001than e e e oops it's not set e public comment to and one on Zoom public comment generally lasts for one the hour e e pause for just a second we're having an issue with zoom audio please hold can people check on Zoom yes we're good okay thank you and body recognition acknowledgement I acknowledge that the burden of environmental exploitation is systemic in exploitation and systemic Injustice falls upon the labor of black and brown bodies in the building of this country and its institutions I remember that black and brown people were born and died working this land against their will for Generations I also like acknowledge the continued contribution of the labor of survivors over the centuries to today of all immigrant labor including voluntary involuntary traffick forced and undocumented peoples in the building of
002what we refer to as the United States author Dr Michelle Rogers Ard B4 West contracosta Unified School District board anti-racism statement the West Contra kasco School District Board of Education is committed to the work of anti-racism the conscious and active effort to identify Challenge and correct racial inequities in the systems and institutions within our schools and Community racism explicit or implicit stands in direct conflict to the fundamental principles of wccusd education to carry WCC education into the future we recognize that we must continually renew and reflect on the roots of racism and develop new ideas to meet the times unjust ideas and policies and the racial inequity they produce have shaped us our schools and our society we strive to uncover unconscious biases and practice anti-racism as individuals and as board members we challenge ourselves
003to persist through the discomfort necessary for growing in learning to deepen our listening and our examination of racism and oppression and to develop a strong understanding of how our personal experiences and feelings spit into a larger picture of continued continual oppression each member of our school board individually and collectively is responsible for creating and nurturing an anti-racist learning environment where each student staff member and Community partner is a respected and valued member of the wccusd community we are uniquely P positioned and it is our responsibility to identify and dismantle racist ideas and inequitable policies and ourselves and across the district therefore we commit to supporting the anti-racist policies programs and practices for our children's education and well-being while building strong and inclusive School communities we commit to holding each board member accountable towards these goals
004and moving the work of anti-racism forward we also commit to holding West contracosta Unified School District staff students and Community to living these standards of anti-racism in our schools board approved March 20 2024 be five roll call Dr Moses would you please take roll trusty Gonzalez Hoy good evening present trusty Smith folds good evening everyone present president reckler good evening I'm present clerk inana good evening everyone present trusty Hernandez good evening present student trustee Baron hello present and student trustee espanosa Jr good evening president that completes the roll call thank you so much B6 report ratification of closed session Dr Moses is there anything to report out of closed session yes there is in closed session regarding agenda item a21 the board took action to clear the expulsure case number 232403 the vote was as
005follows anyana yes Gonzalez Hoy yes Hernandez yes reckler yes Smith folds yes vote was approved unanimously that concludes the report out thank you so much B7 introduction of new student trustees superintendent Moses will take this opportunity to introduce and welcome two new student trustees it's actually one new and one returning welcome back trusty Espinosa Jr for the second semester of 2024 25 school year Nikki Baron the student at Richmond High and and returning foro Spinosa Jr student at middle college high Dr Moses do you care to continue absolutely thank you student trustees it is my honor to welcome you to this new session for your participation for the West contracosta Unified School District Board of of Trustees we hope that this experience will bring you um uh we hope that this experience will add to
006it to your educational journey and that you'll learn from the decisions made on this Di and also from the information that you gather from our meetings from our public input and from our presentations that we will support your growth in learning regarding the educational system we welcome you and we thank you for your service thank you do any of Trustees have a welcome thank you president reckler Tron thank you for your service I want to say there's a reason why the student trustees vote first on items your voice is critical for the rest of the board to make the decision you represent the 26,000 students in our district you know what's going on our schools better than we do so your voice is really important to me and the rest of the board and staff
007so please make sure to share your truth ask questions question board members question staff add to the conversation your voices in my opinion by the most important voices up here um so I want to thank you for your service and your representation of so many of our students I'm excited to get to know trusty Varan Moore and trusty Espinosa I'm so excited you're back thank you does anybody else have comments truste Smith fults go right ahead you are sitting in a unique time in a unique position this is going to be a marker in history because of everything that's happened at a national level so this is your time to own that part of History so when it says have are you sitting on the right side of History this is how you know that
008so you be very present and very dominating in your conversation because it's the future is literally yours right so you're going to have to have the consequences of the decisions that are made right now but now these decisions are not just made for you they're made with you so you are sitting on the Das and you are our colleague you are not beneath us you are our colleague we are sidestepping with this together but this is your future in your hands so stop the meeting ask a question make a motion make a second to a motion make an amendment to a motion this is your time right so Own It own your voice turn up the volume on the other voices but own your voice when you're sitting on this diets and don't leave it
009all on the floor it's like a game right like a sports event you leave it all on the floor when you have it so when you leave these meetings every other Wednesday you're going to be exhausted for a reason because you left it all on the floor I'm complete thank you anybody else on this side go right ahead I just want to say welcome um I hope that this time on the board you feel that you are being heard not just listened to um remember that we are all here learning we are here with a purpose I your purpose is really big you are active students you guys are here to amplify the voice of other students and we are here to support that so feel heard um come to us as we will come
010to you because this is a learning process for not just you but for us as well so welcome and thank you to both our um student trustees I just want to go ahead and Echo what my fellow trustees have said welcome and I look forward to working alongside one of you both of you guys and getting to know you know the student voice within our schools and making sure that they're Amplified thank you thank you thank you for your leadership and your participation I promise that you will remember this for the rest of your life and it'll probably even be life-changing um I'm very excited that we actually have a returning trustee so you have someone who can help you chart the way and I'm interested to see how you work together and I know
011that this will be a tremendous experience and with that is there anything that the two of you would care to voice at this time well it's good to be back thank you all for your reintroductions um and I just wanted to give more of my words to my new student trusty partnering with me trusty gon um I'm look forward to working with you and I'm excited for what is in store for the both of us as we finish out this last school year um I also like to piggy back on what hor Jorge said um I'm very excited to be here and offer my voice as a student who goes to Richmond High School here to the trustees um and I'm very excited to work with Jorge as we finish off our senior Year great
012thank you so much okay we are now up to B8 student performances and tonight we have students from Martin Luther King Elementary School and penel Valley High School is who's intro go right ahead all right uh good evening president reckler clerk andana members of the board and members of the community today we have a treat we have King Elementary School here to perform a um slew of poetry that they are presenting in honor of black history month so I would love to invite up president Burks to introduce her students principal okay hi everyone my name is Helen Burks and I have uh the joy and honor of being principal at Dr Martin Luther King Jr Elementary School um we recently had our Dr King assembly as we have every year um to honor the name
013sake of our school we had students of all grade levels doing different performances and our sixth graders shared essays that they wrote so these are students from Miss vs and Dr Clifford Thompson the students wrote these essays in response to listening to and reading through and really dissecting Dr King's speech that was given to a group of middle schoolers the speech is titled what is your life's blueprint so what you're going to hear from them is their reflection on what his speech meant to them on what is your life's blueprint we did also have two students who were excited to be here tonight to share poetry um but one person is sick and it was a two-person poem so we are sorry but alayia Jackson and kaani blocker would love to be here so first
014we're going to recite our King school pledge for you all on the south side of Richmond stands a school we love the eagle is our emblem our strength comes from above raise your voices loudly let your Praises Ring Hail To Thee our Alma Mo Martin Luther King so we also by the way I think have some future Schoolboard trustees behind me so I'm excited they get to be here tonight um our first essay and writer who will be sharing their response is Tessa Saturn who's been a king since she was in kindergarten hello my name is Tessa sat turn I am in sixth grade of King Elementary and my teacher is Miss Alva and my principal here miss Burks it today I will be reading my essay about Dr Martin Luther King's uh Speech called
015your life blueprint what's your life blue print Dr Martin Luther King asked a large group of middle school students what's your life blueprint when I read it what it meant to me was you need to give everything your all no matter what state your life is in give your best so people can see what you're truly capable of stay in school in spite of your situation no matter if you're poor unstable or even hurt stay in school and keep learning and maybe even doors of opportunity will come to you in your own path in your life's blueprint that W open for your parents that's what Dr Martin Luther King wrote in the your life blueprint writing of his if a man can write a better book or preach a better sermon or make a better
016mouth strap than his neighbor even if he builds his house in the woods the world will make a beaten path to his door another quote written in Dr Martin Luther King's writing meaning if you're good at something or better at something then people will come to ask you to help them the beaten path were people rushing to your door wanting to know how you can make them at your level that's what the quote from MLK meant to me number one in your life blueprint should be belief in your own dignity reading this quote in the writing I felt what it meant to me don't let people bring you down and make you feel like nothing don't let people make you feel smaller than them when you're just as big as a person as they are
017what I'm saying is you're the bigger person even when there's people trying to make you feel small what it means to me is you shouldn't listen to the bullies who the people who manipulate you into thinking you're nobody and never tell yourself you're worthless small or nobody because every negative word you tell yourself will never be true next I'm excited to bring up um huzam who is a new student to King this year my name is Yan and I'm in the sixth grade in uh Dr Dr Thompson's class uh I I go to the school King Elementary School in Richmond California and my teacher my principal's name is Mrs Burks what's your life's blueprint Martin Luther King Jr went down to Barat Junior High School in Philadelphia on October 26th 1967 he then s down
018he didn't sat down and told a group of children I want to ask you a question and that is what's your life's blueprint this means what do you have planned out for your future as in what do you want to be when you grow up he then continued telling the children a motivational quote whenever whenever a building is constructed you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint this means whenever you are doing something you always have to know what you are going to do this that blueprint serves as a pattern as a guide and a building is not well erected without a good solid blueprint this exact sentence is very motivational I think it is a very well said statement he then continue telling the children if you can't be a tree be a
019bush if you can't be a highway just be a trail if you can't be a sun be a star for it isn't by the sides that you win or fail be the best of whatever you are in conclusion Martin Luther King Jr inspired this group of middle schoolers I hope the middle schoolers grew up to be great people this group of kids got very lucky to meet him before he was assassinated one of the students name is Dennis Kemp he went out to accomplish his dream which was to be a filled hockey player all right right and Le last but not least I'm excited to bring up Mr Ricky Al coin uh who has also been a king since he was in kindergarten that mean me hello my name is Ricky ooin and I am
020in the sixth grade I go to King Elementary my teacher is Dr Thompson my principal is Miss burgs I'm going to read a paper I wrote and it's called what's your life's blueprint have you ever heard of Martin Luther King speech I've only heard two one is the blueprint and that's what I'm going to be writing about today in this speech he talks to a bunch of middle schoolers about their blueprint my favorite line though is if it falls to you to be a street sweeper sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures sweep the streets like beatman compos music sweep the streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry if you can't be a pine at the top of the hill be a shrub in the valley be the best little shrub on the side of the Hill be
021the best of whatever you are what he is saying is whatever God calls you to be be the best do your best if you can't be what you want to be it's okay as long as you do your best since I read this poem it's become one of my favorites because of the stuff that he is saying and the meaning behind it another one of my favorite quotes is I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life's blueprint number one your life blueprint should always have a deep belief in your own dignity your worth and your own somebody don't allow somebody to make you feel like you're nothing always feel that your life has an ultimate significance what that means is be your own person and believe in it last part
022I'm going to be wri about today is whenever a building is constructed you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint serves as the pattern as the guide in the building not well erected without a good solid blueprint this is very powerful it's not just powerful but informational helps understand how to structure your life thank you all right and before we take a picture before we take a picture we would like to continue with our student perform performance because we have one more and I'd love to invite up to this uh stage our teacher Miss Michelle Layman Rayford from penol Valley high school and our student performer Ayanna Vivas evening everyone like she said M my name is Michelle Layman Rayford aka Miss Layman I am the African-American Student Union sponsor at penol Valley High
023School representing our club representing our school representing the Spartan Pro that we have we have a student that's going to come up and give a poem rendition if you would like to see more of this I shamelessly plug and invite everyone on Saturday 1 p.m February 15th to penoa Valley High School to our Black History Month commemorative Jubilee which will be happening at 1M but this is example of what you will see so she will introduce herself thank you good evening everybody I'm I Ayana Vivas I am a senior and a second-year ASU member at penol Valley High School um with everything that's kind of been going on I was inspired to take pen to paper and just kind of write my thoughts down and in that I have created this piece so this is
024it we have always been America they're trying to carve us out of the story as if this land wasn't shaped by our hands as if our blood didn't water its soil as if our Roots don't stretch as deep as Liberty itself black history is American history not a footnote or sidebar not a lesson that's been saved for the shortest month of the year but the backbone the heartbeat the labor that's raised The Monuments they now claim as theirs yet they try to silence The Echoes of our past wash away the ink that wrote our names turn our mystery into mumbles but we have been carved in stone not sand they've painted us with broad Strokes too loud too angry too dangerous as if our voices aren't Echoes of Injustice as if our rage isn't righteous
025as if their fear isn't built on the lies they've told themselves thinking of skin as a weapon they see threat and Beauty see crime where there struggle see statistics where there are sons and daughters but Millennium is more than they can measure it is sunkiss resilience it is history that they cannot whitewash away they may call curls wild say the tame or straighten them shrink ourselves so that we may fit into a mold that was never justly made for us but those wild curls coil like our resistance unruly unbroken Unapologetic unspoken words coming from our hair unkempt unprofessional something to fix or hide they can't hear the whispered secrets in each of the woven strands maaps freedom in each careful twist braids more than Beauty blueprints cornrow carved Escape Routes hidden paths edged into scalps
026each plate a path each braid a step closer to Liberation I hear them tossing that word around like jokes as if history doesn't bleed through every syllable as if it wasn't meant to break or to degrade they ask me to say it for them as if I want my voice to carry a word they've never bled for it is not a badge to borrow or a joke to toss around it holds the weight of History SC bars and struggle I won't be their mouthpiece for a wound they will never share we were here when Freedom was just an idea here when Fields stretched wider than dreams here when Justice was Shackled and we're still here walking speaking building defying from the cotton fields to the White House from the protest lines to the Stars we
027have always been America thank you amazing thank you to both of our schools and we'd love to have you come up so that we can recognize you and take a picture e e e okay B9 public comment members of the public are invited to speak to the board on any matter that is not otherwise on the agenda but is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the West contracosta Unified School District public comment will last approximately 1 hour the time allotted to each speaker is 2 minutes should additional speakers remain at the conclusion of one hour public comment may be extended the time allotted per speaker beyond the first hour is generally one minute per person individuals wishing to speak please submit a wccusd public comment card or if participating via zoom in individuals will need
028to raise their hand in the Zoom app prior to the beginning of the item on the agenda if you're calling in by phone press star n speaker speaking time shall not be transferred from one person to another there is no substitution of speakers speakers can also make public comment again for each discussion and action either on the agenda after staff presentations the public will have 10 minutes per item and one minute per speaker the same protocols recited above apply the public comment period is a safe space where diverse viewpoints may be expressed cily without interruption or intimidation please listen attentively to each speaker's comment and respect their time at the podium as if it were your own be open to a different point of view if one is offered due to the brown Act board
029members cannot discuss items that are not on the agenda and do not usually respond to items presented in public comment and so we will begin our first publicist Kim Chamberlain good evening I'm Kimberly Chamberlain ifte Local 21 SSA chapter president as many of us are looking forward to a much needed break next week and hoping each person sleeps a little more each day enjoys a little bit of sunshine and takes time I want to thank all of our classified employees from the custodian the cook manager the technician the HR Tech the payroll the attendance enrollment the transfer the Scout the secretary the office manager there are so many of us that are here every day to support listen to us is what I'm asking the school board the cabinet the members out there listening that
030make decisions at the state level so that we are heard we are working tirelessly to show students we are present as we ask them to be lead by example is something we say to them constantly I'm asking now that you do the same everyone should be leading by example and taking into account what we put forth every day as members of unions Community students and take our education our work and make sure that you're taking that into account as we're making these Cuts making decisions on what the future of our students are looking towards if they don't have a teacher they don't have that classified they don't have that person that they look forward to seeing every day that means that student is an important is what they're going to feel like I've had it
031told to me several times I've had my own children tell me that my person was released why do I want to go to school please take that into account when you're making these decisions anybody could be that student's person even you our next public comment is Andrew wilky please unmute yourself oh that's my baby good evening everybody um can you hear me yes we can yeah this is Andrew wilky uh I run the music program at Richmond High School I first want to say hello to Nikki one of our drum Majors who you can see representing our school in our district this Saturday in the San Francisco Chinese New Year parade the second largest parade this side of the country um so you can look out for her good job Nikki way being out there
032um onto business restricted un restricted funding last year when I went to do this parade a certain person in that room denied us access to a funding source we had used for years a funding source that had been used to send our children on trips on buses for years that had been audited by the federal government who oversees those funds multiple times without ever having an issue I bring this up because it makes me really wonder how many other issues we have like that where people's own interpretations of the laws or what we do impacts how funds are spent I was told that funds can't be spent for entertainment marching three miles through the city in front of hundreds of thousands of people is not entertainment for the kids so what else is there that
033you guys do that that's that same stuff you say it can't be done but it could be done but you're too uncreative or don't know I I'm just so frustrated I'm going to get down what I really am here to talk about you forcing our school to switch back to a sixth period day will kill the department I've built over 10 years a department that has 100% graduation rate a department that has I don't know 15 kids in UC Berkeley right now children at Stanford you making us go to six periods to save only 1.8 positions is ridiculous yet you continue to uplift a school and students from a school that is a publicly funded private school and college program while our students in traditional schools have everything taken away from them month after month
034at this point so please consider what you're doing and look at your own programs to know what happens good night our next public comment is Mark Mitchell okay uh president reckler and board superintendent Moses perhaps the most heartbreaking and most maddening thing about the cuts you approved last week is that there's no plan to rescue our district from the disorder and Chaos that Reigns today there's no plan to better serve English language learner students to support our immigrant students in the Internationals program and to staff our schools there's no plan to write the ship you know no other District in our county has uh seen it necessary to inflict the layoffs year after year after year that this District continually does in fact we checked the records at CTA legal the only other District that
035did this was Mount Diablo two years ago that's it nobody else had the the need to do it I had the opportunity to be up in Fairfield working with those teachers and found out from their District administration they suffer the same kind of continual Ada decline year after year yet they have never had a layoff noticed uh in The Last 5 Years in fact when I told them what you all had done here they asked me for a list of the members the teachers that you were getting rid of because they're hiring in Fairfield because of the vacancy crisis that that District recognizes and is addressing so there's no plan but what did what did our district do to write the financial ship well when they PR oted our our interim uh business official to
036superintendent they looked out in the in California and who did they bring the Chief Financial Officer from La unified also known colloquially as the $6 billion doll man he has a legacy of leaving just last year six and a half billion dollars in unrestricted reserves money taken from students and the Educators that served them and kept in fat District reserves thousands of vacancies the teachers earning 15,00 ,000 below State average and this is the talent you're bringing to fix what's going on here who's in charge what values are at play here our next public comment is Cindy oron please unmute yourself hello can you hear me yes we can hi good afternoon or good evening my name is Cindy oron I am a mother of three children that attend Vista Virtual Academy I am a
03733-year-old mother who is um paralyzed I was a victim of a gunshot wound when I was 17 years old a victim of a flawed school system here in San Francisco California be Virtual Academy has been a godsend from my children and for everybody in our classroom all of our elementary um students have uh are are being blessed by the education that they're receiving my my daughter is 10 years old and she started virtually since the pandemic and is exceeding in her uh Spanish English everything thanks to the school um it really saddens me that there is even a thought of cutting something that is so vital and such a necessity to many of us mothers who have um problems or or or um difficulties or even children that don't want to be that want to
038be home and and want to have their education from home um I'm speaking on behalf of all of our parents at Vista Virtual Academy in Richmond California to please don't cut any funds we need our teach my children are bilingual and they have benefited a lot from the um from the elac from the um Spanish speaking uh Community my my children are by lingual and they are exceeding in their studies thanks to this school I really like to thank you for your time and please don't cut any funds for our school V the Virtual Academy thank you our next public comment is Sam clear hello my name is Sam CLE and I'm a teacher on release at Siege Elementary and United teachers of Richmond organizing chair at Siege on the first day of school last
039year students lined up at their classroom without a teacher parents went to open house without any teacher to meet unfortunately there are still vacancies throughout the district and students aren't receiving an education you can't build a classroom Community or Foster A Love For Learning Without a teacher students are losing these crucial opportunities that Define their child hood and future every single day every single year in wccusd instead of being treated with respect and dignity teachers are being driven away from our district in the past three years over 500 teachers have left they're going to continue leaving and students will leave with them understandably students don't want to attend schools without teachers tragically the students who stay frequently blame themselves for WC USC's vacancy crisis I've heard students without teachers cry and say they are too
040bad to have a teacher in reality WCC usd's treatment of teachers is too bad for them to stay instead of moving people around mid year or scaring families with misleading data District leadership needs to focus on long-term Equitable Solutions I have been so lucky to get to work with talented caring and passionate Educators as of now we are going to continue to see these Educators leave in crowds and never come back thank you our next public comment is zon Harrison please unmute yourself did I unmute can you guys hear me hello yes we can okay good evening everyone happy Black History Month so happy to be here with you all on Zoom um I just want to say some good things I've seen in the district um I got to do a tour of Peno
041Valley high school with principal Irving and um it was awesome it is um a lot of changes have been made there there's a lot of work that still needs to be done but there has been a lot of changes it was one of the right now as far as I've been visiting high schools one of the best friend schools um with participating with our students engaging our students um having uh all cultures represented all children felt in included and involved I seen this with my own eyes the apack meeting was held um also um I think it was this month also and it was wonderful um it was well attended it was a resources there and I just was like this is what I know every parent wants for their kids so I just want
042to give the district for you know for me as a black parent this is what I'm talking about I want to feel that my child and children are being attended to and educated and feel that social emotional is getting addressed and like I said it's a lot of work that still needs to be done but I think it's going in a good direction and I think um Bay you I visited there they they were awesome also so there's a group of principles that are really trying and working on getting this right for all our students and including the black and African-American students and I appreciate that and I want to give you all y'all flowers to say that you know there is some improvement going on there and I see it and I'm noticing it
043and I want to thank you I'm complete our next public communist Thomas gagnet good evening uh my name is Thomas G I'm a teacher over at deanza High School uh three weeks ago now one of my teachers emailed me informing me that her uh heating was broken in her classroom her classroom at the time was 53 Dees fahr full of students who are being expected to do work when she reached out to have repairs done on her her heating she was told that she was not a priority last week a sinkhole opened up under deza high school it swallowed about few square feet of the garden out by the special education building only that wasn't the beginning of it that was just one additional step because the ceiling and I'm sorry the wall and the
044floor have been spreading apart because the foundation of deanza high school is sinking so the special education building is getting flooded when it rains it's getting rats infesting and they were told they were not a priority when we had our wasque visit earlier this year our wasque team seemed generally happy with what we were doing at deanza high school including our wall-to-wall Academy cohorting when they asked Dr Kim Moses whether I'm sorry when they asked her what the district would do to ensure that deanza was able to continue offering that wall-to-wall Academy cohorting they were told you guessed it it was not a priority if it's in the budget were her exact words so my question is what are the priorities because they don't seem to be students they don't seem to be keeping teachers
045they don't seem to be maintaining facilities so where is all the money going what are our priorities our next public comment is Joyce lupac please unmute yourself he good evening thank you for um for having this meeting and for hearing my comments I'm talking I'm a mom of a daughter who goes to Vista and I wanted to just let you know I know there are no easy decisions when you don't have enough money for anything right like but I just thought it is important for you to know that you know my daughter she's autistic she has ADHD she um has been trying to go to school typical school with an IEP for at least four or five years now and it has not worked and I can't tell you how grateful I am for Vista
046because it's working for her and it's the first thing that has and if that didn't work we were that was our last resort and she'd have to we'd have to homeschool which we can't really afford to do but whatever that that was the last um because she's tried she went to kumatu she went to K2 Charter we thought that might work they tried really hard not blaming anybody but um honestly even the special ed folks in some of the schools you know it's just not enough and she needs the structure that the flexibility that Vista provides and it's just an amazing program so um just so you know like it's not like she could go back to another school if that if if the if there was no Vista we would it would just be
047and it breaks my heart cuz she wants to be in school so badly that's why she keeps trying um okay thank you very much our next public comment is Gabriella Garcia good evening i' like to thank you for allowing me to speak here today I'm a single mother of two children who attend Lake Elementary School I want to express my concern about the potential cut to speech therapy in the West kraasa School District my son who is in fourth grade and my daughter is in kindergart both rely on speech services but recently my son has been receiving speech therapy through Zoom unfortunately I don't believe this virtual format is effective for him he continues to struggle with pronunciation and it's been tough for him there was even a time when he came home in tears
048because some kids were making fun of him on how he talks I believe it would be much more beneficial for him to have in-person sessions where he can better better demonstrate how he uses his tongue and receive the Hands-On support he needs I urge you to reconsider cutting these essential Services thank you our next public comment is Vista virtual parent please unmute yourself go my name is I'm in third grade I skipped along with three of my kindergarten classmates because we can Le at our own pace and be challenged that's why virtual Elementary works we are living proof two weeks ago my ey test showed I read at sixth grade level last year just after six months of studying I went two two chest tournaments one of them against an adult none of this would
049have been possible without Vista virtual my teachers aren't just good they are amazing they challenge me encourage me and teach me to work hard and never give up Dr Martin Luther King Jr spoke about having a dream my dream is to learn to grow and to be the best I can be Virtual School makes that possible vir virtual Elementary isn't just an option it's a wife line some kids need a quiet space to focus some need to move faster some need more time for students like me Virtual School helps us reach our full potential but if you take it away kids like me will lose the chance to learn the way we need to please don't take away our future please don't take away our chance to succeed please don't take away our choice thank
050you for listening our next public comment is sha Aon good evening school board and all the stakeholders are in the building today I'm coming to you with great concerns regarding the current fiscal solvy plan that has been presented while we have two new board members this year we encourage you we encourage you to direct cabinet to continue having conversation with the stakeholders around the fiscal solvy budget for the past two school years I have been a part of the budget committee which we met monthly and allowed the stakeholders to review all contracts program and anything that may potentially affect the budget we have not had the opportunity to meet this year I encourage the board to start that budget committee back up I believe that that was the opportunity for everyone to be a little
051bit more transparent since the school year started there has not been any transparency we have not received requested documents such as our vacancy list we just got our seniority list the other day would still multiple errors I also would like to say that laying students laying staff off is not effective for the students I encourage I lost my thought that the idea of laying off staff is not the in best interest of the students even though we have over even though we have all these vacancies I just don't see how you're going to continue to allow cabinet to lay off it's so emotional to lay off staff with hundreds of vacancies so I would just like to continue the relationship go back to the table let's get out the budgets and let's talk about all
052what's going on so that's my thought our next public comment is William McNab please unmute yourself please unmute yourself hello please unmute please unmute yourself hello can you hear us yes I can all right hi my name is William mcav I am the proud father of a second and sixth grader at Vista Virtual Academy all students deserve highly qualified and experienced teachers for their grade level and the work being taught and we shouldn't be sacrificing a quality of education for our children by continuing to make cuts to Vista for the third year in a row wccusd has the reserve funds but is not giving our students or teachers the opportunities or the funding and resources to grow this extraordinary program we could be welcoming students in from neighboring districts but the district has not been
053supporting this school to create relationships with other districts by by increasing exposure and gaining new enrollment it would only bring more money to our district increase attendance more Cuts will again Force the reorganization of teachers and change the entire School structure again leaving our children to pay the price putting their education at risk you should be investing in our children in Futures not robbing them of quality education the amazing principal and phenomenal teachers have gone above and beyond building last lasting and meaningful relationship with our students and families working together as a team to provide the best education opportunity for our children while keeping them excited about learning please don't take this program away this this is my children's lifeline of everything thank you have have a great day our next public commment is Don
054Gosney good evening while some board members may know what the 7-Eleven committee is many in the community might think the district is going into the super big Gul business by Statute the 7-Eleven committee must have a member of a minimum of seven members and no more than 11 the committee is tasked with reviewing potentially Surplus District properties and then returning to the board and the public public with information about these sites as well as recommendations on whether the site should be deemed Surplus and what the district might do with the sites for the public those sites include the shuttered Adams Middle School near East Richmond cvu Elementary out near Tera Hills Haron noes west of Hilltop Mall and the old portala Middle School site in elero I've been on this committee from day one and
055I'm the only member to attend every meeting in person the district is at a Crossroads though because they don't meet the minimum requirements as a matter of fact we may be down to only four members left the district has been working on what to do with these sites since 2019 and we're really not as far along as we might be the district needs to fill these positions and we need to get back on track there may still be applications in the queue but these are well over a year old the Board needs to start fresh when they fill these positions I cannot emphasize enough to get the right kind of people on this committee we've had too many members with their own agendas to the point that they're hardpressed to even allow alternative viewpoints to
056be brought up there's a level of harassment between senior members of the committee and even District vendors that has made the effort dysfunctional opposing ideas have been stifled and personal attacks have been vocalized on the record we've had 14 meetings and only one set of approved minutes even worse we've had multiple board members publicly say that they don't have to listen to anything we say and they're going to go with Workforce housing without even listening to the details it might suggest that this is not the best option if we're going to do this talk to some of us and let's do it right thanks our next public comment is Heather please unmute yourself hello can you hear me yes we can good evening I'm here in support of Vista Academy I'm here to say that
057they provide a safe learning environment free from distractions and negative behaviors encouraging all students to challenge themselves and maximize learning potential while still having fun doing it vist is safe and Healing Place of learning for some of our most vulnerable students yet you are decimating this learning model our children are our future yet when it comes to education it always seems to be one of the first things cut it is a crying shame literally why is cutting portions of this extraordinary School even being considered given the positive effects it has on our students including a academic success overall confidence and responsibility this is what makes great contributors to society my children have almost perfect attendance every year since joining this Academy their confidence and self-esteem has grown tremendously their increased knowledge and test scores are
058undeniable proof this amazing program works they are excelling in every part of their education and becoming leaders taking pride in their homework constantly exceeding grade level expectations I don't have to worry about absences from being sick distractions in a classroom preventing my child from learning or their safety on a campus these teachers are invaluable and some teachers multiple grades levels and still take the time to get to really know our children without the Virtual Academy I'd be forced to take my children out of the district completely and homeschool them as returning to on-campus learning would be traumatizing and detrimental to their education these are the Future Leaders of our community our children are thriving they are happy to go to school every day and without this program many children will suffer this program is truly
059unique and absolutely Irreplaceable cutting the elementary program in any way may save a few dollars but it will undoubtedly be at the sacrifice of our students current and future Vista not only creates well-rounded and capable learners but it also is a way to retain some students who would otherwise give up on school altogether our next public comment is Michelle Schultz my name is Michelle Schultz I am a teacher at Hannah Ranch Elementary and a parent of a Hercules High School freshman I am deeply alarmed by the recent budget cuts and the devastating impact that they will have on our students and their education these Cuts have failed to keep the money with the students you have chosen to eliminate four Vista teachers this grave mistake undermines the vital resources families depend on through the Virtual
060Academy the proposed 100,000 budget cut to the international Balor program is an affront to the students Futures and could destroy a critical opportunity to them to excel moreover slashing art stiens is not just a financial cut it stifles the very means by which many students Express themselves in these challenging times dismantling High School schedules that are designed to assist our students raises serious questions about this board's commitment to genuine education those cuts will directly impact our students and it isn't even the worst of it reducing the number of speech and language Pathologists especially when those their case loads are already unmanageable demonstrates a shocking disregard for our students needs and I don't even have the time to get into the legality of these Services these students have IEPs these are legal documents so I am
061going to ask you what are you not cutting what is higher up and removed from the classroom that you are trying to protect and who benefits follow the money our next public comment is Janette Smith please unmute yourself hello good evening my name is B Smith I thought I had corrected her name I'm my daughter attends Vista Virtual Academy and I would like to have something to say about the cuts this vist the virtual offers new Adventures advantages that can be crucial in building an adaptable in and inclusive learning environment that I found perfect for my daughter the flexibility this allows is so beneficial for students who have commitments health issues or other schedules alike the convenience allows many to have the freedom to balance their education with personal activities without putting one before the
062other while building management and responsibility skills needed for their future at the same time V's unique approach to schooling was needed long before the um pandemic I think some parents will agree that oftentimes children don't Focus or learn well under traditional schooling methods my daughter have excelled so much thanks to the encouragement from her teachers for keeping her on target it's inclusive accessible and adaptable to all Learners even those who might find feel like they need more help than others not only that but the patience and support that was um practice throughout the teachers I've had the pleasure of meeting makes me love this school even more I like that regardless of location or background all the students have the same opportunities to reach for the stars and create Bright Futures for themselves even for
063my older daughter who also attended this High she found the safe ha and the same as my daughter here she she can focus on education free from distractions so I'd like to just thank you for um hearing my request that you don't cut it our next public common is Sky Nelson good even board members teachers parents students my name is Sky Nelson I'm a physics teacher at Elso High School um I'm a parent as of a sophomore at ELO high school as well last week we heard that the district's biggest Financial challenge is not declining enrollment it's attendance that means we're not losing students we're losing their engagement yet instead of addressing Why students are disconnected this board is making cuts that will push push them further away Dr Moses at the MLK Day Parade
064you said yourself that parent engagement is a struggle that's on you that's on the district so I ask have we personally reached out to families have we asked students why they aren't coming have we knocked on doors called homes or sat in classrooms to understand what's happening the board emphasized that average daily attendance could improve by just 3% to solve the budget crisis 3% that seems very doable to me but cutting teachers programs and students is an administrative fix this is a community problem that requires real human investment real human investment time connection we need you to reach out to families and connect to them how do you expect to get them in class when you can't connect when you haven't connected with them find out what they need the Yi show up media campaign
065and the system change collaborative business group are not enough in my opinion the district needs to knit together actual people in the community because we're going to need that more than ever in the coming years we need Community let's go door to door to engage the whole community and give people the feeling that they matter let's be honest about the impact of skipping class not just on students but on the whole Community I'm sick of business as usual where we avoid vulnerability and hard work in the name of expediency thank you our next public commment is Crystal banagan please unmute yourself good evening everyone board members students teachers can you hear me yes we can hello oh thank you um yes my name is Chrystal banigan and I am a parent of three students here
066in the district at various schools um I'm also an educator and a Avid Community Advocate I'm here tonight to uh remind people that we are in the midst of searching for a new super intendant and that the public comment survey is on the website right now as we're speaking until March 3D I want to encourage everyone to go online and take that survey please so that they can hear your voice so that they know that we want better for our students next time um also you know I come to these board meetings every time on zoom and and I I rarely speak but I hear a lot of concern concs about parent engagement and about what's happening in our schools and in our district and I share most of those concerns um and you know
067the best way to engage is to go to your school and get on your schools SSC get on your schools APAC get on your schools elac committee right if you don't have the time find somebody who does perhaps and let them know to go and get on your schools C if your school hasn't started it ask the principal why right so you know um all of us who have the time to show up to a board meeting every other week we have the time to show up to an SSC meeting or an APAC meeting once a month again the survey for public comment is on the district's website all you have to do is go to the home page and you will find it thank you so much everyone have a great evening the next
068public comment is Priscilla Lao good evening my name is Priscilla Lao I'm a speech language pathologist at paring Elementary I'm struggling with the district's decision to cut certificated special education positions when there is $162 million in their reserves let's be clear this is a choice it is a choice to not spend money they have on our students it is a choice to reduce the supports currently available to students and families it is a choice to stretch special education staff whose workloads are already overwhelming even even thinner it is a choice made by the district that is woefully shortsighted and will cost them more money than they are thinking to save for many years special education staff have been overc capacity and there have been Staffing shortages it has gotten worse each year which has a
069very real negative impact on our students parents if you are concerned about your child missing speech therapy services or not being assessed on time please direct your questions to the decision makers the district and school board by removing five full-time certificated special education positions the district will create an even larger strain on remaining staff's ability to provide the much needed supports and services to our students a hemorrhage if you will and will they try to Band-Aid over this Hemorrhage by hiring more contractors more virtual Sops to replace the current in-person Sops who are trying so hard to provide the quality and ethical services that our students deserve how much more money will they be spending over the current 2. million to hire more contractors in order to bandaid this Hemorrhage this is not okay we
070are not okay our students deserve better parents students community members I ask you to listen to the Educators and join us in this fight I urge the board to approve a motion to reconsider revote and reverse these dangerous cuts and come up with a real plan thank you our next public comment is Marisol Madrigal please unmute yourself um hi um well I don't know if I can speak in Spanish because um I want to like speak in my language because uh in English I'm not going to be able to like to say what what I want to say hello yes go ahead okay ver in and uh Dober is the for um um our next public comment is promise Rose hello I'm prence Rose Betty re soskin science teacher I wanted to thank everyone who
071came to our district science fair yesterday and saw the amazing work that all of our science students did oh okay all right I would like to announced that there was an amazing science fair yesterday which saskin got to have many beautiful projects in as well as many of the projects from the other schools one such project broke my heart it was an engineering project and one thing at Betty Reed sasin we love is the fact that we listen and have a community relationship with both our community and our students we listen to them their desires their needs they also listen to us in what we try to give them not just in education but safety and Community we are a community in each of our classrooms well except for the ones that have vacancies which
072we have been asking to be filled oh that's going to be hard when we cut more Pro more positions okay so back to this one project the students One Wish One engineering desire was to have Windows in their school to reduce the use of energy consumption and to have a better air another student from that school also did air quality testing and they found that many of the rooms had foul air with a lot of contaminants teachers often bring in their own air purifiers so the rooms are clean I'm just curious where did all the money for the refits and support for our students go like our scows who are translating for us thank you our next public comment is Marie please unmute yourself uh good afternoon can you hear me yes okay uh thank
073you my name is Marie Anam I am a parent of two special needs kids um one is in the preschool program at Cameron and the other one is in um kindergarten I'm also a current SLP who works at Cameron school too dear boor I urge you to please reconsider your decision to cut the SLP positions being someone whose children benefits from the services that they provide and helping them to commun Comm unicate that it's really really important to me that they are able to still receive their speech therapy services and in person I don't want it to where it has been switched to a contractor and a lot of these contractors are working virtual virtual won't work for my children if I want virtual then I that will be something done on the side but
074in the school district it is better to provide services in person and as far as me working in the department you know we're already stretched thin we're trying to hire more people recruit more people and retain them once they come here so I urge you that if we are able to keep all our slps and continue recruiting then our program can uh become even more better as we're able to provide better Services the way we provide the services and um the time we're spent with the students because the case loads will start becoming even more unmanageable as the referrals come in the assessments the tries the IEPs ssts uh the different staff meeting all that gets added to our plate I urge you to please reconsider and stop the cuts thank you our next public
075comment is Tony Wright hi my name is Tony Wright um I feel a little bit embarrassed to be coming up here talk about Fields when all these teachers are bringing up their issues but I just want to introduce myself and tell you that I'm a resident of Richmond for the last 35 years and behind me is a um some of the parents and coaches for the Youth Soccer Team here and in the audience I can see some of um the teachers whose kids we also coach there's about 650 kids in our program that uses the fields specifically Kennedy School and we'd like you to support us and continue to support us in using that field it's very important um as a resident of Richmond and as an immigrant first generation it's important that we have
076uh space space where kids can come and meet other kids from different culture and different environment um I know that we're all busy and I would like to just take a moment to let you know that the organization that supports the residence of Richmond is in Berkeley and that that creates a unique opportunity we have um there's some uh we have the opportunity to create uh an environment where kids from different socioeconomic culture socionomic level can integrate with each other soccer field is a level is a Level Playing Field for both girls and boys and by allowing us to use Kennedy field you've allowed more girls to use the program as we all know that girls don't get an equal opportunity to get Quality fields and we appreciate that you're going there so thank you
077guys very much and I know these guys did not fill out the form so I just want you to see who they are and that they represent the community so I want to thank you guys very much I just want to say one more thing I know money is an issue I spoke in my board and we are willing to put up at least $5,000 to help kids especially sports kids are in sports who have low grades so we'll be putting that out to the board to ask you the guys to help us get someone to get the kids who want to play sport improve their grades because no matter how good player you are if you don't have good grades it means nothing so thank you guys very much our next public comment is
078iPad please unmute yourself good evening good evening I have a simple critical request keep and grow Vista Virtual Academy this program is vital for our students in this District's future three years of budget cuts to Vista Virtual Academy would Force another reorg hurting virtual Elementary it will drive families away weaken our commitment to equity and put us at a severe disadvantage in the growing landscape of school choices virtual education isn't a short-term fix it's a proven essential solution research from Pennsylvania based nonprofit focused on underserved students show that districts without virtual options lose both students and funding a 120 page report that from the Texas commission on virtual education details how virtual schools scale effectively in their plans to expand access to high quality virtual education these program reduces costs provide the flexibility to learn
079in a knowledge-based economy in a rapidly changing World virtual learning is key for continuous skill development Vista Virtual academ Academy delivers exactly what student needs today small class sizes personalized pacing and a focused learning environment it serves Advanced Learners students with special needs and those facing Health and Social Challenges it also Fosters strong parents engagement by allowing parents to serve as learning coaches this support system leads to higher student achievement a greater love for Learning and better attendance which increases funding for the district a budget reduction for two Virtual Academy would severely impact Elementary that would be shortsighted without it the district lose its Competitive Edge other districts expand virtual learning we cannot afford to fall behind Virtual Academy is coste effective scalable and future ready let's grow future the future attract more families secure
080funding retain Forward Thinking teachers Drive long-term growth our next public commment Is Sheree Roberts uh good evening and I hope some of you can put your work down long enough just to make eye contact I know it's expected of us at PDS so if we're learning I would like you to learn a little bit about me every day I go to school at Perry's I love that school I get hugs and I get kisses with in excitement they are so excited for somebody to show up every day I have so many students that come in to the RSP Center that don't know English so our English language and our new learner programs are important I can't teach them I'm not bilingual but if you make that cut to those people that are it's going to
081hurt our children you we talked about the why campaign that you had why do you want to keep cutting our budget why don't you want to make sure first that there's a teacher for every student I have a child with grandchildren my grandchildren see speech pathologists at their school I would be livid knowing that it was online I go into ESN preschool classes to help out because their teacher is online ESN that is not okay it's not this is my why I received this this week and it made me cry Miss Roberts I hope you're doing well I was thinking about my time in your class the other day and I realized just how much I appreciated having you as a teacher I can't believe it's been six years already time flies I just wanted
082to reach out and say hi and also thank you for everything you taught me you really made a difference and I still remember when we had gone on all of those field trips the Oakland Zoo the park as well as Rosie the Riveter and other fun activities you had for us he went on to tell me our next public comment is Adriana please unmute yourself can you hear me yes we can okay um we are the parents of uh of two uh one one attends um Richmond High School and the other one attends ad Elementary School and we are concerned that uh you guys are cutting off every program Poss possible that you know that that's there but we know that the money is right there and the other thing is that uh you guys
083are still why is it that when Cuts need to be made it's always from the schools that least afford them uh that's I really don't understand that's just a one question that I have why is it that when fundings decisions are made the students who need more are most are given the the least that's the next concern we have we're not asking for a fair share we are asking asking for fairness for acum accum abilities and for for you to do what is right stop taking from those who already have so little start using the resources available to give every child regardless of their zip code our kids are disabled their future is not negotiable it's time to do better please those are our concerns thank you very much our next public common is Tessa
084sat turn next public common is Gabrielle Micheletti wccusd is suffering Death By A Thousand Cuts year after year Educators and support staff are cut from this District accelerating the downward spiral because what student is inspired by an empty classroom or an educator zooming in from another state many of our students do not have access to the supports they need and deserve rather they are forced to fight extra hard for the bare minimum we are hemorrhaging Educators 561 in just 3 years and many more leaving this year after years of dedicated service to this community because they cannot take this treatment anymore our schools lack stability and our educators are cracking under all the additional duties placed upon their backs due to skeletal Staffing levels I would also ask you to look into the budget projections
085and understand that estimates are based off of assuming full Staffing for the year as of the PCN report for the end of January utr suffers 129 vacant positions that's over 18 million being saved that's not reflected in the budget and will not be seen until the UN audited actuals next year that more than covers the 7 million being cut by getting rid of Educators and other core staff at this District overall this District writes its projections as if they are paying for 498 non-existent people that's a lot of money that won't end up being spent utr is providing you with a map forward to keep Educators here by improving compensation and working conditions but we cannot do that if Educators continue to be cut year after year if you truly believe with your whole heart
086that this District does not have the money to provide Educators mental health supports and special services to every student why are you not in the streets with us fighting for more funding by cutting every year instead of fighting you endorse a system that hurts our students while professing to deeply care about this community please use your power as a board to bring this back for a vote and make the right decision to save the heart and soul of this District it's students and staff who support their educations conf fight alongside Educators students and staff rather than watching us strangle for the sake of balancing a budget okay I believe we're at the end of an hour how many excuse me how many more comments are left 30 would the board like to continue with another
087half hour of public comment at one person each trusty espanosa yes trusty Baron yes Jessy Hernandez yes CL clana yes trusty Gonzales ho yes tresse Smith PS Smith CL yes and I'm a yes we'll continue for another half hour of public comment we're now dropping to one minute per person and please go ahead and continue thank you our next public comment is Christopher McLean good evening everybody my name is Chris McLean and I'm a sixth grade bilingual teacher at do elementary so two weeks ago over the weekend on a very cold and rainy day 300 people organized at Richmond High School to march to protect our immigrant families it was organized by Kennedy and Richmond High School students wccusd alums and current teachers as you can all tell this is a very stressful and scary
088time for a lot of people we got our government attacking public education attacking immigrants special needs people LGBT plus people it's attacking us on very many fronts and our community came together to fight for what we have what is the school board doing what is the district doing you are attacking us as well how are you going to be remembered we need your support and right now you're making it more stressful and more scary how are you going to be remembered we we need your support we don't need to be attacked our next public comment is Keith Ferguson please unmute yourself please unmute yourself next public commment is Jefferson Guzman hi my name is j sorry just a moment will you reset student hang on just a minute we're gonna reset the I'm here to
089talk about why okay go ahead hi my name is Jefferson I'm a sixth grade student at over and I'm here to talk about why you should not get rid of teachers and close schools and I'm talking about why you should not get rid of counselors first if you get rid of teachers and close schools many teachers will lose their jobs and when they move students from one school to another class is going to be so full and and for some people schools will be follow them like like like Ruby Bridges I learned that she was a black student in the Southern United States her school for all black student was very far she was Brave and decided to go to a wide School even though it was difficult so if if kids have to go
090to schools that are very far away they might stop going to school and I think you should not get rid of Consolers because Consolers help kids who have emotional problems if you take away cons some kids our next public comment is Mariana cavalin okay good evening board members in West Contra Costa Community my name is Mariana cavalin I'm a speech language pathologist with West Contra Costa I'm here tonight to implore those on the board to approve a motion to reconsider these cuts and come up with a plan that won't hurt our students these decisions being made right now these cuts to vital student services and other essential positions are not just budgetary line items they are the slow dismantling of public education as we know it for every parents student and Community member listening this
091is your fight too your voice your engagement matters right now the future of public education is not decided in a vacuum it is shaped by who shows up who speaks up and who holds decision makers accountable board members if these Cuts move forward we will remember your role in this horrendous moment in our District's history our next public comment is Amanda Foster hi Vista virtual years of chronic mismanagement on your part should not constitute an emergency on our students Parts I do not envy any of you sitting up there right now some of you are walking into this mess with very little cul and some of you with a lot more what educational harm did you endorse with your yes votes with your absent and your absence with your participation in planning in your conversations
092behind closed doors with your personal and political agendas I heard trusty Smith fold's words last week that school budgets are the most complicated things in the world but you don't truly understand what it's like to interact with students and parents daily to build those relationships to get to know someone as a learner and as a human and maybe you once knew but you you have forgotten if you did remember you would be rebud getting in a different way the greed of this district is disgusting and the third year of cuts is making me heart sick my school will exist in a different and limited way because of you you heard our students you heard our parents our next public communist Kelly Cary we cannot stand by while our schools are stripped of the essential resources
093that our students need to succeed overcrowded classrooms cutbacks in support services and shrinking opportunities are not acceptable our English language Learners deserve the structure support they rely on and our special education students must have the service they legally are entitled to pting literacy program social workers and instructural support will only harm our children's Futures these are just not numbers on a spreadsheet there are real setbacks let's be clear our students deserve investment not neglect these Cuts aren't just a number on spreadsheet they represent real setbacks for our children our families and an entire Community with these budget cuts families will leave and rans will drop and our schools will be caught in an downward spiral of loss and instability this District must realign its priorities every dollar must reflect the commitment today students not short-term
094budget fixes every child in WCC deserve a strong well-funded education with resource and support our next public comment is Andrea livinghouse good evening behind me are The Talented dedicated speech language Pathologists of the United teachers of Richmond I'm here with my colleagues and Community to beg you to not cut positions in our ranks the cut of five slps is unfathomable considering our diing dire Staffing shortage and our assigned workload is insurmountable our Goodwill and worth work ethic is exploited by our employers parents if your child is missing a speech therapy session I ask that instead of asking the speech therapists why ask the district why are they implementing these structures that worsen our our working conditions and results in rampant IEP non-compliance stop targeting Vista sped staff and secondary Bell schedules you can celebrate counsel
095Appreciation Week by adhering to their case load limit we implore you to uh sorry I urge the board to make an approve a motion to reconsider revote and reverse these dangerous cuts and formulate a new plan that prioritizes students and Educators our next public commment is Rocko Ray okay hi um I'm Rocka Ray I'm a biology teacher at Kennedy High School um I've also taught at Helm's middle and deanza so I've seen quite a few schools in this District um so oh sorry forgot to say hello board all of our superintendant um nice to see you so um usually in teaching there's examples and non-examples so I heard we making cuts to save the schools um a non-example would be cutting teachers slps art budgets um and um not really implementing the fixes that we
096actually need to save our schools an example would be having a real plan to increase Ada we have a support collaborative for Community Schools give us a job to actually make change um we could be hiring more teachers decreasing class size there's a number of things we could be doing that are examples of say all next public comment is Gabby Dr hi I'm a teacher at Elso High School we are looking at the potential dissolution of the Department of Ed leading to significantly diminished protection of the rights of disabled and specialed students we're also seeing direct attacks on immigrant students including at schools where they should feel most welcomed and safe I hear the concern is attendance do you really think hollowing out supports for some of our most vulnerable students will help do you
097think ELD students who will be systemically prevented from taking a through G eligible classes and moving on to College due to changes in schedules will have an incentive to intend do special ed students have a much higher rate of chronic treny do you think they'll feel welcome and supported with even fewer casew workers in slps do you think we'll recover as a system when the funding at the federal level disappears having already kneecapped ourselves attendance has been an issue across the state and all districts especially this one for decades there are many resources and strategies for districts to address this issue well not every approach will work for us it's clear cuts are part of none of them why do we maintain such high reserves if not for our next public comment is Masa Peterson
098good evening I come to you as a hardworking teacher of first grade student students I'd love it if you could listen to the impassioned cries for funding and for justice for all of our students when we cut vital positions in Staffing to schools we are teaching students that their learning disabilities are inconvenient for our budget we are teaching them that their speech delay and their language needs do not matter we chose reserves over their needs and when we continue to lose teachers and we continue to lose students and we have kids in empty classrooms crying because they lack a teacher crying because they have a learning disability and they have no understanding of what that means crying because they are not accessing their education that is their right in the United States things are falling
099apart the world is burning our students are being attacked by ice and we are cutting the budget help us fight with us stop the cuts our next public comment is Jennifer Kane Jennifer Kane good evening school board and superintendent my name is Jen Kane and I am a speech pathologist working at Michelle Obama and Elementary School there already aren't enough of us so how can we cut five speech pathologists we're spread so thin it just makes no sense it leads to less quality therapy bigger groups Miss services and even mistakes mistakes that can lead to lawsuits that you will also deal with last year I was new to the district I hadn't gotten trained in how to track services I had an angry parent that wanted wanted to see my service logs I didn't have
100them this was so stressful it came back to bite me thank God it wasn't a lawsuit I'm careful but it has become impossible to keep up with everything with Cas Lo case loads above 65 it seems accepted that students can't and don't get the service minutes promised to them by law in their IEPs it's heartbreaking and unfair please reconsider cutting five valuable District speech pathologists our next public comment is Christina baronian good evening hi my name is Christina Brony I teach fourth and fifth grade at Lake Elementary and I want to talk to you about one of my students Isaac his mom came up here earlier to talk to you he has a severe speech impediment he has been bullied for this has a hard time communicating and um being understood by his classmates by
101Me by the staff his mom came up to me at the beginning of the year when is speech starting when is speech starting I'm like I don't know I don't know we were super out of compliance we didn't have one we had a contractor come finally yay somebody hoay it's awful it's not giving him the support he needs he needs an inperson speech therapist so bad so I told don't worry don't worry we're trying to hire more we're trying to get more they're going to come at least by the time he gets to middle school there'll be one and then I just find out we just cut some of the very few inperson we have like this is his right this is his right this is his future do not cut the our next public
102common is sandreen deo you just heard too many heartbreaking stories tonight by now you should realize that last week's vote was a huge mistake you should realize that your vote strips our vulnerable children from their Civil Right to an education you put on a show to pretend that you support our students but your decisions show otherwise we demand that you make a motion to reconsider last week's harmful decision and that you trigger a revote do not cut people do not touch Theus that are for the benefit of English language Learners put your money where your mouth is revote rote rote reot re our next public comment is Emilia Calderon have you ever tried on an outfit that was one size fits all and realize in dismay that the size doesn't actually fit all well there
103are six high schools in this District we all have different student populations so we have different needs and the bell schedule currently set out in our current contract it's just like those really cute overalls that you had to return the one size does not actually fit all I teach newcomers in the Internationals Academy at Richmond High School I'm Emilia Caron yes and one of my students came up to me yesterday was so excited because she actually is in Andrew wilk's banned and she's going to perform in Disneyland unfortunately because of your vote she will not be able to be in banned anymore because we will only be able to have six periods instead of seven so our English language Learners no longer have the opportunity for all the electives like all the other kids if
104you if you really care and I know you do but you need to show it please overturn your vote so that my English language Learners can have the same opportunities as everybody else thank you our next public comment is Gregorio Gutierrez Gregorio Gutierrez Daniel Nathan Hayes everyone um I had something planned to to say tonight but uh after I heard our students talk about Martin Luther King's speech what's what is our life's purpose uh I I that all went out the window that is that speech single-handedly changed my life and uh Mr Aaron stelle ulyses S Grant High School in manise California uh played that speech for me and a line that really stuck out for me was uh the complete education is not just about teaching students concentration it's about providing them with subject
105matter worthy of concentration what the that means is uh my life purpose is here I'm here to listen so I was just elected to the KOST County Board of Education and I want you up here to know that I want to I I want to listen to you and I want to listen to all of you too so my job is to listen my life's purpose is to listen so thank you our next public comment is Richard sna hi everybody uh my name is Mr SNA I teach Spanish and history at penol Valley High School uh I'm also a graduate penol valy high class in 2001 and a parent of two seniors there uh I want to talk about 128 vacancies and what that means and I think we can understand a lot better if
106we talk about what one vacancy means uh when I was in junior high way back in the mid90s uh I didn't have a math teacher for a year and a half at Stewart Middle and guess what I did not leave P high school adg required you can guess what it was it was math that I was behind and that I gave up on shout out to CCC there as a parent my son is is now a senior at our high school he has not had a credential English teacher since freshman year and that teacher by the way chose to leave our district and also pin high school graduate out of here as a teacher let me tell you how I started like a lot of us I'm very thankful for the opportunity West K Kasa
107gave me because 17 years ago I started on an emergency credential those were the hardest teaching years of my life learning the ropes and you are not as effective as you are how many of our non vacancies are brand new people learning the ropes who need support and not getting our kids the education year our next public comment is Lisa alquin Lisa Alin Ivon Orosco um good evening school board members my name is Ivana Rosco I live in San Pablo my son attends Lake Elementary he's in kindergarten um I'm mainly here because I have a hard time believing that the school district cannot provide my son a stable IEP plan it's well over 100 days into a school year and we're still on square one we can't find a school to accommodate him they don't
108want to provide a oneon-one aid for him I just want to know how many of the parents are going through this it's really disheartening it's really discouraging I don't feel like I can lean on the board I don't feel like I can lean on my school district I feel stuck I've had to track down the case manager for my student I've had to find schools that have openings I've had to do everything myself and and it just feels like what are we paying you guys for if you guys can't give us answers if you guys won't answer emails you guys w't answer phone calls it's it's just not making sense honestly and that's my time next public common is mix Joy my name is mix join I'm an alumni from wccusd and currently a fourth
109grade dual language emerging teacher today I Tau a lesson on school budgets Community School boards reserves and the impact of budget cuts my students who are just N9 and 10 years old were heartbroken when they saw the list of teachers staff and programs being cut they immediately recognized how these Cuts would hurt their learnings needs their families and their communities they sat in class looking around and briefly stated If X Y and Z is cut then my classmate X Y and Z can't be or do this and that and that really broke my heart they were thinking of and caring for each other using their words they said that they felt sad and upset that adults would take away the very things that make schools meaningful like Arts social workers and teachers and special language
110education they feel like you don't care about them and they cannot imagine a school or learning without the Essential Elements my fourth grade students and I urge you to resign these cuts and to commit to funding our schools in a way that truly serves our students we need a budget that reflects our values one that prioritizes people over sa savings classrooms over bureaucracy and students over spread our next public comment is Ain callentine hello board and I'd like to say a special greeting to the returning and the new student trustee thank you so much for your work um I Heard trusty Gonzalez Hoy today say that your voice is critical but I ask you are you listening to the students here are you listening to your parents if you lock kids in a room without
111a teacher and require them to be there for a year how is that different than prison significantly I'm so sorry but we are failing our students I started here at Kennedy I started in a challenging spot and I found that I had a real passion for actually trying to one-on-one work with children who need a lot we cannot have speech and language Pathologists online that's a civil rights problem if our voices are important why are you silencing everyone who is already silenced why is it the poorest why is it the disabled why is it our second language Learners and our newcomers who feel these Cuts we have millions of dollars in reserve our next public comment is Andre brunetti good evening so my question is what is your vision for our school district you're trying
112to cut an elementary program Vista it is safe a safe ha for students who don't feel safe in person students that are not vaccinated or have nowhere to else to go students who are at home Hospital study and are able to continue their learning while they recover students who are neurodivergent and can't have their needs met in person or students don't fit the mold in person and Excel on their own like you heard about from riy who plays chess one chess tournaments who learn at their own pace if you need to make make Cuts I ask you to cut from other areas think outside the box keep them far away from the students and our teachers for example aren't you looking for a new superintendent and hiring a consulting firm for lots of money can't
113just go to pay off a lot more teachers for next year our district is admin heavy y'all I implore you to look other ways to make your Cuts you say that our school doesn't generate enough Ada but if you look at all the family of schools that we have there's more than enough covered I ask you to give us a year in order to advertise at our school and build enrollment and please listen to us our next public comment is Evelyn sto Evelyn sto Elise Frank at the beginning of this meeting when welcoming the student trustees you told them that this was an opportunity for them to be on the right side of history and to participate in a structure that makes decisions with them instead of for them I wake up every day and
114choose to teach to be in a classroom where no matter what is going on in our political system or what is going on in our country and our world I have an opportunity to work with my students to create a space that is fair where we all are seen we all are heard and we can work together to learn this board has an opportunity to honor the promise that you made to the student trustees to make decisions with them instead of for them the community has shown up urging you to work with us and to make decisions together instead of choosing what to do for us thank you okay I believe we're at the end of half an hour how many comments are left please seven would we like to continue yes yes yes yes
115yes okay let's finish up the rest of them thank you our next comment is Tony I'm sorry Marissa shade my name is Marissa Shada and I'm a tk12 speech language mythologist SLP at Vermont Elementary I came in this evening while still out on my maternity leave because what I have to say cannot wait just like the students who I help find their voice I want you to hear mine I left my infant home this evening with my spouse so that you can see and hear with your own eyes the impact of your decisions there are some slps who have upwards of 70 students on their case loads and an average is usually around 50 to 55 students however recently these numbers continue to increase these increases IND uh indicate the need for more slps rather
116than fewer because there is only so much time in a day to see students for therapy schedule and attend meetings conduct assessments write thorough reports and medical documentation tk12 slps are overworked and burnt out the recent approval of cuts of five full-time slps is not the answer for a department that is already understaffed and overworked our students and families deserve better we deserve better I implore you all this evening to rethink your actions and decisions thank our next public common is Erica Johnson Erica Johnson Kristen KAS yes hello everyone I'm Kristen KAS I currently teach at Kensington I've been an educator in our district for 30 years and pretty much every year for 30 years I've heard the same Doom and Gloom we have no money we have to cut services and most of those
117years when you look at the actual Revenue the district had you underestimated the revenue by millions or tens of millions of dollars I encourage you to work with our Union um your own data of your un AED actuals shows that you had many millions dollars more in revenue and yet you consistently want to cut vital services and cut and pay less for educator salaries than surrounding districts and then you wonder why students don't want to stay here and Educators don't want to stay here um I encourage you to work with our Union work with our communities and parents and truly prioritize the students and the needs of educators next public communist Clara Akerman hi I'm Clara Akerman I am a prechool SLP with the district and I just wanted to urge you guys to reconsider
118your cuts um if it's really all about the money what are you going to do to cover the legal fees when students are not getting their m mated Services I mean there's many students many e Tha that have not been met since I've started working for the district many students who've had compensatory Services which they were never given only those parents that were the most persistent ever received their compensatory services for Miss services this is the problems that we have now before you cut five more slps also about these virtual sessions a student ahead last year was four years old id and autism had begun to communicate via simple signs has been pushed into a virtual SLP I walked into his class to talk to a teacher the other day they were holding him into
119his chair to get him to attend to the virtual SLP is vastly inappropriate and appalling thank you next public comment is Grace Jordan Grace Jordan thank you for your time my name is Grace Jordan I'm a mother of four uh I appreciate the magnitude of concerns that have been raised here this evening I'm requesting direct contact to assist with the interdistrict transfer I'm also requesting a meeting with the superintendent to ensure that my son's needs are met he has been diagnosed with autism he is entering kindergarten the timelines are tight for kindergarten I want to ensure that he has given every opportunity to succeed I will continue to stand in the Gap and this is not going to be the only time you hear from me because it has been apparent that the amount of
120services that are being cut for our children is it it is unacceptable unacceptable so his civil rights will be violated when he is attending a school that is not making his priority the ability to learn and a nation that his rights need need to be considered so again my name is Grace Jordan I have tried to reach out to the school district I have never gotten a call back I have emailed you and you will continue to hear from me talk to Moses for you have somebody reach out to her and get her phone number please thank you and our last public comment is Ed Moore good evening board teachers staff um um I would like to take this time to recognize uh a dedicated worker in our school district Alfredo norga Lopez he began
121his journey as a food delivery uh delivering food for the first uh Food Services uh then he went to Richmond High as a maintenance worker and later served as plumber's assistant at our M Services sadly Alfredo passed away on February 10th 2025 um in his honor I would like to request a moment of silence thank you that concludes public comment hey thank you to everyone who gave public comment this evening we are moving president reckler sorry point of order there was one more hand on Zoom thank you let's go we we've resolved that yes it's resolved great thank you thank you to everybody who gave public comment we are moving now to B10 standing reports we have Asad the cboc and United teachers of Richmond is there anybody here in person to make that report
122for we'll start with ASAP is that is online okay okay we'll start with Asad if there if she's online thank you clock for five minutes please Mr laon Harrison yeah can you hear me I'm sorry good evening thank you all for giving us this time I won't probably take the whole five minutes um I just wanted to share with you all um like I briefly shared in public comment um I did attend two AAC meetings at sites and I am very honored to you know see that things are progressing definitely not as fast as we would like them to see them progress um but they are progressing um and we haven't ask and I think I mentioned it last month um we are looking for our elant so truste if you are going to appoint
123someone to work with us that would be awesome sauce um we the last SP trustee um president did appoint someone to be our lant and I would like that to happen again because there's a lot of work and the uh oasa office is dwindling and we need to have some clear communication and some support with the work we want to do to service our um parents and our students so that would be of a great assistance if you would do that or at least follow up with us on where that is with you all doing that that would be good and then also um we would like also to um the executive committee of ASAT would like to meet with the board around the resolution and to see how are you guys going to support
124that if supporting it and where what areas and things will you guys be doing in the future what are your plans to ensure that our children um academic needs are being met like all other students and um the the data needs to be improved and what is your plans we did get an excellent presentation from the district and thank you for that um that was very good and and it and and it's really the uh presentations are getting better they're um more easier to read and they are they're more informative of what we're asking for so I want to thank um summer and Katherine for that and that that their presentations and all the other directors that presented to the uh Martin that presented to um ASAP and I just want to also bring up
125the difficult things that we're working with um we I I did Jam Smith po trusty said that we do have a slur policy um I just kind of want to hear more about that and how um the district is going to work with the the students we have our students trustees up there around using the nword and how we can support um everyone with a culture where that word is not causing harm so um I expect to hear from you all the board and seeing how you guys are going to support parents and students around the issues I brought forth and I'm complete for tonight thank you okay next on our list we have the cboc citizens Bond oversight committee good evening you know it's been about four years since there's been a report made
126by the cboc to the board of education and the public my name is Don gney and I will be the cboc chair for 2025 and I hope to make a report at every board meeting where I'm allowed to speak just as background been with the bond program since 1998 before the program was official and I've attended almost every cboc meeting since they started about 22 years ago I've served longer on the cboc than any other person at more than 11 years I've chaired every committee on the cboc and this would be my fourth term as the chair for those that may be new to the cboc in the November election back in 2000 the good people of California passed Proposition 39 there were three key components to a prop 39 it reduced what it takes
127to pass a bond from 23 down to 55% it codified that Charter Schools would then forth be public schools and eligible to receive the same funding from the state that Traditional School Public public schools receed and it requires the establishment of a community-based independent oversight body to ensure that the bond funds were properly spent it also required five uh mandated positions one member shall be an active in a business organization representing the business Community located within the district one member shall be an active and an improved senior citizens organization one member of a bonafied taxpayers organization a parent or guardian of a current District of student a parent or guardian of a current District student and a member of a PTA organization there are issues with those requirements but you'll have to tune in next
128month to learn more about these the last comment about the makeup of the cboc is that once approved the cboc or serves a two-year term with no more than three consecutive terms board policy then requires these volunteers to sit out a great while while being allowed to apply before being allowed to apply again we have independent legal opinions that suggest that this waiting period may be excessive when the district is is desperate to fill these seats wouldn't it make sense to find ways to be more inclusive rather than exclusive the primary purpose of the cboc is to review the bond programs financial and report and project reports everything after that is just icing on the cake problem that cboc has had in the past four to five years is that the district simply has not
129been able to provide the Great facilities team that we that they have with the Personnel to prepare these reports in the past year we've only received Financial reports about 25% of the time just two days ago the cboc hosted a meeting where we tried to focus on these Financial reports but we only had about half of what we asked for un needed please make it make let me make it clear that the facilities team is putting in 26-hour days with many members of the team doing double triple and even quadruple Duty I come from the house of Labor and I stand behind working men and women 24/7 I empathize with what they are doing on the other hand the district has an obligation to meet the needs of the public which includes the cboc I
130know that the board faces similar problems when it comes to fulfilling the educational needs of our students in both cases you need more people but in order to provide more people you need to find a way to pay them and from what has been happening at these board meetings in the past couple of weeks the money is just not there is it while you're trying to figure out how to educate the kids without teachers in the classrooms maybe you can also consider how to house the students when you don't have any classrooms at our cboc meeting on Monday night our plate was filling over and we only had time for about onethird of the agenda items we had to defer many items to Future meetings we stri meetings down to two hours but that can
131be super tough my policy is to give everyone the chance to speak and ask the questions they need answers for as long as this is all relevant nonetheless there is often isn't enough time it can be frustrating for me trying to take care of all of our business while still getting our cbers back to their families while the night is still young for everyone who participated or watched Monday's meeting I apologize oliz for allowing my frustrations to get the better of me at the end of the meeting I was rightfully chastised for my tone and I apologize for that aside from reviewing reports about the bond program we are drafting a new set of bylaws our internal rules that helped us to conduct our Affairs they this will be a timeconsuming venture but it's critical
132one of the key components of these bylaws will address our minutes speaking only for myself it has always been my belief that a regular person should be able to pick up a set of minutes and have a reasonable expectation of understanding what happened at the meeting in recent years at both the board meetings and many of the Committees the minutes have been scant in Conta our goal with cboc is to include enough information that if if investigative bodies like the grand jury the FBI and even the media were to look closely at what we do that we'd be bulletproof I was here the last time these investigations body storms in our into our house and the time before that and it was not a pleasant time please the revie plus the review and acceptance of
133minutes should be a simple consent calendar item and not dominate items be a dominant item in I me we also need to explain to the public why we're spending $660 million of their dollars on Kennedy Richmond and stge so as much as staff will allow we'll have site visits so we can see firsthand where this money is going there are many tens of thousands of our neighbors who want to know why their schools may never be rebuilt and we need to have answers for them our next schedule meeting of the cboc is at 6:15 on Monday the 10th of March at the facilities building at, 1400 Marina Way South here in Richmond all are welcome to attend and participate a couple weeks later thank you our next standing report comes from United teachers of Richmond
134five minutes on the clock please good evening trustees staff and Beloved Community tonight I stand before you not just as a president of the United teachers of Richmond but also as someone whose life was shaped by the very Educators this district is now threatening to but when I was a child my parents made a painful decision like so many immigrant families they were working long hours barely making ends me and they wanted a better life for me so they sent me to Mexico to live with my grandparents for two years when I returned to Richmond and enrolled in our district I was a six-year-old who didn't have a single word of English I remember sitting in that classroom feeling alone embarrassed and Confused remember looking at my teacher not understanding her words but feeling the
135warmth of her patience the kindness in her words and the certainty that she would not give up on me and she didn't day after day my teachers who's overworked underpaid and too often unappreciated Educators made sure I had what I needed to succeed they taught me English yes but they also taught me how to advocate for myself how to navigate between two languages in Two Worlds they gave me the skills to help my parents to translate for them at doctor's appointments at school meetings at stores and at Banks they gave me dignity and they gave me something else too two a belief in public education I'm here today because my teachers fought for me but I worry deeply about the students sitting in our classrooms right now students who need those Champions but who not
136who may not have them because this district is making choices that push Educators out instead of bringing them in because that was because that's what these cuts are a choice a choice to prioritize numbers on a spreadshe over the students and their teachers and that choice will hurt our students for years to come our district head it values Equity it says it's committed to anti-racism it says it wants to recruit and retain teachers we as United teachers of Richmond share those values we believe that every student regardless of zip code their background or their home language deserves a qualified caring educator we believe that true Equity means ensuring that our most vulnerable students our English Learners our students with disabilities our bipo students get the resources they need not less we believe that stability is
137essential for Student Success and we know that stability only happens when Educators can afford to stay but year after year our district makes choices that undermine those values and let's be clear these Cuts will devastate our classrooms who will help a child who like me walks into school on the first day not knowing a word of English who will stay after class with the student who was falling behind whose parents are working two jobs who has no one at home to help them with homework who will be there to fight for our special education students when we already lack the resources to meet their needs the truth is we already have we're already at a Breaking Point and these Cuts will push us past it the real numbers tell a different story The District is
138not meeting the legal 55% requirement for classroom compensation last year the district spent only 51% on classroom compensation falling short of the legal requirement by $ 11.4 million the district is proposing even more cuts that will move us further from non-compliance the district claims that 84% of its budget is spent on staff salaries and benefits but when you look at the actual numbers the real percentage is 74 not 84% this 10% discrepancy equals to $53 million that the district claims to be spending on staff but is not the district's own position control report list 1,67 total FTE but only 1,478 are filled that means 129 unfilled positions and using the district's own estimate of $145,000 per FTE that's 18.7 million in projected spending that will go unspent instead of using those funds to fully staff
139our schools the district is choosing to make even more Cuts over the past five years fund 17 has grown by over 120% the district has been growing its reserves while claiming that there isn't enough money to keep our school stable we call on you now to have the courage like other districts that have refused to take the easy way out Dublin unified's board rejected Staffing reductions and told the superintendent to find the cuts elsewhere Fairfield has not made any staff reductions in the last five years despite facing similar enrollment trends wccusd must do the same the district cannot keep threatening students with instability our students deserve more than empty words about Equity the board has a choice you can take the easy we out approve these Cuts destabilize our schools and tell our students and
140teachers that they don't matter or you can do what's right you can reject these Cuts you can fight for the Educators who fight for our students every day because we are watching our families are watching our students are watching will you let them down or will you fight for them the choice is yours thank you and just as to close I really want to also appreciate trusty H uh mosa Jr last year for being the sole no vote on those cuts thank you thank you to all who gave standing reports we are moving now to b11 updated superintendent search timeline and that item is mine and it is for information only on January 22nd 2025 the board held a special session to begin the search for a permanent superintendent a timeline outlining the various stages
141of search was presented at that meeting on February 1st 2025 Minor Adjustments were made to that timeline they are presented once again just for informational purposes February 10 to 21 was added as the primary Community engagement period with February 24 to 28 change to an as needed period the updated timeline is attached to this item and the online survey is now open for feedback you may go to the district's website and take take the online survey please do that and and spread the word that concludes item b11 B12 agenda review and adoption does the board have anything on the agenda that they would like to adjust I would like to make a suggestion that we vote now to extend the meeting to 10:30 since we're supposed to end at 10 may I have a second
142on that motion I'll second your motion president but I was wondering if uh we could potentially move the elcap presentation to the next meeting can we move the elcap presentation to the next meeting we could do that but it would make the next meeting a long meeting so the question is do you want to stay tonight or do you want to stay at the next meeting I mean I don't want to stay late at any meeting but um I guess we'll just have to be as effective as possible tonight okay so I have a motion to extend to 10:30 with a second from Gonzalez Hoy uh we'll go to vote student trustee esposa Jr yes student trusty Baron yes trusty Hernandez yes cler yes trusty gonal soy yes trusty smithold smithf yes reckler is a
143yes we'll extend the meeting to 10:30 and please be as concise as possible so perhaps we can get out of here early C Business items does anybody want to pull anything from consent seeing none may we approve the consent items as presented accept them as presented yes okay we are now up to item D superintendent communication Dr Moses this is is your item thank you thank you so much president rler could we pull up the report and that i' like to start off the superintendent's report um by acknowledging this picture of our flag poll at Bissell Avenue at our district headquarters uh demonstrating the panafrican flag next slide we'd like to begin by acknowledging our staff members who have um passed away U this first slide is um an emotional one for me this is
144announcing the passing of Elaine Newman uh Miss Newman passed away on June January 28th 2025 she was 76 she began her teaching career in 1990 in Cleveland Public Schools she joined wccusd in 1995 after relocating to Richmond California during the 9596 school year she was hired as a full-time teacher at Wilson Elementary School where she remained even Beyond her official retirement I had the pleasure of uh being the principal at Wilson for four years working alongside Mrs Newman and uh I'd like you to ask I'd like to ask you now to join me in a moment of silence for Miss Newman thank you next slide we don't we like to also recognize the contributions of our counselor from the Hercules family I regret to inform you that Philip Morgan a retired counselor from Hercules Middle
145High School recently passed away Mr Morgan worked for the school district for 32 years before retiring in 2023 he started his career with the district in 1991 as a teacher at Mira Vista Madera and Ford Elementary in 1992 he became a project assistant at elero high school and later in his career he changed a counselor at Porta Middle School he then transferred to Hercules middle school as a counselor and he was a great educator for that community and all of the communities he served our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Mr philli Morgan please join me in a moment of silence thank you next slide happy Black History Month we'd like to share with you our ceremony a few minutes of the ceremony that we held at um our district
146headquarters at our flag raising ceremony uh there's a short video accompanying this slide could you bring up the video Rosa and enlarge as well I need to share sound this video will honor some of our internal um Heroes of black history within the westc Costa Unified School District no sound okay without sound oh there we go they did not only for African-American students but for all students African leaders now have schools named after them in this District I want to acknowledge three instrumental people um that are a part of our African-American history in West Contra Casta the first person I'd like to honor is Mrs Wy my African-American principal at King Elementary School who during the month of February made sure that every student at King Elementary School knew and say the black national anthem
147every morning after the pledge that planted the foundation for pride in our culture and pride uh among black folks in Richmond we weren't African-American then yet uh but I also want to acknowledge our principal at John F Kennedy High School Dr Sylvester Greenwood and Miss lvan Dean both principles have a legacy in its District of the work that they did not only for africanamerican students but for all students these African-American leaders now have schools named after them in this district and I think it's important that as we celebrate our history as we celebrate our heritage we don't forget about those who paved the way for us not just historically but most recently and in our space here in westc Casta so let's give them a round of applause [Applause] uh this amazing event then continued
148with the raising of the panafrican flag uh we had a lively crowd supporting this event and we'd like to appreciate uh Mr ardarius McDonald and U Miss Katherine aosta rascus for ensuring that this event took place thank you next slide Happy Valentine's Day from West contracosta Unified School District on this Valentine's Day we thank our dedicated staff our committed board members our committed uh supportive community members for the love passion and care that you bring to our district together we create an environment where students can Thrive we are grateful for each of you and the positive impact that you make every day within our schools and our departments wishing you all a day filled with love and appreciation Happy Valentine's Day next slide we'd like to celebrate the Hercules Middle High School science building opening
149um we were uh we had held a ceremony a ribbon cutting ceremony to officially um open this building and we'd like to share just a 30- second clip of this Lively event could you please start the that's not it there we go [Music] and [Music] [Applause] [Music] we'd like to thank our president uh Leslie record president of the board Leslie record and Trustee of area one Jima Smith folds for supporting this event and um coming for this ceremonious occasion uh we were gathered in full force in the rain uh for this uh Testament of the district's unwavering commitment to Excellence and stem educ ation it was inspiring um students were highly engaged and they gave tours and it was a wonderful event for all who attended and that building will bring a lot of joy
150to that community and enhance their stem education for years to come next slide I'd like to celebrate we are in assessment season we are currently undergoing assessments at all of our schools K to 12 and uh we'd like to announce that already even though we're not we haven't commenced the or completed the cycle of Assessments 23 of our schools are already meeting our Benchmark of 95% uh of participation rate in the I assessments for reading and math congratulations to those schools we'd also like to shout out elero high school they were recently granted a six-year wasque accreditation status through June 30th 2020 2031 great job elero St next slide uh during the month of February so far uh we've been able to visit uh four schools on our Friday visits and I wanted to share
151uh photos here from our visits to King Harding Fairmont and Madera uh we got to enjoy the H 100th day of school at King and we observed a lot of the Arts uh artifacts around uh Harding Elementary School and had an awesome some time visiting the Fairmont teachers as they delivered instruction next slide third annual performance day the East Space Center for Performing Arts is holding its thir uh third annual performance day on February 13th it's going to feature 150 students from dejon Helms Kennedy and Richmond High there'll be workshops in uh lots of different areas and the day will end with performances from each band in a concert by quintetto Latina Latino so if you can attend uh please Ure you enjoy that event next Slide the Golden State Warriors Inspire East space students
152with basketball camp and stem training uh they hosted a basketball camp for students and uh we had some attendees from our district and we'd like to acknowledge that great work and the partnership with the Golden State Warriors in particular Donald foil gifting students tickets to an upcoming Warriors game next slide enjoy your break uh staff and board members we have we want to acknowledge the challenges and successes that this year has brought it's time for all of us to unplug and relax and take this time to reset this break is well deserved and we hope that it's going to provide the time for rest and rejuvenation so that we can continue to focus on the work for our children working together to build a bright future for them thank you for your continued dedication and
153hard work and enjoy that break next slide yester I'm sorry Tuesday yesterday there was a science Fair held at elero high school for all of West Contra Casta schools it was an exciting event 19 schools were represented I wanted to share some photos from that event and just ackn the great job that was done by our students uh the preparation that their teachers have provided with them so thank you teachers and the science department did an awesome job putting this event together and ensuring that there were judges from the community and our Community Partners to uh hold this great event I do believe that the award ceremony for this event will be happening tomorrow evening and uh we look forward to that ceremony thank you next slide the Richmond promise scholarship is uh underway they
154are offering $1,500 per school year with at least four years of funding guaranteed um we'd like to invite students to apply for this opportunity it is not a competitive scholarship and does not require any GPA or income limits so please uh check out the information the deadline to apply is March 14th next slide we are still undergoing our new family enrollment for all grades and for TK we want to encourage families to spread the word and if you have new students who will be new to our system please enroll as soon as possible so that we can prepare for your students next slide I'd like to acknowledge our parent advisory committees uh we encourage all of our families to engage in in our district through committee work and sharing your input and learning about the
155great things that are happening across our district this is a list of the parent advisory committees and uh we invite you and encourage you to attend one of these meetings and learn about how we support one another with the education of our students next slide and these are two District committees the cboc and the 7-Eleven committee we'd like to encourage your participation in these meetings as well next slide that concludes the superintendent's report thank you for your attention thank you so much for that report does anybody have any questions if I can ask when uh what times and where is that espace Center Performing Arts um event if you don't have the information now if the if we could just get that yes I'll make sure one of the team members gets that time for
156us great it sounds terrific okay seeing no further questions on that we actually have no action items tonight so we're moving to F discussion items and reports and F1 2024 2025 lcap midyear update report and discussion good evening again president reckler Clerk inana and members of the school Community this evening we are Happ to provide you with a medor review of alcap implementation we do want to note before we begin today that we did have to make a few corrections to the presentation and this version is available and uploaded to the board agenda and it's labeled as revised next slide okay so we included in our presentation an executive summary tonight try to move is it hard to hear me there that better okay um thank you we will be discussing the review today of
157the progress of the implementation of strategies goals and budgeted actuals today in our presentation you will see that we're going to be a that we were able to implement most of our strategies that we Dillan need in the plan that was presented to this board in August we spent about 50% of the budget which is in line to where we should be about this this year and while the state data is in from last year we don't yet have some of the local indicators yet which is essential to be able to ensure our goals are on track like Dr Moses just mentioned our schools are currently engaging in that and we will be presenting that um in upcoming meetings next slide so specifically today we're going to present each goal with updated midyear key data
158we're going to highlight the implementation successes we're going to speak to the challenges we're going to present estimated actuals by goal and this presentation is going to stay really high level overview however we do want you to note that as part of the attachments we have a very detailed report and data that aligns to each program and strategy as well as the estimated actuals for each action of the outat and we also want you to know that um that is attached and has a lot more dat that is not included in this presentation next slide we also recognize that we use a lot of acronyms and education and we got really great feedback from our dlap committee and have included a key to make sure that we're all speaking the same language next slide so
159as part of today's presentation we're going to be reviewing goals one through five of our lcap it's authentic engagement Universal systems and accessible support support Relentless attention to achievement students with disabilities targeted intervention and support and these are all goals that are written as broad goals with all of our district students in mind because over 70% of our district body meets the eligibility of the unduplicated pupil count however we want you to know that the targeted actions that are within each goal are there to address the red indicators for our student groups and now I'm going to pass it over to associate super attendent summer Sigler who's going to kick us off with Goal one next slide thank you goal one includes a series of programs and strategies designed to engage students and families and
160support our staff in cyclically analyzing our Stu our school climate supports collecting data understanding student and family experience and providing enriching experiences that support the child we are monitoring data there's many data points that we are monitoring pertaining to this goal but two that we are running on a monthly Cadence are our suspension rates and our chronic absenteeism rates so as you can see year to dat um we have continued to reduce chronic absenteeism by 15% and we have also seen our suspensions trending in the right direction you will note year-to date we have gaps in the data for our socioeconomically disadvantaged and students with disabilities um that is just in how the data is gathered we can get that but it's not something we can run on a monthly Cadence the same way we
161can grab the other pieces uh we are more relying on cow pads for that data next slide please we've had some successes that's far the tiered Fidelity index is a climate rubric that we use to assess systems and implementation of positive behavior intervention and supports our teams have completed TFI walkthroughs with climate teams at every single School site for the first time we're excited about that uh and principles have received the data and been able to reflect we have reduced the disproportionality rate in the suspension of African-American students from 2.7 to 2.3 80% of our community schools piloted family-led conferences and we look forward to expanding that 100% of our elementary schools offer band or orchestra in grades four through six and we know that to dat we've had over 1,800 students participating in those
162Elementary music programs additionally we have in increased the use of other means of Correction in lie of suspension by 83% 100% of our community schools have reported high functioning care teams and we've had 69% um favorable responses on our Kelvin screener which is really a leadup to the California Healthy Kids Next slide please we still have work cut out for us uh we know that we still need to improve overall attendance as well as chronic absenteeism while we've reduced the disproportionality index for our suspensions they remain disproportional so we've moved in a positive direction and we need to keep rolling up our sleeves and working at this indicator um per our surveys only 5% of District students feel they've been engaged in meaning decision Mak and that's certainly a critical data point to work at
163and while we have social emotional curriculum for all schools we know that the implementation is not as streamlined and standardized as it could be next slide please when we look at the programs uh we have colorcoded the specific strategies around implementation so in program 3110 positive School culture and climate we have partially implemented uh and really partially implemented because we are part of the way through the school year but we have launched implementation on all but one strategy and if you look at strategy one the back in communication that is the California healthy kids survey it is only yellow because we just opened the window uh so we haven't done it yet but we absolutely will if we look through program 3110 parent engagement and volunteer Outreach we have launched implementation of all of the
164strategies next slide please and last through our whole child program 4240 we have launched all of the strategies embedded in this program next slide please so as of January 31st we have expended 37% of the budget for the action strategies and interventions associated with Goal one the breakdown of expenses is as follows 3.1% have been spent on certificated salaries 22.35 on class rated Sal salaries 16.27% on employee benefits 1% materials and supplies and 2.98% on contracts and services so we are on our way to spending the budget that is aligned with the services and I'm pleased to pass it over uh to Dr Johnson to speak around go two thank you through goal two goal two Universal systems and accessible support we intend to ensure that each West contracosta student is provided with the highest
165quality education to Foster anti-racist inclusive and accessible learning environments next Slide by looking at this data you will find the key metrics guiding the effectiveness of go two which includes teacher absences teacher retention and teacher experience in the midyear update we were able to include an update from 2023 2024 which is showing promising results of 31% % reduction in teacher absences and a 2% increase in teacher retention next slide additionally we are proud of the implementation of the teacher induction program which currently has 134 teachers enrolled and this cohort of teachers is highly supported by I would say my team but I will shout out our coordinator Kristen ly to use data to drive instruction using inquiry Cycles through weekly collaboration and PD operations opportunities excuse me next slide an area of improvement continues to
166be the ongoing vacancies that remain in our district and with students at the center of the decision we were able to partially address address these concerns with the reassignment of central Insight staff we also need to think creatively about how to address difficult to fill positions in special education math and DLI which continue to be difficult to recruit and to retain and finally as you saw in our key data we have seen a slight reduction in our staff with three plus years of experience and we are working to address this as we want to retain our talented Educators next slide here is a review of both of the programs within goal 2 program 1760 additional staff for identified schools and program 2315 employee Recruitment and Retention as you can see from our Co colorcoded implementation
167level we are on a way to fill partial implementation of most of our strategies however we have not yet been able to act on strategy four focus on increasing the number of black African-American Educators we had faced we have faced limited limitations in attending recruitment College fairs at our historically black colleges and universities and a low percentage of students of colors who graduating from schools of Education nevertheless by fostering Partnerships with these institutions we are still able to effectively communicate our commitment to recruiting students of color next slide as of January 31 2025 85.2 5% of budgeted costs for supporting the implementation of actions strategies and interventions associated with go two have been expended the breakdown of expenses is as follows 56.1 18% for certificated salaries and wages 1% for classified salaries and wages 28.6
168four for employee benefits and less than 1% for Combined costs of materials and supplies and contracts and services the remainder of the budget is expected to be expended through the end of the school year and now I will pass it back to our associate superintendant Katherine aosta for prosess to review goal three next slide please excellent so through goal three Relentless attention to achievement we're aiming to empower each student to graduate with the essential skills to be College and Career ready in a multilingual technology driven world next slide and like I mentioned while our ready assessment data is not yet available until March we have provided the most recent dashboard release data from 2324 so as you can see we submitted Baseline data from 2223 and just updated the 2324 data which is last year
169data and will become our new Baseline once we review the measures that come in over the summer so it's important to note that this within this data we've noticed a significant growth in our foster youth achievement for ELA for Math and graduation rate as well as a significant increase of graduation rate of our students with disabilities and we also have to note that we saw decline within our English learners for ELA and graduation rate next slide metrics guiding College and Career indicators also show a slight change in the data with Foster youth again showing growth in the two of the three categories and we also noted a large increase in our El students who are CTE and a to G course completers next slide and then our data for our CTE pathway completers remain consistent
170however we did see a 31% drop in the total number of students taking AP exam which is about 437 students and a 21% drop which is about 136 students who scored three or above in 2324 so our Central team is really digging into that data and coordinating with our AP coordinators to be able to understand that Gap and address it next slide and so goal 3 is kind of our big goal right it's our achievement goal and the implementation of the six programs that are supporting goal three are fully underway and we're happy to report that we've really been engaged in supporting the capacity building for our site leaders and our Central leadership has supported districtwide data analysis to be able to support our leaders to really focus on student groups when studying our state
171and our local data so we have um a data Summit at the beginning of the year and this data Summit will happen again once our I ready assessments are completed at the end of this month our sites are also using a common instructional observation rubric called the instructional practice guide It's the ipg that we frequently refer to and this is in an effort to really support tier one instruction we've held nine learning walks across the district by area so Network one holding one network Network 2 Network 3 and we're really supporting our leaders to be able to go into the classroom use this tool collectively and then really have conversations about how to move instruction and I'm happy to report that thus far we've logged 334 observations using the district ipg capture tool giving us
172insightful information about what instruction is looking like across the district we've expanded paid internship opportunities from 20 placements to 65 placement across our six high schools and for the first time ever we're working towards the creation of a 4-year graduation plan through our school links College and Career Readiness platform our plan for this year is to ensure that eighth grade through 11th grade students learn about high school graduation requirements ad College admission requirements for UC and CSU advanced placement and Career Technical education courses and use the school link to be able to create the four-year High School graduation plans and as of today we have six middle school and KH starting the planning and one high school and in fact today deanza held a session with a total of 1,158 students districtwide who already started
173this four-year plan and of those students 365 already submitted their plans to their counselors for review and finally we are very proud to be able to share that District wide we're seeing a high level of usage of our CERN math digital practice and two-thirds of our Ka students are logging in each week and averaging almost two lessons a week which is really great and we're hoping to see some um large math growth from that next slide we absolutely also have some areas of improvement in teaching and learning and um as you know uh like Dr Johnson mentioned we did uh make the difficult decisions to reassign and prioritize our classroom vacancies and the teaching and learning Department was highly impacted by these reassignments of central staff um this was a a large strategy around our
174capacity building and so we're trying to still do the same capacity building strategies with a few less people and our team is problem solving to make sure that those commitments are still in place um even though we have less people we're also in discussions to Sol problems solve issues um in terms of being able to um see consistent standard-based instruction across the district so one of the things that we're noticing across our learning walks in the district is that we're using a lot of different uh curricular tools and we're not always seeing rigorous tier one instruction in the classroom it's not always aligned to the common cor state standards and so we believe that this is impacted by a lack of alignment in our professional development um a a limited time for collaborations for our
175Educators and because we don't yet have an aligned cohesive vision for the instructional program across our departments and so we are going to be working um last board meeting we approved the mini Grant we got from the county as part of our differentiated assistance from westad to be able to really focus our leadership at the central level to start building a really cohesive plan to make sure that every single Department in our district is working in the same direction towards this goal next slide and so like my colleagues have gone through we've um colorcoded our strategies and as you can see um we've fully implemented program 000000 allocations to schools and implemented the $3.8 million to support spsa at school sites in terms of Elementary Support Program 1250 is it is important to note that
176strategy 2 Elementary prep teachers is labeled read because these teachers were reassigned to support the vacancies across the district the work however is still plan is happening through the strategy and the intention and the goal behind the strategy was to allow teachers additional time to be able to support tier one instruction and data driven instruction and now that is occurring outside of school hours and our teachers are getting paid paid for that planning time and then finally program 1250 Secondary School support has implemented all the strategies as expected next slide and finally our program supporting supplemental instructional program multilingual support program and evaluation program is implemented as planned next slide and here are our budget estimated actuals uh 31.3 5% of the budget costs for supporting the implementation of actions of goal three have been
177expended the breakdown of the expenses are as followed 13.78% for certificated salaries and wages 4.7% for classified salaries and wages 7.94 for employee benefits 1% for materials and supplies and 3% for contracts and services and the remainder of the budget is expected to be expended through the end of the year and now I'll pass it on to our Sela director Mr Guthrie fman for the review of go four next slide thank you thank you very much um can you hear me now okay sorry about that um thank you very much Katherine um through go four students with disabilities um we aim to accelerate academic growth for students with disabilities by providing adaptive resources to supplement programming and accelerate academic growth next slide please uh for our key data set uh guid and goal four we
178have highlighted all student data and the data for students with disabilities uh for comparison as you can see we are happy to report that our students with disabilities increased significantly from 2223 to 22 23 24 in graduation rate a pattern we expect to see continue to grow we also saw a reduction of suspensions by 1.2% as well as a decrease in chronic absenteeism of 4.1% and these are all healthy signs uh for student for the student group targeted with this goal next slide please um however when we look at achievement for students with disabilities we remained uh we maintained in math but declined in ela so that is a concern that we will continue to monitor um there are some successes here that we can report this one actually is um very significant uh we
179are no longer uh considered disproportionate for uh African American students identified with emotional disability and we are no longer considered disproportionate thank you Dr CH uh we are no longer considered disproportionate for white students in non-public schools um not at all insignificant gains um which we are very proud of uh in this moment um also happy to report that our speech therapists are um through this funding able to provide RTI which is response to intervention um and early intervention services um to students to to um often avoid uh further assessment over assessment and overidentification there are thank you um there are some um areas of improvement that we need to um continue to work on we are still disproportionate uh for African-American students in the areas of discipline um and uh other health impairment identification
180um we also have a need to continue to grow and Implement our early intervention strategies um again to offset and and avoid over assessment and overidentification next slide please um for our program updates um uh you see here that uh we have a review of goal four with program 4260 uh multi-tier system of support uh as you can see from our colorcoded uh implementation level we are at full or part partial implementation for all of our Strate iies however I do need to point out that um strategy 3 supplemental adaptive curriculum actually this year was moved off of lcap and into a different funding source so this is no longer um uh in this uh plan however because it was initially there uh we wanted to continue to identify it um and then lastly as
181of January 31st uh 52.9% of the budgeted cost for supporting the implementations of actions strategies and interventions associated with go four have been expended uh the breakdown of expenses is as follows 36.9 4% of certificated salaries and wages uh 45% for classified salaries and wages uh I'm sorry 0 45% for classified salaries and wages uh 15.46% for employee benefits and no recorded expenses for materials and supplies uh as I mentioned that was moved off of uh this funding source um and the remainder of the budget is expected to be expended uh through the end of this school year and I will pass it back to Katherine for go five thank you so through goal five targeted intervention and support we aim to accelerate academic growth and reduce disproportionate outcomes for our focal student groups including
182Foster youth homeless English language Learners African-American students and latinx students next slide and so here we see our English English learner progress indicator the elpi or lb um and this slightly dropped from the 2223 to the 2425 school year the elpi levels relies on the elpac student performance with consecutive years of data and as you can see in the data both for level one and level four we demonstrated growth students on level one are largely part of the English Learners that have been in the country for less than two years and this growth could be and our team believes is as tributed and credited to our newcomer Academy model at the secondary level and the language and literacy program in the elementary level you can also see in the data that both level two and
183three however declined students who are designated at risk and long-term English language Learners did decrease from 2,152 to 1,682 and we've also seen an increase increase in reclassification over the past years with 2.8% increase from 2223 to 2324 and as our midyear data internally already has us a 7% reclassification rate this year and we expect to see this data continue to grow um and hopefully surpass our our last year's levels next Slide the data shows that academic measures for our English learners for graduation a to G eligibility and Ela aspect has experienced slight declines goal five also targets our African American student achievement and as noted in the data you can see an increase in graduation rates by 3.6% and about 3.9% for a tog eligibility rate but we saw a significant decline in ela
184and we lost that increase that we saw in the 2223 Baseline data for espc so we're going to be urgently addressing that through our interventions next slide and so to disrupt the patterns that we are seeing in the data we designed targeted programs to be able to support both our English Learners and our African-American students and we're happy to report that these programs are up and running as expected and one key success that was part of our implementation plan was the um us beginning to use the interim elpac assessment and now we have 92% % of schools participating in this implementation and of those schools that participated 60% of el students in grades 3 through 12 completed the standardized interm elpac and this interim elpac assessment really allows students that essential practice that they need
185to be able to measure the ELD standards and then the data really informs our teachers instruction in real time to be able to enhance their lessons for both integrated and Design needed ELD and we believe that this action this implementation of the use of this interim lpac gives us that really valuable data we need to push um our student growth we're also happy to report that a total of 338 students are enrolled in our International's newcomer Academy at Richmond High School Kennedy and Helms middle school and also that our Grant Elementary School newcomer program is up and running and supporting newcomer students there at the school using a push in and pull out intervention model and finally we're excited to update you that our literacy Intervention Program that targets our African-American students is up and
186running both at bayew corado nrom parry's and stge and they're serving a total of 178 students with small group sponic sponic intervention and we have our mafanikio program that specifically supports after school interventions both with social emotion and uh literacy at eight locations serving 130 students and we are working to expand to other school sites as well next slide and a trend across our needs for improvement for goal five really centers around Staffing that's been a huge challenge impacting this goal we've experienced several staff turnovers within our academic providers that support reading intervention programs our a mission critical schools which led to a new need we needed to recruit more people and then we needed to retrain these people in the reading program that we use and so while you it's taken us a little
187bit longer to get up and running um these are in place and small groups are happening we also want to note that we did supplement um through the oasa uh Department with tital one funds to support the mafanikio program and this results in staff needing to be credential to work in the program which is a great thing but as you know it's a little bit difficult to find credential staff right now and so this has impacted our ability to be able to quickly hire an open program so for example we've been working really hard to get them up an EO program up and running at Grant we finally were able to secure a credential teacher to do it and it's taking us a little bit longer and we have other schools who are also ready
188to expand and are just looking for a credential teacher to do it and then just just want to name that our Elma Department um was highly impacted by our Central reassignments who were supporting teachers in a coaching capacity to support again that integrated ELD and that designated ELD and our current existing team is working to adjust their workflow to make sure that that Focus to support our teachers Still Remains a priority next slide however through our challenges we are happy to report that we've been really focused on implementing Ed implementing the strategies that we said we would and all of our programs are up and running for goal five um and we're just very eager to be able to analyze that I ready data to be able to see where we've made an impact in
189terms of strategies and where we really need to refocus our attention for both El and African-American students next slide and so 61.83 per of the budget cost for supporting the implementations of goal five have been expended the breakdown is as follows 10.81% of certificated salaries and wages 28.5 6 for classified salaries and wages 2142 for employee benefits no recorded expenses for materials and supplies and just under 1% for Contract Services and we are expecting that we'll be um expending the rest of the budget um throughout the end of the year next slide so as we move forward and really reflect we've been focusing on ensuring the Integrity of the implementation of the strategies that we committed to when we approved this outc cap we've continued to build a strong partnership and learn from our partners
190through the Contra Costa County Office of Education California Department of Education and we've consistently participated as a cabinet and through our directors and the county offerings for workshops for meetings Prof professional learning opportunities as well as we participated in the CDE moving the needle forward and I personally participate in the collaborative um for educational Excellence Professional Network because we want to learn from leaders across California who are also um struggling with the same issues and we want to really look outside of our district to collaborate with other um other leaders we also are looking ahead to plan and focus on supporting our schools as they begin the process to monitor their student data and meet with their parent advisory committees to begin designing their plans collaboratively to address their improvement work at their site and
191we want you to know that we're really aiming to significantly edit the spsa to be able to allow our site leaders to really focus and really um not shorten the work but really focus the work on what they need to to do for the School site we're also Al really um implementing an infographic to be able to support engagement with our educational Partners often times we get the feedback that our spsa are are too long and they're not really accessible to everyone so we hope that we can provide a right size spsa for our community as well as an infographic that if a parent wanted to just take a quick look with a few pages and understand what is happening at the school site that they have both options as well and our plan and
192intention is to have all schools ready um for Board review and approval here um at in June of 2025 and I want you to note that we also just saw a release of the dashboard and we want to analyze an um assess the effectiveness of our current outc cap but we also have new student groups that we need to focus on so you can go on to the next slide and So based on the most recent dashboard release next slide you can see the new student groups that we're going to need to rep prioritize and focus our attention and best thinking around and these groups made us eligible for for differentiated assistance again this is help from the county to be able to think really creatively about um what we're doing that's working and what
193we need to edit and so we've been fully engaging with our educational Partners um and I'm going to pass it over to Summer to wrap it up for us um about how we've been engaging with our educational Partners thank you in August the board made commitments to the community as we passed the lcap plan and we're pleased to report that staff has been working diligently to uphold these commitments throughout this school year we've been working in deep collaboration with our dlap committee members to Foster trust and gather ongoing support in the implementation of the lcap plan we have uphold our commitment to monthly meetings and in response to committee requests we've actually expanded the number of meetings and held three additional meetings to date with the dlap committee we have reviewed the elcap in its
194entirety with initial progress monitoring data and we are prepared to bring them a second round of data with program updates in March to show the progress that we've made on student achievement at the beginning of each meeting West Contra Costa staff and committee members review and refine a timeline of our work and adjust the work based on the input of the team we also meet monthly with the executive committee to further refine that work per the requests of the team every presentation has included comprehensive programmatic progress reports as well as detail data reviews we have significantly increased our dlap membership last school year there were six Decat members and this school year there are 13 additionally we've Amplified the recruitment through our all student Congress and we're pleased to report that as our students seem
195to be our best recruiters we've gotten 17 additional parent applications and six student applicants and so we're looking forward to adding some more parents and welcoming students into our numbers in November staff presented an academic progress report based on Casp results uh and progress monitoring around the red indicators and we have committed to bringing this back in March in align with the commitments that were made with August uh and lastly we would like to really commend the parent effort around the parent Bill of Rights there is a draft parent Bill of Rights and I know this is celebratory for many of our parents and has been the result of several years of effort on their part uh they have requested to align this draft with board policy 6020 on family engagement which would reinforce a
196shared commitment and so it is pending review with the government governance committee thank you so much and at this point we are available for any questions thank you is there any public comment on this item we have no public comment thank you okay board members we're at 10:2 with two items left so what I'd like to do is ask you for only one burning question if you have it we can email in the rest of our questions so we can Circle back and Patch this up in another time um if that's okay and then so we if does anybody have a burning question okay seeing none oh oh trusty Sy the pults go ahead um I think my one burning question was be how are we going beyond the graduation rates I think one of
197the things in the district that I'm talking about is are we tracking them once they hit College universities are we are we tracking them once they hit their career like what do we do are we making sure that how many students have to take remedial classes when they hit college right because they had the ad requirements but then they didn't have the the uh rigor or the muscle to be able to do college classes that's my burning question what are we doing past the graduation I'm complete so one of the exciting things about the school links platform is that it actually gives us the data of college persistence which is something that we could access before but with a much longer delay and so now we actually can track student through the application process we
198can track that they enroll and we can track their persistence when you're getting down to the granular data of what classes they're taking we don't know right but what we do know is the persistence rate that is most widely cited is how many students are able to persist in graduate within six years um and that those are the pieces that we are able to track and grab much more easily thank you very much okay the same thing are there any burning comments on this item so I have two the first one is in that motion that we passed on uh I can't remember whenever we adopted this August 28th uh there was a seventh point in this motion which was to complete work to review and revise any existing board policies related to the lcap
199and if necessary adopt a new policy related to but not limited to the points of which you spoke to so that work has not been started yet but it will go to governance to for a completion date of June 2025 and the other thing I wanted to bring to your attention is that I I really love what Los Angeles UniFi does in the way that they package their work and so I'm going to send to you how Los Angeles Unified packages up their elap and it's just crystal clear I love this info inra this infographic and their their tagline is data and engagement Drive the L the LAUSD lcap and just the way this is laid out it's so clear so I'll just pass it for you guys take a look at um any other
200comments on this item go ahead trust with FZ when we did my comment is when we had the academic subcommittee um Dem Metro and I asked for those infographs that you were talking about those one pagers with the spsa and they did them so they're they're out there somewhere in the ethosphere somewhere that's already created I'm sure there's a template on a computer somewhere but they were really well done and they were really well put together and they use them at the they use some of them or type of them at the little uh thing we had at Richmond High School a couple of weeks ago so I just wanted to let you know that it's still there somewhere I'm complete okay thank you I have another question for the board since we have limited
201time especially you Clerk and Jana are you okay if we take the immigration item and put it on February 28th or do you want to continue because we have 25 minutes how much is that board presentation going to take I could make it brief and then maybe follow up at the next meeting because I think it's an important topic that people want to hear maybe five minutes to start yeah I think we should go through it I I think that's really important so we try to see how far we get and then see if there's a motion to extend I know we still have another item on the agenda I believe that the meeting can only be extended once isn't that correct that is correct so our dead stop is 10:30 yes please go ahead
202thank you president um I mean I agree with the clerk I think that this is really important information that I'm hearing every day parents need um I think that we have quite a few people still watching I know waiting for this presentation also know LPS is here but the reality is that we're not going to have time to really give them the time they should know that the meeting's going to end probably before they can finish their presentation tonight so I think out of respect I think we just got to let them know because they're here that we're just not going to have the time for LPS to give us their full presentation either um because I do think that we have this go over at least a few points on the uh seg the
203next item okay thank you very much is there is and everybody's okay with that okay so to LPS we're going to go through E2 which is our presentation for immigration enforcement protocols and then we'll come for the public hearing for leadership public high school go ahead Dr Moses thank you can we pull up the presentation I'd like to start off by appreciating the cabinet for supporting with putting this work together I'd also like to appreciate Michael Booker our chief safety consultant who was going to deliver this presentation tonight but he is ill um I'll be delivering it tonight in conjunction with our director of communications ratio Forest um so we first wanted to start off this presentation by stating that our district stands with our families our students and our staff during these challenging times
204and that we are committed to doing everything possible to ensure that schools are safe and inclusive spaces for all students and All Families uh this is a short presentation that we've put together to share uh response protocols but most importantly to share resources that we have uh to address the concerns with potential immigration enforcement uh the topics that we'll cover very quickly is uh the importance of knowing your educational rights what our district response would be if there was an unlikely event that I that immigration enforcement um was to occur at one of our schools and information regarding um uh our families and their response if im immigration activities happened at our schools and um also information about our guidance and how we can support with Shar with um sharing the information about uh family
205rights next slide so first one of the resources that we've shared on our website and also here this evening is the immigration enforcement uh guide for students and families that was prepared by the Office of the Attorney General Rob Bon this is information that's critical to understanding what your rights are that families and students have a right to a free public education that when you enroll your students in school we do not ask for any identifying information we certainly do not ask any information regarding immigration status uh that all students have a right to to a safe secure and peaceful school and that our public learning environments must be free from discrimination harassment bullying violence and intimidation um we are committed and dedicated to upholding these rights and we also want to lift up that
206we have equal opportunity for everyone to participate in our programs and our activities offered by our schools without without demon without discrimination um so you'll find at the end of the presentation a list of resources and one of the resources that you will find is this resource from the California Attorney General's office outlining these rights next slide so this is our district statement which I started off with and I just want to share that we expect that it's very unlikely that ice activity would happen or that ice would here on one of our school campuses however we have done the work to have a uni uniform response in the unlikely event that we needed to um um be prepared to address this event if these actions did occur next slide oh go back okay so
207uh one of the things we wanted to ensure is the safety and um well of our students and families should something unlikely happen we wanted to remind our families that um our first priority is ensuring that your students are safe and that if something were to happen to impact your family that we had appropriate emergency information to not only support you but also to support your students if we needed to to help you with a family preparedness plan uh we wanted to remind you to save Key phone numbers for our schools and our after school programs but first first and foremost we want to name that there are support for our families who may be impacted by immigration enforcement from legal providers like Stand Together Contra Casta they provide rapid response and immigration legal services
208in Contra Casta County and we have um a collection of cards at our schools that every principal was given at yesterday's principal meeting to share with families if they need a resource immediately because they there may be an if there were to be an impact uh this is out of extremee precaution for the safety of students it is not because we expect to need to um have an emergency plan but airing on the side of caution we want to ensure that we do promote that we um that is something that we suggest next slide if if I activity did occur near our schools we want you to remember that our school is directed to follow our district protocols and our Protocols are listed there in English and in Spanish our protocols include um the information
209to our site leaders that we do not share any information um with law enforcement law enforcement individuals without a a a warrant being presented or a legal document signed by a judge our leaders have been instructed that should someone approach and ask uh for information regarding our students whether they have a legal document or not they are to contact the superintendent's office the superintendent has a team on standby uh so that we would uh retrieve the legal documentation have it reviewed by our legal team and then give advice to the site administrators on whether or not they could comply with such with a legal document if one were presented the legal document is not presented we have prepared signage for our schools uh which state that visitors cannot go beyond the main office which we
210believe is uh our rights within a public school system that once we have signage posted if you are not welcomed in or if you do not have a legal right to be there you cannot go beyond our school offices and that is something that um leaders are were uh trained on yesterday and will be trained on tomorrow at our management team meeting to ensure that our school administrators know what an appropriate response is in addition our uh we're encouraging our staff to stay v v v Vigilant and that if they noticed uh activity on our campuses or near our campus perimeter that was suspicious that they are to report that immediately to the office and also um if act if students are outside bring them inside so that we can ensure that that staff member
211could alert someone in the office that there may be activity and then we could have an appropriate response in order to um enact our protocols uh we are establishing these protocols out of extreme precaution again um we also have um partnered with reimagine uh Richmond which is providing know your rights training and we did have a Cabinet member trained at one of their sessions and we are prepared to support with spreading that information to the community as well so that not only are we supporting an effective response in our schools but that families will also know what an effective response in the community would be as well next slide and this was uh exactly what I was speaking to the know your rights training is offered by riag Richmond we plan to offer our trainings
212as well and we have had uh legal councel prepare workshops for our staff that are going to be shared with them within the next week we were scheduled to do it yesterday and um our Zoom connection didn't work so we're scheduling that for later next slide so we've provided these documents to distribute to our our uh Educators and our school sites and our leaders at our school sites that outline the protocols that I shared with you this evening want to know that not only are our policies in place but they're written and will'll be provided to all of the staff members that um need to understand how to respond next slide and now I pass it over to director fors to explain some of the resources that we prepared for our families uh in order
213to not only promote information but also to share with them um um spaces in which they can receive support thank you Dr Moses um good evening so yes we have this uh slide here where we have provided the resources that have become available to us um and these resources can be found um in multiple ways but we you have uh a central Hub and we have provided these resources on our school or District website um that is available if you go to the next slide can talk a little bit more about those resources that are available so in February 1st we introduced a resource page to the community uh that is housed of course on our district website and the page includes resources uh for family seeking guidance and support and so it also includes
214the weekly updates from our interim superintendent Moses County and State updates and family and staff protocols uh we expanded Beyond PA and square updates to ensure all families and community members have access to resources in various ways um this it not only includes our emails or materials to download from the website that we are also connecting with Community Partners to maximize our reach so in that we have shared District materials and asked Our Community Partners to make these documents available uh in their offices and at their events uh the links to our partner websites um like reimagine uh Richmond as Dr Moses mentioned they are also included on the resource page uh we have linked to their events uh page so that community members will have access to upcoming events and webinars that are available
215so we encourage all families and community members to visit the district District's website here's the link here at www.wccusd.net okay is there any public comments on this item we have no public comment okay do we want to go to any burning board questions trusty Gonzales Hoy please go ahead thank you president Greer thank you for the presentation Dr Moses um I have a couple questions I'll make them quick um just to be Crystal Clear if an ice agent walks into a school says they need to enter our school our protocol is they're not not allowed to enter unless they have a warrant and that warrant has been reviewed by the superintendent's office and our legal team is that correct that is correct they would be able to enter the front office but not have access
216beyond that thank you so much um and then have we collaborated already and been in conversation with our five police departments on this issue Mr Booker couldn't be here this evening he would be the one to give the update on that but yes he is inquiring with our local law enforcement officials okay thank you um and then lastly our pickup procedures and opening our schools after school some of our elementaries and high schools we open the gates right and then even though there's someone watching we let students walk to the parent or walk to the walk to the uh car have we sent a memo to sides saying saying we have to be tighter about our pickup procedures and our opening the gates procedures in case there are cases of ice agents potentially waiting outside
217not saying that's happened here at all but Across the Nation we've I've heard things like that specifically in that in through uh different articles so we tie in those procedures for pickup procedure for pickup uh times so that isn't addressed currently but thank thank you for bringing it to our attention we will address that and we will get messages out to our sites thank you so much president that was my third question thank you thank you does anybody have anything else student trust Espinosa go ahead um it was just a thought that came to my mind but is there any possibility where we can get like a poster of these resources that has like a QR code and that informs these students especially those heavily impacted by these situations and circumstances similar to California AB
218784 which is like the mental health posters that were required to be distributed within all schools serving grades K through I mean not sorry not K through 6 through 12 that isn't something that we have in place I don't know if there's a Cabinet member that can speak to that but thank you for sharing it it is something we will look into okay um let another question added on to that if this were to be something that we would want to put on the agenda how soon can we get it into the agenda given like the current circumstances that are happening right now I think if we needed to bring something back we could have it in the first meeting in March okay thank you for answering my questions go ahead oh trusty some thoughts
219go ahead do we have a plan and training for a couple of of the big events that we know are coming down the pipeline we know that graduations are coming and family members get 10 tickets or five tickets and that's a prime spot that we are maybe not able to control because the crowds are so large right so do we have a plan for that we know that um students go to proms off campus right so there's little things to uh trusty Gonzalez hoy's point when we're talking about traffic Duty that's done by volunteers mostly so I want us to make sure that we're having these conversations because everybody is going to bring a different perspective that we may have forgotten about because of uh their interaction with schools so my question is just do
220we have a plan for our big and small events that are coming up I'm complete we do not have a plan yet uh there are many events to consider but we will work to come up with some ideas um with our safety consultant okay I have a question which is what is going out to families and how often and what kind of messaging is um you know there may be stuff on parents square that I don't see because I don't get any of that so what's the Cadence or the message I'll refer to director Forest I know we are sending consistent messaging but she would know the Cadence better than me yes so we are sending out uh messages weekly in parents Square to let our families and our community know uh that the resource
221page is available and the documentation is available for download um we are providing resources weekly as we receive them um just resources that we get that we find Credit especially from the county and the state so we're sharing that Weekly through Dr Moses's uh weekly messages to families okay thank you are there any last minute comments on this and N know what we're going to do with leadership in a minute go ahead um are we collaborating with our local CI cities uh when it for example the city of Richman is looking to strengthen their Sanctuary policy are are we going to be collaborating with them in regards to how we can include these spaces like because the current Administration has said that schools health care and other facilities are no longer considered safe spaces so
222I think it's crucial that we sit at that table with local cities especially when it comes to Sanctuary policies thank you uh point taken I think that's important as well I know Mr Booker has contacts that he can reach out to I also uh participate in the systems change collaborative which includes all the cities that we serve we have an upcoming meeting next week and we do have this as an agenda item so that'll be another opportunity to discuss this concern with our city Partners go ahead go ahead trusty Gales way thank you I'll make it very quick just for my comment first thank you for setting this up thank you to board leadership for scheduling it uh I know we're last minute and late but um this is really important it's in everybody's mind
223um I just want to make sure that we're making it clear to our schools our students our staff that we have their backs uh no matter what comes from the Trump Administration or um anyone from the national level um and I think the clearer we can be with our procedures the better um I do worry about the loopholes they're looking for loopholes right now because they know that we're starting to look for our procedures when they enter school right so standing outside right like events things like that I think we have to think about that because I do worry uh they're going to well they are targeting Sanctuary uh cities right so the city of Richmond being One S Paulo being another they're going to concentrate on those places because they're doing it across our
224nation and we know California is a target um and then lastly I would encourage us I usually don't do this but I encourage us to send our procedures through paper um because a lot of our immigr uh immigrant families might not have parents Square uh or access to technology in this level so I would ask if possible that we send a paper format of our procedure specifically on this issue uh to families maybe not districtwide but we're thoughtful about where's the largest concentration of Migrant immigrant families thank you so much yeah if I can make a comment on that I think your elac are important and your mdac um would would be very important for outreach on how to get this message out um and and peace meal did you know X did you know
225that you're entitled to an education did you know your kids need to be enrolled six to 18 did you know you know like so I think that there could be reoccurring messaging um you know overtime and not just one big uh you know vomit that nobody reads but there could be a you know just little pieces go ahead try SM the fs I'm just going to take one minute I want us to make sure that we're always centering the students first so where on our Resource page are we talking about books that parents can read to students and then students can it's not if something happens to you I'm impacted right so then where's the resources that I can make sure that my child has that okay this is how you can be kind and
226empathetic and help I think parents need to make sure that their children have memorized phone numbers and memorized the the action plan and the parent plan that they are um implementing in their families I think that this has to be a whole community and a uh this is one of the ways where the rubber hits the road when it does really take a village I also want us to keep this urgency and this um steadfastness when it comes to the safety of all of our children documented and undocumented children and about how we are we cannot be torn apart if we stick together I'm complete thank you one last we're at 1029 so I'm sorry I've been raising my hand and you just didn't look this way um I I wanted to say thank you
227for bringing this um to the table I think there's deeper conversation that needs to be have there's a lot of loose ends that we need to tie in you know I would really want to see specific site plans you know specific tailored to our school sites where they are looking at the different workings of their site and implementing you know really purposeful plans that are going to protect our communities um and just really having that be what's being sent out to the families in the communities of like we have your back you know really ensuring them because a lot of the stuff that we're talking about it's focused on make ensuring that students show up to school every day and we need to continue that but that's only going to happen if we are really
228supporting our students and our families and making them feel safe so having our sites come up with plans that are tailored to each specific site and the way the the the workings around everyday life happens because every site is different so really having clear clear Direction I think to our sit's not you know this is good at the frontal load of like what everyone else is sending out but let's really be you know D directive and let's really be clear on the direction that we want to take so I mean this this is good as the starting point but I think there still needs to be a lot of loose ense that we need to tie in if we're going to protect our community with what comes next okay so what I'm going to do
229is connect you two together Clerk and Jana with the superintendent for concise feedback we're at 10:31 I'm going to close out the meeting everybody please enjoy the break and Leadership let's talk thank you good night meeting Jour 10:31