001foreign Dr Hurst can we have the roll call please absolutely president Phillips here trustee Clerks good afternoon everyone can you hear me good afternoon everyone sorry I didn't hear the pledge starting I'm present trustee Gonzalez Hoy good evening president trustee reckler good afternoon president trustee Christian good evening president all his present and accounted for thank you very much Dr Hurst this evening we have five items to be just discussed in closed session uh the first item is anticipated litigation the second item is public employee performance evaluation the third item is Public Employee discipline dismissal release complaint and the fourth item is student discipline the fifth item is Public Employee appointment the board is here to take public comment on any one of these items that were just announced to be discussed in closed session um
002the time allotted for each speaker is two minutes if you are attending the meeting in person you will need to submit a request to address the board form to indicate your desire to speak on one of these items if participating via Zoom you will need to raise your hand by clicking on the appropriate icon in the Zoom app or by pressing star nine if accessing the meeting by phone in order to be recognized to speak on Zoom your hand must be raised before public comment begins no yielding of time or substitution a speaker is permitted that said Do we have any public comment on any of these closed session items no public comment at this time thank you very much the board will now adjourn or recess rather into closed session the Open Session will
003recommence at 6 30. thank you foreign Del globo foreign I would like to welcome everyone to this regular meeting of the Board of Education the mission of the West Contra Costa Unified School District is to prepare students for post-secondary education and to be responsible thinking contributing members of our Global Society we believe in public education as the most important function in a Democratic Society we believe we must treat everyone with courtesy dignity and respect provide safe and nurturing environments in which to learn teach work and participate serve our students by working as partners with our community to develop well-rounded lifelong Learners and contributing members of a global Society take responsibility for our Behavior and performance to ensure the highest possible achievement of all students employees and our school community provide Equitable and essential communication and
004support for successful learning teaching working and participating respect celebrate and welcome the diversity uniqueness and contributions of all members of our school community this meeting will provide public comment opportunities on agenda and non-agenda items in person through the Zoom app and by telephone we have changed the public comment format which will now occur at the beginning of the meeting public comment will last for one hour and includes any agendized item the time allotted for each speaker has also been extended to two minutes foreign you will need to submit a request to address the board form to indicate your desire to speak on an agenda item if participating via Zoom you will need to raise your hand by clicking on the appropriate icon in the Zoom app or by pressing star nine if accessing the meeting
005by fall in order to be recognized to speak on Zoom your hand must be raised before public comment begins no yielding of time or substitution of speakers is permitted due to the brown Act board members cannot discuss items that are not on the agenda and do not usually respond to items presented in public comment the order of business may be changed without notice the board has recessed from closed session and will return to closed session at the end of this meeting but in the meantime Dr Hurst do you have anything to report out there's nothing else to report out thank you very much sir so now we are going to go to wccusd public comment that is item B3 if you are in the audience and you would like to speak on public comment please
006get one of these speaker cards uh and turn it into the staff once public comment begins you will not be able uh to turn in a car you won't be able to get into the queue so please make sure that you get a speaker card now if you haven't if you're in the zoom now is also time to raise your hand in the zone because once public comment begins once again you will not be able to get into the queue right now we have 12 13 hands raised in Zoom so I'm gonna do a countdown for folks here in person and in the zoom going once saw somebody move I thought he was gonna get a car going twice gone all right the last person uh online in the zoom is Elon Harrison and second
007to last is Miss Joanna pace thank you all right the first speaker is Tracy reppert yes ma'am I am speaking on behalf of Janie Dalton who was in an extremely bad car accident yesterday and she had emergency surgery when she finally regained Consciousness uh late in the night she first quickly asked about this school board meeting that's how important this is to her and this is what she wrote um I am a mother of four with degrees in in molecular biology and virology I am not an anti-vaxxer the collective argument for mandating a vaccine herd immunity however is no longer tenable when the vaccinated can still spread the virus I ask that you give the students of West Contra Costa the option of testing until a more broad spectrum vaccine is available the current vaccines
008centered solely around the most toxic and mutable part of the covid-19 virus cannot create herd immunity as new variants emerge they will evade the vaccine which was created using the alpha variant in fact we are seeing this already for example more than half of the Cal football team has covid despite being 99 vaccinated the 1905 scotus case Jacobson versus Massachusetts held that mandates can only be considered to prevent the spread of contagious disease a recent groundbreaking study in Lancet shows that fully fully vaccinated people who got coveted infected others in their household at the same rate as unvaccinated people did in fact the vaccinated had just as much viral load in the upper in their upper respiratory tract making them just as contagious Yale epidemiology Professor Dr Harvey risch says I would pull a healthy
009child out of public school and homeschool before I would give them this vaccine the current vaccines are still under Eau for kids and we have absolutely no idea of their long-term effects my eldest child was vaccine injured last August we hope that he will recover please give these children the option to test until there's a more traditional vaccine that can stop the spread covaxin is a whole viron inactivated vaccine with the same viral cell technology as the current polio vaccine used for the past 35 years it will likely be Eau approved for children ages 2 to 18 in the close future thank you foreign Dalton [Applause] I was just finishing writing up here Mr Dalton please raise your mask sorry so first and foremost I just want to say that I I think everybody here
010their opinion is pretty important and we all need to realize that no matter what anybody's view is their concern is for their kid that's a number one and if we can't listen to other people's views then we're not teaching our kids any of the things that we're sending them to school for so the state is not mandating the covid-19 vaccine until it receives full FDA approval at that time it gets reviewed by the state board and then the state legislature will vote on it and it will be added to the list of the 10 vaccines that are already mandated by the state but until that time the state is not mandating it when the state legislature adds it to the to the list of vaccines that won't happen until the school year of July 22
011at the earliest um what we're asking for is to have a test out option for people who choose not to be vaccinated either for religious beliefs health reasons concerns for their kid for a vaccine that hasn't had full trial done I don't think it's ridiculous to ask that a vaccine that hasn't gone through a full FDA approval to Simply have a test out option so until that time can happen I would ask that you offer a test out option for all kids a weekly test to be administered by the parent or the caregiver at home paid for by the caregiver at home and if somebody doesn't pass a weekly test they will simply be retested immediately and if they don't pass again then you go we go through the same protocol that we did last
012year it's not too much to ask in my opinion to have a test out option for people who don't want to get their kids vaccinated until it has full FDA approval and is administered by the state through the legislative process thank you foreign Massey well first of all I'd like to apologize because I was told that I would have five or six minutes so I have a fairly extensive document four years ago I had three cases of arson at my house because I lived just above the Knoll Valley High School okay I went down to the school told them basically what happened they said they'd take care of it and cut the weeds around the you know Outer Perimeter of the school they never did had another fire so I went down there and I
013put up a chain link fence an eight foot chain link partially on their property I guess they they called it an easement and uh you know I didn't have any more problems because I put up a fire break on my own property I put 12 fruit trees in because the hill was starting to slide as per what the architect found out 10 years ago and put it in writing that that whole area is prone to landslides the school continued to do what they were doing they demolished a old school during that time my house started to slide I've got cracks in the ceilings the walls I've got doors that won't shut and I've got approximately 21 inch drop in the back of my property because they're bringing in all the heavy equipment a lot of
014people don't realize there's water underneath the school I got aquifers all over the place when they start bringing in the heavy stuff it starts pushing down on my property and thus caused my property to get damaged I had a professional soil person contractor come out he gave me a bid of almost four hundred thousand dollars to underpin my house and to build a retaining wall that would actually hold that side of the you know country up I mean it's the whole several houses are being impacted so I mean I don't know what to say I went back and forth with the school district I called them a dozen times I went down there and met with uh Lewis and he goes well you know it's the blueprint and the only way that I'm going to
015get out of it is if I sue the district and that's just not acceptable to me I'm a retired my wife is retired and handicapped there's no way I'm going to be able to afford 150 000 to pay for a lawsuit Mr Massey I understand that you were told you'd be given six minutes I have your speaker card I'm going to give it to the superintendent so he can follow up uh with you okay but the time for this evening is is done but I will give your contact information directly to him okay would it be all right if this lady brings up some documents to you gotta oh okay so you got some pictures and the document well it'll explain if you want to give staff that so we have the rest of your
016comments um we can give that to the just come here give it to me it's okay and this is your information right here right all right you have a blessed day I'm gonna hand it to the superintendent that's it DOC he'll talk to you though okay I gotta go on with the meeting thank you all right all right so the next person is Elizabeth Davies and I'm not catching the last name in recent years there's been a lot of time energy and resources dedicated to diversity and inclusion an admiral goal an admirable Quest I'm here today to ask that you broaden those goals to include Viewpoint diversity to actively Embrace and include students and families that may think differently they come from different cultures religions philosophies and political backgrounds we live in a time and
017place where all but the narrowest mainstream views are censored and I know it could be much worse is the leadership of this District willing to respect those families but that put their faith in dissident doctors and scientists is the leadership of this District willing to respect those families who have been injured by medical Therapies in the past so are unwilling to embrace this new medical technology will the leadership of this District support families for whom getting the job would violate their sincerely held religious beliefs is the leadership of this District willing to examine the codes of Nuremberg which prohibit coercion in regards to medical procedures I would like to remind you that the social movements now universally embraced and celebrated all started with dissident citizens widely hated in their own times for that reason alone
018will you consider respecting the dissident families in your own District who declined the job there are other ways to mitigate Public Health impacts that don't violate our human rights thank you foreign Swift hi good evening I just want to start by saying thank you all for your patience and understanding and for allowing us this opportunity to speak to you and tell you about what's on our mind what's important to us as parents to me as a parent today I've been here this is my fourth time the last time I was here I kind of lost my cool and I wanted to apologize for that I've become pretty frustrated with the situation and um but tonight I I did wanted to reach out and say that and I'm gonna speak tonight about a person you may
019not have heard of her name is Maddie day Garay Maddie was one of approximately one thousand there are over 28 000 children in our school district if one in a thousand of them have a serious reaction like Maddie to the vaccine you would have 28 severely injured children from the vaccine so Maddie is a girl who volunteered for the Pfizer 12 to 15 year old trial along with her two older brothers Maddie was one of 1200 kids in the trial that got the actual vaccine in this trial they gave her a lower dose of mRNA than the actual dose 12 to 15 year olds are now given within 12 hours of her second shot Maddie was screaming in agony she had pain in her heart she knee down her neck and all over her body
020she's now unable to hold her head up she's now unable to eat she eats through a feeding tube she's now unable to walk and she's back to been back to the emergency room 64 times at first the hospital called it anxiety and after months Pfizer reported Maddie's case as abdominal pain to the FDA thanks for your time next speaker is George Cole good evening I want to begin by thanking all of you for all you do I appreciate it as Mr Phillips begins each meeting with a shared statement about dignity and respect with all due respect I cannot see anything mutually respectful about a mandate to force inject something foreign into another person's bloodstream my son needs to go to school why would you enact a policy that prevents him from having the same kind
021of education as his peers I understand that teachers are allowed exemptions why are students not allowed these very same exemptions mutual respect body autonomy Free Speech human rights civil rights anti-discrimination are all just words and slogans unless we actively relentlessly preserve and Implement them into our society these values are under attack I teach my son that a free Society is built on protecting these principles especially the rights of those we disagree with mandates are rapidly bringing back institutional and societal discrimination I know this because it is happening in real time at El Cerrito High School to my son there needs to be more encouragement from you Dr Hurst to make certain all children are not subjected to any kind of shunning or discrimination my son's teacher asked him in front of the class if he
022was vaccinated and why we can do better than this and we should do we know how many of these kids already have natural immunity if these are science-based policies why is this being ignored wouldn't we prefer to not vaccinate children if at all possible if they show the T cell and antibody antibody immunity thank you for your time and for listening to my comments and questions I will follow up with an email to each of you thank you thank you Mr Cole please raise your mask thank you sir the next speaker is Elena Andres it's great to hear some great growth issues last Monday I took her to a pediatrician at Kaiser Richmond I discussed Michael I discussed my concern over how this particular vaccine could potentially interfere with my daughter's development the pediatrician said
023there was no data on that so she didn't know but said don't worry you have time until the next school year and in the meantime you can run some more tests for your daughter but that's by the time you have to vaccinate her we'll have more data on how this vaccine affects children's development when I'll tell her that at no time and I had to vaccinate my child now in order to meet this school district January third deadline she was shocked saying but you cannot mandate the vaccine is still under emergency use authorization that's illegal which school district is that this was kind of Richmond you parents should raise a stink to be clear I'm not anti-vaccine both my kids have received all-time childhood vaccines and both my husband and I are vaccinated against Kobe
02419. but I'm I am against a mandate of a vaccine that has not been fully approved by the FDA and for which there is no long-term data I am here to ask the boat to allow for weaknesses I'm just going to pause for a moment I don't mind anyone in here expressing any views whatsoever about the vaccine but I need people to keep their mask up that's the deal all right I'm here to ask the board to allow for weekly testing as an alternative option until California's Statewide School vaccine mandate for fully approved vaccine goes into effect next school year other neighboring districts like Berkeley unified allow for weekly testing a great option for parents who are not comfortable with the eua vaccines I'm concerned that one ZIP code determines if one if one's child
025must be judged with an eua vaccine or they have the privilege of being allowed to wait for fully approved vaccine if they should if they chose so this is anything but equitable is it because we are a poor school district is it because poor people deemed to be less educated and therefore unable to think for themselves or make the right choices for their children thank you so Mr Shaws you're actually the next speaker but you have a request to address the board okay okay got it thank you so much and we're going to so after this is done then we're gonna have you do your request okay so we're gonna go online now to folks in the zoom yes sir what's your name you're right I'm sorry uh Paige Reddit Europe good evening Gordon my
026name is Paige Reddit a district father firstly I just wanted to say how grateful I am to all the teachers and staff making this year a very successful return I'm here to challenge a vaccine mandate and navigate for our children's right to in-person education should parents choose not to vaccinate for covet at this time I'm here to affirm my rights as a parent to know what is best for my child and to make decisions in consultation with my family's doctor I've attended every FDA in CDC public meeting for all the coveted vaccine euas and authorizations based on the trial data and Analysis there are many valid reasons and concerning questions about the vaccine being mandate covered vaccines for any student under 16 are still under emergency use a key tenant of eua ensures individuals have
027Choice without consequence additionally regarding effects and side effects there are 875 000 reports within the government spheres database of Cova vaccine Adverse Events we simply don't know any long-term data because this has been under one year in the making the district's rapid decision to mandate I'm skeptical the board has even done their complete due diligence in attending these key meetings and reviewing all necessary data here are a few quotes from the recent meeting approving the vaccine for five to eleven Dr Meisner from the FDA professor of pediatrics at Tufts said the issue is side effects occurring after this vaccine it's not even clear the vaccine will reduce rates of transmission I'm worried if we say yes states are going to mandate administration of this vaccine to children in order to go to school and I
028do not agree with that I think that would be an error at this time until we get more information Dr Rubin editor of New England Journal of Medicine stated we are never going to learn about how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it what kind of logic is that by the way that's just the way it goes he stated that's how we found out about other rare events so as you can see the people approving maze have their own reservations beyond safe and effective CDC also showed that myocarditis rates and males ages 12 to 15 was 20 times higher and in males 16 to 17 36 times higher than the Baseline rates this is yet another reason many of us are so adamant for the ability to make our own risk calculation in
029our own decisions for our family I'm not against vaccination in general but the bottom line is there's a scientific debate about the efficacy and safety for children we need more time in the meantime I request the board reconsider please conclude your comment I re request the board reconsider the Mandate align with State policy and timing at a bare minimum versus superseding guarantee in person for all children and emphasize policies of unity over exclusion thank you thank you so we're now going to go to public comment in the zoom thank you our first public speaker is Hulan Barnett you may email yourself yeah can you hear me yes you hear me can you hear me yes we can hear you okay so I want to say first of all I'm really proud of my community I
030am so proud of my community because they can smell and they can they they recognize Nazi Behavior slave master behavior and that's what West Contra Costa has become I sent an email to the school district outlining this Behavior especially when you're talking about children from 5 to 11 years old and I'm glad even parents that are older than that have children older than that are recognizing the behavior of the school district so my and and the thing I'm glad you guys also these parents have done is they've done their homework no other school district has a website that says mandate and that threatened almost as threatening parents so the website in itself is menacing Draconian Nazi type of behavior and that's what it is because we know that after 9 11 America invaded a country
031based on a lie we know also what happened with Katrina we know about the War on Drugs we know about the bailout of Wall Street we know about the corruption in America and then you want us to sacrifice our children based on lies U.S board members if you have any type of insight should know better and know that we're not going to accept this and so I say to all the parents you don't have to accept it just pull your kid out if when we get to that point in time don't leave your kid in in West Contra Costa Unified School District take them out there there is an option we don't have to beg them that's not the only option because we don't we don't have to feel like we're helpless and that's what
032people like they like for you to feel like you're a victim I know my daughter won't be attending West Contra Costa if there's anything like this and there are other options thank you foreign X public speaker is Laura Brazil you may yourself can you hear me yes we can hear you thank you I'm a parent of a student who attends a wccusd school I like many other parents teachers and staff am opposed to the covid-19 vaccine mandate I think I speak for the majority of us when I say I am highly concerned and quite frankly disgusted that a vaccine that hasn't even been fully approved for its safety yet is being forced on us and our children for those of you who say that it's not being forced I guess you're right no one is
033physically holding anyone down and giving them the vaccine You're simply telling District employees that they will no longer have a job you're simply telling students that you will rip away the social interaction and the little bit of mental and emotional stability that they've just started to regain after being separated from one another for a year if this is about safety then why is a vaccinated student who has been exposed to covid allowed to return to school immediately even though it's been proven the vaccinated people can still spread covid and they don't require a coveted test but my child who's unvaccinated has to stay home for 10 days and isn't even allowed to return with a negative Cova test until day six or seven why is it okay for teachers and staff to be unvaccinated on
034campus Because of a religious exemption and they have the option to do weekly testing yet our kids aren't allowed any exemption any religious exemption why can't our kids be unvaccinated and test weekly like this the staff and teachers are being allowed to do why are our kids being discriminated against if it's about safety then why is a vaccine that isn't fully FDA approved yet that isn't even mandated by the state of California yet that is causing kids to collapse in Cardiac Arrest that is being halted in other countries because of the heart risk to kids being forced on a population that has the highest recovery rate with most cases being asymptomatic I guess it's because it's the safety of the district that we're talking about since they are held harmless of all liability if God
035forbid our kids go into cardiac arrest or Worse thank you foreign speaker is jwc please State your first and last name for the record you may unmute yourself hi my name is John walner this district is living faster than the state I believe partially to act as a test subject to see how much pushback you receive and to inform legislature how to deal with said pushback under the fourth amendment of our constitution I do not give permission for my information or my testimony here tonight to be shared for any purposes except directly to this board here tonight the state's order won't go into effect until at least July 2022. and only if the FDA grants formal approval to a vaccine for students younger than 16. all of this while ignoring vaccine injury and uptick in
036vaccine induced deaths in this age group have you not seen that data I question the legality of districts imposing a mandate before the FDA actually approves the vaccine for younger children I question the FDA in general it's totally justifiable that parents want to wait for the proper safety data let kids test and have personal belief exemptions until a vaccine has gone through the proper channels there's been no major disruptions from covert for the last three months the kids have been in school despite there not being a mandate which is the goal right to protect kids and their families and provide an equitable education if we're already achieving that why do we need a mandate black and Latino California's in low-income zip codes have lower vaccination rates than the state average are you prepared to vote
037on anything that could force over half of the black and brown students out of the district are you prepared for potential civil rights lawsuits Community organizers are worried that students who may need in-person instruction the most will be turned away at school the space overreaching leader himself has routinely warned of the social emotional impacts of distance learning but here you are considering further segregating people this after years of preaching equity you are creating an environment of segregation oppression and as Mr Cole mentioned class bullying in addition data supports the fact that vaccinated individuals have breakthrough infections can spread covid have reduced immunity have severe side effects can die I question why you are mandating for segregation breakthrough infections reduced immunity in our children and possible death I question your motives our next public speaker is
038Stella Miranda you may unmute yourself good evening trustees and superintendent Hurst I would like to ask if any of you here tonight are experts in virology or have a degree in epidemiology I would like to know where you received your data or your information to determine these these emergency use authorization vaccines are safe to administer to our children my husband worked in research for 26 in in medical research for 26 years with the top scientists it takes 10 to 15 years of many studies to approve a medication or a vaccine by the FDA these covid vaccines are were made in eight months and there's little data to determine that they are safe may I remind you that this vaccine is still under emergency use authorization frequently people accuse parents of being anti-vaccination but no we're
039far from that we simply want a safe vaccine for our kids with no mRNA gene therapy I believe that West Contra Costa Unified School District lacks the authority to mandate a new vaccine for School attendance and that they are in violation of state federal and constitutional law two lawsuits have been filed in Superior Court arguing that only the state not the local districts have the authority to mandate vaccines to school children further denying in-school learning is a direct violation of federal law under the every student succeeds Act the Constitution states that kids living in the United States have the right to a free public education and the Constitution requires that all children be given equal educational opportunities no matter what their race ethnic background religion or sex or whether they're rich or poor citizens or
040non-citizens according to the Department of Public Health students who have an IEP may continue to receive all necessary Services as identified in the IEP regardless of their immunization status I want to remind you that you must follow state and federal laws failure to do so may result in legal actions against the school district and each one of you individually you have no jurisdiction in deciding if our children should be vaccinated we are not co-parenting nor the school district we are putting our children in our no way are we putting our children In Harm's Way for an experimental vaccine the School Board needs to review this Reckless unconstitutional vaccine mandate we entrust you with our children and it cannot and if you cannot demonstrate these vaccines are safe and fully approved by the FDA you must
041consider reversing your decision on these vaccine mandates immediately thank you for your time our next public speaker is Michael Hernandez you may unmute yourself hello we are 20 months uh in dealing with covet and we understand that respiratory disease is circulating year long and wait until late in the year it's an influenza that focus on common cold and respiratory diseases if we have such a vaccine that we would eradicate the common cold influenza and respiratory disease since day one this will never stop infection because that's not how influenza works in 2014 there was an outbreak of the monks from the National Hockey League from two people one was unvaccinated and one had unknown vaccine status sounds like a great argument for a vaccine the state of Vermont as of October 25th 2021 which has the
042highest vaccinated State reported 1127 new breakthrough cases infections among fully vaccinated people over the two week reporting period Health officials have said breakthrough cases are to be expected given that Vermont has a large and expanded fully vaccinated population there is no vaccine that prevent you from being infected once you get infected you shed pathogens it's not a foolproof method it reduces the odds but does not eliminate the odds from the CDC website it does provides the age group debt from starting up January 4th 2020 to November 6 2021 remind you that total positive cases is 47.4 million now the age group of death is zero to four 210 age group 5 through 18 490. kids are more in danger and getting the fluid than Kobe the majority of people that want freedom taken away from
043the illusion of safety an average human does not want to be free they want safety which is wrong we are teaching our kids to give up our freedom for the sake of security that does not exist and medical solution that does not entirely work by forcing you to get which is madness next public speaker is David Mojo you may Omi yourself good evening my name is David mudgiel I'm the parent of two children going to school in West Contra Costa County one of my children is 19 and against my best wishes went and got vaccinated I am not anti-vaxx they have all their regular shots we all do I'm anti covid vax because I've also worked for the University of California San Francisco for 39 years in research supporting doctors and scientists for a mission
044to have Global better Global health this is a research project you're turning our children into mice they are not mice they are children what you guys have imposed is going to have serious long-term effects that are unmeasurable right now we have no no clue I've seen research take 20 years to come up with Miracles or fail this is just a shot in the dark to try something the CDC itself says that masking is the best way to reduce this and has recommended that masking is even better than vaccination because vaccination does not work for everybody every individual is built different and the vaccine can only react on those people's systems who will allow it and if people already have a hyperactive system it will override the other thing I want to quickly bring to the
045Public's attention from article I read is that four of the board members receive money from the teachers union which pushed for this vaccine mandate but there's no equity with this I think that you should recuse yourself if you receive funding or help from the teachers union and voted on this you shouldn't this this I see as a conflict of interest thank you our next public speaker is Jennifer Murphy you may own me yourself hi my name is Jennifer Murphy I'm a registered nurse in Richmond and a mother to a 12 year old in wccusd I'm speaking today against the covid vaccine mandate for wccusd students in 2015 a law was passed by the California legislature it mandated a list of 10 childhood immunizations so that children can attend all schools in California prior to 2015
046a parent in California could fairly easily opt their child out of childhood immunizations to continue with in-person learning based on their personal beliefs many parents were angered when these exemptions were removed and they contacted their state representatives who lobbied for an additional clause in the bill that stated if any new vaccines are added to the childhood vaccine schedule they must allow for personal belief exemptions with a personal belief exemption your child is allowed to attend in-person schooling I never thought that I would be accusing members of the school committee the superintendent and the chief medical officer for Contra Costa County of breaking the law but ignorance of the law is not a valid excuse to break the law or not due to your or not doing your due diligence and learning what the current law
047is I implore the school committee to include personal belief exemptions in the unlawful coveted vaccine mandate that you are haphazardly inciting if you do not include personal belief exemptions you will be further breaking legislative law weekly or bi-weekly testing of students can easily be done in lieu of the covid vaccine I've heard many members of this committee say they trust the science Norway South Africa United Kingdom and Taiwan have all halted the second dose of Pfizer vaccine in 12 to 17 year olds due to the risk of myocarditis which science should we trust in these circumstances typically in health care you always buy for the least intrusive intervention thank you our next public speaker is Don Gosney you may on me yourself thank you you know as I've emailed to you all we do not
048have the community oversight of our nearly three-quarter of a billion dollar Bond program that our community demands this is largely because the district has not fulfilled their obligation to process applications from highly qualified members of the community that want to serve your own board policy calls for 17 members on the cvoc and state law calls for a minimum of seven for nearly half a year though you've only had six and after the New Year you may be down to only five the district is out of compliance with state law the good thing though is that you have it within your power to correct this Injustice as I wrote in the emails I sent to you all you have four applications in the queue with one sitting there for 15 months two more for 11 months
049and a fourth for seven months all four of these applications are for highly qualified community members who have served on the cboc in the past with two of them having served as a cboc chair and another as the vice chair I've explained the details in my email about how you can very easily correct this lack of compliance all the while serving the needs of the very same people you all took an oath to represent the first step though is to stand tall and make sure that these are on the very next board meeting agenda so they can be acted upon before the next cboc meeting on December 13th at that meeting the cboc will elect their leadership for 2022. doesn't it make sense that it would best serve our community to maximize the pool of
050candidates for those leadership positions next item of concern is something I heard from my sources at El Cerrito High School where the dining tables were moved from the cafeteria to the patio so the students could dine in the open air while this may sound like a great idea these are tables that were never designed to be used in the open air where the rain falls on them and they are saturated with Dew overnight these tables have been destroyed I can easily see where it might cost twenty to thirty thousand dollars to replace these tables how many t-shirts are we going to have to lay off to come up with the funding for the new tables and lastly I hope the board can address the rumors that have been coming to my way where District staff
051have asked our local police departments to refrain from publicly reporting on the acts of of violence in some of our schools students against student violence as well as student against teacher violence there have also been rumors about weapons found on campus that the police have been asked to stay quiet about please tell us that we don't have a cover-up in place thank you very much our next public speaker is Dan McDon you may or me yourself hi thanks uh for your service board can you hear me okay um I am a parent a father of three teenage boys of my own and uh in July we became the Guardians for a teenage girl 16 year old girl whose mother uh passed away six days after her second Pfizer shot of sudden cardiac death she was
052found in her bed uh by her 19 year old son at 11 o'clock in the morning she was a perfectly healthy 47 year old woman who uh whose only misgiving was uh believing in this quote unquote science and was killed by uh my opinion Pfizer we've filed a CDC virus report uh they have a number for that and so we are not anti-vaxx per se uh anti-experimental shot and are not going to be giving that shot to our teenage boys and and they are at heightened risk which is now I couldn't even begin to tell you how many studies that exist that show the heightened risk from vaccination covert vaccination for teenage boys and the number of countries that have elected to engage in a uh either an outright moratorium or a revised schedule for
053people under 30 particularly males who are at heightened risk it's really unconscionable to me that this board would proceed with the vaccination mandate in light of the new information I understand everyone's trying to do the best by the kids and that's to be commended however as the information continues to evolve it certainly would appear to a sensible human being that that moving forward at full steam ahead would not make sense in light of the developing information both locally and around the planet who are making more sensible decisions to maintain the health of their children thank you questions our next public speaker is Joanna Pace you may own me yourself good evening board and superintendent um first I um I'm a Community member and first I would like to thank the staffs that uh members who
054put the curtain behind you there in the uh dujon Auditorium it makes it much easier to see your faces on the zoom tiles so thank you for that um and I want to thank the uh the board member or the staff member who posts in the chat how many people are in the rooms so those of us at home can um know um how many people there are both on the zoom and in the room um and um finally I have a request that we community members uh worked hard to get in their applications to serve on the 7-Eleven committee um which uh the uh material that went out to parents and Community said that the um the um the uh the um makeup of that board would be decided at a meeting in November
055and I see it's not on the agenda so if you could put something in the agenda that lets community members know when um you will uh actually um make that decision thank you our last public speaker of tonight is Ceylon Harrison you may I mean yourself thank you good evening bird how you guys doing tonight [Music] for um traditional ASA office coming to speak to the black parents around our concerns um and answering some questions we're still waiting for some questions to be answered I just feel that the district needs to have options for everybody to have equity and learning we need to make sure that the options are clear and and giving more options is okay because no one was ready and prepared for how we were going to do this so I think
056we can look at more options so everybody can feel safe and our communities can stay safe and I also want to thank you guys for bringing more programs into our district the programs that are the agenda um I thank you guys for that because during this time black students are really not having Equity around education so continuing to provide programs and ensuring keeping your you know one of your resolutions that you guys were going to watch the data is very important that we have effective black programs that are data driven so thank you so much have a good evening this concludes our public comment for tonight thank you to everyone who gave public comment in the audience and who gave public comment on the zoom uh as well we need to go back uh to
057clean up something um Dr Hurst is there a First Report out and I say first because the board's going back in a closed session is there a First Report out from closed session yes we would like to report out that the board did approve two stipulated expulsions and the vote was as follows four yeses one no for the first stipulated expulsion to know was President Phillips the second stipulated expulsion was four yeses one no the no was President Phillips then one transfer was also approved by the board the vote was four yeses want to abstain the abstain was President Phillips thank you thank you very much Dr Hurst um we are now going to move on to a request to address the board this is by Mr Mark scholes uh he will be addressing the
058board regarding the vaccine mandate when Mr Shaw's begins uh he'll have five minutes please don't start the time till he actually begins okay thank you for allowing me to address the board my wish is that you will be open-minded during the Mandate meeting two trustees asked many questions that were left unanswered and that still remain unanswered as they have confirmed to me I found their questions relevant and insightful they probed important areas of the Mandate and possible consequences the district did not fully inform the board as board policy requires disregarding their questions doesn't build trust with the community it erodes it during the meeting trustee Phillips said that sometimes leaders have to follow I greatly appreciated the passion with which he spoke out but I disagree with this choice of whom to follow there are
059many points in Dr barnitano's presentation that are easily rebutted here or four one he presented statistics that we are to infer would apply to our district if it had a vaccine mandate given a few minutes in the opportunity it is easy to demonstrate that his analysis was incomplete and the statistics he presented were eight times higher than what he should have stated if he had done a more complete analysis two comorbidities are the simultaneous presence of two or more diseases or medical conditions in a patient I do not recall him mentioning comorbidities comorbidities are significant in any prediction of a covid-19 infection outcome generally healthy students should not be put into a situation of unknown long-term risk when it is arguably not necessary he downplayed natural immunity yet one month before the meeting a peer-reviewed
060study concluded that prior infection immunity was many more times better than vaccination immunity with the Pfizer vaccine and on October 29th the CDC updated an article and stated the immunity provided by vaccine and prior infection are both high but not complete and four he commented on mRNA vaccine safety in the long term by implying that since traditional vaccines are safe then mRNA vaccines are similarly safe they are not the same technology you need evidence to make claims in any claim of long-term safety of mRNA vaccines is purely conjecture FDA approved drugs have been recalled due to the harm they have caused lawsuits have been successful against drug companies whose FDA approved drugs have caused harm in the long term only the test of time showed that they were injurious no board members challenged any of
061Dr farno's comments this also erodes Trust science takes time the emerging understanding is that natural immunity is better than vaccine immunity the vaccine is being treated as a one-size-fits-all solution it doesn't the Mandate was rushed without a clear understanding this erodes Trust section 49 405 of the California code of Education reads the control of smallpox is under the direction of the State Department of Health Services comma and no rule or regulation on the subject of vaccination shall be adopted by school or local Health authorities the same code only mentions both vaccination and covid-19 in section 32092 so subsection D reads this this section shall not be construed as inferring that vaccination of school staff or pupils is a prerequisite for providing in-person instruction these statues fully demonstrate the school board typically does not have the
062authority to mandate covid-19 vaccinations on students the district has not detailed why it believes it has that Authority District actions in opposition to these statutes and lack of justification erodes Trust FDA advisory committee member Dr Rubin when speaking about using the Pfizer vaccine on youth last month said we're never going to learn about how safe the vaccine is until we start giving it he is correct there are currently no studies or other evidential support demonstrating long-term safety the FDA doesn't owe the long-term outcomes they are new and untested with respect to time we do not want our children to be experimented on like Lab Rats again trust erodes our neighboring District in Berkeley is offering a testing option to those who wish to avoid mRNA vaccination why must it be different for us this is
063an inequity manifested by our board the district and board offer teachers a personal belief exemption why not students why are they not afforded the Dignity of Equitable treatment when it comes to personal beliefs these inequities and others erode Trust the board has chosen to neglect its own policies bylaws and governance documents it is chosen to ignore the lack of evidence demonstrating long-term safety of mRNA vaccines board is chosen to avoid being fully informed and arguably the board has chosen to ignore the law regarding its lack of authority to make rules to regulations during the subject regarding the subject of vaccination this needs to end trustee Smith folds has the correct position you must follow the policies bylaws and governance standards and cannot vote to adopt the resolution when they are not followed it is neither
064right Equitable nor ethical it erodes Trust in conclusion I propose that a new resolution be passed that provides a testing option to those who would rather wait for an FDA approved less risky traditional vaccine like covaxin students would continue in person education and extracurricular activities unaltered a new resolution that allows what I have proposed would be an equitable compromise your time is up if you can please conclude I appreciate it yes to have probably 20 seconds left it would return District staff to focusing directly on promoting education in the district instead of Performing tasks associated with the vaccine mandate the district would show that is interested in all stakeholders concerns and not subordinate education to personal interests or beliefs or pressure groups it would be a step toward improving relationships in the district by promoting
065partnership and addressing all stakeholders concerns again thank you for your time but thank you for your comments Mr Shaws next we're going to go on to item B5 which is agenda review and adoption on board do you have anything that you wish to remove from the consent calendar foreign ER I'm looking at just looking at you instead of looking at the computer screen I know it's so weird I believe Dr Hurst you're going to pull C10 [Music] from consent yes president Phillips I don't know if we're going in order but I would like to pull C2 okay trustee reckley did you have anything you wanted to to pull no that's a thing sorry no that's it thank you so much okay C2 and trustee Smith folds is there a particular one on C2 or is
066it the whole thing okay so C2 is being pulled for discussion and Dr Hurst just to clarify see 10 you wanted off of the agenda is that accurate that is accurate also we will be bringing C11 back again but we want it to remain the reason why we'll be bringing it back is just for a salary um competitive salary survey that we're doing just so the board to see that so you want us to vote on C11 and you want us to bring it back and vote it on a on it again yes okay all right are there any other uh changes to this consent calendar okay all right so uh Canaveral motion uh to adopt this agenda with the following changes item C2 is pulled for discussion and item C10 is eliminated from the
067agenda at least for now so move person Phillips thank you very much sir is there a second okay it's been seconded by Gonzalez Hoy um it's been moved by Gonzalez Hawaii and seconded by uh Christian um board on the vote and this evening we're starting with Mr Christian Christian yes Gonzalez so yes record yes Smith follows yes Trujillo yes Phillips yes thank you very much Ford okay now we're gonna go on to item B6 which is approval of minutes we have minutes for August 25 September 8 and September 22 as well as September 23. uh board are there any corrections to those minutes any of those minutes okay seeing none can I have a motion to adopt all four one two three all four sets of minutes someone prison Phillips thank you sir is there
068a second okay it's been moved by Gonzalez Hoy seconded by Christian on the vote equation yes Gonzalez oh yes correctly Rios Smith Falls yes Trujillo yes Phillips yes the motion carries thank you so much we are now going to go on to resolution number 41-21-22 seek American awareness and appreciation month Mr Trujillo would you like to read this or the resolve clauses yes four seven no problem are we on resolution are we on number seven yes sir resolve clauses okay now therefore be it resolved that was Contra Costa Unified School District Board of Education recognizes and acknowledges the significant contribution made by The Californians of sick Heritage to our state and by adoption of this resolution seeks to afford all residents the opportunity to better understand recognize and appreciate the rich history shared principle of
069sick Americans their religion and its tenets of their faith and the important role that sick Americans play in further a mutual understanding and respect among all peoples thank you very much uh board are there any questions on this all right seeing none can I have a motion to adopt this resolution so moved moved by Smith folds can I have a second second Ed by Christian board any discussion seeing none Mr Christian please start the vote Christian yes Gonzales say yes reckler yes Smith Falls yes Trujillo yes Phillips chance motion carries thank you we are now going to go to resolution number 42-2122 Native American heritage month and Mr Gonzalez will read the resolve Clauses for us thank you president Phillips now therefore be a result of the West Contra Costa Unified School District Board of
070Education recognizes the month of November 2021 as Native American excuse me National Native American heritage month and encourages all educational communities to commemorate this occasion with appropriate instructional activities thank you very much sir board are there any questions regarding this resolution seeing not any discussion seeing none Mr Christian please start the vote Christian yes Mr Gonzalez Hoy you know what we started a vote and it was not moved thank you Mr Gonzalez Mr Christian I'm going to take that yes vote as a motion to adapt um I'm gonna have a second please no second all right it's been moved by a Christian and seconded by Gonzalez Hoy Mr Christian now please start the vote Christian yes Gonzalez so yes regular yes Smith Falls yes Trujillo yes Phillips yes motion carries thank you so much now
071we are going to go to resolution number 43 Dash 2122 American Education week and our superintendent will read the resolve clauses now therefore be it resolved that the West Contra Costa Unified School District Board of Education recognizes November 15th through the 19th 2021 as American Education week thank you very much board are there any questions can I have a motion so moved second okay moved by Smith fold seconded by Christian board any discussion Mr Trujillo you should come closer to us you just way down there on the end we love you you should when you get a chance come closer all right is there any we got a second which was Christian all right um board no discussion right all right let's start the vote Christian yes Gonzalez so yes reckler yes Smith Falls yes
072Trujillo yes Phillips yes the motion carries thank you very much now we're going to go to our consent calendar board I'm just going to remind you that C2 has been pulled for discussion uh meanwhile C 10 is not on our agenda for tonight can I have a motion to adopt a consent calendar foreign Phillips if you're a second all right move by Gonzalez Hoy seconded by Christian there is no discussion on this um Mr Christian please begin the vote Christian yes reckler yes Smith Falls yes Trujillo yes Philips yes emotion carries thank you very much now we're going to go on to item D which is the superintendent's report I'm going to ask if you could bring up the report please foreign so we'd like to begin in memoriam two individuals we first like to
073recognize Mr Alex Johnson to retired maintenance supervisor who passed away Mr Johnson worked for the district for 26 years we'd also like to recognize Miss Deborah hawakia wing retired teacher for the deaf and the hard of hearing passed away Miss hawakia Wing worked for the district for 13 years our thoughts go out to their family and friends in the loss of their loved one next slide so we wanted to begin the presentation just letting you know that there's three portions of our presentation this evening next steps in our Equity audit we also have representatives from LSA here and also Mr Booker our safety consultant is going to be talked about covert response and then also we'll be giving an update on the Virtual Academy so as you know over the past month we've been having
074the equity audit we've had part one and a portion of part two wanted to let you know that pushing of part two the last portion of part two will be concluded at the end of this month or the beginning of December we also want to let you know that there has been an audit of our Board of Trustees as well and there's findings and recommendations uh coming from that audit and I'm requesting the board to consider a special board meeting of November the 29th to review those findings and recommendations from the board audit we also wanted to share with the public and with the board that this now begins officially our our start for the planning of our strategic plan process I've shared this along since I've been here that really would go through the
075equity audit process we would look at every Department we would look at all of our data and then we would start the process of our vision our Equity vision are anti-racism statement our mission our core values I want to share with you that we're going to be starting the planning for right away and thinking about the process and what we will be doing is inviting a cross-section of the community to start planning these conversations the conversations in the actual operations of the vision mission core values and anti-racism statement will actually begin in January but those teams will start immediately and start having planning sessions the plan now and the plan will develop and I'll continue to bring this information back to the board and to the public but the plan right now is to really
076engage the community by trustee area so we have five trusty areas and to really engage each area three times so what we're sharing is having the first session really engaging the community say for instance trust the area one and start having conversations with trustee area one about Vision what is our vision for our students what is our vision around Equity as well and then also cover mission have conversations around our anti-racism statement and then core values so that's just one session for trustee area one and we will do that for each trusty area and it'll be open up to the entire community so if you think about this right now the thought is that we would have three sessions for each trusty area around the vision anti-racism statement Mission and core values so again some
077of that processing is going to happen right away with the teams but then the actual meetings will start in January and go through February then you've heard me talk also about The Graduate level profile and I've shared since I've been here The Graduate level profile is really what do we want our students to know and be able to do when they graduate so I wanted to share with you a lot of those conversations that's going to come out of those Community engagement meetings when we start talking about the vision around equity when we started developing our anti-racism statement when we start talking about our core values and our mission all of that conversation will lead to what are the skills we want our students to know and be able to do and from those conversations
078with the community we'll be able to develop our graduate level profile and again it'll be a community engagement process and that will be a document that defines what the skills will be that we want our students to know and be able to do when they graduate again all of these are Community conversations we're defining the direction for our district and that will also incur occur in January or February then I want to share with you March April time frame you've heard me talk about this concept since uh I've started here and that is the scorecard it's a data scorecard the data score card just simply allows us to report out the progress how are we doing as a district in multiple areas and we will Define together how often we'll be reporting out but there
079will be a solid structure for all internal and external stakeholders be able to see how we are doing on multiple measures so that you are aware at all times so I wanted to let you know we're going right according to the plan that we've articulated since I've been here we would go through the equity audit and then we would we would immediately start the strategic planning process so I wanted to share with you that tonight that that process is beginning right now next slide then we're going to turn over to Mr Booker for covert response sorry for president before we do turn it over um I know they're going to be several presentations and I just want to ask board members if they have any questions about essentially the first part of this presentation that
080Dr hershis did if you do I'm asking you to because we have a lot of work to do tonight and we have to go back into closed session I'm asking you to limit your questions to four but do you have any questions for Dr Hurst what are you just presented um we will start with you uh the first two gentlemen said no Miss Mrs reckler do you have any questions on this I apologize for that no I'm good thank you okay and uh trustee Smith Falls I do have a couple of questions will these Community meetings be a hybrid meeting with zoom in real time so the conversation won't be recorded and then people who watch it have a chance to respond or where the community meetings be hybrid like we're doing right now thank
081you for that comment I appreciate that um yes and we do apologize for the Kennedy and the Richmond conversations we were thinking that we could make those live in real time but yes we can certainly commit to those being hybrid and then my second question is like have an idea of Quorum number so if you have a meeting in area one but only two people show up does that mean you know that's we would listen to those two people but that's not considered a meeting because we want a cross section of the community to be there so is there a number of we want to make sure we have this many students participating we want to make sure we have this many parents we want to make sure we have this many community members we
082want to make sure we have this many teachers this many admin Etc is that a number that or Matrix that the district has developed when deciding that they want to ensure that they're get they're really hearing Community voice yeah that's a very good point we've not defined a number but what I can share with you trustee Smith folds is we're starting even uh this month and going to next month we're going to have a cross-section of our community and we're going to talk about the process so we can even talk about what is the number the Quorum number that we want to really gauge what we say we've had enough participation uh what I will say is very important for me as superintendent that we get a max number of people and we think about
083um a lot of different venues so not just the trusty areas if someone can't attend how else are we reaching out to individuals to make sure that they're participating in the process because just think about it this is going to redefine our district everything that I just shared with you so it's important that we talk to as many people as possible But to answer your question we're starting with a cross-section people and I can add that question to the list when we start talking about that thank you and I would like to kind of double down on that and make sure we're intentional so we're reaching out to our elacs we're reaching out to our APAC we're reaching out to our our our special-led students and their families and their parents we're reaching out to
084transitional parents we're reaching out to all of these parents who reside in our school communities to ensure that we are getting a full understanding of what's going to be the West Contra Costa way thank you that's it absolutely thank you for saying that man I'm bored again we have a lot to do tonight so when you're asking your questions please limit your questions to questions and we'll have time at the end of the meeting to make our comments but this is a question period Mr Trujillo yes um so did you say this would start with area one or will it um be with all areas at the same time any other questions sir it's going to start with uh area one and then error two and so on and so forth but then uh as
085I shared it's going to be three rotations because if you think about the process the visioning process and all the other processes you're starting with just introducing everyone to the process and then coming back again after in synthesizing those ideas and then the third time would be really a final product and making sure that everyone was happy with the final product now I'm just sharing with you there's three rotations once I form the group and the committee it may morph into something more and it may be more sessions but my thinking right now is three rotations for each individual area one at a time good thank you Mr Trujillo was that one question yes okay thank you sir okay Dr Hurst next we have Mr Booker for covert response thank you Dr Hurst uh good
086evening esteem board uh like Dr Hurst said we're going to give you updates regarding our covet testing I have a representative from LSA he is the managing partner and that's Mr Rob McConnell he will talk about uh some of the testing that we've done and how it works and then some of the things that go into our testing as you remember we went to Rapid testing when we changed companies and with that testing there are some they are subject to uh false positive tests so we'll talk about that a little bit we'll also talk about some of the cdph updates as well as our contact tracing team uh how it's structured what their responsibilities are um and what the outcome is for contact tracing and then finally we'll look at our dashboard and see what
087some of our results have been thus far next slide please like I said with any testing especially with antigen testing we look at what factors can impact impact the results of the covet test and without going into great detail because we'll talk about this during The Question session and Mr McConnell can give you a little bit more detail with regards to that but there are several factors that are that go into the actual testing one being viral lobe the sensitivity and specificity the stage of the infection the immune response and of the infected person the different laboratory methods that are used the different testing and then finally the sample collection and handling process next slide please currently in our district we use three products for our testing we use the Abbott by next now this
088is a rapid test that is used by the cdphs program um and of the rapid test it is the the most accurate uh we also were using access uh bio care start and that was an FDA approved uh testing and then we use crudel quick view uh which we currently use for our PCR testing the methods that we use or that is used by LSA are the anterior nasal swab and we do that on a weekly Cadence for each of our schools we also have the ability to do an oral swap if uh requested and then finally we do PCR testing and that was that is used for as a confirmatory test for any positive uh rapid test that we get and those results uh usually are returned within two calendar days like I said
089with any antigen testing or any testing um it has to be FDA approved uh and it's granted a e u a um which is an emergency use authorization but the FDA has said that no test is 100 accurate and the testing depends on the number of tests and the patient factors as well as current Community transmission rates next slide please in this slide we took a four week period and we started from October 11th uh and ended on um November 5th and what we covered was week by week and we do we do this um as a report uh overall but during this four weeks we looked at false positive actual positives uh cases that were contact traced and a total number of tests for that week and as you can see for week one
090we had 10 false positives uh the actual positives were 13. and the contact uh the cases that were contact traced by our contact tracing team were 213 and we tested uh 6115 uh people the next week uh we had four positives or false positives 10 actual positives 48 cases where contact Trace and we tested 6797 people and that third week we had nine false positives 11 actual positives uh 166 cases were contact trace and we tested a total of 6963 people and in that final week into November we had 24 false positives actual positives were 36. and we contact Trace 329 uh cases and we tested a total of 6922 and if you remember this was shortly after Halloween uh so we did have a slight increase uh and in full transparency uh we did
091have some issues with the product that we were using um which was the uh care start product there were a number of tests that were rejected those tests were uh given a PCR confirmatory to all those people that had tested positive during that time and those tests came back negative next slide please so cdph gives guidance we follow those guidance as well as County Health and the guidance that I'll talk about briefly is the updated guidance recommendation for confirmatory and screening testing if they talk about in this uh update they talk about PCR testing is only required once a week whereas antigen testing if you're doing uh weekly testing is required twice per week we also look at the updated Guidance with regard to or to guidance to align with the cdc's recommendation for fully
092vaccinated people uh specifically they talk about individuals who are asymptomatic fully vaccinated and who have been in close contact with someone who is tested positive for covert 19. should be tested five to seven days after the close contact that has occurred if they develop symptoms of covid-19 they should be tested right away and they should also be placed in into quarantine and then finally with molecular testing our PCR testing it's most effective if the turnaround time is short within two days and as far as our PCR testing goes we um we we test our results are returned uh from LSA within a 24 to 36 hour period next slide so this slide shows uh the org chart for our contact tracing team uh specifically I am the manager for this team we have a team
093coordinator which is a district nurse uh Mr Lee we have a project manager who is Phyllis Rosen who uh gives the information to our labor partners but we also have two lead nurses our lbns that have the responsibility of delegating these cases to our 11 contact tracers that we have in our on our team next slide please this is the process of the timeline for or contact tracing and I've showed this before but just to reiterate it or when we get the information the site leader which is the principal or a supervisor gets this information and submits it into a Google form that we use that auto populates into a spreadsheet that the contact tracing team uses the contact tracing team receives this information and those cases are delegated like I said to uh from
094the elite nurses the contact tracing process begins they notify the principal after receiving the case and then they start their contact tracing process as far as the positive person they contact them and they contact anybody that was in close contact of that positive person they also have a responsibility to report to the county within a 24-hour period uh once they get the case um and then our like I said our our project manager has a responsibility to let our labor Partners know of a positive case and then once the case is complete the principal has a responsibility for sending these exposure letters uh to staff and students that were in close contact as well as the community letter for the positive case next slide please and then finally we have a dashboard dashboard that is
095updated daily uh this dashboard shows the total staff numbers that tested positive as well as the student numbers how many classes that we have closed and the total number of cases uh that we have as it is date we have tested approximately over 54 000 people for our testing process for a district and with that I conclude my presentation foreign thank you very much sir uh board I'm asking you to limit the four questions and the other thing I want to let you know is based on the 45 minutes of her closed session and to go back in there we need to leave here at 9 40 and that will give us 45 minutes to get back in there and then to get back out here and report so all of our work these presentations
096for the superintendent report the action items everything needs to be done by 9 40. uh Mr Krishna thank you I don't have any questions Mr Gonzalez thank you I just have one question Mr Booker good evening thank you for your presentation um about the full Mr Gonzalez really quickly um I'm sorry this is the presentation that would include LSA too right yes sir okay so if you guys have questions you can ask LSA as well not just Mr Booker that's why I wanted to no problem thank you good evening um Mr LSA uh Mr McConnell thank you thank you so much I'm not sure if this question is for you or for Mr Booker but in the situations of the false positives um what is the turnaround in order for us to figure out if
097that is an actual positive case would you mind going into a little bit of detail on that because it has been a big issue that we've had to figure out in the last few weeks yes so on the one-off PCR test which are in response to a positive antigen test the result time is 48 hours if we were doing a more consistent PCR program we could expedite and ship them like last week when there was some difficulties with the rejected tests we flew somebody from the lab to take them directly to the lab and get a fast result if we were doing PCR and higher volume we would do that daily so it's just what we're capable of with the ones coming from each school it's hard to get them transported fast enough when it's
098such a low volume but in that situation it's 48 hours in a high volume situation it would be it would be considerably faster got it thank you so then if there's a false positive we would know within 48 Hours of the student testing correct we always do a PCR on every positive and within 48 hours we can either validate that positive or you know prove that it's a false positive got it thank you so much sir appreciate it that's it president Phillips Mrs wreckler thank you um this one I believe is for LSA hello welcome thank you for being here um are we now only using um the Abbott by next now yes the supply chain has normalized there was a government I don't know what the right word was but the government had purchased
099640 million dollars worth of product and made it hard for the supply chain to access those tests um that has been rectified and we have enough Abbott to the last remainder of the school year okay and that is the test that is the most accurate it's it's we we believe it's the most reputable product um I I'm not the manufacturer it's hard to speak to the exact details the quiet out quick view is also very accurate but it's very cumbersome to take I think the buy next Now product by Abbott Laboratories is the most applicable and reliable for what we're doing okay and then I think another one for LSA is is there any way that you can contract with a lab here so that we can get pcrs back in 24 instead of 48
100hours um well the the issue is just Transportation so we we can get them um in volume between 24 and 36 hours but that's as fast as we can do um it just you know just to be realistic I don't want to over promise and under deliver um I think 24 is a fair estimate it's just there has to be some some room for air you know we have power outages things happen I think if you if you use the numbers 24 to 36 hours on PCR we can deliver on that consistently but it requires volume today each PCR comes from different directions there's an average of 12 sites testing every day and those nurses have to report it get it transported get the PCR done it's just it's a little bit difficult in today's
101system when the PCR is a contingency plan or a validating factor it's not the everyday use if it was the Everyday Use we would fly them back and forth every night um it would just it's hard to do to be predictable with the way it is today okay thank you I think the other two are for over here um so for Mr Booker can you please outline the exact process and protocol that an administrator principal follows to get PCR results I have principals telling me that the only way they get results is through a parent telling them yeah so what happens is they have access to their school's portal and those were those results come through the GBP portal so they would get those results just like uh they would um a antigen test and
102and actually Mr McConnell can speak more to to that process Mike's on do I need to put is that better thank you um the biggest issue is that the parents have ordered a test um in the system which is an antigen test um it doesn't differentiate between PCR and antigen for the consent form but the child who's taking the test is hasn't ordered a second test so it is a little bit cumbersome because they're they're working under one authorization and one order number so sometimes that's created confusion for the principals to find it and see it through gvp we've updated that system to make it faster but the laboratory management system is the one that gets and records that test because that there's two tests ordered that day under one order so that that's where
103the confusion comes from for the principles and why sometimes it can be a little harder to see it through gvp okay thank you and then my last question is for uh load testing schools Helms Hercules eye Kennedy phenomenal that have really low low testing levels what steps are being taken to increase the number of signups that they have so that we can get more kids tested so I've been to each one of those schools and talked to the principals or the administrator that is in charge of the testing process like I said or in earlier meetings we have talked to our labor Partners about doing a registration Fair um we have had some difficulties with doing that on the weekend mainly because of weather um but that is in the process of happening where we
104get these fares and get people registered we are going to sites and making sure that uh the process that the the school is going by is a process that is universal meaning that some schools uh just let the kids go to a designated area they don't have any supervision and so therefore you're not getting the number of kids that you would like to to be tested or staff for that matter to be tested uh on their testing day so we're just making sure we're codifying their their process and making sure that they're sending we we put the information on our our district website but we also ask that the schools put it on their website as well and then sending out Communications to the families and if the families don't have a clear understanding making
105sure that you know we did it earlier we haven't done it since but we had sessions where LSA went over uh this process um how to register what the test is like we did a number of those all the way up until I think October 18th um and um and so we are looking at other processes to try to get more families uh or more people involved um but it's a a matter of logistics and making sure that they're following the same protocols that we're using throughout the district thank you ma'am trustee Smith phones president Phillips before I ask my questions on this I do have a clarification point that I would like to bring up when we took the vote for going back to closed session we didn't put a Time on it I
106don't have a doubt that we would finish by 9 40. I just want to ensure that when we took that vote it was it was more broad as we kind of finished this work and then we go back to closed session I just wanted to make that clear for the record but now for my questions before you before you go on yes sir when you say that there was no time on there was no time on what there was no time so when we took the vote the way the vote was framed it was we will recess closed session where we are then we will go back to open session do the business of the board and then we will leave Open Session and come back and reconvene closed session for a maximum up to
10745 minutes in that closed session so we didn't put a time frame on we will be out by we will be out of Open Session by nine o'clock to make sure that we're able to finish the meeting by 10 30. that was never put on there so I believe the intention of the motion was to say we recessed closed session to make sure that we're out in Open Session by 6 30 we do the business of the board that that's on the agenda and then we go back to closed session at the end of this close of business and open session I don't think that we're going to go past 9 40. I just wanted to make sure that there's clear there was a clear understanding of what we actually said in the vote that
108passed when we took it thank you um and not to to have a debate about it but um what was expressed to me was that um because I did step out of the room but what was expressed to me was that it was a maximum of 45 minutes um I heard you say that the superintendent told me that trustee Gonzalez holy confirmed that as well I'm sorry go ahead please our meetings end at 10 30 so if we just do the math that means that we need to be out of here by 9 40. so that's what we're going to shoot for um trustee Smith folds your questions thank you for that and yes it was 45 minutes but it was again the clarity that I spoke about before so my question is Mr Booker
109oral versus anterior nasal swab do we know if one is better than the other that's a question probably better sooner from Mr McConnell thank you Mr McConnell yes um again this may be something that you know it's not my determination we can't hear you Mr McConnell I think you're on mute I think I'm better now sorry um anterior Nares is a better collection method than an oral swab there's an oral pharyngeal swab which is a lot more invasive than anterior Nares or like a cheek swab but the there's no comparison between a cheek swab and an anterior Nares it is a better collection thank you for that and then Mr Booker do we know or have a breakdown on the covet dashboard of how many teachers versus students versus community members are being tested so
110we have that 54 000 tested right is there a breakdown and it may be on the dashboard but is there a breakdown to say these are the number of teachers that are tested out of that 54 these are the number of students tested these are the number of community members so the breakdown is for staff and students so we don't necessarily have community members or a detailed breakdown to if it was a teacher or food service worker we know based on the information that we get uh and through our contact tracing but on the dashboard it's it's just uh discerned by um student or staff okay and do we see because you have the internal data you know internally are we seeing the number of students being tested going up and in terms of the
111testing we are seeing an increase in in testing for students students 10 of your slide deck there was a part and I don't know if you're able to pull it up or not but if you could I would like to speak to a specific part on Slide 10. I'm just looking forward okay so on slide 10 and I I'm paraphrasing because it's not in front of me but on slide 10 it said something to the effect of um asymptomatic vaccinated students you know the bullet I'm talking about Mr Booker okay so and it's for any individual not just uh students it's it's any individual so any any fully vaccinated individual who is showing a symptomatic symptoms should be tested within did it say five to seven days that is correct if they've been in close
112contact of a positive case are they still on campus or are they at home they are uh at work or in in school um unless they start unless they are symptomatic if they are symptomatic then they are put into quarantine okay um those are all four of my questions thank you so much thank you ma'am you're very welcome Mr Trujillo thank you I have two questions the first one would probably be for um sorry with uh LSA Mr uh McConnell is it yeah for the record my name is Robert McConnell Robert okay thank you [Laughter] um the first one would be um is the Abbott um by next now test uh not FDA approved um I I believe that all of these tests are under the emergency use authorization I'm not sure if any of
113them have full FDA approval at this time yeah thank you then my second question would be for Mr Booker um do you have any update on the vaccine clinics I remember a couple memes ago hearing something about the vaccine clinic not returning to Kennedy by a Community member so you have a new update on the next round of vaccine clinics so with the vaccine clinics uh we've done a number of them and if it was taking uh off the the board it was because of um low turnout low participants uh participation um so um did that answer your question uh not exactly okay can you can you say it again then will the vaccine clinics uh return to all the school sites that had the first ones yes that that is our plan so it
114even that's the plan is that is it going to happen do we have a the dates confirmed from will return Miss Martin will speak to that I will come back with um some of the dates so what happened was with some of the clinics that had the first round they did stop um the clinics at some of the schools and mainly because there was low turnout and so what they were trying to do is create hubs where students could go to get the second vaccine so it does not necessarily mean that it will be going back to that particular School site if they received their first shot there so what the county is trying to do just because they want to control you know their Staffing and ensure that they're meeting the demands and being
115in schools and places where there's more sign ups they're trying to have more hubs for some of these vaccine clinics I did not provide an update on the vaccine clinics in this presentation but I can't bring that forward um I can pass that along to the board and to you tomorrow thank you you're welcome two questions I have at this moment thank you sir thank you very much sir thank you guys yes sir now we're going to turn it over to larisha Martin good evening board and community I'm going to provide a couple of updates on Vista Virtual Academy um there have been a concern around food distribution at Vista virtual and we've started food pickup on 10 29 21 we had 120 meals so we gave out breakfast and lunch to students and families
116who were there to pick up food we currently have 258 students enrolled in Virtual Academy and 137 enrolled in Vista High School they're thinking about rebranding the school to call it Vista family of schools so we'll be providing an update or getting your feedback from the board on that the Vista staff are still working on the wait list and adding students as they can 20 students transferred back to in-person school mainly because those students are now vaccinated so parents felt because they were now vaccinated they could return to in-person learning business planning is working on a plan with HR and executive director to be ready for January when all students will be required to be vaccinated so they I'll talk about the hiring there's several positions that are posted on edjoin and indeed to continue
117hiring for a Vista virtual principal McCormick submitted five teachers for hire she received one transfer teacher and another teacher was just recently cleared in HR so that is a total of seven principal McCormick is working with the elementary director of curriculum instruction and assessment on their Ela implementation materials and will conduct additional professional development on 12-3 2021 with her staff Vista staff are creating small groups intervention groups for students and using a team teaching model with their RSP team and classroom support AIDS parent faculty organization is founding in in its founding stages and Rome parents have been established have been a room parents have been established in majority of the classrooms so their room parents in the classroom really supporting organizing Vista parents are supporting with organizing in-person hubs for students these in-person hubs are
118mainly for social emotional learning and for play materials are available at both sites Richmond and El Cerrito for pickup for parents this is just a breakdown of students so in Kinder all the way to 12th grade you can see the number of students in Virtual Academy as of 11 15 21. next slide this is our students broken down by ethnicity the percent that we have at Vista Virtual Academy this is our current wait list of students by grade level at Vista virtual and this is the weightless broken down by subgroups as well thank you thank you ma'am Mr Christian any questions uh yes thank you and just going back on the waiting list how many students on on the waiting list now foreign and are we making more preparations of uh hiring more staff I
119mean teachers to accommodate uh the big load I think what's um I think what you know as we give these data reports I think one thing that is not sort of showing is that there actually have been students the students are moving back and forth to have some students coming off the wait list some students going back to in-person instruction there were 71 new applications yet yesterday so when you look at this list 781 it was actually lower but there's 71 new applications since the Mandate started um you've had you've had an influx of students going back and forth so what's happening is students are getting vaccinated they're going back to in-person instruction students who don't want to be vaccinated are now being added to the wait list so it somewhat seems that the wait
120list is growing in the in the Virtual Academy is not taking in more students but in fact they are um it's just the list the the numbers of students keep shifting okay so when January come will we be able to come a day well that's the plan she just hired five new teachers they have to be onboarded by HR there was one transfer so there's technically two more teachers there um and then the five hires so once they are fully all processed we expect that Vista virtual will be able to at least take um we actually did the number 72 new students so you'll have a cohort of um 25 25 we're going to move 14 to the high school and then there's another spot where we can put eight more students at the high
121school level so that total 72 students so the goal is to have this down Before Christmas at least down another 72 students from the wait list but she's continuing to hire okay all right thank you thank you sir thank you uh Miss Martin um are we in constant communication with all the families in the waitlist the families on the waitlist when they do the enrollment now it lets them know that they do not disenroll from their school they must stay enrolled at their school until they receive a phone call to actually participate in Edith's orientation which are held on Fridays she does reach out to families I cannot say specifically or for sure how often but I could find out and then are we investigating um more creative Tools in case we were not to
122be able to hire more teachers for January uh like online programs or other means of supporting students to get the education they need so are you saying in in place of a teacher trustee Hoy yes and in in place of a regular classroom are we looking at other means uh like there are programs uh out there that could potentially accommodate larger number of students um are we looking at those in case worst case scenario there are no candidates as teachers uh so that we can have students be accommodated and served in some way at least no we have not looked at alternative um enrollment options Beyond an actual classroom teacher but we can look into that okay thank you very much that's my last question thanks Miss Martin Mrs regler thank you I really only
123have one that one that's kind of a follow-up to both that were asked before what's your best estimate of the number of students that might be enrolling due to the mandate we just we don't really know if it's because of the Mandate but as of yesterday there were 71 new applications into Virtual Academy we are assuming because those are 71 brand new applications in November that they are because of the mandate um is there a plan in place to be a little more specific about betting that and assessing it out assessing out the 71 new applications to find out if they are because of the vaccine mandate uh yeah just in general how the Mandate is going to affect enrollment in the virtual school yeah in cabinet we are constant executive team we are constantly
124looking at the number of students who are getting vaccinated and then trying to compare that to okay what are the numbers going to be in Vista virtual so we're constantly looking at if students are being vaccinated and then what the impact is going to be and so hopefully before January we'll have a better number of how many students are actually will be vaccinated I think we'll have a better understanding than if if student if parents will enroll in Vista virtual in the meantime Edith I've told her we have discussed at least getting up to 13 more teachers at Vista virtual to try and accommodate what we believe will probably be somewhere around 300 more students added to this list that's currently here okay thank you thank you ma'am um Mrs Smith Boltz so I have
125a question Miss Martin due in January will Vista students need to be vaccinated because they're doing in-person hubs yes so all students whether you're in Vista or not need to be vaccinated if you're going to participate in an in-person Hub that is correct okay and then When Miss uh Jordan McCormick is going to hire these 13 teachers are those is that hiring process open now to teachers internally transferring because you said we have one transfer person who is now getting ready to be onboarded does that open up for all teachers who are wanting to transfer from inside the district we have started having that discussion um I believe Ms Williams is still on here and she can be more specific around the transfer to Vista I don't know the specifics of that teacher I do
126know that we have started engaging more regarding teachers who will not get vaccinated or who are you know will not be vaccinated what is our all what is our plan for those teachers um and should they be able to teach at Vista virtual we have discussed that in executive I don't know if Miss Williams wants to go more specifically around our thoughts around teachers and transfers because of the vaccine mandate so we originally discussed that we would not be doing transfers I don't recall the specific case but um that that was not part of the but we are open to that discussion so that's where we're at right now okay so you're open to the discussion of having teachers who are currently employed in our district schools to have the opportunity to transfer into Vista
127Virtual Academy the Vista family Virtual Academy okay and then Miss Martin did we do the survey of the current Vista families who are enrolled enrolled currently enrolled to see if they will be going back to their school if they're planning on staying at Vista did we do that survey as of yet no there has not been a survey regarding if families will be going back or not okay thank you and I believe that that is for Miss Martin I will send a couple of more questions over about Vista through the superintendent if you don't mind thank you no problem Mr Trujillo yes uh it's just a very brief question um you mentioned changing the name of um one was it you said uh Vista family of schools and would that include just this The Landing
128Vista virtual yes and just follow up uh what's the reason for this name change I I'm not sure Mr Trujillo that um a comment that Miss McCormick gave me that that's something that they've been talking about as a staff in a community I can get more information to you on that thank you very much for all of the presentations uh on this evening um Dr Hurst and Mr Booker and Mrs Martin uh we appreciate the work that you are doing um that concludes the superintendent's report we're now going to go to our first action item which is certificated provisional internship permit um Miss Williams is not here so I'm here all right Miss Williams there you are I'm looking for you I know I know okay I'm here all right uh tonight we're here with
129the certificated provisional internship permit and looking for boards approval so the PIP was created in response to the phasing out of the emergency permit and it allows an employee agency to hire an individual who has not yet met the subject matter competency requirement needed to enter an internship program prior to requesting a pip the um the district must verify that a diligent search has been made which we have done for a fully credentialed teacher and the PIP is issued for when you're only so we are looking for approval for that this evening Lord are there any questions okay see none the trigger finger go ahead Mr Gonzalez away so moved president Phillips is there a second okay moved by Gonzalez Hoy seconded by Christian board is there any discussion all right seeing none Mr Christian
130yes don't tell us so yes regular yes Smith Falls yes Trujillo yes Phillips yes the motion carries so Miss Williams Mrs Williams Miss Williams excuse me this is yours too I think yep yep so certificated board authorization for Ed code 44258.3 uh this Education Code allows the governing board of a school district to authorize the holder of a credential in the following areas multiple subjects standard Elementary single subject and standard secondary with his or with his or her consent to teach a departmental class in grades K-12 provided the teacher has adequate knowledge of subject matter and again taking the board's approval for this tonight foreign any questions all right can I have a motion some move person Phillips we have a second please second all right it was moved by Gonzalez Hoy and seconded by
131Christian or is there any discussion on this item all right seeing none Mr Christian yes Gonzalez so yes reckler yes yeah yes Philips yes the motion carries all right thank you all right I need to hit this thing I haven't hit it like once tonight um all right E3 Pinole Valley High School magnetic hold open devices change order approval yes tonight we bring before you change order number three for the Pinole Valley High project um it is our policy to bring forward change orders that are either over 10 percent for the total contract value or over 250 000 this particular change order total is 5686 dollars which brings it total contract to 10.2 percent uh and change orders for this job so we bring that tonight uh for approval board are there any questions all
132right is there a motion some with President Phillips is there a second all right um it has been moved and seconded by Gonzalez Hoy and Christian board is there any discussion saying now let's vote commission yes Gonzalez so yes reckler yes Smith Falls Jess Trujillo yes Phillips yes motion carries all right we have an item that was pulled off of the consent calendar for discussion that's item C2 approval of fundraising activities uh trustee Smith Falls you have the floor so in the very beginning of the school when we talked about fundraisers beginning of this current school year we were told the board was told that fundraisers are going to look different because of covet protocols and procedures meaning that they the on-campus fundraisers would look different so campuses could go out to like Chipotle or
133another restaurant and then have those type of fundraisers but it was going to look differently on campus I would just like a brief update as to what measures or what changes we are going to create around having now according to this on-campus fundraisers if that's if that's clear if not I'll be happy to clarify a little bit in reference to covert procedures and what are we doing differently trusty Smith Folds so yes sir so for example if you're now going to be selling food on campus right what is that going to look like if you're going to sell food is it going to be always pre-packaged is it going to be the use of The Snack Shack or the concession stand are you going to allow students if they're doing their Club fairs or Club
134Rush are they now going to be able to do hot food like for example selling um lumpia or noodles or slices of pizza what is the new are there any changes in the way that it was done pre-covet now post covet and have we communicated that with our asbs and our leadership teachers and our school sites to ensure that that oversight is managed and who owns that oversight gotcha I hear you I see uh Mr Booker here and I allow him to respond to this is related to covert procedures so cdph and the CDC has uh said that the most optimal area for that to happen is outdoors um but if it were to occur indoors then they would need to have a designated area um where uh people could eat that was away from
135the general uh population okay so if they are for example selling Mr Booker they're for example selling snacks and beverages you're saying the most optimal thing would be to do that outside if you're selling snacks and beverages inside like at an inside concession Shack or concession stand then another layer of another layer of protection would need to be added to that correct that is correct and then are we are we okay eating inside our buildings outside of like the cafeteria so for example if I'm selling a donut can I eat that donut on campus or is it I'm selling the donut gotta take it home and it's at a certain time because it's after school or does that make sense are we allowing selling of items during school time or is it only after school
136and if it's after school are we encouraging people to eat those items off campus instead of even eating those items on campus have we looked into that what that looks like and have we set policy around that so as a matter of fact we we are currently in in this discussion um so we are finalizing some things I did put out some updated uh covet um advisory for the principals um so uh we are in current discussions with that um because we know that many of the um extracurricular activities uh have fundraising uh projects or fundraising deals that they have um so we are currently talking about that and I will update once you as uh once it's finalized thank you so much and the same would go for things like fall Carnival spring carnivals
137what do those look like how many persons are there only going to be a vaccinated person is allowed to participate in fall and spring carnivals are they going to have the outside Community able to come in if it's after school and purchase tickets and participate like I'm just looking for a little clarification and then how we are Distributing that communication to all of our sites so that it's clear around the expectation of the fundraiser and the expectation of who's owning that fundraiser and who's owning well who's owning the safety around that fundraiser because it is different than it was pre-covered so I did put out a uh extracurricular uh policy uh that all the principals have and they have the responsibility to not only share it with their uh student and staff but also their
138school communities um so there is a requirement um not only for vaccination but if uh not vaccinated a testing mandate for that if it's outdoor there is no limitation on the capacity if it's indoor there is a capacity limit president Phillips that's why I uh pulled this item that's all I have to say on that thank you for the clarification Mr Booker thank you for the clarification Dr Hurst once you get more of those things fleshed out I would like a update whether that's full board or personally I would appreciate that thank you trustee smithwald you're moving the item I will move the item with the understanding of what we just talked about Dr Harris about making sure that we flush those items out clearly to principals and sites and that our ASB is involved
139in understanding those uh boundaries around it and our leadership classes are understanding the new parameters around safety when trying to do a old fundraiser a new way thank you very much I'm bored even though this was her item do any of you have any questions any questions Dr Hurst I do have one question um these fundraisers um are they going to permit parents and others who are not students at the school to be on campus Mr Burger what have we shared on then about parents so for for parents there is a mandate um and the short of it is is that there is a vaccination uh mandate or uh to have a test within a 72-hour period uh in order for them to to be on a campus so it's no different than our visitors
140policy that we currently have in place okay um Let me clarify something because myself as a parent um I don't go on campus even though I have a badge and can pretty much walk around where I want because I didn't think I was supposed to be there so or and I think there are a whole bunch of parents who think that they're not supposed to be on campus so are you all saying now that the policy is as long as parents have a 48-hour test or have a vaccine card that they can now be on campus so one is not uh for uh I just want to clarify it's not 48 Hours it would be within a 72 hour period of the event um and our uh our vaccination um have vaccine be fully vaccinated
141however you still would have to let the school know by appointment that you're going to be on that campus so they would have a list of uh people that would be on that campus um for and that's for contact tracing purposes foreign okay it's been moved and seconded board is there any discussion I do have a discussion Point president Phillips I do too you go ahead I think that Dr Hurst I I'm a little confused I'm just confused about when there's a shift in policy or when there's a shift and what we stated before and when there's a shift in what we're doing currently or what we're going to do so for me I would like a little bit more um understanding or awareness or when we make those shifts like right when do we
142turn those Corners are we turning Corners are we making shifts because now we have a vaccinate a vaccination mandate and then if we're making that shift what does that shift now look like if we're making a shift because numbers are down or infection rate isn't whatever it is I just need to know the correlation between a policy change and a shift right because I didn't think that parents were allowed on campus either and then I want to ensure that we are having some Equity across ZIP code right so if we're having that Equity across zip code one of the best places to have those conversations is on the dice because then we can kind of lay it flat and lay it firm and then we can have you know the communication Department you can have
143the communication Department then turn around and flush that out to our families and our parents um again Mr Booker I would really like to this particular issue to make sure that we're clear with our asbs our Associated student bodies and our leadership teachers about what the requirements are what it's supposed to look like who's owning that and I don't want to put anything more on teachers and principals on their plates without giving them the support to do that because now having a campus open to anyone who is vaccinated or has a 72-hour test that increases the bandwidth because we had a very small bandwidth in the beginning for the first couple of months or a very small uh population of people on campus now that's increasing but I don't know if the bandwidth of us
144being able to handle that increases so I would just like to lend my support but also lend my cautionary tale and ask for more information than not around those issues thank you and I just want to clarify that a parent would still have to make an appointment and we do have the right to refuse a parent on campus so um it's not just having the test or being vaccinated you do have to make an appointment so they would have to make an appointment to come get the fundraiser to be involved in the fundraiser no so that doesn't even make sense they would have to make there's a there's a fundraiser on campus and any parent that wants to participate in the fundraiser they have to make an appointment to do the fundraising that's not how
145schools work no no you you are correct but you're I thought you were talking about parents that were volunteering Mr Gonzalez Hoy and this is this part is more discussion so it's not q a anyway so we shouldn't be doing that um go ahead thank you um uh Mr Booker Dr Hurst I do think that there's some confusion uh that has come out of maybe this conversation I heard a policy change but I also heard foreign s need to make an appointment I I I think this custom confusion to me um and I hope that it's not constant confusion to site leaders or to parents um because I do think that there are side leaders who are being very cautious and thoughtful about their fundraising and they are following the previous policy about not allowing
146parents on campus um but there are there are other campuses that are allowing parents now I I think it's going to cause inconsistencies and confusion in the system and then I don't want families to get upset as site leaders or staff because their site leaders are being thoughtful about the policy so anyways all that to say I I I'm leaving a little confused after this conversation because of my previous understanding of families coming to sites I don't think that there should also be a difference between fundraisers and parent volunteers right I think that we should have the same policy if I'm a parent wanting to go into the school and if a parent going to a fundraiser if it's happening on our site in my opinion it should stay consistent uh no matter what because
147otherwise it causes confusion and Chaos um okay I'll leave it there if you wouldn't mind maybe following up with us on Clarity maybe through Friday memo uh I would appreciate it that's it person folks thank you thank you are there any other comments wrestler I just Echo trustee Gonzalez soy's sentiments that there there is confusion about who is on campus when where why how what the protocols are um so it would be good if we could get a second look at that things I didn't think that I was supposed to be on campus even though I have the ability to go on campus I have specifically stayed off of my child's campus because I do not want people to see me on the campus and then say well if he's there why can't we be
148there and he has special privileges uh specifically stayed off on my child's campus for that very reason even though I know that I could come on and no one would stop me I think that it is dangerous to have adults walking around the campus I think that this is a policy change and I think that this is a big policy change and I do not think that that is something that the staff should be deciding on its own I think that that is something that needs to come to the board sure I hear the board's comments I certainly um will talk with staff and I will get clarity and bring it back to the board thank you very much sir okay this has been moved it's been seconded um Ford we've had our discussion um
149Motrin culture conscience um Christian yes Gonzalez so yes regular yes Dr Harris Smith follows yes with the understanding of what we talked about very clearly laid out to all of our parties on the sites Trujillo yes Philip snow motion carries okay it is now 907 and we have to go back into closed session but before we go back into closed session while people are watching so they don't have to wait around to hear our comments uh we're gonna do those now so we're going to do comments from the Board of Education and let me pull this all right a timer up all right so four minutes apiece and we are starting with uh Christian whenever you're ready buddy all right uh thank you and I want to thank staff superintendent for the information presentation this
150evening and I want to just say that um um I've been recently doing you know visits you know at certain schools to just um to do some checks and so so tomorrow I'll be uh going to uh Lincoln Elementary in the morning and I want to say today I had a chance to visit the Central Kitchen and headed toward through the kitchen of how all the food and everything the process of how everything is working down there and so I said hello to all the staff and all those that were there and uh and they appreciate it me coming in and and connecting um and then also you know had a chance to visit a lot of the other schools with with some of the other board trustees um uh dimitro Gonzalez Hoy and uh
151German Falls uh here at the John Middle School um and then also we covered uh Kennedy High School and a few other schools so um still more schools to do still more uh places to go to to connect with everyone so um and I just want to say we have a lot a word to continue to do to improve and make our dish become a stronger Edition thank you sir whenever you're ready thank you president Phillips uh to follow up on what my colleague was saying on Friday we are visiting um Kensington Elementary School and Bayview Elementary School as well so many of you are welcome uh I'm excited to go see those schools tomorrow Dr Hurst and I and trustee Smith Falls are meeting with Valley View families as well uh and then um
152I just wanted to spend the rest of my time just thinking stuff next week is Thanksgiving week uh I just want to say that I what I'm going to pray and say thanks for is all of you out there who are working with our children and our students this has been an empress you know a crazy time I know the schools are working harder than they've ever had to work before from our classified staff to our superintendent uh and everybody in between um you have been working incredibly hard out of time without ourselves at a time where there's a pandemic going on at a time where we have a teacher shortage at a time where education is still not funded what it should be at a time where trauma is incredibly impacting our fam our
153families and our community so I just want to say thank you for everything you're doing um we've been brainstorming around how we can appreciate you more than just saying thanks we're going to continue to think about that Dr Hurst we have to put our minds together um to do that because our teachers are classified staff our principals our central office admin they'll need and to serve some appreciation uh because they're working incredibly hard so we see you but we know that you deserve something more than just our things so we're going to continue to brainstorm how we can support you I do want to thank our superintendent and his staff for subbing last Friday I know there were a lot of openings and they all roll up their sleeves and went to classrooms and subbed
154I know that some of my colleagues were at schools as well I was subbing uh which was uh just gave me a little bit of insight of obviously what our teachers are going through um and I'm just incredibly thankful for everybody and to finish with my colleagues as well our student trustees I just want to say thank you to all of you and wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving break oh sorry and one last thing president Phillips uh we've been getting a lot of emails about the 7-Eleven committee and the cboc um I was wondering if uh Dr Hurst maybe uh you could share a little bit more information about that and whether or not we should be having a discussion about the appointments to the cboc um maybe on a Friday memo and
155then if we need to schedule it in a meeting I would I would love to have a discussion about that um that's it thank you so much thank you sir and trustee reckler thank you very much uh first I just want to wrap up the meeting with a few things and so I'd like to encourage District staff to really start working on a real plan for Vista about who plans to enroll who plans to disenroll I think that is super important because this mandate is right around the corner and I'm not feeling like everything's all lined up there so perhaps a very direct email out to the community are you planning to go virtual give you know give us your information so that we can track you so I think that that is super important
156and then a priority uh I I would like to see vaccine clinic uh this discussion about the vaccine clinics and all of that uh that update dropped in the Friday memo because also we're coming up close on some deadlines and so we should really understand where we are and what's happening um so for any memo on that uh we talked about uh oh I would like you to uh strongly encourage you to correct or spell out the protocols to administrators to access PCR tests um I think that's important because I keep hearing that over and over that they cannot get the results and then therefore do not know how to instruct their families and students I'd also like to see if we can get PCR tests expedited to 24 hours seems like it might be
157possible push a little um because that means kids come back to the classroom faster um uh okay so there's all of that next meeting I guess we're going to be doing financials so that means first interim it means the fikmat fiscal health risk analysis update uh updates to all budgets uh or streams of money for one-time funds uh what you're spending it on why your budget was actual budget to actual and then an update on lcap spending lcap spending once again what you're planning budget actual where you are year to date okay so that's all of that then I wanna um just El Cerrito Sports has had a really good season I'll start across country there were many that girls and boys that went to all league and the varsity Runners are going to be
158at Hayward NCS on November 20th yay and then we have girls volleyball set um Miss Gonzalez the first team Miss lohia Miss Nagal and Miss Bishop to second team um in water polo the girls finished second and the boys finished third in tcal many went to all League girls tennis went uh nine and four they would have been ten and four but they had a weather related uh call where they couldn't play many went to uh first team and um El Cerrito will be at Windsor football also football will be at Windsor they made the semi-finals in a wild second half last Friday you can get tickets um on go fan which is this new site where you just put in your information and it's uh electronic ticketing you share your ticket on your phone
159and they'll be at Windsor they could use fans so if you want to take a drive up there and support the team that would be terrific and then I want to end um giving thanks and gratitude to everyone for all that you're doing and to remember um Debbie hawakaya Wang to me she's Debbie she lived in my community our kids went to school together um she has always supported kids and students throughout all the time that I've known her um learning of her death was a complete shock to me she was very active in El Cerrito High School bands coromatsu band El Cerrito High School bands any Community event she was there working the event handing out food volunteering this is a terrible loss to our community and I want to tell her family and
160friends and I'm holding you in our in my heart and I'm wishing you peace on this passing and I thank you for the opportunity to acknowledge her good night foreign thank you ma'am trustee Smith Falls let me start the time over for you okay whenever you're ready um this evening I just want to go over agenda items and then quickly just add a sentence or two about the future agenda items um I still want to have a conversation about adult school and the uses of the adult school building also want to ensure that the adult school building both campuses have everything that they need we I still like to talk about trade school opportunities inside of our schools and what that looks like being very creative with our um options that we're giving to students
161I would like to talk about period poverty we need to have that discussion and what the school is going to do to ensure that student our students have access to everything that they need around their periods I still like to talk about standing reports and inside of standing reports I want to make sure that we bring back students standing reports I like to have a conversation about dress code I would like to see some data around dress coding and who has been dress coded and for what reason on campuses we still need to have a full conversation about numerical literacy and the overall literacy gaps and strategies we're implementing in our district the equity statement and enforcement a clear understanding of the West Contra Costa way around Equity I would like to have a conversation
162about public comment I still feel like we are not having a clear and concise conversation and giving it our due diligence around what we can do to have the best way of running public comment there needs to be a revision of the bylaws in the gov governance handbook so if there's a subcommittee that needs to be formed we need to take a vote on that and discuss who's going to be part of that and we can get that work done want to have a conversation around preschool and tkas we know that there's going to be a need there isn't already a need to have more preschool and tkas but we also know that there are um laws coming down from the state around that the transition program and all the inclusion I still think that
163we need to have a full conversation around virtual school I think tonight show that we're having still more questions are formulating around virtual schools so if we could get the more information the better um remote working I think needs to come to the board for a update I would like to talk about the narrative report cards and are we giving teachers enough time to make thoughtful to have enough time to make thoughtful comments on those report cards and is that working the vaccine implementation a full conversation about what's the implementation look like who holds the who holds that work and are we able to get get answers to how many students are already vaccinated according to the Mandate that we have I want to talk about the mental and emotional health of all of our
164students and our Educators burnout is real and it's happening at a great level on every single site so what are we doing around that what strategies do we have in place and how are we providing resources both people resources and financial resources to help slow down and hopefully stop that burnout I want to make sure that we now have accessible drinking water on all of our campuses if we could get an update about that we know that in the very beginning of the year there was issues around drinking water for students and staff I want to have a conversation or at least announce about the senior programs the adult senior programs making an announcement that that has been resolved for this year but then we need to talk about permanent funding for those senior programs
165I want to talk about the state's site standard safety for all schools we need to discuss cameras doorbells and training I would like to talk about period subbing the issue around subbing is a complex issue we need to talk about what what do we look at with the pay around people who are not teachers in subbing or staff and subbing but who subbing is their only job that they have there is an issue around when they get paid and how often they get paid let's have a conversation about that I also want to have a conversation about traffic our pickup and our drop-off on all of our sites because we know that there are some sites that that is a really hectic time and if we could start working with our cities to have an
166integrated program of how we are going to ensure your Traffic Safety around pick up and drop off of our students I would like to Ethel that I would like to have a conversation about the 7-Eleven committee I would like that to be broadcast out and exactly what it is who we're looking for why we're looking for this committee to be filled and what work they will be doing and how often all of the logistics around it I like to have a conversation about cboc and the applications that are in the queue and what we are planning on doing with that and I would like to know I would like to see the district do a survey to parents about intentions uh I believe trustee reckler spoke to this a survey about what your intentions are
167come January what are your intentions for your students so then we can have some clear planning and then based on our conversation tonight I really want to end saying that I really would like some clear safety policies around not just fundraising but if there's a shift in our policy if we can have that conversation brought back to the board about what that shifts like so it's twofold one specifically around fundraising extracurricular events events on campuses because very soon we should be having conversations around proms or around graduations or around all these other events that happen starting in the spring senior nights other things that happen at our schools I would like for us to have a clear understanding of what our expectation around safety is and again I don't want it from zip code to
168zip code because I think that breeds in equity we saw that around the conversations about homecoming dances and homecoming parades that look different from site to site to site and that means that some kids are getting a different educational experience than others and I want us to make sure that we are the most Equitable that we can be because we are the most transparent and we're the most policy driven District that we can be to conclude I'd like to say thank you to all the teachers thank you to all the staff thank you to all the administrators thank you to all our certificated and classified employees thank you to District workers this is not easy but it's not impossible I think that we can all work together to make sure that we are literally having
169a community run school board that we can take in community voice that we can advocate for one another that we can advocate for what's best for the students and the students can advocate for themselves and we can listen to that and we can make sure that we're providing the best experience for our students our staff our teachers our community organizations and everyone who touches or is touched by wccusd um Dr Hurst I'm here to support that Vision in that mission and I look forward to us doing the work continuing to do the work again thank you everyone please have a safe vacation and we will see you after that that's it president Phillips okay um Mr Trujillo four minutes I'm resetting your time whenever you are ready to go thank you um I don't have
170too much to say actually I'd have some stuff to say um more than usual I guess at first I'd like to say thank you to everybody staff teachers the board the public uh everybody thank you from staying with us it's difficult right now as it always is but um you know we'll make it through these these tough situations um another thing I want to point out is maybe um uh you know we had a lot of parents come out and speak tonight and I think it'd be cool to send out a survey to to parents as well as students about the vaccine mandate uh like as a student I know many other students whose opinions have changed about it or who um just have different opinions and maybe it'd be interesting to hear uh their
171perspective as well as parents um possibly asking um well one what I think is important is to just understand how our community feels about it and two this can help get the numbers for the Virtual Academy and what we expect um for the Virtual Academy in the spring I also want to mention public comment making sure that it doesn't reach an hour I know sometimes there's hands that are raised after the time given to raise hands and uh just you know giving those people time to speak would get closer to that hour that we are supposed to allocate to public comment um another thing I want to mention or the last thing I want to mention is I had the parent concerned about um their students music program at Kennedy High School I don't know
172too much about that situation but it had to do with funding I believe and just not having adequate supplies such as um reads for instruments pencils that sort of thing I'll look into it more myself and I'd encourage others too as well um and just to support Arts education in general because I'm a huge Arts guy and I think Arts education is um super important and often one of the first things to be cut in districts across this country and uh yeah just again thank you for giving me the time to speak that'll be all thank you very much sir I want to thank um really everybody that's part of this system this is uh a lot um and it's been a lot for a long time um people in this community and when I
173say community I mean the entire School community so parents Guardians students staff uh booster everybody who um is in this uh fight for Education um as time goes on I think we're going to find that we're making progress in a lot of areas that the district is turning a corner for the better and I think it's a corner that we've all wanted to turn for a really long time and my hope and my prayer for this district is that we allow this process to play out I know that we've gone through different iterations of imagining this and imagining that and it seems to all be often for not um I really do think though that we have something really special here we have a community that wants to see desperately wants to see something different
174for its children and I frankly think that we have the best superintendent in the Bay Area and I think that if we focus if we really focus and we really work on the things that are the heaviest lifts for our district that we will come out on the other end the district that we've always wanted to be this Equity process or this Equity analysis or this Equity audit that we're going through it's not a show when we're having meetings about reimagining Richmond and Kennedy it's not a show maybe before it didn't work maybe somebody said this in the past maybe somebody said that in the past but I'm telling you what's happening right now is not a show it is real and the only thing that can stop us from being successful the only thing
175that could stop us from turning this ship that everybody has been trying to turn around for decades for Generations Is Us us and if we stop us from being successful it's a damn shame because there are tens of thousands of children there are cities there are communities that are depending on us to get it right so my request to this community to this board is to follow the process that the superintendent is laying out in the equity audit and we will get there and to listen and to follow and I say to listen and to follow because if we knew how to do it by ourselves it would have been done a long time ago the truth is we don't know how to do it by ourselves the truth is we hired the best superintendent
176in the Bay Area because he knows how to do it so please let's put ego and anything else aside and just listen to what this man has to say and follow for the sake of all of our children those are my comments thank you so much the next board meeting the next of regular board meeting is going to be on December 8th here at lavanya De Jean um Dr Hurst said earlier uh that we are looking to schedule a special meeting specifically to go over the board audit because there has been an audit of the board there are findings and recommendations that have come out of that so we need to to meet regarding that that said boarded is now 9 32 and I announced earlier that we were going to go back into closed
177session for up to 45 minutes to finish some business I'm just going to repeat what the closed session items were so everyone knows they are once again conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation public employee performance evaluation Public Employee discipline dismissal release complaint student discipline and Public Employee appointment so when we go back in there we're not taking additional public comment on these items but I just want the public to know that we are going to still be limiting our discussion back there to the very same topics after that's over we will come back out here very briefly simply to report out anything else that needs to be reported out and then I'll adjourn the meeting I'm just trying to Telegraph to you all what's going on so if you want to hear the report out
178later that's the only reason to stay you can if you want party on um but if you don't want to stay for that you are welcome to leave as well thank you everyone uh and I am going to ask for a motion for us to recess back to closed session someone with President Phillips is there a second second okay so it was moved by Gonzalez Hoy and it was seconded uh by trustee Smith folds board uh can we vote Christian yes don't tell us so yes regular yes Smith Falls yes Phillips yes thank you the board is going back to closed session okay foreign the board is reconvening open session there is nothing to report out this evening we reported out earlier so the meeting is adjourned thank you [Applause]