ABCUSD Board Meeting - October 18, 2022

001President, Mrs. Yu. Vice President, Mr. Beach. Present. Clerk, Dr. Eugenio. Here. Board Member, Dr. Apodaca. Board Member, Mr. Nishii. Here. Board Member, Mrs. Sei. Present. Board Member, Dr. Rios. Present. Thank you. All right, I'd like to report out on closed session items. This evening we will be discussing the following items in closed session. Public employee discipline, dismissal, release, evaluation, three matters, conference with labor negotiator, update on negotiations with ABCFT, AFSCME, and CSEA, existing litigation, seven cases. Mr. Clerk, are there any public comments for closed session? There are no public comments, Mr. President. All right, I'd like to move to closed session. May I have a motion? So moved. Second by Sophia. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Move to closed session. Room is filled, and we have students outside, cheerleaders. Fantastic. I'm

002so looking forward to you guys. Okay. I'd like to open the session. May I have a motion? Sophia. Second. Nishi. Thank you. Please silence your cell phones. We welcome public comments, and anybody wishing to make a public comment must fill out a card on the table to my left. All public comments are to be made during the public comments section or at the time an item is presented and must be done before the item is discussed. Each comment must be no more than five minutes. Tonight in closed session, the Board discussed public employee discipline, dismissal, release, evaluation, three matters. Conference with Labor Negotiator, Update on Negotiations with ABCFT, AFSCME, and CSEA. Existing Litigation, 7 Cases. I'd like to ask the Burbank Elementary School to lead us in the pledge. Please come forward. Please stand for

003the Pledge of Allegiance. Put your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin. I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands and one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You may be seated. I'm Bryn and I am the student council president of Burbank Elementary School of... visual performing and folk arts. We are the home of the Bulldogs. These are my following Bulldogs and our top dog Mrs. Robinson. We are proud to be a part of ABC District and we have many wonderful things going on around our campus that we want to tell you about. Hi, my name is Naomi and I'm the Student Council Vice President and a member of our Spirit Squad. Burbank is the most spirited school

004in the whole city of Artesia. We are the only school with our own cheer team, Hip Hop Dog Squad, and our very own mascot, Lou the Bulldog. We are also available for entertainment at your request. Hi, I'm Mi and I'm our Student Council Secretary. Our Burbank campus is home to one of the most diverse communities in the entire district, as you can see from the Bulldogs we have here tonight. We share our cultures in class every day, as well as through assemblies, musical theater, performances, family nights, and enrichment classes, and gardening, robotics, dance, track, and the arts. Hi, I'm Enzo, and I'm our Student Council Treasury. We believe in academic achievement and community building at Burbank. We are very grateful for the support of ABC School Board, and thank you for all your work and

005dedication. We invite you to come and visit us at any time, so come and be a Bulldog for a day. Parents of these wonderful Bulldogs. Can we have you all be recognized? All the parents, please stand. Thank you so very much for raising wonderful Bulldogs. Let's give them another round of applause. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next, we have Dr. Gina Zidlow, Assistant Superintendent, Human Resources, and Stacy. Hamagiwa Program Specialist for Teacher Induction Program Spotlight on Teaching and Learning. Well, good evening, Board President, Board Members, Interim Superintendent Nguyen. and our audience this evening. This evening we want to just do an overview for you of what and how our teacher induction program works, have some of the experiences of our brand new teachers shared, and then of course recognize those who are here with

006us this evening. This particular group of people who went through induction did so mid-pandemic and went from meeting in person with a mentor to doing that online and made a lot of very interesting transitions in that process and yet were able to successfully complete. Overall, the program is designed around a two-year model where a brand new teacher is able in the two years to work with a mentor and they then complete all that they need to do to clear their credential for the state of California. And so for us as a district, this past June, we had 12 candidates complete. We have four of them here this evening to be introduced and be part of our evening. Currently in our system, we have 19 in year one and 33 in year two. And so we're

007still lots of new people and doing good work. We have about 30 mentor teachers within our district who are veteran teachers with lots of experience who are trained through a program with... the LA County Office of Education to not only work with them as new teachers but to support them as they use the different systems and modules that they have to complete in order to clear their credential. We choose as a district to use mentors from ABC Unified and we work to try and have them be as partnered as we can if we can have them at their own school site. We like to do that, but we work to make it as personal and personable for the induction candidate as we can. Induction mentors meet with the candidates weekly, and they're helping them to

008walk through... Lots of different things. In the early year, it's usually about managing your classroom and those structures and the pieces that come with being a new teacher, learning good communication skills with families, as well as learning more about different populations of students and their needs and how to best meet those needs in the classroom as the first instruction teacher. We continue to have 100% of our candidates that go through the process with us complete, and so we're really thankful for that. Our program is led by Stacey Hamagiwa, and she is one of our wonderful teachers. She's been doing this work with us for, I think, a little over 25 years now. I know. The time keeps going for both of us. But we're really thankful for her. She does a lot to help the

009mentors stay on track with things they need to do for their training and helping the candidates to make sure that they meet all of the requirements through the LACO system. In terms of our people here with us this evening, I want to take a moment to thank... the mentors who do work weekly with our induction candidates. We have a few of them here this evening, if they wouldn't mind standing. Kim Larkin and Stephanie Feliske and Fran Tate. Another part of that process for new teachers is their principals, their administrators who work with them. So I wanted to see if we could have Mr. Garcia and Mr. Hernandez, Dr. Lozano. They're part of that process as well. It's hard to be a new teacher. And so we are thankful for the fact that we can use

010this program and the county allows us to modify it to fit our needs and to make it personal for our induction candidates. And we're all very thankful that we can have meetings again together. There's something about that personal communication that's so helpful. So, with that, I'd like to introduce one of our induction completers to just share a little bit about his experience in the program. Jad. Good evening, Board President Yu, members of the board, and Interim Superintendent Mr. Tuan Nguyen. My name is Jad Corey, and I teach 10th and 11th grade English in AVID at Gar High School. Go Gar. I see you in the back. Let's go. This is my third year teaching at ABC Unified School District, and I can't say enough good things about it. I would like to share briefly with

011you about the teacher induction program over the last two years. Throughout my program, my mentor and I would have weekly meetings to bolster the progression of my teaching ability through thorough and focused discussions. During these meetings, Kim Larkin and I would speak about daily life in the classroom, student progress, classroom management, curriculum building, and teacher-parent interactions. Kim was an enormous help, as she was my rock to lean on in any moments that needed clarity or simply someone to give me some encouragement. She taught me the value of speaking with parents, to develop a support system for students inside and outside of the classroom, which clearly encourages student progress. Something as simple as a quick phone call home to share student progress with parents or sending a letter to student homes fortifies the outside support system

012for students and builds a team environment where all stakeholders involved are developed in that student growth. This program helped me tremendously through its mentorship more than anything. As a young teacher, the ability to receive instantaneous feedback from an expert teacher is indescribably important. This program has instilled a confidence within me that I can and will continue to grow my profession and be the absolute best I can be for my students. In closing, I would like to thank the ABC School Board for this opportunity to participate in the program and continuing to fund it. I would also like to thank my mentor, Kim Larkin. She's the absolute best. For all the support and time she put in with me, as well as induction program specialist, Stacey Amagiwa. For the consistent words of encouragement, as well as

013the amount of planning that goes into her role. This program would not be as impactful without her. The program is invaluable for upcoming new teachers because our credential programs, they show us what we need to do and know in order to become an educator, but the induction program reveals within us who we need to be in order to make an impact on those who need us most, our students. Thank you. So at this time, I'm going to have Stacey join me up here, and we're going to introduce the candidates who were able to come this evening, and we'll provide them their certificate and thank them. Thank you. First, I would like to introduce Gisela Mendoza from Artesia High School. Let's give a round of applause. Steven Navas from Hawaiian Elementary School. Jad Curry from Gull

014High School. And last but not least, Christopher Youngblood from Artesia High School. And we have three mentors here this evening. I'd like to invite Kim Larkin, Fran Tate, and Stephanie Paluski also to come up and take a group picture. Thank you for coming this evening. We first start with Chris, board member Apodaca. Okay, number six we have. I'm sorry. Okay. That was Dr. Rios? Sorry. Yes, thank you, Madam President. Well, at a time when, as was mentioned, education is at its peak, toughest. I really applaud you for jumping in and I really applaud you for speaking to the importance of building those positive relationships with students and I'm very glad to hear that that is definitely a theme of the program. Thank you, thank you again for your passion and your commitment and you being

015part of the ABC team. And thank you to the people that are running the program. Welcome. Thank you. Next we have Board Member Ernie Nishi. Thank you, Madam President. So, yes, this new class of great teachers, you know, also comes from a great personnel department to pick really good people that are courageous. So I know that some of these teachers have actually even participated in the Day of Remembrance. Their second year of teaching, they're trying a brand new program that they've never seen before, trying to make a big difference in their lives. And I know that the students felt that. They didn't feel that. I don't think they felt that it was a first-year teacher. Nope. They felt that they had a teacher that's confident, strong, passionate about what they're going to do, and they're

016going to make a difference. I know that. So thank you, personal department, for making such good choices in our people, because that's hard to find, right? People who are really good. And thank you for your mission. I really appreciate it. You're going to make us proud. Thank you. That's it. Thank you, Madam President. Okay, thank you. Next we have Board Member Sophia Tse. I want to recognize Dr. Gina Zillow and also our program specialist, Ms. Himejima. I also have a hard time saying it, and she is my good friend. Thank you so much for supporting this program. I'm a professor. I teach college. I know how important it is to welcome a new person and carry them through year to year. Still, there's a lot of bump rolls in there. And with them to help

017you, support you behind their back, definitely ABC is good for you guys to stay. And I want to thank you so much for choosing ABC. I'll see you in another six years. Thank you. Well, I could already tell that we recruited the best. And I'm just very thankful that you guys chose ABC over other districts. And we have a really excellent induction program. which just being on the school teaching credential program behind the books is different than on the job training, and you learn from the best. And our teachers, I know that our mentors are so eager, 30 of them volunteering their time to be part of this program to equip the next generation of teachers. And I know that... President Ray Gary is really happy. The principals are happy. I could tell by their

018faces shining and glowing. And thank you very much for your words. And, well, you have a whole future ahead. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right. Let's give them a round of applause because our next topic is a very serious topic. Okay, we have opioid. Education and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Chavez, SELPA Director, and Patty DuPont-Tyler, Head of Program Nurse. Mrs. Castro. Thank you. Good evening, President Yu, Vice President Brad Beach, Clerk Dr. Eugenio, board members, and Interim Superintendent Tuan Nguyen. Today we are talking to you about a very serious matter that you've heard about in the news, which is our Opioid Education and Mitigation Plan, NABC. As you know, this has recently been in the news with several adolescents in nearby areas overdosing on fentanyl, and so it's a great

019concern to our community. It's a great concern to our parents that want to make sure that our students are safe at their school sites and that we're providing the education and support needed to make sure that that continues to happen. I'm here on behalf of Dr. Rochelle Chavez, Director of SELPA, who helps to oversee our nurses in ABC. She's not able to be with us, but our head nurse, Patty DuPont-Tyler, is here with us this evening, and she will be presenting part of this presentation to you as well. So first, just as a reminder, as we move forward together, we do provide a whole child approach in ABC looking at academics, safety, and social-emotional. And so when we look at this mitigation plan, it's really looking at it from all three lens. We're looking at

020how do we provide education on the academic level, how do we make sure we keep our students safe, and what are the resources that we have to provide for their social-emotional health. So first, let's just make sure we're clear on the definition of opioids. They're a class of drugs that includes illegal drug heroin. They're synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl and pain relievers, which are available legally, but have become very popular recently in the illegal street form, including versions of oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine, morphine, and many others. And Patty DuPont-Tyler will be going into greater detail about that. I also wanted to provide you some data from L.A. County itself so we could see the impact and the changes that have happened over the last few years. This chart is data from the L.A. County Office of

021Public Health, and you can see the stark increase in overdoses and use of methamphetamines and fentanyl over the last 10 years. Again, you can see there's some stark increases there. And next, you see the rate changes of overdose from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic periods. This data, again, is from our Department of Health in LA County. And most alarming in this data that you see here is that 12 to 17-year-olds, their rate of increase is at 333%. And that, again, is from pre-pandemic years to post-pandemic period. 18 to 24-year-olds have gone up 69%. So again, the greatest change for 12 to 17-year-olds. In terms of the opioid category, fentanyl has markedly increased with an increase of 117.4% as causing overdoses. And then when we look at additional factors such as race and ethnicity, you can see by

022this data that our Asian community is actually heavily impacted at a rate of increase of 196% from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic eras, followed by our Black African American community at approximately 56%. Another area of concern is our areas of poverty. Those areas of low income that have greater than 30% area poverty, their rate of increase of overdoses has gone up 77.5% in the LA County area. So these numbers are not to scare you, but to provide us additional information as to why it is urgent that we provide a comprehensive mitigation plan in ABC. And as Patty comes up to the microphone soon, we are going to provide you a short video provided by the CDC about the dangers of fentanyl. The drug landscape has changed. Illegal fentanyl has made its way into the drug supply, and

023it's a danger you might not see coming. A synthetic opioid up to 50 times stronger than heroin. up to 100 times stronger than morphine. It only takes the tiniest amount to cause a fatal overdose. A fraction of a raindrop or three grains of salt. Your drugs don't come with an ingredients list. Fentanyl is being mixed into almost every kind of drug. Be able to see it? Fentanyl is one of the most common drugs involved in overdose deaths. Know the dangers. Learn the facts about fentanyl and ways to protect yourself at cdc.gov slash stop overdose. Good evening, Board, Mr. Nguyen, ABC Family. I'm Patty DuPont-Tyler, Head of Health Services. I'll continue with this presentation. Going into this slide, talking about the dangers of opioids. So anyway, as many of you know, there are prescribed opioids that

024are perfectly safe if taken as prescribed by a physician. However, there are some harmful effects that include drowsiness, confusion, nausea, constipation, euphoria, and slowed breathing. And when it comes to saving a life, the last harmful effect is the one that... that I'll be focusing on as we talk further. So the dangers of opioid. As I mentioned, opioids can be misused and cause slowed breathing, which can cause hypoxia, which is a condition in which the brain does not receive enough oxygen, and there's a potential for coma and death or permanent brain damage. The effects of hypoxia can be short-term or long-term, and they can include psychological effects as well as neurological effects, and in some cases, permanent brain damage and death, as I mentioned. Researchers are also investigating the long-term effects of opioid addiction on the

025brain, and this includes damage that can be reversed, hopefully, but it depends, of course, on the level of use and the amount used at a particular time. And with regards to... synthetic opioids that are purchased on the street, not prescribed by a physician. The last point is just to emphasize that there's no quality control there. So when people purchase street drugs, they don't know what they're getting. They don't know if they're laced with other dangerous opioids such as fentanyl. These are just a couple of photos to illustrate what a small amount of fentanyl In the photo on the left there, the heroin, that's enough heroin to cause an overdose compared to the amount of fentanyl on the right. And then you have another photo to illustrate the small amount that it would take to cause

026an overdose. Thank you, Patty. I just want to acknowledge our nurses, led by Patty DuPont-Tyler and Dr. Chavez. They're doing a tremendous amount of work to make sure that our schools receive this information and that they're keeping our staff up to date with the latest changes from the county. And you'll see some of those steps that they're taking, those mitigation steps in the plan that I'm about to review. And Patty will be available for questions at the end of this presentation as well. So I just want to make sure that we are aware that we do have current board policy, BPAR 5131.6, that does allow us to put together this mitigation plan as needed by the governing board. The superintendent can designate to implement and evaluate our comprehensive intervention plan. to make sure that we're

027reaching out to school and community-based services, as well as making sure that we're cooperating with county and county office of education staff, which we have been doing so in this process, working with the Department of Health, as well as working with L.A. County Office of Education to access any and all resources that they have available for us. Currently in ABC, we do have some drug prevention programs already in place. All high schools have drug canines that visit their campuses. That currently is happening at all comprehensive high schools. We also have the tobacco use and prevention education plan in place at all of our secondary schools. We have drug prevention and danger lessons incorporated into our science classes in middle school and our health classes in high school. And then we have specialized programs such as

028Path and Stay at Cabrillo Lane for students who are found to be involved with drugs or tobacco and who are referred to the office for those matters. Some up-to-date data regarding referrals. This is referrals that have occurred since the beginning of the school year, since August, to now the most recent data given to us on October 13th. PATH is Pointing Adolescents Towards Health. This is an anti-marijuana, anti-drug, and alcohol five-day program that's designed to help first-time offenders and provide educational knowledge around... An alternative for suspension so students are not suspended but provide them education about the dangers of drug use. So far we've had 44 referrals to that program. For STAY, Smoking, Tobacco, and You is a smoking and tobacco educational program. This is a one-day program. We've had nine referrals to this program so

029far. And then we've had some additional referrals to our nurse's office regarding possible drug, tobacco, and alcohol-related symptoms, and we've had 35 referrals across our secondary school sites. We also want to make you aware that there has been updates to the Education Code 49414.3 that does allow school districts, county offices of education and charter school to make opioid antagonists available for school nurses and trained employee volunteers to administer in these emergency situations. It permits school nurses to administer that antagonist in emergency situations, and it permits us to train volunteers, either classified or certificated staff, when a nurse is not available. So those are updates that you'll be seeing coming to the board soon regarding those education codes. In ABC, our mitigation plan will include naloxone, which is also known by its generic term, Narcan, or

030more popular term, Narcan. And so that's part of our mitigation plan for fentanyl use for our students. So here are some key steps, some overviews. So we are going to be working on providing education on fentanyl and naloxone, and that's going to be taken by our nurses, making sure that our principals and teachers are aware, and obviously for our students, especially in the key range ages of 12 to 17 that you saw the data there about the increase in use. Our nurses were already trained on August 16th. Our elementary principals were actually trained today on October 18th. Our secondary principals have been trained through their principals meetings this month. And then through the staff meetings in October, throughout October, our nurses will be completing the trainings for the staff. at all of our secondary schools.

031And just a reminder that, as you'll see in the board agenda, Red Ribbon Month and Red Ribbon Week happens across all our school sites, so it is a good opportunity to remind our students, our families, about the dangers of these drugs. We've also provided communication and resources to our families. We are going to be sending out a letter starting this week. Our high school principals particularly will be sending out letters to families with additional resources in multiple languages. We will also be providing training at our parent leadership conference with more information to follow about when we will be able to hold that, but through our adult school program, providing parent workshops around the dangers of fentanyl. Thank you. For training and stocking of naloxone, we've had to file an application to administer Narcan with the

032County Department of Health, and we are currently working to identify staff who will administer that. We want to make sure we complete that staff training on how to deliver that Narcan by October 28th, although tentatively right now we do not have a date that we will be receiving Narcan at our school sites. The county office is working through all those requests since there have been a number of applications recently. On the curriculum side, our curriculum teams will be reviewing the drug prevention curriculum that we use in our health classes and as well as in our science classes to make sure that it's up to date with the fentanyl information. And as I stated before, we have provided information to our principals and other staff members as well. And then coming soon in November and December,

033we will be bringing to you a revision of Board Policy 5141.21 to reflect, like I said, the updated education code to make sure that it reflects the use of naloxone at our school sites and the mitigation steps for fentanyl. Last but not least, this is really hot off the presses. The LA County Office of Public Health has released some training dates for parents. And so you can see here on Monday, November 14th and Tuesday, November 15th. In English and Spanish, there are specific parent trainings. In order to have parent ambassadors throughout the county, that will help support the education. And so we'll be working with some of our parent liaisons and other resources to make sure that we have some parent liaison representatives at this training. There's also student training available to create a student

034ambassador training program. And that is on November 16th from 4.30 to 5.30. And so again, we'll be working with our secondary school sites to make sure that we have some student ambassadors trained that can come back and share some information with school sites about the best ways to educate our students about the dangers of fentanyl. Again, as I said before... Really, our concern is to make sure we're providing a whole child approach. We're supporting students not only with education, but with resources, supporting our families, and making sure that we're keeping our students safe in ABC. Thank you, and I welcome any questions. Thank you, Ms. Castro. Do we have any questions? We have Vice President Brad Beach. Ms. Castro, thank you very much for the report. I'm glad to see this item on the agenda.

035I reached out to our interim superintendent a while back and told him we should get Narcan at all of our schools. I'm trained on it. It's very easy to use. I have one question and then a few more comments. Is there any type of parental permission form that needs to be filled out to use this on juveniles, or is it considered a life-saving effort and it's okay to use? It's considered a life-saving effort, and that will be reflected in our updated board policies. Okay. I recently wrote an article on how to reduce underage drinking in America, and I think some of my findings apply here to drugs, one of which was improving K-12 education on not to use drugs and alcohol. So I'm hoping and I'm willing to partner with anybody at UCFIT to help

036get maybe some more of that into our curriculum. I think it would be beneficial to our kids. The other thing we found was a safe home pledge that would go home to parents saying, don't use drugs and alcohol and it starts the discussion between the parent and the kid. A lot of parents maybe don't feel the need to discuss this or it slips their mind but taking that form home and a child giving it to the parent saying I need you to sign this and look at it, the parent can then talk to the kid and that proves to be very beneficial to students. So I'd also like to have that discussion with you or anybody else if that's something we want to do. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have board member Sophia Say.

037First of all, thank you, Head Nurse, you're here to present this case. It is important. I think the history actually back not just 2022 right now. It was back in 2016 fentanyl started being used by certain people but not published. But recently it got worse. I think I looked at the records. 75,000 kids who died by overdose of usophentine ale. But the issues that I'm concerned about using Narcan. Narcan side effect also causes respiratory distress. We have to know the symptoms, sign symptoms very well before we give Narcan. If the kids use other things, I think head nurse knows about it. If you use a cocaine, the side effect will cause respiratory distress. It will stop the airway breathing. And nurses have to know how to bag the student well. And I think really the

038first thing, I know we have the Narcan for the counteract drugs, but we do need to use cautiously on that. And we do need to have all those other equipment should be ready there. Do we have the bag and mask right on the side? You do need it. Do we have, what do you call the other one? The shocking thing all of a sudden. AED. They should be ready there. I don't know how the school side, how many we have there. Because we all know what is going to happen. If something really happens, it doesn't matter what we give it to them. And Narcan sometimes may not just only need one dose, maybe need more than one dosage. And the risk is also high there too. If I may comment on that, the Narcan packages

039come in two doses, first of all, and our plan is to keep it next to our AED and our epinephrine to keep all our emergency medication and equipment together, as well as bag masks available should we need it. Yeah, I really appreciate it. If you don't have enough, please let our superintendent here. the internship intent to know that you need it, please we have to have those equipment on the bedside. I mean on the school side. You need more than just one or two. And make sure the staff check that. Check make sure early in the morning all the equipment is working. Because it happened to me actually one of the hospital we investigated right now. When the patient coded, all the equipment cannot be used. So that's going to be it. high risk for

040me to say, hey, let's use Narcan. A lot of people say use Narcan is a conduct drugs, but be careful because I use Narcan. I have to intubate the patient before. It was so late. I'll never forget that. I work in the labor and daily room. premature area. So just my thought to share with you. Make sure 911, I mean, should be called right away. Yes. That's a first choice, really. Yes. Thank you. That's all part of the plan. Yeah, thank you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for commenting on that. And let them know about, this is about 50 to 5,000 stronger than the morphine that we're giving to the patient. That's how risk can be, the kids using it. Actually, I just want the board to know that recently in Buena Park, they find

041that Fentanyl, one of the persons selling that to the kids. It's like 50 pounds selling it out to the kids. The kids only needed two milligrams. Two milligrams for that. Fentanyl, that killed them. Thank you. And I will definitely share my Facebook about this. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Board Member Dr. Apodaca. Thank you, Madam President. So what I'm hearing is that this is a response specifically to fentanyl, correct? Or is it opioids, obviously, because heroin falls... under an opioid right so you know Two things, which I like that board member brought up. Is there a maintenance schedule for all of this stuff? Are we sure that as far as the AED goes and all that, that it's good to go, that it's charged? We check it however frequently we're supposed to check

042it. There's someone in charge of that, just so we can put that to bed tonight. Yes. There is. Our AEDs are checked regularly to make sure that the batteries are in working order, make sure that the patches are not expired. This is done routinely. Okay, perfect. Second thing is, you mentioned we intend to have Narcan at all of our schools. So I know maybe there's a short supply or something like that. I'd like to direct staff to please whoever we have to speak to, and if we have to pay for it with one-time monies, let's do that. But let's make sure that we have it, and maybe we can seek reimbursement from Department of Health afterwards. But that's great that everyone's trained and everybody is aware of this. But what good is the training if

043we don't actually have the tools that they need to save a life? So I'd like to ask madam president. There's a consensus from the board To follow up see where it is. You mentioned we don't have a time or a date That's not good enough when it comes to potentially saving a student's life. So I'd like to Talk to whoever we have to talk to at the local county state or even federal level To get our hands on on this Narcan. That's all I have Thank You madam president. If I can just add some information to that just so we can put that put you to rest on that, is that it's a licensing issue. You have to be issued a license, and so that's what we've submitted the application, and so they have to

044review the permission of the license for us to have Narcan. So we can't possess it? Yeah, we just can't possess it. We actually have to go through a review process. Obviously, as a school, the review process does go a little faster. They're estimating anywhere between two to six weeks of a turnaround. That's a very big window. So I keep asking, like, can you give me a shorter turnaround time so that I can, you know, have a better number to report? But that's the latest information we were given, a two to six-week turnaround. Recently, they did ask us for some additional paperwork, which is a good sign, which means that our application is in front of someone and they're processing it because they asked us for some additional paperwork. So that puts me a little bit

045at ease that we're in the process of receiving that license. Okay, so we do have a rough... During the presentation, it was said that we don't have, we're not exactly sure, which is true, right? You said it's a wide timeline. I just want to make sure if there's anything that we can do. But it sounds like this is, we have to go through the process. We can't just go buy them and have them. We have to go through the licensing. Correct. Okay. All right. That clears that up. Thank you. Thank you. We have Sophia Say. You have one more question? One more suggestion for the staff. I know CPR, every two years you get trained, and most of us, when we get back to two-year training, we all forget how to do AED. I suggest

046that since we're doing the fentanyl and Narcan, probably have staff to be trained every six months or a year to refresh them, to make sure when it's quite right, they know what to do. Okay, thank you. I'm not sure if this is already in place, but this fentanyl is a new type of drug that has... you know, rising problem, and it's in our schools. Do we have training for principals, administrators, and even, you know, the SIAs on this topic in place? Yes, that's what we are currently in the process of doing at our various school sites is providing training for all staff, certificated and classified. Our nurses are providing that training during staff meetings. And also, do we have plans to put out some information? I mean, next week is the Red Ribbon Week. So

047on the website and maybe even a letter, I know that we have the app. It's going to go. I can already see Scott's head was nodding. So you guys are always one step ahead. That is fantastic. And lastly, this is a discipline issue, but I know that, you know, The crime has been rising and gang activity and so forth with drug dealing. What are the consequences when students are found with drugs on campus? So our first step is always to provide education. It depends on the offense, the severity of the offense, whether law enforcement needs to be involved or called in any kind of way. So we do follow ed code and protocols for those processes. But as I said, we always try to educate first. And then, of course, our drug violations typically are

048a suspendable offense, suspendable anywhere from one to five days, depending on the severity of the incident. That is something, this is a different type of drug. It's not just marijuana or any other drugs. This is life-threatening. So I definitely would like to give direction that we could probably look into it and educate the students and inform them the consequences and the danger, danger and the consequences, so we can be proactive. That is all. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Castro and Nurse Patty for your information. Thank you very much. We have one more question by... Board Member Ernini Shi. Just really quick. Regarding the nurses, the nurses are doing some of the training. And with all the burdens on the nurses right now, with all the situations that we have with disease and diabetes

049and all these other things, do we have enough nurse resources? Or at least how's this? I'll turn it this way. If there is a need for more nursing resources, I'm sure you'll come to us and ask for that, right? Yes. Thank you. All right. No more discussion. Next. Again, thank you, Ms. Castro. Next, we have Communications Officer Quarterly Update, Scott Smith. Thank you very much. Good evening, President Yu, board members, interim superintendent, Mr. Nguyen, cabinet, and community. It's been an exciting beginning to the school year with many stories to share with the ABC community. So far, we've had over a dozen articles covering the district, printed or posted by regional media outlets. These articles cover a wide range of topics, from announcing our new virtual academy, to Dr. Sue's retirement, to our two new blue

050ribbon schools. We even made local radio. In case you missed it, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources, Dr. Zelo, was a guest on KPCC Public Radio's Air Talk, where she shared information about school staffing. I'm excited to share we have a new avenue to connect with our communities. Nextdoor.com is now allowing public school districts to share information on its growing network. This outlet adds another avenue for us to provide information to the communities we serve. Speaking of communities we serve and reaching out to them, our social media pages, Facebook and Instagram, ABC Stories if you haven't subscribed, continue to grow in followers and engagement. Social media is also one of the most cost-effective ways to market, which we did over the summer for both the district and the virtual academy, reaching thousands in a targeted demographic

051and geographic area. I hope you watched the latest episode of District Channel 1, our new news show. This video series captures a wide range of stories throughout the district. This episode included segments on career technical education at Artesia High School, covering both the automotive and welding pathways, and highlighted the ABC Virtual Academy. My favorite segment still is Ask a Student, Ask a Teacher. Can't beat it. We are already in pre-production for the next episode, which we hope to have by Thanksgiving. Keeping on the topic of video, the welcome back videos from President Yu and Mr. Nguyen were viewed by thousands on our YouTube channel. You can find our YouTube channel at ABC Unified School District. Easy name to remember. If you haven't already subscribed, please do so. Our weekly e-publication to families and the community

052called the Community Update continues to gain views. It is averaging over 49,000 views each week. At the beginning of the school year, we reintroduced the Monday message for staff. This e-publication is designed to keep staff informed with the latest information impacting the district and their jobs. We are still at the beginning of the school year and have already told some great stories, and we have more great stories to share. From what's coming tomorrow, we may have some big news tomorrow, in fact. It's embargoed by the U.S. government until tomorrow. But we should have some good news to share. And it's always my honor to share the stories here at ABC. Thank you. Next we have Equity Officer Quarterly Update, Adrienne Thomas, Equity Officer. Good evening. It's always a pleasure to speak and come before you.

053Good evening, President Yu, Vice President Beach, Dr. Enyo, board members, interim superintendent, Mr. Nguyen, cabinet members, and of course our families. I'm excited, and I can't contain it because we have with us some of the parents from the Black Family Circle Parent Advisory Council. 20 parents were chosen from the application process. Thank you so much for allowing us to have this opportunity. They will receive training on equity partnerships with Dr. Lou Clark, who will be the person giving them eight sessions so that they can get their understanding of their structure, their vision, their mission. And so a few parents are here today, along with the Black Student Alliance, who are our ABC Unified staff members who support them. So if you all could please stand. And thank you for representing. I just want to say

054now that the efforts of the Black Student Alliance can be concentrated more on the students, and so the parents will be able to work for their parent advisory and understanding how they will impact their students' lives as well. So I thank you all for coming and being here tonight. And so I want to take this moment to recognize the classified and certificated administrators who I... had the pleasure of working with when I did compliance workshops for Title IX and Title VI, along with human resources and child welfare in attendance. Their engagement was really, really great. The questions that were asked, the understanding that you can see that they wanted and needed, it's really important that we engage our administrators, both classified and certificated, so they can continue to be those stewards who make sure that

055our working and learning environments are safe. So I want to just say thank you for that engagement in the first 10 weeks of school. And then also, as you know, student engagement is the heart of my work at Equity. And so this year, we are going to begin with Hispanic Latino slash A slash X Student Alliance, a youth council. So we have a meeting tomorrow. Again, those are ABC staff members, counselors, administrators, who are working on the betterment of our students, and they're going to make sure that we have a good, solid structure. probably mirroring it after LACO student advisory council so that we can begin to have that here for our Hispanic and Latino slash A slash X students. And so... To commence, well, to basically conclude Hispanic Heritage Month, we have a couple

056of students here tonight, and we have the FETI team. So the Equity Office, we had a Hispanic Heritage Month Poetry and Essay Contest. The essay was 250 words. We had 90 entries. Of those 90, we had six who are winning entries, and the whole FETI team, can you stand if you're still here? The whole FETI team, of the six, five are from FETI. I always think it's very important to illuminate students' talents and give them opportunities to try to see if, hmm, will someone listen to me? Will someone understand my heart, my words, beyond just my grades in school? Where can I have my youth leadership or my advocacy be heard? So with me tonight, I have two students who are going to read their poems. So if they will come up, please. Savannah Lopez

057is a ninth grader from Cerritos High School. And then we have Mr. Emmanuel Guzman, 7th grader, from Fetty. I'll have Mr. Guzman go first. Good evening. Hispanic Heritage Month. What comes to your mind when you think about Hispanic heritage? It should not just be 30 days out of the year. It cannot just be explained in those 30 days. It is shown. It is expressed. It is lived by people. My people. When we think about Hispanics, we think of workers on their fields working to support their families. These hard workers support their families, help their children have a better life than they had. A path to a successful life. Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to remember those hardworking Hispanics, those that stay home and take care of their children, who make food for them, support

058them if they can, they will keep supporting them in every way possible. I believe that Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to remember and celebrate the differences in the many cultures we have. We not all have dark skin colors, we can all have different skin colors. Just like every person is different, the same is true for diversity within the Hispanic cultures. Hello, this is my poem Soy. Nosotros somos hispanos, and this is our culture. From California en el oeste, to Texas en el sur, and New York en el este, we offer our services to the community and have sacrificed so much. This month is celebrated to honor the achievements of our heritage and contributions to our global society. We honor those who paved the way before us and raised the next generations of Hispanics to

059be the building blocks of a better tomorrow. We recognize the influence of all Hispanics across the country as our population is ready to work, study, build, and create. We have a lot left to give and have already given so much. Our culture is rich with so much diversity. Caribbeans, Central Americans, Brazilians, Mexicans, Portuguese, South Americans, and even French and Indigenous too. Our population is on the rise. which means tomorrow there'll be more of us, ready to recognize the achievements of the past and influence the ways of the future. We bring so much to the fields of art, science, tech, and business. We celebrate and come together as one people. Thank you, gracias, obrigado, and merci. I thought it was important to make sure that we have students' voice and that I can speak to you

060and give my summary, but it's always good to make sure that we present our students for their talents and what they have inside of them and the ways that they need to express. So each of the winners will receive $50 donated and a certificate that is forthcoming, I promise. I want to just also end by stating that this month is also Filipino American Month. The videos we received from students kind of came in late, so we weren't able to do a presentation. It was kind of packed tonight. So at the beginning of the next meeting, we will have that video available. Again, all student voices, making sure that we hear from students and that they have their input, I think is very important. So I want to thank you for tonight. Thank you for that.

061Thank you for listening. Thank you, Ms. Torres. We have some board members who would like to make some comments. First, we start with board member Dr. Olga Rios. Thank you so much for being here, and I agree. There's so much value in hearing student voices and having parents. Thank you, parents, for being here. At some point, I would love to hear the parent perspective about how the efforts that you're doing through the Black Family Circle to the Latino Family Circle has impacted their lives and their students' lives and their academic lives. We know diversity is important. We know that talking about diversity is important. And we know that celebrating diversity is important. So thank you, students. As a district, I think we're moving in that direction. And it started with your position, equity officer. And

062so thank you for being here and reminding us the importance and the value in all of that. So thank you. Okay. Thank you. Next we have board member Ernie Nishi. Thank you, Madam President. Yes, I like the idea of a better tomorrow. great great poem what is your thoughts regarding this youth council what is your vision regarding that What's it going to accomplish? So because we have we, myself and Scott Smith and Stephen Selpa, we have visited ASBs at the high school. We're going to go to the middle schools and listening to the students on what they want and making sure that they have the space and the place for their voice to be heard as a collective. So tomorrow the Student Alliance will work to decide how we want to form this particular council.

063Will it be 8-9? 10 or will they be just 9th and 10th graders so we have more time with those students to build their youth leadership and CCEJ submitted a proposal to work on their youth leadership through community building. So I also contacted LACO to talk about how their council works as far as a student council and we're going to use this council to then branch out and bring in all students within the district. So this is the foundational inaugural. So they're the largest population in our school district, and that is where we wanted to start with the Hispanic Latino Family Circle. Everything doesn't work for all cultures of people. The Black Family Circle worked for how it worked for those particular parents, but what we found for the Hispanic Latino Family Circle, it was

064more about the students and putting them forth and building their youth leadership so that we can have more students understanding why I should be reclassified, how I can see myself in those spaces and places. So that's how they came up with this idea to start here. So the youth council is not going to be at the schools? It's going to be here. Oh, it's going to be here? It's going to be here, right. Okay. Yes, it's going to be here. And so it will be discussing the issues that are important to them? Correct, and we're going to figure out how we want to vet those particular students in the application process. So that's my village that's going to help decide all of that and how that works. And it will be a multicultural group, or

065is it going to be specific? Specifically, we're going to start out with the Hispanic, Latino, slash A, slash X students first, and then branch from there to see how this will work. What's A, slash X? Sorry. Latina, and then Latinx. I just encompass all of it because I haven't really did a survey to see which one is best for individuals and how they would like to be identified. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Thomas. You have done a great job. It was very impressive. I mean, having parents, family here, and muchas gracias, jóvenes. Thank you. You did good. There are 45% Latinos in California. So what you guys shared tonight was very, you know, touching. And with empowering the youth, you know, maybe we may even strike a breakthrough in finding solutions to help your

066peers with a rising drug problem. Thank you very much. Okay, next. May I have a motion to approve the agenda for the regular meeting of October 18, 2022? Motion approved, Your Honor. All those in favor? Okay, motion passes. May I have a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of October 4, 2022? Motion approved, Eugenio. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Okay, well, the school year is flying by, and we are only five weeks away from fall break already. I continue to hear how well school is going for students, families, and staff. I can see the excitement for the teachers and the administrators. because this year is so much better than last year. I know it's National Principals Month, and I'd like to thank all of our amazing principals for their

067leadership and hard work in making sure our schools are safe places of learning for all students. You all got us through the challenges of the pandemic, and now you're helping us take the next step in educating our students. It was a tough year. You guys did all great. I also want to thank Ms. Castro and Nurse Patty for presenting us with the information about the dangers of drugs like fentanyl and how the district will be ready to help students who may suffer an overdose because this is inevitable problem in our community. We already see it in our neighboring districts and schools. It grieves our hearts as parents and as teachers and educators. I know that You know, many of you, we are saddened by the challenges of our young people, but I know our district

068is doing what we can to help. And I was glad to hear Ms. Castro very proactive, ready to tackle this problem. Thank you very much. And, you know, next week is the Red Ribbon Week, where all of our schools will be focused on preventing drug use. I went to school in L.A., and in the 70s and 80s, it was bad. And it was getting a little bit better in the 90s and, you know, until 2006. And then now we are faced with another wave of drug problem. I understand that congratulations are in order for Cerritos High School football team for winning the milk jug back from Gar High School after many years. Yeah. I'm not so happy with that. Just maybe. Although I hate to see any of our sports teams lose, I want to

069congratulate Cerritos High School and recognize Gar High School for holding onto the job for so long. Yeah. Finally, I have some comments regarding public comments. Although we recognize the importance of the public being able to provide comments, the Brown Act specifically allows those making public comments to address the board matters that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body. So, and thank you. That is the end of my report. I really want to say thank you. Appreciate the district looking to this matter promptly. I just want to make sure that we, which is I, and my colleague, we are following the Brown Act and Education Code. And I'm glad that we got the legal counsel opinion and clarified the issues. And once again, I do want to let the public know, as a

070board or as anyone, you cannot campaign on school facilities. I want to thank you, make that clarification today. And I also want to thank you to look into the legal counsel. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. We have Interim Superintendent's Report. Thank you, President Yu. I continue to enjoy my visits to schools. Last week, I was able to get Mr. Rehgier, ABCFT President, to visit two schools with me. We had a great time. We were able to talk to students. We talked to teachers, and they're happy. At least that's what I saw, so I like to report that. It is to echo the Board President, this is the National Principals Month, and last week was also the Week of School Administrators. I, as your Interim Superintendent, want to thank all principals and all school

071administrators for everything that you do. Some of us may have two jobs, but these people work much harder than. than anyone I know. I mean, I can call them at 6 in the morning or at 12 o'clock midnight, and you should try. They will respond. So, again, thank you for that. We were at a school where a principal is going the extra mile and willing to eat a scorpion to support his schools and his community. So we'll talk about that later, but that was just great. Last week, Dr. Lois, Mr. Smith, Dr. Lozano, and Mr. Gutierrez and myself was at a public safety meeting down in Hawaiian Gardens. I know that Dr. Apodaca was also joining us through Zoom. They were discussing safety concerns and what's happening down in that community in Hawaiian Gardens. So

072the sheriff was there, and he addressed many of the community concerns and their pledge to keep the students and the community safe. And we have commitment from the cities and the sheriff departments that they will be working with our schools to ensure the safety of our students. It's a great concern. Also, I did formally contact and request an additional SRO from the sheriff department, and they are working on that. They will get back to me as soon as they have one available. So that is what we have done regarding safety at our schools. Finally, it's College Connections Week, and I'd like to encourage families and students to take advantage of the workshops available this week. I want to thank Dr. Weiss and the Career Technical Education team and our secondary counselors who have been working

073so hard on this program. So please take advantage of the workshops we have regarding college connections. That's the end of my report, Madam President. Okay, thank you. Tuan, next we have employee representative report. Oh, I'm sorry, student board report. I'm so sorry. We have student board representatives. We have Simran Sitchwala and Caitlin Tang of Gore High School. And you guys have like a whole pack of cheerleaders and supporters in the room. Wow. Yay. Please come to the podium. Good evening, President Yu, Vice President Beach, distinguished members of the board, and Interim Superintendent Tone Nguyen and his cabinet. My name is Kaitlyn Tang. And my name is Simran Satola. We are here to present our board report for Gar High School. The freshman class is off to a great start. They started planning fundraisers to raise

074money for upcoming class cabinet events. The sophomore class is focused on hosting the winter formal and the theme will be old Hollywood. They will also have hosted fundraisers at Chick-fil-A and sold Dippin' Dots to raise money for the winter formal dance. The junior class is planning Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead. At this cultural event, students groups organize interactive booths that include food, music, as well as arts and crafts. The decorations are simply incredible. The senior class began the year by handing out lays to students on the first day of school. They are currently focused on collecting photos for the upcoming Senior Awards Night. For academics, Garner High School had over 200 students receive principal's honor roll certificates and over 400 receive honor roll certificates for the spring semester of the

07521 to 22 school year. The College and Career Center regularly holds various workshops and student aid. This year, they have hosted college visits from several universities. Cal State University of Fullerton, the University of California Riverside, the University of Santa Barbara, and Cal Poly Pomona have all paid us visits. GAR also hosts Amazing Financial Aid Night to help our students learn how to apply. Campus clubs get students involved with school, create fun learning opportunities, expose kids to various cultures, and help our students meet new people. Last month, our clubs helped host an incredible club rush day as well as an informative back-to-school night. Last month, our clubs helped host an incredible... This year, our clubs have partnered with Cerritos Home Depot to create homecoming floats. These will be displayed at the homecoming game on a Friday,

076October 28th. The top three floats will win prizes. GAR's Diversity and Inclusivity Committee has helped commemorate Filipino American History Month, National Bullying Prevention Month, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, LGBTQ Plus History Month, and Mental Illness Awareness Week. They are currently celebrating Red Ribbon Week and will host lunch rallies, spirit days, and other activities all week long. Red ribbons will announce every student at GAR High School. So today and tomorrow, we should see ribbons all around campus. ASB. Our ASB has planned and executed several activities this year. Some examples are service of lunch rally where students answered trivial questions or got water ballooned. and our Boogie to the Music Rally where we played musical chairs. This week, we will put on a Lay Off Drugs Hawaiian-themed event where students will hula hoop for prizes to promote being

077drug-free. Right now, ASB focuses on Wait, ASB's focus is all about planning the homecoming dance, which will take place on Friday, October 28th from 9pm to midnight in our rest quad. This year's theme is haunted hoko, and as you probably guessed, our decorations are going to be focused on being scary. Our athletes are really excited about getting out on our new stadium field. Although there are a few final touches that need to be completed, we've been able to play a few football games on the new turf. We really want to thank the community for passing Measure BB to make this possible. The teams currently in season are winding down their year, but there are a few really special accomplishments that need to be highlighted. Our girls golf team won the league and are headed to

078CIF. Several members of both our boys and girls cross country team will compete in CIF. But we have a special shout out to Baron Martinez who won the district race and therefore the ABCUSD District Champion. On Saturday, October 8th, the Gar Marching Gladiators competed at Mayfair Field Show Tournament and won first place in Division 5A. Gar has also highlighted... Gar has also... also had the highest score of 30 bands that performed, earning overall tournament sweepstakes. The marching band will be hosting middle school band night this Friday, October 21st at the stadium and also performs this Saturday at University Field Show. competition. Our drama program is looking forward to programming their new show, Descendants, from Wednesday, November 16th through Friday the 19th. The show is all about Disney Valence, so it should be really fun. I

079hope this has helped give an insight into what is going on at Gar High School. Thank you for your time. Thank you. We have, did you have a comment? Okay, we have Vice President Brad B. As many of you know, Dr. Ueno and I went to GAR. We're gladiators from the class of 1993, so I'm honored to see all the blue and gold out there. As board members, we have to support all the schools, so I'll applaud CHS for getting this jug for the first time in a long time, it sounds like. And I'll say, I would like to hear next year our superintendent tell us that GAR got it back. So you guys go get that jug and represent. Thank you. Next we have employee representative Mr. Ray Gare. Good evening President Yu, Board

080Trustees, Interim Superintendent Mr. Nguyen. My name is Ray Gare. I'm president of the ABC Federation of Teachers. All right, we're already halfway on more through October. It's been going pretty fast. Lots happened in the first couple of months and I kind of wanted to give you an example of how the partnership is working. So we, the very first day of school, we were getting distress calls from our kindergarten and first grade teachers about some of the situations that they were dealing with. And it's not, it's never a good thing when you hear employees say, I feel like quitting. Especially long, you know, veterans that have seen a lot of, you know, students in their career. But there were some very specific challenges that were happening in our TK to first grade classrooms. So we started

081to talk to the district right away. Of course, they're always receptive. Hey, we're hearing things. We started working informally. We sent on a survey to our teachers, and 74 of those teachers replied, and it was really great. We got really good data that we could share. So I sat down with Mr. Nguyen, and we went over that data, and then I know the principals got a hold of it. We shared it with the administrative cabinet, and then we shared it with... you know, our executive board and our reps, and I'm going to share it with you, and it's going to be in the union news this Friday. And what it's a testament of is looking at that, decisions were made. I know Mr. Wynn and his cabinet, you know, used discretionary, you know, means to

082make sure that class sizes were appropriate for those classes, for those particular grades, that there was extra support, that... teachers and principals were heard about the extra support that they needed and the supplies. Everything that was in that survey we've done our best to address. And we did that as a team. And that's how we, I think, function best as a district. In a typical district, those things are happening, but the solutions don't come for months and months and months. And of course, that impacts students. You know, we're all here for students and that's the number one, you know, number one reason that we're all in education is for the students. So that was just a great example of, you know, how we work as a unit. You were very instrumental in that. I know

083two weeks ago, I want to applaud you for this because it's a philosophical change. You approved a position for a special... behavior specialist paraeducator. I'm just calling him super paras, right, to help address some of the behaviors we're seeing in the classrooms. It's a philosophical change because for as long as I've been in district, 25 years, I've been, I was in special ed, we're always asking to have paraeducators that were were valued as employees with their, with health benefits and the number of hours that they could have a working wage. and you made the decision to have a position that was a working wage for them and gave them health benefits because you're investing in people that you want to stay in ABC, work with ABC students, become part of the culture of ABC because

084they are the lifeline for those students. The connections that they make with the students cannot be made when you have a revolving door of paraeducators. And the reason I bring that up is as we're visiting schools, Mr. Wynn and I, you know, we went to Cerritos Owl and Animas Elementary. I've been visiting a lot of schools with my counterpart, Tanya Golden. And what we hear is, and this is, you know, that paraeducators are really hard to find. We're really good about including special ed students into our classrooms, but if those students don't have the supports, then they impact our general ed kids too. And so if I were to ask you of anything, I would ask that, and we brought this up to the cabinet, and just so you're aware of that, is that having

085special ed kids and kids with behavior problems need to have the right supports so that they are part of the general ed and they... You know, they're not taking away from the educational experience, that they feel part of it and they have the tools and supports for it. That helps the teacher focus on what they're trying to do in the classrooms. Another piece of that is, you know, we're coming out of a pandemic. Things have really changed. Teachers, they need training on how to do classroom management. How do I work with adults in my classroom? How do I work with these new challenging behaviors in the classroom? And so I know that's something that we've talked about. I've talked about Tier 1 supports for Tier 1 training for all of our teachers with Ms. Castro.

086And I know that's part of the plan, but I just want you to see how it all fits together. So what you did two weeks ago really sends a message, I think, that we're looking at investing in people. And we're investing in, when you invest in people, it pays off. in your entire organization. So I want to applaud you and thank you for that. Lastly, well, two things. Our subrate, you just got, you know, please look at our subrate again. We're at 175. We're below Long Beach and Norwalk and everybody around us. And it does have a drag on, you know, what's going on in our schools. It's, you know, we're using agencies that cost a little more money. Again, we want to have people that are part of ABC culture. They want to come

087here because they know this is where they feel comfortable, they feel valued. And that makes a big difference in our classrooms. Our long-term sub-rate, we don't represent them, but we would like to have long-term subs that... that will do all those extra things. You know, stay after school, do the extra work. Because we have a lot of teachers going out for maternity leave and stuff like that, right? It's the age of the employees that we have right now. They're having babies, which is good for enrollment, right? Lastly, you know, last week, adult school had their craft fair. And I go there every year. They have the craft fair and I buy Christmas presents because people go, oh, where did you get this? And I just never tell them, right? Great stuff there. Hopefully, if you

088didn't go this year, you know, make sure you go next year. And ABC Adult School does really good haircuts. So go. I'm sure you'll get the employee discount. All right. It's half price. I know that they need people to practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10 o'clock to 2. Go there and get your hair done. They do all the stuff, wash, nails. They do everything. But great people there, great teachers, great program. And thank you for supporting adult school. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Persons wishing to address the board should fill out a card located on the table by the door and place it in the silver tin. Speakers will be called in sequence during public comments section which is limited to one hour and each speaker to one presentation of five minutes unless the

089board wishes to waive the time limit. Those who have a group concern are encouraged to select a spokesperson to address the board. Persons wishing to address the board on a specific agenda item at the time the item is under discussion are limited to five minutes each and will be called to speak following the staff comments and prior to the board's discussion and taking action. Adverse remarks about a person's race, ancestry, ethnic group, identification, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, mental or physical disability, or age may not be made. Please avoid remarks or charges which reflect upon the character, motives, qualifications, or ability of any school district employee. Concerns presented to the Board will be followed up and addressed by the appropriate staff. I'd like to remind our board president, we do have a

090retired assemblywoman, Ms. Harvest is here. Yes. I just wanted you to know. Yes, thank you. We need to recognize her. Yes, I would like to recognize our former retired assemblywoman, Sally Harvest. Please stand. Thank you for joining us tonight. And Madam President, with that, she is our first speaker. All right. Come on down. But you're still young and beautiful. Well, I'm here tonight on an issue which I believe has been pretty much resolved now to some extent. It had to do with what I heard about a member of the board in another venue said something about... not teaching the history of slavery in the United States because the board member didn't want the children to grow up feeling guilty. At first I was really very upset, but now I've cooled off a lot since I

091first heard about this. I understand there were apologies made, and they were accepted, and that's wonderful, that's great. We all open our mouths at the wrong time saying the wrong things at one time or another in our lives. However, consider the fact that once words are spoken, spoken words cannot be unspoken. Once a bell is rung, that bell cannot be unrung. I wonder if that's proper English. Well, anyway, you get the idea. And the consequences, it has to do with the fact that our board members are people in positions of authority. and they represent our communities. And whether you realize it or not, I know when I was a board member, I didn't think people paid much attention to me at all, but we do. And you don't know how far that bell... is reaching

092out. In other states, there's some very serious things going on with regard to banning books and so forth. And I don't believe that's happening in California, and I pray that it's not. The necessity of teaching, I look at it as a collective conscience. Of course, none of us were responsible for what happened to various, not just slavery, but other various groups of people in the country. But we benefit from the unrequited toil, a history of United States slavery. We benefit over the years the work that was not recognized added to the economy of the country, the development of the country, just as the work of other groups of people. The necessity of teaching, I wouldn't call it ethnic studies, but I would call it more the collective conscience of the people. And it's not a

093matter of feeling guilty. It's a matter of understanding and recognizing so that we can work to make things better. You know, that's a part of our country's, I don't know, to call it maybe an attitude, the way we think, that no matter how good it is, it can always be better, and we have to work together to make it better. And our children, they're going to be the succeeding generations to be working to make these... issues become much better as time goes on. But how are they going to do so if they don't even know what they are? How are they going to develop a sense of pride in themselves as well? And, you know, what really got to me at first when I heard that is I said, gee whiz, what's next? Are we

094not going to, are we going to have people in our state talking like they do in the other states? Are we going to have them saying, well, we can't teach the history of the Holocaust either because when the children find out that the United States turned away thousands of people who were seeking refuge in this country, they're going to feel guilty. No, they're going to know. what happened. So I have a book. I have the, well it's two actually. Mouse. I'm going to donate this to Cerritos High School Library. Why Cerritos High School Library? Because it's the closest one to my house. And I'm hoping to encourage other people in the community to try to do so. Our teachers already have lots of things to teach in their classes. Lots of mandates. For example, the

095mandate to teach the history of slavery. as in the Ed Code. It's the Ed Code Section 8.6 through 8.11, and I'm sure our educator staff knows this already. And so I have this book, and I have Maus, and I have Ron Takaki. I do need to tell you about this one. This is a revised... edition of the book that I used when I taught ethnic studies. It's History of Asian Americans, Strangers from a Different Shore. Because our children need to know about themselves and each other, even the bad stuff. Let's stop ringing the bell. Don't fall into that trap, folks. Next speaker, we have Sam Desai. Good evening, President Yu, Vice President Beach. members of the board and interim superintendent. Happy Diwali. It's Diwali time for my family and I'm wishing everyone a beautiful new

096year and prosperous new year. So my name is Sam Desai. I am a resident of Cerritos. and last time, President, you had to leave early. And I was speaking and I was interrupted. And after that, I made a request if we can have some sort of conversation about public policy and speakers, because I don't want to be interrupted again. I'm hoping that there was a conversation, and as a parent, or as a speaker when I speak, that we have shared that... We should be allowed to speak without interruption, right? Okay. So I'm running for ABC Unified School District, Trustee Area 3. Point of order, Madam President. Go ahead, Sophie. We, earlier, we had a board, we made a report out that, according to the Ed Code, that we are not to talk about any campaigning

097matters. Thank you. I'm glad that you guys had this conversation. My name is Sam Desai. You have my information. It would be wonderful to get that communication back from you. So what stopped this board from communicating this in advance? We had a legal counsel. advise us that we want to keep the political campaigning during the public comment section out. So we will get back to you. So the board gets to understand the reason I'm standing in front of you is this lack of communication. So I want to help improve how we communicate with our parents. I want our school district, to talk about what is important. I want us to pay attention to what parents are saying about what is important to them. It could be different items like school of choice. Where did it

098begin? Are we being transparent about it? So there are so many different conversations that happens. And when parent comes over here and there is no clarity with the board, then they feel that they are not being heard. So the communication is key, not only with parents, but those who wishes to serve the community in different manners. Now, I want to work with all of you. As a PTA dad, as a dad, as someone who is into finance, someone who pays attention to board policies, I want to be part of that discussion. And I'm asking for different ways to contribute. So whenever you feel that a parent is doing something to bring the attention and you are not sure, the first thing you can do is communicate, right? In the schools, now that our schools have

099started, there is a conversation of what can we do to improve. So this is not about academic improvement only. This is also about interpersonal skills, how the students are speaking to each other. how are they speaking to each other, what are they speaking about. And it's important that we know that students are comfortable talking to each other even though we come from different cultures. And that communications still rings as a priority. I also want to report that over the last month as I was exploring what I want to do and how I want to serve our community, I did something which is called Town Hall with Sam Desai. Now, all of you can look it up. It's on internet, it's on Facebook, Town Hall with Sam Desai. And we spoke about what is important. One

100of the retired teachers came there. Now, the Town Hall is about everyone, speaking about what we can do. And they had mentioned that you know, I may want to go back. I may want to work part-time. So the teachers who have retired, if there is a way to bring them back, I would like you to consider that. There are many different conversations which has happened. We have some different clips of our conversations on Facebook. And if you go and look for ABC... Parents, supporting parents, Facebook page, you will see a lot of things there. And thank you and have a great day. Mr. Superintendent, can you briefly read the education code that does not permit campaigning during public comments? Okay, the upcoming election is outside of our jurisdiction, and political campaigning during the public comments

101portion of the meeting is out of order and not allowed. Furthermore, after checking with legal counsel, campaigning during a public school board meeting may be in violation of the California Education Code. Again, members of the public are welcome to speak during public comments. However, political campaigning during our meeting is not allowed. Thank you. Next we have the consent calendar may have a motion to approve the consent calendar Motion approved your hand no second by Sophia Is there anyone who wishes to remove any item to be considered separately if not all those in favor say aye? Madam president. Yeah, I do have two items really quick 3.3 and 3.7 So 3.3 I just have a quick question regarding the what are we amending the contract to do? I said we're amending the contract. I just don't

102know what we're amending it to do. What is the difference in scope and things like that? Thank you. The contract was originally approved in spring prior to having full registration at each of our school sites. Now that we have registration for our ABC Excels program, we have a better purview of the numbers, and so some numbers have... Increased we have had more registration at some school sites requiring us to contract more so with some of our YMCA and AYA partners in some areas Previously where we thought we were going to contract with one organization we contracted with another so instead of AYA school went with YMCA So there were small differentials between school movements registration movements enrollment numbers things like that Numbers that went up numbers that went down therefore changing the contract for each

103AYA and YMCA but overall the total number of the contracts stayed around the same number. So we're moving them from place to place, correct? I just didn't see that in here, so that's why I asked the question. Thank you. So that's fine. The second question I have regarding this 3.7. So we're going to have an agreement with FOA comprehensive. That sounds great. How do we determine that this was the entity that we wanted to contract with to do this? So our adult school contracts with several partners in order to provide internship externship experiences for our ABC adult school students. These are based on recommendations from our adult school teachers and the partnerships that they're able to pull together. This pharmacy, excuse me, is one of many and includes Austin Drugs, CVS, Harper's Pharmacy, Omnicare, and

104Walgreens. So we did an RFP for this, correct? We do not do an RFP for this because these are externship partnership opportunities, much in the same way that we have partnerships for our CTE programs for our secondary students. There's no cost associated with this. I know. I understand. I'm sure. And it's great that we're getting community partners in. So they came and volunteered to come in to do this, correct? Yes, typically it's our adult school teachers that are involved with them, and so they have created partnerships with various communities. It depends on where our adult schools, and because the type of experiences they may need, so some are larger organizations, some are smaller business organizations, and so our goal with our adult school is to provide them a variety of those experiences. Okay, thank you.

105That's all. All those in favor? Aye. 1.1-A, may I have a motion to adopt Resolution 2232, Red Ribbon Week, October 23rd, 31st, 2022? So moved. Any public comments? There are no public comments, Madam President. All those in favor? Aye. Madam President, can I make a quick comment about that? Okay, go ahead. Sure. You know, this is a very important resolution. It hits very close to home for me. My uncle, Henry Lozano, founded the Red Ribbon Week back in the mid-1980s, and it's the longest-lasting drug prevention program in the world. I served on the International Red Ribbon Board of Directors in the past, and I tell parents every year at this time, it's never too soon to talk to your kids about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. So if you're not having that discussion, do

106it tonight if you're watching. Do it as soon as possible, and let's try to keep our kids from using alcohol and drugs. Thank you. Thank you. We have Dr. Olavios. Thank you, Madam President. In light of the presentation earlier, I think it's become more important than ever to have these discussions. I know that Red Ribbon a lot of times becomes a spirit week and we celebrate being drug-free, but I think we need to move into an area of education and really talk about as early as possible the dangers of alcohol and drugs. knowledge out there to our students, especially in areas that we are seeing problems, like where those referrals are coming from. I mean, I think all our kids can benefit, but I would absolutely pay special attention to where we're seeing a high

107number of students being referred to these programs that were discussed earlier. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Board Member Sophia Tse. Yeah, I also want to say, parents, please be alert and don't feel guilty. Come out. and share with others. If you see your kids or other kids using something and you don't feel comfortable, come out and talk to school. Talk to teacher, talk to superintendent. They definitely will be there on the site to help you out. Thank you. Thank you. Parental involvement is crucial during this time. I think it's really, I want to thank the staff that we are really taking proactive measures, dealing with this issue. Okay, we already both voted, so we go on to the next item. 1.2-A. May I have a motion to approve community member and student appointments

108to board advisory committees? Motion approved, Eugenio. Seconded by Sophia. Thank you. We have Haskell Middle School Principal Valerie Gutierrez. Ms. Gutierrez, please come up to the podium, and she will be appointed as a strategic planning committee Yes, good evening Madam President Yu, Vice President Beach, esteemed board members Mr. Nguyen and cabinet. I would like to thank you for this opportunity to be part of the strategic planning advisory board. During my nine years with the district, I've witnessed firsthand the value of partnering with our community to continue to move ABC Unified School District forward. It is through these partnerships that the educational experiences for our students are enhanced, which prepares them to be lifelong learners. I look forward to my work on the Strategic Planning Board Advisory Committee and know the work that we will do

109will make a difference for our students. So thank you. Okay, thank you very much. We'd like to welcome you and let's give her a round of applause for serving. Next, I'd like to call on Hawaiian Elementary School Principal Dr. Myra Lozano. to the, appointed to the committee, diversity, unity, and equity. Hello, everyone. Always a pleasure to serve our district, and I am just very pleased. I was serving in the strategic committee, and I appreciated being part of that committee, and I am just really happy to be part of this new committee, as equity, of course, should be always at the center of our work. Thank you very much. I mean, as we do have a big number of Latino students, just having you, who is bilingual, will be very, very helpful for our district. Thank

110you very much for serving. Let's give her a round of applause. Thank you. Any public comments and discussion? There are no public comments, Madam President. Okay, discussion. We have Board Vice President Brad Beach. I just have one question. One question for our superintendent. Will the Committee for School Facilities and Declining Enrollment start after this election cycle or sooner? Yes. We are waiting for the work of the report from the demographer, and we have a couple board members who haven't made their appointment. We hope that will happen soon so we can start the work of this committee. Thank you. Very good. Quick question, Madam President. Okay. Dr. Olga Rios. As a follow-up, I also was wondering about what the timeline is for the demographic study. Do we have an expected completion date? Yes, four weeks from

111today. Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. Motion passes. 1.3-A. May I have a motion to approve Resolution 22-33 Filipino American History Month in the month of October 2022? Motion to approve, Eugenio. Any public comments and discussion? There are no public comments, Madam President. Discussion? We have Board Member Ernie Nishi. Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to add a quick for-ask clause to this particular resolution, just to give a little more depth to it, just a little more oomph, if you'd like to add on language that I provided in advance. But whereas Filipino-Americans have made significant contributions to the American culture, politics, science, including but not limited to labor leader Larry Itliong, who jointly created the United Farm Workers, Tony Award-winning Lea Salonga, retired Supreme Court Justice, Tiny Cantile-Sakawe and co-founder of the Snapchat,

112Bobby Murphy, covering all of the areas. So that's a friendly amendment to the resolution. I need a second maybe. Do we have a second? Second. Okay. We have one more comment. I was just hoping that we were going to take time to read this, Madam President. Okay. Good. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Motion passes. 2.2-A, may I have a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding? I'm sorry to interrupt, Madam President. I was hoping that we as a board could present. I mean, I think these resolutions are important. I think in the past we've taken time to read them. I would encourage us to just, as we say in education, popcorn read. I'll be happy to start and ask my colleagues to join in. Okay. That's okay? Sure. Okay. Or you

113may start as President. You can start. Okay, thank you so much. Okay, Resolution 22-33, Filipino American History Month, whereas in California, Filipino American History Month was first recognized statewide in 2006 when the California Department of Education placed it on its celebrations calendar and... Okay, whereas in California and Hawaii, many Filipino American organizations in these states often initiate their own independent celebrations. A pivotal year was 26 as it marked the centennial celebration of Filipino migration to the United States. And... In 2009, California State Senator Leland Yee introduced a resolution which was passed that recognized October as Filipino American History Month. It passed the California State Assembly and was submitted to the California Secretary of State. And... Michael, I'm going to give you the honor to read the longest one. Sure. whereas Filipino Americans are the second

114largest Asian American group in the nation and the third largest ethnic group in California after Latinos and African Americans. The celebration of Filipino American History Month in October commemorates the first recorded presence of Filipinos in the continental United States, which occurred on October 18, 1587, when the Luzones Indios came ashore from the Spanish galeón Nuestra Señora de Esperanza and landed at what is now Morro Bay, California. And now, I have the honor. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Board of Education of the ABC Unified School District celebrates Filipino American History Month in the month of October 2020. 22. Passed and adopted this 18th of October 2022 by the following votes. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. Thank you, Board Member Dr. Rios, for encouraging us to read that. Almost passed. I

115was getting so excited that the Board meeting was going to be short. Yeah. So we did good by reading this. Yeah. Okay. Let me see. We are okay. Thank you so much. So we are at 2.2-A. May I have a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding between the Board of Education and the California School Employees Association and its ABC Chapter 24 regarding health and welfare benefits for the 2022-2023 school year? So moved by Sophia. You had no second. Dr. Zidlow. Thank you. So this is the agreement that we have with our CSEA unit. We brought the other ones last meeting. This one was still in process, their process for approval, and so we're bringing it to you this evening for approval. Thank you. Any public comments? There are no public comments, Madam President. Discussion?

116Okay. Singan? All those in favor? Aye. The motion passes. May I have a motion to approve request contract with Center for the Pacific Asian Family, LLC, to provide after-school enrichment classes for approximately 30 to 50 Cerritos High School students in grades 9 to 12 for 2022-2023 school year? Motion to approve, Eugenio. Second by Sophia. Okay, any public comments? There are no public comments, Madam President. Any discussion? If none, all those in favor? Aye. Motion passes. 3.9-A. May I have a motion to approve request contract with San Joaquin County Office of Education to provide the Beyond Student Success Team information data system and professional learning services for the 2022-2023 school year? Motion to approve, Daniel. Second. Any public comments? There are no public comments, Madam President. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Motion

117passes. 3.10-A. May I have a motion to adopt Resolution 20-34, State Seal of Civic Engagement? Motion to adopt. Second? Second by Sophia. Okay. We have Dr. Christina Wise and Ms. Audrey Rios. Good evening, Madam President, Vice President of the Board, Brett Beach, Clerk Eugenio, as well as our distinguished members of our board, to our interim superintendent, Tuan Nguyen, and to the members of our superintendent's academy. Tonight I'm here with Ms. Rios, our ABC program specialist, and we are here to represent academic services in our work in creating an opportunity for high school students to participate in the California State Seal of Civic Engagement. In accordance with the California Department of Education, graduating high school students who participate in civic education demonstrate understanding of U.S. and California Constitution and the democratic system of government will receive

118a California seal of civic engagement to be placed or recognized on their diplomas. Next slide, please. I think this is the correct slide. To ensure ABC participates in this opportunity, we created a committee. When the committee was convened, and they agreed upon this vision for ABC. First, we envisioned the development of students' practical understanding of community needs, social issues, government structures, and civic processes. Second, We foster students' respect and empathy for others, as well as foster the ability for students to address complex, real-world issues showing value from multiple perspectives. Third, empower students to apply their gifts, intelligence, challenges, and energy as they take direct actions related to identifying social issues. issues in their communities. And last but not least, and I'd say most importantly, we envision that the impact of teaching civic engagement will make

119a positive difference for our community by empowering students to identify concerns and give agency to student voice and make students a space for them to find resolve. With me is Audrey Rios, and she's going to continue on our committee's suggestions as well as our plan of execution. Thank you. Good evening. So when the State Board of Education handed down their criteria in 2020, it fell to the local school districts to take that criteria as guidelines for the establishment of our own local criteria. So we had to determine how that would look like in ABC for our students. And so to do this work, a committee of teachers, site administrators, and district personnel was assembled, and we were tasked with determining what the requirements for meeting the five criteria would be. At the same time, we

120really wanted to incorporate as much flexibility and choice for students so as to address any potential barriers for all students being able to earn the state seal. and also allows students to pursue their interests and passions in completing their projects and the work in their community. Along with the criteria, we also drafted assessment criteria that will be used to evaluate student projects and reflections. In addition, we worked to establish kind of the how. In addition to establishing what that state seal would look like for our district, we also developed the kind of structures, protocols, responsibilities, the kind of infrastructure, if you wish, to monitor student progress, document eligibility, and kind of track their progress throughout the program. Lastly we developed ideas for getting the information regarding the seal out to our school and local communities

121to raise awareness and allow access to information One of the big projects that we have been working on is our state seal a civic engagement website Which will house all things pertaining to state seal and that'll be linked on our district website. It's currently up and running Mr. Smith if you could pull that up for us, so I'm going to provide you a brief overview So this is a website we've been developing. This is kind of our one-stop shop for everything that our community and our students need to know and what they need to do to earn the state seal. And so here we have kind of our overview with our vision statement, which Dr. Wise shared with us at the beginning of the presentation. If we could move across the tabs at the top

122to the requirements themselves. Here we have clearly laid out the criteria for students to earn the seal in each of the five areas. And if you click on one of the criteria, it will drop down and show you the specific criteria that students need for each one of these areas. And then moving across to the next tab. We've also outlined the scoring and how these will be evaluated. Note that this isn't a thing like where students turn it in and they don't pass. It's more of a, this is what we need further, please resubmit type things. And it's also noted students can start working on this in ninth grade, and they don't actually turn in or earn the seal until 11th or 12th grade. So it's a continuing process that we have students engaged in.

123The next tab. This is one that we're really hoping to build out. Right now we have a project example from a student at Gar High School who did a Jeans for Teens project. We have a lot of this good work already happening in our community, and we hope that moving forward with the state seal of civic engagement that we can populate this with all the good things that we're doing in our community to show our community the good work our students are doing, but also inspire other students to become involved in their communities. And the next tab, please. This is where we have all of the information and items for submission as well as sample materials. It has the deadlines for application. You'll note there's two. One is a priority where they have the opportunity

124to resubmit later on in the year. They can, again, submit their applications 9 through 12. The seal is actually earned in the 11th or 12th. And then that final tab at the top. We've established a network of supports and contact information at each one of the sites as well as the district area I'm sorry district level to provide students with people they can reach out to for information Mentorship and support as they move through the program and if we could navigate back to the slides Some of our current work and where we're at in this process of rolling it out is We're going to be seeking feedback from our community through our parent advisory committee So far we've had school staff work to develop this. We want to bring it to our community for feedback.

125We're going to be developing informational materials and resources for the sites to roll out this information in this program. We're going to begin training our site admin and support staff to help us monitor and track student progress. We're going to assemble a district-level project assessment team to review submissions. And we're going to integrate these projects, the project aspect of this, into our currently existing classes and curriculums. We already have many of these things going on in many of our classes. We just want to formally tie that to the state's CELA civic engagement and be sure that we're recognizing students with this program and this award. The state still of civic engagement is very near and dear to my heart. I know that I've spoken to some of you, but my grandmother back in Alabama decided

126that she was going to create her first commitment to civic engagement in her community. Every one of her granddaughters would be in the position of choice in Montgomery, Alabama. And that means that they would be able to choose whether they would be a housewife or a wife or really go into work. And so she created many fundraisers to support her family to ensure that our granddaughters all went to college. As a result, they all came back to the community and taught reading to the community. And so what a street that once was very impoverished moved to a thriving community. And so what we know about civic engagement is once we have vision and passion for what will change our communities, the magnitude of thriving is possible. And so through this whole state seal of engagement,

127we're hoping that we will be able to provide voice and advocacy for our students so that real world problems can be solved not out by outsiders, but by insiders, our students here in ABCA. So at its best, the seal of civic engagement provides purposeful fulfillment and builds trust within our community. We hope that this community through civic engagement teaches our students to take active roles in their community in which they live. Through civic engagement, we cultivate our students to develop and use knowledge, skills, and most importantly, their voices to create positive change in their communities. So let me first, let me end this, let me end our presentation with, so much work went into this work. I'd like to acknowledge the members of the committee, which is Carol Castro, Brian Glonchak, we have Jenna Lynn

128from Ross, Anna from Gard, we have Diana Middleton, Felicia Gomez, Megan Nicholson, Danique Morrison, Heather Calderon, Miguel Corrales, and our own Audrey Rios that has done so much work to make sure that we in ABC are making sure that our students' voices are heard for real-life solutions in our community. We want to thank you for this opportunity. Thank you. We have, do we have any public comments? There are no public comments, Madam President. Okay, we have discussion. We have Dr. Ogarrios. A few questions. I know it was adopted in 2020, so does that mean, and it sounds like you're in the process of developing a lot, but there was also a video about somebody already submitted a project, so is this something that can actually be on people's diplomas by 2023? Yes, that is the

129goal, to have our first group receive it by spring of 2023. Okay, that sounds wonderful. I, you know, as a civic leader myself, again, I can absolutely concur that it is very important to our communities. Do we have something in place to communicate to this or communicate this availability to our students like today? Yes, our wonderful secondary team is working with our teachers to make sure that we're rolling this out at all of our high schools through not only our history classes, but through our homeroom classes, and our counselors are also being made aware of this so that they can promote it with their students. Great, so this is something that will be available to all students at all sites. And so this is something that they're submitting to this website, or are they doing

130it site-based, or is it all centralized at the district office? Or is that being determined? It will be centralized at the district office as it is right now. I can see a need potentially in the future to expand it, but with the assessment, it's going to be central to the district office. Okay, and that was it. Thank you. Okay, next we have Board Member Ernini Shee. Thank you, Madam President. I love this program. Thank you, Interim Superintendent, Dr. Christian Wise, and I recognize some of these names, Megan Nicholson and Dr. Rios. This is one of those programs that is just, you know, listening to the community, providing a need, and really empowering the kids and providing not just, it's not just a feel-good thing, it's really, you put down structure. You put down ways to

131measure it, ways to make things better, to make them more effective. And it really does make a difference, I think, in terms of our youth, our future, knowing that they can make a difference and being empowered through our structures that we have created here. I know you guys are so busy doing all these other things, but this is one of those things that just dovetails in with the day of remembrance where we really empower the students to understand what happens. You understand what happens, and now you can take an action. And I only wish my daughter could have done this. But I'm so glad that you listened to the parents, you listened to our community. You're going forward with a full... approach for it with a full program and a full curriculum. So thank you.

132Just kudos. I really appreciate it. Next we have Vice President Brad Beach. Thank you, Madam President. This is a great idea. I was very happy to see this, and I want to thank all of you for your hard work. There's no fiscal impact from this program. The kids will learn how to become our new civic leaders in the future, and I can definitely see my daughters participating in this, so thank you. Thank you very much. I could tell that a lot of work went into this, Dr. Krishna Wise. My question is, the practical aspect of it, who will be leading this? It's like a separate program, a class, or for the students to get started, and just the practical aspect of it. Well, we're working with a variety of groups to help. So next week

133we have a meeting with our counselors. They'll be our first line of defense in speaking with our students about the program. Audrey Bios does a fantastic job of meeting with all of our history teachers across our secondary curriculum for data analysis as well as for our planning for curriculum instruction. We, as 11th grade teachers, have civics in our curriculum for all of, I'm sorry, for our senior students. to do civics in all of our courses. And so some of the teachers that you have listed here are part of those 12th grade teachers that actually teach civics. We're also really proud of our partnership. We will be working with parents and the parent community. So Dr. Thomas is behind us, and she will be actually letting the parent advisory committee really kind of look and give

134some input. So this will be the first time we're really working with parents to do some advisory. So to answer your question, we're really trying to have an overall... input from multiple people to make sure that our students have the most opportunities in this civic engagement project. So who's evaluating it? It looks like me and Audrey. And the rest of the members of our committee that have worked so very hard and diligent to make sure that we have this process or this procedure for our students. Thank you very much. I was naturalized, became a citizen in college. So, you know, our district pretty much looked like a lot of Asians. Between Asians and Latinos, I think we make up the majority. And so we come from, our students come from immigrant families. And I think

135that learning and being engaged with the civics, to know the history, the facts, you know, to love our nation and the freedom that we have and to be united, I think it's a... fantastic opportunity thank you very much yeah okay all those in favor all right motion passes thank you thank you dr wise next we have information items 1.4 dash i quarterly williams settlement compliance report for july through september 2022 Mr. Tuan. Thank you, President Yu. I'm happy to report that for the first quarter of this school year, we did not have any complaints under the uniform complaints under Williams for instructional materials, facilities, or teacher vacancy on this assignment. Okay, thank you. Announcements. Next regular board meeting, Tuesday, November 1st, 2022, 7 p.m., District Office Boardroom. Committee Meetings. Diversity, Unity, Equity, Board Advisory Committee,

136Thursday, October 20, 2022, 6 p.m., District Office Boardroom. Strategic Planning Board Advisory Committee, Tuesday, October 25, 2022, 6 p.m., District Conference Room. Legislative Policy Board Advisory Committee, Wednesday, October 26, 2022, 6.30 p.m., District Conference Room. Finance and Audit Board Advisory Committee, Thursday, October 27, 2022, 6 p.m., District Conference Room. I'm sorry, we have Board Members Report. We're going to start with Board Clerk, Dr. Michael Eugenio. Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to inform the general public and the parents of our district that the CDC announced the meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to be held this week, October 19th and 20th, to vote on mandatory COVID-19 vaccination of school children. The meeting is open to the public and will be broadcast live via the internet on October 19th, 8.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.

137Eastern Daylight Saving Time and October 20th, 8.30 a.m. to 3.20 p.m. Eastern Daylight Saving Time. Matters to be considered during this meeting will include child and adolescent immunization schedule for COVID-19 vaccines, a vaccine children vote, on COVID-19 vaccine is scheduled on their agenda on October 19th at 3.50 p.m. Eastern Daylight Saving Time. Public comment will be allowed prior to the vote at 3.30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Saving Time. Should this vote pass and place COVID-19 vaccines as mandatory on a child and adolescent immunization schedule? I must mourn that this will have dire consequences on our already delicate enrollment numbers in our district. Not to mention the possible occurrence of numerous side effects, injuries, and permanent disability that may result. I, for one, cannot sit idle and remain silent on this issue knowing possible harm may come

138to your child. Parents who oppose, I believe you should make it a point to comment on this issue and let your voice be heard. please contact me for further information. For those who have endured scrutiny over the past two years for remaining unvaccinated against COVID-19, I'd like to read an excerpt from a letter French General Christian Blanchon wrote about you. He states, quote, You are superheroes. You did what others could not do. You were the tree that withstood the hurricane of insults, discrimination, and social exclusion. Excluded from their families, Christmas tables, they have never seen anything so cruel. They lost their jobs, let their careers sink, and had no more money. But they didn't care. They suffered immeasurable discrimination, denunciations, betrayals, and humiliation. But they continued. You've passed an unimaginable test that many of the

139toughest Marines, commandos, Green Berets, astronauts, and geniuses could not pass. You are made of the stuff of the greatest that ever lived, those heroes born among ordinary men who shine in the dark, unquote. Again, please contact me for information on how to watch and comment on this meeting. May God bless you all and keep you well. Madam President. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Board Member Dr. Olga Rios. Thank you. Speaking of speaking engagement, I had a day off on Monday to recognize Indigenous Day, and so I took time to visit some of our local schools, started with schools in my area. The Voting Rights Act actually played out very well in our favor locally. And, for example, at ABC, I became one of the first representatives ever to sit representing Lakewood on the

140ABC school board. And just recently, we had a councilwoman elected to Lakewood City Council representing East Lakewood. And as a person who is very much interested in education, we had the opportunity to walk the schools, and I was very pleased to introduce her to our local principals and visit a few of our classrooms. And so we were able to visit Aloha, Willow, Palms, Melbourne, met, well, she got to meet Principal Garcia and learn all about the wonderful things happening at Artesia. And then I ended up the day. taking time to meet our principal over at GAR and, you know, just again encourage our board, my board colleagues, to take time to visit our schools. And, you know, now that the pandemic is over and we're allowed to go back to learn about all of our

141schools, but more specifically or more intentionally about those in our particular areas. That's all for my report. Vice President, Brad Beach. Thank you, Madam President. I attended the Nixon PTA meeting recently, and I wanted to applaud them and all of our school PTAs and educational foundations for all the great work that they do, not only for our teachers and staff, but most importantly for our kids. So thank you to all of you. That's all, Madam President. Thank you. Thank you. We have... Ernie Nishi? Thank you, Madam President. Quickly, got to go to Juarez Literacy Week. That was a very amazing event with a very compact group of people. Makes the kids feel like stars, basically. Gets them to be entertained, and they also learn how to read. So I think that schools should do really

142well with that. I got to... So this is Principal's Month. Principals work really hard, teachers work hard, but also principals make a big difference. And in this case, this principal went, I happened to be walking my dog, and they said, hey, the principal's going to eat a bug because they met their PTA goal. But he didn't just eat one bug. No, no, no. He ate four bugs, and he pulled in the Mayor Chung Vo, and our interim superintendent, and me just walking my dog. Luckily, we only had the cricket to eat, but he ate... Well, let's just let that go. But the PTA was amazing. The parents were amazing. They raised a lot of money, and that's what it's about. staff dedication, something you really can't buy. It's the parents' dedication to really participate. All

143the kids were enthused. I bet you that's going to translate to scores later on and a great future for those kids. So I'm just amazed at what happened with Seudis Elementary. Of course, I had pancakes the very next day to kind of wash out the taste of those delicious invertebrates. And those were the best pancakes I've had in a long time. Again, another example of great parent power, where those parents are really involved. They're part of the culture. And they're going to remember how hard it was, but also they're going to remember how the kids really enjoyed it, how it brought kids together. They had performances, games. School is a fun place. It's not just a place where you study, but it's a place that you want to go to every day. So, Cerritos Elementary's...

144got a great program. Juarez Elementary's got a great program. Kennedy's got a great program. All these schools are doing really well, and I'm just very proud to be part of this whole thing. That's what's amazing about this district. One last thing, really quick. There's a scholarship that we're offering here. I'm just talking about civic engagement where kids can be empowered to make a difference in our society. I'm offering a scholarship called the Tuna Canyon Detention Station Scholarship, and they can write about how preserving a particular place and seeing what happened in terms of the human rights violations that happened against Japanese, Germans, and Italians, all of these other groups. making sure that it doesn't happen again and they write to the heart of the matter. These students can also provide art that also speaks to

145the heart of what it is to be engaged, to make sure that these incidences don't occur, that we become a better country, that we become unified, that we know that we can stand up to injustice. and it's part of our education. So art is part of that, essay is part of it, and the civic engagement is definitely a great part of what makes our district the best. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Chris Apodaca. Thank you, Madam President. I wanted to circle back with what our interim superintendent mentioned, and I wanted to thank both him as well as Ernesto Marquez, the city manager for the city of Hawaiian Gardens, and all those who I think worked through, for the most part, last last week and so a week ago and constantly provided updates to the

146board with regards to our school's response to the developments in the city and I want to for sure you know let our our constituents know all across the district that safety is number one for us and I think that The most difficult thing to hear from our interim superintendent's mouth was, Chris, we're only a public school district. We can only do so much. And that's probably the most helpless I've felt in a very long time because we really are a public school district. We want to focus on the importance of education and making sure that our students get a great education. And what a terrible thing for them to ever fear being in any of our schools across the district. If anything we've learned this year, it's that it can happen anywhere at any time.

147We're doing everything that we possibly can. In addition to speaking with the L.A. Sheriff's Department, I know that the city had a public safety meeting, which, you know, I was at work, but I was there via Zoom, and I saw that the team was there as well. And you had residents that asked some very candid questions, questions that, frankly, needed to be answered. And sadly, some of these questions can't be answered because we can't. look into the future. We can't predict whether or not one day is just going to be a horrible day for somebody, right? Sadly. But my hope out of all of this is that not only are we not just a public school district, we're educators. We're role models. I love seeing the new teachers coming in. And I love the way

148that Mr. Corey described learning the knowledge of what you need to do versus humbling yourself and then gaining the wisdom of who you need to be. And so our hope here is that the more we educate our children, the safest environment we can provide for them, use the best methods and technology to teach them, and set that example for them, that we don't have to ever worry about their safety or well-being ever again. But it was a very sobering and humbling experience to just sit there and... not really be able to answer questions from folks. But I do want to build on the fact that the city is doing everything that they can. We're doing everything that we can. I'd like to thank our fellow board members here who said, okay, if it's for safety,

149let's do it. There's no question. And I want the public to know during this entire thing, in my constant badgering of the city manager as well as the constant badgering of our interim superintendent, not once did they ever say, oh, that costs too much, or I don't think we can afford it, or I don't think we have the money. Not once did that come up. And so I'm very grateful for that. because that's not what we need to be worrying about right now. We need to be worrying about the safety and well-being of our students. And so I wanted to thank them again. I know that we're trying to hire folks. I'm glad to see that we have the dream centers that are going to be up and running soon that we'll be addressing. proactively

150addressing violence in our schools. I'd like to thank the county, Dandy, Miguel, and Francisco from the Violence Prevention Unit at the county for being present as well in our city and being there with residents. I had the opportunity to spend time with some residents on Saturday, and it got to the point where I couldn't answer all their questions, and I said, well, what next? And I did the only thing that I could think of to do, and I said, well, we're doing everything we can. At this point, we need to pray. And so I'm grateful to them for taking that moment in prayer with me to pray for our city, our students, and our leadership, and more than anything, those who feel lost, who have hardened hearts, who have angry hearts. May they have a

151true conversion and find their way to the right path. Lastly, I'd like to thank Major Shen from the ROTC program, SWORD, for offering these scholarships that we have available. Anybody on this board can nominate a high school senior who's interested in becoming an officer through the ROTC program. Full four-year scholarship to a university, participating universities, one of which is USC. Yes, there's one at UCLA as well. Okay. And so any of us can nominate these students. So parents, if you have a student who's interested or considering the military as an enlisted person, have them look into an officer program. There's a lot of really cool things they can do as officers. And that, Madam President, concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you. We have Sophia Say. President, attending one conference, the title is called How

152to Help Black Students to Succeed. And we'll talk about improving student outcome, improving student persistence and retention. That was the conference I went. I learned a lot from that. That's my end report. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, board members. Thank you. I am very concerned about the current issues, and I think that all of us need to put our hands on the deck to really... take ownership of the rise of crime and drug. That's our children. And, you know, that's affecting all the high schools. The rise of the drug use among the Asian students, according to the report. Yeah, those are, you know, real concerns. And coming out from pandemic, informing the parents, that's just, we can't finger point. We have to really resolve real issues. Those are real problems. These are things that

153Why are the reasons why we are here, you know, sitting in this place to to address. So thank you very much. We have special events. ABC USD College Connections Week, October 17 to 21, 2022 virtual. Great Southern California Shakeout, October 20, 2022, 1020 a.m. Second public section. I do not see any public comments, Madam President. Thank you. Adjournant. May I? May I have a motion to adjourn? Do we have any? Okay. May I have a motion to adjourn in the memory of former ABC employee Pat Eldridge? Mr. Nguyen? Thank you, President Yu. Mrs. Pat Eldridge was hired in 1983 as a coordinator of special education. She later became a supervisor of special education and director of pupil support until her retirement in 1998 from ABC. Thank you. Okay. May I have a motion? Okay. All

154those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Meeting is adjourned.