this item on con who yeah oh please go up to the podium just so we can record yeah excellent thank you so much for commenting I know you may not be able to answer but like with the plan is there are there like okrs about what you're trying to get or like um objectives and what you're

076trying to solicit Beyond this was a good communication or this was bad thank you for your question Mike wax such a great question um Josh will follow up with you and let you know um it's a really great question Josh do you mind um letting the board know too kind of like just it's great for us to remember and have the talking points fresh for us for the communications review thank you great question thank you so much thank you all tonight for your comments so far um okay so with that public comment is now closed and um I'll make a motion um to uh approve on staff's recommendation if I can get a second I'll second okay motion made by Carolyn Swanson seconded by clerk McNary Mandy if you don't mind all in favor I

077I opposed thank you okay motion carries unanimously with that we're moving on to action item C which is Board calendar future meetings this is page five of the agenda top of the page um trustee Dr Hazen any Board calendar items yes um one that I think you brought up president Carolyn the governance uh special meeting and I think that actually deals well with the uh comment made earlier about the close session agenda as well is that might be a good area to do that so I'd love to try to get on the calendar yes uh a special governance meeting for our board to okay shall we pull out our calendars great okay I think that's wonderful I do that oh okay I've got my paper and Pen calendar okay so we want to have a

078meeting and um Elliot sounds like you're uh looking at maybe the um we have on our oh it's on the same page we have our future agenda items and and I think it's possible two of them can go into this meeting that you're mentioning the board selfie vow and board governments governance expectations type of thing can all be in that meeting is that agreeable yeah I like that idea a lot okay um and so with that um I think sooner the better we've got some really pressing items in my opinion um so October we're here at October 5th I know that Mandy tried to um already move something and it was pretty booked up as far as coordinating all five of us so do we have anything in October and I want to throw out

079the idea of a Saturday meeting we've done those in the past it's kind of um a day where you're outside of um it's just kind of like a um the energy is different on a Saturday I say like you get here early and you're like okay we're going to work on inner workings of the board we're going to work on our relationships we're going to work on whatever the topic is and you're kind of here so is there a Saturday or even a Sunday first of all in October Elliot do you have it is really I mean I would have to lean heavily on my family kids have activities book all yes so do mine yes exactly so it would be really hard if there's a time that works for others I will do everything

080in my power to to make that work I would love to okay try to find a time during the week if we can recognizing we have oh you prefer during the week I always I always prefer during the week personally um it's just easier for I think that this meeting may be a couple hours um I I don't think any longer than three hours or three and a half hours um okay uh trusty Mar what's your take weekends weekdays um I would prefer midweek I don't the weekend is the only time I get with my family so um I'm not willing to give that up um so it would have to be midweek and is this a discussion that can happen offline no because it's all five of us okay so the only time really

081the only time we can get any work done is if we do a public meeting we can talk about calendaring cing that's what I'm I'm talking because I don't want to take everybody's time with like I have a soccer game and then I've got a dental appointment and all these things so everyone is here I think to speak on a different topic than our calendar sure so I would prefer to respect everybody's time and perhaps this is something we could arrange uh via email through Mandy can we check in with Mandy because this was her recommendation to do it here in public so let's see what she feels about that quick just jumping in um what you could do if you wanted I think this is okay but you could push this item to the

082end of the agenda and um move move on with the other ones that way the public isn't sitting around if you would feel comfortable doing that and then we can talk still talk about this publicly with your calendars the only reason why I suggested doing this publicly was if you guys remember when we were trying to schedule that special meeting at a different date I was just blowing up your phones for four hours and I couldn't find a date that worked for anybody so okay um I'll do whatever the board directs me to do I just if you want to respect the Public's time maybe we could just push this item to after the um the the information item that everybody's waiting on yeah I'm in favor of tabling it moving action item C after

083um directly after information who wait a second we're in action so we can't really move it any further yeah we adopted the agenda so we can't y it's stuck okay so the options are we either kind of flush it out here or we try to do it online with Mandy and um go back to that the only thing will be that we need an action on the approval of the current calendar as it stands because we don't have December through June approved the tentative one y okay um I might mention that you do have on the November 2nd meeting the board goal study session which is a regular board meeting you might be able to plug it in there I know that's a month away from what you were looking at but just as a

084suggestion okay where um which one are you talking about November November 2nd okay I mean I guess it's up to us how pressing we feel the issues are to discuss Elliott um I'll give one more piece of Hope is what do you got I had a week of travel canceled so I have time during the week that I did not have previously so in October correct so I will work with I'm happy to work that in um okay I I have hope we can do it October sorry to interrupt you if it's okay with the board I would like to then have Mandy try with us like she does in her um very talented way emailing us and trying to get and what what week is that just the week of the 23rd the week

085of the 23rd okay Mandy are you okay with that absolutely okay thank you for working with us on that we appreciate it um and then board um any further discussion on this item because I just asked Mandy on my own bition so if you're um not in favor of that please do let me know okay so we do need to approve this uh Board calendar so that we kind of put in stone our tentative board meeting shift that from tentative to um hopeful or I don't know what tentative to more permanent and so um let me see if there's any public comment on this I don't think there will be and then we'll come back and do a motion okay okay Louis any public comment on our Board calendar future meetings thank you okay seeing

086no one moving their way to the podium at this time we're going to close out public comment um can we get a motion to approve uh Board calendar happy to make a motion to approve the board calendar as written I'll second so motion made by DR Hazen seconded By Carolyn Swanson majority vote please Mandy favor I opposed thank you thank you motion carries unanimously okay it's 7:27 uh we can move on now to information discussion item a this is also on page five of the agenda if anyone is following along can I request a quick B like two- minute bathroom breaker absolutely is um that okay with the board if we take a 10 minute even because I know even though we say five we come so I just want to be accurate okay so

0877:38 we will come back and we will start right up with info discussion item a thank you for the request we're going to start back up with the meeting in about 20 seconds I do feel warmer immediately okay lovely people I wish I had all the teacher skills yes start clapping if you can hear me yes okay thank you all it's 7:38 so we're back from our break I hope we all feel a little bit refreshed and ready to discuss information discussion item a this is titled staff report for incidents of racism and bullying and the staff members presenting this are Mr joran and director Rogan thank you president Caroline sure so the district back in late May began the process of curriculum development uh with both sarahott and Dr Brandon cre Kruger who leads

088the Dei collaborative with Lozano Smith the district felt it was beneficial to have a combination of a former superintendent of schools and legal councel for the development of the framework that will that will be presented tonight by director Rogan the district has been working with the monary County Office of Education Equity team led by Dr Robert Nunes on vetting and modifying the uh current curriculum framework the framework being discussed tonight is grounded in the Anti-Defamation Anti-Defamation League Source responding to bio incidents in middle and high schools from 2020 Dr Krueger has experienced managing bias response at all levels in the districts and with boards and communities to address systematic uh systemic issues he's a trainer in courageous conversations focused on race and inclusivity he has 24 years as an administrator in diverse communities Rural and

089inner city he has built and implemented policies and staff admin trainings associated with Dei and has done so as an administrator and a teacher which helps frame a classroom based perspective Dr Krueger's approach is not a program he works directly with districts to create individualized protocols unique to their specific needs the benefits of having support from legal counsel first off it will ensure that the response protocols comply with the law and District policies in real time it can help the district update policies to reflect new protocols and new framework the legal team can help spot common errors and issues May create liability for a district and the legal team has a broad range of experience in hundreds of school districts in the state of California where they can share other successes and challenges the benefits

090of loano Smith in particular are directly tied to the closeness their team has with pgusd and their intimate knowledge on the cases and outcomes within our district now I would like to turn it over to director Rogan and he will give you the briefing of the five-part series related to bias and incident response thank you very much interim super intendent joran I am Buck Rogan the director of curriculum and special projects for uh pgusd and um I have a lot of notes here that I'm going to refer to but I wanted to uh just start by offering a sincere thanks to the people who have come here this evening and spoken to us about their personal you know experiences um I know that this is uh you know the week of the administrator and there's

091a vast difference in um the kind of impact can make on a personal level as an administrator as opposed to when you're the person on the ground in the classroom or uh as I had the privilege of being the person on the ground as um a coach in this District but um I was also a coach uh in another district and um you know experienced firsthand um the bus ride home from a game against P Pacific Grove and listen to the kinds of things that had been said to our team when we played Pacific growth um in my tenure as the the head coach at PPG High um I hope that we made some progress um but I'm not um so naive to think that our players were perfect in those seven eight years that

092I was coaching at PG high as well um but this work is uh is truly the most important work that we're doing and um when we talk about the plan that we're putting to together um we're not trying to fulfill a legal requirement in terms of training what we want to do is equip our administrators to be able to respond better to incidents of bias that are going to occur in our in our schools um I also had the honor of serving as the principle of PG mitt middle school and also of uh Forest Grove and I have to admit that as the principal of the mitt middle school and at Forest Grove the most difficult incidents for me to handle were incidents of racism and incidents of bias because I wasn't exactly sure how

093to how to do it and what the proper steps to take were and so what this endeavor uh on behalf of the district is going to do is intended to do is to give our administrators the kind of training that I never got so that uh when they encounter an incident of bias when something happens that we make a culturally appropriate response to the actions that happen in our in our schools um with that being said we know that we're not going to be able to do this alone that we're not going to be a be able to build a program on our own that is going to allow us to have the culturally responsive actions that are going to be necessary when an incident of bias or just a Flatout racist incident occurs in

094our in our schools so we are going to call on um you know the Partnerships that we hope to be able to form through this process first of all to help us form the program that we want to form and then second of all to hold us accountable for that for that Pro program um I say that with aome all sincerity and um from a love of this district and um from the sadness um of what we've demonstrated in the in the in the past so um we have a responsibility to do better and this is the beginning of our effort to to do better the first session that we had was this past Tuesday and uh it was titled laying laying the foundation and what was discussed was discrimination and bias as uh Mr

095Jordan alluded to um much of the content uh is um uh taken from the Anti-Defamation leagues uh response to incidents of bias in middle and high schools but the objective of the lesson was to provide legal and a practical foundation for addressing and responding to bias incidents and creating a sustainable approach to systemwide practices based on a framework and internal accountability what we started off with was um people in the room um describing their understanding of what discrimination is and then we went on to uh a legal def definition of discrimination then next the um conversation turned to bias and our management team learned about different kinds of bias included in that our confirmation bias and implicit bias confirmation bias meaning that um a person conducting an investigation may have an idea of what happened

096confirmation bias is when you value those statements that back up your thought rather than keeping an open mind in fact Gathering um implicit bias are those biases that we've been programmed with um by uh society and a lot of times they F they surface in stereotypes or just preferences is toward groups based on um based on the programming that we've had from society as we grew up our team part par participated in a couple of activities that demonstrated the subtle but significant influence that that that implicit bias has on human per perception um one of the exercises that we did was the people on our team wrote down the names of three people other than family members who they would trust with their Lives who they would trust with anything we wrote down the names

097of those three three people and then when we looked at those names most of us found that those people had a lot of the exact same characteristics that we do that were drawn to people who are like ourselves we tend to trust them implicitly um and that was a pretty powerful experience to recognize that um then the team uh discussed the implications of implicit bias when conducting an investigation specifically how our implicit bias can influence the process and the results of an investigation the results of these activities was the you know administrative team getting a better understanding of the importance of being aware of our B biases so we can conduct accurate investigations to get the whole story rather than a portion of it uh the final learning um objective of the day centered around

098understanding what constitutes an incident of bi um that was the first session we have four more sessions that we are going to go through and one of the end products that we want to have is a protocol in place um for our administrative team to follow but also for the people that are on the ground in supervisorial roles those people who are going to encounter the children when they're at their moment of most extreme hurt those people that are going to receive their reports from our from our children that we want to um have the training go staff-wide systemwide so that um we have an appropriate response to in incidence of bias session two is going to focus on prevention and preparation and also the school policies and response protocols that we want to for

099um uh have in many ways the uh pre preparation and prevention is going to be some of the most important work that we can do um the that work kind of falls under the guise of what our cultural proficiency goals for the district are trying trying to accomplish when we diversify the curriculum for our students and our students see themselves reflected in what they study they will feel more valued when they come to school when our students um hear the stories of diverse cultures and read about the perspectives of others then hopefully they will become more empathetic to uh the diverse cultures that um attend our schools and they're going to understand the pain of the words that they used when they repeat um bias statements racist statements that they may have learned in the

100media or in their neighborhoods um we also going to work on building a response Pro protocol so that all of our administrators are going to have um a consistent understanding of the way to investigate an incident of bias of the proper way to to um address both the victim of uh bias as well as the perpetrator of the bias and um to take age appropriate dis disciplinary measures when the incident calls for disciplinary measures to be taken and also to have good judgment when a restorative measure is an appropriate path to take as well because there are times when it's just not appropriate to try to have a restorative practice in the immediate uh setting um our uh third third session is going to focus on uh reporting and communication as assistant superintend or excuse

101me interim superintendent joran referred to earlier in the meeting um one of the uh aspects of um trying to do better is that we are going to have an anonymous reporting system and we expect the number of incidents of bias that get reported to go up hopefully as our students begin to trust us more that they come to us more often and we begin to learn what's truly happening in the halls of our schools and out on the playgrounds and in our classes if that happens then um we'll have a chance to put the protocols that we're going to have into place and we will begin to address um these incidents of bias so that our students understand and our staff and our parents understand in no uncertain terms that um it will not be

102tolerated in our in our schools um the other portion of this training will focus on our communication to ensure that our students and families understand our deep belief that racism in all its forms is unacceptable in our in our schools we will also explore the manner in which we communicate the specific actions we are uh taking to prove this commitment to our educational Partners that's uh session three that focus on uh reporting and communication session four is going to look get education and healing as well as assessing and adjusting um ultimately we're Educators and one of the most important roles that we're going to have is um helping our students who who are on the receiving an a bias incident feels supported and safe at school I think that's going to be one of the

103most critical things that we do is take those reports um seriously drop and stop what we're doing so so that the students that have the courage to report an incident a bias has occurred at our schools understand that they have support at school and that um we're going to make our school safer for for them knowing how to best support the student who experiences a bance incident will be another area where we'll need to reach out to our communities of color for guidance we're going to need some help in understanding the best ways for us to support um the students who receive who are on the receiving end of these Comas the students who are V de victimized at our schools the students who suffer the trauma we're going to need some help in understanding

104the best way to uh support them another important outcome is that our perpetrators of bias incidents understand the painful impacts of their actions so they will never repeat them again as awful as it is for someone to commit a racist incident at school if that's the last one they ever commit then our program is going to be working during the session we will examine the best practices in this regard and develop a reliable way to evaluate the progress that we're making finally the last session is going to be reflection and Readjustment hopefully by this time we will have met with some Partners in our communities of color um so that uh we can adjust what we've designed as a team so that it truly is going to be the best possible approach for our schools

105in our district I know that our admin team the people that are on the ground at our sites who are doing the heavy lifting every day of trying to ensure a safe educational environment for our students are hungry for this kind of a protocol for this kind of guidance and so um that last session is going to be for us to be able to uh put in place um any kind of adjustments that we might need to make um finally I know that we have a lot of folks that are here to uh speak to this issue and um we'll be doing a lot of listening T tonight um it's going to be important for us to hear you and uh we invite you to speak speak from your hearts and um know that uh

106one of the most difficult things for leader in any situation is to feel like you've let down the people that you're trying to lead and I know that to a certain extent that we feel that way and um and with that knowledge we're humble and willing to learn and so um I think that's about all that I have to say I think that summarizes um what we're looking for out of this program and um I will entertain any questions that uh the trustees have at at this time thank you director Rogan we'll start with clerk McNary thank you thank you for the um information um I guess starting from like a surface or not a surface level thing fiscal standpoint um it says TBD so I'm just I guess I was surprised to see that

107we have like a training program that doesn't have a price tag and that also um didn't require board approval so um I'll just say that like I I wasn't super comfortable with us spending money and not knowing about it with so little information um I read through this presentation and thought to myself oh no we didn't bring anyone new to the table um with all respect due to the people who prepared the curriculum um it was our step staff and our lawyers who advise us in close session and I just at this point I feel certain we are not the experts and not the people who should be leading I think we're very fortunate that we live in a community and we have individuals and organizations who are experts and who do possess the Professional

108Knowledge and expertise and experience in addressing racism racism systemic Ally and building relationships and building you know um trust within the community um I guess my thought would be that we start there and maybe pause this um and maybe think about where we're directing our resources because right now I I guess I I'm having trouble supporting this um that's where I'm at thank you trusty atar thank you for the um presentation and for speaking from your heart um I have no difficulty supporting this I think um I support anything as long as we are actively moving forward um at the end of this we reassess and it sounds like that's what's going to happen um I think that there's no time like the present I don't want to delay anything it's already begun I'm suppose

109within reason I'm not really concerned about the price tag right now I think that we've paid a big enough price and the community's paid a big enough price and um I would like to move forward with this that's all I have thank you trusty briyan Swanson um I I can pretty much Echo uh what trusty otar had said I think I'm glad that we're getting started with something and I think the whole process is malleable as we move forward right now we're looking at it and we know we need action we have a couple of people that we have worked with and I've I've you know we've all worked with Sarah cots before too it's like I mean she's such a wonderful person and extremely knowledgeable I you know I don't know much about um

110Dr Krueger um but again I trust that we've got good team member there again I'm I'm more concerned that we start working on it and I'm sure that as things come to us I'm most certain as we have to approve this and sign off on this thing for this dollar amount that those will come to the US and then we can ascertain it's like is this right or not but I'm glad that we're engaging um first and foremost so and I'm I I'll stop there I'm I would really like to hear and I'm looking forward to hearing what members of the public have to say and what their Insight is on this also because I think that's going to in inform everything that we do too so this is going to this is going to

111change as we move forward and again I'm I'm I'm happy that it's that it will do that and I you know we need to listen and and spend the money where we need to and take action that's appropriate that addresses the issues um that we're talking about so I think it's a good first step thank you trusty Brian um technically I'm next in the list of um commenters but Dr H is that okay with you Dr Hazen I know sometimes you really okay thank you um I probably start chomping at the bit when I want to say something about important things like this I I would Echo also um first of all thank you again for the presentation it is a start I Echo trusty otmar we need to move forward but I do like

112the point you wrote up trusty MCM that we should be seeking additional resources when we can um this is a start there is a lot of work to be done you know I one thought that came to me during this presentation is you know we have a kindness week at some of our sites for example is what about having like an ally week and it's this is the point where we teach kids that other I mean like the kindness week maybe it's part of that but that other kids need them there's other kids that are facing um you know experiences that they might not be aware of and that it's important for them to be there for their friends for their um classmates and maybe some of the people that might not be their friends

113today but could be tomorrow because we we need to be doing exactly a lot and more and it's I'm excited to see where this is starting and excited to work with you guys to see where we can bring it to thank you uh so my comments um are on Post-it notes so um so it took me days trying to find the right words um after I read this item because instinctually I felt like this is not the right approach um but I didn't H I couldn't find the words to um back it up right and as a board member I need to be able to back it up um I do find that the more I learn about racism the less I know um I'm so ignorant I am so so ignorant um as a

114as a white person um with privilege I am incredibly ignorant to so many um to so much of what we need do what we need to do for our schools my fear is that the status quo will continue um in the past three years that I've been on the board this is now the second um very public racist crisis that we've had I cannot imagine um what else has taken place that hasn't been so public um so so my absolute fear is that the status quo continues and that we're here again and again um from what I've seen we tend to be in a very really closed system so seeing the folks that are working on this um are kind of already in our Clos system made me disappointed I really thought the first step

115would be to reach out to our community um and ask them ask people who have life experiences relating to this and whose profession um is to address and really um create healing and to ask them how to help us um down to details like I don't even know if the wording is proper on the item it's called staff support for incidents of racism and bullying I don't know if those should be in the same bucket I don't know I don't know um Community engagement in this item um it feels to me like an afterthought the staff report on page 85 and 80 6 does mention Community engagement it's number four um the overview the workshop series overview that's on page 87 and a little bit on page 88 um doesn't have it listed at all

116and I really like the more I learn about this I should say the more I feel that Community engagement should be number one and we go from there so um director rogman I was relieved to hear you say you're here to listen um so I'm hopeful that that means we may um that the staff might be open to a redirection on this item as well um I already said that um I would really like for us to look look externally we had some Community experts already email us and I welcome anyone listening to continue to email us with resources we've heard about now ncbi the national coal Coalition building Institute and organization named Blac which um is named black those are two um that are we're really L lucky to have locally um I really

117I can't stress enough my ignorance on this item so I welcome I welcome being educated by other folks on it um and I'm really hopeful that our district will welcome that as well I would like to see us redirect and stop this program as it is um have staff engage with our community and then come back um maybe have staff recommend when they can come back but I was thinking December um time goes really fast I know and the thing is I don't want staff to feel the immediacy of it and to bring back something that um is not giving it its due time and reaching out and engaging with the community and having it be informed by them at this point so um I just I think that that approach would be how we

118fulfill our mission um I was reading our mission it's at the top of our agenda and our mission like the first line of our m mission says pgusd in partnership with the community and with a focus on Equity we'll challenge every student by providing a quality instructional program in a positive safe and simulating environment so I feel like my request is reasonable and follows our mission um so I'm pleading I'm pleading with the board I'm pleading with staff to hear me and pause this and engage with the community that's where I'm at right now so with that we have gone around to the trustees um and as we know from the pattern that we've had all night the pattern remains so now we're going to go out to public comment I do want to ask

119the board really quickly from a quick count in the audience I can tell if everyone speaks which I don't know if everyone will three minutes times everyone here is going to be longer than 20 minutes so I wanted to ask the board are we comfortable with um public comment each individual's public comment being three minutes but the cumulative time are be okay with that being longer than 20 I see McNary nodding absolutely Jesse otmar Dr Hazen and Brian is G me thumbs up so if you're here your comment is welcome you I do ask that you keep it to 3 minutes there is a little device on the podium that looks like a traffic light so it'll start green and as you approach three minutes it will get to Red if it start splashing red

120I will come on and say if you could wrap it up I'll give you about 10 seconds if you tend to go over okay um so with that anyone online wanting to comment please raise your hand and um I from what yeah there'll be a numerical timer as well as the lights that's a fabulous thank you for the clarification for anyone at home we had an audience member ask about the device that tracks time and so we clarified that comment that question so um at this time please you don't have to stand the whole time but if um we could have one person in the queue at the podium we will alternate between the podium and the online folks with their hand up okay thank you uh Mr M Mason first yes Madame President and

121members of the Board of Trustees my name is Mel Mason I'm just recently retired from I work with the village project which is a agency that I co-founded and served as executive director for about 15 years um one um Pacific Grove is a racist town and let's let's square that away I can talk about my own personal experiences going back to when I was 15 years old so I just want to get that out there because the other thing is is that um and and Valerie excuse me and and Val Valerie Anthony has given me permission to say this but I also served as the therapist for uh one of her children was me I m means I actually end up working with all of them around racial trauma um I'm really angry um and

122so when I was working with them I had to hide you know do something with my anger I had to do African meditation or whatever before they came there because I didn't want that to spill over into our session with it but no no children uh this age no children period no people period should have to face what they face to have to show the resilience that they did they shouldn't have to show being six and eight years old so uh I don't want their experience minimized or minimalized um by some statement that's not true what they experience was real let me get to what I I really wanted to say and and I really do support uh this the statements that uh uh that you made Miss McNary and also um with President Swanson

123about how this needs to happen I went through a situation probably about two years ago where we had an incident at another school that I was involved with and the then superintendent called me uh because we did resolve the case and stuff but it was a pretty tough situation for family black family and um so the superintendent called and said we want to have a meeting I'm going to bring over everybody you know from my group and we're GNA have a meeting because do G we're going to form a partnership and my thing was yeah okay we'll have the meeting but I told him I've been around a long time and usually when people get in hot seats you know then they want to come over and as he said have a partnership you start

124hearing the words partnership and collaboration coming from people that don't even know what the word means and so I think this is going to be a fake meeting I said and then he said no and then it turned out to be a fake meeting the policies policies have to be stringent policies have to um have severe penalties for faculty for staff and for students if you want to have the kind of atmosphere on those campuses where you know that racism is not tolerated at all because you can be suspended you can be expelled your your careers could be over that's what needs to happen I know my time's running out and I'm sorry about that um but um I also want to make sure that uh you know that what you were saying is really

125adhered to um I have a person by the name of Danny Monroe who grew up in Seaside who is a Dei person that's nationally renowned I have a I have her information and I will um be able to get that to you I'm rushing a little a little bit because I know I'm over time um and and I'm I'm going to advise everybody I'm going to sit down in a second I'm I apologize to everybody for going over and stuff but this is really really really important and this is a book it's called black fatigue how racism erose in mind body and spirit and I want to read something from somebody that was a hero of mine her name is Anne Braden she happened to be white said the battle is and always has been

126a battle for the hearts and minds of white people in this country The Fight Against Racism as our issue it's not something that we're called upon to help people of color with we need to become involved with it as if our lives depended on it because really in truth they do and so I just wanted to end with that I'm certainly around to help out in any way that I can but I think that President Swanson we need to listen to you um because uh just throwing something together you know is not the way to respond to this it needs to be diligently and thoroughly done and uh and that's what needs to happen thank you thank you very much Mr Mason Lewis do we have anyone online we do have someone online miss angelis

127or Mrs angelis do you mind waiting for the we we typically alternate between inperson and online yeah no I don't mind I just feel bad that you got it to get up and now sit back okay thank you for your grace on that uh Lewis please unmute the first person that had their hand up online okay uh Brandy Trill Riva please yes thank you um we we my husband has grown up here and we've we've heard stories from our family and I'm not here to talk about that I I think there will be a time or maybe I can come and maybe we'll have different discussions but today what I'd like to say is one of the good things that I heard is that yes you're right you are not the experts unless you have

128lived through it unless you have experienced bism unless you have experienced racism you don't know what it feels like and there's no way that you would you have the wrong people up there you have the wrong people in the room and I also want to mention that budget should not be an issue especially when our children are hurting this week my son who is African-American cried in the boy's bathroom five times he was afraid to go to school he cried himself to sleep one night he does not feel safe at Robert down something has to be done it cannot wait anymore we need we need outside assistance to come in and help us with this I am certainly not an expert but I myself have experienced bism and racism and and colorism and and it

129I want my child to be able to look at the administrators to look at the staff and see someone that he can recognize that he can feel comfortable with I can think of one African-American I think in the Robert down staff maybe that is not enough there is not enough minorities teaching leading our schools to be able to make an effective difference here and I don't know I I I know I'm shaking I'm shaking because this week has been really hard but it's not just this week it is not just this week it is not just because Valerie finally came forward with something it has been ongoing for for years and something needs to be done and we cannot wait we cannot pause and I agree you're not the experts but please don't stop my

130son is hurting today we have children in our district hurting today something needs to be done today not just for the Anthony family and not just for all the minorities that have come before them and and not just for my son but for all the minorities and children of color and the Beautiful culture that resides within them moving forward thank you very much Brandy truo Rivera for your comment thank you yes Mrs Angeles please um I'm angelis I've lived here for almost 50 years I think maybe 47 I think our son was three when we moved here our daughter was 10 or maybe maybe eight and she went to Robert down and she had a RAC racist experience with a teacher who was really very kind and well-meaning um and she liked him a lot

131but he was ignorant um and he hurt her um I think unknowingly um because of his ignorance so I have some personal investment because I'm a Community member and I don't like living in a town that's U known for its racism I grew up in Jim Crow Maryland a thousand years ago and um I don't want to repeat what I don't want what's happening to the children here to be a repetition of what I witnessed there um I want to object to your subject Title First it's called staff support for incidents of racism and bullying it sounds like the staff is supporting racism and bullying and people do I think messages get in that we don't want sometimes please say staff support for dealing with incidents of racism and bullying um the other thing that

132hit me was uh in the section three appropriate consequences there is no indication of consequences for adult racist behavior only um for children and adolescents um but not for adults and racist Behavior happens with adults to I think you need to look at that um Community engagement number four um I'm wondering about the um teachers being invited I understand the teachers are overworked I understand you don't want to pile more on them but they're not even mentioned here as being invited to be part of the community engagement um and I think that that's very um very important um I did a book some of you may have read it um quite a few years ago with a with a white colleague um and I received interviews from I mean it's an anthology so I received

133writings from 50 white people about how they know that they're being hurt by living in a society with a racist ideology so most people had never written before some of them were published one wrote me from prison um they were all white they were male and female of several ages they were gay and straight um and they all were wounded shame fear uh bigotry breaking up relationships anyway okay so the message that I want to give you is that whether you know it or not living here and having these experiences happen are painful to you and if you don't know it they're creating even more pain um so you're not doing this for people of color don't even begin to think that you are just doing this for the children of color you're also if

134you do this well helping to save white children and maybe yourselves so thank you very much thank you so much thank you so very much and it's totally okay if the audience agrees or disagrees to you know give a thumbs up or or um hopefully there's no thumbs down but um yeah if you want to give a thumbs up or a thumbs down in lie of clapping um that is not disruptive and it's u considered very respectful so thank you all uh Lewis I do believe we have another hand up online looks like we have two three hands up online okay next up Rob and pel please yes thanks so much um thank you for this discussion I'm happy to see that the district is um having a serious conversation about this really important issue

135um I really appreciate what trusty Carolyn Swanson said about the status quo and I agree with that I do see some great pieces in what was presented today but just in the interest of time I want to focus on what I think are some missing pieces um and the first is accountability I think what happened at Robert down and what happened um at the high school a couple of years ago were clearly unacceptable and it's not just that the racism that occurred was unacceptable but that the district's response was way too little too late and what we need I think before we can really move forward is some accountability um to focus on understanding what we did wrong and that therefore what we will need to do to change the status qu moving forward and

136secondly when I see that the item um on victim support is really focused on um helping students who experience racism to cope with the trauma of experiencing racism and unfortunately I get that that's necessary but I think first and foremost the victim support needs to include policies and actions that stop the racism and that stop the trauma from occurring and to that end it needs to include any and all actions that Center protecting the victim those need to be considered with the same urgency as we would protect a child who is threatened with physical violence because racism is an act of violence and our students of color right now on our campuses are clearly not safe at school um and my last comment is that uh we've had incredible so far incredible um members of

137the community share their experiences which I'm so grateful for um and I think that when decisions on how to move forward are made um people of color need to be at the table helping make those decisions and specifically I would say black members of our community because the at least the two incidents that I'm aware of were specifically anti-black racism incidents in our school um and unfortunately that's not something that um just is going to happen naturally because our leadership and decision makers in our district are mostly or all white and so we need to come up with an approach that brings those members of the community to the table not just to share their expertise to do that yes but also to be part of the decision- making process um we had an incredible

138offer from Mr Mason from the village project to offer his expertise please um talk to him take him up on that it's an incredible um benefit to the district to have that level of expertise and listen to the other members of the community um who are people of color who've come forward to speak today uh I look forward to seeing continuing work on this issue thank you so much thank you for your comment Robin pel thank you very much uh now we'll go to member of the public uh who is here in person I believe Mr Derek Williams thank you I'm G to say first of all when I got here I was set on what I was going to say and after listening to this I'm now terribly confused but I'll start with what

139I've written my name is Derek Williams I am a PG High School alumni graduated in 1976 my family has gone back as far as 1950 in the school district the things you are facing today we have faced in this school since my entire life has been here this is not an isolated incident this is reality and culture and for you to try to deal with this from an isolated perspective you will fail every time the thing that you are missing with your knowledge and your wisdom is understanding you do not have the capacity have not invested the capacity to relate with with with other people to find out who they are I'm going to ask you a question not to put you on point not to call you a name but I'm going to ask

140the question right here in the last 90 days which one of you have had dinner with a person of color in your house in the last 90 days in the last 30 days now how many of you have had dinner in a person of color's house this is why the problem exists because you don't have relationship and you don't understand you want to end racism on the school districts and in on the school on the campuses what is racism what is racism racism is a power-based mentality that enforces discrimination stereotypes and every other evil that exists around separation of people by color if racism is power and it exists here in this District who holds the power you people have to make the change if you want to see the change I am not calling

141you a racist I'm just saying you're exercising something that is outside your ability to comprehend and do correctly because you don't have the expertise of people around you to support you to guide you and to underg you when you face your hardships of reality that you deal with if we are talking about racism when will we talk about white privilege that is racism when we talk about racism when we when we talk about white framing when we talk about black catering when we talk about the things other than the most popular statements when will we get real and begin to have conversations with people when will the tears fall I've been black a long time and in this city they don't let you forget it it has to change and it Chang changes when you

142walk from that side of the desk to this side of the desk and meet other people in the middle of the Flor you cannot do this in a five session process it has taken years to get here it's not going to change in five weeks I have a course called eurocenter cultural reflection ISM that I teach I have people who have been through the course and I've I've talked to other community leaders cbos in the community who are willing to put together a package in a inclusive package to present to the district that will not take five weeks that will be ongoing and become part of the culture of Pacific of Unified School District we are willing to labor and put it together and what we would like to do is be on agenda to

143present to you the idea and the model of what needs to happen so change will take place I would like to be on agenda at the beginning of the year to present to this board something else else other than status quo from the community of people that live in this community the people I'm talking about just out of the three of us if I said Elaine myself Mel Mason and angelous you have probably 300 years of experience in this community alone why are you spending $120,000 or more for somebody who doesn't know anything about this place who hasn't got the vested interest in it thank you so much Mr Williams thank you I made a note on future agenda items and um your organization is the Blac organization thank you and um I I may

144reach out to you so you can submit the agenda request yourself so it's in your words and um and then we will process it through our agenda committee so that would be excellent thank you very much uh Louis anyone online yes we do have uh I think Christina Luciano is next is that car's next car's next thank you car's phone smiley face is now being unmuted hi hello I'm hello I'm hoping you can hear me I'm in the car okay good uh Carrie surpa as a PG Community member and pgusd parent and employee I agree we need a reporting system for racism homophobia ableism and we need clearly defined steps for staff to follow when we encounter racism and Prejudice as Educators parents community members we can all tell way too many stories about students

145who were treated poorly in our schools repeatedly the fact that this happens in our district is un unacceptable we can do better and we must I've been a part of the cultural proficiency team for two plus years now going into year three and making a plan is simply not enough our team has been saying that since day two we need action steps including Community partnering Anonymous reporting and systemic monitoring our children deserve it it is our moral imperative and it is not time to start it is way past due thank you thank you Carrie Serpa thank you for taking the time to uh zoom in tonight even though you're a staff member and I'm sure I have to wake up early tomorrow thank you so much um next up is uh anyone in the in

146the member of the public in person who would like to speak we absolutely welcome to hear from you good good evening I'm lever Baker laa thank you president Swanson and board members and interim superintendent Jord um I grew up here in Pacific Grove um tomorrow night we're celebrating our 50th reunion from PG High go Breakers um I taught in this district for 40 years with the adult school I was also an evening supervisor so I had some quasi administrative position and role I want to say that when we talk about racism that I experienced growing up here so does ever to ever hear that it was it's not historical or systematic is a crackup I mean it really is humorous really um because that's there's no there are no other words for me uh it's

147real and I now have I've had children that grew up who are adults because remember I've been around for a little while um they attended all Pacific grow schools Robert down the middle school and um the high school and now I have grandchildren within this District we still have a family home in this District that pays taxes as a basic Aid District that has been going on for the last you know my parents bought the house in the 60s so to say that I'm supportive of pgusd absolutely to think that you are capable of making some tough decisions and hard decisions which really in my mind should be really super easy for you because you're the perfect white people to be doing this you really are you have immense power in the decisions that you

148make as well as our administrators here many of whom I uh have worked with and teachers who my children have had and coaches who my children have had who've all experienced racism to their face bluntly to their face and behind their backs and often by really good well-meaning white people and so it is your duty as trust es to take this on personally now you were voted in to take care of all children to take care of the educational needs and the emotional needs of all children in Pacific growth and it is imperative that you take it seriously which I believe you are but please hear from our community that says it's not going to end in five weeks it would be lovely I mean buck that present ation I'd be right behind it if

149I thought it would work but it won't it's not enough that commitment has to continue it cannot be done in a nice clean package which I know PG loves I'm a product of PG I know we like things nice and neat I know that I do too but most of this doesn't happen that way so please listen to the community that out here you have professionals and not just people of and I don't want to say just people of color but you have community members who are white who understand racism who understand the hurt and the digs that happened to all of you that if we really were able to spend some time together and could hear about your experiences we'd get it my friends who I grew up with would say racism didn't happen

150at PG High I mean come on because that hadn't been their direct experience until we would have conversation about it so my time is up I do want to say that I do believe you are the perfect people to get some work done heavy lifting but you've got you know look at all this look at this community I mean I think every single person here wants to be part of it to make a decision to help and to Mr Gibbs I am part of that elitist educational system go Breakers thank you thank you very much for your comment Louis who are we bouncing to online luano okay Christina Luciano you'll be unmuted shortly and please go ahead we'll let you know if we can't hear you H good evening board and members of the community

151can you hear me yes we can okay wonderful um so I just want to Echo um some comments that were made previously um by Carrie Serpa uh I am a parent of two students at Forest Grove um and a first grade teacher as well um I um began the uh cultural proficiency training um about two and a half years ago um with Carrie and um the other members um of that committee and um as Carrie mentioned we have been essentially begging um to to stop talking and start taking action um we do have um a culture that is infused with racism um and with bias and we we know that um but we have to take that knowledge and do something with it otherwise that knowledge means absolutely nothing so um as um Miss Serpa

152mentioned I really think we need a Divine a defined system for um identifying um uh where things are happening and taking action um there have been far too many instances um that my children have recounted to me or that I have experienced directly that have um not been addressed um to to the appropriate level um and so I really think that it is time to make a cultural shift to start to take action to stop talking and planning and to really take a deep dive into um supporting our our students um and as Mr Williams um and other people have mentioned really supporting the the members of our community who are facing facing racism but also that in turn will help all of the students within our community um which is our ultimate goal um

153to hear the comments made by other parents um tonight um that their children don't feel safe at school um as an educator in the community and as a parent that is absolutely heartbreaking um we have got to do better thank you so much thank you for your Insight Miss luano thank you very much for taking your time to comment moving back to anyone in person who would like to speak okay I see one member two members three members four members five members uh Mr jealous you are on Deck please go right ahead oh my stomach's in a knot this is very painful the space wherein where you basically initially gave an example of racism in action as an opening for this section of the meeting an's grandmother said when we got married um make sure

154you start off like you want to end up and you said you wanted to end up with Community engagement but it looks like a terrible afterthought to anybody who is used to being excluded it's very very painful because white people with good intentions do terrible damage and they can go home to their white Suburban comfort zone and entertain themselves and white people are stuck in a comfort zone in many many cases so I'm asking you to um make discomfort a spiritual practice if you believe in love and you believe in community and you believe in the Brotherhood of all people then don't try and turn off the discomfort welcome it in the discomfort and the pain is the light that will show us away but if you turn your back on the discomfort you're not

155going to be able to help the other thing that I'm concerned about in addition to the is the children who come to school needing to hurt other children I have a lot of pain also pain about them what's going on at home that they are coming to school needing to inflict pain on other children that's part of the tough place to get into um you know downloading our pain and shame on other people is an American sport it's called The Shame Blame Game we're all good at it and um interrupting that is a big part of this this whole Adventure um I support um president Swanson's idea of saying oops we started off EX in an exclusive state of white folks we need to correct that before we move on thank you thank you very

156much Mr Fred jealous for taking your time thank you okay it doesn't look like there's anyone online any with their hand digitally raised so at this time uh Miss Elena Lumis would you like to thank you hi my name is Elena Lumis and um I'm a 40-year participant in pgusd my husband was a teacher at PG High My Two children went through all the schools um and I now have uh two grandsons one at Forest Grove and kindergarten and one at the co-op um preschool so I have a lot of connection I volunteered um I'm also an educator I worked as a librarian for 25 years 15 at Seaside high and 10 at carmell High um and I'm I'm also the president of the National Coalition building Institute the board um here on in Monterey

157County and we're an organization that works to end oppression discrimination it's a huge job and I've been involved in ncbi for 30 years with L and Fred and an who Fred and Anne who brought it to the community because of a racist incident that had happened 30 years ago or 30 plus years ago now and um every year after I would work because I my main work was with students training leaders to fight racism sexism homophobia anti-Semitism and so on um I'd think wow this year we could be done we did all this great work and the kids love each other and you know then something would happen and I would go I got to stick with it um so I've been doing this for over 30 years now and I don't know when there's

158an end in sight um but I I know it's out there further away than any of us would like to think and as a white person um I know that I can't fully understand racism but I can empathize and I can learn by listening to people of color and knowing that they're telling the truth not doubting that because I didn't experience it it didn't happen it did and it does continue to happen and it pains me to think of my grandchildren growing up in this muu um because they're going to pick up on it and it might be in the way I would be a horen to find out so I offer ncpi as a local resource it's also a National Organization and we'd love to work together with Derek with the district in whatever

159way we can to help uh address this knowing that it's an ongoing issue uh I think 25 years ago we did an all day training for every staff member teachers classified administrators I believe um not classified but most most um it was centered at each school and um we thought wow you know ncbi is going to be embraced by the district unfortunately it was one and done and it wasn't done so we need to stick with it and I'd offer our assistance in whatever way we can thank you and Le said you're the right people to do this work you're smart you're caring and you've got a community behind you here thank you thank you Miss Lumis yes please go ahead I'm sorry I don't know your name sounds like I will shortly take your

160time um yes hi uh my name name is Bruce Don and um I've been here since 1984 almost 40 years here in Pacific Grove um our daughter went through Pacific Grove schools and um I I I think most of what I wanted to say has been spoken eloquently by others here um but I think I wanted to make a couple of points one was that um or add on to that um as I heard the presentation it felt like it was a u kind of a professional versus nonprofessional uh um approach to this the professionalism of all of this um and um uh quite simply I think that uh I tend to Le lead or lean toward the experts rather than the professionals um I don't know black experience okay I'm a white guy okay

161I don't know black experience I don't know female experience um and the only experts I see in this room um are folks who are black and folks who are female um and the only way I can understand anything is um by uh by listening by really hearing individuals by looking and seeing individuals seeing people um by caring about them by believing them and by supporting them in their voices and I think that's a universal who of us doesn't want that okay um when I look at this board uh one one of the things I I heard was that people were anxious on this board to get going okay let's let's get going let's move forward let's progress um and what I'd suggest is you go in the opposite direction uh is that you step back

162okay you step back and you begin to listen to yourselves um because I think you were right spot on by saying this profound ignorance as a white person um knowing what's going on um a quick story uh is that in the late 60s early 70s uh I was very much of a snag sensitive New Age guy who supported women in the women's movement I asked women friends you know how can I support you and my women friends said well you can get together with other guys and try and figure out why you're so screwed up and I think that's um also app applicable to us white folks okay is getting together and figure out why we're so screwed up okay um there is an organization called whites for racial Equity um again made up of

163people in this community and others okay it's all here folks it's all here and it's all for you so um and it takes work it just takes work and it's not going to happen in one week five months six months it's an ongoing journey and I speak as a person who's still on that Journey okay thank you thank you Mr Don I will remember your name thank you so much okay looks like uh no one online has their digital hand up is that Mr schz Mr schz Jr please oh I apologize is there a Q This is are you in line please okay I'm sorry Mr Tor follow that anyway um hi my name's uh Al schz I'm a father of two black children in pgusd at Robert down um I used to be a

164black PG kid way back when that was uh been here for 50 years went through the preschool um David Avenue School when it before was a charter school PG middle PG High um I feel like uh a lot of the things I have to say will be redundant at this point um everybody's covered it wonderfully but I guess I'll muscle through it anyway um I think that uh the plans that you guys have for this not a program for the individualized thing that's being developed for you doesn't go far enough um I it it seems to be rely heavily on this kind of Kumbaya and administrative education aspect which there's value in I believe that that our administrators need education everybody does um but I also believe that that detracts from the real need which

165is our consequences and I don't see enough of that um written into the program I mean I mean no no justice no peace really I mean it doesn't if there's nothing to you know we're all going to run stop lights if we don't get tickets you know no matter how much education we have about traffic safety you know there needs to be real consequences um the cultural educ education is needed for administration but those responsible for the racism they're impervious to all that they don't care about diversity training you know uh take it from me you know I've been through all this I mean you think it's bad now and I know I listen to everything that's going on and I'm and and I know I'm very familiar with Valerie and I try to talk

166her in a staying um I had my own kind of selfish reasons to not just for her but you know my kids needed to see her kids there you know we needed to be together there um but to know aail um Mr Gibbs kind of denies that racism is in pgusd I mean I know we don't have time for me to provide you with 50 years of anecdotal evidence but I mean I could do that if you want to hang out um there isn't enough time to document all that stuff that I've experienced but I know what it's like like to be excited about the first day of school and PG and getting all pumped and then going to school and immediately being othered you know and I know what that how crushing you know

167that is uh as a kid and you know I'm know what it's like to be a dad be happy to send my kids at school and and you know send them off and see them happy and to also have it be a dreadful experience too because I'm afraid of what I'm going to hear when I go pick them up you know um I remember days when I didn't want to go to school you know Valerie knows you know she know what she knows that Dreadful feeling you know um she knows what the what you know what that type of treatment does to kids what it uh how they internalize it you know the the self-loathing that comes from that that's unavoidable you know no matter even though you know better you know you still can't

168you can't keep all that out you know coming at you from people that you want to belong with you know um I mean I I I remember days not wanting to go to school I don't want to talk to you about that I mean it's negatively affected education um in you know my education I remember the teachers wanting to skip me from third grade to fifth grade they wanted me to skip fourth grade but my parents wouldn't let them because I was already getting my ass kicked after school by racists and stuff like that and they're they're afraid what would happen to me if I went up with the fifth graders you know when I was half their size so um but you know again Community engagement is is great but unless you have the

169buyin and I know that you've heard this unless you have the Buy in from people um it's not going to work and we as a community I know you mean well but we know the difference between something that's performative and something that's legitimate you know we know the difference um recognize reactionary and defensive Behavior you know we've seen it a million times and I know that you guys are well meaning but you know when you come to the table with your lawyers and I understand you know Mr rogman explain that beautifully why they were needed it's it it's you know it's it's a feeling and we feel that and we see that and we're the community we know what's up you know we know what's we know what's up you can do better you can

170do better than this thank you very much Mr schz Jr we do have someone online with their hand up I apologize Mr Tarver if you don't mind oh okay we're just gonna bounce back um Tanya or Tanya uh yes uh this is uh Tanya fatum and I um am a teacher second grade teacher at Forest Grove and I just I didn't prepare comments but I just want to provide um an echo of what Miss Serpa was saying and and a great gratitude for what all the speakers have shared um and just an encouragement for us as a district to to really take take advantage of the community help that is reaching out to us and and to help us get a handle on this because you know even though I I teach children who are

171very young I do see it and we do need to we need to do something and I just wanted to voice my support of of uh doing something and involving um these organizations that are reaching to out to us and the people who have who have experienced um we just have a rich opportunity to take advantage of and to help make changes to bring accountability um and and some action and I just wanted to share that thank you very much for taking your time being courageous to speak uh M oh Mr wax Mr wax is next okay he was in line before okay uh my name is Mike wax I'm a father of a fourth grader at Force Grove um to Echo president Swanson's point I I know nothing um but I also kind of

172empathize with the position that you are all all in about um you're not doing right but you also should do this I mean I think that's how we all feel like we want to get started but we also need more time and in a way um I know nothing about the budget or anything like that maybe the scope of this plan could be limited and more finite um so as to not like uh entangle a contract forever but I think we should start something immediately and then like the former teachers were saying you continuously improve I mean it's not a one-off training 25 years ago it's something always um and so I I support that I support continuous Improvement and I also support um uh Miss Britney I think was talking about this as as

173well as some other people um there are lack of teachers of color in this in the school district and I feel like um that was true of my childhood and it feels like such a blind spot and such like a weird thing to have not grown up with uh like black leaders in my life and I wish that had been different because uh much like Mr rugman was talking about it's an uncomfortable thing and you have to be around people in order to get comfort with them it's like um yeah it's relationships and I don't mean to put you on the spot but you have a lovely voice and if you're in the community like even you like even like reading to kids I'd like die for that like I would love to see you

174know I know I'm sure you've like retired and have worked very hard and just want to chill but like you know just to see someone who's not an outsider in getting like kids in trouble or like policing some Behavior but to see a role model I feel is like so important in like what I yearn for for my kid and what I wish I had um uh so yeah obviously I'm not the person to like lead conflict because I called Mr Gibbs a boob earlier and I apologize um but um I think it's it's uh it's something that you know is messy and we have to recognize as uncomfortable and just uh try our best but I I do hope that we do something and I know there's there are lots of issues with bringing

175uh teachers of color in mostly because Pacific Grove is incredibly unaffordable um but if our mission is that Equity thing or figures in equity that has to be part of our everyday experience in Pacific growth thank you Mr wax Mr tver thank you for your patience good evening my name is Lyndon Tarver I'm the president of the monay county nacp I've been president since January uh president Swanson thank you for your leadership and you're on target when you're saying let's back up Pacific Grobe is known as America's last Hometown what is that saying that reminds me of make America great again what does that mean as you can tell by the night all the witnesses racism been going on a long time Pacific grow being a member of nacp I must quote a famous nacp

176from Mississippi called Fanny L Hamber was sick and tired of being sick and tired you want to move forward you put programs up but you don't involve the people who knows about racism if you never been black you don't know what racism look like you don't you know how it feels you got experience we got several organizations here in Monteray County can help you with that and not just a javelin I'm a veteran by the way as well a javelin you fire and forget is going to hit his Target and I think all too often we that's what we do fight a Javin and leave racism is still here it's going to be here but no child should go to school and feel uncomfortable feel unwanted the nacp would like to partner with Civic Grove

177as well as the leaders of this community help us help you it's a shared responsibility you you don't have to do it alone there's plenty of folks in this community will help you we always here we're always available thank you very much I appreciate it thank you very much Mr Tarver thank you very much I'm not seeing any digital hands online Louis you're not either okay so um after after Mr Gibbs Dr Gibbs do we have anyone else here in person who would like to speak please raise your hand and let me know just so we can kind of gauge would you like to speak would you next to next to Heather would you like to speak yes no okay thank you so much okay so sounds like Dr Gibbs will be our last speaker

178of the evening um we don't have any digital hands like I said and no one here in public except for Dr Gibbs who's going to make his way up to the podium now thank you thank your presence thank your presence once and you know I wasn't going to say anything I didn't actually wasn't going to come to the meeting tonight because I was there at the Clos session and uh for Miss somehow the public comment so my earlier comments were the ones I was going to make but um this has been I don't know how to describe this evening so uh I thank you Mr wax you didn't have to apologize I've been called a lot worse um I'd like to recognize I think there is one person of the Dei task force here is

179that right I don't see anybody else she's a relatively new member for the Pacific Grove um I'm an educator uh my wife and I founded an education company 15 years ago we've had 9,000 graduates pretty much kids from all over the world uh there are certain things we don't accept we don't accept certain comments or actions or behaviors uh but I would just say that um you know education doesn't equal learning and Mr jalis I think mentioned discomfort and uh most learning comes from some sort of discomfort right and I'm not here to preach or give any lessons I I'm not sure I have a whole lot of those except that in our education business you know we're all about the kids and um you know I have found and our kids are pretty young

180so age 11 into 18 as kids we serve and these kids are pretty perceptive and you know the only thing I could say is to the board in the presidents once and everybody talked about the kids but I didn't hear anybody say what's in the best rooms kids all kids and so we approach things we do things in teams and if something comes up there's a conflict or somebody uses a name we get the kids together and we talk about it I'm not sure where that falls in your process here right if the kids are not involved this it's something done to them and not with them and that's I my experience that's a mistake so uh you know whatever Direction you go I don't have any comment on that I'm not an expert in

181this process but um you know it is it's a process of learning for everybody regardless of where you start off and I think again somebody mentioned that all kids start in a place and sometimes you don't know when I found out a kid comes to school uh they come to our program and they say unfortunately things they say bad things the first thing I want to know is what the heck is going on at home what are you experiencing in your life you know you're from a I was talking to principal roach and we were talking about doing some coaching for kids that are from broken families and I said I'd be willing to help out I just don't know where people start so I my name has been mentioned four or five times tonight

182that's fine I'm kind of the only person that's a Counterpoint here and I appreciate that role so um good luck with this anything we can do to help I'm not sure anybody's going to call on me but if I can be a Counterpoint or or create somebody to Y yell at and holler at I'm fine with that so I appreciate what you're doing you have a tough job and thank you for letting me speak out thank you Mr Gibbs thank you for your time it's 9:05 we still have um lots of time uh left until 10 o'clock until the end of the meeting but at this point we're going to um close out public comment for information item a and typically after we close out public comment we do one more round of U trusty

183comments so um trusty otar any further comments I have a a lot of comments but I don't think that I can formulate them right now um I hear what everybody is saying um I wish there was a balance I wish this I agree this is not something that can happen and be done and by no means should even considering this mean be that this is five weeks and we're finished that's an impossibility this is something that needs to continue and continue and continue um I'm glad we're not having to decide on anything tonight because I am having a hard time containing myself that's all for now thank you trusty atar trusty Brian Swanson um I appreciate everybody's comments um and I'm glad that we just kind of opened it up and went on as long

184as everybody felt necessary um in looking at this initially I did not really think that it was uh the you know a definitive thing I thought it was this was where we start and then part of this and what we do with this is like i' mentioned before it's like let's let our community inform how we move forward but I want to start somewhere and I think that was with this and then listening to what people have to say I think we heard a lot of really great things but um I don't yeah I don't I'm having a hard time again putting it all into words except for again it's I'll just repeat what I said before it's like I want the community to inform what we do I think everybody up here is really

185trying to listen and talk less and listen more and then figure out how do we what do we do with everything that we're Gathering so everything that everybody said very valuable information I'm taking it to heart um and I want us to be able to do the best job that we possibly can with what we're hearing to step forward and make things better because I get it it is to say that it is not ideal would be a tremendous understatement we have a lot of work to do a lot of work to do so thank you um my comments remain um I would like to I would like to put a pause on this training um it wasn't a the I think I I think when clerk McNary was bringing up the finances um it

186was at least in my opinion it was because we haven't seen this as a board as a contract come through us and so um I haven't seen this come through us as a board um it was began and maybe because it's through our attorney um staff felt that because we already have a contract with our attorney that we would just continue to pay them hourly for this but for me um this training falls short and possibly even creates harm especially after hearing tonight from members of the community who um are black um that uh they feel that it's it's missing the mark in some ways and so um I'm going to defer to our community members who are here on this and ask for this to be paused and for staff to uh reach out

187and um I made a list it was um the NAACP the ncbi Blac and possibly Danny Monroe um with with the village project or surrounding the village project and and as well as Bruce and whites for racial Equity um reach out to them and get uh get some sort of collaboration going so that we can all be a part of it I think that's really the way we move forward and and attempt to to break down this status quo so that's what my comments remain trustee Dr Hazen I can't say thank you enough really being here I'm sorry that this burden Falls repeatedly on your shoulders but I do want to help carry it so I'm hearing you I'm feeling you and yes I you know I appreciate what's put forth from the district and

188I have faith that the district wants to take your opinions and take your expertise and take what we have learned tonight into account so I do want to encourage you know um and superintendent Jordan to take this into account if we can move forward I mean I I I heard the voice you know from Brandy too though that our kids one more day that our kids are feeling unwelcome in our schools is one day too much so we need to be incorporating the community in this solution so again and I just have to say you know your comments um president Swanson about ignorance fall wholeheartedly on me too I am as well to this and I am here because I do want to make change and I do want to learn so thank you for

189helping educate us as well do you feel that this implementing this program because it one out of five has has started so do you feel like continuing this program will translate to Brandy trillo's Rivera's student feeling safe at school immediately I am not an educator I mean this is why I'm on the board is to help the Educators make the right decision and and help them you know be in formed to make their decision so I do have some I do have faith I would love to hear back from let me put this way I would love to hear back from the district as soon as possible how the plan is will will have will evolve based on what we've learned tonight thank you and just to reiterate or I don't know if I said

190it before so on the agenda this is an information discussion item so this is not an item that the board votes on yay or nay this is an item that we receive information and we can give direction on but it's not a full approval or unapproving able to contain that my uh I would like to be able to speak and it's hard to speak through my tears um I suppose my my question or my wondering is you know when this first um session happened I guess I'm and maybe maybe this can't be discussed but I'm I'm wondering what that was like is there an opening are people discussing freely I mean and I suppose for me I feel like that's where it starts is at least people sort of bearing their souls a little bit

191and being honest about things and I want to make sure that people are are in an environment where they feel like they can do that because as a white man sitting in a room with a black man is there going to be honesty happening in in expression I just I don't know what the right answer is and I don't even really know if what I'm saying makes sense I just want to be able to make thank you I just want to get the conversation started honestly so that people are open and we move forward and then it doesn't stop it's it's gonna it's gonna suck it's gonna hurt and I I want people to be able to let it suck and let it hurt in a way that's genuine and real and not like a

192bunch of you know this is like puppet hands exactly like that so um I I guess that's where I'm at and I wish I could sit up here and say I know what the right answer is and this is a it's a lot of pressure up here because I'm just a white lady sitting up here making big decisions it's it's strange and heavy that was more than a question and I'm not sure what my question was oh here it is yeah the question was uh you know kind of what that experience was like if it felt genuine and then also how are the kids going to be involved because Mr Gibbs I agree with what you were talking about it the kids have to be involved it can't just be the staff it can't just

193be administration because things are happening at home conversations are happening on the playground your kid comes home and says something and you're like what you know so it's that too there's there's so many pieces to to this but those are the things that pop into my head as well thanks everybody director oan would you like to answer yes just um you know I know that there was a question asked about what is the um de what is the demeanor really in the uh room and um you know and it's hard to speak for everybody on you know the administration team but I don't think that there's um you know a person on the management team that's going through the meetings that doesn't in their heart um want to be part of the change in the

194district so as far as that goes I think that people are willing to open up in the way that you have to open up um to uh really make this kind of change happen and uh you know I I PE people are ready to do the difficult work and um just one other aspect of it I don't think that um it's ever been the intention of the district to somehow think that this program is the answer to systemic change for us the purpose of this program was to try to equip the administration with the ability to handle those incidents of bias um with more knowledge and more background than we have now I agree 100% that our entire team would benefit from a longer term relationship and learning experience and really I mean a transformation

195if you will um that's that's a you know we W to do right by every single child that comes to our district and knowing that we're not you know makes us feel like uh you know we got into the business of Education feeling like it was the most important work to be done in the world right to help people learn in order to give themselves opport opportunities in life and so we want to do it the right way not just for most of our children but for every single one of our children that comes through so yes we are open to do that work and uh to put forth that kind of um deep work that needs to get done and um I think we have folks that are going to be able to help

196guide that so okay um let's see trusty briyan swon you spoke I spoke Dr Hazen you just spoke clerk McNary thank you um I am in agreement with the proposed Direction of President Swanson to pause this work uh tap a take a step back and um engage with the community and the exceptional resources that have been offered to us I think you know we are talk about talking about putting money into things and I have no hesitation to put money towards supporting all of our students I just don't think this is the right mechanism I don't have the answer but it sounds like we have a lot of offers um and it would be I think it would be against our best interest to um to not pivot and change direction and direct our resources

197elsewhere um so I would be in agreement with the proposed Direction you stated thank you trusty Hazen you wanted to speak again yeah I I would love to ask if you don't mind me putting on the spot um Mr jorer Acting Superintendent Jord apologies is is I would love to hear your response to this is I if you feel comfortable giving it is is this something that needs to be paused or is this something we can take into account the lessons we are hearing tonight that we can adapt I mean I I yeah right so the Partnerships that have been mentioned tonight and the supportive Direction that's been mentioned tonight is absolutely something the district wants um we developed this framework four months ago um by no means was this meant to be delivered over

198the course of a five-week period of time um the next session we have is at the end of October and the session after that isn't even scheduled um I feel like stopping right now when literally we're dealing with incidents every single day in our school is not advantageous to students whatsoever um I am absolutely in favor of and I have been from the moment we began this discussion including Our Community Partners in this endeavor and that and by that I mean absolutely we would hand off the design curriculum right now to work with the community leaders before we move forward on the 26th of October or on the end of November um I just feel like I have a concern that putting more time in between something that's so important I mean we're dealing with

199this at the schools every single day it's really important that we begin moving forward this is not something we're planning to do quickly it's not something we're planning to orchestrate over one fiscal year or two fiscal years this is forever okay and that's coming from me that's coming from our entire Administration um we need to work with the teachers the instructional AIDS the par professionals the folks that have the one toone work with the students right so it has to start somewhere we have to start rolling the rock down the road can we slow it down absolutely can we put a barrier in front to pause it sure but what I don't want to see is a stop anything um we can retool and readjust that's the most important part of Education I think that's

200what we do every single day with students and I think it's extremely important um you know everyone has everyone has a story and I have mine and I'm not going to project it here tonight but I'm I'm I am from this community and it is not okay for me if one child one more day experiences racism now unfortunately that's probably going to happen and I will say that openly and honestly because I'm not a fool and I understand that um but I don't want to lose one more day of action I just don't so if I can engage with the ncbi with the with the NAACP with every single partner that was discussed tonight maybe I don't use the term partner Community if I can engage immediately I'm talking tomorrow and and and share with

201everyone what it is this District's planning to do and what has already been orchestrated in one meeting which was really just laying the foundation you know it's very important important that our administrators have confidential space to have conversations and I think that the door was opened uh Tuesday when we did this to feel safe to say things that they maybe would would not say in public or maybe they would not say with their colleagues in any other time than a safe space because we need to learn from entire experience and I can tell you this right now every single teacher every single administrator is 100% behind ending what's happening in our schools right now not only in this school district how do we get there that's the question can we get there expeditiously I don't

202think that's an answer that's that's realistic and we do need to retool and rethink and I think that's a crucial component of all of this so back to what I said I am fully open to and have from the moment we started this been open to advice guidance assistance anything to help because we're all a community we're all human beings and this is wrong what's happening to little children to teenage children to adults in our community and I want to put an end to it so I'm open to everything and anything that can be considered and put on the table for us I'm concerned that if we stop we're just let another day go by and another incident potentially occur well to be clear the first session start October 3rd the next session is when

20325th of October the 25th of October so I think the collaborating with the community who have made offers tonight getting contracts rolling with them I am not um as an individual board member I will say out loud I am not interested in gaining their expertise for free we need to pay um their for their professional expertise so we would need to get contracts rolling if you want to start on October 25th I don't know if that's enough time to really um to really um have what uh these folks have soak into this program right now we have a program where um appearing white folks are asking our majority uh White staff for input with our attorneys in the room to me that doesn't scream we're moving forward kids are going to this is going to

204trickle down to our kids being safer so that's where I stand on this so if we pause it and it comes back once we have time to begin absorbing what these incredible experts have to say I would be in favor of that but I don't know if that's possible by October 25th do we need to go around for another round of trustee comments okay I'm happy to do that trusty atar you know I wonder if it's possible to do it all right I mean it sounds like there was some progress made just in the trust and the expression that was happening in that room I think that's an important first step it doesn't mean and by engaging all of these Community part it I don't think that it it means we have to shut this

205down I think it's possible to do all of it I think that if we are going to make this part of our fabric that it has to I I guess I just don't see the harm in doing all of it you know this may be a way to open up the gates and then the rest comes in and I don't know that trying to press it on a timeline of the 25th or you know make it this spefic specific date or that specific date I mean it has to happen and it has to happen continually I would personally I would like to continue with this and then within maybe not even just within this but start here and continue with all of this community input ongoing not just this year ongoing ongoing ongoing this is

206the start that's how I feel I hear that point um I however we have a finite amount of professional development days and hours and so I would hope that the time that we are taking can be absolutely maximized with the most impactful and so I have now stated my opinion many times so I will stop so um next up trusty Brian Swanson um I would like to keep moving forward knowing again that this is less than perfect and we've gotten a lot of input tonight and I know we will get more um I it's obvious that the input is really welcomed and it was incredibly valuable and again it's like we want to keep listening but you just when I look at the calendar too it's like if there's just so much going on in

207the district right now too and we only have so many meetings that um I don't want to pause this only to then you know then when are we getting to it again is it November December is it next year and like Josh said too every every additional incident that happens is one too many you know I think additionally what we're talking about with this mostly is is trying to give our staff more or greater ability to deal with these things there's a whole lot more that has to be done um that deals not with just our schools but also with our community in general too and one of the things that I would like to see as we build this is where are we with the city council where are we with police and fire

208on this too where with other community services um that's all going to take a lot of time um but we need to talk about that in the meantime we do have incidents that are happening every day and our staff needs help in dealing with that so I do want to so there's that and I just want to kind of repeat what I said a second ago too what are we going to do with the rest of our community how do we bring those players into it because and that's been a missing thing I think for a long time I don't know if we've ever had that it's like what what is School Board doing with city council and how are we connecting with all that you know we talk about this being a great Community

209but we're still everybody's home you know at the end of the day with their blinds closed and we're not really super connected how do we become more of the community I would like to see that and for us to to maybe be one of the really kind of motivating forces behind that and making that happen here thank you trusty Brian um trusty Dr Hazen yeah I mean just quickly on this I I Feel Again agreement with much of what's said and I mean I really you know I want to again go back to assistant superintendent Jordan and or Acting Superintendent Jordan and you know at and give put that in your hands that do what we can as you said reach out tomorrow let's make as much of the community's input starting tomorrow so that

210we can take this plan and make it what it needs to be to work towards the long-term solution while still keeping that ball rolling I I hate the idea of saying we're going to stop anything at this point but I love the idea of making sure we are doing it right as we go and course correcting was a term that I heard that it resonated well with me for me um so you know as president Swanson mentioned you know it's very tough to have a number of professional development days within our district I mean we have very very few for our instructional staff so the entire schedule here was driving towards February 19th I know that's a ways out that's a ways out and that's why I don't want to lose another second of time

211but that also gives us time to reshuffle re-evaluate recreate bring in the team and work on things together because February 19th is our Prof professional development day with our instructional staff that's not to say that between now and February 19th some of the actionable items can't be put into place at the sites every single day they can um I mean even just the meeting that we had this past week the results were a team approach to response no one individual member no no one individual staff member no one individual administrator will be the point in handling situation of biases as they result daily right we need to it's a team approach right it's really important that was one of the takeaways from Tuesday night was just like the children are not in this alone the

212staff cannot be in this alone to respond and deal with the perpetrator and help support the victim and for a long time that's what was occurring single point single contact that's not that needs to change it has to change today yesterday it has to change so the takeaway from Tuesday night from our administrative team was supporting them immediately with incidents that occur and unfortunately we've had to deal with them already and that's why it concerns me when we talk about stopping something I think retooling and reshuffling is is a better term to use here um we have a lot of educated folks in this room that can help this school district and by no means are we fully committed and married to the framework that has been developed by no means this is flexible we're

213flexible the entire program itself is flexible and this district is doing this for the long run I mean I speak for for for director rman I mean he's in charge of professional development um this is not the only targeted solution that we have right now it's just the first so I'd like to see us moving forward as expeditiously as possible to meet that February date where we have something we can bring that's phenomenal to our Educators that work day-to-day with the students on the ground I know that's not my turn but if you don't mind um one of the things uh that's helpful for the professional development of the management team is that um you know we meet whenever we're told to meet so um there there's going to be a lot more time that's

214available to work with the admin team to start putting in into place even a parallel approach right con continuing um forward with uh you know the process that was pre presented tonight with the influence of other training and input um from our co co community members and also doing some of the transformative work as we go so that we can retool and adjust in an appropriate way and then yes on the 19th come up with something phenomenal for the rest of Staff but for the rest of staff two we have opportunities on those Thursdays at the elementary school and the mid Middle School to uh Implement more training and more programs and within the contract we do have the ability to call um a monthly meeting for professional development per purposes at the high school

215level too so we've got opportunities to to um do ongoing learning and um that's that's truly what it's going to take uh based on the input that we've heard and what we know about learning up down if I may just very one last comment um no contract's going to get in the way of getting moving on this okay um president Swanson mentioned right we have Lozan Smith because we pay attorney fees and it's easy to pay billable but that doesn't necessarily mean that tomorrow we can't begin a contract that we bring retroactively back to the to the board okay right what I think is most important and it's been echoed in this room tonight is is partnership so I don't think a contract and timing associated with the approval of a contract should get in

216the way of that and that's me speaking freely our board approves the contracts but I don't think a contract should get in the way of us starting tomorrow thank you okay with that uh board do we have oh more comments I just one more quick one okay ellot please very good one line and again apologies to put the burden on your shoulder again but I ask and implore you if we are not doing it right let us know moving forward we want to know that as a board we they involved if if we involve everyone and this is this is what we are directing and we have said I I feel there was direction from almost everyone if not the majority that we want the community involved tomorrow and if we're not doing it right

217please let us know that's not happening if you guys if you here feel that is not happening please let us know I want to say yes so badly but I'm so [Music] sorry thank you so we heard from a a Community member just now that they would like for us to have a tracking system it has been spoken of several times tonight that you know this is ongoing this is happening in our schools over and over on a daily perhaps basis and so the Community member uh Miss angelis was asking if we could have a tracking system for that so we can have some data right so that we can really get to the heart and start building relationships and moving forward so um Mr Jordan i i as a trustee I am taking on

218her question and I'm asking it now to you abely okay so you know before being interim superintendent I'm a numbers person that's my background I'm a business person um I am all about metrics and I think this was uh said earlier tonight the unfortunate reality that we're dealing with here is that when we have an anonymous reporting system that and systems are weak in track the unfortunate part is the metrics are going to go up a lot higher than we think but I think that's a well it's not good that that's happening but it gives us an ability to to understand what are what what is the Baseline right now again numbers guy sorry okay but what is the Baseline what are we what are we really dealing with here because I don't think anyone

219really knows some of them go unreported because they're not there's not a trusted adult at the school site I mean I think of a a Kinder through a third grade child other than confiding in their parents is there a trusted adult at a site that they can confi in more likely than not how often how often how much time goes on between when uh that student is being affected and they report it to their parent because they don't have a trusted adult with the site so these are problems that we face and they're real and we absolutely need to track them but I believe that tracking them the numbers are going to go up dramatically but it shows us where we're at and it helps us with a solution moving forward um I'm bringing Sandy

220Hook promise this is not this is not a fix all but I'm bringing Sandy Hook promise uh to the board meeting on the 26th and we're going to talk about the anonymous reporting tool see something say something it's a start it it by by all means it helps us with Anonymous reporting on the other end of that there are counselors that can talk to students that don't work for this school district that don't even know who they are right that's a good thing they can open up students can begin to open up either over I mean gez I can't believe it students have phones in fourth grade now it's crazy but they can they know how to use these things right and if they they're not comfortable with the trusted adult to school and they're

221fearful to go home and tell their parents maybe they can talk to a stranger over text maybe I don't know we're trying to do something so that's coming forward next and it will help us track as you mentioned the metrics thank you Mr joran so at this time um Bard can we boil down direction for this item please um I'll start with um I have trusty atar here as the starter this is information discussion you want me to give direction how so it's so on the agenda where it says Direction so as uh a board we can either say great job keep it going we can say uh let's pause regroup include our community members uh things like that yeah I as far as I'm concerned right now I mean I say great job and

222keep it going with the understanding that this is flexible and malleable and with the input from our community members that are here I I not in favor of stopping anything I think um I think the sooner the better and the longer the better and the more input the better thank you trusty otar trusty briyan Swanson um I'm in favor uh continuing forward but also with everybody who is here tonight from any organization that we reach out to them and see how uh we can involve them further in this discussion thank you being part of the program thank you uh Dr haen if it's okay I would love to hear because both yourself and trusty McNary had a goal to stop I'd love to hear your thoughts before I speak if that's okay okay um have

223we moved enough the needle enough in your opinion to feel like this is where direction should be no not for me meaning either I do agree with the idea of pausing not stopping pausing and reaching out to the community finding out finding out things like um how can we right away Implement Zero Tolerance I don't want to wait till February for that you know I think these are things that the community can bring to us um adding the police to the community um H don't know about this idea at this time um I would defer to the community who has been most impacted by racism for I don't know 800 years so um yeah so I so I would say I am in favor of of pausing and uh even go so far as to

224say scrapping scrapping this and um because these are professionals who are professionally trained in educating folks in these exact ways um and and I don't know if any of this resonates with what with what they would be bringing to us so I would have a fear that we would say here's the framework come to the meeting um oh thanks so much for your idea and then be trying to like plug them plug their input into the framework instead of saying we are here we will make a Doc doent that reflects um what you all are bringing to us so that's what I'm in favor of um sorry is that enough Elliot or you want to hear from cler M I would be happy to I mean the way you said that again it resonates 100%

225with me and I I would say you know I would like to have this brought back at the next meeting with the specifics of can it be done right in this framework after engaging with the community or not and if the answer is not I supportive that but I would like to give our district and the community a chance to work together um before giving a explicit Direction on this needs to stop versus we need something new if that makes sense yeah I was just for the sake of time I'm just saying you know what from what I'm hearing tonight scrap it get their input um clerk McNary yeah I share the same perspective I think if we're talking about involving the community and people of color this was curriculum prepared for a white right

226presenting board by white presenting people and attorneys and Consultants just by looking at photos um and that's really problematic um so yeah I I mean pause at minimum and then go from there that's where I'm at trusty haen no I I appreciate that if pause is the I mean that seems like the pause is the minimum I'm 100% on board with supporting that that's that's I realize that's a not the complete board and I wish it were but I think that this we are we need to move forward in the right way here thank you so it appears that we have a board majority asking to pause current um thank you Mr Jordan for offering to reach out as early as tomorrow to um the folks who are offering their assistance and it's possible that

227we don't need to bring them back as a separate agenda item because you're going to be like you would be bringing that back as the collaborator and the lead on that um so it sounds like we have a majority of the board who is asking for pause and complete um what's the best word Elliot revamp I don't know what to say like I said I I would I would like to put my hand my trust in our district to work with them and tell us okay can with the community's input can this be revamped does this need to be scrapped you know we've heard the voices I would like to put this in their hands and then on the 25th if it needs to be scrapped we hopefully will by that time have a new

228proposal with the community input by then that that would be my goal but I I don't like telling people to stop that want to make change if that makes sense I understand that that change if misplaced can cause hurt and I Al and obviously I don't want that either yeah no one's asking for for stop on progress of change we're saying let's do it in the appropriate educated most collaborative healing way possible while acknowledging that it's not on this it's not in this uh on this dis okay um Mr Jordan will you um speak uh repeat out the direction make sure that um I've communicated it clearly because it was kind of disjointed so what do you have um we're going to take a pause we're going to meet with our Community Partners and um

229look at retooling what we have right now and if it can be retooled and repackaged uh we will continue moving forward with an October 25th meeting and if it's not then it sounds like we're stopping creating something brand new I would say instead of stopping yeah okay got it majority or uh board members um are you okay with that I just want to make sure we at least have a majority and I'm not just saying that we have a majority so I am counting myself I'm counting Dr Hazen I'm counting Clark McNary trusty atar I am okay with to me that doesn't necessarily sound like a pause it sounds like a revamping and with a hopeful continuation on time that I'm in favor of I just don't want to pump the brakes and then the

230brakes get pumped again and pumped again because it's not Perfection that won't happen because the board's so dedicated I understand that but I also want to make sure that it's it's not going to be perfect I know that there's never going to be a perfect way to do it and I think that if there's you know there's a lot of um I don't want to create tension in the board so I'm not going to talk about that but I I just want to make sure that uh that it continues and so if a revamping is happening then I suppose it's not necessarily a pause I'm on board with that okay I just I just don't want there to be eye rolling and huffing and all of this because it's not exactly the way that um

231you imagine it should be the way that I imagine it should be no not I'm saying in general that yeah I'm not talking to you realizing that it may come back and it may not be perfect it may not what you imagine in your mind it's GNA be Advanced but it's going to be better than what we've got okay and as long as the community is involved I in a large way I think that we'll be okay thank you that was wordy but thanks for listening well I think we're all having conversations that um are new sometimes new for us like for this too I mean this feels like a really um this has been such a learning process for me and I'm really grateful for everybody that's here and sharing and so thank you

232on a very deep personal level thank you truste Brian any closing thoughts on this uh I'm I my position remains as it was before it's like I think we have a really great uh and dedicated staff that is done you has said tonight that they're willing to you know at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning begin to engage with new partners in this with everybody that's spoken in this room and um but that's not where the rest of the board is so you go for it okay so um majority direction is is um as it stands as you said Mr Jour we're going to close this item out [Music] um maybe we'll take a thre minute break we don't have a whole lot of time before 10 o'clock but just three minute break break because I is

233possible it's possible that folks who are here right now would like to leave and we can do that in the like least disruptive way so you feel comfortable leaving and not like you have to sneak out or be really quiet so we're just going to take three minutes you are absolutely welcome to stay until the very end of the meeting the next item is future agenda items we'll be back at 9:52 thank you all Mr Jord your we're gonna make a motion to extend the meeting I will make a motion to extend the meeting until 10:15 I think us plenty of time okay motion made by Carolyn Swanson seconded by Dr Hazen we are moving right along Mandy you still there okay yes I see you there okay here we are our next item is

234if oh excuse me Mr Williams I'm sorry I'm so sorry thank you uh are in me what what do we need to vote or extending yes uh yes motion made by Carolyn Swanson seconded by Dr Hazen Mandy can we get a quick roll call or quick majority vote please yeah all in favor I I post thank you motion passes unanimously we're rolling right along uh future agenda items we've got uh some lists here Mr Jordan I'll start with you anything you want to add change Etc sorry just want second let me take a look you know what let me start with somebody else is that okay okay don't worry about it um trusty Brian Swanson anything no okay um T Dr Heen nope this is very full I like it we we're working on them

235uh we will work on them uh clerk McNary anything question for you um if we were to look at a zero tolerance policy is that something we would start with in policy committee or would that be a board agenda item that would probably start at policy committee okay um and are we talking about a zero tolerance policy districtwide is that what we're discussing yes for racism for racism specifically yeah yeah it would start a policy committee okay then I do not have a future agenda item I will get that started for policy committee okay and our next policy committee is October 23rd I want to say two weeks at 10: a. yeah so okay thank you okay um trusty otar nope nothing nothing okay I made some scribbles so I'm just going to look at

236my scribbles for a moment see if I have anything okay my scribbles were uh related to the um Community groups who are offering their assistance but Mr Jordan you're on that so I don't need to put that on here we will uh look forward to seeing that come back at some time okay um any public comment on future agenda items and for any member of the public who's curious how they can ask for a future agenda item uh that is absolutely absolutely welcome and we have an online form where you can do that um and if you can't find it I'm happy to send it to you but you can Google pgusd board or Pacific rby and then um it's kind of like it's right at the top but I'm happy to send it out

237to anybody my email address is C Swanson PG usd.org but also Mr Jordan would be more than Hab I mean anyone can get it too okay um lisis anyone online with their digital hand okay and anyone here as a member of the public because you can also as a member of the public ask for a future agenda item here in person yes yeah the form would be incredible because then it's in writing and we have a whole system of tracking okay thank you Miss Beth okay thank you um that's all I have so any other further board direction for Mr Jord on future agenda items I don't see any okay so with that we will adjourn it's 10 O3 thank you all